Star Trek: Outwardly Mobile

Episode 05: Stable Einsteinium

(Stardate 44955)

By

Jay P. Hailey

And

Dennnis Washburn

 

Captain's Log: Stardate 44955.1

The starship USS Harrier has been thrown 1,307 light years away from the Federation. An intensive search of our area has revealed no sign of the phenomenon that brought us here.

With no sign of the phenomenon, and little idea of the mechanics of how it transported us here, I have decided to attempt to travel back to the Federation by more conventional means.

Chief Engineer Vengla reports that the warp drive should be functional within the hour. Other minor damage to the hull and airlock number six has already been repaired. Once we have warp drive, we will set course and begin our trek home.

-*-

"Captain, I have an idea." Varupuchu said.

"About what?"

"Communicating with the Federation."

"Okay, tell me about it."

It was typical of Harksain Varupuchu that when I said that, he presented the plan to me on a PADD. All the details were worked out and there were diagrams for how to implement his idea.

"Thank you. I'll read it and get back to you." I sat back in the Captain's chair on the bridge and began to read Varupuchu's plan. It made the wait for the warp drive easier.

Varupuchu's plan borrowed heavily from the weapon improvised by the starship Enterprise-D and used against the Borg a year ago. The weapon itself had not worked, but that had been attributed to the knowledge that the Borg had stolen from Captain Picard.

In Varupuchu's version, the power curve was much broader and less damaging to the ship. It wasn't a sudden, violent release of energy. This version was a coded beam. From where we were, it should be able to carry a message back to the Federation in about twenty weeks. Once there, if I read the schematics correctly, the beam should be a legible message.

This was a great improvement in the range and speed of communications from the Harrier to the Federation. The only drawback was that it did nothing for our ability to receive messages. A Starbase could punch a message out here, especially if they knew where to aim. By then we would have moved, with little predictability. We could report to the Federation but their replies would be a hit or miss occasion.

The ability to report our findings to the Federation pleased me. Exploring space meant returning data to Starfleet Command. Once disseminated to Memory Alpha, the Vulcan Academy of Science or the Smithsonian Institute, the data we gathered was knowledge belonging to the Federation. If something got us during our trip home, something of us would survive. Our trip would not have been in vain.

As I was finishing Varupuchu's presentation, the Engine Room called. "Engineering to Bridge. Warp power has been restored."

"Acknowledged. Helm, set course for Starbase Twenty Four and Engage."

The Harrier had begun her voyage home.

Four days later, we entered the system of a small red star. It wasn't too far from the course to Starbase Twenty Four. I didn't think we'd find anything too interesting. Red dwarf stars are inconveniently small.

We slowly cruised through the system and ran a standard mapping approach. It was somewhat routine. That was exactly what I expected. I wanted the Harrier to have a chance to settle in arrange itself for the long trip.

The intercom chimed for my attention. "Anderson to Captain Hailey."

"Go ahead."

"Would you meet us in the sickbay, please?"

"I'll be right there."

As I walked into the Harrier's sickbay, I saw Ruezre' Vengla, my Chief Engineer. She was standing to one side of the sickbay with Stephanie Anderson. On the diagnostic bed was a female engineering tech. She was blonde, about medium height and weight. Her hair was straight and a little past her shoulder. She looked sullen. Doctor Flynn was running a diagnostic scanner over her.

I walked over to Anderson and Vengla. "Report."

Vengla nodded towards the engineering tech. "Technician Brady reported an intruder." She sounded dubious.

"Oh?" I looked at Stephanie. She shook her head a slight negative. She handed me a PADD. It was Technician Brady's service record. Her last assignment before the USS Harrier had been a medical installation. She had been treated for substance abuse.

"We can't find any evidence to confirm Brady's account." Stephanie said.

Inwardly I grimaced. I had been treated for alcoholism when I was young. The treatment was simply a matter of re-balancing the neurotransmitters and counseling, but the ancient prejudices were another matter.

I dialed up the report on Brady's account. She said she had seen a hulking, humanoid figure. She had been at the arboretum and while walking out had caught sight of the figure. She said it was at least seven feet tall and colored purple. It had been wearing a black and red costume that could have been mistaken for a Starfleet uniform, but it wasn't. The inaccuracies of the costume had caught Brady's eye. The security officer who had taken the statement reported that he had found the account surprising but not inherently impossible.

Stephanie had appended to the report the findings of the tricorder while Brady had reported. According to the tricorder's `Lie Detection' program that monitored Brady's physiology, she had not exhibited any symptoms of untruthfulness. Stephanie had searched the records and determined that no crewman who matched Brady's description was on board. It had also revealed Brady's past of substance abuse. Stephanie had added the standard paragraph from the medical references on the substance Brady preferred.

Pentachlorohydride was a cleaning solvent. Heated carefully it gave off hallucinogenic fumes. Heated improperly, it exploded and burned. The symptoms included paranoia and hallucinations. Usage of the stuff as a drug eventually started to degrade the neurons of the humanoid nervous system and brain.

I approached the diagnostic bed and stood next to Dr. Flynn and Tech Brady. "Doctor? Anything to report?"

"No, Captain." She said "I can detect the after affects of the drug, but I can't tell if they are new or old."

I looked at Brady. She was not looking directly at me, and seemed resentful. I didn't blame her. "Crewman Brady, please tell me what you saw."

She looked at me. I could almost hear her thinking "What's the use? You've already made up your mind!"

What she said was "At about twenty hundred hours I was on deck seven. I was in the Arboretum. I walked out the door that leads to corridor seventeen-j. I saw the figure at the end of the corridor. It was a humanoid figure a little over two meters tall. It was colored purple. The arms were longer than average. The head seemed to flow into the shoulders as though there were no neck. It seemed to be wearing a Starfleet uniform, but the details were wrong. I called out and went down the corridor, but I when I got to the junction at the end of the corridor, there was no sign of it."

It was the report she had given to Security, nearly word for word.

"Do you have any idea what it was that you saw?" I asked.

Brady's face grew hard. "I wish I knew." She cast a meaningful glance at Stephanie.

I realized what she meant. She reported something odd and was being treated like she was the problem. If that kept up, and there was something unusual going on, then the crew might be afraid to report it until it was too late.

"Mr. Anderson, come over here, please." I used the generic male form. I was still struggling with it, when most of the crew of the Harrier was, in fact, female. Nevertheless, the "book" listed `Mister' and `Sir' as the generic form that assumed everybody.

Stephanie evidently had better things to worry about, because she came right over to me and didn't comment about what form of address I used.

"Please continue the investigation into Crewman Brady's report. Just to be thorough, prove to me that there are no extra presences aboard." I said.

Stephanie looked at me and then said "Aye, Sir."

I groped for the name "Uh, Marsha, isn't it?"

Brady nodded.

"You did the right thing reporting this." I shifted my focus to include both Anderson and Brady. "We are in unknown space. We have to be on our toes about the occasional odd occurrence."

Anderson nodded and Brady seemed to relax a little bit. It's amazing how little a thing can affect people when it comes from the Captain.

I returned to the Bridge. I didn't have a lot to do there, but it was better than the paperwork that awaited me in my office. I had been horrified to discover that Starfleet even had "lost in space" forms. Even if we couldn't report to a Starbase for another seventy years, I'd have all the record keeping I could tolerate for that time.

As I arrived, Varupuchu rose from the Captain's chair and said "Lt. Darvon Ahk wishes to alter the ship's course." His tone spoke scathingly of how he viewed our Science Officer and her habit of speaking to me directly, instead of following the chain of command.

"Oh? Why?" I asked. Lieutenant Darvon Ahk was looking intently at her station and not listening to us one single, solitary bit.

"The Sensors have reported a significant amount of the element einsteinium in the asteroid field ahead." Varupuchu sounded particularly annoyed.

I thought for a moment. "Isn't einsteinium an unstable transuranic element?"

"Yes, Captain." Varupuchu said.

"And doesn't it degrade rapidly once created in the laboratory?"

"Yes, Captain."

"Doesn't that mean that this einsteinium is difficult to find in nature?"

"Virtually impossible."

"Doesn't the decay of einsteinium produce radiation and side effects like that?"

"You could put it that way, yes, Sir."

I turned to Lieutenant Darvon Ahk. "And you want us to get closer to this stuff?"

She turned right around to face me. "Captain, the sensors report no hint of radioactive decay."

She had just told me that she had found some lead floating on the water. "That's not usually possible, is it?"

"No, Captain. Sensors also indicate that it has been in this system for approximately 80,000 years."

"That's somewhat longer than einsteinium usually stays intact, isn't it?"

"Yes, Captain. Einsteinium rarely lasts more than a few millionths of a second when created in the lab."

I turned back to Varupuchu. His expression was calm and serene. "Of course, you checked all the sensors." I said.

"Of course, Captain. They show no malfunction."

I turned back to Darvon Ahk. "So this stuff is just sitting there, being impossible at us."

She dimpled prettily. "That's right, Captain."

I turned back towards Varupuchu. "I believe an investigation is in order, Mr. Varupuchu."

"Aye, Captain."

I sat back in the Captain's chair and watched as Varupuchu and Darvon Ahk quickly organized a very thorough scientific investigation. They were good at it and it was a pleasure to watch.

Two hours later, I was bored stiff. Varupuchu had taken the Harrier to a closer, but still prudent distance from the asteroids. Most of the crew, including myself, were doing basic maintenance work on the Harrier while Varupuchu and Darvon Ahk ran every scan they could think of.

As the results from the scans came in, the Science Department of the Harrier began to go to work. They really enjoyed it. Everyone with any training in physics or chemistry became a scientist. Scan results were copied from PADD to PADD , and everyone took a turn at trying to invent a hypothesis that could be proven or disproven.

As the day wore on I even grabbed a PADD and tried to make sense of some of the readings, myself. I actually came up with a hypothesis and a scanning method to prove it. On the very next run of the sensors I was proven dead wrong. I didn't feel too bad. I think nearly everyone on the ship had that experience.

By that evening, everyone was tired and happily frustrated. The stable einsteinium remained stubbornly impossible and present.

The next afternoon, Stephanie came to me with a report. "Crewman Brady identified the race of her phantom."

"That's good news."

"It was a Broadbignagian."

I read the report. The Broadbignagians were, according to the latest reports, a primitive race under prime directive protection. They had gunpowder and sails. They had a complex system of caste and status, that even they had a difficult time sorting out. There was absolutely no reason at all that one would be on a Federation starship this far out of Federation space.

"That's bad news." I said

"There's worse. Brady has never served on a ship or unit that has encountered the Broadbignagians. There isn't any real reason for her to have ever looked them up. The odds on it being a hallucination seem to go up and down with each new fact." Stephanie sounded frustrated.

For the rest of the day, The science department continued beating their heads against a wall. The Harrier was taken closer to the asteroids that contained the impossible element. There were other minerals and elements in the asteroids. These were normal and mundane asteroid material. There was a clue, however. All the material that we could understand had been thoroughly melted and stressed at about the same time, 80,000 years ago.

"So the belt was a single object until 80,000 years ago?" I asked.

Tillean looked at me with badly disguised pity. She didn't respect conclusion jumping. She was quite tired. Like me, she also wanted results right away.

"It's possible." She allowed. She obviously didn't want to commit to the idea too soon.

"Would it help to bring a sample aboard for direct study?" I asked.

Tillean's eyes lit up. She liked the idea. Varupuchu's expression grew arctic, and his eyes hard. "We still don't know enough about what is making the einsteinium stable. If that effect fails while a sizable sample is aboard, then we have a big problem, Sir."

"Could a shuttle craft hold enough equipment for a preliminary study?" I suggested.

"It would be very preliminary..." Tillean said.

"Make the arrangements for handling a sample by remote control aboard a shuttle." I said. When Tillean began to object I continued "Once it fails to destroy the shuttle, then we can beam investigators over to do in person testing."

Nobody especially liked the idea, but no one could come up with a better one, so I knew I had a working compromise plan.

By that evening the shuttle was readied. Nearly the whole crew was watching as it moved up to an asteroid and using a robot arm, dug out a sample of stable einsteinium.

Aboard the shuttle, the stable einsteinium stayed stable, impossible and inscrutable.

As I went off duty, Li'ira came up to the bridge and prepared to continue the days work. Maybe she would make some progress.

The next day was much the same. Science Department crewmen were beaming over to the shuttle all day. They carried armloads of equipment back and forth. Everyone had a pet theory and we developed a waiting list to conduct physical experiments.

The chemistry of stable einsteinium was odd. We generated a lot of new data about chemical science. We were figuring out nearly everything about this stuff except how it was managing to exist.

That evening Stephanie came to me with yet another disturbing report. "We have had a rash of petty thefts, Captain." My head started to throb. After a day of scientific befuddlement I wanted to go lie down.

"You wouldn't be reporting this to me unless there was something odd." I prompted.

"True, Captain. The thief walked past items with intrinsic value and stole objects of sentimental value. Credits and gold pressed latinum were left on the same desk where a picture of someone's mother was taken."

"Only items with sentimental value were taken? Nothing valuable?"

"Not exactly. There were valuable items taken, but they were items that also held sentimental value."

"Great..."

Lacking a better plan of attack, I wrote a memo to the crew to report everything odd. I blamed the unknown nature of the stable einsteinium. I hoped that someone in the crew had seen something, only to dismiss it as a figment of their imagination. Maybe someone had seen the vital clue, but hadn't had any context to judge it in. It wasn't much, but it beat interrogating Marsha Brady again and again.

Then I went to go see Flagg. I didn't like it. He had remained extremely quiet during the opening days of our trek. I knew that he had some mission that had been interrupted by our displacement. If this upset him I hadn't heard about it from him.

The computer told me that he was on the holodeck. I read the control panel as I entered. Flagg was running a "Klingon calisthenics" program. I knew the one. Everyone I had asked had snuck down to the holodeck and tried it at one time or another. Who wasn't curious about how they measured up to the Klingon Warrior ideal? The results were about what you'd expect. It was a sobering program.

I opened the door and stood in the arch watching. Flagg had it up to a level I had never personally seen. Level five was one that challenged expert Klingon martial artists, and was too tough for the run of the mill individual of almost any race.

Three creatures were ganging up on Flagg. He was bare chested, and had on a set of workout tights. His wrists were taped, but other than that he was empty-handed. His body looked something like Bruce Lee's. He was covered in perspiration and was shining as though greased.

I didn't catch all of what happened. The three creatures came together on Flagg and swiped with swords and spears. They all swiped at the same space, each at a different level. I didn't see any physical way to avoid the attack. Except Flagg hadn't waited. While they set up their formation attack, Flagg was already halfway through an odd twisty dance motion.

The creatures came together and then fell down. Flagg danced away holding one of their weapons. One of the creatures rose from the pile and staggered towards Flagg. It was injured. I could see icor and gore running down its side. They looked like jello. Flagg held a perfect ready position. His muscles were tight and he had a fearsome grin on his face. I didn't like it at all.

Then the creature drew a .38 special out of its armor. My eyes bugged out. I could feel them. Flagg's smile vanished, but he kept his composure. He fled, seeking cover. It took the injured creature three shots to bring Flagg down, but in the end, it got him.

As I stood there with my mouth open, the computer told Flagg that he was dead, and his points were nullified. Flagg grabbed a towel and wiped himself down, laughing ruefully.

"What can I do for you, today, Captain?" Flagg laughed.

"Tell me what you can about internal security aboard a starship?" I asked.

"Isn't that Lieutenant Commander Anderson's department?"

"Not from the same angle as you."

Flagg laughed again. "I'll make you a deal. You brief me, and I'll brief you."

I thought it over. "You're on." Flagg was indeed a bastard. But he was a Federation bastard. People of the Federation, bastards or no, were a little thin in these parts.

Later, in the lounge, Flagg told me "Imagine a personal cloaking device."

I did. "There's no way to get the power curve down. A single person couldn't carry it."

"Not like an engineer. Imagine if you could have one? Imagine if you had the magical power to turn yourself invisible? You are the invisible man, and you are spying on this ship. What would you do?"

I began to think it through. The implications were not pleasant.

Flagg could see the expression on my face. "Counter Intelligence lesson number one. You're welcome."

"It is?"

"Yes, it's the basic exercise in the beginning class.."

Then I had to explain to Flagg where we were and what we were doing. Nobody had told him anything in the last few days. He knew that we were lost, and that there was a lot of science activity about stable einsteinium.

I had to suppress a grin. Maybe it was not the smart or courteous thing to do, but the crew of the Harrier had not told Flagg a single thing. The only things he knew were by eavesdropping on the conversations in the lounge.

"Hmmm." Flagg said "Three to five years, did you say?"

"Yes."

"Inconvenient."

"I apologize."

"No matter. I can see some advantages to being shut away for that long."

"I'm glad you can take such a constructive view."

"I'll do anything to help of course."

"Thank you."

The next day I learned that Flagg had stopped by the science labs and had taught them how to rearrange the sensor inputs for greater accuracy and shorter range. After that, our confusion about the stable einsteinium was much more detailed and specific.

Meanwhile I had a long night creating imaginary trouble as an invisible man.

The next day, I sat down with Stephanie Anderson, and Gerald Bruce, my hacker/yeoman and designed some programs for the ship's computer to run in the background.

One of them was an access code for the command functions of the ship. It would be easy to crack, but that wasn't the point. The ship's computer aboard the USS Harrier would now begin to learn the habits of the users of each station. If a given user radically changed his habits with his console, then the change would be noted and brought to Stephanie's attention. This would give us a trail to follow after the fact.

I also had the computer keep track of the openings and closing of each door. The computer would begin to draw a list of the habits of the crew as they used their work stations and moved through the ship.

I also had tricorders hidden at random intervals through the ship. These were set to record who came through certain doors. The scan would be activated by the door sensor and the results of the scan checked against security and medical records. They were set to raise an alert if a door opened and nobody came through. A malfunctioning door would lead to a scare, but I figured they needed to be fixed, anyway.

I hated the idea of spying on my own crew. It grated bitterly. I tried to salve my conscience by having the computer do most of the monitoring and then locking the data away under my own personal lockouts. The computer would only alert us if something changed. This was a thin rationalization, and I knew it.

Stephanie reported that her security teams were starting to work on the reports of odd happenings from the crew. Most of the reports were dreams or turned out to be normal stuff taken out of context. There were two more odd sightings. The descriptions didn't match Crewman Brady's, but there seemed to be something going on.

At the end of the next shift, I took Li'ira to my office and briefed her on the new systems. She was deeply unhappy about what I had done.

"Captain." She said stiffly, "It is my duty to remind you that you are violating the Articles of Federation, specifically section two, the Guarantees of Personal Freedoms, Item four specifically guarantees Federation citizens freedom from searches of or intrusions on their persons, effects, intellectual property, beliefs and lifestyle without due cause."

"Commander, I'm not searching unreasonably. We might have an intruder aboard." It sounded lame to me when I said it.

"The Fifth Guarantee specifies privacy for Federation Citizens especially in the areas named in the Fourth Guarantee."

"I won't violate anyone's privacy if I can help it. The information is locked down under my personal codes. The computer is only authorized to alert you if there is a notable change in habits by any user."

"With all due respect, Captain, that's only until YOU decide that you want to know what's going on inside the computer. Am I under suspicion of being an intruder? If not, then why search me?"

"We are a ship under way in space, Commander! You are dangerously close to insubordination. If you have a complaint about my actions, then log them, and press charges when we return to Starbase Twenty Four! Until then, my orders stand!"

"Aye, Sir!" Li'ira turned on her heel and marched stiffly and directly out of my office.

I went to my quarters and failed to sleep at all. An eternity later, Li'ira's voice sounded on my intercom. "Captain to the Bridge!"

I rolled out of bed and found an hour had passed. I struggled into my uniform and ran to the Bridge.

"Report." I said as I left the turbo lift.

"Sensors report anomalous door activation, Captain!" Stephanie was excited. Li'ira sat in the center seat, her back as straight as a ramrod. Her expression was very mildly sour.

I went straight to Stephanie's' station and looked at the reports. Several doors had opened, but the patterns were slow in emerging. Crew people were walking the corridors with no perception that there might be an intruder near.

"Yellow alert." I ordered "Sound general quarters for an intruder alert."

Alarms started going off. I said "Computer, this is Captain Jay P. Hailey, Place isolation fields at sections thirty four, thirty-five and thirty six, on deck seven."

"Working," The computer said.

"Send security to the area." I ordered Stephanie.

"I'm already on it, Captain." She replied.

For the next hour, we played a frustrating game of cat and mouse with a mystery object that might have been a figment of the computer's imagination. The Security Squads running through the area threw off the computer's analysis of patterns. Twice more the tricorders reported a door opening for no reason. I hadn't planted enough of them to record a pattern. Each time isolation fields had sealed off the door in question. No one was there and no one could have gotten there. Engineering crews reported no malfunction of the doors or their sensors.

As we called off the alert and stood the Security squads down, I had an inspiration.

"Mr. Spaat, please begin an analysis of the life support systems. We know who was aboard the ship and when. If there is someone new aboard then they will have breathed and eaten and lived, giving off heat. The life support system will have had to adjust to that."

"Aye, Sir." Spaat began to set up the problem on the computer.

Then I went back to my quarters and put my shoes on.

About an hour later, Spaat and Stephanie reported the results of the life support system analysis.

Stephanie looked straight ahead I could see a flush under her brown skin. "Captain. Our analysis has located an intruder."

"Do you know where he is right now?"

"Yes, Captain."

"Let's go."

The intruder was on deck twelve, in a lightly used section of the Harrier. There were crew quarters down there, but we did not use them. They were small cubbies set up for two people, dorm style. Once upon a time Starfleet had found more numerous crews necessary. These days we were more conscious of comfort and long term stability of individual crew members.

Although these old quarters dated back fifty years, they had been left intact against the possibility that the Harrier would have to pack additional crew or refugees somewhere. The Marines were using these quarters, only the Marines were in another section of the ship.

As we rode the turbo lift to deck twelve I skimmed the report. The reason for Stephanie's' discomfort became clear. Whoever had been breathing our air and using a replicator that was supposed to be shut down had been doing so for about three months.

We met a squad of Security at the corridor leading to the intruder's quarters. I could see another group at the far end of the corridor. The group we met had headsets on. They were black strips of plastic that wrapped around the head and touched the left ear. There was also a thin microphone in front of their face. I wondered what was wrong with a standard comm-badge, until I saw the Squad Leader whispering through it to the Squad Leader on the other side.

Some of the security officers were wearing a chest plate of armor. It was gray metal in a black plastic binding. It looked oddly familiar. Then I remembered that nearly one hundred years ago, Starfleet Security had experimented with body armor a lot like these. I looked closely, and sure enough, there was the old Starfleet insignia on the armor.

One of the Security Officers handed me a phaser. I took it, but I knew that it was a formality. They didn't want me in that corridor, and I wasn't going to risk getting in their way. I noticed that the man who handed me the phaser had a set of tall sturdy boots on and a big bowie knife stuck in a scabbard in the top of the boot.

I shook my head, and then gave Stephanie the go ahead signal. She went down the corridor herself, accompanied by two of the security squad. Two more approached from the other side.

They quietly went to a door in the corridor. Stephanie and her Security flattened themselves against that side of the corridor. I noticed that the security near me had their phasers out and were looking all around us. If some one had tried to go around us, he would have had to go a long way.

Stephanie grabbed one of the security headsets and whispered quietly into it. She held up three fingers. One of the Security Officers pushed me back until I was mostly out of sight. He would have put me completely out of the way, but I wanted to see what happened.

Stephanie counted down one, two, and three. The door slid open and they went through quickly. I heard Stephanie shouting "Get down on the floor!" I heard other voices, confused and not as loud.

Soon, one of the Security Officers came out and waved all clear. I went to see what had happened.

I entered the small room and saw a boy. He was fourteen or fifteen. Stephanie stood across the room watching him. Two of the other Security Officers covered him with phaser rifles. He was crying, and looked frightened out of his mind. One side of his face was red from being slammed into the carpet on the deck.

There were things in the room. A few decorations and knickknacks personalized the room. One of the Security men was looking over a comm-badge. The cover was off, and there was an isolinear chip wired into it. I took the badge from the security officer and examined it. It was a rough job, evidently done by hand.

"Who are you and how did you get on my ship?" I asked the boy.

He sniveled and tried to straighten. "I- I'm Harvey Del Rio, Captain Hailey, Sir."

"And how did you get here?"

"My dad worked on the Harrier at Starbase 412. He brought me aboard to show me what his job was like. I really wanted to see what it was like to be in Starfleet, so I stole the comm-badge and used my dad's access to come aboard."

I was horrified. Most boys would try to stow away on a starship given the chance and I didn't blame him. However, we had only stopped at Starbase 412 for a one-week layover. We had warped out right after and had never entered that sector again.

"I didn't mean to stay, but YOU NEVER WENT BACK!" Harvey yelled "How was I supposed to go home if you didn't go back!?"

Later, Harvey was in the sickbay getting an examination. The comm-badge he had altered had been broken. He had wired in the isolinear chip with the identification of an officer on it. Once he had gotten it working, he had a comm-badge that swore he was a lieutenant assigned to the Harrier. Using this identification Harvey had been able to sneak through the jefferies tubes and unused corridors of the ship.

Stephanie was upset. I didn't blame her. It amounted to a massive failure of the Security Department, and there was simply no other way around it. I didn't feel so good about it, myself.

Harvey was in as good a shape as possible considering his lifestyle for the last ninety days. I was in a bind. Legally, the penalty for a stow-away was to be decided by an analysis of the life support capacity of the starship. If the starship's commander felt that the ship could reach base with a reasonable amount of safety, then the stow-away would be brigged until the ship reached base. If the starship could not make it to the next base, or the commanding officer felt that he endangered the ship, the stow-away was to be killed.

It was an old rule from back in the days when starships were slow and the trip to nearby stars took a couple of years.

I had no doubts that the Harrier could easily support Harvey along with her regular crew. We had considerable leeway there. However, I did not want to brig a fifteen-year-old for the next three to five years. Not for something that I might have done in his shoes.

"Harvey," I said to the boy "I want you to ask to join Starfleet."

He was taken aback "Huh? Why?"

"Just do it, Harvey."

"But I...."

"Do you want to spend the next three years in the brig?"

"No."

"Then what do you want?"

"I...I wanna join Starfleet, Captain."

"Harvey Del Rio, raise your right hand, and repeat after me."

I swore Harvey in as a member of Starfleet, and gave him a field promotion to Recruit. Now I was as legally responsible for Harvey as I was for anyone else aboard. At least I didn't have to chuck the boy into the brig.

I immediately assigned Recruit Del Rio to remedial education. Fortunately, the obsessively complete nature of the Starfleet Archives meant that we had a good number of educational programs available.

I logged the decision and my reasons for it, and then went to bed.

The next day, Stephanie reported new reports of petty thefts. Harvey was not the one responsible for them. We had searched his quarters and questioned him on the subject. It had been clear that he knew as much as anyone on the subject, which was nothing.

An analysis of the tricorder scans during the first event revealed an odd phenomenon. Some areas showed no dust or particles. These areas were two meters tall. It seemed to appear and disappear randomly.

I realized that we might be facing the hypothetical invisible man, after all.

Stephanie and Flagg came up a way to scan for dust in the air with an old-fashioned laser scan. The laser would scan back and forth, sweeping an area.

Before we could get these emplaced, the computer reported another nothing passing through doors on the USS Harrier. It was on deck seven, near the arboretum.

We locked down the ship and put the force fields back up, to isolate sections of the ship. Security started to deploy in groups. They moved into a variety of positions designed to make moving around the ship difficult. They tried to make approaching the restricted areas, like the Bridge and Engineering nearly impossible to get to.

I had an idea. The events were happening on deck seven near the Arboretum. I decided to go to the Arboretum. As I went I could hear Stephanie ordering her security people around the Harrier, trying to get ahead of the intruder. We still didn't know if there actually was an intruder. We might have been trying to trap random crew movements or door malfunctions.

I didn't really think so. I walked down deck seven and into the Arboretum. I listened to the reports of doors opening and closing. I heard the door to corridor seventeen-j open and close.

I held my arms out away from my sides. I turned around and said "Please talk to me."

Now, if someone was curious about us, I didn't blame him. I was eager to answer questions, and maybe ask a few of my own. Was the intruder even here? Did he even exist? If he had violent intentions, then he had plenty of opportunity to create havoc. As far as I knew, he hadn't.

"I know you're here." I said to a tree. "I don't mean any harm."

Then I heard the door open. "Wait! Won't you talk to us, please!" The door closed. As it closed the isolation field ripped like water on the surface of a pond. I could see a large humanoid figure silhouetted in the interference.

I heard more reports from the bridge. He had just walked through several force fields, and past Security. I said "Hailey to bridge. Engage isolation fields throughout the ship. Go to yellow alert."

A Security squad reported "Contact! Contact! Bridge, permission to fire?"

I said "Denied. Do not fire."

I ran for the turbo lift to the bridge. "Tactical, reconfigure main phaser bank for a low power scanning beam."

"Aye, sir." The adjustment was not a physical one. It was a matter of loading the correct software. I hoped we had the time.

"Go to red alert and scan for transporter beams." I ordered. If the intruder had a personal cloaking device, I figured that he would be able to transport off the Harrier, unnoticed.

"Scanning." Varupuchu answered.

The alarms sounded. The crew of the Harrier scrambling to battle stations around me. As I got to the turbo-lift, it swished open for me. Rank does have its privileges.

"Malfunction!" Stephanie reported as I walked onto the bridge. "Airlock Six reports a breach. Force fields in place and holding."

A few moments later Stephanie said "Phasers report ready for scanning beam."

"Scan the area close to the ship, about 1 kilometer." I said. Stephanie turned control of the main phasers over to Varupuchu. He programmed a scan sequence. The phaser beams stretched out and played rapidly over the area nearby the Harrier.

"Contact." Varupuchu announced. On the main screen we could see the outline of an odd shuttlecraft moving away. It was cloaked. A cloaked shuttle craft, for the love of Mike.

"Hail that ship." I said

"Hailing frequencies open, Captain."

"This is Captain Hailey of the USS Harrier. We are on a peaceful exploration mission. Won't you please communicate with us?"

We waited.

"The intruder's ship is accelerating away." Varupuchu reported.

"Match course and speed." I said. The Harrier swung around and began to pursue the cloaked shuttle.

"He is beginning evasive maneuvers." Varupuchu said. On the screen the picture of the intruder's shuttle became shaky and blurry as the scanning beam began to lose it momentarily.

"We are a peaceful species. We only wish friendly contact." I was actually somewhat irritated. I was ready to jam peaceful contact right down this alien's throat, like it, or not.

"We're intercepting a transmission from the shuttle." Stephanie reported.

"On screen."

The Screen wavered and showed the purple, neckless, bulky form of a Broadbignagian. He said "This is pilot first level, scientist ninth level, to superior officer lieutenant of the science vessel Hargnagh. The intruders have penetrated my cloak and now pursue me. I can not decipher their alien culture or systems of status. With no clues how to address them, I could not make contact. I have acquired several items which have emotional and psionic impressions, for later analysis. I now declare distress. Please come to my aid."

I thought it over. "Was that transmission coded?"

Stephanie checked. "Yes, Captain, but lightly."

"Break off pursuit." I said "Stand down to yellow alert and head us back to our shuttle craft."

Li'ira gave me an odd look, but issued the orders to comply.

As we returned to the sight of our investigation I was tense. The open distress call to reinforcements just out of sensor range was a standard tactic. However, these people could build personal cloaking devices and cloaked shuttlecraft. If the rest of their technology was as advanced then we might be out gunned by one of their runabouts. I decided not to risk it.

We retrieved the shuttlecraft and slunk to another location in the asteroid belt. I wanted to continue the investigation into the impossible minerals.

Later analysis showed that the intruder was indeed some sort of Broadbignagian. I didn't know what to make of it. Where the primitive Broadbignagians an off shoot? Some sort of lost colony? If the cultures were similar, then the reason for the intruder's shyness was clear. They needed a definite sign of rank and status. Not only were the differences between three gold collar pips and four too subtle for them to notice, but the concept of "Captain" or "First Officer" was unacceptably vague. The Intruder couldn't address us because be didn't know what mode to use. Choosing the wrong one would have dishonored him to the point of death.

We noticed a single small warp signature leaving the system a few hours later. It might have been the intruder's shuttle...

We spent the next two days beating our heads out over the stable einsteinium. I realized that we could probably spend months investigating the phenomenon, but that wouldn't move us any closer to home.

I ordered the crew to pack back up and secure for travel. We took a sample of the stable einsteinium for later study back in the Federation. I thought the best scientific minds of the Federation had probably had it too easy until then, anyway.

As we warped away from the star, the samples became normal einsteinium and quickly degraded, radioactively. We had to jettison the samples and their containers.

Although it gave us a vital clue about what was going on, I decided to keep going. Someday another Federation ship would be out this way. Maybe they could solve the riddle.

The Harrier made warp six for a day. Then we stopped. It took another twenty hours to arrange for Varupuchu's communications cannon.

Finally with the engines pulsing to create a standing subspace wave, and main power channeled through the main navigational deflectors, I said:

"This is Captain Jay P. Hailey of the starship Harrier, calling Starfleet Command. The Stardate is 44967.3. We are 1,300 light years away from the Federation in the direction of Starbase Twenty Four and the Klingon Empire. Our exact coordinates to follow. The ship is in good condition, the crew including Lt. Colonel John Flagg and Harvey Del Rio of Starbase 412 are fine. We are headed for Starbase Twenty Four. Our ETA, Stardate 50900.1.

Stand by for data transmission."

I appended the report on the stable einsteinium to the transmission. I couldn't transmit too much. The beam could only hold so much data. I couldn't be sure that the people between us and home wouldn't listen in. They knew where we were and that we were alive. That helped a lot.

-End-

Disclaimer: Paramount owns all things Trek. I claim original characters and situations in this story for me.