[center][h1][color=00aeef][b][u]Engineering[/u][/b][/color][/h1][/center]

    "Put this here," LCDR Horst Meyer told the junior officer in front of him, "and depolarize the tridium relay, once the capacitor is at 80% repolarize the relay. If you do it too soon it'll drain the reserve and if you wait too long it'll explode, begreifen?"

    "Wh..what?" the junior officer stammered.
 
    "Do you understand me?" Horst said, a little more impatiently than he intended. The ensign nodded enthusiastically and Horst nodded back and then turned to answer a call on the wall display. "Yes Commander warp systems are fully operational it's our impulse engines that are still malfunctioning, but we're on it and we'll be fully operational in 16 hours. In the meantime tell the helmsman to drop out of warp as close to where we need to be as..." The wall display blinked out mid-sentence, the new Commander was apparently high on expectations and short on patience. 

    The USS Vigilance was a beautiful ship, a classic old Ambassador class battle ship. This thing had seen dozens of battles and had the scars to show it. She had gone through a Starfleet overhaul but they had obviously been too rushed to give her a proper walk-through. Horst had found that nearly every back up system had been manually re-routed to supply power to different systems, and there were patchworks of jerry-rigged engineering everywhere. Oddly enough, Horst felt quite at home in all the chaos. There was something comforting in the simple complexity of Engineering, and even though this old girl had been broken and put back together in a million different ways the fact was that every fix had a reason, and every function had its power supply and desired effect. Getting to know this ship felt like getting to know a complex and interesting new friend, even though she could be a little frustrating at times. 

    "No! Jesus! Don't use that near the Warp Drive!" He yelled to a younger mechanic who was using a gravitron ray to move some equipment, "didn't they teach you about Warp fields?" The mechanic hurried away from the drive. It wasn't really his fault, the engineering room was set up in a classic style and the equipment Starfleet used had changed. It was hard to move some of the newer displays past the core without getting a little too close. The mechanic returned with a couple of other junior officers and moved the panel manually. [i]Mein Got[/i] thought Horst, [i]if we don't watch ourselves we'll end up like the Romulans.[/i]

    He didn't mean to think such a macabre thought but there it was. Two planets, destroys, billions of life lost in a moment. Now an entire sector of space left in limbo. It's moment like these that make understanding the Prime Directive more difficult. It was easy to want to help the people, that seemed the most natural, but wouldn't it be better if the enslaved races of the quadrant were to mark their own space and create their own peace? It seemed to Horst like Starfleet should've stayed out of it, but he wasn't in charge, and now he was crewed up with this old clanker of a Ship and serving under the creepiest Vulcan he had ever met. The guy was somewhere between a machine and a phaser, he never threatened violence but there felt like violence was going to happen somewhere around him. That's not promising for a humanitarian mission, which is what they were supposed to be on. 

    Horst didn't want to spend too much time thinking about it, he had his job and that was all he really wanted. He grabbed an instrument and began to scan the dilithium crystal matrix through the warp core door. There was an unexplainable power drain somewhere and he was going to find it....

[center][h1][color=00aeef][b][u]Tactics[/u][/b][/color][/h1][/center]

   *The Captain was in his ready room and Conaar Lox is familiarizing himself with his station and reflecting*

    Everything was new, but old at the same time. It had been 6 weeks since his joining, he never realized he was so sad. His life had been one of work and necessity, he had always loved the study of Xenoarcheology but ended up leaving all that behind to follow the "safer path" by studying Combat Leadership at Starfleet. At the time is seemed like a capitol idea, but now, after some introspection, it appeared that he had done so because he wanted the stability. He had spent a lot of time thinking about his life over the last few weeks and discovered that he had frequently chosen the course of least resistance, even when it led him situations requiring heroics. 

    This was the gift of the symbiote, he thought, the gift of seeing your own life through the eyes of perspective. He loathed the idea that he had sacrificed the work of his passion for Starfleet, but look at the person he had become. He had saved lives, fought off pirates, and excelled in his craft to the tune of many recognitions for excellence. Before the joining he had felt trapped, a slave to the greedy, corrupt, and self-serving bureaucrats of Starfleet. Now, even though he still didn't trust them, he could be happy about who he was, and what he had accomplished, and he felt a sense of peace with that. 

    Lox looked over at the big Saurian who ran security. He had never served with one of their species before and the Xenoarcheologist in him was immensely curious. They had evolved in a hostile world and developed four hearts and the ability to breath in harsh, gaseous environments. Fascinating. He wondered what their philosophy taught about sacrifice and compassion, were they like the Klingons who valued strength and viewed sympathy as weakness, or were they like the Vulcans who honored service to others at the sacrifice of their own, so-called "primitive" emotions. 

    Speaking of Vulcans, there was much to be said about the new Captain. He had stomped into his ready room from the lift and so Lox only got a moment to see him but a moment was enough. The Vulcan was queer, to say the least. It felt like if you tried to look at him too hard your eyes just slid off. There was something impossible about him, something unnatural. Lox had the thought that although the Captain seemed firmly in control of his command there was something that felt out of control that couldn't accurately be put into words. 

    Conaar Lox went back to his systems and began going over the analytics of their weapon complement and shield capacity. He was going to have to work with the Marines on this mission to handle the influx of Refugees and God knows what else, he didn't want any surprises. 

[center][h1][color=00aeef][b][u]Security[/u][/b][/color][/h1][/center]

    "Yes, sir," the Saurian nodded, "attention on the bridge! Captain Strenn has the bridge." Rok stood at attention and watched as the ship's officers took their position in deference to their Captain. This Captain, this Vulcan, was someone Rok liked. His record was impressive, that was an obvious truth, but he was also hard, and Rok appreciated hardness. It saves lives on the battlefield, it doesn't sparse decisions, hardness understands that sometimes the greater good demands a difficult sacrifice. 

    Commodore Doma's face presented on the screen, "All Starfleet and Federation vessels, we are about to undertake a mission unlike any other in the Alpha Quadrant's history. The eyes of thousands of species are upon you today, the hopes and dreams of billions of souls depending upon your adherence to duty. I expect every sailor in my task force to be model Starfleet servicemembers, and to act in accordance with the Starfleet Creed. We represent the Federation, and we cannot let these people down. Captains, you will receive a coded transmission detailing your specific operational goals." The Commodore paused, "I wish you all the best of luck. Godspeed!"

    "...adherence to duty...", "...Starfleet Creed," meaningless platitudes. The reality was the higher ups demanded obedience and everyone on the ship was expected to obey, regardless of the mission. Starfleet's "Creed" was to be white knights in the galaxy, it's an idealist fantasy. The Saurian's understood that strength, fierceness, and reliability were the three great virtues of society. Everyone had to be reliable and the government had a job to teach reliability. To become reliable required strength, strength of character and strength of Fist; and to be strong required fierceness, a passion for the benefits of society. Romulans never exalted these virtues, the Romulans only served themselves and their quest for power. Good riddance, Rokuua thought, if any slave trading species deserved to be destroyed it was them. 

    The Captain stomped to his ready room and Rok went about his duties. As Security Chief he was responsible for maintaining the civility of those aboard. It was a long job, but Starfleet personnel were pretty easy people to monitor. They were generally always open and trusting, never ambitious if it causes them to hurt others, never prone to violence before diplomacy. The Federation were nothing like the Klingons, now that was fun bunch. If he was serving with the Klingons Rok would've already been involved in a half dozen brawls, from the mess hall to the bridge. They were rough around the edges, but they knew how to have a good time, and they gloried in that feeling of brotherhood that came after a fight. 

    No, the Federation was no where near as interesting. Rok stood at his panel on the bridge and inspected the various security monitors he had placed on the different levels.