Stardate 50390.06
It's not often one will see a space-time distortion of this magnitude. It really is quite spectacular, though – a searing point of light hanging in space for a second, then to spit out an almost liquid purple glow.
Looking back on it these days, some say it was the work of the Q Continuum. Perhaps a Borg ship activated its transwarp drive at the wrong time. Perhaps it was a natural thing. One thing is certain, though – it wreaked all kinds of havoc upon the local cosmos.
Stardate 50946.23
"Alright, we're done here. Enterprise standing by. NCC-73515 Nova moving out."
The Nova-class' namesake vessel kicked its warp engines into gear and shot into superlight space at warp six. After what was almost a courtesy period of fifteen seconds, the Sovereign-class hybrid cruiser NCC-1701 Enterprise replaced it, training its long-range sensors on the anomaly in the interim.
"Power use levels falling to impulse normal. We are fully out of warp... now, sir; proceed as desired," reported Data at operations, unshakably calm as ever.
"Thank you, Mr Data. Take us in," from Captain Jean-Luc Picard, with not the vaguest hint of a smile. There wasn't much to be happy about – this anomaly had been randomly swallowing light starships. Granted, it was intriguing, but it didn't outweigh the possible loss of life incurred. Still, their station coordinate should be safe.
The starship followed a gentle but fast curve into mid-sensor range, with more and more turreted antennae across the hull curving around and clicking into place to focus on the anomaly. Streams of data combined to run through the ship's semi-sentient computer and be combined into a report.
SENSOR DIGEST FOLLOWS
ANOMALY CENTRE EXACTLY TEN KILOMETRES ACROSS.
ANOMALY FIELD EXACTLY ONE MILLION KILOMETRES ACROSS.
NO PERCEPTIBLE MASS.
SENSOR DIGEST ENDS
Picard studied the digest, which had been shunted into a corner of the viewscreen for the command staff's attention. It certainly didn't make much sense; natural singularities tended to have irregular centre and field numbers with many decimal points, which Data had at times been known to recite to the last decimal place, incurring temporary insanity among the senior officers.
He supposed everyone was tetchy. They'd just fended off a Borg invasion of Earth, and without so much as a by-your-leave, or, for that matter, a leave of any sort, they'd been shunted off to a relatively minor cluster to scan a relatively minor anomaly.
Still—
And then nothing. Flashes rippled across the hull; Data, still calm as ever, reported, "Captain, we appear to be in the grip of some kind of matter transporter almost exactly identical to our own. No..."
He was abruptly cut off, and Picard's vision lasted just long enough to see Data, then the walls of the Enterprise shimmer into ephemerality...
How rude of me.
...and then back out again.
A few of the bridge officers muttered under their breaths. Data tapped a few icons on his console, then swiveled his neck an unnatural number of degrees to look at Picard, seemingly about to say something in his detached, scientifically-curious manner, when he was interrupted by a chime and the voice of Chief Engineer Geordi La Forge.
"La Forge to bridge. No matter how far you go, there you are, it seems. So where are we, is pretty much what I'm asking."
Picard smiled slightly. "Good work, Mister La Forge. Data?"
"Sir. We seem to be on the outer galactic rim, unknown quadrant. Checking star patterns..."
A moment's silence.
"Data?"
"Sir. No match. Reanalysing... again, no match."
A chill ran silently through the bridge crew. The Delta Quadrant? Nobody had been there, though everyone thought that was where Voyager might have gone. Subsequent sensor sweeps put the lie to that, though, when they picked up a ship of no known design approaching.
"Data, what do we have?" Picard asked the question everyone was contemplating.
"One ship approaching, standing at five thousand kilometres off the starboard bow. 375 metres in length. Slightly primitive, but heavily armed with what appear to be some kind of capital ship killers. Smaller strike craft appear to be shielding it. Reading one hundred life signs... sir, the ship is hailing us."
A chime, and then a voice broke through onto the bridge.
"This is New Republic Defence Force escort Stendaff calling unidentified vessel. Kindly identify yourselves immediately – you are deep within New Republic space. If you do not identify yourselves, we will fire."
An instant's silence, then a number of the bridge crew broke out in wild applause, for what, they didn't know – but they were, to an extent, safe. Picard keyed the comms from his chair, smiling broadly.
"Escort Stendaff, this is the starship Enterprise NCC-1701 of the United Federation of Planets. No harm is intended."