Despair and Concern.

Posted on Thu Sep 17th, 2026 @ 3:44pm by Lieutenant Commander Imik S'Niohun

554 words; about a 3 minute read

Mission: Here There Be Dragons
Location: Bridge
Timeline: Present

ON

Imik had been monitoring the comm's traffic about Shran's response to the Dragons, she slowly shook her head side to side. *Typical male reaction to these creatures* she thought. It was clear that either Jon had said nothing or Shran was determined to simply ignore, bluster, engage and finally attack the Dragons. It would earn a response from the Chaos faction that could get the away teams killed, even the Harmony faction could react violently if they felt threatened by Shran's actions.

Using the ships sensors, Imik now scanned the planet for the nesting grounds and found a very worrying situation. Some of the minerals Shran was so determined to obtain sat squarely within one of the nesting areas, that would put both the Washington and every Dragon on the planet in direct conflict But for some unexplained reason he wouldn't listen or except advice on not continuing this course of action, would the death of crew members bring him back to reality?

He continued to except the Earth European definition of what a Dragon was, and Phlox simply enforced that definition confirming Shran's blind faith in his course. Not all Dragons conformed to this narrow definition, just as life in the universe was varied and diverse so was Dragon kind. So far he'd been lucky but Imik knew from Ojnas records that wouldn't last, somewhere sometime that luck would run out and the Dragons would kill. Despite her reservations Imik now kept quiet, Shran wasn't going to listen nor would he change direction.

She rescanned the area and yes there was the proof that a conflict was looming, the nesting areas held what the Federation wanted and what Shran needed to get his gold star for this mission. Imik looked around and thought to herself, *Why had things turned out this way?* When first she joined it seemed a world away from her last deployment, how quickly that illusion had been shattered.

Working on another scan, Imik now shifted her thoughts to other matters. Could other planets in the system hold other Dragons? It was possible, but just how did these creatures migrate through space? Did they migrate through space or was some other method being used by the creatures? She had read in some very old Ojnas files that a scientist had proposed that Dragons could at one point in their life, induce a portal between locations. If that were true could they see a Dragon appear on the ship?

There was no evidence that the portal theory was correct or just fantasy, but these creatures had been found on other planets was it just chance? Or was there something else yet undiscovered? Given time Imik was sure the answers would be found, she only hoped that casualties wouldn't be needed or required to gain that knowledge. But this mission seemed headed in that direction, why? She did not know.

Movement caught her eye, at first she thought the Dragons were on the move. But closer inspection showed it to be a shuttle, but it was pursuing a dragon not a good idea. Imik was about to contact the shuttle when it broke off its pursuit, she let out a long slow breath. This Federation was beginning to act like the Romulans and Klingons, fire first and damn the consequences.

OFF

 

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