Messages from Home

Bridge

Lieutenant Barker was at his science station on the Bridge, running detailed scans of the debris field left behind from the battle with the Borg. He was also monitoring the progress of the runabout *Nile*, while it searched the debris.

The sensors on the *Nile* were not powerful enough to scan the whole debris field with any accuracy, so Chu was using the sensors on the Leviathan to make a more detailed sweep and directing the *Nile* to anything interesting. With debris spread over a million square miles of space, there was a lot of 'spoils' to examine.

An engineering team was hard at work repairing the main operations console. Whilst it was being repaired all the operations functions had been routed through the science and tactical consoles. Lieutenant Toran was at his tactical station, scanning for any enemy presence, Borg or Romulan. The Romulans had shown little interest in the spoils of the battle, they obviously had other problems on their minds, like a decimated Empire. In fact most of the traffic had been smaller scout craft or vessels from species that were allied with the Empire.

Suddenly the science console beeped at Chu and he looked down. He quickly realized that there was no problem. It was just an operational message. It was an acknowledgment signal for the daily Starfleet transmission update. This procedure happened every twelve hours, where transmission was possible. All non urgent transmissions were stored up and transmitted as a single package burst.

Chu ran down the list of messages, there were over two hundred, mostly operational reports and updates. None of the messages had a priority one status, which would mean notifying the recipient immediately. In return, the Leviathan had transmitted over a hundred outgoing messages. There were also around thirty personal messages, including one for Chu himself from his sister and a couple for Lieutenant Harris. He started the message sorting system and returned the function of the console back to a science station.

Crew Quarters : Deck Eight

Lieutenant Barker returned to his quarters after his shift had ended. The scans of the debris field had shown only one major find. The runabout *Nile* had brought back a Borg queen and the Captain and first officer had both seemed excited. His shift had ended soon after all the excitement and he'd decided that rather than help with the investigation, he'd try and get some sleep. The ship was soon to leave the killing fields and return to Federation space.

He walked over to the replicator and ordered a large glass of water, ten degrees, which it dutifully provided. The replicators were one of the few systems that had been undamaged during the battle. Putting the PADDs that he'd brought back with him on the desk, he sat down and took a drink of the cool water. Activating his console, it announced that there were two internal messages and one external message waiting for him.

"Computer, play all messages. Play the two internal messages first." He ordered.

The first message was from the Captain.

[The Captain sends his appreciation to all the crew of the USS Leviathan for their participation in the memorial service held for the crews of the *USS Blake* and USS Leviathan and for the brave soldiers of the Romulan Empire. Many lives have been lost over the last few days and being able to reflect on this fact brings home the futility of war and the totally evil nature of the Borg. Again, good has triumphed over evil, but how much longer can we keep paying the price of our freedom with the lives of others.]

The second message was from Lieutenant Hansen.

[Lieutenant Barker, I am pleased to report that all the blocked bio-neural circuits have been replaced and the filtering of the remaining dead bio-gel should be complete in a couple of hours. I'll let you know when everything is complete.]

The final message was the one that he'd earlier received on the Bridge. It was from his sister Samiz, back on Earth. The message started with a Starfleet medical icon, with the message recording time and date. It had actually been recorded a couple of days ago and had taken this long to be routed through to the Leviathan. The familiar face of his younger sister then replaced the Starfleet image. Chu missed his sister, since the death of their mother the bond between them had grown stronger.

[Hi big brother, I hear that you've been helping out the Romulans and having some fun with the Borg. I hope that this message finds you well and that you're looking after yourself. I am sending you the information that you requested at the end of this message.I'll speak to you soon Chu, lots of hugs.]

*Sisters, who'd have them.* He thought.

Chu searched around his desk and found what he was looking for. Inserting an iso-linear data chip into the data slot of the console, he announced to the computer.

"Computer, download the attachment from the last message played onto the data chip in this console and perform a secure delete on the attachment."

<Download complete. The attachment has been deleted.>

Chu removed the data chip from the console and placed it where he knew he would be able to find it when he needed it. Finishing his glass of water, Chu decided that he would try to get some sleep. With his overtime getting the EMH back on-line and his duty shifts, he'd only managed to get around twelve hours sleep over the past four days. By then, the computer system should be back to normal and he'd take another look at the EMH.