The Continuing Story of Deep Space 2: Page 51
And the DS2 Story continues in : DS2 The New Beginning
Since Arthur's last experience with the Vorlon ambassador, months have passed.
Personel log - Admiral van Rhee - stardate 150199 entry 1
It has been a while since I made an entry in my personel log. Actually… I think it might be my first entry since almost a month and a half…has it been that long ? ! Gosh … I'd better start over again, and, this looks like a fine occasion. Finally, these are the first moments I can spare from my off-duty time. Lately it has all been just work and sleep and work and sleep and…
Where can I begin…Oh wel…Last year the station was nearly run over by The Giloppen - a mysterious race about which are almost no written records or known contacts registered - and, on the brink of defeat, DS2 prevailed with the help of the USS Ajax, a ship originating in an alternate timeline.
Since then, the combined crew of DS2 and Ajax have been secretly working, with some help of the Ajax drones and Starfleet, on the upgrade of the station. A spacehangar was installed, like those on the big Earth-orbiting stations, a massive cloaking device and extremely powerful, but somewhat unreliable because of their experimental design phasers.
The combined efforts began to show and DS2 became a 'lighting spot' where there used to be an old abandoned space station ; although in the rest of the UFP DS2 was still looked upon as a somewhat old, inferior, station, not nearly as funtional and powerful as other spacestations of this sort.
It was forbidden, much to Arthur's frustration, to speak freely about the latest changes, Only few people at Starfleet and even fewer in the Vorlon empire, new what Arthur new.
Recognition from Starfleet, though, was very rewarding, especially since the defeat of the Giloppen. That defeat enabled Starfleet to a decisive victory over the, until then, unbeaten Dominion and the new technology aboard the USS Ajax gave DS2 finally a fighting chance against the ever threatening Borg. Therefore, as beeing Starfleet's first (and in this sector last) line of defense some extra hands were sent over to help out and to improve the somewhat difficult communications with the San Francisco headquarters.
By the direct order of admiral Necheyev, Ensign Joeri Verschaeve became appointed as chief of security and, by the unexpected request of the Vorlon Ambassador, Ensign Joost Dierickx was appointed as Command officer.
I was very reluctant to take this people under his command. They were all, like chief of intelligence, Lt Jg, Geert Van Nieuwenhove, forced upon me by powers I seem not be able to control, not even as beeing a full admiral and CO of this station.
All these decisions, taken whitout my consent, made it hard for me to fully accept them as crewmembers (not to mention the, often ignored, requests for more information about the freshmen, all the loose ends, the weeks since any contact with the ambassador, the incomplete personnel-records, the irradic behaviour of SF command, the many changes at the top,…Am I just beeing paranoid ?)
But… since their arrival in the last weeks, work had been progressing at a faster pace than before, and they did their best to fit in with the other crewmembers, although some frictions between different crewmembers still excist.
"Computer …end log entry nr 1"
Arhur sat back in his old chair, and gazed over his computer, around in his quarters.
He found these few moments he had, so refreshing. Finally some time to just let the mind wandering… How good that felt. Arthur fell asleep…
Half an hour later…
"Engineering to adm van Rhee…., please come in Sir. ! ! Engineering to adm van Rhee…, please respond Sir ! ! This is an emergency…Please come down to engineering !"
Arthur woke scaringly up, and since he was leaning back too far in his chair when he fell asleep, he slipped out the chair and hit his head against a leg of his desk…
"Aaauuuwww…..Damn….You better have a damn good reason to pull a stunt on me like that ! ! ! I will be over there in a few minutes."
"I was heaving such a nice dream about an old televised series…Baywatch.. I believe they called it…and …OOOhhhh my head hurts ! !…Next time I must remind myself to shut down the comm system in my quarters, in stead of putting it louder ! ! Ooohh my head …Darn F***** desk ! ! ! And -off course-- never a painkiller around when you need one. I hope, for their sakes, that Marianne or Helena are somewhere near sickbay or that, at least, they kept de medicine storages unlocked ."
Meanwhile, two decks higher, in the astrometrics lab, cmdr Wim Keuleers, was, since three weeks, working on fine-tuning a flow regulator for better screening-devices of subspacelayers, on which, since a few days, he was making progress, (thanks to a tip from Jan Roel van Rhee). Now he, and Jan Roel - who joined him in his effort five days ago, were concentrating their efforts on putting a flux-capacitor between the powergenerators of the quantum singularity. Just as Wim was crawling from under the 800 kgs heavy device he realised, almost as in a revelation, that this was the first time he could be working on some scientific experiments since the beginning of the struggle for survival of his crew, a few years ago - first against the dominion and then the Borg - in the other space-continuum. He tried so hard to forget the fighting, the loss of many friends, relatives,…It made him wonder on how Helena, and especially the cadets, were experiencing this exciting time of new opportunities…
"Engineering to cmdr Wim Keuleers…Engineering to cmdr Wim Keuleers…This is Lt. Louis…please come down to engineering…we need you to look at something… ! ! !"
"Ok…I will be right there." …he sighed.
"Why do these communications always have such a bad timing."…he asked rhetorically.
Jan Roel knew not to answer that question. They would end up arguing and disputing about things that are not even closely to the point and would have no meaning at all. Things have become so stressed the last weeks…or was it sust a feeling ? A few days ago he had a, stupid , argument with Luke, and they would have had a fight, if not Jan Theys had pulled them apart. It was a dispute about a PADD not beeing on his place, could it be more foolish ? Joeri, Helena and Geert were seen in a heated discussion on whether to take shore-leaf on Earth or on Risa.
Wim and Jan Roel worked flawlessly together on this project, like fine colleages sharing ideas and techniques, but two days agoo, they too, had a rough - and foolish - dispute , and since then their working relationship became more tense with the hour. What was all the more strange was that they both didn't even know anymore about what the argument was.
"Jan Roel, can you manage the closures by yourself ? Don't forget to test the microfissions on the singularity-chamber. We can't be having a black hole running around this area." …
And, still laughing, Wim entered the Turbolift.
Jan Roel angry replied "Off course I know that I have to check the microfusions, I am not a ten year old child." But the turbolift doors shutted and Wim couldn't hear him anymore.
Jan Roel,frustrated, began wondering on how to pay him back.
He took the tricorder and began checking the fussions,while having a small grin on his face.