First Encounter

Posted on Sun Feb 22nd, 2026 @ 12:50pm by Captain Marc Steyn & Lieutenant Commander Maximo (Max) Vero

852 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: Prologue: Joy is in the journey
Location: USS Oberth - Main Bridge

ON

The bridge was in low power mode, still technically unneeded given Oberth was tethered to a dry dock pulling all of her power and computer control from their mainframe rather than her own systems while the ship went through its final preparations for launch.

She found she had started to circle the bridge, taking in the curves of the bridge, the reds, whites and blacks mixed with greys and a multitude of silent dark displays. It was the same design of bridge to most Starfleet vessels which to her was only logical. It made acclimation times almost non existent.

She paused what she was doing as the familiar hum of the turbolift stopped on the deck and the hiss of the doors parting. The Human stepping out was clad in a blue science uniform, dark hair and slightly unkempt in his appearance but she assumed that was by design as she had found most Humans found a more unkempt appears to be appealing.

"Lieutenant Commander Vero?"

"Si," Max said on impulse then realising who it was stood to full attention surprised she was on the bridge and not in her ready room as they were stuck in dry dock. "Captain, I had not been informed you had transferred over." He had arrived a couple of days prior, having caught a private lift over. A friend who had owed him a favour.

"How was your journey?" he asked although it may be pointless. He could at least gauge how much of small talk his new Vulcan CO would tolerate.

"Lieutenant th'Qarret greeted me in the transporter room in your stead. She informed me about some form of incident in Engineering!"

Sakara didn't miss a beat, silently berating herself for jumping right to business rather than formal introductions.

"My apologies Commander. I am Captain Sakara, you will find my transfer of command orders on this PADD" picking up the larger writing PADD with stylus from the Navigation console as she circled around to stand by her new first officer.

Max nodded, a little annoyed that the Lieutenant had decided to talk about this with the Captain before he had, had time to appraise her. "Thank you," He said taking the PADD. He did what was needed from his end to transfer full command to her now she had arrived. "Perhaps we should speak in your ready room?" he suggested not wanting it to spread like wildfire round the ship. Although how the Lieutenant had known when she had been fixing the wardrive he had no clue. He had ensured only himself, the doc and Fitzsimmons had been in the room and had the corpse transported straight away.

"My understanding is a vessel this small has no ready rooms... Let us utilise the briefing room"

She started towards the doors towards the right of the view screen, allowing access to the rest of deck one. It may look like one of the highly sought after Constitution Class vessels but in truth, it was very much the budget version.

"Yes Captain," Max said following her. His accent apparent. He waited until she took a seat and took the one opposite. "Captain I regret to inform you there has been a death in Engineering. We are not certain yet if its a murder. I have the CMO and Security looking into things. I thought it best to "Contain" the information the best I could at present until you were here and we had solid answers."

"Prudent" she added coolly and entirely unflustered by the situation she had just been presented with. It seemed almost unheard of within Starfleet in present times although she was keenly aware that historic events on most member worlds historically would have told much different story meaning it would be possible but unlikely.

"Do we have any suspects at present?"

He shook his head. "Everyone was new. I was not aware of anybody with any shall we say "bad history or grudges." I mean it could still be possible it was a tragic accident. Lets aire on the side of hope.

If it was a murder though it might be worth looking through a list of people/organisations who have a grudge with the Federation. It wouldn't be the first time spies have slipped in to cause chaos.

Do we know anything about our first mission yet Captain?" he asked.

"At present our orders are unchanged. We launch on schedule to begin our survey of the Van’a’daal Cluster outside of the Federation border on the fringes of Gorn space". the name Gorn did not sit well with her knowing they were a violent and ruthless race but nothing had been seen or heard from them since Captain Pikes run in with them beyond a single encounter that Captain Kirk had several years later and even then it was only a single Gorn individual.

"Let us proceed with caution and include only the senior officers for the time being. Please organise a meeting with the senior officers at seventeen hundred hours. We can discuss in more detail at that time".

END

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