Sometimes it can be hard to appreciate how many humans and members of other species there truly are in the Forth Fleet, until someone tells them, they can all have a few days off to recover after all the turmoil of resent events.  The sheer number of ships docked simultaneously and the volume of people was a logistical nightmare, already burdened by a higher than average flow of civilian traffic.  Everyone wanted to be somewhere, and they all wanted to do it at once.  People desperate to get to their home worlds and see people they’d been parted from during the ‘Blackout’.  Others fled devastation and lose, everything they once had, gone.  How Flight Control and Security her on Starbase 86 were managing to handle everything was nothing sort of a minor miracle, and they’d all have to be given their own leave at some point.  It was lucky that some of the Taskforces assets had gone directly to the planets where their officers and crew would be taking shore leave and not come here first.

The USS da Vinci had been one of the last to arrive; having got half way home and then been diverted to Khitomer, in order to drop off the XO for some exercise with other Taskforce members and the Klingons.

Lieutenant Giovanni Agusta didn’t envy the First Officer and Head of the ships science division one bit; then again, at least she was somewhere.  Right now, Giovanni was nowhere, stuck as he was in one of the stations departure concourses.  As the ships head of Astrometric Department, he could name the majority of the stars he was looking at through the view port, he just couldn’t reach any of them.

Trouble had started when, for reasons no one had yet managed to explain, his ID stopped working!  One day he was Lieutenant Giovanni Agusta, of the USS da Vinci, the next, he didn’t exist.  To not be able to exit your own quarters on the station and have security turn up to check on why someone was now in a room that the computer logs claimed was empty, and had been for several days; was a major embarrassment.

The Commander, who was off on her own leave had verified who he was via video link, but not after he’d been held under guard for the best part of three hours.  It took another hour and a half, on top of that, to put him back into the system.  The delay had meant he’d missed the transport he would have been heading out on.  Though he suspected that if he didn’t exist, he wouldn’t have had a cabin booked.

Things had looked much better the following day; when Giovanni had managed to secure passage on the Corinthian.  He’d taken his seat in the main passenger lounge, along with around 80 other people.  He could tell that at least half a dozen of them were either officers or crew from other Starfleet vessels, but he didn’t spot anyone from the da Vinci. The Captain did the usual welcome aboard and thank you for travelling with the company routine and the cabin staff when through the safety drill.  The ship had moved off, slowly but steadily.  Upon reaching the outer marker and preparing to jump to warp, the Corinthian’s onboard systems  died.

All the lights went out in the lounge are, and some woman screamed in the darkness; which made some of the other passengers more panicky than they may otherwise have been.  The Stewardesses did a great good of calming everyone down again, and one managed to get the emergency lights working fairly quickly. But without an operational communication system between them and the Bridge, they couldn’t answer any questions about what was going on.

Apparently the crew’s knowledge of the ships systems was pretty limited; they knew how to fly it, but little else.  An engineer came over from another ship, and later someone was ferried over from the station; but neither of them could figure out, what had gone wrong.

In the end, six hours after leaving the docking area, the Corinthian was towed back, and all passengers were asked to disembark.

By that point Giovanni was too tired and fed up to care, so he found a row of unoccupied seats, lay down and went to sleep, using his kit bag as a pillow.  Security woke him around five hours later; they kindly informed him that all passengers who’d been due to travel on the Corinthian had been found places on a replacement ship.  However as no one had managed to track him down; this second ship had departed twenty minutes ago, without him.

He thanked the two security officers, before sinking his head pack into his bag.  Had he offended some supreme being by accident or down something really bad in a previous life, and now the universe was enacting its revenge?

The answer would have to wait though, as a more pressing need had emerged; that of finding and eating breakfast.  He grabbed himself a coffee and a couple of Italian pastries from a small establishment he’d come across not long after becoming stationed here.

The owner, Antonio had been to Turin a number of times to visit he’s nonna who apparently lived only a few Kilometres from the Agusta family home.  It meant the two of them had something in common and so they chatted about Italy when they got chance.

“Gio.” Antonio always shortened his name whenever he spoke to him. “I thought you were supposed to be off relaxing.”

“Things haven’t exactly been going to plan.” Giovanni replied. “But I know your wonderful breakfast can help.”

The two Italians chatted whilst Giovanni ate breakfast and he filled in the café owner on what had happened to him, during the previous two and a half days.

“So have you got yourself a seat on another vessel?” Antonio asked towards the end of their conversation.

“No, I came here for breakfast first.” He replied.

The café owner shook his head and then smiled, as a though popped into his head.  “Why don’t you borrow the Veloce?”

“I couldn’t take your ship.”

“Why not, she’s fast and will get you where you need to go.  I hardly ever get to us her.”

**********

Two hours later, Lieutenant Giovanni Agusta sat in the pilot’s seat of the HK 27, Veloce.  It was a bit longer than an Arrow Class Runabout at 27.4 metres, the nose was more rounded at the tip and the warp engines were mounted in a double pod above the rear fuselage.  It was possible to gain access to much of the engines systems and components via hatches from inside the ship.

He still felt odd about taking his friends ship, and had taken a lot of convincing to just even step aboard.  Antonio had left about five minutes ago, having given a tour of the ship and its operating systems. He also introduced Giovanni to ‘Spirito’ the ships holographic pilot and engineer, and ‘Cuoco’ who was there to prepare meals.

“This is the Star Yacht Veloce requesting permission to launch.” He asked contacting the station Flight Control.

“This is Control to Veloce, you haven’t filed a Flight Plan.” A female voice replied.  “Please confirm your Flight Plan destination.”

“Let me fly far away from here.” Giovanni announced.

“That’s a very nice idea Sir, but we really need to know where you going.”

Giovanni sat back in the pilot’s seat, with a puzzled look on his face.  “You know, I hadn’t really thought that far ahead!”

And that was the point, he could go anywhere he wanted to, within the capacity of this ship, and he didn’t know where to go!