28.12.20

Shadows on the Horizon - Chapter One



Our Story Begins…

-Chapter One-



June 19th, 2401
Palais De La Concorde, Paris, Earth

Tha’ar Demys was feeling deeply troubled. Her first term as President of the Federation was not going as peacefully or as easily as she had hoped that it would.

When she had been encouraged to step forward and throw her name in for consideration after the interstellar debacle of the Yndara Five scandal; she had felt at least relatively certain that she would be up to the task of leading the United Federation of Planets into this new and peaceful century.

After all, there had been no active conflict in all of Federation space since the failed Borg invasion of 2381. While there had been challenges of one sort or another it seemed nothing she couldn’t handle. However, two years into her Presidency, it seemed like everything was determined to go wrong.

Old allies were threatening to turn into new enemies, while old enemies were fast becoming dearly trusted friends.
The Klingon Empire was almost constantly saber-rattling these days. With the Remans in tow, the Klingons were stretching the old boundary lines of the Khitomer Accords and seemed to want to go even farther. Meanwhile, the Romulan Star Empire had almost overnight become the central supporting pillar of the Federation Council.

The overwhelming goodwill that had seemed to permeate most of the Galaxy after the resolution of the Borg problem in 2381 appeared to evaporate with the downfall of President Okeg. The revelations that had come out had tainted so much of Starfleet’s past actions for the last hundred years or so that it might take decades for the U.F.P. to recover.

And unfortunately Tha’ar didn’t have decades. As of this point, she had roughly two years left. If in that time, she hadn’t made a difference and caused some change for the good, she would be finished.

All of these thoughts had weighed on her mind as the morning of June nineteenth had dawned. Everything had looked rather grey and dismal, matching her mood perfectly. It was one of those few rainy days in a Parisian Summer, where the clouds gathered overhead, and the populace sweltered down below. Around 11:00, Tha’ar stood gazing out at the gathered clouds. 

She was encased in her private office on the fifteenth floor of the Federation Headquarters building, where the temperature was perfectly maintained at 62°. It was a little too cool for most humans but perfectly suited to her Rhulhänii physiology. She had never loved this office half as much as the smaller and more intimate one located in the Federation’s “other” home of San Francisco.

Perhaps it was because San Francisco reminded her so much of her homeworld of Rhulh. The cool grey days, the misty coastal setting, even the traditional architecture; all recalled the glorious city of Ayrha, Rhulh’s global capital and the city of her birth.
Tha’ar shook her head slightly; wishes and hopes for what one could not have were a waste of time. She could recall her Mentor teaching her that in what seemed a wholly different life.

She stepped away from the large windows and their disappointing view and returned her attention to the PADD she had been reading. It was an account of current negotiations between the Klingon embassy here on Earth, and the Federation Science Council. The basic argument seemed to stem from the Klingon Empire attempting to lay claim to several research stations based in Klingon space. Though it was true that the research stations were once Klingon, they had been offered to the Federation as research outposts by Chancellor Gowron, many years before. This, of course, was the Science Council’s defensive argument; however the Klingon government and the current Chancellor, V’KeSh, were having none of it.

Tha’ar sighed, and brushed a loose strand of shimmering silver hair out of her eyes. This wasn’t about the stations. Tha’ar and the Klingons and everyone else concerned knew that this was the case; though all were loathe stating it so openly.

The Klingons had been making arguments like this for the last few years; ever since the Romulans had been granted entry to the U.F.P., in fact. Tha’ar knew that this wasn’t a mere coincidence.

She moved back to her large, Ovax crystal desk and sat down behind it.

She greatly feared that these two old enemies could not, in the long run, live side-by-side as friends. She feared as well, that it would be during her service as President that the flames of war would reignite.

Having reached the end of the rather dry recitation of the lack of progress made in the negotiations, she laid the PADD down on her desk and sat back and sighed once more.

Her door chimed.

“Enter.” Tha’ar stated her voice soft and smoky with a light musical note to it.

The doors slid open and her Romulan private secretary, Tau’Pryn entered. Tau’Pryn too was a spot of trouble. Not from the young lady herself, of course; Tau’Pryn was the heart and soul of efficiency and discretion: A truly ideal assistant. The problems arose because of her heritage.

The young Romulan woman had been raised on a Federation World, the youngest child of some of the Star Empire’s earliest defectors. This had not silenced her critics. There were a host of Klingon claims that covered everything from being a spy for one of the Romulan Noble Houses desiring to gain favor with the U.F.P. President to being the secret Praetor of Romulus, to her being the love-child of Selene Mahktor, the Romulan-Klingon pop star.

In truth, Tau’Pryn was one of Tha’ar’s dearest friends, and nowadays, one of the very, very few whom Tha’ar trusted.
The young woman brought in a small stack of legal size PADDS and deposited them on the President’s desk.

“Madarne President, these are the last of the forms and letters that need to be signed.” she said briskly.

“What are they?” Tha’ar asked rather tiredly.

Tau’Pryn ticked them off on her fingers. “There is a Trade Agreement with Pyrhus II; they wish to exchange dilithium for Federation replicator technology. There is a Non-Aggressions Pact between the Federation and Algus Prime; Algus Prime is between Federation and Tholian Space. There is also a letter of Congratulations to be sent to the Nimbus IV Colony on their Bicentennial and a letter of Commendation to Arrelianus for their induction into the Federation.”

“That’s fine,” Tha’ar said rather distractedly. “Has there been any word from Dr. Moynihan, about the Klingon situation?”

Tau’Pryn’s ridged Romulan brow furrowed. “Not as yet, ma’am. Perhaps they’ll have made some progress by this evening.”

Tha’ar sighed once more, deeply. “We can only hope, I suppose.”




Stardate 76174.75

USS Istanbul – London Class Transport Vessel

Commander Annika Hansen felt the slight tingle and hum of the transporter, and as the pale blue shimmers faded around her she found herself on the small bridge of the USS Istanbul. The bridge was deserted and dark; all of the ship’s systems, including life support, were shut down.

As Annika made her way to the main systems display on the rear wall, she had a fleeting thought of gratitude to the Starfleet Corps of Engineers who had developed these new EV suits that fit like a second skin. As she integrated her tricorder into the MSD and brought emergency power online, her two away team members were busy running scans through their engineering and science tricorders respectively.

Lieutenant Dworkyn, her engineer cleared his throat and Annika turned.

“Commander,” He sounded slightly distracted by the scan he was running. “I’m not picking up any active systems anywhere onboard.” He glanced up and then focused again on his engineering tricorder. “If I could get down to Engineering I could bring main power online. We can then activate the rest of the ship’s systems.”

“In that case, Lieutenant,” Annika said returning to the MSD, which was now glowing with a light blue and amber light. “Let’s divert the emergency power to the turbolifts instead of the environmental systems.” The young blue-skinned Bolian nodded and moved over to the bridge turbolift as Annika’s hands moved over the LCARS interface, allocating power to the ship’s turbolift system. The turbolift doors slid open and Lt. Dworkyn entered and set out for Engineering, four decks down.

Annika then turned to Lt. Capra, a young and attractive un-joined Trill. Before she could speak however, the auburn haired, curvaceous lieutenant pre-empted her commanding officer.

“Commander,” the girl’s voice was strong and yet velvety soft. “I’m still picking up the trace amounts of oedon radiation coming from the transport deck two levels down.”

Annika bit back the reprimand that sprang to mind, and instead said rather coldly:

“Very well, lieutenant. Take the bridge jefferies tube and see if you can find the source.” With a satisfied smile that was dangerously close to a smirk, Capra departed.

With a sigh born of frustration with young Starfleet officers in general, Annika turned back and surveyed the Istanbul’s darkened bridge.

What had happened here? Where was the ship’s crew and the colonists they had been transporting? Why was a fully functional ship merely floating dead in space? She shook her head slightly and turned back to the MSD.








They had detected the derelict vessel two days before. USS Voyager, under the command of Captain Chakotay, had been in route to Arus V when long range sensors picked up the London class transport ship, powered down and seemingly adrift.

When Voyager came upon the vessel and began running more in-depth scans of the craft, they found no clue as to why it had been abandoned: All ship systems were in working order; there had been no distress signal; all of the ship’s escape pods were still in place. And there were no lifeforms onboard. 


At first the assumption was that the Istanbul had met with some unknown disaster that had killed off all the crew and passengers. However further scans had shown no bodies or biological remains, therefore a small seed of hope remained that all of them had made it off the ship alive.

After deliberating with Voyager’s senior staff, Chakotay had decided to send over an away team. There had been no question of who would lead the mission, as First Officer; it was Annika’s place to go. Though, as had happened every time in the past, when Chakotay looked at her and told her to assemble her team for the away mission, he seemed almost to hesitate. Annika knew that like each time before, his love for her and his trust in her seemed to war in his mind. He knew in his heart and soul that she would do what was needed, but the fear that she might not come back to him was always present as well.

As the senior staff members were filing out of the briefing room, Annika had stood next to her husband and lightly brushed his hand with her own. Chakotay had looked down at her and smiled. It was enough.

Annika chose the Assistant Chief Engineer, Cosmaar Dworkyn, a truly brilliant mind, though an extreme rarity among Bolians; Dworkyn was shy. Her science officer was also brilliant, if rather difficult to handle. Lt. Adzara Capra was the niece of Jadzia Dax, who after being thought dead for over twenty years had been discovered deep in the Gamma quadrant, preserved in a kind of stasis by the Bajoran “Prophets.” Annika had no love for Capra; in fact she downright disliked her. Yet her talents and her creativity were unrivaled on Voyager, and Annika would not let personal feelings interfere with the mission at hand.

Therefore at 0700 hours the following morning, Annika, Dworkyn and Capra had beamed over to the deserted transport ship.







Annika had checked in with Commander Jai Nakamura and reported their limited amount of progress about an hour in. She had combed through the Istanbul’s logs and found nothing out of the ordinary. 

The last log entry had been just over three days ago. It was standard fare for a Federation transport ship. The Captain had reported on their progress toward the Megara system and had noted that engineering was having trouble maintaining warp 9.5 (the London class’s maximum warp) and so it would take them more than the scheduled two weeks to reach Megara.

Annika had wondered if the ship’s destination could have had anything to do with the current situation. After all, Megara was one of only three systems settled by the 
Romulan Republic since its entry to the Federation.

There had been a lot of opposition to any settlements proposed by the Republic, but so far it hadn't broken out into violence.

Annika left the ship’s conference room where she had been perusing the logs and returned to the bridge. They were making a small amount of progress in getting the ship back in working condition, though so far they had discovered nothing to explain the disappearances.

So far, Dworkyn had managed to get main power back on and he was running diagnostics in Engineering to see if he could determine whether a possible or perceived problem there had caused the crew to abandon ship. Capra had discovered the source of oedon radiation to be several large empty containers, more than likely used to transport oedon weaponry back when the ship was a troop transport. Capra had then requested permission to go to the ship’s miniscule sickbay to see if there were any records of a medical crisis onboard. Annika had bristled a bit, but agreed.

Annika glanced up the ship’s chronometer. The last report from either Dworkyn or Capra had been almost forty minutes ago. Annika tapped her small combadge.

“Hansen to away team, please report.” Silence. Annika tried again.

“Hansen to Lt. Dworkyn, report.” Still nothing.

“Hansen to Lt. Capra, report!” Still only silence answered back.

Annika raised her left eyebrow, surely her team was not so engrossed in reports that they would fail to answer their combadges. Something was wrong. She tapped her combadge again.

“Commander Hansen to Voyager.”

“Voyager here.” Jai responded, her voice soft and fluid.

“Commander, I seem to have lost contact with Lieutenants Capra and Dworkyn.” Annika’s face was now drawn with concern, though her voice didn’t betray it. “Can you give me their locations.”

“One moment, Commander,” Jai answered. Half a second stretched into infinity, then: “Lt. Dworkyn is still in Engineering; Lt. Capra is on transport level three.”

“Transport level three? Capra left level three and went to sickbay almost an hour ago.” Annika’s voice was starting to tighten with stress.

Jai came back: “That’s what our sensors are showing. Perhaps there is some kind of EM field that’s preventing the lieutenants’ communicators from working.”

“Perhaps,” Annika said quietly. I’m going to head down and see if I can find out what’s going on.”

“Understood.” Jai’s voice then grew a little quieter. “Be careful, Annika.”

“I will. Hansen out.”







June 19th, 2401
Starfleet Headquarters, The Presidio, Earth

Admiral Kathryn Janeway strolled through a beautifully maintained garden under a sun-drenched azure sky. She was admiring the Erphaxian lilac and the stunningly beautiful hybrid roses from Gammelus IX, slightly overwhelmed by such incredible beauty condensed into such a small piece of space and time. Ever since her sojourn with the Female Q, Kathryn quite often found herself waxing poetic. Though she retained no tangible memories from that time, she knew beyond the shadow of any doubt that the experience had changed her, and changed her for the better.



From the first moments of her "resurrection," she had felt herself filled with a greater sense of purpose and drive than ever before.

The next few years had seen her quickly take up the life she had left behind when the Borg had taken her early in 2380. After working with Project Full Circle, she had returned to Earth at the insistence of Admiral Leonard James Akaar. After proving to Admiral Akaar that her "death" had not adversely affected her, Kathryn was reinstated at her former rank and title. 


It was several years later, after the debacle that was the Yndara V scandal, that newly elected President Demys had asked her to take up the position of Commander in Chief of Starfleet. With grim determination, Kathryn had agreed.

Since then, she had done her best to return Starfleet to its core values and ideals. Even when that meant removing old friends and colleagues from positions of prestige and authority. After Yndara V, the U.F.P., and Starfleet as its perceived military arm had lost almost all credibility. Kathryn and President Demys had worked tirelessly to rectify this, and they had made a fair amount of progress.

However, the mounting tension between the Romulans and Klingons was now threatening to negate all of the steps forward that had been taken. If the current situation wasn't diffused, war was the most likely outcome. Janeway and Demys were both determined to avoid yet another war at all costs.

Kathryn had already seen the loss of too many lives; she had seen too much suffering; far too much destruction. If only everyone could see the beauty that she now perceived in the simplest things, perhaps then, the sentient species of this galaxy could see the beauty in each other as well. A small sigh, then her attention returned to the plant life around her, and in particular to some exceptional specimens of Aldebaran Orlu flowers.





It was five minutes to midnight, when Tha’ar was urgently roused from sleep by Tau’Pryn. As she came awake, she noticed the girl’s tear-streaked visage and knew that something had gone desperately wrong.

She quickly got out of bed and dressed as Tau’Pryn, still weeping attempted to explain what was happening.

“Madame President,” She began. “Roughly forty minutes ago, we received word from the colony on Praxirus IV that they were experiencing some kind of medical emergency.” Tha’ar knew that Praxirus IV was the chief settlement location of the former Borg Collective. “Starfleet Medical had two ships in the vicinity,” Tau’Pryn seemed to be collecting herself; she brushed the remaining tears from her cheeks. “So the USS Alexander Fleming and the USS Isis set out for the colony. When they arrived…” her voice broke again. “When they arrived, they found thousands dead.” Tha’ar looked up sharply as she and Tau’Pryn stepped from her private quarters into the turbolift that would take them upstairs to the Presidential offices.

“Thousands!?!” Tha’ar asked incredulously.

“Yes ma’am.” Tau’Pryn was weeping again. Tears were flowing unchecked down her face. “The entire colony was wiped out.”

Tha’ar stumbled against the wall of the turbolift and Tau’Pryn reached out to stabilize her. She felt as if she had been punched in the stomach. The world seemed to be fading; everything was turning grey. There was a loud buzzing noise in her ears; she could barely make out Tau’Pryn’s face as the young Romulan woman knelt over where she now lay on the floor of the turbolift. Then the world, mercifully, went dark.





San Francisco, Earth

Admiral Janeway was just settling in for a quiet evening at home when the message came in from Starfleet Command. She ordered an immediate emergency transport from her house in the Garden district to the Presidio, ten miles away. When she beamed into the pandemonium of the Crisis Center, she was handed four PADDs by one of her aides. Each of the PADDs detailed an occurrence of former-Borg colonies that were now starkly empty of life.

The most disturbing report was the one from Captain Fr'eff of the starship Lw'kanzaa. The Galaxy class vessel was in orbit around the newly colonized planet of Danos III, and they had an away team on the surface, helping the former-Borg colonists to set up an energy relay service. One moment, the colonists were working with the Starfleet personnel, completely involved in the task at hand, the next moment they were scattered like fallen leaves. They were all dead.


Admiral Janeway read on how that there had been no struggle, no perceived problem. They were there hale, healthy and whole and then they were not. Katherine sighed deeply and looked up at the controlled insanity that surrounded her. It was obvious that there were more reports coming in all the time. Every settlement that they contacted was either wiped out save for a few that had never been assimilated or there was no response (and that amounted to the same thing). Katherine felt her strength ebbing from her.


So much loss of life, it was beyond all reason.

Janeway took charge of the situation and began to bring a true sense of order to the controlled chaos around her.





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