Toolkit

Posted on Thu Aug 28th, 2025 @ 9:12pm by Lieutenant Commander P’rel M.D & Lieutenant Commander Finnley Keating VII

Mission: Aeon's End
Location: En route to Athena
Timeline: 3 Years ago. The day hope grew larger.
1030 words - 2.1 OF Standard Post Measure

Disposing of the vile, filthy, fat Yridian had been more of a job than anticipated. Without a transporter, P'rel had been forced to relocate the body to the aft area of the single compartment stink-box, secure everything as best she could and open the rear hatch. Whilst watching the body fling out had been satisfying, watching the last of her water cantinas fly out with him had somewhat mired the occasion. Even for a Vulcan, she was running low on water and would need to drink again shortly. However brief, the exposure to the vacuum has dehydrated her further even though it was mere seconds before she repressurised the ship.

Heading at as high a warp factor as the small ship could manage, 4 or 5 on the Starfleet scale, P'rel found herself dwelling on the pending task. Finnley, she was certain, could be swayed; this was a genuine chance to make a major hit against the Imperative and, if all went well, turn the tide from extermination to a fighting chance. Though, she mused, it may be an error in logic to divulge everything to her dearest and oldest friend. She found herself almost snorting in derision. Former friend. She needed nobody. She wanted nobody. It had been over 2 years since she had spoken to Finnley, and even then it was merely a briefing; they hadn't spent any real time together since their vacation to Betazed 6 years ago. The year before the galaxy ended. More than anyone, though far from the only one, she had grown close to the human and even relied upon her from time to time. Now...now she needed to so again, though it was for something far greater than her own personal needs. This was something which could alter everything. For everyone.

Brilliant as she were however, even Finnley would need some combat assistance. To pull off what the Vulcan had planned would require precise calibrations and minute levels of detail, variables that could only be discovered on the ground. To do that, they needed someone to watch their backs and the chime she had been waiting for finally sounded. A brief blip to show that 'he' had encrypted the return transmission. Leaning over to her left, P'rel activated the monitor and the familiar face hummed into life on the underpowered comm unit. "Colonel" she acknowledged.

"Commander P'rel..." Colonel Finnley Quinn Keating the sixth replied, a little surprised to see the Vulcan's face coming through on his screen. They had worked together in the past and he'd even come to appreciate the Vulcan's work with his daughter Finn, but he hadn't had contact with P'rel in years. In truth really hadn't expected to hear from her ever again. "To what do I owe the pleasure? I'm assuming this is a business call. I can't imagine you'd make contact for anything else..."

'Commander...' she thought for a moment, as if she were holding a strange object and examining it. Though she was still technically in Starfleet - and though there still technically was such an organisation for the moment - she hadn't been a part of any command structure for quite some time. "Indeed" she replied, choosing her words carefully; "I am en route to collect hyper-spanner, we need to put all the tools in the toolbox...there is something which needs fixing and I require one or two hammers...". P'rel looked away from the screen for a moment and briefly recalibrated the warp field.

Quinn quickly picked up on the coded words and his brain churned to determine their meaning. The hammer part was clear enough. She needed muscle, which he assumed was where he came in. If that was the case the hyper-spanner could only have been one of the three people he'd ever truly been close to. His wife (who was now deceased), his brother in arms (Ray) or his daughter (Finn) and since a hyper spanner was a multi purpose engineering tool he had his money on Finn.

He let the silence settle for a moment as if he were deliberating whether to allow himself to be pulled into whatever the Vulcan was describing, but they both knew that if it involved his daughter he would absolutely show up. Quinn sighed. "Send me coordinates."

P'rel looked down at the comm screen again. He looked older. Not just older, but older; like everyone she supposed, he appeared to be the product of many multiples his elapsed years now. The Final Imperative had swept through the Alpha and Beta Quadrants and nothing seemed to slow them down. A few tactical victories here and there, certainly, but nothing of any substance whilst entire star systems simply vanished from existence. The robotic locusts, such as they appeared, were to anyone's eyes unstoppable; until now at least. "I shall. But you should know..." she paused to find the right words, "...we will be going home, and in doing so we probably will not be coming back. But everything will change...".

Silence stretched between the two of them for a second as Quinn stared at the screen, wondering exactly what the Vulcan meant by 'everything will change'. A hint of worry was evident by the crease in his brow and a million questions ran through his head, but ultimately he decided that those questions didn't matter. At least not right now. Because if his daughter was going on whatever crazy scheme P'rel had worked up, there was no way he was staying behind, regardless of the outcome. "See you soon," he finally replied before ending the communication.

As the Colonel faded away into lines of trinary code representing the scramble frequency, P'rel found herself staring into it in almost a meditative state. This was going to work. This had to work. The cost of victory was so, so very high; yet the price of failure was worse. She could count on one hand the number of people she could trust, and still have fingers to spare. She needed both Colonel and Finn Keating, and having manipulated one with the presence of his daughter she now had to manipulate the other with the presence of her father....