The quiet hum of the engines of the USS Enterprise at warp was like a lullaby, calming the fears felt at the overwhelming blackness of deep space. It had only been a few weeks since this year's Starfleet Academy Graduation but already the newly fledged officers were aboard the Enterprise, joining the current five year mission to chart new and unexplored territories of space. Most were working down in engineering under the watchful eye of Chief Engineer Scott or helping out in Sickbay, to the annoyance of Doctor McCoy who much preferred his role as a 'Doctor, dammit, not a babysitter!'. Only a handful of new recruits were from the Command track and of these few, only one was currently working on the Bridge itself. The actual Bridge of the Enterprise. Ensign Emilia L. Chaser knew what an honour this was and still was finding it hard to bring herself to believe it. Nine days. Eight alpha shifts. One beta shift. That's how long she'd been aboard, working on the port side of the Bridge, under the watchful eye of Mr Sulu, in control of the tertiary thrusters on the left of the ship. A small job, she would admit that, but Emilia would have gladly taken a job cleaning the space toilets if it would get her on the Enterprise.

A quiet 'whoosh' that signalled the arrival of the turbolift brought her back to reality followed by the enthusiastic and adoring announcement of,

'Keptin on ze Bridge!' by Mr Chekov (who Emilia most certainly did not have a crush on, thank you very much) as the one and only Captain James T. Kirk strolled onto the Bridge, nodded once at his command team, once at Commander Spock and then slid gracefully into the Captain's chair.

'Mr Spock, how's our ship?' he asked once he'd taken his place. Emilia still couldn't believe this was the Captain she had read about for four years of Academy training. James T. Kirk was the whole reason she'd started referring to herself as Emilia 'L.' Chaser.

'All systems are functioning normally and the crew are performing admirably, Captain,' Spock dutifully answered. Jim nodded and smiled to himself, content and happy. This was where he belonged, flying among the stars, exploring the entire universe that lay before him. Just then Chekov's voice broke through the steady hum of the Enterprise,

'I haff reduced readings showing for ze warp accelerator, Keptin'

Jim frowned,

'Can you isolate the source?'

'I haff tried ,Keptin, but zhere is no obwious reason zhat I can currently see'

Jim opened his mouth to answer but was cut off by Lieutenant Uhura,

'Captain, I'm picking up a signal of some sort, I think it might be a distress call. It's not in any language I know, although it seems to have some similarities to Romulan.'

'Try and make out what you can, Lieutenant,' the Captain said as his communicator buzzed. Jim flipped it open, saw that the signal was coming from Engineering and gave his signature greeting,

'Kirk here.' White noise crashed through the speaker making both Jim and Spock cringe at the harsh static. Jim frowned and tried again,

'Kirk to Engineering, Scotty is that you?' More static. Emilia glanced up at her Captain, concerned. This was the first instance of something not running smoothly since she had been here and, even though it was probably nothing, it still made a jolt of fear run through her. She caught the eye of Ensign Chekov as she turned back to her station and promptly felt her ears burning bright red as she momentarily forgot her previous fear. A voice broke through the static of the communicator, the Scottish lilt of the Chief Engineer coming through in pieces.

'Jim, there.…warp…..align…I can…..'

Jim snapped his communicator shut with a flick of his wrist as he stood and strode towards the turbolift.

'Mr Spock, you have the conn,' he threw over his shoulder as he exited. Emilia took a deep breath to calm her nerves. Her Captain would deal with this, she was sure. She checked the bearing of the ship and adjusted the thrusters minutely. An altogether unnecessary adjustment since the course was out by a fraction of a fraction and the tertiary thrusters really made very little difference, but she wasn't taking any chances. Soon after, Commander Spock's communicator buzzed and Jim's voice sounded as soon as he opened it.

'Get us out of warp now!' The Bridge crew acted quickly, never stopping to question their Captain. Sulu pulled on the warp lever and it landed heavily on the console. At the same time Chekov gave full power on the forward thrusters to minimise the effects of the sudden loss of speed that would occur with the drop out of warp however the Enterprise did not slow. Despite the drive apparently being deactivated, the ship continued to hurtle through the stars at a blistering pace.

'Commander, there appears to be a problem with the warp drive, we can't drop out of warp,' Sulu reported, tapping swiftly on his console.

'Captain, we cannot drop out of warp,' Spock said into his communicator. After a long silence, the only answer received was a loud explosion from the Engineering deck that shoved the Enterprise harshly to the left, spinning her out of warp which caused her to become even more unstable. The crew on the Bridge were all thrown violently around as their ship lost control and Spock lost his footing on the smooth surface of the Bridge floor.

'What in the hell is going on!?' came McCoy's voice from Medical through the Bridge's main comm. Emilia slammed her hand down on her console, turning the left thrusters on full to try and counteract the spiralling as Sulu fought to stabilise the ship. Chekov reduced the forward thrusters while fighting to stay in his seat and turned on the red alert, causing the lights to start flashing and a siren to sound, alerting the rest of the crew to the danger. Spock called out over the chaos,

'Is the damage internal or external?'

The reply was cut off as another explosion rocked the ship and Emilia was tipped out of her seat.

'Internal, Commander!' Chekov shouted, just as he was thrown from his chair,

'Engineering Deck 4!' He cried out in pain when his head collided with the edge of his desk, causing a thin trail of blood to slide from his hairline.

Emilia looked up from the floor at everything going on around her. All the reports were true, life on the Enterprise really was never boring…although she wasn't sure this was the kind of excitement she was looking for.