"I agree. You're dismissed from Sickbay, Commander. Try and take it easy for a few days." When Yilaan didn't leave, T'Paya looked up and then followed Yilaan's gaze to the wall of her office, where she'd had an engineer mount a cabinet. She'd placed within it, for all to view, Giovanni's "little treasures" as Yilaan had called them. "As a doctor, and as a Vulcan, I can appreciate the attitude your former Chief Medical Officer had towards life. I saw no reason these should be stashed away for no one to see, so I had them mounted. I trust this meets with your approval, Commander?"
"It does indeed," Yilaan said softly. "Thank you." Yilaan remained for several moments, having forgotten her reason for coming in the office while she stared at the trinkets in the case.
"Was there something else?" T'Paya asked.
"Yes, actually," Yilaan replied. "The command crew and the bridge crews are gathering in the Holodeck for a raucous feast this evening. Would you care to join us?" Yilaan was grinning.
"I shall be honored to accept your invitation," T'Paya replied. "Thank you."
"Great! We'll see you there at 1900 hours. It should be fun!" Yilaan replied, nodding in acknowledgement as she left Sickbay.
"Indeed," T'Paya replied when Yilaan was out of earshot, and then returned to her work.
***
Captain's Log, Stardate 90262.0. The Romulans, having reached similar conclusions regarding the situation here in the Neutral Zone that both sides were drawn into, have agreed, albeit suspiciously, to a cease fire. No doubt the Aallera's presence helped them arrive at this decision. We are investigating the possibilities of who might be behind this.
With a disgruntled Romulan commander on the viewing screen of the Observation Lounge, Captain Freeman sat at the briefing table along with Commander Yilaan, Commander Perriman and Lieutenant Hathaway, while Lieutenant Ivanovna delivered a "conference call" report.
"Captain, an intensive scan of the energy signatures and a bio-molecular scan of the rocks in the dilithium asteroid have detected the residue, shall we say, of a third party, as we predicted. This party beamed out a chunk of the asteroid, then beamed in this fake dilithium," she reported.
"Impossible!" protested the Romulan commander. "To have bypassed both of our security nets? No one could've done that without having been detected."
A dozen or so nasty comments flitted through Ivanovna's mind before she replied evenly, "Nevertheless, it did happen."
"Who is this third party you speak of?" demanded the Romulan.
"The Gorn," Ivanovna replied simply. Freeman looked up at her sharply, while the Romulan scoffed in the background.
"Preposterous!" the Romulan exploded. "The Gorn neither have the technology, the cunning, nor the finesse to pull of something like this."
Freeman shrugged, "The Gorn do have cloaking technology, even if they didn't invent it. The materials used were Gorn, but that doesn't mean they weren't working with someone else. Someone on the inside, perhaps?"
"The Romulan Empire will perform its own inquiry into the matter and deal with the perpetrators in the most rapid of fashion," the commander said by way of a good-bye before he cut communication.
Freeman merely shook his head, "So much for our cooperative investigation." He then looked up at Ivanovna again, "The Gorn, you say."
"Yes sir. There's no doubt that somehow the Gorn were involved. I've arranged with Starfleet to conduct an exhaustive review of applicable security net logs and long range telescope footage, but it will take a lot of time. I can't even be sure we'll turn up anything useful," Ivanovna replied.
"But it's a start," Freeman said, getting to his feet. "This mystery has been fairly easy to unravel; you may yet turn up something. So far, it's played out just as if someone like the Gorn had planned it. There's enough subtlety to get the players in position, but no allowance was taken to cover their tracks in case we didn't fight it out. It probably didn't even occur to them that we could talk instead of fight." Freeman then smiled in spite of himself, "It didn't really occur to me, either." The others smiled at their captain and stood up. "Lieutenant, keep me apprised of your progress." He then glanced at his helmsman, "Get us on course for our next assignment. Dismissed, everyone." The officers filed back out onto the bridge.
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