Post Number: 307 *Seeding*

Posted on Mon Jan 19th, 2026 @ 12:39am by Lieutenant JG Fara Galaway & Ensign Hannah Thrace

3,161 words; about a 16 minute read

Mission: A New Beginning

On:

There couldn't really be stranger places for away missions to start than this - not the transporter room, not the shuttlebay no this was the promenade. It was late morning on Obsidian and Hannah was sat, in civvies, at a table in one of the restaurants. The notable presence of the Ocampa onboard was a regular reminder that they still had a job to do and if that wasn't enough the big red planet outside the windows was certainly enough to hammer the point home. Her gaze was firmly on a doorway across the promenade, not because she was expecting someone to come out of it but because she was thinking about what the next few hours held. The problem with terraforming the planet was that the textbook Starfleet method was extremely slow and gradual, yet here they were with the suggestion that there was a quicker way to do it - the drawback? It was highly classified, and Hannah was fairly confident that there was a good reason for that, so much so that she was virtually certain that the leaks were not coming from the list of people who likely knew the details. That in itself raised more concerns but that was for later and as much as she didn't like dancing to someone elses tune there was only one path and that was to follow the trail of breadcrumbs and see where the dust settled.

Fara nodded politely as she passed a few familiar faces on the promenade, but didn't stop to talk. She was dressed in jeans and a comfortable long sleeved Tshirt, and felt out of place. Rolling her eyes at her own ridiculousness, she continued forward. She spotted her destination, and made her way through the doors. She scanned the room, and seeing Hannah, made her way over.

"Hello," she said softly.

Hannah looked up and smiled "Hello" she replied, there was no sign of Rory yet, "Grab yourself a drink while we wait."

Galaway nodded in agreement, and headed for the bar. While her back was turned, Rory entered the establishment. He spotted Hannah sitting with a drink already, and Fara further away ordering at the bar.

"Hey there," he said and then pointed at the bar. "I'll grab a drink and be right back." Fara, hearing his voice smiled at him, and then turned, ordering her drink. She passed him on her way back and nodded politely, and brought her drink back to the table. It only took a few more minutes before Rory returned as well.

Hannah waited for both Fara and Rory to sit down "Ok everything I'm about to tell you is not to be repeated, this is need to know until the Captain says otherwise." she said quietly "As you both know the standard procedure for seeding a planets atmosphere for terraforming purposes is to throw a comet with enough ice in it into the atmosphere and let nature take its course over the next few decades. We don't really have decades when it comes to Ocampa. Therefore I started doing research into alternatives, in the course of that research someone left information directing me to look at something from almost 200 years ago that is highly classified and I mean there are a handful of people on base who have access to it and I don't believe any of them are responsible." she sighed "So we're hopefully going to kill two birds with one stone, we're being pointed at an event from history for a reason, we're going to find out what that is and what it has to do with our current problem. And if we're lucky in doing so we'll find out just who is leaving us the breadcrumbs."

Rory and Fara exchanged a quick glance, and then Rory spoke.

"Do we have a heading," he asked, his voice dropping low so that only the two women could hear? The Science Officer almost didn't hear him ask. She say pondering what technology was available to dramatically skip decades of planetary environmental change, and of so... Why wasn't it being used throughout the galaxy?

"What is this technology," she asked?

"I don't know what the technology is." Hannah said quietly "But I've never known anything be this tight lipped, I got court martialled for violating the omega directive, the Omega particle is a known thing, but this... I've never heard of the like of it so I assume it's one heck of a double edged sword." she sighed "The doors on the opposite side of the promenade with the Bajoran markings on them are where we're going."

Rory glanced instinctually towards the location that Hannah had mentioned.

"I don't know about you, but now more than ever I feel that secrets only breed destruction- especially when the fate of the Federation is in question."

Fara didn't speak right away, instead her mind was calculating risks and reward.

"Well," she said finally, "I say we figure out what it is, and then put it to use."

"Let's hope it's that easy." Hannah said "Shall we go?"

Rory pushed himself away from the table, a serious expression on his face. His gaze shifted from the women in front of him to the doors on the other side of the promenade.

"Do we think they're just gonna let us in?"

"It's the Bajoran temple, it's a public space on the promenade." Hannah said "They're letting us in and they're being really nice and helpful by keeping people out while we're in there."

Fara nodded to herself, wondering just how easy it would be if it was being kept a secret. She glanced over at Hannah, remembering that this woman seemed to be very good at getting things done, and was reassured.

"Okay, after you," she said with a small smile, and motioned for the other two to walk ahead. Rory didn't say much, but seemed to agree. The trio walked for a few moments in silence, letting the sounds of the Promenade wash over them. When they approached the Bajoran Temple, he stopped and looked at Hannah.

"Here goes nothing," he said.

"Yep." Hannah said as they stepped inside the temple. The interior was empty of people but standing there atop the various plinths were the orbs of the prophets, brought to the Delta Quadrant aboard the Angel courtesy of their trip through the Bajoran wormhole. "This." Hannah continued tapping the top of one of the orb containers "Is the Orb of Time. It'll allow us to travel back in time nearly 200 years so we can find out from the right place and the right time exactly what this technology is. What I will tell you is that these orbs will take us back in time but we will not be able to effect the events that we find ourselves in if any."

Fara looked at the orb with curiosity.

"I know that Wesley Crusher used this orb... what? 15 or 20 years ago? It was used to attempt to alter the timeline... in fact there are plenty of documented uses of it, but I never expected to be another." She glanced at the two on either side of her. "Where exactly are we going?"

"An old Federation science station called Regula One." Hannah said "Nearly two hundred years ago the Federation was running research on whatever this classified technology is on that station. Nearly all of the station staff were reported as murdered just before the Mutara Nebula incident." Fara blinked.

"That's...comforting," she said. Rory shot her a wry smile.

"We will be fine," he assured her. "Whatever is there we need, and we will get it." Galaway nodded, hoisting the strap of her bag higher up her shoulder before looking at Hannah.

"Lead the way," she said.

Hannah nodded and with one swift movement opened the case of the Orb of Time, revealing the typical flash of bright light.

-----------------------

When the light faded Hannah looked around they weren't on Obsidian anymore and by the looks of the labels on the wall they were on Regula One. It was quiet, hauntingly so, but given the history the silence was a good thing. There was the briefest window of opportunity to be here just after the vast majority of the crew had been murdered and just after the killers had left aboard the USS Reliant but before the arrival of the USS Enterprise, the smallest of windows to do what they needed to do without running into temporal prime directive issues.

"Operations Centre." Hannah said looking around "Or at least what passes for it."

Fara glanced around, and pulled out her tricorder. Her mind was still having trouble believing what had just happened but she put that aside in order to focus on the task at hand.

"What exactly are we looking for," Rory asked?

"I'm not sure," the Science Officer said honestly, but she motioned down the corridor ahead of them. "But that door down there says restricted so I'd guess we start there?"

"Yeah." Hannah said "We don't know how much time we've got so let's hurry." the trio moved quickly down the corridor to the door there was a security console on the wall that presumably a way of monitoring who was accessing the room "All yours Mr McGregor."

Rory gave a quick grin, and quickly moved towards the console. He accessed the security config files, and tried to disable the door access record logs, but he frowned.

"What is it," Fara asked? She glanced down the other end of the hallway out of reflex, to make sure that no one was coming.

"They have the record logs tied in to a security alarm, to prevent anyone from tampering with it. But-" he said as he flashed her a grin, "they did not count on me coming." Fara hid a grin and an eyeroll, and watched him work. He carefully removed the panel from the wall, making sure that he did not dislodge any of the wires that were connected. He traced a bright blue wire to its source and cut it where it was routed through the power source. "Now," he said as he returned the panel, "let me just re-access the log...." he glanced over at Hannah. "We are clear. No one will find this out for a long time," he said.

Hannah nodded, covering their tracks was important, pivotal even, there may not be a Temporal Investigations Division anymore but the last thing they needed to do was alter the timeline. Stepping into what appeared to be a large laboratory Hannah took a moment to look around, there was obviously something missing - presumably whatever it was that Kahn's people aboard the Reliant had stolen. But the computers were still there and still operational. Hannah walked over to the nearest one as the other two looked around and pressed some buttons, she was met by a security screen but you didn't get to be an expert in encryption and decryption in Starfleet without knowing how to bypass this sort of obstacle and given she was looking at a system that was a couple of centuries out of date to her this was a lot simpler than she was used to. Once she was past the security screen there was a moment of processing before the computer brought up something called a 'Demonstration Presentation' it was the image of a blonde haired woman, Hannah recognised the woman from her research this was Doctor Carol Marcus.

"Project Genesis a proposal to the Federation." Doctor Marcus's voice came out of the computer "What exactly is Genesis? Well put simply Genesis is life from lifelessness. It is a process whereby molecular structure is reorganised at the subatomic level into life generating matter of equal mass. Stage one of our experiments was conducted in a laboratory. Stage two of the series will be attempted in a lifeless underground. Stage three will involve the process on a planetary scale, it is our intention to introduce the Genesis device into a pre-selected area of a lifeless space body - a moon or other dead form. The device is delivered instantaneously causing what we're calling the Genesis effect, matter is reorganised with life generating results." there was now a visual sequence of a simulated moon being subjected to this effect "Instead of a dead moon, a living breathing planet capable of sustaining whatever lifeforms we see fit to deposit on it. The reformed moon simulated here represents the merest fraction of the Genesis potential should the Federation wish to fund these experiments to their logical conclusion. When we consider the cosmic problems of population and food supply the usefulness of this process becomes clear. This concludes our proposal, thank you for your attention."

With a short beep the screen went blank and Hannah sucked in a breath now she understood why this was so highly classified, it was scientific genius but in the wrong hands the most deadly weapon in galactic history. It was nowhere near what she'd expected to find. It was also quite likely that the Genesis device mentioned in the presentation was what was missing from the laboratory.

"Get into the computers." Hannah said after a moment "Specifications, theory, progress, logs... anything related to this stuff we need it."

Without a word Fara went to the nearest console and began the search. She had heard the message, and like Hannah realized how deadly this could be in the wrong hands. She knew it wasn't going to be in an obvious place; details like these tended to be hidden and even fragmented, but they needed the information.

Rory, glancing down the corridor one more time, also joined the women in the search. As an Engineer, he had a good feeling that the engineer's on this project kept meticulous notes, and he hoped that they wouldn't be hidden behind a ton of encryption and passwords.

After a few minutes, Galaway gasped. When the others turned towards her, she pointed at the screen.

"I thought it was going to be more, but it's something. It looks like a diagram, but I can't understand the language it's written in." The diagram in question was labeled as Project Genesis, but Rory couldn't make out the rest of the text either.

Hannah blinked as she looked at it "That's because it's a combination of several different languages." she said pointing some out "Egyptian hieroglyphics, fictional elvish, nordic runes... that's a very early form of Bajoran, that's Iccobar... it's an effective cipher it's almost like every individual syllable is in a different language." she smiled "But that." she tapped part of the coded language "That's a formula of some sort, you can tell because despite it being a different language all formula's have common denominators that set them apart." she was a lot more curious than she thought because this was a cipher that was far more complex than she would have expected, though assuming it was Carol Marcus that had done it then it made sense.

"Let me follow the trail then," Fara said, looking for other documents within the same sub folder. After a few minutes, she found another, and then a third file not long after that.

Rory, on the other hand, was finding schematics, but nothing exactly linked to the Genesis project. He was about to give up when he scrolled past a file that had Carol Marcus' name in the bottom corner. He went back to it, and nodded. This had to be it.

"I think this is the machine they used," he finally said- pointing at his screen.

Hannah looked at the screen, what Rory was pointing at resembled a probe design from the time, though it was judging off the measurements slightly longer and a little bulkier. "I agree" she said "Let's get a copy of that and the scientific records and get out of here."

The Engineer nodded, and inserted a data disk into the drive. He glanced over his shoulder out of habit, knowing that they were safe for the moment. He initiated the data transfer, and after a moment, looked up.

"I have it." Fara nodded, holding her own disk.

"I have these files as well. Let's go," she said.

Hannah took one more glance at the stations sensors and smiled, there it was just coming into the stations sensor range a refitted Constitution class the USS Enterprise under the command of one Admiral James T. Kirk. The archaeologist in her wanted to hang around in the shadows to witness history but the temporal prime directive was the temporal prime directive. She turned towards the corridor that they'd entered from and sure enough the tear drop shaped orb of time was hovering there waiting for them. She made her way over and extended her hand out to touch it.

Fara followed Hannah, and reached her hand out, Rory doing the same only a second later. A flash of light surrounded them, and within a seconds time they were once again standing in the Bajoran Temple.

Disoriented, but otherwise okay Galaway turned to the others.

"That was...interesting," she said.

"Time travel's always an experience." Hannah said as she stepped over to the orb and closed the casing "And orb experiences are something else." she smiled.

As an Engineer McGregor wasn't surprised by much, but that had been a surreal experience. He glanced behind them at the orb, marvelling at the opportunity they had received.

"So what now?"

"Well..." Hannah said "I'm going to talk to the Captain. If you two could take a look at those specifications we found and start the process of replicating the components and building the shell."

Fara and Rory exchanged looks and the Science Officer nodded.

"After we figured out the formula, it should be pretty straightforward deciphering the rest. We will get to work "

Hannah smiled at them both and taking a breath she walked out of the temple, all things being equal then this was at least theoretically the first step achieved and the harder one to come. But, if this was dancing to someone else's tune then they hadn't done anything that that person hadn't wanted them to do. So the questions were obvious now who had put them on this path? And were their intentions good or ill?

As they watched Thrace walk away, Fara turned to McGregor and nodded to him.

"We have a lot of work to do, but hopefully we can figure this out quickly." The pair began to exit as the Engineer spoke.

"I know we will. We have to succeed...there's too much at stake." That was the truth of the matter. They had to figure this out, and quickly too.

Off:

Lt. JG Fara Galaway
Assistant Chief Science Officer
Starbase Obsidian

Lt. JG Rory McGregor
Assistant Chief Engineering Officer
Starbase Obsidian

Ensign Hannah Thrace
Alien Archaeologist & Anthropologist/Intelligence Officer
Starbase Obsidian

 

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