The day before he found himself waiting to quiz Riesman, the workload of Sha Ka Ree had hit Lakotda, resulting in a headache the size of Qo‘nos.

His first civilian council meeting was not the most pleasant experience in his lives to date. Everyone from teachers to market traders had asked the representatives to pass on their congratulations to the captain for being assigned the new role. With each welcome message came a list of things they wanted to change. Some changes seemed useful, some were good suggestions. Others just seemed to exist to be awkward. He’d barely gotten used to his office and already he was thrown into the minor political chaos of the city.

Once the meeting was over and the council members shuffled out of the meeting room, he waited politely smiling until they left before plunging head first over the table. Asking himself why he agreed to stand in as commander.
Paik had attended that day to help ease Lakotda into the role. He knew it wouldn’t be an easy transition switching from being captain of a lone starship to a job that made him the equivalent of the cities mayor so he cleared his schedule and reluctantly joined the chaos.

While a part of his attendance came down to supporting the new commanding officer, part of him was just curious to meet the man the Pryor had told him about. The man he could apparently trust. After introducing the captain as the new interim commander, he sat back and watched as Lakotda’s forced enthusiasm turned to painful misery. But all throughout, the captain tried to remain polite and accommodating. The hours seemed to drag in, but when the council meeting ended he stayed back to chat to Lakotda. There was no one he trusted more than the Pryor. No matter what the Pryor had told him, no matter how insane the claim, he knew he’d be right and so far the man had never been wrong.

But things were different now. Paik found himself in the centre of a Federation that was a few harsh words away from civil war. With Lakotda and his ship from a sector that was a nightmare to deal with, he needed to be sure that he was the right man to place his faith into.

His mind wasn’t settled.

Within minutes of talking to him, Lakotda was asking if a full time replacement had been found for Rogan. The man who he had to have faith in was already trying to find a way to get the hell out of there.

Paik found him a hard man to read. The captain seemed professional and capable, he just seemed distant. Uninterested. He could understand why his thoughts would not be on his work given the current situation but there was something about the man that suggested to him he wanted to be anywhere but home. But he couldn’t dismiss himself from wondering if that was necessarily a bad thing. Surely he should be more concerned if all the captain wanted was power and control?

As they spoke Lakotda found himself in the same dilemma. The man seemed to be contained in his own protective bubble, isolating his true self from the world around him by putting on a mask of professionalism. Though the captain had a dim view of politicians, even in the government he had pledged his allegiance to.

It wasn’t until they discussed the arrest of Riesman that they found common ground and began to both lower their masks. When asked for his blessing on the arrest, Paik seemed almost amused when he gave the nod.

When the two met again the next day, when Paik entered the cities humble police headquarters, their attitudes towards each other were a little more relaxed.

As Paik asked for an update, he listened carefully to Lakotda and Siaka. Still trying to work out this new commander as the three of them sharing information. As Siaka took charge in coming up for a plan of attack, Paik and the captain seemed to step back and get a handle on each other. Both wondering ‘can you be trusted?’

When the talking was over and a plan of action settled, there was barely a moment spared as Siaka burst into her interrogation room with Lakotda and Paik in tow. As soon as she charged through the door she threw her notes as Riesman. “The Independence was attacked by Kolar ships according to your report.” She began before throwing more files onto the desk in front of him. “According to this, far more reliable source, Starfleet did the attacking.”

As Lakotda leaned against the far wall, Paik took a seat opposite Riesman, urging him to read the files before him. “Obviously one of you is lying. However with the Agamemnon recently being attacked by Starfleet ships on their way home and with you taking half of this regions fleet off the radar without explanation, I’d say we have reason to doubt you Harry.” His calm tone didn’t put Riesman at ease. “So I think it’s time you tell us all about these operations you’ve been organising.”

“Those operations are classified to the highest level.” Riesman replied, pushing away the files in front of him.

“I am the highest level.” Paik shot back. “We know all of the ships you’ve transferred to your command have entered Dead Space, and we know they’re now gathering in the Deigos system. I want to know why.”

Riesman sat in silence. Leaning back in his chair with a smug grin on his face. That was all Lakotda needed to change the nature of the interview. When the interrogation team had their meeting, Paik he’d told the captain that if Riesman was pressured, he’d say nothing at all. When Siaka complained, Lakotda made her a promise. If he refused to answer any questions, he promised to let her do it her way.

Paik was far from happy with the decision. He’d seen reports and heard rumours of Siaka’s style. She was aggressive in her work, too aggressive for his liking. She’d been on trial with the La’sal Institute on more than one occasion for treating prisoners and suspects unfairly. Every time she’d been put forward as being a rule breaker she’d escaped charge.

He had wondered on occasion if she truly was as aggressive as she was made out to be. If she’d been legitimately cleared of wrong doing, or if she had just broke more rules or bribed all the right people to escape justice. On other occasions he didn’t care. The La’sal were happy enough, as were the MOD. If she got results, why should he argue against a popular officer? As he watched Lakotda giv eher a subtle signal to take over, he worried his fears about her would be realised.

As soon as she saw the captain give her the nod, Siaka made sure Riesman’s smug grin was knocked clean off his face. With a swift kick to the back legs of his chair the Admiral tumbled to the floor, Siaka’s knee pressed into his chest as she held him down, gripping the collar of his uniform. “Answer the Doctors question.” She instructed, but Riesman’s only response was to reach up and grab the detective.

Hauling him upwards, Siaka plunged the Admiral back to the ground, his head smashing against the grill plate flooring. “Fine. How about you tell me who ordered the attack on the Agamemnon?”

“Not my problem.” Riesman uttered out before having his head slammed against the floor again. He coughed as Siaka’s knee crunched his chest on the impact as she slammed him down, spluttering, “It was Bajor Region ships, nothing to do with me.”

As Siaka lifted Riesman again, ready for a third attack, Lakotda held up his hands. “Wait..” He said, as he noticed Paik’s discomfort switch to confusion. “How did you know they were Bajor sector?” He asked. “Commander Kirkpatrick told me that wasn’t in the official reports.”

“It wasn’t.” Paik confirmed. “Those reports were submitted to Command through me. Commander Kirkpatrick didn’t trust the information with the Admiralty here.”

Not surprised by that revelation, Siaka lifted herself from pinning Riesman down and grabbed the back of his collar. With a hard tug to the neck she lifted him to his feet, picking up his chair as she did before shoving it against the back of his knees, forcing him to sit. “Shall I add hacking Dr Paiks database to your charges?” Siaka asked, coldly.

Taking a breath, Riesman knew he was caught. He knew he couldn’t keep hiding the truth forever, it was inevitable he’d get found out sooner or later. A part of him wanted to get caught, he wanted it all to be over as soon as possible. Despite what he knew they were thinking, he didn’t want to play he villain any more. “I want a deal.” He said, eyes locked on Paik as he tried to shut the others out. “If I tell you what you need to know, I’ll need some sort of protection arranged…”

“You expect us to protect you?” Paik spat out, trying to hide his disdain for Siaka’s tactics.

“No…” As Riesman’s eyes dropped, he explained. “My family. I was told that if I revealed any of this, they would be dead.”

Still confused, Paik frowned as he began to wonder if Riesman was being truthful or if he was just trying to gain some empathy. Nothing the man said could be trusted. Not now. As the Federations old representative nodded in agreement, Lakotda chimed in. “Revealed any of what?” He asked, still against the wall keeping one eye on Siaka.

Riesman was still reluctant to say, he’d been lying and scheming for too long for honesty to come naturally, but he tried. “He was right…” He began, his voice shying away from it’s usual loud confidence to become a whimper of self pity. “Rogan was under the impression that there was some kind of alien infiltration within the fleet.” He paused as he turned to Lakotda, knowing his history with his predecessor. “He was right.” His eyes drifted back to Paik as he continued. “I was ordered to supply them with ships and crew. If not…” Lowering his head, trying to hold back the misery behind all the wrong choices he’d made in the past few months, he tried to explain. “They have operatives serving with my sons and that if I didn’t do ask they asked, they’d kill them. At first it was just a few ships, but now we’re up to almost thirty.”

“Why? What do they want?” Paik asked immediately, intentionally ignoring the sob story to get straight to what was truly important to him. This was bigger than the family of one man. Thirty ships contained a lot of people. Loyal citizens of the Federation. He needed to know what happened to them.

“I don’t know.” Riesman answered truthfully. “I was told nothing. I just followed orders.”
Paik nodded as he thought about more about the crews they‘d lost. “Did they give the kill orders for the Independence and Agamemnon?”

“Yes.” Another truthful answer. “Captain Jorell had information that could have exposed us. They ordered the ship destroyed and the blame based elsewhere. Blaming the Kolar would have brought about enough political chaos to keep you all occupied.”

“Why use ships from Bajor sector?” Siaka pitched in out of curiosity. “You have enough resources in your little task force to get the job done.”

Riesman shrugged. “In case you found out?” He theorised.

“Let me guess, you don’t know?” Siaka rolled her eyes.

Riesman could only nod as the detective grumbled to herself. “You seem to place more importance in my role than these aliens do.” He responded.

Keeping a cold glare on the Admiral, Lakotda interrupted. He had to ask, before the conversation drifted. “Mike Rogan, did you issue the kill order?”

Avoiding eye contact with the captain, Riesman nodded, keeping his head down. “…yes.”

“Because he found out?” Lakotda continued.

Riesman nodded. “He’d covered his tracks well, but I suspected he’d gone to Earth. He was already on their radar, when he tried to warn Command they ordered he be eliminated.” He admitted. “They‘re just looking for the right scapegoat to pin it all on before leaking it to the press.”

After a moment of silence, Paik continued questioning. “Harry, who are they?”

“I don’t know. But they’ve taken ships from Federation Prime as well as the Bajor sector. Whoever they are, it goes way beyond this city.” Riesman answered. “When they got me involved I checked Command’s database. It matches with a previous issue in 2364…”

Raising an eyebrow, Lakotda interrupted and finished the Admirals thoughts. “…where officers began to notice unusual orders, irrational proposals, unexplained deaths and accidents…”

“Yes.” Riesman confirmed. “There wasn‘t a lot of information in the database, it‘s still somewhat of an unsolved mystery to Command, but I‘m sure this is the same threat.”

Lakotda had read the official logs. It was all part of the package Rogan had given him. “A physical infiltration…” he whispered to himself, drawing the attention of Paik and Siaka. “They were small creatures, they infiltrated the bodies of several high ranking officers. They took over the host, as if possessing them.” He explained as he began thinking to himself. “How many of them are active within Sha Ka Ree?”

“Eight that I know of.” The Admiral explained. “But as I said… I’m told very little.”

Paik leaned forward as soon as the words escaped Riesman’s lips. “I want names of everyone you know that‘s a current host.” He demanded, ready to use Siaka’s unpleasant tactics. “If not, we leak everything to the press. Let them know what you’ve done.”

The Admiral wasn’t sure how seriously to take the threat. His relationship with Paik had fallen apart since he had become one of the aliens lackey’s, he expected some kind of backlash but when he asked for Paik to arrive he’d hoped he could find a way to get himself out of it all. If not hide the information, then exchange that for his freedom and families protection. Hearing Paik throw out such a thread was odd. He was usually calm and collected, no matter what and he wasn;t one to issue threats.

“Will you protect my family?” He asked once more.

“I’ll do what I can.” Paik answered quickly.

“Not good enough.” Riesman blurted out.

“Harry, you’ve put us all in jeopardy and for all you know you could have sent hundreds of Starfleet personnel to their deaths.” Paik answered back. “I feel for your situation, I really do, but do you seriously expect me to be able to promise to save the lives of two people a quadrant away when you’ve put everyone, all of us, potentially billions of people at a risk?”

Riesman nodded. “I expect you to do the right thing, Daniel.” He replied softly. “If the situation was reversed and you asked me to protect your husband, you’d push for the same answer from me.”

“Maybe…” Paik said, his eyes locked on the Admiral. “But no matter what the risk to me personally, no matter what threats were made I would never do what you have. I never could.”

“Can you be sure?” Riesman argued.

“Yes I can.” Paik answered confidently.

Breaking his silence, Lakotda agreed. “I can too. We’ve both fought in war Admiral, we’re both well aware of the harsh decisions that need to be made and we were both taught that the needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many.” As he noticed Siaka’s frown, he smiled slightly as he explained his source. “Ethics of command and basic military strategy, Starfleet Academy.”

Shaking his head, Riesman could almost laugh at them. To him their way of thinking was insane. “You’re hardly the best judges here…” He spat out. “The politician who fills his life for work and barely makes time for his husband and the captain who ran as far away from his family as he could to serve in Starfleet. Who do you think you are to judge me when you barely have any passion in your own lives outside of work?”

“They’re you’re executioners.” Siaka replied with a grin. “If I were in your position… I’d be nicer to them.”
As Paik and Lakotda stood I silence, trying to ignore the Admirals words, Riesman spoke up. “Fine…” He said before leaning back in his chair ready to talk. “Admirals V’Sal, Dyson and Fullerton have been infiltrated.” He began, “Commander…”

Riesman stopped as he noticed something odd. The usual buzz of the city systems seemed to slow down and whine to a halt. The others noticed as soon as the Admiral stopped talking. As everyone fell silent they could hear a quick succession of chimes as if the primary systems were rebooting. Half a moment later the lights began to fade. The CIU was losing power.

“Siaka to Central Engineering.” The DCI said, slapping her communicator. No response. “The power must be dying in the whole city…” She muttered as emergency lighting began to come into effect.

While the others huddled together confused, Riesman knew what was happening. He knew he didn’t have much time left. Turning to the interrogation team as they began to discuss possible options, he tried to grab their attention.

The light began to fade before the room became swamped in the dim red emergency lighting. As Riesman tried to speak, the dull light of the room began to light up again. The air around Riesman beginning to shine. Shimmering blue light engulfing him. The blue swirling light almost blinded them as their eyes adjusted to the harsh contrasts, by the time their eyes adjusted the room was dark again.

Riesman was gone.

As soon as Lakotda’s cloaking device was installed onto the Nosferatu, Morgan and crew began their merry journey towards certain doom. Morgan would have enjoyed the trip if he had time to bring aboard a new selection of wines and spirits, but with Deigos being a quick transwarp flight away he took some comfort in knowing he’d be able to raid Tenagra’s stash before the day was done.

On the way he’d wondered how Lakotda had managed to get his hands on the cloak. Part of him didn’t want to know. Cloak’s were legal in Kolar space, just not on a Federation ship. There wasn’t just the old treaties of the Federation to consider, but the Kolar had outlawed such technology centuried ago for any ships not operating within, or on behalf of, the Blue Order.

Breaking the law didn’t seem to bother him. Not as much as his it should. His crew weren‘t entirely comfortable with operating outside the rules, but they’d got accustomed to their captains way of thinking in the past year. Even Valeris, who’d learned to keep her objections to a simple raise of he eyebrow. When they crossed into the Deigos system it was her job to breach the security barrier. She’d barely spoken a word against it. She’d just carried out her orders and assumed it was for the greater good.

But this time it felt different. For everyone. Morgan hadn’t said much about the mission objective. Just that they were going to take a look then run back to base. But he seemed different. When Riesman gave an order he’d storm onto the bridge and stomp around like a moody teenager. This time he was happy. Too happy for the man who’d learned to hate everything about his job.

They knew something was going on. Only this time they didn’t feel like they were the bad guys.
None of them knew what to expect when they arrived at Deigos. As they sneaked up upon the shipyards, they all huddled around the bridge watching in disbelief.

“Sweet baby Jesus…” Was the only comment to break the silence as Morgan stared out the window.

Ahead of them was far from a familiar site. The usual Kolar shipyard facilities had been rebuilt to create dozens of new ships, designs they’d never seen before. The displays around the windows showed scans of both air and ground facilities re-fitting Federation ships with technology the Nosferatu couldn’t identify.

While long complex construction yards created unfamiliar larger ships, which looked to Morgan like carriers and destroyers, large circular facilities with refitting complexes in the centre were sprawled across the ground. Eight dry-docks attached round their outer edges with each one holding new ships under construction.

The designs were odd to his eyes. They didn’t fall into any design aesthetic of the Kolar or the Federation. The longer he stared at the read outs, he couldn’t even link a single design to any type of ship he’d seen before. It all seemed new. Alien. Unknown.

There was more, much more. But he didn’t have a chance to read the full sensor report. “Captain…” Val said, pulling his attention away from the displays. “I believe we have a problem.”

“Don’t keep it to yourself.” Morgan shot back, jumping out of his chair to stand over her console.

Val nodded as she coldly informed her captain of the situation. “There are two ships approaching our position on a direct course. I believe we have been detected.”

“Let’s see what happens when we move out the way, it might be coincidence.” Morgan said aloud, not believing his theory for a second.

As the ships nimble pilot slowly moved the Nosferatu crew out of their interceptors flight path, Morgan stared out the window as he could see them coming into visual range. “They’re adjusting their course to follow us.”

“I can see that Val…” Morgan hissed through an uncomfortable smile as he quickly shifted himself back to his chair. “Get us the hell out of here as fast as we can, Ensign.” He shouted to the conn officer before opening up a channel to engineering. “Satullo, give the engines everything you can.”

“Bolting as fast as we can, sir?” Came the response from the engineer.

Bracing himself as the ship turned to head back to Sha Ka Ree, Morgan quickly answered “Indeed we are, crewman” before closing the channel. “And Val, shields would be good right about now.”

“Try it now.” Chel’si ordered, struggling to see what she was doing under the red glare of the emergency lighting and torches pointed in her direction.

It had been an hour since the power had died within the city. Being cut off from Tenagra and the generator complex she was left with the option of climbing down five hundred levels to communicate with her engineer directly, or try and figure out the problem for herself.

She was glad she chose the second option. Within minutes of trying to re-establish power in the Epicentre she realised that there was nothing wrong with the generators. Everything was functioning perfectly.

“Nothing, Commaner.” Kunis answered back. Her first day back on the job and she was already in the middle of a crisis.

Slamming the desk, Chel’si grumbled to herself before she began to make further modifications. There were ships docked at the city and she had severe doubts they’d be effected. They may be trapped inside or tethered to the dockyards, but they’d have full power. If they had power, they could help. All she had to do was find a way to communicate with them.

She wasn’t sure what she was doing. Especially not in this light. It had been a while since she’d been an engineer and most of her job these days involved delegation. Charging her link using her phaser power cell, she quickly began to reprogram it’s communicator application to piggy-back a transmission through the city relays and send an plea for help to all Starfleet and MOD ships locked onto the city. With a countdown, she gave the order to Kunis to try again as she interfaced her Link with the communications console.

“Still nothing.” Was the response to her efforts. “There’s a good chance Mister Tenagra is working on the same problem.” Lara said, trying to calm the frustrated Operations Manager.

With a loud sigh, Chel’si got to her feet and looked around the room at the rest of the officers who were trapped. “Suggestions?”

Looking for replies, the rest of the officers and crew shrugged. Chel’si wasn’t surprised. They’d all trained for this scenario and they’d already done everything within, and out with, regulations to resolve the matter with no success.
The city had been placed in Lockdown. It was a program to be used in extreme emergency, an ultimate last resort scenario. In case of outbreak or infiltration the city would shut down completely. Civilian and military areas would be contained, power would go offline and all vital systems would be placed on stand-by until unlocked by authorised members of the senior staff.

Her problem was that her authorisation code was no longer valid. Neither was Navarro’s. Horal had been in the Epicentre before the lockdown occurred, but after his codes failed to unlock the system he’d taken the extreme route of trying to force his way to the MACO complex to mobilise the defence shuttles in an attempt to report the situations to one of the docked ships.

Chel’si would have had more faith in Horal’s plan if he hadn’t just been released from hospital. But she’d learned all too long ago not to argue with him. To Horal there was no challenge that couldn’t be defeated. She hated that. Why couldn’t be accept his flaws? Why couldn’t he just once in a while look at an impossible challenge, realise it’s impossible and just relax.

Frustrated even thinking about it, she looked back down to the disassembled, reprogrammed Link. Hacking into the communications array was beyond her. Not realising the irony, she picked up the Link knowing it wouldn’t stop her trying. A part of her hated thinking it, but she wished Tenagra was there.

Unknown to her, Tenagra was having the time of his life.

There were cables everywhere, exposed wiring and circuitry plugged in and crossing paths at so many places around his workshop that Tenagra was almost scared to move in fear of being fried.

Well aware of the city’s problems, he‘d got to work straight away. With the open plan complex within the lower levels of the city and it’s independent turbolifts, he’d been able to drain enough power from the emergency supplies to bring some of his tech crews down to the workshop and from there he issued his orders.

Knowing that the generators were working perfectly, he planned to hack into the system and convince it to channel power into an independent control point. If he’d patched everything together as he’d planned, he’d be able to use his workshop’s central console to coordinate communications between vital area’s and activate a decryption sequence to break down the lock down’s new bizarre command codes.

He didn’t care how it happened right now. That could wait until later. Right now he was just interested in getting it online.

When the runners for the tech crews reported in, he gave a quick visual check of the jumble of patch work around the room and figured it was time to flip the switch.

His crew stood back as the Helian pulled his service jumpsuit over his shoulders and put on a thick pair of gloves after pushing his hands through his sleeves. It didn’t bring a lot confidence to the tech guys. Which was fair. He barely had an ounce of confidence in his plan. But it was better than doing nothing.

Holding his arm outstretched, his fingers twitching, he began to regret even having this idea. But as the switch was flipped, he heard a buzz, a hum, a kerchink he didn‘t like the sound of.. Then the hum again.

As he glanced down at the panel, he could see the light blue screen begin to light up. Success. Or was it? Pulling off his gloves as he console became brighter, he began to tap away at the keys. “That should do it…” he said to himself as he tested his communications patch.

“Tenagra?” As he herd the voice he laughed. It worked.

“Commander Chel’si…” He bellowed into the panel. “You sound oddly thrilled to hear my voice.”

“For once…” Chel’si replied, her voice crackling through the makeshift intercom. “Have you brought all communications back online?”

As he pulled his chair over, Tenagra shook his head at the panel as if Chel was in front of him, “No..” He replied, glancing at the mesh of technology strewn around him. “I had to make my own comms network outside of the primary systems with a bit of technical trickery. My teams are working on giving me sensor access and transport control.” He said, motioning for the crewmen in the room to get to work.

“Who else can you bring into the communications network?”

Filled with confidence, Tenagra began tapping at his panel. “How many do you want?” He asked as he tried to connect to the communicators and links of high ranking officers. “I’m trying to locate that new captain…”

“Good.” Chel’si’s voice crackled. “Try to get hold of Horal and as many of the MACO’s and police officers as you can. Are you able to contact anyone outside the city?”

That’s where Tenagra’s confidence dipped. “I don’t know. I don’t think so..” He uttered. “I’m not sure it’s worth risking until I’ve cracked the lockdown deactivation and that might not be so easy…”

“Why?” Chel’si asked after a long pause.

“Someone’s been playing about with the lockdown program.” He began to explain. “From what I can tell it’s now designed to be a pain in our rectum. It’s been altered so much it may as well be a virus infecting the system. Even if I deactivate it it’ll take days, possibly weeks, to get everything back to normal.”

As Tenagra stared at the panel he could hear Chel’si asking herself why someone would want to shut down the city before she asked, “How soon can you get sensors?”

“I’m guessing an hour, maybe sooner.” He replied.

“When you do, track down the command staff and admiralty still within the city and report back to me.” She ordered. “And keep me updated on who you’re able to contact.”

“I shall, and I’ll keep this channel open until I can throw some power your way.” He said, grinning as he realised he was in complete control.

If the staff in the CIU had a moment to think about the situation, they’d envy the station crew locked in the Command levels and other isolated areas. Most of Siaka’s staff were dealing with complaints and concerns, with the occasional rant mixed in, from the civilians trapped within the square and it’s adjoining shopping area’s and entertainment centres.

With the bulk of the area being open plan, those trapped had more freedom than almost everyone else in the city. Almost all of the civilian or open area’s within the city would be the same, but Surak Square had the CIU. Where people saw an official building, people saw a place to lodge complaints. Only a select few seemed content with waiting out the situation in La Cala or any other bar or eatery. The rest were in a collective rage against anyone in uniform.

As soon as Siaka escaped the interrogation room she’d put her force into action. Junior Core officers were assigned to deal with the public, her best detectives were given the task of finding out what was going on, while the rest of her team joined the specialist officers and the few remaining Starfleet crew Lakotda had assigned her days before were teamed up and ordered to conduct a search.

What she was searching for, she didn’t know. All she was sure of was that Riesman was gone, there were other alien infiltrators and one of them was likely responsible for the lockdown. Likely? No. She knew they were responsible for it, she just wasn’t sure why.

The worst part was that Riesman wasn’t the only man in custody missing. From the list of Admirals and fleet staff she’d been holding, all of them were missing. Without access to internal sensors or communications she’d assumed everyone being held in their quarters or in other locations were gone too. Every suspect lost in one swoop.

Despite all that she was grateful Lakotda was there. He’d already supported her fully and rallied the troops, something she didn’t expect, and given orders to have teams keep an eye out for other Starfleet officers. She was warming to him, though as the captain got to work she could see Paik standing in the corner worried about the situation, and still unsure of his pick for temporary commander. She could tell he didn’t trust him yet. But who could blame him after his dealings with Riesman?

After giving her staff a quick briefing on the situation, she paired everyone up, issued weapons and sent them on their way, leaving Paik behind with the remaining detectives and core officers for his own protection. She was eager to get out and do something, but that enthusiasm soon became regret.

With Lakotda by her side, the two recognised faces grabbed the attention of the crowd as all the teams began to shuffle out of the main entrance. The crowd swarmed around the captain they’d seen plastered all over the news service and the all too well known detective chief inspector accompanying him.

Pushing past the demanding civilians seemed too much to bear. She was ready to smack one of them in the head when she felt Lakotda’s rifle pressed into her hand as he pushed his way into the memorial obelisk near the centre of the square.

“People” He shouted as he climbed upwards to the base of the memorial, trying to grab their attention. “I know this is a difficult and confusing situation for everyone. We’ve lost internal communications but you can be assured my staff in the Epicentre and our engineers down below are already working on resolving this situation.” Keeping his eye on Siaka, he gave her a smile. As the captain distracted he crowds she ushered her teams out of the CIU and let them go on their merry way without the crowds pushing them aside.

“It’s a lot to ask, but please put your trust in me and in my staff and we’ll have this situation rectified as soon as possible.” As he saw the last of the teams head out, and Siaka looking bored, the captain quickly finished his distraction speech. “In the mean time feel free to have a few drinks on my tab. Thank you.”

As the captain jumped down and quickly darted through one of the exit’s with Siaka, he wondered just what the others were up to fix the situation. He wasn’t entirely sure what they were capable of, and he didn’t consider them his team. But he had faith in Rogan to know he would have chosen the best possible crew for the job.

“I hate these things.” Siaka said, breaking his line of thought as they navigate their way through the public gardens. “I liked the old models.” She said as she tweaked the configuration of her rifle.

Lakotda glanced at the weapon she’d handed out. It was a short, stubby Kolar design. It had a guiding handle with trigger near the tip of the weapon with a short stock with it’s power cell and controls on top and secondary handle below. He recognised elements of the design form his time in the MOD. But that was another lifetime ago. He had become accustomed to Starfleet issue weaponry. Just holding a Kolar weapon again felt peculiar. Although, strangely comfortable.

Quickly refreshing his memory with the configuration, he performed a quick systems check before smiling. “I’m just happy to see you haven’t been outfitted with Starfleet supplies. Though this will take some getting used to.”

“Reminding you of the old days?” Siaka asked, curious to hear about his past time with the Kolar.

“A little.” The captain replied, a disappointingly short answer. “It’s still a little strange to be home.”

Siaka nodded. Though she couldn’t really understand. “Was it easy?”

The captain frowned as they turned into a series of corridors. “What”

“Leaving?”

“Why do you ask?” Lakotda dodged the question.

Siaka shrugged as they began to walk down a staircase heading towards another series of corridors, keeping their eyes open all the way down. “It’s just what Riesman said, about you wanting to get away from your family. Why did you leave?”

“The Pryor told me to.” Lakotda answered without hesitation.

“And that was enough for you?”

“Yes.”

Siaka couldn’t understand. “Why?”

Stopping Siaka in her tracks, Lakotda tried to explain it. “The Pryor can see everything. Time. Space. Possibilities. Realities. He can see every path we’ll walk, every choice ripple through the fabric of the universe and see all the possible outcomes.” He smiled. “I trust in that.”

Siaka shrugged. “I don’t get this whole Pridorn thing.”

Lakotda laughed as he resumed the hung. “Sometimes, I don’t either.”

His head ached, his hands were soaked in his own blood and his body was barely able to stay upright. Horal had broken through every door, every security barrier, everything in his way had been thrown aside and he’d made it all the way to the MACO flight deck. Success.

After checking one of the defence shuttles in the hanger and finding out it wasn‘t effected by the lockdown, he felt truly accomplished. Proud of himself. Boasting about defeating the impossible challenge was already being planned, a long dramatic story over a bottle or two of blood wine. The shuttle’s independent power source was keeping it alive and even the problem of opening the doors was easily solved with a carefully placed set of explosives.

When he’d left the hanger, leaving the security perimeter of the city and cleared the hold of the lockdown he’d begun to send messages to the ships stuck on the docking pylons. It was then that his luck changed.

The ships in dock noticed before him. The shuttles sensors weren’t designed to scan as far as a starships. It took him a few moments to register and he didn’t believe it until he saw ships begin to drop out of warp. Ship’s he’d never seen the likes of before. They all just appeared with a flash around Sha Ka Ree.

Kolar ships were moved to respond, some came quickly, some would take a while. But as Horal diverted more power to weapons he realised the city, the poor defenceless city, was anyone’s for the taking.