The Cargo

Posted on Tue Oct 6th, 2026 @ 10:28am by Captain Connor Nolan & Commander Erris Sudis & Lieutenant Commander Saori Takebe & Lieutenant Talia Renn

1,826 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Rekantha
Location: Transporter Room, USS Venture
Timeline: Stardate at 00:00

Nolan nodded to the Transporter Chief as Sudis and he entered the transport room. 

“All I know is they’ve requested our presence after finding some unusual readings. The San Jose’s Captain was suitably vague.  Which, doesn’t fill me full of confidence.  I’ve been nursing a gut feeling since we passed through the wormhole.”  together, the Captain and Executive Officer approached the equipment rack. 

Talia had arrived in the transporter room with little more information than the summons itself. Rather than stand idle, she had taken to the equipment rack, checking the charge and settings on the phasers laid out there and confirming each one was ready for issue.

When transporter doors opened behind her. She glanced over as the Captain and Commander Sudis entered, catching Nolan’s explanation as they approached.

Unusual readings. A request from the San Jose. Enough uncertainty to justify being prepared.

Talia returned the phaser in her hand to the rack and straightened.

“Phasers are checked and ready, Captain.”

Her attention shifted between Nolan and Sudis, waiting for whatever came next.

"Thank you Lieutenant. I think phasers might be overkill for this trip, tricorders will suffice." Nolan pointed towards the tricorders stored alongside the phaser rack.

Saori emerged not long after the Captain. "I swear I'm not late..." she said cheerily as she joined the others. 

Nolan let out a subtle chuckle, “You’re just on time Commander. Are we all set then?” 

"We are all accounted for," Commander Sudis replied and hopped up onto the transporter platform and turning around to face everyone.

Talia stepped up onto the transporter platform with the others, keeping the observation to herself. Phasers were rarely overkill; simply occasionally unnecessary.

Their conversation carried on for another minute or so, the easy chatter of officers who had not yet quite surrendered themselves to the formality of duty. Then, one by one, they stepped up onto the transporter pad. With a nod from the Executive Officer to the young Ensign manning the controls, the Venture dissolved around them in a haze of blue-white light.

A heartbeat later, the familiar shimmer cleared and they found themselves standing in a transporter room so similar to the one they’d just left that, for a moment, it felt as though they had barely moved at all. The layout, the panel work, even the hum of the systems beneath the deck plating all spoke to the same Starfleet design language. Only the officers were different, the young Ensign replaced by a stalwart Tellarite with the rank pips of a Lieutenant, and a Vulcan Lieutenant Commander who Nolan assumed as the Chief Security Officer.

The San Jose’s Chief Security Officer, greeted them with a crisp nod before leading them out into the corridor. The journey through the ship was brief but purposeful, taking them aft through service passages and crew accessways until they reached one of the rear airlocks.

Beyond it, an umbilical bridge stretched away from the San Jose’s hull, linking the starship to the cargo pods she had been towing behind her.

Nolan paused for half a second at the threshold, gazing at their destination just beyond them. The umbilical was created via temporary extendable deck plate and forcefields, as he stepped out into it, he felt for a moment as he was taking an EVA without a space suit.

From the outside, the pods looked like little more than heavy-duty freight modules: functional, ugly and temporary. They’d eventually be repurposed at planetfall on New Bajor as construction materials or accommodation blocks. From within, they felt cavernous. The umbilical opened into the first pod at mezzanine level, where a narrow walkway overlooked rows of neatly stacked supplies below. Construction panels, modular shelters, crates of tools, environmental processors and other essential accoutrements had been secured in disciplined rows. It was all exactly what he had expected to see on a colonial resupply run.

They moved through it quickly. The second pod was different.

They entered onto a perimeter gangway running around the upper edge of the cargo hold. Warm, humid air rose from below, carrying with it the unmistakable smell of hay, animal musk and recycled atmosphere working hard to keep up. The sound reached them next: the low shifting murmur of hundreds of large bodies moving together in an enclosed space.
Nolan stepped to the rail and looked down.

The pod’s main deck had been converted into a temporary livestock pen. Below them, spread across the cargo bay in slow, restless clusters, was a herd of several hundred quadrupeds. Three hundred at least, perhaps closer to four.

For a moment, Nolan’s mind reached backwards rather than forwards. They reminded him of Highland cattle he had seen as a child on holidays in Scotland: broad-backed, shaggy, patient-looking creatures with heavy heads and an air of ancient tolerance. But the resemblance only went so far. These animals were larger, stranger, and far more beautiful. Their hides carried a shifting mix of blue, green and violet, the colours moving through the fur in soft bands that caught the overhead lights like oil on water.

Saori flipped open her tricorder. "So, these readings. Where abouts in here did you detect them?"

Talia moved to the edge of the gangway beside the others and opened her tricorder, sweeping it slowly across the herd below.

Several hundred unfamiliar animals in an enclosed cargo pod did little to convince her that bringing a phaser had been excessive.

She kept the thought to herself, studying the readings as they began to populate across the display. Her gaze shifted briefly from the tricorder to the animals themselves, looking for anything in their behavior that might correspond with whatever had drawn the *San Jose’s* attention.

"That's the thing," the Chief Security Officer of the San Jose began, "The fact that we detected it at all is truly ... well ... odd." He handed a PADD to the Venture's Executive Officer. "Our Chief Scientist is already on New Bajor, so the Captain has asked if you could help us out."

Sudis Erris followed behind the San Jose's Chief Security Officer while looking down from the rafters of the gangway to the Bato below. He smell was most poignant, it had been a while since he came across these bovine, indigenous to his homeworld of Bajor. He remembered going to a rancher's farm as a childhood and being licked across the face. One of his earliest memories on Bajor when the Sudis took him in as one of their own, "This is our chief scientist - Lieutenant Commander Takebe. Her and her team should be able to coordinate with your own science teams."

"There's a slight deviation in the stasis field that calms the Bato's down while in transport. They're docile enough, but I understand from the veterinarians onboard that they are highly sensitive to warp travel. Especially this variant." he cleared his throat,

"... it doesn't dampen the smell though." Nolan spoke as a waft of warm air rose from the cargo pods decking below.

The Commander lightly rolled his eyes at his captain's comments about the smell, "It could have been a lot worse, Captain."

“Are you sure?” Nolan quipped back to Sudis. 

Sudis offered his CO a smile before returning to look at the San Jose's Chief of Security and the gangway in front of them.

“Lieutenant Renn, I’d like you to investigate who has done this. Review the previous hauls of the last two herds as well.  Commander Takebe,  your task is why. Why have they modified the field?  And can you tell if they’re okay?”  As he finished his sentence he leaned over the rail for a better look at the Herd. 

Talia closed her tricorder and turned her attention from the herd to Nolan.

“Understood, Captain. I’ll start with access logs for the stasis controls, then work backward through the previous two transports and see who had authorization to make changes.”

Her gaze shifted briefly toward the *San Jose’s* Chief Security Officer. There was more to investigate than a configuration change. Someone had made the decision to alter the field, and Talia wanted to know whether that decision had been routine, careless, or deliberate.

“I’ll need your security logs and the names of anyone who had access to the system.”

"Once the tour has concluded, I will bring you to the Security Office to provide you with access to the security logs to go through."

Talia gave the San Jose’s Chief Security Officer a short nod.

“That’ll work. I’ll want the raw access records if possible, not just the incident summary.”

A chirp sounded from the combadge adorned to the Captain's chest, before he could answer it, a voice echoed through it. "Captain, Commander Nasra sh'Zarath here. You have a priority one communique from Captain Barrett. It's encrypted eyes only Captain."

The matter of fact tone of the Commander didn't do anything to temper the immediate spike in cortisol that ripped through his body. A priority one, eyes one communique was not going to be good news. "I'll return via the San Jose's Transporter Room, beam me directly to my Ready Room."

He turned to his group of Officers, "You'll have to excuse me. You have your orders people. Commander, I trust you'll take the lead in engaging with the San Jose & co-ordinating our joint efforts."

Talia’s attention shifted sharply toward Nolan at the words priority one. Whatever expression crossed his face was brief, but enough. The mood around him tightened almost immediately, a sharp contrast to the easy exchange from moments before. She did not ask. “Yes, Captain.” As Nolan turned to leave, Talia’s gaze moved to Sudis instead. The investigation had not changed simply because the Captain had been pulled away. She was ready to continue.

"Of course, Captain." Sudis answered and his eyes met with his Betazoid Chief Security Officer and her San Jose's counterpart, "Lieutenant Renn please join Lieutenant Commander?"

"Lieutenant Commander Sorvik, Commander." The Vulcan said shortly not impressed with the typical human requirement for exchanging of names.

"Commander Sorvik and you should head to the Security Office and review the security logs," Sudis continued, "Lieutenant Commander Takebe and I will head to the San Jose's science labs."

Talia gave Sudis a nod.

“Understood, Commander.”

She turned toward Sorvik, already mentally sorting through what she wanted first: access logs, modification history, personnel permissions, and anything comparable from the previous two transports.

“Lead the way, Commander.”

Lieutenant Commander Sorvik nodded to her and then lead them to the nearest turbolift, following Captain Nixon to the exit.

"Let's head this way, Commander Takebe. I want to see if we can get a closer look to the Bato before we head to the labs."

"Sounds good to me," Saori replied. "Lead the way."

 

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