Five women marched purposefully down a corridor in the executive suites section of the orbital office complex. Two of them wore serious businesslike expressions on their faces, two looked a little excited, while the last one was gawking out the large bay windows barely able to contain her enthusiasm.
"Oh wow!" she exclaimed. "Will you look at those!" She pressed her hands against the transparent aluminum of the window, mesmerized. Her comrades stopped their march and backtracked a few steps to the window to see what all the commotion was about.
"Come on, Kimmie. We'll be late for our appointment," said Lee Carter, trying to prod the youngest member of the team into motion again.
"I'll bet those are the new testbed ships I've heard about," said Kim, ignoring her commander for the moment and pointing at a pair of sleek one-man craft that were on maneuvers near the office.
Lee squinted into the dark of space, curious in spite of herself, and Max, Sam and Jo crowded around as well. As fighter pilots, they'd all heard rumor of the new ships of course. That sort of news was hard to keep a secret.
Kimmie was still talking: "They're supposed to be loosely based on our own enhanced Peregrine II fighters, but instead of using an old hull design and cramming a whole bunch of new tech into it like they did with ours, these are a totally new design."
"I heard the weapons are adapted from Borg tech," said Sam.
"With Hirogen sensors," chimed in Jo.
Now Max spoke up for the first time, chiding her teammates: "You all should know better than to listen to wild rumors. Besides, those aren't our birds."
Outside the station, the two small ships whirled and pirouetted through their daring choreography. Training lasers lanced between them and tiny puffs of gas fine-tuned their trajectories. They were darting around and changing directions more quickly than a human pilot would have been able to fly them. Without warning, one of the craft flashed away in the telltale burst of warp energy, with the other in close pursuit, and space was suddenly empty. A mere two seconds later, the two ships flashed back into view, having made an impossibly fast course-reversal and returned to their starting point.
"Come on, let's go," said Lee when the show was over. "Or we really will be late." She started off again down the corridor, and her teammates followed her. Kim was the last to leave the window, probably imagining what it would be like to tinker with those new ships.
They had to wait only a few minutes before being admitted to Admiral Pike's office. Lining up before the Admiral's desk, they stood at attention until the Admiral, seated behind the big desk, looked up from his paperwork.
When he looked at Lee, he smiled, stood up and shook her hand. "Good to see you, Lieutenant. It's good to see all of you again," he amended amiably.
Unaccustomed to seeing the Admiral act this informally, Lee could only say, "Ah, thank you Admiral. We feel the same, of course."
"Right. Well, let's get down to business" said Pike, reseating himself. "I have your new orders." He shuffled through a pile of PADDs and selected one. Glancing at it, he asked, "Ever hear of the Briar Patch?"
Lee nodded. Few people nowadays hadn't heard of the nebula where the "Fountain of Youth" planet was, although most people dismissed the story as a simple fairy tale.
Pike continued, "You've been assigned to the Federation Supply Base 901, located on the other side. There's trouble brewing out there with the Son'a again, among other people, and things could get hairy. We need to bolster our presence -- a small show of force, if you will."
Lee and Max spared each other a quick dubious glance. Lee spoke up: "Sir, if the Federation needs a show of force, why not send a real ship, like the Knight? Why send a few Peregrines?"
Pike leaned back and smiled. "I'm not sending the Peregrines," he said enigmatically. After a period carefully calculated to build the suspense, he nodded his head in the direction of the big window at the other end of the office. There, illuminated by reflected Earthlight, were two sleek one-man craft. Lee's eyes lit when she saw them, and her hopes were confirmed when Pike pointed at the window and said simply, "I'm sending those."