Homecoming Part 1: Rhyan

Posted on 29 Apr 2016 @ 10:24pm by Commander Rhyan

1,906 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Errand of Mercy
Location: USS Redemption, Executive Officer's Quarters
Timeline: ED2

A gentle hiss accompanied the opening of the entrance to Rhyan’s quarters, the metallic-grey doors parting to allow the Commander access to the cabin that would once again be called home. Rhyan stepped through the threshold into the familiar anteroom, the first time he had done so since the Redemption had first returned to the San Francisco Fleet Yards after its liberation from the Sixth Fleet. The room was dim, the only light coming from the dry dock lighting beyond the protection of the floor-to-ceiling windows against the far wall. Stepping further into the darkness, Rhyan called out to activate the lights, “Computer, lights; ambient setting.”

Almost immediately the full extent of the room came into view, the subtle lighting throwing a warming glow over the burgundy carpet, small circular table, its two chairs and a large grey sofa that occupied the room. The replicator also returned to life, the bright white glow of the materialisation chamber slowly increasing in intensity; the light from within creating shadows against the bare shelves and side-tables dotted around the cabin.

The door hissed closed.

Rhyan moved through the spacious room so that he could locate his duffle bag that the transporter technician had taken from him upon arrival, promising to have it delivered to his quarters while the Vulcan reported into Captain Ashcart. Turning the corner into the bedroom space, Rhyan could see the bag sitting at the foot of the large, double-sized bed; sitting atop the clean grey sheets that dressed the divan. ‘What was it with Starfleet and the colour grey?’ Rhyan pondered as he stepped towards the bed and set the small box he had been holding down beside the duffle bag.

The Vulcan’s hand lingered over the small box that Captain Ashcart had given him. Rhyan was flattered and honoured by the Captain’s unexpected gift of a promotion; certainly, he had not been expecting another promotion so soon after his progression from Lieutenant to Lieutenant Commander. Although two years was still an accepted interval between promotions, Rhyan would have expected Starfleet Command to veto any attempt by Ashcart to push through a promotion; it had only been six months since Rhyan had stood in front of the Admiralty undergoing a court marshal.

Despite being acquitted on all counts, the Vulcan was sure that his prospects within the organisation had been hampered by his actions at Thorlarus. But perhaps the Captain had been right; maybe he had more than made up for his mistakes by risking life and limb to track down the Ee Hybrid, help in the liberation of the Redemption from the Sixth Fleet and for his work alongside the Ee Research Institute this past few months. Yes, the Vulcan thought, he did deserve the extra pip on his collar.

Rhyan’s attention then moved the duffle as his hand pulled away from the leather-bound box and moved to pull the zipper of the bag. The contents of the bag were sparse as Rhyan pulled them out one by one: a few items of clothing, mostly items that he had picked up at markets scattered throughout San Francisco; a small wash-bag that contained his sonic toothbrush, razor and some home-made soaps he had picked up at the same markets on Earth; a photograph of him and his mother during his childhood on Earth (one of the few items that he had been able to salvage from his ransacked quarters after the recovery of the Redemption); and a small Vulcan meditation lamp, brought along for show rather than any intended practical use – the lamp having been a gift from his maternal grandmother when he had temporarily lived with her on Vulcan as a child.

The final item that Rhyan removed from the bag was perhaps his most valued possession, mostly because of who had given it to him. He pulled out another photograph that was inset into a silver-plated frame, the image portraying Rhyan standing behind Sarah Kaminski, his arms entwined around her waist; both of them smiling as they stood in front of the bar in the officer’s lounge on board the Redemption. The photograph had been gifted to Rhyan from Sarah herself, intending it to be a reminder of the good times they had shared together. Rhyan choked slightly as the thought of the events that followed only a few days after the photograph had been taken; the culmination of which resulted in Sarah’s ‘death’ at the hands of the Ee virus.

Trying not to dwell too long on his thoughts of Sarah, Rhyan placed the photograph on one of the two glass nightstands at either side of the bed. He placed the lamp on the other and moved into the anteroom so that the photograph of his mother could rest on one of the empty shelves. Already, he thought, his quarters were beginning to feel a lot like home again. He replicated a few other items to fill out the rest of the empty spaces and then took a seat on the cushioned sofa with a cup of Raktajino, taking a few moments to relax and enjoy in the fascinating view of a dry dock in final preparations for launch.

As he sipped away at the bitter liquid in his hands Rhyan could not help but think about the upcoming mission and his quest to find a cure for the virus that was slowly killing President Zal. Rhyan’s Vulcan half refused to believe that the appearance of the modified Ee virus on Hadronus was not unrelated to the virus that now afflicted the President. Although they were distinctly different, there were too many similarities in the gene sequences of both viruses to be a mere coincidence. When Rhyan and Afton had first sequenced the Ee reproductive virus, they had remarked at how it showed no semblance to any known virus in Federation records; but now, a year later, two similar viruses appear out of thin air.

Again, Rhyan refused to believe in coincidences.

But if not a coincidence, then who was tinkering with the Ee virus and releasing it into massive populations as well as using it as an assassination tool? There was certainly motive from the Confederacy of the Underdark who had already succeeded in assassinating one Federation President in recent times. The problem with that theory was, however, that the staff at the Ee Research Institute were so intensely vetted that he refused to believe that one of their agents could have infiltrated the organisation to steal a sample. Besides, Rhyan knew of no Andorians who were posted to the ERI.

This fact was significant for two reasons. The first was that the Confederacy had been founded on Andor; a by-product of the growing desire among Andorians to leave the Federation. Most, if not all of the known Confederacy agents were thought to be Andorian. Rhyan only had to look into his own past to remember Lieutenant Tarran’s betrayal of the Redemption crew and his subsequent death at Rhyan’s hands. The Andorian had learned the hard way that he should not piss off a Vulcan who is not in complete control of his emotions.

The second reason that pointed towards a Confederacy link into the assassination attempt on the President lay with Zal’s previous appointment as Ambassador to Andor. For many years Zal, along with Daniel Sutherland, lived on Andor and represented the Federation’s voice towards the Andorian people. For many Andorians, Elesa Zal was the Federation. It was this close relationship to Andor that had made Zal a target for the Confederacy the day Rhyan saved her life; and continued to make her a popular target for many Andorians.

It would therefore be unsurprising, in Rhyan’s eyes at least, if the Confederacy was not involved in the events on Hadronus to some degree. But there was another, albeit more frightening theory that could explain the mysterious arrival of the modified Ee viruses: the Ee Hybrid.

Rhyan’s memories of the final moments of the battle at Deep Space Ten, while in command of the USS Nova, were fragmented to say the least. But what he did remember during the battle was sending his sister, the Romulan diplomat Reanna, to the ship’s astrometrics lab to locate the missing Ensign Jon Marshall and Jody Scott. While he helped the Redemption and Onyx Shadow fight their way out of Sixth Fleet controlled territory, Reanna found herself in an altogether more bizarre battle within the confides of the Nova.

As her account of events detailed, Reanna found Ensign Marshall using Jody against his will in an effort to track down the Ee Hybrid who was believed to be in the nearby system. Jon had used Jody’s innate telepathic abilities and his friendship with Sarah Kaminski to make a mental link with the Hybrid. At first this link appeared to work; Jody connected with the hybrid and was able to locate her position down to a few kilometres. But the Ee Hybrid was stronger, quicker and smarter than Scott. It was able to overpower the cadet and took control of his body to inflict serious injuries to Marshall and Reanna. After that, the Hybrid accessed the Nova’s computer database and enacted a complete download to her own ship, the runabout Cho Oyu. Afterwards, it dropped the link to Jody and left him for dead in the Astrometrics lab.

Although the Hybrid’s attempts to locate and steal the Redemption from the Sixth Fleet failed, it did get away with the entire Starfleet Intelligence database stored within the Nova’s databanks. If she – no, it, Rhyan corrected in his mind – had been dangerous before, then now it was an apocalyptic force. The Hybrid now had access to all of Starfleet’s most sensitive information, including the research that Rhyan and Afton had conducted on the Ee virus up to that point in time. It was for that reason Rhyan thought, in his gut, that the Ee Hybrid – his former lover, Sarah Kaminski – was the true culprit behind the new virus spreading over Hadronus. As for the attack on President Zal, Rhyan suspected it could be a sick by-product of the Hybrid’s contempt towards the Vulcan and his Redemption colleagues.

Either way, Rhyan knew that a dark cloud continued to hang over the future of the Federation. As he knocked back the last of the Raktajino, the Commander stood up from his seat and placed the empty mug back into the repilcator and activated it. Having enjoyed the few moments to sit and rest, Rhyan decided that if Zal had any hope of survival he needed to forgo his usual ship-board routine and dedicate every waking minute to his research.

Quickly making a stop-off in the bedroom to make use of the en-suite and attach the three new pips to his turtleneck, the Commander made motions to resume his executive officer duties. Having already inspected the bridge he still had the medical facilities, shuttlebay, science labs and engineering to visit before he could sign off each department and approve the ship as fit for launch. Once they were underway he could then divert his full attentions from shipboard life to the real problem at hand: finding a cure for the Hadronus and Zal viruses.

His last thought as he left his quarters was that Rhyan was definitely going to need help.

 

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