As is now public knowledge, Starfleet Operations has been working on a comprehensive upgrade programme for Deep Space Nine over the past year, ever since we lost the Odyssey to the Dominion.

The events you want to discuss started out as a standard supply run. I was assigned to the Lakota by Admiral Leyton to manage the loading and unloading of the cargo, while ensuring it was not interfered with in transit by any members of the crew. With us still not fully aware of the full capabilities of the founders, nor the extent of the Dominions intelligence network, we didn’t want to take any chances.

My orders changed shortly before we departed Earth. I was given a secondary objective: To monitor the serving captain of the Lakota at that time - Janel Zon and an Admiral from McKinley who was a last minute addition to the crew manifest.

It’s not exactly rare for Admirals to change their plans at short notice. But this Admiral was by all reports a fairly quiet man who had made his career in R&D. The fact that he suddenly wanted to travel to the Badlands on a ship going via Deep Space Nine raised more than a few eyebrows. A less professional officer may have made a bet as to whether he’d turn out to be a Dominion spy or a Maquis traitor.

He boarded with a few engineers from McKinley and spent most of his time between the science labs and the Captains quarters. They definitely seemed to be on... Friendly terms. But I don’t like to speculate. The journey through and beyond Deep Space Nine was uneventful.

It wasn’t until we approached the badlands that Captain Zons lackadaisical approach to crew and ship began to catch up with him. Whether this, combined with his lack of effort towards maintaining his appearance, was a long term issue or purely related to the Admirals presence I never ascertained.

I gathered on our way back to Earth that the trouble started with an anomaly in the warp field. Usually such a malfunction would be reason enough to turn a ship around to the nearest starbase, especially if their destination was a turbulent region such as the Badlands. But the Captain was not dissuaded, and the Lakota continued. Limping on.

I had been given the heads up from Admiral Leyton in advance that the Captain had been given strict orders to not take the ship into the plasma storms. As a result, the Admirals objectives had to be accomplished using a standard type 7 shuttlecraft.

The particular shuttlecraft used was designated Teton and had been modified by the Admirals engineers throughout the journey with an enhanced sensor array. I’m afraid I don’t know the precise details of the enhancements.

I stationed myself on the bridge throughout these proceedings. Leyton had given me permission to take command of the Lakota if it looked as though the Admiral was fleeing into the Badlands if the Captain didn’t react appropriately.

As the shuttle made its way into the plasma storms the Lakota maintained an open comlink. Often punctuated with static caused by the interference in the region.

The shuttle reported that it had confirmed artificially high concentrations of Tetryons in the area. As this confirmation came through, the McKinley engineers relayed a change of heading to continue their investigation. They must have been distracted by some of the telemetry coming from the shuttle because the next thing we saw was the shuttle being struck by a rapidly forming plasma tornado. After which it began drifting deeper into the storm. One of the bridge officers reported that in response to being struck, the shuttle was actually diverting power away from the shield grid into the sensor array. It was a suicide mission!

Thankfully the Captain stepped up before I needed to and ordered the Admiral to return immediately. But his orders fell on deaf ears as the Admiral continued to protest. Claiming he needed more time. The shuttle was in big trouble and the Admiral seemed to have no intention of giving up on whatever science experiment he was running.

You’ll be able to confirm in the logs from the Lakota, I’ll provide you with a copy, that I fully objected to what happened next.

The Captain ordered the ship into the badlands. In a direct breach of orders. I had to make a split second decision whether or not to try and assume command.

While I think that ultimately, I would have been justified in doing so. The ship was already entering the plasma storms. The crew needed to give what they were doing their undivided attention to make sure we weren’t all killed.

The ship isn’t exactly unfamiliar with wild rescue attempts, but she’s not as young as she used to be and she definitely wasn’t designed to deal with the Badlands. The crew performed admirably, we may have even made it out completely unscathed if the Captain hadn’t ordered us to drop the shields to beam the shuttle aboard...

We had to beam the whole shuttle because the interference was preventing us from getting a lock on the admiral himself.

As the transport process completed, the ship was struck by another forming plasma tornado, which to make matters worse ended up briefly tethering itself to the nacelle and then striking the primary hull. The bridge erupted into chaos. The first officer was killed instantly and the Captain was thrown across the bridge.

We managed to get the shields back up, and reversed course.

I made my way through the rubble to the Captain. I didn’t need a tricorder to see that his injuries were life threatening. Fortunately internal transporters hadn’t been knocked offline, and I called for an emergency medical transport.

Before the transporter beam took him, he transferred command of Lakota to me for the trip home. Which is where I have been ever since.

Last I heard, Captain Zon is still in a coma.