Echoes of Eternity

Posted on Sun Jun 16th, 2024 @ 11:17pm by Captain Shran dh'Klar

Mission: The Andromeda Strain
Location: USS Washington

The Washington warped through space at a rather slow pace for a ship of its size. Traveling at Warp 4 seemed unnecessarily slow to many, but they weren't trying to get anywhere in a hurry. Deep into unexplored territory of the Beta Quadrant that none had claim on, Shran and his crew had already encountered multiple surprises. The last surprise had been several weeks ago at this point, and it ceased being his problem once Admiral Janeway arrived with her small fleet of engineers and scientists. His crew had ended the war on the planet and begun environmental cleanup, all while studying the unique lifeforms living on the planet alongside all the transplanted creatures.

Exploration was a primary goal of most members of StarFleet, and was supposed to be something every captain championed. Shran was not much of an explorer in his mind. He was an Andorian, a warrior, and he fought the enemies of the Federation well. Two weeks of no contact though as they had flown through a null area in space, only the third such region ever charted, well, he would happily take any sort of exploration at this point.

The excitement came when it always seemed to, when all the senior officers were supposed to be asleep. And they were, or rather had been. It was 0300 hours, Gamma shift was at stations, and Lt Hillis had drawn bridge command duty. She didn't mind honestly. She enjoyed sitting in the big chair, surrounded by ensigns and newly promoted junior grades, but she had gotten a little too wild at a party a few ago and felt a need to prove herself.

The turbolift doors at the rear of the bridge opened and Shran slowly walked onto the bridge, pacing slowly as if something was on his mind. As he neared Ayana he raised his gaze upon her and spoke softly, "Any contacts or other things of note?"

"All quiet captain" she replied simply.

It was easy to spot the uneasy contentment on his face, and the frustration bubbling beneath it. As he nodded and began to turn from her the Ops officer spoke up, "Captain, we are being hailed."

Shran arched an eyebrow in an almost Vulcan like manner. "Source?"

"It is coming from the USS Andromeda, subchannel confirms hail is legitimate" replied the young Bolian ensign.

"On screen" Shran ordered.

The viewscreen came to life, a middle-aged human appearing before him. "Captain, I didn't expect to find you on the bridge of your ship at this hour."

"You caught me surveying the camp like King Henry" Shran replied simply. "Surprised to hear from you Dylan. Is the Andromeda nearby our location?"

"We are enroute to you to rendezvous. I have Priority One orders that I will relay to you upon our link up. That should be in 8 hours, as of about 5 minutes ago" Dylan said in a very serious tone.

"Sounds serious. Should we alter course?" Shran questioned.

"Negative. I'll contact you again in 5 hours to give you a basic outline of the situation. It'll be good to see you again my friend. Hunt out." The viewscreen went black before returning to the view of the stars zooming by.

Shran looked over at Ayana, "Wake up Cmdr Grayson, Ayana. Have him meet me in my Ready Room."