Wondering

After the Captain sent her to work, Rashad decided to fully accustom herself with the operational capabilities of the ship. While she had already learned some of the things about the vessel during her computer "hacking" days only a few months previously, she realise, with a somewhat childish curiosity, that there was still a lot to find out.

*Hmm* she thought passing by the Slip Stream Drive console. *This is, by far, not what most of the Starfleet ships have aboard... I wonder why the Starfleet Command put this ship into the hands of the crew if indeed this was a crew of rogues. Weird..*

She thought back of her position back on DS14, as a JAG officer... While she had been very successful as a lawyer, she somehow never found complete job satisfaction....always wanting more.

Then came the hacking. At first just to help her clients the details of the prosecution's cases against whom were, for some reason, never fully disclosed to the defence as they were supposed to have been. Then, to enhance her knowledge of Starfleet's operations. Later, just out of sheer curiosity, and going far beyond just the Starfleet data banks.

She found her satisfaction where her job could not fully satisfy her. The Romulan-Bajoran longed for something else... And it came... In the form of the constantly increasing levels of information she was absorbing, from the sources the ordinary Starfleet officers were not even supposed to know about.

Then the rising suspicions... The weird looks from her colleagues... And, finally, one day, her arrest, just as she was to start conducting another case...

Rashad T`Kul was taken to a classified location and, for two months, interrogated by the officers in black Starfleet uniforms. They all wanted to know whom she was working for. She underwent many mind-melds and Betazoid readings, and they still did not believe that she was just a hacker. They always thought she was something more....

Finally, after two months that, for her, lasted like centuries, the "black uniforms" put her into a more comfortable cell and left her alone. Rashad had just about sighed in relief, when, a week later, two Admirals, one in a black-uniformed Admiral, came into her cell...

To her relief, there weren't going to be any more interrogations. The Admiral offered her a job. There was no choice: it was made clear to the Romulan-Bajoran that she would not be allowed to return to the JAG department. She was to keep an eye on a "rogue" crew of Starfleet officers running a highly classified advanced prototype starship... She was also to help them fight probably the most dangerous threat to the Federation - the Borg.

This time it was her, Rashad T`Kul, who was wearing a black uniform, with the field commission of Lieutenant JG. She was a "spook", and , for some reason, for the first time in her career, she was already getting more job satisfaction than in her whole previous 2-year career as a lawyer....

Somewhat lost in her thoughts, yet somehow managing to pay attention to all the details of what she was studying, Rashad finally ended up in front of the Operations Console.

"How can I help you, Lieutenant T`Kul?" asked the Senior Operations Officer, Lieutenant Rhoukann.

*Hmm... Just got here and everyone already seems to know me. A quite efficient crew...* thought the Romulan-Bajoran and smiled. "You must be Lieutenant Jhey Rhoukann. Nice to meet you. Now could you please acquaint me with the rest of the ship's operational systems?"

"With pleasure, Lieutenant" answered Lieutenant Rhoukann and started to show Rashad all the different systems controls and explaining how everything worked.

*Hmm...* she thought. *What a co-operative and efficient officer. I must make note about this in my first report to Admiral Beard...*

They were just about finished with the study of the operations' console, when Rashad's combadge chirped.

[Captain, Lieutenant T'kul. Please meet me in the ready room. And please open a line to StarFleet Command.] Came the voice of the First Officer, Lieutenant Harris.

"Aye!" answered the Intelligence Officer.

She turned to Lieutenant Rhoukann, smiling slightly again. "Thank you very much for your assistance. And in the future could you please call me Lieutenant Rashad. You see, T`Kul is my first name that had been given to me by my Romulan father. My surname is Rashad. On Bajor we always put our surname first when using our names.. "

*And this has been very difficult to grasp, even for the Starfleet Command officers, those who are non-Bajoran...* she finished the sentence started out loud with a thought.

She had to wait outside the ready room for a couple of minutes as Captain Devore got there from his quarters. The Human Captain looked very sleepy and tired.

They finally entered the ready room and the First Officer followed in just a couple of minutes just as the Captain was starting his conversation with the Admiral.

What Lieutenant Harris had to say was indeed worrying. The Borg had finally found a way to invade the whole Alpha Quadrant. And they, as officers of Starfleet, had to somehow stop them.

Rashad suddenly felt weak, incapable to do anything to alter the fate of the Federation. Yet her Vulcan logic training she had received while at the Science Academy, told her that to every problem, there, logically, was a solution.

"Sir, I will do everything one can do, sir!" she said to her new Captain as she was exiting the ready room and he was ordering the use of the Slip Stream Drive.

*And I hope what one can logically do will be enough.* She thought to herself while on her way off the bridge to her quarters, to get some rest.

As soon as she got there, she collapsed onto her bed with exhaustion. Despite all her Vulcan training, the events of the past two months had made her quite tired....