The End - By MrMeyham

I don't own Voyager. that simple. Characters are all under copy write by their respective owners.

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"Coffee. Black. Hot." This was Janeway's favorite drink. It was time for her daily briefing with the senior officers of the U.S.S. Voyager. They had been stranded deep in the Delta Quadrant for more than six years now, still trying to get back home.

Although still many years away from Earth, the crew was still in high spirits, and this was reflected by the senior officers at the meeting. Today would hopefully be peaceful after their previous encounters with the Borg, a species whose only purpose was to assimilate alien species and their technology in a never-ending drive for perfection.

"Torres, what's the status on the repairs to the warp drive?" Interrogated Janeway.

"They're proceeding well, we should have warp capabilities within the hour," replied the chief engineer.

"Excellent. What about the Flyer?"

"Well, the port nacelles were damaged fairly badly, other than that, there's nothing else left to fix on it."

"Hmmm. well, inform me once we have warp back."

"Acknowledged."

"You're dismissed." Everyone left the briefing room except Janeway who stayed behind to read a report on the senor data from Astrometrics on the nebula they had just passed. It seemed that the nebula gave out a slight amount of radiation. Not enough to be deadly or even cause illness, but enough to take notice of it. Suddenly, her chain of though was interrupted by Tuvok's voice over the comm., "Captain to the bridge."

The doors to the bridge hissed open as Janeway inquired as to what was going on.

"Captain, we're picking up some sort of distress signal coming from the nebula itself," was what she got from Ensign Kim.

"Can you pinpoint the location?"

"It appears to be coming from the very center of the nebula. When we scanned it the first time, there was nothing there. and now there is."

"Well, lets go investigate. Paris, set a course for whatever is transmitting that signal."

"Aye captain."

***********

3 hours later

"Captain, we have a visual," said Kim.

"Onscreen." The view screen showed what had to be the most derelict piece of space-junk. Janeway pondered to herself how it was even capable of space travel. Her questions were not of importance at the moment however, they would be answered later. "Report."

"Initial scans show that the vessel is of un-known origins," stated Tuvok.

"Any signs of life forms?"

"There are three, all humanoid, but they're all very weak," replied Kim.

"Can we get a lock on them?"

"Yes."

"Have them beamed to sick bay. Tell the doctor that he has incoming patients. Tuvok, you're with me. Commander, you have the bridge." With that, Tuvok and Janeway headed toward sickbay leaving Chakotay in charge of the bridge.

The doors to sickbay hissed open revealing the doctor standing in front of three medical beds treating his alien patients.

"Doctor. report."

"It would seem that they are suffering from severe gamma radiation poisoning. I've stabilized them, but I can't say for sure if they'll make it or not."

"Gamma radiation. but we only detected slight levels of radiation. Nothing that should have been harmful to any humanoids."

"Yes, but they've been exposed to it for a very long time, at least a few days."

Tuvok commented, "It would seem strange, that they have been exposed to the gamma radiation for a few days, but that we just detected their ship a few hours ago. Not to mention that it suddenly and inexplicably appeared on our scans of the area."

"Let me remind you," began the captain, "that there are."

The doctor shushed the two officers, "One of them is beginning to regain consciousness."

The one on the right suddenly sat up, apparently in much distress. The captain, doctor, and Tuvok ran over to the bed. "Please remain calm," said the doctor, "you'll only make it worse."

"Where. am. I." inquired the alien.

"I'm Captain Kathryn Janeway and you're onboard the Federation Starship Voyager. We found your ship adrift in the middle of a nebula that we passed. We picked up your distress signal and came to investigate. You were all in pretty bad shape. Can you explain to us what exactly happened to you?"

"Well, we were on a mission to investigate this nebula when suddenly an enormous cloaked vessel appeared in front of us. We attempted to hail them, but they didn't respond. Within seconds they opened fire on us and their weapons went right through our shield like they didn't exist. First they targeted our engines, then started in on our weapons grid. We fired back, but our lasers couldn't even dent their shields. Then we. ugh."

The monitors above the patient suddenly started blaring alarms. The doctor waved his medical tricorder over his body. "It's the radiation poisoning. It turns out that his case was more severe than the others. He's dead."

Suddenly the ship rocked violently, the room darkened and the red alert lights came on. Chakotay's voice came through the comm. "Captain to the bridge immediately!"

"What's going on?" exclaimed Janeway as she took her seat next to Chakotay and Tuvok took his place at ops.

"I have no idea," replied Chakotay, "A minute ago there was nothing in front of us. Now there's a ship at least the size of the Enterprise! They fired on us, but their weapons went right through our shields like we had them down."

"It's just like the alien told us. their weapons go right through shields."

"Shall I return fire captain?" asked Tuvok.

"No, hail them."

"No response captain," replied Kim.

"Alright then. fire phasers."

"Yes captain." The entire bridge crew watched in horror as the phasers not only didn't damage the other ship's shields, but also bounced off and right back at them!

"Report!" yelled the captain.

"Shield holding at 92%" exclaimed the ensign. "They're firing again!" The ship rocked violently from the aft section this time. "Captain, they're targeting our impulse engines!"

"Fire photon torpedoes." Three torpedoes streaked out of Voyager's forward launch tubes toward the alien vessel. The torpedoes impacted the shields and exploded.

"Captain," said Tuvok, "The torpedoes have done no damage to their shields whatsoever."

"Impossible!"

"They're firing again!" yelled Harry.

"Direct hit to the port nacelle, shields still at 92%"

"Dammit, our weapons are not working!"

"Captain, sensors indicate that their weapons are temporal based."

"That would make it clear why they go through our shields."

"How?" inquired Kim.

"Simple really, by utilizing temporal weapons, after launching the weapons go into a different time. A time when we're not here, so there are no shields to stop them from moving. After passing beyond where our shields are in the future, the weapons phase back into our time and then hit us."

"Ahh, makes sense. They're firing ten of something that looks like our photon torpedoes."

"Raise the temporal shields!" barked Janeway seconds too late. The torpedoes impacted Voyager all over the place as EPS conduits exploded all over the bridge, showering the crew with sparks. "Damage report?"

"Captain, hull breaches reported on deck five thru eight! Weapons are down, hull integrity down to 45%" yelled Tuvok over the sparks.

"Get us the hell out of here Tom!"

"Yes ma'am!" The wings and nacelles folded as Voyager jumped to warp 3.

**********

2 hours later

"B'Elanna, how are those repairs coming along?" inquired the captain.

"Impulse engines are back online, we'll have to drop out of warp to make repairs to the hull," replied Torres.

"Tom, take us out of warp, keep us moving at one-fourth impulse." The bridge crew felt a jolt as Voyager slowed down quickly.

Janeway entered sickbay to find the doctor tending to his two remaining alien patients as well as a few of the injured crew.

"Doctor, how are our two patients?" inquired Janeway.

"They're dead. Both of them went into irrecoverable neural shock."

"Damn. they probably had the most information on that other ship." Janeway knew this since they had had the first known encounter with the warship that Voyager had almost been destroyed by.

As Tuvok analyzed the sensor records from their recent skirmish, he noticed that their shields were being created through a Federation shield generator. He wondered to himself where they could possibly have gotten the shield generator out in the middle of the Delta Quadrant. This was definitely something that should be brought to the captain's attention. His thoughts were interrupted, however, by the comm. system blaring out the captain's voice ordering him to report to the bridge.

Two seconds after striding onto the bridge, Voyager and her crew were thrown violently to port as temporal torpedoes impacted the starboard temporal shields. "Report!" yelled Janeway.

"The ship from before has de-cloaked off to starboard and fired three temporal torpedoes at us. The temporal shields are holding at 82%" reported Tuvok. Voyager shook again as another torpedo smacked into the shields. "75%" Once more, Voyager rocked, this time EPS conduits blew out on the bridge.

"What happened? The shields shouldn't have failed so fast!" exclaimed Janeway.

"It would appear that they have found the frequency of our temporal shields and have recalibrated their weapons. Shields are still at 75% impulse drive is down and our warp drive is down."

"Well, put the shields on a rotating frequency! And while you're at it fire photon torpedoes."

"Right away captain." The torpedoes streaked away from Voyager, vaporizing as they hit the shields of the other ship. "No effect," reported Tuvok.

By now, Janeway was getting annoyed that their weapons were having absolutely no effect. "I can see that very clearly Tuvok."

More temporal torpedoes were impacting Voyager's shields, volley after volley was quickly draining them. Now that their warp and impulse engines were down, they were sitting ducks.

"Tuvok, how many more photon torpedoes do we have remaining and what's our shield status?" inquired the captain.

"We have 21 torpedoes left and shields are down to 15%"

"Target their weapons and fire all torpedoes on one point. hopefully it will penetrate their shields. After you fire all the torpedoes, fire all phasers on that same point."

"Captain. I would highly object to-."

"Just do it."

"Firing." Everyone on the bridge held their breath as a line of photon torpedoes quickly followed by phasers fired from the forward banks flew towards the enemy ship. It had the undesired effect. All of the torpedoes vaporized as they hit the shields nanoseconds apart. Then they watched as the phaser fire was reflected off into space by the same shield. There was no way that the weapons Voyager had would help defend them. It was definitely obvious.

Kim saw it first. "They're firing at us again captain." This time, the shields, already weakened from the previous volleys, failed, allowing four of the temporal torpedoes to smash right into the starboard phaser bank blasting pieces of the hull into space.

Tuvok gave a grave damage report to the captain. "Captain, shields are down, hull breach on deck three, crew injuries are reported on decks three thru five, and starboard phasers are down."

Voyager was completely defenseless in the vacuum of space and the other ship's sensors picked that up. They fired a single torpedo at Voyager.

"Captain, they've fired another torpedo at us." Said Tuvok.

"Where is it aimed?"

"Computer calculates impact point as Deck One: Bridge"

As flaming death hurtled towards them, Janeway had only time to yell out a three simple words.

"Brace for impact!"

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There will be more. I promise. Please review; it will help me make the next chapter better.