PENUMBRA MISSION STATUS UPDATE, SD 202109.24

.  The *Penumbra* is in interstellar space within the boundaries of the Breen Confederacy. We met with a Zhenkarian Corsaire, V'rot Ka'Gun, to whom we'd been directed by Admiral Sulyk through various Starfleet Intelligence connections.

.  With Ka'Gun, Patterson struck "an accord" in that Ka'Gun will be able to brag to the other Corsaires that he can "call upon the Warship Penumbra", and Patterson promised he'd at least "answer the phone" when Ka'Gun calls (without promising any actual action on the part of the Penumbra). In exchange for this "accord", Ka'Gun gave us the coordinates to rendezvous with a Ferengi merchant, Galex.

.  As it turns out, Galex is someone we know, or at least know of. He was the owner/operator of the Casino on the Plaza Royale deck of the ISS Reciprocity back when Captain Adam Android was in command. Our beloved Chief of Operations, LtCmdr. Tabby Tibris was born on the Reciprocity and spent the first few years of his life there. While Tabby doesn't have any personal memories of interaction with Galex (he was very young and the Casino owner wouldn't have interacted with a small child), Tabby did hear stories of Galex from his parents and his "Uncle Adam" in the years afterward. He feels he knows Galex, well enough, at least, and knows we shouldn't trust him.

.  We have been flying at Warp 7 to the location of Galex's "luxury cruise liner" for a while and should be arriving at the last-known coordinates (and his usual cruise route) shortly.

.  Meanwhile, in Sickbay, LtCmdr. T'Lin and Dr. Shadow K'Trevala have come up with a blend of herbs and other medicines they think should treat the Hawkes' hallucinations. There are a few side-effects. The physical ones are relatively minor, things like upset stomach, bad breath, moderate headache, maybe a little diarrhea. It's the mental side-effects that may be problematic: first, they will lose their Borg interlink with each other while taking the medicine (this is temporary); second, their other "Borg abilities" dependent on the interface between their brains and their implants, may be "impeded"; third, this medicine is a temporary solution to a problem for which we still haven't fully identified the source. The Hawkes are trying to decide if they should take the medicine and deal with these side-effects, or continue to suffer the hallucinations.

.  As for the ship, Bevin and her teams have fully repaired the damages caused by the Commodore's incompetence with Slipstream and by our sojourn in the Badlands, and we allowed the engines the necessary time to "warm up" before engaging the warp drive. Everything is back to normal (for now, at least).

.  Col. Travis Patterson has returned command of the ship to Cdre. Zak Taylor, though continues to assert that the "mission" with the Breen is still under his command, by order of Admiral Sulyk. After all, we tried it Zak's way, now it's Patterson's turn.