An Introduction.

I suppose I ought to introduce myself. I am Ensign Arda Coombs, a junior Bajoran astrometrics officer on the USS Voyager (NCC-74656). I joined the ship from Deep Space Nine for what was supposed to be a simple patrolling mission. I couldn't be more wrong.

I was moved from DS9 to Voyager as a way of furthering my career within Starfleet Science Corps. While the Wormhole is a peculiar and highly interesting piece of spacial phenomena I felt that there were already enough scientists researching its properties and I couldn't add anything more to that mix. I requested a transfer and my fate was set. Voyager was transported to the Delta quadrant and I was able to study truely unique astrophysical events. However I, like every other crewmember, was the furthest anyone had been from the Alpha quadrant and the addition of a crew of Maquis fighters made the transition even worse.

However time moved on and I became used to the idea of deep exploration. We even picked up people as we went along, not least a Borg drone named Seven of Nine who became my commanding officer in Astrometrics.

That's enough for an introduction. Current events are far more interesting. We have come across a civilisation thought destroyed. The Alsurans seem to have colonised three planets in the Delta Quadrant. What is more amazing is that they are an Alpha quadrant race. The only record Starfleet has of them is a dish prepared by Neelix for Commander Chakotay. Other than that nothing. Not even linguistic data. This meant the translator was not as universal as it should have been and I was charged with studying the linguistic data our probes brought back from the planets. Even with my linguistic training this was no easy task. While the semantic translation was easy, the difference in syntax meant I took several days to even create the most basic of cypher. I am actually at the most I can do without more hard linguistic data from the actual planet itself. Thus I am pleased to hear that we are granted an away mission and I am to be a part of it. I don't think I can contain my excitement. These people have evaded near extermination to survive on the other side of the galaxy. Truely an amazing feat. And maybe, if they got here, they have a way to get us home faster.

That thought is keeping me very excited.

Ensign Arda, out.