[snip]

He looked around the conference room and saw an empty coffee pot. He got the coffee pot start to start brewing a pot of coffee and had the replicator make a batch of donuts. He then went to his cabin to print up the operational plans along with some notes. He got himself a cup of coffee and sat down to go over his notes. Now all he needed was to have his no doubt miffed department heads to show up

Captain John T Glen had been sleeping. It took him a while to wash, shave and dress. He got ready as quick as he could and hoped that he wouldn’t be last to arrive. As he approached the conference room he could already smell the coffee.

“Good Morning Joe!” he said on entering the conference room. A quick look around confirmed that no one else had arrived yet. “I’m keen to know about the new mission, but I don’t want to make you tell it all twice, so I’ll wait.”

Joe looked at Glenn and shook his head as he smiled. “Really sir? Having seen you show up I was feeling pretty much relieved. But if you’re game to listen to my witless meanderings then you’re more than welcome to. I must warn you however that these cursed things were never my bailiwick. ” Joe looked once more around the room before turning to the captain and asking him, “And how are you feeling sir? is the headache better? ”

Cross entered the conference room and acknowledged both the Captain and Cmdr with a nod while wondering if Lance was behind her.

Hearing Joe asking Glen if his headache was better, the female doctor’s attention was now on what he Captain would answer .

“Doctor Cross gave me a shot for it,” Glen replied. He met Miriam’s gaze and raised an eyebrow.

Joe took a seat with his coffee and laughed as he said, ” Yes Lieutenant Cross can fix anything. If not by medicine, then by scaring it off with her glare.”

If looks could kill both men would be lying stretched out on the ground with their faces downwards ,on noticing the doughnuts Cross forgot about their ‘Jokes’ and instead started munching on one before the rest of the D’H’s came in.

Having entered the room with the XO, Verity took the first open seat at the table.

Once everyone had arrived Glen put down his coffee cup and said, “This would be a good time to welcome our two new officers, and additions to the senior management, Lt. Maximilien Mullins and Lt. Verity Aphelion. Welcome aboard! You may also have noticed that we aren’t returning to deep Space K-5 anymore, but now have new orders from Admiral Forester. I’ll let the Commander fill us in on exactly what those entail…” Glen took a seat.

“Okay then.” Joe began as he took a rather large sigh before continuing. ” The Klingons have finally after the signing of the Khitomer accords finally started to pull back from areas which they were supposed to surrender earlier. But the place of our main concern is in the Wal system. Wal3 to be precise. “

” These people were ready for plucking when the Klingons came along. They were only coming out of the bronze age and were being ruled by a theocracy. The Klingons simply came in with superior technology and claimed to be the agents of God or some such thing. And there the Klingons have stayed for twenty -five years. ” Joe raised a finger then and said, “But not of course before they made sure that the inhabitants of Wal3 were made to believe that the federation are all devils of their God.”

Verity nodded as she listened to the briefing.

Joe paused again for a moment as he looked around the table. “So allegedly according to those in the know the Klingons leaving has created chaos on the planet. Those in charge of their religion all seem to think that their agents of God leaving is because of something they did wrong. In this case because of the Khitomer accords we are to move in and straighten things up. The Prime Directive has been waived of course in this case.”

“So, in summary we are to arrive on station, beam down to assess the damage done by the Klingons . Our mission is one of good will. We have to stabilize the situation. We are given a free hand in nearly everything, save for using violence or trying to set ourselves up as the new Agents of God. And I suppose in the long run to get these people to understand that we aren’t devils. “

Lance entered the room, “Sorry I am late sir, crewman Alan Wake didn’t want to go into the holding cell.” He then took his seat.

Joe then turned toward Glenn as he finished saying” Captain?”

“May I make a suggestion?”, Verity asked after listening to the briefing, “I know these inhabitants revere the Klingons as gods, but do we know how the Klingons treated them? Were they kind to them or cruel? Honestly I have not known a kind Klingon, especially toward a weaker species, so if they were cruel it could give us an advantage as we can counter that behavior with kindness and gain the inhabitants trust.”

‘’I have yet to meet a Klingon who understand the feeling of compassion or sympathy caused by the sufferings and misfortunes of others! ‘’ Cross exclaimed ‘’Not to mention the inhabitants have been led to believe we are evil, it shall be a mammoth task to gain their trust’‘ she added.

Captain Glen considered the crew comments before his own reply. “Many societies have believed in the idea of a vengeful God, who is both jealous and strong in wrath. We should bring in Cara the Ship’s Anthropologist in on this subject, but as far as I can see, we would have trouble convincing the natives of Wal3 that the Klingons were not Gods, purely on the basis that they were angry and unpleasant to them, and threw down lightening bolts from the sky. That is exactly the kind of thing that is often expected of Gods.”

“My questions would be more about the practicalities of this mission - Do we know what the Wal3 natives look like? We don’t look like Klingons and couldn’t pass easily for Klingons, but could we pass for natives? Are there any Klingons left behind? Are there any mixed race children? Would the Klingons left behind support us, or make our mission more difficult?” Glen added.

“Those are great questions Captain”, said Verity, “We could conduct a long range scan, to determine if there are any Klingon vessels within the vicinity of the system and if we don’t detect any, we can then safely scan the surface of planet from orbit to determine if there are Klingons left. I bet we could also get some visual data on the appearance of the natives as well.

‘’Maybe sending two from the away team they could report back to us and we would be better prepared… that is if they make it out alive ‘’Cross hoped the female inhabitants where well dressed ‘’ As for any Klingon’s still there, we did have a mission in the past where we met them in the hope of an alliance with the Federation and it got us no where !’‘ the doctor exclaimed then went on ‘’Captain you mentioned Cara,why not bring the psychiatrist Mr Wong along as well? After all with his credentials, skill and talent he would be an asset ‘’ the doctor finished off.

At that remark, Glen almost spat out his coffee. He had been trying unsuccessfully to get Professor Wong removed from the ship, but the Admiral hadn’t budged. He looked incredulously at Cross for saying it, as he had thought she was the one with the greatest problem with Wong. However, while Glen had been ill with his ‘mental imprint manifestation’ it seemed that they had become great friends.

Verity was surprised by the Captain’s reaction and it was not lost on her that the mention of Dr. Wong’s name seem to have triggered the reaction. Verity made a mental note to inquire around the ship about the nature of their relationship at a later time.

Joe had had several things rolling around his mind since he had first heard the mission explained and after listening to others, he figured that now was the time to get his own thoughts out in the open. He scratched his chin, and he collected his thoughts and then turned toward Gleen as he said, “Sir I will have to agree with anyone who says the Klingons are not known for being nice. Not to mention their sense of humor. They have had time now since the signing of the treaty to ease the wound to their honor by leaving some hilarious ‘jokes’ for us in the form of some sort of booby traps. Magnetic mines or something like that which they might find hilarious if we accidentally blew up a few of our people. I would ease into the system as we move toward the plant to make sure that we don’t give the Klingons a good laugh.”

As for Klingons, anyone who knew Glen or who knew the Merrimack, didn’t need to explain about Klingons. “Klingons killed my first Captain aboard the Yorktown. Klingon assasins also cam e aboard and killed the previous Captain of the Merrimack, Captain Bordeaux,” Glen told them. “I’m not very keen on Klingons either, but any that remain on the planet following the withdrawl are likely to be favourable and agreeable to the independence of native population. We might use them to our advantage.”

Verity had heard about the terrible incident through Starfleet and attended the memorials out of respect.

Joe then waved his hand in dismissal as he said, “And it’s my own opinion that we should leave all this god crap behind. One thing everyone loves is when guests show up with a great present. Considering where they are with technology how great would it be if our engineers made a small portable steel manufacturing facility? I mean considering that the Prime Directive has been removed as an obstacle. And I would also advise that we should send in a scouting team first. Just to make sure we’re not walking into a trap. ” Joe chuckled then as he spoke saying,” And although I hate to say it Doctor Wong might be a good idea. “

Glen considered this idea of a technological present. “Giving natives presents in return for goodwill isn’t a new idea. However, Wal3 is not the Habitat we just left. Sometimes there are problems, usually with the misinterpretation of the present and whether it is a free gift or trade. We’d need to be careful. This ‘god crap’ will not go away just because we wish it to. There have been twenty-five years of Klingons pretending to be ‘Gods’ and painting the Federation as ‘Devils’. I don’t think that can be undone with a gift alone, but it might help.”

Glen continued, “Certainly, we should send a small reconisance party first. Doctor Wong… I don’t know about that. He’s not Starfleet, so I can’t trust that he will stay on message. He’s already caused chaos on the Merrimck!”

“I would like to volunteer myself to accompany the reconisance party, so that I can collect data from the natives for analysis.”

“I want to keep the team as small as possible, but I have no objection to that,” Glen replied. “Doctor Cross, I’ll require you or Doctor Hunter for a medical evalution. Lt. Del Wolf for security. Then possibly Cara Meow and Wong, if we must.”

Glen, CO