====== Bridge, USS Chimera ===== Shane was quite nervous but he had to hide it. There was nothing frustrating for the bridge crew then a nervous Captain and Shane knew it. Sure, there passed only minutes since Rangi reported that she and her away team are all right and continuing with their mission, but the enease grow in his mind with every passing minute stronger. {Perhaps it was a mistake to send Rangi down there} he thought, {have I send her to death?}. With effort Shane forced himself to stop thinking about Rangi and to distract himself he stood up from his chair and slowly went over to the science pannel, where the shy ensign was tapping the keyboard away. "Any progress about the polaron traces?" he asked when he stopped right behind the teal collared young man. "Erm ... no sir, at least LT. Oriana did not send any report about any progress in that matter" he said visibly unease about the CO asking him "questions". Shane wasnt too happy about that answer but could only nod. {You cant expect Oriana to come up with an idea in 5 minutes ... give her time} he said to himself. "Keep working on it Ensign he said and walked back to his seat. There was an another thing that bothered him a lot. The cloacked shuttle that planted the two bombs on the Chimera's hull. Althought they have founf no more traces of it, Shane was sure that it was somewhere out there ... waiting ... lurking. Looking at his sidearm computer console he tapped the COMM button and contacted Engineering: "Bridge to Engineering" "Lieutenant Versey here" came the reply. "Lieutenant" Shane started, "I am concerned about finding no traces of the cloacked shuttle that planted the bombs on the hull. You would de me a favour if you could come up with some fine idea about how to find that shuttle. Classic tachyone beam sweeps were of no effect, maybe you have a better idea" This time there was a pause in the communication: "Well, we could try one of two concepts, but we need time for that" Hawk replied. "Time is what we dont have at the moment Lieutenant. Please make it clean and fast like you guys in Engineering always say. Guzman ..." Shane words were interrupted by s slight shake of the ship. Shane glanced at Foster and asked for the reason. The Ops officer tapped several buttons and replied: "A starboard inertial dumper is malfunctioning, Its Number 5 to be exact. Trying to compesate ... done". "Lieutenant Versey, please take care about the dumper as well and There have been problems with the navigational computer as well. I thought your people have checked all the ships systems twice at least, please make sure no more systems will be malfunctioning." Shane could imagine the sour face the AEO was wearig now even when hearing the polite reply: "Understood sir". Shane closed the channel and leaned back in his chair. No traces of the mysterious cloacked shuttle, no way how to scan the Einhoften facility, no informations about thw away team. What he needed were at least SOME informations and there was one person on board who could help him a bit at least. Tapping the COMM System buttons he contacted the counselor: "Guzman to Wellington. Lieutenant please report to the bridge" Listening to her reply Shane noded to himself. {Aye, maybe Athena will sense something from the facility or from the shuttle. Maybe she can give me clues ...}. For the next few minutes Shane was thinking back in time about the last federation / dominion war. Countless battles were founght there, the federation (and her Klingon and Romulan allies) suffered many defeats but at the end won the war. The "turn of the tight" was no single event but among the most important actions in the war was the sabotage and destruction of the dominion Ketracel-white production factory in the Cardassian territory. Ketracel-white was essential to the Jem'hadar .... Shane tapped the COMM again: "Bridge to Sickbay" "Ra'nar here Commander" came the reply. Shane was lucky that Ra'nar wasnt down on the planet in the away team. His experience with Jem'hadar could be of great importance here. "Mr. Ra'nar, I was asking myself if there was anything new discovered about the Jem'hadar addition of Ketracel-white. I mean that I would like to know if starfleet ever discovered a way how to make the Jem'hadar not needing a constant supply of Ketralcel-white. Cause if not, that means that the Marduk are still addicted to that drung and need to have a supply of Ketracel in Einhoften. Please skimm through all federational databanks and give me a full report about it as soon as possible" "I'll do my best sir" Ra'nar replied and closed the channel. The (relative) silence on the bridge was interrupted as some red lights started to blink on the TAC console accompanied by a silent alert sound. It was C'el who announced: "I have detected an another weak outburst of impuse drive articles from out of nowhere. The source is located 10 km above tthe ship! There have been some alloy objects released into the space, heading directly at us!" Shane immediately barked: "Red alert! Raise shields!" The bridge changed again as the light dimmed and the redd-ish lighting took on intensity. "Details Miss C'el" Shane shouted. It seemd like eternity till the female ATAC replied: "Those objects and duranium disks with a perimeter from 10 cm to 20 cm. Just plain duranium ... nothing more". "What?" Shane asked, "what are they?" An another sequence of buttons tapped and C'el replied: "Those are manufacturing parts of an recycling tank mechanism, federation origin. No explosives, just metal disks." It took Shane half a moment to ask: "They are making fun of us, arent they?" Who else then Andy could reply: "Yes, sir ...exactly ... ist a joke ... like saying: "Scared you, didnt we ?!" ===== End of log ===== Cmdr. Shane Guzman CO USS Chimera