On the brige Captain Klosowski leaned over Commander Blankenship's shoulder as she made final adjustments to the newly installed long range cloaking detector next to the communications console.
"Have we caught up to him yet, Dianne?"
"I think so, Captain" Dianne replied. "I'm getting a little shimmer on my scope." She made another minor adjustment. "He's about 50000 kilometers out, but we're closing pretty fast."
Ted turned to his navigator. "Paula, make sure we give the colonel a wide berth. We don't want to alert him to our presence before he reaches Pandoria."
"Aye aye, Captain." Paula checked her console. "We should be arriving near Pandoria in approximately one hour."
Dianne made a quick calculation. "Moving at his current speed, which I think is about as fast as his shuttle can go, Colonel Snavely will get there about twenty minutes after we do."
"Good!" Ted got a look of pleasant anticipation on his face. "All this diplomatic intrigue is making me hungry and I'm in the mood for a good ol' 20th century cheeseburger!" He headed for the bridge entry. "Marchelle, you have the bridge. I'll be in my quarters."
"Enter", Ensign Williams said in response to the light tone given by the ship's computer announcing a visitor outside her private quarters door. The door slid noiselessly into the wall to reveal Councilor Mominee standing there with a batch of rolled-up prints under one arm. "Oh. Hello, Donna?" There was a note of surprise in Sherriea's greeting.
Donna walked in briskly as the door slid shut behind her. "Hi, Sherriea. I didn't mean to disrupt your quiet time on our way back to Pandoria, but I came across something I want to show you." Donna flattened her rolled-up prints out on Sherriea's dining table. "Do you have that datapad handy with your Pandorian scan results?"
"Sure, Donna." Sherriea nodded toward the datapad on the desk where she was sitting. "actually, I was just going over those results again."
"Good." Donna looked intently at Sherriea. "What I'm especially interested in is getting a close-up look at the crystalline structure around SPROC... which is where the strongest gravitonic emissions are coming from."
Sherriea smiled. "Great minds must think alike, Donna. That's exactly the sort of data I was just re-examining!"
Donna's face crinkled in a grin. "Terrific! Pick a small area of the sub-SPROC crystalline structure and magnify it into a 3D hologram on the computer screen above your desk."
Sherriea's fingers danced over her datapad for several seconds. One final tap and a hologram of shimmering, intricately laced crystals of myriad colors, shapes and thicknesses seemed to emerge from the screen. They both stared at it silently for several seconds as if mesmerized. "Gosh!" Sherriea said in a hushed voice. "It's beautiful.... but kind of menacing in a way."
Donna nodded her head. "I think you can emphasize that 'menacing' part!" She riffled through the large prints she had put on the table, pulled one out of the stack and put it on the desk before Sherriea. "Compare."
Sherriea looked down at the print, also of brightly colored crystalline structure, and back up at the hologram for several moments. "I'm no expert in crystalography, but these two seem very similar." She looked up at Donna. "Did you make prints from our scans of Pandoria?"
"No. I made prints from a holodeck program about an archeological dig at the ancient Vulcan city of Tal'por!" Donna moved back to the table. "Check these out, Sherriea." Donna spread the prints out on the table. "I took them from what I think is a very old Vulcan museum of history or learning center."
Sherriea gazed wonderingly at the prints. The brightly colored crystal next to a star chart next to hieroglyphic-like texts next to a planetary system image next to a depiction of a nasty-looking winged wasp-like creature inserting its stinger into an unfortunate slug-like creature next to more unreadable texts next to a final vision of a humongous crystal emerging from a crumbling planetoid with another blue-green planet in a nearby orbit. The crumbling planetoid and the blue-green planet both had brief etching labels.
Donna pointed to a print of a planetary system with four planets. The outer three planets were all M-class worlds and the fourth, innermost planet was a rocky, moonsized planetoid which would have undoubtedly been quite hot due to its proximity to its sun. Nevertheless, its orbit was relatively close to the second planet out, which was depicted as a pleasant looking blue-green planet, probably ripe with life. "As I was looking at this image in that ancient Vulcan vault I realized that this was a depiction of the Vulcan system as it must have existed an eon or so ago."
"But, Donna, the Vulcan system only has three planets!"
"That is correct, Sherriea, it has only three planets..NOW!"
Donna looked at Sherriea with raised eyebrows. "But it is an astronomical curiosity of the Vulcan system that there is a thin asteroid belt between the innermost planet and its star. In nearly all planetary systems, asteroids don't show up that close to the sun!"
"Donna, I don't understand any of this!" Sherriea pointed to the print with the alien wasp stinging the alien slug. "What has that ugly thing got to do with these planets and stars... and crystals?!"
Donna gave a wan smile. "Well, I'm not absolutely certain myself, Sherriea, but I think its positioning amongst these other things is key." She put her finger on the winged creature. "This is a Vulcan kelst. It is similar to many of our wasps back on Earth, only larger. You may recall from biology courses that some wasps paralyze their prey with their sting without killing it. Then they lay their eggs inside the paralyzed bug to grow and hatch, feeding on the innards of the bug." Donna narrowed her eyes. "The Vulcan kelst is several times bigger than Earth's wasps, about the size of a blue jay, so it is quite capable of carrying its paralyzed prey to wherever it has laid its eggs. When the eggs hatch, the young kelst larvae naturally start feeding on the paralyzed prey... like that slug shown in the illustration."
Sherriea gave a little shudder. "That's all very... interesting. But I still fail to see what it has to do with.."
"I'm coming to that, Sherriea." Donna tapped the print showing the rigid hieroglyphic markings. "This is ancient Vulcan text. I've studied recent Vulcan texts and have a basic grasp of many Vulcan words. SOME of those words I can decipher in this ancient Vulcan text!" Donna sat on a chair, putting her elbows on the table and clasping her hands while looking seriously at Sherriea. "Now this ancient text was positioned right above the illustration of the kelst and the slug. I believe the text is describing what's going on in that illustration... and the last few glyphics of the text I have translated as 'like', or 'the same as, glitter death'." Donna slid another print next to the kelst and slug print with both beneath the glyphics text print. "This is roughly the arrangement of these scenes on a wall of the ancient museum." The third print was that of the giant crystal emerging from a crumbling planetoid with a blue-green planet in a neighboring orbit.
Donna pointed at the etching on the crystal emerging from the planetoid. "This glyphic roughly translates as: 'birth' or 'hatching'." She then pointed to the etching on the blue-green planet. "This glyphic translates as: 'food'!"
Captain Klosowski re-entered the bridge with the taste of grilled onions from his cheeseburger still lingering in his mouth. "What's up, Marchelle?"
"Incoming call from General Kal'sunu, Captain."
"Onscreen."
The general glared from the large bridge commscreen. "I realize you haven't reached Pandoria yet, Captain, but I've just received a disturbing message from our research facility there, Pandopost. You need to be apprised of the situation."
At that moment Ensign Williams came hurriedly onto the bridge followed closely by Counselor Mominee carrying a batch of rolled-up prints. "Captain, I've just monitored transmissions between SPROC and Starfleet Andorian Command and there are..OHH!"
Sherriea stopped suddenly as she looked up to see Gen. Kal'sunu staring out from the bridge commscreen. Donna, surprised by Sherriea's sudden halt, bumped jarringly into Sherriea's back and the rolled-up prints went fluttering to the deck. Donna said, "OOPSIE!" and instinctively went down on all fours to gather up the fallen prints.
There was an awkward silence as Ted looked over at his two impetuous crew members with a 'What the ....' expression on his face. Then he looked back up at Kal'sunu with an embarrassed smile. "Sorry, General. Sometimes things get a little.. hectic around here!"
Kal'sunu stared implacably for a moment, thinking: 'How did humans ever get so far with such sloppy discipline?' But aloud he said: "You already know that a squadron of our patrol ships are following you to Pandoria. However, your Colonel Snavely may be the least of our concerns. I have also dispatched two of our larger merchant vessels."
"Why have you done that, General?"
"For possible mass evacuation." Kal'sunu leaned forward to emphasize the importance of his message. "Pandopost is reporting unprecedented, sudden and severe seismic activity!"