Handshake, Mockery, and a Forty‑Eight Hour Clock
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
The Enterprise paces a dark, eighty-year-old derelict while the lifeless Hathaway swallows the Main Viewer; Kolrami audits every move on his PADD as Picard, Riker, Data, and crew gauge the looming test.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Alert and duty‑bound — focused on readiness rather than participating in the banter.
Burke remains at Tactical during the exchange, monitoring consoles and the arrival of diplomatic observers, maintaining a watchful, professional posture and ready to execute orders as the situation hardens into a timed trial.
- • Keep tactical systems monitored and ready for changes.
- • Support bridge command decisions as required.
- • Maintain situational awareness in case of immediate orders.
- • Chain of command must be followed precisely.
- • Observers' pronouncements can quickly change operational posture.
- • Preparedness prevents avoidable risk to the ship.
Detached and testing — he maintains emotional distance, treating the bridge exchange as data to be evaluated rather than a human moment.
Kolrami listens with thin contempt, periodically records notes on his PADD and then abruptly reframes the moment by announcing a forty‑eight‑hour commencement, converting friendly ritual into a formal test under Zakdorn rules.
- • Impose a timed, measurable framework to evaluate the commanders.
- • Assert Zakdorn intellectual authority and provoke strategic responses.
- • Collect observational data to compare strategic performance.
- • Ritual and levity mask true capability; a formal test is needed.
- • Time pressure reveals genuine strategic imagination and leadership.
- • Objective measurement (notes, timing) is superior to sentiment.
Warmly authoritative — playfulness overlays the serious weight of command delegation, signaling trust while masking the burden of impending decisions.
Picard deliberately keeps the tone light, frames the Hathaway as a challenge, extends his hand and shakes Riker's in a ceremonial gesture that both delegates responsibility and bolsters morale among the bridge crew.
- • Formally transfer a time‑boxed command challenge to Riker.
- • Maintain crew morale and ritual continuity in front of observers.
- • Frame the impending mission as honorable to preserve confidence.
- • Ceremony and tone influence how officers accept responsibility.
- • Leadership develops through tested, time‑bounded challenges.
- • Public confidence helps stabilize command transitions under scrutiny.
Clinically attentive — no emotional coloring, focused on registering facts and preparing to supply analytic support when ordered.
Data stands among senior officers, observant and expressionless, absorbing the exchange and the Zakdorn pronouncement as informational inputs to be processed for future tactical support and analysis.
- • Record and analyze information relevant to the forthcoming operation.
- • Be ready to perform the acting first officer role as delegated by Picard.
- • Support Riker with accurate diagnostics and procedural aid.
- • Comprehensive data collection aids command decisions.
- • Predictable procedures will reduce operational risk.
- • Duty requires readiness to follow lawful orders without bias.
Businesslike and resolute — focused on duty and execution rather than social ritual.
Worf's voice over com announces away team readiness; his terse transmission confirms operational discipline and signals that the ship's security element is prepared to transport and support Riker's mission.
- • Ensure the away team is assembled and transport‑ready.
- • Provide dependable security support for the upcoming operation.
- • Signal to command that tactical preparations are complete.
- • Honor and readiness are demonstrated through disciplined preparation.
- • Clear, prompt communications prevent confusion during transitions.
- • Duty requires unquestioning preparedness when ordered.
Eager and self-assured — outward levity but ready to shoulder operational responsibility and prove himself under pressure.
Riker receives Picard's handshake with a grin and light banter, accepts the implicit challenge, and physically prepares to exit the bridge to assume command of the Hathaway, projecting confidence before the gathered officers.
- • Accept and assume command of the Hathaway.
- • Signal competence and reassure the crew and Picard.
- • Win honor and succeed under the Zakdorn's scrutiny.
- • Picard trusts me to lead; I should not disappoint.
- • Practical action will prove leadership more than rhetoric.
- • A mixture of confidence and competence will steady the crew.
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
The bridge's main viewer frames the unlit Hathaway dominating the screen; it visually establishes the stakes and serves as the silent reminder of the derelict mission objective while officers exchange banter and Kolrami imposes the countdown.
Kolrami's compact PADD is periodically used by him to record observational notes; it functions as the physical emblem of his analytical approach and is the instrument by which he times and formalizes the forty‑eight hour simulation commencement.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
The dusty orange planet fills the background of the Main Viewer, bathing the bridge in an amber twilight that compresses time and heightens the crew's sense of pressure as Kolrami's countdown reframes the impending operation as urgent.
The Hathaway, visible on the Main Viewer, functions as the derelict objective of the exercise; its dark, aged hull and blind windows convert Picard's ceremonial transfer into an operational imperative, anchoring the moral and tactical stakes of the announced forty‑eight hour trial.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
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Themes This Exemplifies
Thematic resonance and meaning
Key Dialogue
"PICARD: "Commander Riker -- There is your next challenge.""
"RIKER: "I may get over there and want to come right home.""
"KOLRAMI: "The simulation will commence in forty-eight hours.""