Chapter IIa: Absolute Disaster

Kendall heads to her newly-assigned room, changes into her new uniform, hating how restrictive it is. I forgot how much I loved the non-regulation parts of my job before.

She thinks, and realizes also how much she loved the freedom of non-Spacefleet life. But, these are her people now. She will make due with this, and hopefully, they can help her tie off the loose ends of her life.

She makes a few modifications to the uniform to allow for a little more flexibility. Hopefully no one notices, she muses as she puts on her coat. It's not regulation, but it allows for her to conceal her two acquired phasers and her "pen" inconspicuously in case she needs them.

Once she looks herself over in the mirror and is happy with the result, she hits her comm badge and says, "Computer: locate Commander Cassano."

Wherever the computer indicates, she will take a turbolift to that location.

Cass frowns a little, but she already feels badly about making Marbo relive the attack even this much. "Okay, Marbo, that's all I wanted to know. I'm sorry for asking you to remember it. Take it easy and concentrate on recovering."

"Come."

"Belka. Get one of the interns to examine the age of the entry wound on the woman in stasis. Follow with an examination of how long the brainstem has been disconnected. Also, more Tea," Marbo states. Still assuming command from his bed.

He shoots a glance at Belka when he turns to look at Marbo, and smirks the kind of smirk that a smartassed child would shoot at a parent or teacher when they know theyre holding the cards.

"Also, Marbo requires assistance in the restroom"

Kendall walks in, uniform worn. "Commander, since we will be working together for a while, I wanted to put my cards on table to you. I do need assurances that this will not show up on any reports to Spacefleet, though, as I fear our friend Karen would seek opportunity to destroy me.

"Do I have your word?"

"Do you mean that no references to Kendall F'brei show up on the reports, or something else that you're about to share with me? Because if you're asking me to ensure that your name doesn't appear on any reports, I obviously can't agree to that. But if this is about that matter we were discussing much earlier... then yes, I give you my word that it will remain between us."

Kendall speaks up: "The fact that you don't see a 'Kendall F'brei' on Spacefleet records is because there never has been one in Spacefleet. As you know, I bear a...striking resemblance...to one Karen Granden.

"You probably found at some point where Karen volunteered to lead a team planetside to save a Space fleet crew who encountered mysterious turbulence (explained as encountering dark matter), which caused the ship to crash onto a moon of a gas giant (the moon being a class-M moon, but still somewhat harsh living conditions).

"They beamed down and found the source of the signal, but there was no shipwreck in sight. Instead, some changelings (posing as Spacefleet in distress) attacked her team, killing one of them in the process. She and her crew fought them off. The changelings had some sort of transporter disruptor machine, which prevented the matter-to-energy conversion to take place. After several hours of stratagem, they found the source of the disruptor and attempted to disable the device, and then they transported off that rock, registering the distress beacon as faulty.

"What the report doesn't mention is that as we tried to beam out of there, we realized that we didn't disable the device appropriately, the transporter caused excruciating pain, and when it was done, we were all stuck on this planet still.

"We called back to the ship, but they left us on the planetoid. My remaining team members died in the onslaught we engineered, but I took one of the enemy pod ships, destroyed the others, and left the location.

"It was in using that technology that I discovered what had occurred: the disruptor caused the signal of the transporter to duplicate the message, effectively causing a 'fax' of myself to land on the ship. I also discovered that the changelings intended this to occur, but I am unsure why. An experiment, maybe?

"It has been 10 years since the incident. I took on another personae, as I discovered that "Karen-2" was promoted, moving up the ranks, and she is now a Space fleet captain. I watched her from a distance, and discovered in my investigation that she is not me, really. Her in-depth motivations are evil in nature.

"I decided that I can never be Karen Granden anymore. The last 10 years have really sent us on divergent paths. I don't know what she is up to, or what she is doing, but she's not good. Something is off.

"If she, or Space fleet, were to find out the truth of what occurred, I would be hunted actively by Space fleet spec ops. Karen is too valuable to them. That's why I need to be inconspicuous, understand?"