Meeting For An Egg and a Drink

Posted on Sat Apr 11th, 2020 @ 2:15pm by

1,086 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Prologue: Before the Inferno
Location: Officers Lounge IRW Dominus
Timeline: 238603.01

Lt. Kerika Ch'Kretak sat in the officers lounge of the IRW Dominus sipping an ale and feeling all the better for it. She had asked Lt T'Lan to meet her here as she had something very important to ask him.

She had come to like the science officer. He was handsome and intelligent and was reasonably sure that he could help her. They had worked very well together in the past and Kerika was reasonably sure he would find what she had to be extremely interesting.

She looked out of the view port as the stars slowly streaked by. It was quite beautiful actually.

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T'Lan came down to the lounge as
"Jolan Tru Kerika. I trust you are well?" T'Lan asked as he entered the lounge room. He gave a little nod towards the lieutenant. He respected Kerika Ch'Kretak's excellent engineering skills and creativity in the face of disaster.

A large Gorn egg perched on the table in the center space.

"tea, hot," TLan ordered. A steaming cup of tea materialized. He took the cup and took a little sip. T'Lan savored the taste. He needed a little energy before he started to analyze the

A team of medical and scientific personnel were diligently taking inputing data on to their tricorders.

"What an fascinating specimen! Did an away team find the Gorn egg on the surface?" He asked, before he looked up at Kerika. He had not studied a living Gorn egg before.

An Uhlan scientist handed T'Lan an initial report on the egg. It seemed undamaged, as far as he could tell.

"You're not far off. There must have been a Gorn nursery on that ship we destroyed. I extracted it out of the intake manifold feed for the singularity generator. I have it set to alert me to any bio-matter that enters the intake to avoid treacherous activity. Sometimes people have been known to disappear and a good controller knows to attenuate political chicanery. This egg was in its own life support pod with a multi-spacial force field installed. had to use a tunneling neutrino beam to get it open. Your technicians tell me its alive. I guess for the time being, I will be its egg mother. Though in truth, I am not at all sure how to care for it. That is why I called you. Do you know anything about Gorn eggs"?

T'Lan was by far the smartest man Kerika had ever worked with. If He didn't know chances are he knew someone who did.

"Well, typically Gorn eggs from higher castes are kept in the main council chamber. They used to have symbols drawn on to the eggs that served as protective spells. Today, they are pictographs combining the family crest with pictographs depicting qualities they hope their children would have, such as strength and agility.

Eggs may be kept in incubation chambers in a safe space, away from others who would smash the eggs of their rival houses. It is said that the Leadership caste eggs are hidden in a chamber within. The chamber itself is very well guarded.

Gorn eggs may have ornate paintings also to show off their prestige and power in addition to the symbols on their eggs," He said.

"Maybe I can run some scans on the eggs to see if I cannot find out who this egg belongs to using known biometric data."

"Thank you. This egg will be safe in the science department. Don't worry, I'll make sure it doesn't hatch. The tunneling neutrino beam was a nice touch!" He added, quite impressed with Kerika's thoroughness.

"Well I didn't use the Neutrino beam on the egg only the control mechanism." Kerika said.

"Ah," he said sheepishly. He cleared his throat and continued.

"May I also analyze the life-support pod as well? We may need to analyze the Gorn ship's warp trail to figure out where it came from. And maybe we can sift through the data to figure out why they were transporting Gorn eggs through this sector in the first place."

"Of course you can I wouldn't have called on you if I didn't have the upmost faith in your abilities, T'Lan." Kerika replied.

T'Lan was positive that, if there was an engineering mystery, Kerika could get to the bottom of it without any trouble. She was the best engineer he had ever met.

"This Egg is different from any I have ever seen. I would like to know its planet of origin as well as its lineage." Kerirka stated.

T'Lan stared at the egg for a moment before turning his attention back towards Kerika.

"You are right. It is certainly unusual as far as Gorn eggs go. I can run a scan on the egg and run the results against the biometric data available from among all known Gorn officials. It will take some time, however."

"Thank you Kerika. I look forward to sharing the results of my report with you and the rest of the senior staff"

He raised his teacup before downing the rest of his spice tea. He was confident that this joint venture between the engineering and science teams would crack this mystery like an egg...

...figuratively speaking of course

"Do you think you can help me learn to care for it? I intend to be its egg mother at least until we can get it to the Gorn?" Kerika said.

"Of course! I will make sure to keep it safe from prying eyes," said T'Lan.

What were the Gorn studying? And why would they bring an egg to a disputed region of space?

This was to be a joint venture between Science and Engineering.

"I will inform the Commander." Kerika added.

"More tea T'Lan?" Kerika asked.

"Yes, thank you" T'Lan said. He then looked out of the window into the cold darkness of space.

Kerika poured him more tea.

"My instincts tell me that what we attacked was some sort of Gorn colony expedition. They only send their nursuries when they have already established a colony. I think we made a horrible mistake all for the Glory of the Praetor." Kerika said with remorse.

"Indeed." His voice became solemn as he looked out the window towards where the Gorn ship used to be.

Kerika had no wish to be seen as a seditionist as one never really knew who was listening so she kept her feelings to herself.

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A post by:

Lt Kerika Ch'Kretak
Chief Engineer
IRW Dominus

Lt. T'Lan
Chief Science Officer
IRW Dominus

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