Reflections

Toran's quarters fit him perfectly. The main room contained all of his memorabilia from his service to Starfleet. All of his uniforms, rank insignia, medals and antique equipment decorated the walls. Toran was taking his normal 20 minute meditation session in the center of his floor. His legs were folded "indian style", his arms to his sides and his hands raised about six inches off the floor in front of him with his palms facing up, and of course, his eyes were closed.

*Why didn't I see it ?* Toran asked himself over and over as he went over the events since the Borg encounter. Things had not gone as they should have. Toran ALWAYS sensed when things were wrong, but not this time. Anderson had taken him and everyone else by surprise.

"This isn't doing me any good," Toran said rising to his feet, "I need to beat the crap out of something."

Toran knew just where to go to. Within minutes he was standing outside of the holodeck loading a pool hall program, but no ordinary pool hall.

As he stepped inside, he noticed how pungent the thick, smokey air was. *I can't believe that humans killed themselves for so long with that crap* He thought.

"You," a man screamed as he grabbed Toran's shoulder and swung him around, "why you be disrespectin' my girl dog ?"

*Great, it had to use the ancient Earth city slang* He thought remembering what he had read about the late 1990's on Earth.

"I said somethin' to you dog." The large man said still holding Toran's shoulder, "you better answer."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Toran answered evenly as he turned to find a table.

"Did I tell you that you could leave bitch ?" the large man said as he grabbed Toran again. "That's my girl over there, and I saw you lookin' at her."

The woman that the man pointed out was a tall, voluptuous woman of african descent. "Oh her," Toran said grinning, "yeah, I looked at her, I couldn't believe that there was a woman that ugly in the world."

"I know you didn't just say that." The man screamed enraged.

"Then you don't know much." Toran retorted still grinning.

The enraged man swung at Toran and for the first time Toran noticed just how much larger both the man and his girlfriend were than he. Both of them loomed over Toran, but that had never stopped him before. Toran caught the behemoth's right hand in his left, and snapped it back causing the giant to winch in pain. Screaming something incomprehensible, the man lunged for Toran head first. Again, just as quickly Toran countered the move, this time by side stepping and sending his left foot into the man's left knee. The giant collapsed into a heap on the floor crying like a baby. "When you're ready to play," Toran said still grinning, "make sure you can play with the big boys."

"Hold it." An alto voice called from the other side of the pool hall. It was the man's girlfriend and she had a good two
inches on the giant that Toran had already sent to the floor crying. "I don't like people that talk about me."

"You must wear the pants," Toran taunted from his place. All the while, his grin had never left his face.

This further infuriated the woman. Toran saw something shiny come out of her purse and sail towards him. *Damn, a knife.*

Just as swiftly as she had thrown it at him. Toran was able to catch it before it struck, "You'll have to do better than that."

"Then I will," she yelled as she lunged at Toran.

*What is it with these people and wrestling.* Toran asked himself as he side stepped the giant woman. *Maybe next time I should program a pair of Klingons, more challenge.*

As the woman slid by him, Toran folded his hands together and brought both of them down on the small of her back, snapping several vertebrae and severing her spinal cord. As she lay on the floor motionless Toran called, "Computer, end program."

The surroundings of the pool hall were immediately replaced by the yellow grid of the holodeck. *That's my workout for today, now it's time for changes.*

Twenty minutes later Toran was at the head of the security conference table with his senior most personnel going over the changes he wanted to see in security. Even their newest arrival, Captain Phanan was there

"Everything strange that happens on this ship, I wanna know about, immediately. I don't care if it's the middle of my sleep cycle, I want to know, is that understood gentleman," Toran explained.

A collective "aye sir" came from the group.

"Good," Toran replied."Now, Captain Phanan, I would appreciate it if you would schedule some battle drill for some of my men. These are to be short and take place when they are off shift. Can you handle that for me ?"

"Aye sir." The Captain replied dutifully. Toran still was not sure what to think of this man. He had heard the Marines described as Starfleet's "double hard bastards." It was usually a fitting description, and this guy was marine to the core. It seemed that he felt more of a camaraderie with the enlisted men though, especially in his choice of quarters. Toran would definitely have to read his file

"Chief Tulac." Toran said tuning his attention to his Vulcan assistant, "From now on, I want anything that even looks like a subspace transmission to be tracked. Also, starting tomorrow, you and I are going to start pouring through this ship's computers. I want to know every authorization code in the system and who it belongs to. We aren't close to federation space, so there is no reason for any Admirals to have power over our system."

"Sir," Tulac began, "I must remind you that..."

"I know," Toran said cutting him off, "we'll have to worry about the regs when we start deleting things."

"Yes sir," Tulac responded dutifully.

"Hawkins, Elase, Lavar, and Dachus, on your shifts, you have just become Lieutenant Rashad's shadows. I want to know where she is at all times. Don't follow her to the bridge, but you better follow her everywhere else. Do I make my self clear."

"Clear sir." The four replied in unison.

"Very well," Toran said rising, "if there is nothing else, you are dismissed."