"Sounds amazing," Sarah said quietly.

A huge grin overtook Kristine’s face. "And here you get to see one of the public ones from a distance."

Suddenly, Sarah noticed they had entered a corridor that was completely transparent, except for the deck. She craned her neck back to the point where it hurt a little. Heading straight up and almost directly ahead of her was a huge gun-ship-gray colored cylinder.

They both paused for a moment to marvel at the odd sight in the blue, cloud strewn sky. It seemed both natural and unnatural, which was something Sarah had never quite encountered before. It had an organic feel to it…but the color gave it a sort of inorganic feel…

"I’d let you linger longer," Kristine suddenly interrupted. "But we need to get aboard as soon as possible."

"Right," Sarah said, only paying half attention to her. Kristine grabbed her arm and began dragging her along, finding it a little troublesome! Finally, as they left the transparent corridor, Sarah willfully followed her.

They turned a corner and continued walking until, about a quarter of a kilometer from the turn, they came upon a small set of double-doors.

"This is one of the smaller lifts," Kristine said as she pressed the summon button on the panel next to the door. For the first time, Sarah bothered to notice the change of the Starfleet Delta symbol displayed on the panel. It looked exactly like Captain Picard had described in his travel to the alternate future at the expense of Q: Two columns that were uneven at the top and bottom, but uniform in comparison to each other, and a hollowed-out Starfleet delta symbol.

The lift doors opened and both women stepped in. When the doors closed, Kristine ordered, "USS Dragon, please."

As the lift began to move, she turned to Sarah and began explaining. "For the personal privacy of people like the President, these private lifts have no listening devices in them."

Surprised at the information, Sarah replied, "Well I suppose that’s always good to know."

Kristine rolled her aged eyes and shook her head. "Look, the basic plan is to take the Dragon and use the temporal displacement drive to go to the Kalium Galaxy right before the incident occurs."

Stunned at the simplicity of the plan, Sarah asked, "So then that’s it?"

"Just about," Kristine replied. "Before we go, we’ll have a final planning session aboard the Dragon. You can fill us in on the details of your encounter with the species so that we can figure out what to do once we are there."

The lift halted for a moment, then began to move sideways. Not long after, it opened up into what appeared to be the corridor of an Excalibur class starship, a class of ship Sarah had only seen holo-images of the interior.

Kristine left the lift, Sarah hot in pursuit as they walked at a surprisingly brisk pace down the hall. Not long after, they approached another turbolift and entered.

"Main bridge," Kristine ordered.

"Only recently have things begun to resurface," Sarah commented, waiting for the second lift ride to end. "My memories are pretty clear up to the moment where we initiated contact with the species, but my memories of the events there-after are clearing."

"Good," Kristine replied. "We have plenty of time for you to tell us the story."

The turbolift finally stopped and they stepped out onto the largest bridge she had ever seen... Larger than even the Dragon’s.

She sighed as Kristine immediately led her to the briefing room...or at least, headed for the door on the side of the Dragon’s bridge that was the briefing room.

This is going to be a long story...

Captain’s Log, Supplemental

It has been a long six months since the end of the Vorkalai war. I must say, I enjoyed the six months of shore leave, but I’m anxious to get aboard my ship again and begin looking for a way back to our galaxy.

Many things have happened, events of which I’ve only recently become aware of. All remaining cells of Vorkalai resistance have been either destroyed or captured. Not surprisingly, the Prisoner of War camp was not large at all. The Vorkalai would rather die than face capture by an ‘inferior race.’

A third species initiated contact with the Alliance, and all three parties, having been impressed with Starfleet and the Federation’s morals, agreed to form a permanent alliance and form a new party. Though I almost doubt it, rumor has it they are making themselves a basic ‘outpost’ of the UFP, and naming themselves as such.

Captain Chris Harriman sighed as he finished his log entry. He turned back to the helm of the Runabout and almost switched over, but decided against it.

"Feel like taking the helm for a while longer?" he asked his wife and First Officer, Commander Sarah Caft.

"Why, what are you up to?" she asked in a teasingly suspicious manner.

Chris smiled and shook his head. "Nothing like what we did." He shook the amusement from his voice, taking on a serious tone. "I want to review the schematics of the enhanced warp drive. Furthermore, I want to see what other enhancements Kalia made to the ship."

Sarah smiled and nodded. "Of course, love. Besides, we’re almost back. I’ll take her the rest of the way in."

Chris nodded his thanks and cleared his panel of the helm controls, bringing up a display of the enhancements that had been made.

That’s one notable enhancement, he thought. One made before we even went on shore leave...a new form of L-CARS.

The first thing he looked at was the enhanced warp core and warp drive schematics. In basic translation, the new design allowed for greater power output as well as higher warp efficiency. The already theoretical drive now would allow the ship to achieve full Transwarp velocity. On the Chochran scale, that measured about warp 19.999. I remember when the Enterprise set speed records. Well, look out Enterprise, here comes the Dragon!

Proud of his ship and crew...no, not his crew, his family, he felt a feeling of exhilaration overwhelm him, knowing that exploring the entire galaxy would take as long as it took a normal warp-powered ship to explore eight-hundred parsecs!

The other notable ‘enhancement’ was deck one...the bridge. In the final battle against the Vorkalai, Decks one and two were completely blasted off of the hull. So the ship’s chief engineer, Commander Kalia Tarkent, had taken the opportunity to take the old bridge design and throw it out the airlock. Despite the size of the bridge, it was definitely not very efficient, and could only hold key system consoles and a couple auxiliary consoles. It was almost as if the design had been thrown together at the last minute by the Delta Construction Facility staff.

The exterior of the bridge was basically the same, a circle with two square shapes, one large and one small, on either side. But the interior had changed a bit. Because the bridge was larger in diameter on the outside, a larger interior could equally be created. However, instead of using the circular design, the interior was almost square shaped, like most other bridges. Several more consoles could be held, and Chris also noticed that most of the auxiliary stations were paired off and faced each other, instead of facing against the wall or facing the center seat. It definitely was a non-standard design, but still very efficient, if not more so.

"Told you we were almost there," Sarah said as Chris noticed the multi-colored star streaks on the view screen turn into an infinite amount of white pinpricks.

Directly ahead was the Hintaru home planet, Hintaru three. What caught Chris off guard was how close they had emerged from warp to the planet.

"Cut it kind of close, didn’t we?" he asked sarcastically, bringing up a communications panel in place of the display panel. He immediately opened a channel to the large repair facility directly ahead of them.

"Starbase two, this is the Runabout Meridian requesting clearance to enter bay twelve and to dock with the Dragon," Chris said over the comm channel.

"Meridian, you are clear to enter and to dock with NCC-27749-A," a stout reply came back. "Next time, don’t come out of warp so close to the planet."

Chris smiled and unconsciously nodded, despite the fact that the person on the other end couldn’t see him. "Noted for future reference, control. Meridian out."

The facility, which was much larger than one might think a facility of its type, began to ‘grow’ on the viewscreen. Its size is a result of the need for dry dock facility. During the war, several ships were severely damaged...but after the war ended, it didn’t have many ships to repair. Hence it’s primary usage as a construction facility now.

One of the several ‘pods’ to the facility began opening its bay doors, allowing the Runabout to enter with ease. Huge bay doors...

Immediately, the most beautiful sight became available to Chris and Sarah. With only a few work pods swarming around its exterior, the ship looked wonderful. Looks like repairs are essentially complete. She’s ready to fly, right on schedule...

Chris smiled as the Meridian came around to the ship’s rear and began a docking course into the opening Shuttle Bay One. The warp nacelles engulfed their view on either side, leaving only the shuttle bay and the back of the bridge as their only view.

Inside, a fully refreshed compliment of Runabouts and shuttle craft awaited. A squadron of Bladerunners flew by the Meridian, startling Chris for a moment. Then, a new voice came over the comm system.

"Why, Captain, it’s good to see you and the Meridian safely returned."

"I don’t believe it," Chris said quietly, a broad grin overtaking his face. "James, is that you? I thought you went on shore leave!"

"I did!" Lieutenant James Trikal, the ship’s helmsman, replied. "But I got so damned bored that I had to come back and take on some CAP duty!"

Half-laughing, Chris replied, "Well, at least you got some more practice in. Maybe I’ll challenge you to another dogfight on the holodeck. Who knows, you might beat me this time."

"No doubt about that, old man!" James teased.

Chris rolled his eyes, the grin, recently expired, reappearing on his face. "James, you and I both know that thirty-one isn’t old. And Sarah here will throw you in the brig if you argue with that point."

Sarah let out a single silent laugh as James replied in an amused tone, "Sir, yes, sir! Heh. I’ll see you on the bridge, Captain."

"Right, Meridian out."

Chris allowed himself one last grin as the Meridian touched down on the deck of the shuttle bay. The impulse engines and thrusters whined down to a complete halt as the access hatch opened. Chris stepped out, followed by Sarah, and grinned again as the ship’s Science officer approached him.

"Tom Halkrat, don’t tell me you also beat me back from shore leave!" Chris said as he embraced his friend in a hug.

"I had help," he replied quietly. "I happened to be spending my last week of shore leave on the planet’s surface."

"Cheater," Chris said as he moved towards the thick double-door exit of the shuttle bay. "What’s the status?"

"Of everything?" Tom asked.

"Yes. Most of all, are the rumors of a new UFP true?"