9 - Finding allies

Jim wandered up the corridor, drinking a glass of coke as he looked at the PADD in his hand. He was on his way to Stellar Cartography, having arranged to meet Captain Aldous and Duo there. The information on the PADD concerned some of the upgrades to the Scorpion, that Aldous had supplied him with. Fascinating stuff, he was thinking. Nano technology to assist the ship in repairing itself, which he could see coming in quite handy with the ablative armour that replaced some of the outer hull.

The phase cloak, of course, was probably the most fascinating. Unfortunately, that upgrade had been done by the Sernaix Ship Mind some months previous, and he had ensured that no information about it was left on the ship's computers. Trying to reverse engineer it would be next to impossible, and so understanding how it actually worked didn't seem likely. Jim was happy, however, that the navigational sensors were also modified so that they could continue to navigate effectively while being out of phase with the universe.

He nodded in satisfaction when he saw that a whole aspect of the nano-repair facilities were devoted to the phase cloak. It could be repaired and maintained without any of the crew needing to do anything., which was essential considering their circumstances.

That reminded him. The crew. He stopped, and looked up. The corridor was bare. There was only the faint sound of the ship humming to itself. He shook his head, and kept walking, pocketing the PADD and taking another mouthful of his drink. It was still hard to accept that this ship which normally had a crew of over 800, was running fine with only two physical bodies on board, and a holographic captain.

He turned a corner in the corridor and entered the door that opened into Stellar Cartography, seeing Duo already there and talking to Captain Aldous.

"It's actually got the same kinda nano-regeneration that th' ship's got," Duo said exitedly, clearly enthusiastic about whatever he was talking about. Aldous was listening patiently, with a mixture of amusement and mild interest.

"Th' Berserker's never been as powerful as it is now, 'course it's still no match for anythin' more than Scouts an' fighters an' stuff like that, but with some of th' technology you've got here I could make a lot of improvements, ya know?"

"And just how are you going to do that without a maintenance crew to help?" Aldous asked, nodding a greeting at Jim and then looking back at Duo.

Duo looked stumped for a few seconds, he hadn't thought about actually doing any upgrades, the simple concept of them had kept his imagination far too busy for that. "You can help me," He eventually said lightly, shooting a grin at Jim, "an' th' nano-bots can be programmed t' lend a hand, too."

Jim gave him a pained look. "I can help you? Sorry, I've got other things to do. If you can't rig up the systems yourself, you'll have to shelve the idea."

"I'll find a way, don't you worry 'bout that." Duo replied, turning to look at the map displayed three-dimensionally in front of them. "So, as I was sayin' before I got distracted," He highlighted a small system located on the edge of Klingon space, "th' third planet in this system is th' last place I saw Hetfield. It'd make sense t' start searchin' there."

Jim frowned, and moved over to the console. "Computer, run a search against all Federation communications logs for any mention of Major James Hetfield over the past 12 months."

"Acknowledged," the computer replied, and began its search.

"He might have popped up somewhere since then," Jim explained, glancing at Duo.

"I wouldn't be suprised," Duo agreed, then frowned. "Ya know it could take months t' find him, out here. He could've gone anywhere by now, if he's even still alive an' active."

The computer beeped, finishing its search. Jim pressed some buttons on the console, and three star systems were shown in front of them. They were shown in 3D, courtesy of the holographic systems in the room that was used to generate star fields and planetary systems from the databases. One of the systems subtly flashed three times. "That's where Hetfield was last noted, two months ago. Narendra III." Jim frowned. "Narendra III?" He looked at Aldous, who also looked surprised.

"What's on Narendra III?" Duo asked, he'd never heard of it but by the looks on Aldous and Jim's faces, it probably wasn't a good place to be.

They both looked at Duo in surprise. Jim grinned. "I always knew you slept through your Starfleet Academy training," he said. "Narendra III is a Klingon outpost. In 2344 it was destroyed by four Romulan Warbirds - the Battle of Nirandra III. The Enterprise-C had responded to its' distress signal, but was also destroyed in the battle."

"Due to the Enterprise's sacrifice," Aldous said, continuing Duo's impromptu history lesson, "The Klingons considered it an act of honour and signed a new peace treaty with the Federation."

"Oh," Duo replied, a vague recollection of a boring lecture hall somewhere filtering into his mind, "I remember now... but why would he wanna go there? It's kinda high-profile for a hidin' place."

"Well, it's not really that high profile," Jim said. "It's been abandoned for the past 40 years, ever since it was destroyed by the Romulans. Its significance is only historical." He frowned again, having thought of something else. "For Hetfield to be within the Klingon Empire though, he's probably receiving Klingon support."

"That's not suprisin'," Duo nodded, "I bet there's lots of Klingons that're pretty upset about not fightin' th' EGR."

Jim chuckled. "I think that's a bit of an understatement."

"I'll set course for Narendra III then," Aldous said. Jim nodded, and Aldous's holographic image disappeared as he returned to the virtual representation of the Scorpion, inside the ship's computers.

Duo frowned at where Aldous had been standing for a moment, then turned to Jim. "If we find Hetfield there, where d' we go next?" He asked lightly, "three people, two minds, a ship an' a mech isn't exactly an armada. We're gonna need a lot more power than this, really, a lot more."

"Well, according to one of these reports," Jim said, looking at one of the communications logs, "Hetfield is likely to be leading a small mercenary group, with two modified Runabouts." He looked back up at Duo. "That gives us some extra men, probably marines like him."

He looked back down at the console and pressed a few other buttons, bringing up another display in front of them. It was the head and torso of a woman wearing a Starfleet Intelligence uniform. She was blonde, with her long hair tied back in a pony tail, and with her startling blue eyes, could be considered by most humans to be very attractive. "Know her?" Jim asked.

"Sutor, Sumon, Sutton, somethin' like that..." Duo said, frowning, "I remember that I don't like her very much."

Jim grinned again. "Alexi Sutton. And not many do like her. In fact, I think the only ones that probably would are the ones who think she's dead." He pressed another button and parts of her record scrolled past next to her picture. "She was the sector chief for Starfleet Intelligence, based at Starbase Praetor. Scorpion Fleet. You remember the fleet?"

"Yeah," Duo nodded, it seemed like years ago that they had been based at Starbase Praetor, in Scorpion fleet. "I don' really see why we need her. If ya need an Inteligence officer I'm pretty sure we could get someone that's way less of a pain in th' ass," He said lightly.

"It's not that we need an Intel officer," Jim replied. "She's on the run as well, and her resourcefulness - and resources - could be of use to us."

"Mmm," Duo said, "I guess any help is good help, when it comes down t' it. D' we know where she is?"

"The most recent information is 8 months old," Jim said. "She was talking to a known member of the Orion Syndicate. Since then, she's disappeared."

"Orions?" Duo frowned, "so we can prob'ly buy any information they've got about her, but dealin' with them is gonna be like advertisin' where we are an' what we're doin'." He paused, running a hand through his hair and sighing softly. "They're sure t' sell information 'bout us t' anyone who'll pay for it, It's a pretty big risk t' take."

"A risk I'm not that interested in taking," Jim said, nodding his head. "Come on, let's go do something worthwhile. Like eat."

"Sounds like a plan t' me," Duo grinned, he still hadn't quite recovered from his many months on ration packs and consequently, he spent half his time eating. "I think I wanna try somethin' new t'day, somethin' spicy."

Pressing a button to shut down the holo-displays of starmaps and planetary systems, they left the now darkened room.

To be continued...