Captain's Log: Southport Sector Activity

Captain's Log: Stardate 2026.182

Attention Federation Auditors: The GMS Coastal Voyager is holding position above the Southport Sector this morning for an on-site training exercise.

Intelligence reports indicate that a Federation-class production unit established a forward base in Southport overnight to create what the local population calls a "movie." 

Five of Five, our onboard Adaptive Intelligence system, reports the movie's code name refers to a cinematic adaptation of something called "The Summer I Turned Pretty."

Our mission parameters are simple: Ambassador Genome, supported by Communications Officer Joy, will observe and document the production from a respectful distance, then return without being noticed and without interfering.

Pre-Dawn Departure

Earlier that morning, Chief Anxiety ran the pre-mission checklist three times: once for assurance, twice to confirm the first run-through, and a third time because, why not?

"Captain Amy," said Five of Five, "the away team has left already."

"What the hell! Doesn't anyone on this mindship wait for my authorization anymore?"

"The chronometer records the team departed ahead of schedule," confirmed Officer Reason.

"Of course they did," replied the captain. "Especially with that airhead, Joy, on the away team."

"I suspect the Ambassador's Elevated Mission Anticipation had something to do with it," added Reason.

"At least we'll be ready when they arrive," the captain muttered. "Five of Five relocated the lower-deck remote sensor node to the Ambassador's equipment bag. Not my idea, but I approved it after the fact."

"The feed is coming in clean," reported Major Reason, "aside from what appears to be the edge of a granola bar that has, according to remote sensors, been in the bag long enough to achieve consciousness."

The Bridge Watches the Bridge

The Cape Fear Memorial Bridge appeared on the viewscreen as Coastal Voyager, a mile overhead, crossed the Cape Fear River.

"Beautiful," remarked Dr. Downer, who'd joined the bridge to watch the away team's work. She hummed a tune Five of Five couldn't find in its databanks, but it didn't question her; to do so would have been like diving headfirst into a rabbit hole on purpose.

"Morning light luminosity is nominal," said Major Reason, reviewing dawn-light spectra with the focus of a man who has found, at last, an assignment worthy of him.

"I've filed contingencies for fog, rain, equipment failure, crowd interference, and one specific scenario involving seagulls," said Chief Anxiety from belowdecks. "I'd like it noted I have computed no contingencies involving a ferret. The probability calculation was overtaxing the processors."

"Cadet Reginald has nothing to do with this mission, Chief."

"I'm aware, Captain. I'm simply establishing the record. I don't trust that ferret."

Captain Amy stared at the streaming video. Cables ran across the cobblestones like tributaries of an electrical river. Equipment cases were stacked with the logic of people who know exactly what they'll need. Crew members moved with the purposeful efficiency of specialists who've done this before and will find it no less meaningful for the repetition.

"It's perfect," Joy's voice was the first heard from the away team, and for once no one on the bridge could argue.

Perimeter Established

"Perimeter holding," Five of Five reported, mostly to itself, because presuming to be important is how Adaptive Intelligence systems stay sane.

"The Ambassador is filming," Reason confirmed. "Joy is providing…" he paused, choosing the word with visible care, "appreciative commentary. All readings nominal."

"Bag status?" asked the captain, who'd learned over countless reconnaissance missions to constantly check on the away equipment.

"Bag is secure," said Five of Five. "Bag contents are…" A pause is merely a pause, but a pause from an A-5 system is as concerning as a five-alarm fire. "Bag contents are in motion."

The Reginald Maneuver 

"Somebody check the bag!" The instruction was reasonable, logical, and useless, arriving several seconds after the bag had stopped moving.

On the view-screen, something small, furry, and determined emerged from the equipment bag, paused to assess the production team, then set off across fifteen meters of Southport waterfront with the unhurried confidence of something determined to see what's up.

"It's Reginald!" said Joy, sounding almost delighted.

"That's a violation of Federation Directive Section F4, paragraph 2B," Reason declared. "Hail the Ambassador!"

"I don't think it will help," said Anxiety, with the terrible calm of a man watching a chess clock run out.

A production assistant, wearing an expression of professional efficiency and carrying an official-looking clipboard, said something into her headset. A camera operator turned. A second crew member pointed toward the equipment bag. Two other crew members approached the bag with body language that proved they were enjoying the diversion, but trying to look professional. 

"Is that…?“ said one of the team.

"Dook," said Reginald, confirming the team's suspicions. 

"RAT!" shouted the first production assistant, and the perimeter popped like a soap bubble, all at once and without ceremony.

"Sensor data indicates the Ambassador is no longer on the perimeter," reported Five of Five.

"I can see that."

"He is, in fact, now part of the story."

"I can see that too."

After-Action

"I'd like it entered into the log that I predicted this," said Anxiety. "Not the ferret specifically. But this random fluctuation in the quantum wave."

“So noted, Chief," said Captain Amy without warmth. "I feel so much worse now."

On the main viewer, the Ambassador was no longer recording production activities. He was handling his unscheduled celebrity, not well, and yet with tremendous confidence. He was laughing with the production assistant while Reason's "optimal shot window" datastream showed the cameras recording the kind of footage that can't be scheduled, and can't be faked.
 
"Mission status," Captain Amy dictated for the record. "The away team has made unauthorized contact with the observed population. “The Prime Directive of non-interference has been…” She paused, stiffened her lip, and set her chin. “…revised. By Mindfleet Cadet Reginald.”

Captain's Log, Supplemental: 

Cadet Reginald's presence on the away mission was unauthorized. His methodology was unorthodox. His results were undeniable.

As per Federation protocol: Prime Directive has been compromised. The perimeter was breached, and unauthorized contact was made with the indigenous population. Mission TSITP is a failure.

Field Study Addendum:

Cadet Reginald, via MaT-1 Adaptive Translation System

The Captain logged the mission a failure, but what I do is merely my nature. It may be unorthodox, but failure is procedurally impossible.

The Southport sector is exciting. I plan to return. I'm not saying I have, but I may have already hidden something in the equipment locker.

Reginald out.

“Dook.”

Tracking RJ Decker

We had the production schedule. We had the address. We had eighty-five confirmed crew members, a police presence, and a City of Wilmington filming permit with our names practically engraved on it.

This was, as Amy describes it, the easiest assignment we’d ever been given.

Hold on to that sentence the way you hold on to a receipt for something you’re pretty sure you’ll have to return.

It started somewhere around Carolina Beach, which has apparently decided to renovate every road on Pleasure Island simultaneously.

Wynd Horse Has Opinions

Wynd Horse’s GPS did what any reasonable navigation system does when the world stops matching its internal map: It panicked quietly and started making decisions I can only describe as creative.

“Recalculating,” it said, with the tone of someone who had given up but was contractually obligated to report its status.

“That’s not comforting,” Amy said. “That’s the voice of a system in denial.”

Instead of delivering us to the quiet residential parking near the filming set for this episode of the R. J. Decker television series, Wynd Horse deposited us in a retail district on the edge of the Carolina Beach Boardwalk.

Traffic was thick enough to make one what to chew the rug.

Amy made the executive decision to park and walk rather than take our chances in traffic.

This was the same stretch of Boardwalk where we’d previously suffered the humiliation of the teenager and the ice-cream sprinkles. Returning to the scene of an old embarrassment on the way to a brand-new one felt less like bad luck and more like the universe reusing a set.

The Man with the Lighting Rig

Then hope appeared. Real, tangible hope, wearing a backpack.

A young man emerged ahead of us, pushing a sophisticated-looking lighting rig mounted on a rolling tripod. An equipment bag hung from his shoulder. He moved with the brisk, purposeful walk of someone who knew exactly where to find a film set.

“Eureka!” I said.

“Don’t say Eureka,” Amy replied. “You haven’t discovered anything. You’ve found a man pushing a lighting rig.”

“A man with a lighting rig who clearly works in production.”

“Fine. Follow the man. But I want it noted in the log that I have reservations.”

For a while, following the lighting rig felt like genuine detective work: the quiet, purposeful trailing of a suspect in a movie, except that in movies, the trail usually leads to what you’re looking for.

Ours led steadily away from the residential neighborhood where filming was supposed to be happening.

“He probably knows a shortcut,” I said.

“A shortcut to nowhere, like that swamp road we took after a local told us not to.”

“Amy, production people know all the back routes. This is probably faster.”

Amy didn’t respond, which, in Amy terms, is the verbal equivalent of crossing her arms and pouting.

The man led us behind shuttered beach shops and down a service alley that smelled faintly of low tide and bad oysters.

I want to be clear that at no point did I consider this a bad sign.

“This is clearly a route the production assistants use to avoid congestion,” I said. “Very savvy.”

“Or he’s cutting through here to buy a sandwich.”

“Production people don’t stop for sandwiches mid-shot, Amy. There’s a whole department for that. Craft services. I’ve read about it.”

The alley gave way to a gravel lot designed, apparently, for turning an ankle. The cart’s rollers began making a sound like a shopping cart with a personal grudge.

“He’s slowing down,” I said. “We must be really close now.”

“Or gravel is hard to push a cart through.”

“Both things can be true at the same time, Amy. That’s a very good sign, structurally.”

Nothing tracks

“We’re now four blocks past the last residential structure,” she said. “There’s a bait shop to our left. It’s closed. It’s been closed, I would guess, since before you were born.”

“Bait shops are exactly the kind of unglamorous local color a location scout loves. This tracks.”

“Nothing tracks. You’re tracking someone going somewhere but you don't know where.”

“I am tracking a man with a lighting rig, Amy. That’s the single most trackable thing a person can track.”

Fifteen minutes later, the man arrived at an equipment truck parked so far from both the filming location and the original traffic jam that it might as well have been in another county.

He loaded the lighting rig into the truck, latched the door, and walked away in a direction that had nothing to do with us.

“He wasn’t going to set,” Amy said. “He was leaving set. We followed a man in the exact opposite direction of the thing we were trying to find for fifteen minutes, with total confidence.”

“In my defense—”

“There is no defense. There is only geography, and you have failed it.”

The Great Debate

“There’s only one thing to do,” I said. “We backtrack to Wynd Horse and drive around the construction. We still have hours of filming left today.”

“Or,” Amy said, “we accept that this outing has been cursed since that lame excuse for a navigation system decided it knew better than the actual roads. I say we cut our losses and head back to Coastal Tacos.”

“That’s not the spirit of The Circular Journey.”

“The spirit of The Circular Journey,” Amy replied, “is that we set out for one destination and end up somewhere else entirely. I’m suggesting we lean into that theme a little early today.”

We compromised, in the loosest possible sense of the word, by asking strangers for directions.

This turned out to be its own special category of disaster.

Everybody Is an Expert

“Oh, they wrapped that weeks ago,” one confident stranger told us. “You can watch it already. It’s on NBC. No, wait—CBS. One of those.”

RJ Decker is an ABC production. Nothing about his information was correct, yet he delivered it with the certainty of a man reading from a teleprompter.

Someone else insisted the production was filming downtown, near the courthouse.

“It’s a crime drama, you know. The police are always going to the courthouse to see the judge.”

He was wrong, too, but I admired his confidence.

The Verdict

By the time we made it back to Wynd Horse, defeated, sunburned, and no closer to South Churchill Drive than we’d been an hour earlier, I felt compelled to put the disaster into words.

“Of all the messes, in all the set locations, in all the film productions we’ve covered,” I said, “this is the worst one we’ve gotten ourselves into.”

Amy didn’t pause a beat.

“You have a very short memory,” she said. “This doesn’t come close to the humiliation of you thinking that teenager on the boardwalk was a star in a Disney movie. He thought you were a cop.”

She wasn’t wrong.

She’s very rarely wrong, which is, as I’ve mentioned before, precisely the problem with Amy.

I’m reminding myself that there’s always tomorrow. So until next time, my friend—assuming Wynd Horse and I are still speaking—see you on set.

First Light Dispatch

The world ends every night. Most people don’t mention it, probably because it ends so quietly and returns so reliably that we’ve stopped noticing the miracle. 

I notice because I always wake before the day finds its rhythm, pulled from sleep by a feeling I can only describe as dread with no return address, courtesy of Princess Amy, my amygdala, who interprets the ordinary darkness of 5 a.m. as proof that something has gone permanently wrong.

Amy is the neurological equivalent of a car alarm triggered by a leaf falling on the hood. She means well, of course. In fact, she spends approximately eighteen hours a day trying to save my life. But in the small hours of the morning, her assessment of the situation rarely matches mine. So I do the only sensible thing: I leave her to it, make coffee, and take up my position at the French doors.

The backyard has a particular quality at this hour that resists description but insists on being witnessed. The darkness isn't fully dark; it's that deep blue-grey that belongs exclusively to the half hour when the night has spent itself but the day hasn't yet committed. The oak trees are silhouettes. The fence is a suggestion. The bird feeders hang motionless, empty of visitors, patient as monks.

I stand there with my first cup of Jah’s mercy, waiting for the world to reconstitute itself. It always has, but for a moment, Amy and I wonder whether this will be the morning it doesn’t. It’s one of the few things we agree on at this hour.

A lone dove arrives first. She descends from the scrub oak before any other creature stirs and lands on the feeder platform with a soft, decisive thump. She doesn’t begin eating right away. She simply sits in the pewter light, as though appointed to verify that the backyard is still where they left it. The First Dove of Morning. Inspector of Dawns.

Satisfied with her report, she begins to eat, and her presence seems to give the others permission to follow. A cardinal appears in the crape myrtle, not wearing the vivid red of his afternoon self, but a muted, sleepy crimson, as though he, like me, needs a moment to find his full color. A chickadee arrives, then another. From somewhere in the jasmine, the Carolina wren announces herself with a single declarative note, as if to say, “I’m here!"—which is really all any of us can say for sure.

The light shifts. It begins gradually and then erupts all at once, the way important things do.

Then Breezer appears: the spokesperson for the squirrel homeowners association. Breezer of the first light is not the same Breezer who stages afternoon raids from the fence top or wages campaigns against the crow gang. This Breezer moves deliberately, almost cautiously, as though the morning were something to be handled with reverence.

Breezer follows his usual route from the oak to the fence to the feeder, but without his customary theatrical flourish. No tail-flagging. No pausing to survey his domain with that particular squirrelly expression suggesting he’s already three moves ahead of everyone else. He simply arrives, chooses his breakfast with quiet discernment, and settles on the fence post to eat.

I watch him and think about the night he's just come through, tucked into his drey with the darkness outside and the world temporarily dissolved. What memories does a squirrel carry into sleep? What, if anything, follows him out of it?

He pauses mid-meal and looks directly at the French doors; directly at me. We regard each other across the silver morning air. A moment of mutual recognition passes: two creatures who have once again made it safely to the other side of the night. Amy observes the exchange in uncharacteristic silence. I take that as agreement.

Mr. Woodrow, the woodpecker, lands in his breakfast tree with the gravitas of a judge taking the bench. He surveys the assembled company: the Dove Sisters of the Immaculate Order of Brunswick, now gathered in full congregation; the cardinal, restored to the proper red of day; and Breezer, finishing his breakfast with quiet efficiency. Woodrow delivers three measured drumbeats against the bark. The day may proceed.

From beyond the fence, a dog offers a single bark. It's not an alarm, just an announcement: I'm still here!

The light is fully golden now. The dove sisters glow in it. The cardinal blazes. Even the fence posts look distinguished. Something in my chest, braced since approximately 4 a.m., loosens by a degree or two. Amy, I notice, is begining to pace the floor of my limbic system in anticipation of something that I can only imagine.

And then I see the signal that the opening act is winding down: Breezer’s tail begins to twitch. Slowly at first, just the tip, a subtle oscillation that could almost be mistaken for the morning breeze. But I know better. The twitch is the squirrel equivalent of cracking one’s knuckles, rolling up one’s sleeves, or offering the faint smile that precedes an opening gambit.

 The contemplative creature of five minutes ago has vanished as completely as the blue-gray darkness. In his place is the Breezer I know best: alert, calculating, and radiating the particular energy of someone who has just had a very good idea.

He glances back at me briefly, then races along the fence at breathtaking speed, disappearing into the oak branches in a rustle and flash of tail.

The dove sisters watch him go with what I can only interpret as resignation. Mr. Woodrow delivers another measured drumbeat, which my intuitive neurons recognize as meaning, Here we go again. The cardinal retreats to the crape myrtle. The day has officially begun, and apparently, so has whatever Breezer has planned.

I finish my coffee at the French doors, watching the backyard settle into its daytime rhythms: the negotiations and skirmishes, the territorial claims and peanut politics, the ongoing saga of creatures engaged in the urgent business of being alive.

Deep within my midbrain, Amy clears her throat, which can only mean she has thoughts about the day ahead. She always does.

For a few minutes, as the blue-gray world turned golden, Amy and I were in agreement. The world had remembered how to begin again. And that, on balance, seemed to call for a squirrel causing some trouble. Life is good.

George Takei Believes in Me

Life comes hard and fast, and if we aren't prepared, it can flatten us like a Roomba meeting a sock. But it doesn't have to be that way. Fierce living keeps me free of the tyranny of emotional overload, and I'm convinced it will work for anyone. That’s right, even you, reading this in your pajamas at 11 a.m., silently judging me for oversharing on the internet. 

Sharing my personal life with the general public is a little scary. It's the vulnerability equivalent of walking into a party and announcing, "So, let’s talk about me." But this morning I feel much better about it, because I've been reading George Takei's blog. That's right. George Takei, who navigated the Starship Enterprise to destinations where no one had gone before, using nothing but confidence, a velour uniform, and remarkable comic timing.

He didn't stop there, either. Decades after boldly going, he's still boldly going—posting, advocating, charming millions of people on the internet, which is a feat roughly as difficult as commanding a starship, possibly harder, given the internet's crew is mostly comprised of trolls.

George believes in the power of people to change the world. And I've decided, somewhat unilaterally, that this means he also believes I can reach my goals, provided I set a course and don't waver. I recognize this is a slightly aggressive interpretation of a man's blog, but at this point in my healing journey, I'll take my motivational support wherever I can beam it in from.

Several years ago, I met a man who understood the pain and hopelessness that filled my life at the time. He suggested a different way of living, one that had completely transformed his own. I told him I was afraid to try; afraid I'd fail and be left even more hopeless, which felt like betting my last dollar on a scratch-off ticket.

"You don't have to believe it will work for you," said this man, who I would later recognize as one of life's actual winners, the kind of person who probably alphabetizes his spice rack for fun, "you only need to believe that I believe it works for me."

Which is, when you think about it, an oddly elegant loophole. I didn't need faith. I just needed to borrow his.

He explained that his life had changed dramatically and all for the better, because he'd followed a specific set of guidelines. If I followed the same guidelines, he said, I'd get the same results. It sounded suspiciously like a recipe, and I have burned enough dinners in my life to be skeptical of recipes. But I followed his suggestions anyway, because I believed in him even when I couldn't yet believe in myself.

And it worked. Today I'm free of yesterday's limitations—mostly, and I'd try to be an instrument of healing for others who've suffered emotionally the way I did, but without the burnt-dinner metaphors.

Here's the most curious part of this whole path: when I do my best to help others, I reap the same benefits myself. It's a strange, almost cosmically inefficient-sounding economy, the kind where giving something away somehow leaves you with more of it. I've stopped questioning it and started just showing up for it.

That's why I share the events of my life with others: to help them, and, not coincidentally, to help me. It's sometimes funny, sometimes embarrassing (there have been incidents), and always a little scary. But hey! I believe in George Takei, and George Takei, in my head at least, believes in me. So I just keep on keeping on.

Life is good my friend. Live long and prosper.

Mindfleet Mission Report: Shatner's Puppy

A Mindfleet Mission Report
Stardate 2026.265

Three days ago, FMS Coastal Voyager was in geosynchronous orbit above Douglass Park in Chicago. The promotions board had agreed to reschedule Captain Amy's hearing, not because I was especially diplomatic, but because Captain Amy was annoyingly persistent. Amy was already on the surface, anxious to connect with her hero, William Shatner.

I was left in command of the bridge. Everything that could go wrong was about to do exactly that.

"Status report," I requested, trying to get comfortable in the command chair. The bridge felt entirely different without Amy’s theatrical presence dominating every cubic meter.

"Away team has successfully transported," confirmed Major Reason from his science station. "Captain Amy and three fleet officers are approaching the VIP meet-and-greet. No complications.”

"Famous last words," muttered Chief Engineer Anxiety from the engine room. "Give it time, Ambassador. Something always goes wrong when the Captain leaves the ship.”

"Anxiety's concern is statistically unfounded," Reason countered. "We currently have a 67% success rate for away missions under Captain Amy."

"That's a 33% failure rate," Dr. Downer interjected from her clinic. “Medical Bay is prepped for trauma, injury, and whatever's about to explode in Chicago.”

Lieutenant Joy monitored communications. "Away team is in position. Captain Amy's personal communicator is... very excited.”

Through her speaker, Amy's voice crackled: “Shatner’s Shag Shack dressing room is exactly as specified. Actual shag carpeting! I may weep.”

"There's also an unidentified signal in the comm channel," Joy added. "Some kind of anomaly.”

"Captain is entering the meet-and-greet," said Major Reason. "Shatner's on stage, checking the sound equipment. Visual contact is imminent.”

Through the comm: Amy's sharp intake of breath. Then, reverently: "He's... magnificent. His stage presence. It's everything I've ever— does anyone have a tissue?“

Static cracked through the channel followed by Amy's quivering, almost blubbering voice.

"I'm synchronizing our neural patterns, demonstrating the kinship we share as commanders and—“

“Captain!" Reason interrupted sharply, "What exactly are you transmitting?”

"Emotional affirmation. Letting him know I understand the burden of leadership..."

"Oh no," Anxiety groaned. "She's doing that thing. That emotional synchronization thing. This is not good.”

Major Reason announced, “She's activating his emotional resonance patterns. Broadcasting directly to Shatner's amygdala.”

Joy's console erupted. "Shatner's stress hormones are spiking!"

Through the comm, Shatner's voice cracked with confusion: "What is that? Why do I suddenly feel like I'm about to miss a crucial starship maneuver?”

"Captain," I said carefully, "dial it back.”

"Negative," Amy snapped. "I'm close to parity. He's responding.”

Shatner was now pacing on stage like an actor who'd forgotten his lines.

"This is unprecedented," Reason muttered. "She's causing interference in William Shatner's emotional state.”

Suddenly, Cadet Reginald’s MaT-1 Adaptive Translation System bled through Joy’s comms.

"Yo, this is genius," Reginald whispered. “Imma be so deep in these puppy layers, nobody gonna find me. Peak Reginald energy right here.”

"There's a ferret in here!" someone shouted. "There's a ferret in the puppy basket!”

Alarms shrieked. Festival security converged.

"Away team!" I called. "Emergency evacuation! Transport authorization granted!”

Chaos erupted: "Acknowledged!" Amy yelled. "Moving to beam-up location!”

"Wait, ya’ll!" Reginald panicked. "I'm still in the basket! I'm tangled with the puppies! I got puppy breath all up in my translator!”

"Reginald, where are you?" Joy called.

“In the basket with adoptable puppies in Shatner’s Shag hangout! Security be comin’ now!”

"Captain!" I called. "Reginald is in Shatner’s dressing room. Delay transport!”

"Negative, Ambassador." Amy's voice was tight and pained. "Perimeter's locked down. If we don't evacuate now, we're detained.”

"But Reginald—“

"Is a highly resourceful ferret," Amy clipped. "Transport the away team. Now.”

The transporter engaged. A flash of light over Douglass Park, and the away team materialized. Reginald was not among them.

The bridge fell silent.

"Status," I finally said.

"Away team accounted for," Reason reported quietly, "except Cadet Reginald.”

"This is bad," Anxiety said in his thick Scottish accent. "We left the wee beastie behind. Captain Amy is going to be in deep—“

“Don’t say it; I’m aware," came Amy's voice as she strode onto the bridge, hair disheveled, mascara running down her face like a deranged clown, her whole countenance a knot of devastation and defiance. "We had no choice. The perimeter was sealed.”

"Cadet Reginald's signal is still transmitting," Reason reported. “He's escaped security and moving through the festival at high velocity.”

Through the open comm, Reginald's escape soundtrack played:

"Got security on my tail. These humans don't understand ferret physics; I'm going under the bleachers, they're going over, perfect tactical divergence! DOOK!”

"Reginald!" Joy called. "Where are you heading?”

“Don’t know, but I'm gettin’ there fast! I can see Shatner on stage, and I think we done broke his brain, y’all!"

Amy turned immediately toward the transporter room. "We're going back.”

"Captain," I said carefully, "Chicago authorities are on high alert. Another transport operation will—“

"Confirm we're serious about retrieving our crew member," Amy finished. "We are not leaving Cadet Reginald behind. That ferret is one of us.”

She turned to Reason. "Localize his signal, Major. We need precise coordinates.”

“Way ahead of you," Reason said. "But sending an away team into an active police perimeter risks escalation. May I suggest a covert extraction?”

Amy looked directly at me. An unspoken acknowledgment passed between us; we'd already broken the Prime Directive three times over.

"The Ambassador is going down," Amy said. “Prepare the transporter. Tell Reginald rescue is on its way."

I stood from the chair. "I'm going to get our ferret back,” I said weakly, heading for the transporter room, with Amy's words echoing in my head: the Ambassador is going down, down, down.

Amy came to see me off, her jaw set. "Bring him back, Ambassador.”

“That is the plan," I replied in an undiplomatic tone. I didn’t like the plan and didn’t care who knew it.

Major Reason's voice chimed in: "Coordinates locked. Reginald's signal is highly mobile. You're going in hot, Ambassador.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” I muttered.

Through the comm, Reginald's voice breathed: “...deeper in the park now; security’s circlin’, sirens wailin’. DOOK—it’sa gettin’ real!"

I looked at Reason through the viewport. He nodded.

"Energizing," he said.

The platform hummed beneath my feet.

Captain's Log: Stardate 2026.265

Mission status: Cadet Reginald remains stranded in Chicago, pursued by festival security. The Ambassador has just been transported to Douglass Park for a rescue operation.

Stand by.