Chapter III: Reunited

Cass leaves the ready room and takes the captain's chair on the bridge. "Commander Cassano to the captain of the Four. Have you ended the rebellion aboard your ship?"

Cass smiles, careful not to let her unease show. "She proposed a trade - we help you extract your people killed by our transporter, and you take us to your home base to retrieve our remaining missing crew members and meet your queen. Is this something the two of you discussed?"

Cass nods. "I will need to confer with my senior staff and get back to you. In the meantime, my engineers will be working on the theoretical aspects of restoring people killed in our transporters. I'll be in touch. Cassano out."

She breaks the connection and turns to Darcy. "Can we get in touch with the Antarctica?"

"Yes, right away. We have some decisions to make."

"Yes, might as well get everyone on this. We're going to need all hands on deck. But you're right about Zephyr. I'm sure Marbo won't release him to active duty for a while anyway."

Once all the members of the senior staff have assembled in the conference room, Cass dives right in. "As you all know, during our mission to recover our people from the Verdun, we engaged in battle with the parasite ship Four. Both ships were heavily damaged to the point where it was even money which would prevail, so I raised the possibility of diplomatic relations, on the grounds that the much greater number of humanoids made full-scale war unlikely to be successful for their kind. Their captain agreed, and thus the agreement to return Lt. Comm. Borealis was born.

"While we were on the ship for that operation, a shuttle manned by a parasite engineer requested to board the Potential. We refused, but the shuttle was hanging around outside our ship for quite some time. Also during our stay on the Four, the parasite infecting Borealis and another person staged an apparent coup attempt against the captain. We helped the captain put that down and were eventually returned, with Borealis, to the Potential."

She drums her fingers on the conference table for a second before continuing. "I strongly suspect that might have been a performance designed to convince us that there is dissent in their ranks, but I don't know that for certain. But conversations with the engineer on the shuttle, as well as some calculations she shared, suggest that their primary interest is in altering our transporter technology to allow them to recover the patterns of their people who have been filtered out. And then, ultimately, to remove our biofilters entirely, rendering us helpless to prevent them boarding. I've ordered a diagnostic of our computer and transporter systems to ensure that no virus or other malware has been transmitted, as well as an inspection of our shields, weapons, and engines.

"I also want to purge all patterns that have been filtered out by the biofilters since our first encounter with this race. If they are this anxious to get those people back, I want to deny them that with equal urgency. Moira, make sure that our transporters are clean as a whistle in that regard."

Cass takes a deep breath and says, "When I asked their engineer what they would be offering in exchange for our helping them to extract their people from our biofilters, she referred to our missing crew members - Lt. Felt and M1-K3. She implied that they were located at the parasites' home base and offered to take us there to recover them. She casually threw in that we could meet their queen while we're at it. The captain later confirmed all of this, suggesting that this could be the next step in our process of establishing diplomatic relations."

She leans forward and looks around the room at the assembled people. "To be very clear, I do not believe this is an honest offer. I suspect that the captain is dangling a worm on a hook expecting us to bite. The fact that they didn't mention our missing crew until I explicitly asked what they had to offer seems like a dead giveaway that this isn't a real offer. But the fact remains that we have now heard mention of our missing people, and we need to decide how to respond. My preference is to break off this encounter and head to the nearest starbase to report everything we've learned to Spacefleet. If we go to their home base, I don't think we'll be coming back - at least, not as ourselves.

"So, let's have some discussion about next steps. I want to hear your ideas."

Moira takes notes on her datapad while Cassano talks.

So, worst case, we've got a crew so hateful a' humans they're willin' ta murder their own, with no guarantee of gettin' them back. Best case, we've got one slug on our side, an' we know where Felt an' Mike are. Ah dunnae like those odds.

She taps at her datapad, looking at the transporter logs.

As far as ah know, tha only slugs we've filtered are the one who tried ta kill you an' Marbo, an' the two who mutinied. Ah'd be surprised if a race that violent didn't have a death penalty, but let's say they really do want them back. Er rather, all a' tha accidentally retrieved slugs. How in blazes are we sapposed ta know which ships filtered? We sure as death cannae change all tha transporters.

She looks up.

Mah suggestion would be ta re-work the transporter temporarily so our ship returns their slugs. Nothin' more. An' they return Felt an' M1-K3. Two fer two. Neutral ground. Technically, we'll be givin' 'em three back! But we don't un-filter 'em. We un-transport 'em. Keep tha filters safe, an' send 'em back ta tha Four directly. Let tha captain deal with 'em. We ain't headin' ta tha Pirate Queen. It's suicide.

Alex keeps her hands resting atop the table, fingers laced together. She listens to the commander, and then to Moira, before offering her thoughts.

"We are in over our heads. This is a diplomatic effort that requires decisions made at the highest of levels, rather than gut instinct and crossing our fingers that everything will work out," she says in measured tones. "I would anticipate that we will, having the most experience with the Four, be asked to participate in the eventual diplomatic effort, but given that we have some time to consider our options, we should take advantage of it. It's not a luxury we've had thus far."

She sighs quietly.

"As someone who has spent time in the... care... of the Four, I am very sympathetic to the need to recover your missing crewmembers. At the same time, Zephyr, Lorq and I are very lucky to have survived the escape and rescue attempt alive and in possession of our own minds and bodies."

A weary, wry smile comes over her face. "Remember, we cannot negotiate as if speaking to a Consortium race that we have worked with, struggled beside, struggled against for that matter. We know very little of their motivations and their decision-making process. We have to seek to understand them, and not overlay our values on them. That's who we are, who we strive to be."

Cass says, without much inflection, "We beamed over a number of parasites from the ship we lured into the trap with the Antarctica, before we realized that it would kill them. I think that was at least eight - Darcy will know how many it was.

"And then we - I - transported the two that remained on that ship, right before they could go to warp and warn anyone. Which I did knowing it would kill them. So there are quite a few parasite patterns in our transporter biofilter. All they are asking for at the moment are the ones that we have. I don't think we should give them to them. I don't think we should assume they are telling the truth about Felt and Mike, either."

She's struck by a sudden thought. "I'd almost forgotten this, but the parasite we interrogated - the face burning guy - said something about testing our crew. One of his demands was that we all be tested to see who was, I don't know, compatible with hosting or something. We've sort of been thinking that anyone could be a host, but that doesn't seem to be true. It would be great if we could determine what makes someone a candidate for hosting, just so we can know who's at risk of infection."

Alex straightens. "When we were on the Verdun... when Zephyr was infected, there was a test they did that he clearly passed, while I didn't. I was awake for the entire thing, but I couldn't tell what it was. Lorq might know, he helped with that testing. But that tracks with what you're saying, Commander."

So, whoever negotiates with these kind further should be people who fail tha test. Sorry Alex.

"Yes, we need to make sure we are all tested, once we can figure out what that means. Nobody who passes the test gets anywhere near the parasites again."

"I thought I was making it clear that I'm no longer talking about negotiating with them. I don't believe they are negotiating in good faith. What I'm looking for is dialogue about the options we have if we're not going to continue this charade."

Should we get tha Admiral online? We can take 'em out, but that requires approval.