<<< Delta Quadrant - Uncataloged Star System >>>
< USS Risto - long-range crew transfer runabout >

Roberto O'Kay woke in his seat and glanced around at the other
passengers on the federation runabout. Most were science officers
from a variety of races, another was a Klingon security officer from
the looks of it. Roberto was the only green skinned Orion he had seen
here or at DS10.

He thought back over the last couple of months. Once again he had
changed allegiances, once again it had started with a lot of time in a
brig. All he knew was that Jareth Lokison's ship had been badly
damaged when it arrived here, and they were lucky that a Delta Fleet
vessel had noticed the short lived spatial anomaly that had announced
their arrival in this reality. The multi-verse is an amazing place,
parallel and alternate realties so diverse yet so similar. Roberto
was beginning to think he had seen way to many of those, it didn't
help that he still didn't know who he really was.

Jareth and the survivors of his crew had made repairs to their ship
and gone on there way, from what Roberto had heard they gave no
indication that they were not from this reality and claimed to be
merchants swept up in some strange anomaly, the Star Fleet people had
let them care for their own and leave. He however had been taken to
DS10 while comatose and handed over to the bases medical staff, where
they discovered his genetic code was very similar to a known and
wanted criminal, when he recovered they had put him in the brig for a
month while trying to find out if he was the Orion they wanted, his
release had come from an unexpected source. Roberto had learned that
Tempest was alive was now working for Starfleet and she had
specifically requested his services when she was assigned as XO to the
USS Scoperta. Delta Fleet offered him the job of aa a navigator, he
figured he'd be stupid to turn it down.

His internal review was interrupted as the runabout pilot came back
and woke the klingon. "Lt. we have arrived. We are almost in range of
the Scoperta."

Lt. K'Temoc got up and headed towards the Runabouts cockpit. Roberto
looked out the window just to see if he could make out his new home.
It wasn't until they were approaching a clouded green and blue world
with two moons in high orbits that he was able to spot the Scoperta in
low orbit.

Roberto began to mutter to himself as he looked the ship over.
"Galaxy class star ship; Crew and families 1012, visiting vip quarters
for 200, able to support 5000 non-crew personnel, evacuation limit
15,000. Non standard dimensions, 641 meters long, 470 meters wide, 145
deep. No upgraded warp drive, maximum sustainable warp 9.6 for 12
hours. Upgraded weapons, extra torpedo tube and 2 more phasers... hmm
never seen one of those before, must be the Antimatter spread emitter
I read about at DS10. Battle damage, multiple hull breaches, not very
deep though, main deflector dish off-line..."

Roberto smiled and shook his head. "Tempest you always seem to end up
in charge of the exploration vessels that find too much trouble."

< USS Scoperta - Bridge >

"Runabout Risto and Lt. O'Brien's shuttle arriving in main shuttle
bay." The operations officer announced.

"Shields back up after shuttle and runabout landing." announced the
tactical officer.

Captain Satarius nodded acknowledgment. "Where did the alien vessel
go and where are the Romulans?"

"The alien vessel retreated behind the larger of the planets moons. I
have no idea how long their weapons will be off-line." Lt. jg N'Vek
said as he looked up from the data on his station. "The cloaked
Romulan shuttle that was next to us caught one of their shots, that's
why we took so little damage, the shuttle was destroyed and it's
debris hit the Scoperta. The Romulan agent lied though, there is only
one cloaked Romulan Warbird and they are still in orbit on the same
side of the planet that we are."

Captain Satarius keyed the intercom from her chair, "Lieutenant (yes,
I know he's a jg but that's not used when addressing someone) Kavek
let the engineers fix the main deflector, I want you to select a
security team and escort the Romulan prisoners to a transporter room."
She then turned to the operations officer, "Hail the Romulans, tell
them I want them to take their renegades and spies out of here now or
I'm going to tell our alien friends with the very big guns exactly
where they are parked."

< USS Scoperta - Main Shuttle bay >

The Risto had settled down next to a shuttle that arrived just before
it had. The shuttle showed signs of scaring from ships weapons and a
human science officer was staggering out of it as the passengers of
the runabout disembarked. The pilot was muttering something about
being late to get back to DS10 because the Scoperta wasn't about to
lower shields long enough for him to leave while in a potentially
hostile situation.

The science officers were milling around and Lt. K'Temoc had headed
off to find and report to the chief of security. Roberto mad his way
over to the staggering science Lt., "Excuse me sir do you need any
help?"

Lt. O'Brien looked at the green skinned ensign, was about to say no
and then changed his mind. "Yes, I need to tell the captain something
about that alien ship but I need access to the science station on the
main bridge to do it, help me get there."

Roberto had no luggage of his own, everything he had didn't exist
anymore. He supported O'Brien and led him to a turbo lift. "Bridge,"
said O'Brien and the turbo lift made the short hop from the main
shuttle bay on deck 4 to deck 1.

A feeling of apprehension swept over Roberto, he realized he had no
idea how he was going to react when he saw Tempest. When he had last
seen her, her soulless body lay dying in the arms of the woman he
loved. A woman with a spirit that had once been part of Tempests in a
body cloned and genetically modified from Tempests. Then the accident
had occurred while they were trying to escape and the ship they had
been on ended up in this reality.

Ensign Roberto O'Kay
Helmsman - ex-pirate and cartel member
USS Scoperta