PNPC Lt (jg) Kvash, Strange Vessels

[Jennifer R. Povey]

(( Tucker Station - Diner ))

Kvash liked Terran food; she'd gotten the taste for it in London, even if she thought the amount of capsaicin humans were willing to consume both insane and worthy of respect. Tucker Station had a classic human truck stop diner.

And she was in there eating a burger...replicated, of course, but not too terrible. It had cheese and lettuce (the lettuce at least did not appear to be replicated; the station must have a sizable hydroponics bay), when...

Ch'Nilmani: =/\= Ch'Nilmani to Crew. This is a yellow alert recall. All selected crew on this transmission are activated and need to arrive at Docking Port 22-B Section 3. Once you have boarded, find your departments, prepare it and report your status. More details will be provided once everyone is on board. We'll be undocking ASAP. =/\=

Kvash: =/\= On my way. =/\=

She flagged down the waiter, settled, and left, striding through the corridors.

Something strange was happening here. Docking Port 22-B Section 3 was not only not where the Connie was, from what she'd seen of the station layout, it was a docking area for slightly smaller ships.

She swung by her quarters, threw everything in her bag, and practically jog trotted to the docking port. People got out of her way; nobody wanted to interfere with a Klingon in a visible hurry. She wasn't going to be the one who delayed undocking.

And yes, there was a ship docked there. Her nostrils flared. Not the Constitution. Smelled new, but that probably meant "just refitted."

The XO had said selected crew, so this probably wasn't a sudden transfer. The Constitution was out of action. What was this ship?

One that hadn't quite had its refit finished, judging by the few people she saw scrambling to *leave* the ship and the fact that some of the wall trim was missing, revealing cables. Well, presumably he was spaceworthy enough.

More details would be provided.

Rather than try to find her quarters, she walked past somebody else doing the same thing, tapped a terminal, and located the science department. Which also gave her the ship's class, Nova...of course. Small ship, large science department. And name. The USS Aleek-Om.

Who was...an Aurelian historian. Known for studying the Guardian of Forever. It probably was just the ship they had handy that, you know, still had a shuttle bay. But there was something about that coincidence that...niggled at her.

She wasn't sure what.

Lt(jg) Kvash

Anthropologist
USS Constitution
S238312D10