Sol System Asteroid Belt

"Commander!" the ensign at ops, Ludjira, exclaimed. "Picking up multiple hostile contacts off our port side. Three – no, four Klingon frigates, B'rel-class, decloaking and locking weapons. Closest one is eight kilometers."

"Shields up, red alert," T'Lal, the Vulcan first officer of Hydra ordered, walking quickly from where she had been near the engineering console, conversing with Commander Omak down in engineering. T'Lal tapped the communications badge on her chest. "All hands, battle stations. Repeat, battle stations."

There was a slight, almost imperceptible feeling of motion as the impulse engines of Hydra came to life, maneuvering the small ship away from its foes and behind a large asteroid, buying the skeleton crew aboard the time needed to rush to their battle stations and throwing off their foe's targeting. T'Lal's eyebrow raised slightly; she had issued no order to perform such a maneuver, but the action showed their helm officer's initiative and innovation. "Creative thinking, ensign," she said. "However, the Klingons would most likely target the asteroid and destroy it."

"Yes, sir," Marco Vanoni, the helm officer, said, the slight smile he'd had at T'Lal's initial compliment fading.

"Nevertheless," the brown-skinned Vulcan continued, mindful of the need to balance criticism with praise, "our shields can hold out much longer against asteroid fragments then they can against disruptor blasts or torpedoes. Additionally, destroying the asteroid would confuse their targeting sensors – "

"Sir, all crew reporting from battle stations," Ludjira reported, interrupting the impromptu lesson, At the same time, the Tellarite female tapped a holographic display of a timer. Thirty nine point twelve seconds.

"Excellent," T'Lal said, as the turbolift doors opened again and an Andorian, captain Talzelyhirrnn sh'Sihl, walked in. T'Lal turned to face her. "Captain, we are ready to – "

Sh'Sihl held up a hand as she walked over to the captain's chair. "I died in the turbolift. It's nonfunctional."

T'Lal nodded, not missing a beat and not wasting time wondering how either of those events could have occurred when Hydra had not yet taken any hits. T'Lal instead turned to face the viewscreen. "Very well, I am now acting captain of Hydra. What are the Klingons doing?"

Ensign Ludjira's pudgy fingers moved across her controls. "Klingon ships are splitting up. Targets alpha and delta are attempting to flank us from dorsal and ventral angles. Targets bravo and charlie are holding position, probably in case we try to escape in some other way." She looked up at T'Lal. "Sir, even with four B'rels, we still have an advantage over the Klingons. Recommend immediate attack."

"Ensign, we are running with a skeleton crew of less than a third our normal compliment," T'Lal noted. "If something should go wrong we will be unlikely to have the personnel needed to cover it. Caution is more advisable when in this situation."

"We could outrun them," Vanoni noted. "B'rels don't have nearly the acceleration of a Gallant-class starship. Get clear, call for backup?"

At the captain's chair, sh'Sihl typed a few commands into her console. T'Lal was not much surprised when Lieutenant Sila, at comms, turned to face T'Lal. "Commander, message from Starfleet – a Klingon fleet is attacking Jupiter, our dilithium mines at Io. These Klingons must be scouts or pickets. Starfleet reports that it can spare no ships to aid Hydra."

T'Lal considered. "And we cannot allow the Klingons to roam about the asteroid field unopposed. Attack it is, then. Ensign Vanoni, bring Hydra out from the asteroid's shadow, ventral side. Ensign Ludjira, target frigate delta and fire as soon as you see her."

"Aye, sir," the tellarite responded. The bridge was quiet for a few moments as Hydra turned on its axis and then sped out from behind the asteroid, sighting its target quickly and opening fire. The target was reported as firing back, but its shields were quickly overwhelmed by Hydra's phaser turrets and the target itself fell to a trio of torpedoes launched once the shields were battered away.

There was no time for celebration as Ludjira spoke up. "Remaining frigates turning around on us, opening fire."

Captain sh'Sihl pointed at Vanoni, then T'Lal. "You're both dead," she said.

Ensign Vanoni groaned low – low enough that only T'Lal, standing near him as she was, heard him – as he stood up from the helm, while T'Lal merely nodded. Over at comms, Sila stood immediately, rushing over to the helm. "I am taking command," the Trill said, for indeed she was the ranking officer on the bridge – though the contest was only between her and Ludjira at the moment. "Coming about to course four-eight-zero. Concentrate phaser cannons on the lead Klingon vessel – frigate charlie – but launch a full spread of torpedoes at each."

"Sir, the torpedoes won't penetrate the Klingons' shields," Ludjira said, even as she complied.

"No, but the matter/antimatter explosions will blind their sensors for a moment, give them something to think about," Sila pointed out. On the viewscreen, the second target was destroyed under sustained phaser and photon torpedo assaults, and Hydra dashed past it and the two remaining foes as their "sensors" were reported blinded by the computer. Sila then shoved Hydra's engines into full reverse even as she fired the fore-port and aft-starboard thrusters, spinning the Gallant-class vessel on its axis quickly enough to partially overload the inertial dampeners, forcing everyone on the bridge and, indeed, throughout the ship, to grab hold of something and brace themselves. Even with that, Vanoni stumbled against one of the bridge's bulkheads, and T'Lal thought that she heard both the ship itself and its engine groan. However, the maneuver had worked: Hydra – and, more importantly, her main weapons – were now facing the aft sections of each of the remaining foes.

"Fire all weapons at will, Ludjira," Sila ordered.

"Yes, sir," Ludjira responded, suppressing a grin. On the viewscreen, the eternal night of space lit up brightly from phaser and photon torpedo fire, the two remaining targets quickly bursting apart in moments as the computer read that their aft shields would not be able to hold out against the sudden unexpected assault from the rear.

T'Lal had stood impassively with her hands behind her back ever since "dying", but once the final target was destroyed she glanced at the equally-"dead" captain, raising an eyebrow. Sh'sihl nodded, and T'Lal glanced up at the ceiling, an illogical but thus far unbreakable force of habit. "Computer, end combat simulation."

"Ending simulation," the computer confirmed. "Time to complete: four minutes nineteen seconds."

T'Lal turned to sh'Sihl. "Our best time yet, captain," she noted.

Sh'sihl was sitting forward in her chair, looking out at the viewscreen without truly focusing on it, antennae slumped. Outside, four hapless asteroids that had once each been roughly the size of a Klingon B'rel had been reduced to mere fragments floating in space. "So it is," she said after a moment, standing. "I'll be in my ready room. You have the bridge, commander."

The four other beings on the bridge watched as impassively as possible as sh'Sihl left, walking into the small office that adjoined the command and control center of Hydra. Once the doors were securely closed, Sila turned to T'Lal. "Permission to speak freely, commander?"

"Granted," T'Lal said, even as the doors to the turbolift slid open and a Ferengi male walked in looking somewhat nonplussed, glaring at Vanoni. The human held up his hands, then pointed to Sila. The Trill didn't notice.

"What did we do to piss off the captain?" Sila asked.

T'Lal suppressed a very un-Vulcan urge to grimace. "The captain, I am sure, is simply concerned with maintaining our combat readiness in case of a Klingon attack on Sol system," she said. She didn't believe the words herself, and she doubted anyone else did, but a first officer was supposed to support her captain where the lower ranks were concerned. She glanced behind Sila. "Now, lieutenant, I suspect that commander Omak would like to have a discussion with you."

"Wha – gah!" Sila had turned to look, and leaped away in fright at Omak standing right behind her, the somewhat-diminutive Ferengi glaring up at her. "C-Commander! I – "

"Oh, did I scare you?" Omak asked, his voice full of friendliness and consolation. "I'm sorry, lieutenant, that was a mistake." He tilted his head towards her somewhat, so that one of his large, bulbous ears was pointed towards her chest. "Your heart is racing, I can hear it from here! Why don't we take you down to doctor Tsegaye, get him to look at it, and on the way we can try and figure out why you tried to tear my ship apart with high-G turns."

"Uh – " Sila began, looking to T'Lal for help.

The Vulcan, however, had already turned away, looking to Ludjira. "Ensign, send to Starfleet Command: Hydra's live-fire combat simulation is over. We are resuming our normal patrol."

Having the Tellarite do Sila's job clearly signaled that T'Lal wasn't about to stop the 'conversation' that Omak wished to have with the lieutenant. She followed Omak to the turbolift. "Commander, I'm sorry, there were Klingons…"

"Of course, lieutenant, of course," Omak said, his voice still nothing but pleasant as the two stepped into the turbolift. "You can tell me and the rest of the crew down in engineering all about it…"

Captain's log, Stardate 87135.1

Hydra continues to perform well since her refit and repair three days ago at Earth Space Dock that were necessitated the Nimbus III incident. I was worried that the upgrades to the shields, weapons, and warp drive might bring with it the usual problems of minor malfunctions that the Corps of Engineers seems to love inflicting on the rest of Starfleet, but that wasn't the case this time. Two-thirds of the crew remain on shore leave on Earth, but I have volunteered Hydra to take part in Sol System patrol in light of the ships lost during the Klingon raid of Utopia Planitia, which has left the Earth home fleet depleted. We have been assigned to patrol the Sol System asteroid belt for the next week while waiting for the rest of the crew to return from their leave and for the remaining crew's own shore leave rotation. I do not think I will be taking advantage of it myself, however, as after a week of shore leave I am certain the returning crew will be performing less-than-admirably at their tasks and they will need to be whipped back into shape.

There was a chime from the door to sh'Sihl's ready room. The Andorian shen glanced at her door. "Enter. Computer, conclude log entry." The chime of the computer acknowledging coincided with the read room doors opening, permitting T'Lal to enter. The Vulcan looked more than a little unhappy – or at least as unhappy as a Vulcan ever looked; T'Lal was as adept at suppressing her emotions as any of the race, but if one worked with them for long enough one could start to notice the small slivers of feeling that only the greatest Kolinahr masters could hide.

"Commander," sh'Sihl said, not rising from her desk as she worked on her PADD, going over the computer's reports on their latest training exercise. "Is the middle of a battle really the time to be taking suggestions from the crew?" she asked once the door had shut once more. She glanced at T'Lal. "Fight-or-flight. In the middle of a firefight those kinds of choices need to be made by the commanding officer, quickly. If those had been real B'rels in the time you spent discussing the matter they could have flanked Hydra and done significant damage, even destroyed her."

T'Lal folded both her hands behind her back. "I apologize, captain," she said. "But I was under the impression that we were undergoing a training exercise – precisely the time to spend examining different scenarios."

"A combat simulation," sh'Sihl corrected, using her PADD to point to T'Lal before looking back to it. "And not a particularly successful one. Forty seconds to reach a state of battle readiness?"

"Thirty nine point twelve seconds," T'Lal said, annoyingly precise as always. "Considering our skeleton crew, that was…remarkable. And even before we had reached full battle readiness we were more than capable of maneuvering and shielding ourselves. I would be more concerned by any stress lieutenant Sila may have placed on Hydra due to her maneuvering."

Sh'Sihl actually felt herself cracking a small smile at that. "Hydra's a combat vessel. She can take a little stress." She set down the PADD, rubbing her eyes with one hand as she did. She was, perhaps, pushing herself too far, but given the situation she felt it was worth it. That was why humans had invented coffee, after all.

T'Lal watched impassively for a moment as sh'Sihl stood, walking over to the replicator in her office and ordering some coffee as long as the thought was on her mind. Finally the Vulcan broke the silence. "Captain, I have some…concerns…about how you have been acting for the past few weeks."

Sh'Sihl sipped at her coffee. "How I've been acting?" she asked as she returned to her desk and set the cup down, though she didn't sit back down herself, instead opting to lean back against the desk and cross her arms.

T'Lal took a moment to consider before pressing on. "I understand that you intend to pass over shore leave."

"I do," sh'Sihl answered easily. "After a week on Earth the rest of the crew will need some sharpening up again." Sh'Sihl waved a hand at T'Lal. "I'm not extending that to the rest of the command staff. You can go to Earth, enjoy your stay there. I'm given to understand Vulcans are particularly fond of the Dasht-e Lut?"

"I had intended to visit Addis Ababa with doctor Tsegaye, in fact. However that is not what I am concerned with. Speaking as plainly as possible, captain…you need a vacation."

Sh'Sihl's antennae pointed straight towards T'Lal at that statement, which did not sound anything like natural coming from a Vulcan. "What?" she asked.

"Hydra returned to Earth for standard refit and repair. Ships, however, are not the only things that need time refit and repair themselves. That is the entire purpose of shore leave, and you, in my opinion, need that shore leave more than any on the crew."

Sh'Sihl felt a scowl coming to her face, and did nothing to hide it. "I don't have time to relax," she said. "There's a war going on, commander."

"The war is winding down and has been for some time," T'Lal noted. "The Klingons have undertaken no major offensives for the past three months."

"You're right, they haven't," sh'Sihl noted, as she walked behind her desk and sat back down at the chair there, typing some commands into a nearby computer and calling up the latest tactical map of the Federation's fleet deployment. "And it's a good thing too. The Tal Shiar remnant and True Way are ramping up their activities. The Breen are lashing out in Deferi space and the Tholians are trying their damndest to overthrow New Romulus for reasons we can't even begin to guess at because they won't tell us. Human pirates from another universe are attacking everything in Beta Ursae and Alpha Trianguli blocks. Oh, yes, and lest we forget, the Borg have overrun half of the Gamma Orionis sector block and keep sending raids into Federation and Klingon space. This is leaving aside that the Klingons have been attacked by some new force straight out of their mythology – which would be great news for us if we knew what, if any, intentions the Fek'Ihri had for us!"

Sh'Sihl angrily closed the computer's display, and glared at T'Lal, antennae folded back against her head. "The galaxy is on fire, commander. And you expect me to relax?"

T'Lal was silent for a moment, one eyebrow raised at the captain's outburst. "I expect that you need to try," she said at length, "as your own insecurities are beginning to effect the crew. A combat simulation while running on a skeleton crew is a logical exercise to perform…on occasion. In the past week we have run three, each time with results that should have been more than satisfactory." She paused a moment, considering. "If nothing else, captain, then at this rate we will consume our entire stock of photon torpedoes before we can even be put back on full duty."

"Earth is right there, commander, we can resupply – "

"Captain, that is not the point – "

"Commander – "

"Captain?" a voice – Ludjira's – came over the comms.

"What?" sh'Sihl demanded, before collecting herself. She took in a deep breath, then let it out slowly. "Yes, ensign?"

"Captain, we're picking up some unusual readings near Ceres. Request your presence on the bridge."

Sh'Sihl's antennae rose high in confusion. "Near Ceres?" she asked, walking over to her door. It opened automatically, and T'Lal followed her out onto the bridge, the argument forgotten for the moment. Sila had not yet returned from her 'conversation' with Omak or the rest of engineering, so it was just sh'Sihl, T'Lal, Ludjira, and Vanoni on the bridge.

The captain looked to Ludjira. "Strange readings?" she asked.

"Yes, captain," Ludjira said. "On the far side of the dwarf planet Ceres – the largest body in the local asteroid belt." She tapped some commands into her station, but shook her head and then looked to T'Lal. "Commander, I could use someone on the science station, the short-range scanners aren't enough to determine what I'm seeing here." And, sh'Sihl guessed, she knew better than to abandon her station at ops given all the combat simulations the captain had been having them go through. Good choice.

T'Lal nodded, walking over to the currently-empty station – all of Hydra's normal science officers were on shore leave – though not before tapping her comm badge. "Lieutenant Sila, please report to the bridge."

Sh'sihl, meanwhile, looked to the fore of the bridge. "Can you put whatever you're detecting on the viewscreen?" she asked.

Ludjira shook her head. "It's currently on the far side of Ceres, captain. We're only picking it up at all because Ceres colony's own scanners are rebounding the signals back to us, but the colony is about to rotate out of view in less than thirty seconds." Ludjira looked to the captain. "Whatever it is, it only appeared a few seconds ago, at most."

Sh'sihl considered. "Ensign," she said, looking to Vanoni, "take us to Ceres, one-half impulse."

"Aye sir," the human complied. "Time to Ceres, three minutes."

Sh'sihl turned to T'Lal at the science station, pressing her hands together. "Tell me you're not detecting tachyons," she requested. A faint sign of tachyons – faster-than-light particles – was a sign of a number of things, but among those things was a cloaked ship.

T'Lal was silent for a moment before responding. "Not at this time, captain. In fact, I can hardly be said to be detecting anything at all…the computer registers radiation but is failing to identify what kind of radiation. I am unsure as to why."

Ludjira looked to sh'Sihl. "Ceres colony reports detecting it too, with the same problems. Whatever it is, it isn't some kind of sensor ghost – not if were both detecting it."

Sh'Sihl couldn't resist shaking her head and drooping her antennae. "The Starfleet Corps of Engineers at work, people. Most advanced sensor technology in explored space and we can't even identify something right in the backyard of our capital world."

The doors to the turbolift opened, and lieutenant Sila stepped in, the Trill looking only a little worse for wear after being taken away by Omak. "Captain?" she asked as she walked over to the comms station, which could also double as a science station when a ship was running as small a crew as Hydra was. "What's happening, sir?"

"Strange readings from the far side of Ceres," sh'Sihl supplied. She considered a long moment, rubbing her hands together. "Send to Starfleet Command: we are detecting anomalous readings of an unknown variety near Ceres. We do not at this time believe it to be a cloaked vessel. We are advancing to Ceres orbit…" she glanced at T'Lal, feeling the Vulcan's eyes on her instead of on the science station. Sh'Sihl let out a small sigh. "…however, we currently have a skeleton crew of only sixteen, and are not in a position to deal with any surprises if the anomaly proves to be problematic. Request the nearest starship available to deal with this problem while we provide support."

Sila sent the message, and sh'Sihl looked back to T'Lal, who only nodded and returned to her work. Given that the message concerned an unknown anomaly in Sol, Hydra did not have to wait very long at all before the familiar face of Fleet Admiral Jorel Quinn appeared on the viewscreen, sitting behind his desk at Earth Space Dock.

"Captain," Quinn said, a grim smile on his bearded face. "Somehow I knew that putting Hydra on patrol was a bad idea. Strange anomalies seem to follow you around."

Sh'Sihl honestly tried not to think about that fact, since doing so tended to make her seriously consider trying to hack the replicators to provide actual alcohol rather than synthehol. She glanced down at the helm before looking back to the admiral. "We're a minute out from Ceres, admiral," she said. "Hydra herself is running more than smoothly, but…"

Quinn nodded. "I understand your situation, captain. However the next closest ship, the El-Adrel, is fifteen minutes from Ceres, provided that they don't jump to high warp – and as long as we don't have any reason to think this anomaly is a threat, I won't authorize a high-warp maneuver inside a star system." He leaned forward. "You'll be there first. Take all necessary precautions, but I want a few preliminary scans – enough to try and figure out what this thing is and how the Hell it materialized out of nowhere inside of Sol. Once El-Adrel is on station, captain Moreau can take over."

"Yes, sir," sh'Sihl acknowledged. "We'll be careful."

"See that you are. Starfleet Command out." With that, the viewscreen switched to showing the seal of Starfleet momentarily, before it switched back to showing the space directly in front of Hydra. Already one of the 'stars' in the sky seemed to be growing larger on it, swelling rapidly in size as the small ship approached and revealing itself not to be a star, but a small planetoid with a radius of less than five hundred kilometers – less than a third that of the Earth's moon. Nevertheless, the human proclivity to colonize everything possible had extended to the dwarf planet. Ceres colony had been established in the early twenty-first century to aid with the colonization of the outer Sol system prior to the outbreak of the humans' World War III. The subsequent invention of the warp drive on Earth had rendered its original purpose obsolete, but the humans on Ceres colony hadn't left, and over time the colony had developed into a research station where any number of scientific experiments were run.

As that thought went through sh'Sihl's head, she looked to lieutenant Sila. "Any chance this is the result of someone's lab experiment getting away from them down there?"

"If it is, they don't know about it, sir," Sila said as Hydra decelerated and changed its approach angle somewhat, so that they would be approaching the anomaly while passing over Ceres' north pole.

"Well," sh'Sihl said, walking over to her chair and sitting down, antennae pointed forward in curiosity. "Let's see what the fuss is about. Ensign Vanoni, take us in slowly."

The bulbous image of Ceres left the main viewscreen, to be replaced by empty space – save for a small blue blob with a purple core. Sh'Sihl didn't have to ask for it to be magnified as Ludjira took care of that herself, the viewscreen flashing to a closer image, once that filled the entire viewscreen. It didn't help with identifying whatever it was – it still looked like a large blue and purple blob, an irregular shape that moved around on itself almost like some kind of liquid.

"Ensign, move us to within ten kilometers, then take up an orbit around the anomaly," sh'Sihl ordered, then she looked behind her, to T'Lal, as Hydra closed in on the anomaly. "now that we don't have a planet in the way, any luck with the sensors?"

"Yes, captain," T'Lal responded. "It is a cloud of subatomic matter roughly five hundred meters across…sensors show that it is largely out of sync with the surrounding space – it exist almost entirely in subspace. I am beginning to detect faint traces of tachyons, though I believe we can safely rule out this being a cloaked vessel, or vessel of any kind, for that matter." She was silent for a few moments, then turned to look at sh'Sihl. "Captain, there are also traces of chronitons."

Sh'Sihl glanced behind her at the science station at that. "Tachyons and chronitons," she stated.

"Yes, captain."

"Two subatomic particles often associated with time travel."

"That is correct, captain. In fact at this time I am prepared to speculate that what we are looking at is, indeed, some kind of temporal fissure – although what could have caused it, when it leads to, and why it would form over Ceres, I cannot say."

Sh'Sihl leaned forward in the chair once more, antennae folded back against her head. "Well. I think we've done more than enough time travel for one service record," she said. In point of fact Hydra had been, for various reasons, forced to travel through time on four separate occasions in the past year alone. Each time it was under the orders of Starfleet Command, but there had nevertheless been significant paperwork to fill out with the Department of Temporal Investigations afterwards. "Ensign Vanoni, back us away. We'll let El-Adrel handle this."

Vanoni keyed the commands into the helm, then frowned. After a moment, he repeated the motions, but looked no less pleased with the results. "Captain, helm is not responding – in fact…captain, we're being pulled towards the anomaly."

"What?" Sh'Sihl asked, standing from the chair and walking over to the helm, looking down at the display there. "How? T'Lal?"

T'Lal turned back towards the science station, but it was Ludjira that answered. "Tractor beam," the Tellarite said. "I'm detecting a tractor beam of some kind, pulling us in. Raising shields…" there was a slight hum from around the ship as the shields went up all around it, but Ludjira shook her head. "No effect. I can't detect a point of origin. I'd almost say that there is no point of origin, or that the anomaly itself is somehow creating some kind of…natural tractor beam."

"Is that possible?" Sh'Sihl asked as Vanoni continued to type away at the helm controls, to no avail. She walked over to the secondary helm and activated it, trying to aid in any way she could, but nothing was working – not from the impulse engines, nor the thrusters.

"Evidently," T'Lal noted. She looked to Sila. "Lieutenant, hail the El-Adrel and appraise them of the situation. How long until they arrive?"

Sila complied, then listened to the response from the El-Adrel's own communications officer, the Trill's eyes large with concern. "El-Adrel is increasing their speed to full impulse. They'll be here in two minutes."

"I think an emergency jump to warp on their part would be a good idea right about now, sir," Ludjira said. "We only have forty seconds before we cross into the anomaly."

Sh'Sihl shook her head, having done some quick math in her head. "At this point they're too close. There's no way to engage their warp drives for a short enough amount of time to reach us; they'd overshoot us by half a million kilometers at minimum. What if Hydra tried a short jump to warp?"

"I can't recommend it, captain, not with us caught in this tractor beam. We might tear Hydra apart." Ludjira looked to the Andorian. "Thirty seconds."

Sh'Sihl stood from the secondary helm, briskly heading over to the tactical station, looking over their options. Tachyons and chronitons naturally existed at faster-than-light velocities, and these ones were in subspace besides. A matter/antimatter explosion from a photon torpedo wouldn't be useful in destroying the anomaly. But…"We're roughly facing the anomaly," she pointed out. "Could we use the deflector dish to bombard it with anti-tachyons? That might disperse it."

"Explosively," T'Lal pointed out.

"You have any alternatives, T'Lal?" Sh'Sihl snapped.

T'Lal did not. "Bridge to engineering," she said, "Commander Omak, we need you to repurpose the deflector dish to send out an anti-tachyon bombardment."

"Twenty seconds," Ludjira said.

"We need you to do it very, very quickly," T'Lal added.

"In less than twenty seconds?!" Omak demanded. In the background of the communication, sh'Sihl and the rest of the bridge could hear the hurried beeping of commands being put into a console and the shouting of the remaining engineering crew as they got to work. "I'm an engineer, not a magician! If I had a full crew down here – "

"Commander Omak, you have fifteen seconds now," sh'Sihl interrupted, "and if you don't do it then provided we survive I will have you reassigned to a bulk dilithium freighter!"

There was silence after that. On the viewscreen ahead, the anomaly loomed ever-larger, looking an awful lot bigger than a meter five hundred meters. "Captain," Vanoni said, "now would be a really, really good time to say that this is just another training exercise…"

Sh'Sihl shot him a glare even as Ludjira announced ten seconds to go and began a countdown. She was about to reprimand the ensign when the comms chimed. "There! I'm a magician after all!" Omak exclaimed.

"Ensign Ludjira, anti-tachyon bombardment now," she ordered.

"Aye, sir!" Ludjira exclaimed. On the viewscreen a beam of white-green light arced from the fore of Hydra and into the cloud. "Five seconds to go…four…three…sir, the anti-tachyons aren't having any effect! Two…one…"

Sh'Sihl let out an Andorian curse she'd been biting back for the past forty seconds. She just had enough time to finish it before Hydra was dragged into the cloud, and everything went black.