<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:bookman old style, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><div style="RIGHT: auto">"Clarice, doesn't this random scattering of sites seem desperately random - like the elaborations of a bad liar?"</div>
<div style="RIGHT: auto">-- Hannibal Lecter, "The Silence of the Lambs"</div>
<div style="RIGHT: auto"> </div>
<div style="RIGHT: auto"> </div>
<div style="RIGHT: auto">// Forrest Outpost Command Deck \\</div>
<div style="RIGHT: auto"> </div>
<div style="RIGHT: auto"> </div>
<div style="RIGHT: auto">While the CO and XO were off the station -- or at least outside it -- someone had to run things on the inside. This morning the task fell to Lieutenant Commander Regina Antonini, the station's Counselor. She sat at the on-shift duty officer's station, having been on task for several hours now. On one of the screens facing her, she monitored the spacewalk that the Captain and Sean were currently in the middle of. They had stopped walking and were working at the Matter-Antimatter maintenance module. It looked as though everything there was proceeding as planned, so she looked at the screen directly to the left.</div>
<div style="RIGHT: auto"> </div>
<div style="RIGHT: auto">This screen detailed the status of the station. All the lights were green, although the entire screen was outlined in red -- reminding anyone who would chance to look that they were currently on tactical alert due to the proximity of numerous Klingon vessels and the blockade. Gina frowned at it. The ships were still just sitting there. What was the purpose? </div>
<div style="RIGHT: auto"> </div>
<div style="RIGHT: auto">To facilitate an answer, she looked at the next screen in line. The area surrounding Forrest Outpost and Njord (the nearest neighboring planet) was displayed. Gina tapped her fingernails on the console top as she looked it over. The Klingon ships were marked in red, the mines they'd deployed in a garish purple. They surrounded Njord and the station in a complex web that, surprisingly, was not a circle. Why not? Gina thought. It would make sense, if you were really out to isolate an enemy, to completely encircle the entire area, particularly in space.</div>
<div style="RIGHT: auto"> </div>
<div style="RIGHT: auto">She rotated the image, looking at it from different angles. Okay. So. Look at it differently, then. She narrowed her eyes. Say that, perhaps, isolation wasn't your only directive. Don't worry about what that alternate directive might be just yet, just look at the pattern. She worked the console, eliminating the extraneous items from the screen ... surrounding space, the shipyards, everything except the station, Njord, and the Klingons, mines included ... and had it all display on a white background. Okay. </div>
<div style="RIGHT: auto"> </div>
<div style="RIGHT: auto">"Ma'am," a voice said from beside her.</div>
<div style="RIGHT: auto"> </div>
<div style="RIGHT: auto">"Yes?" Gina answered distantly.</div>
<div style="RIGHT: auto"> </div>
<div style="RIGHT: auto">"Just a report for you to read and acknowedge," the voice said.</div>
<div style="RIGHT: auto"> </div>
<div style="RIGHT: auto">"Thanks," Gina said, taking the datapad. It concerned the movement of personnel and materiel to Njord. Gina scanned it. Heavy usage of the transporters, very minimal use of shuttlecraft. This, it had been decided, was the best way to proceed. It appeared that it was business as usual on Forrest Outpost, running the regular runs to the surface, without making it look like there was an evacuation going on. Gina wondered how good their scanners were. Could the Klingons tell, from where they were, that there was a growing number of Humans on Njord? Frowning at another angle she'd have to consider, she thumbed her acceptance of the report and handed it back over her shoulder, her eyes once again glued to the screen.</div>
<div style="RIGHT: auto"> </div>
<div style="RIGHT: auto"> Pattern. Pattern. Where was the pattern. She rotated the view again and again, looking at it from various angles, and it wasn't until she aligned it so that she could look at it from the Klingon command vessel's view, that something tickled her memory. Wait a minute here. She tweaked the view until it was lined up perfectly ... what the Klingon commander would see when he looked out his main viewscreen, full forward. "<EM style="RIGHT: auto">Schifezza</EM>," Gina murmured. She knew what this was. A grin lit her face. Three dimensions, all the pieces in place, it fit perfectly. She left a message for Sean's pick-up when the XO returned from his spacewalk.</div>
<div style="RIGHT: auto"> </div>
<div style="RIGHT: auto">The Klingon commander was a Tri-D Chess player.</div>
<div style="RIGHT: auto"> </div>
<div style="RIGHT: auto"> </div>
<div style="RIGHT: auto">LtCmdr (Dr) Regina Antonini</div>
<div style="RIGHT: auto">Counselor</div>
<div style="RIGHT: auto">Forrest Outpost<VAR id=yui-ie-cursor></VAR></div>
<div style="RIGHT: auto"> </div>
<div style="RIGHT: auto"> </div>
<div style="RIGHT: auto"><FONT color=#7f007f size=2 face="lucida console, sans-serif"><B><EM></EM></B></FONT> </div>
<DIV style="RIGHT: auto"> </DIV>
<div> </div>
<div> </div></div></body></html>