"Belanna, how are those repairs coming?" demanded Janeways voice through the comm system.
That was all she needed, another interruption. It was hard enough to get these makeshift alien components to work with Voyagers systems without all the constant distractions she was experiencing.
"Torres to Janeway, the repairs are coming along as scheduled. The warp drive should be ready in approximately 3 hours" she said into her comm-badge, hoping that this would put the Captains mind at ease. She returned to her work, banging her head slightly on the panel above. Why did Starfleet build these ships to be so small? She thought to herself as red alert was announced.
"Red Alert, All hands to battle stations, we have 2 ships incoming"
Just great, all I need!
Voyager had been docked at a Utop spacestation for the past week carrying out much needed repairs to their ship's systems. Although Voyager was a magnificent ship, the only problem was that it wasn't designed for such long term missions, after all, no Starfleet ship had ever been this far from Earth. The Utop's were a friendly humanoid race, one could almost mistake them for a human if it hadn't been for their races total lack of hair. They were a very peaceful race from what the crew had discovered, and very good hosts - they never let the Voyager crew go without anything they desired. Even so, this did not stop some unknown aliens from attacking the Utop station almost every day. They refused to answer any hails and destroyed any trading ships bringing supplies into or out of the system - so far they had totally ignored Voyager, but that still didn't make it right, but Janeway had no desire to get involved in the affairs of these race's, after all, so far they had only heard one side of the story. Apparently these kind of attacks had been going on for the better part of two decades, the aliens, who ruled a large area of space next to Utop space, claimed that the Utop's were smuggling goods in and out of their territory. The Utop's claimed it was because they refused to join their empire - they had heard rumors from traders from far away of planets refusing to join them in the past, only to be attacked constantly and eventually conquered by ground troops. To say the Utop people were afraid did not even touch upon it, for two decades, ever since the first attack on their home system, they had been trying to develop a weapon to defend against this race but had so far made no development which could help them in their war efforts, but their ships appeared to have some kind of hull which was hard to detect on sensors until they were almost on top of you - how was one meant to fight an enemy one could not see?
"Has the station seen them yet Tuvok?" Janeway asked hopefully, she was getting fed up of these attacks now, if only there was something she could do to help, but she knew her hands were tied with the prime directive.
"Yes, Captain. The Utop station has raised their shields and are charging their weapon banks" replied Tuvok in his usual, flat tone. "The ships will be in weapons range in ten seconds."
Watching through the view screen Janeway saw a group of trading ships try to make a run for it, heading out of the system at full impulse, but that wasn't fast enough, the enemy ships jumped out of warp and focused their weapons fire on the 3 ships, crippling 2 of them in the first barrage.
"How many people are on those ships?" she demanded
Harry set to work scanning them as quickly as his young hands could move. "Im seeing over two hundred and fifty lifesigns on those ships"
"Two Hundred and Fifty..?" She cursed silently. "Enough is enough, Tom, turn us around and get us in between those ships - if they want to kill those people, they will have to destroy us first..!"
Tuvok looked as uneasy as a Vulcan could do and spat out, "Captain, may I point out that the prime directives forbid us from interfering with an alien war such as this."
"I am well aware, Tuvok, but we have watched at least twenty trading ships be destroyed now, I cant justify not helping them"
"Captain, we are being hailed by the lead attacking ship" informed Kim, shifting position and looking uneasy. Then again, who could be at ease when the ship would most likely be going into combat?
I thought that would do the trick thought Janeway to herself, one of the most basic tactics taught at the academy.
"On screen, I am Captain Katherine Janeway of the Federation starship Voyager". The image of the ships bridge appeared on screen and she could not help but stand gob smacked at the screen, she heard gasps from around the bridge, they had obviously noted the same thing. On the screen stood a Vorta, one of the cloned administrators of the dominion. Although there had been limited information on the Dominion when they had left Deep Space Nine, she wondered how far out their empire spanned. It was widely thought among Starfleet's brightest that they controlled about a third of the gamma quadrant, a huge empire, but now, this brought up questions, did they in fact control a much larger empire?
"I am Yelgrun, commander of this ship. Please stand down, we have caused no damage to either you ship or your crew."
"Yelgrun, it is not a matter of how much damage, if any, that you have caused to my ship. We can't allow you to continue to destroy these traders ships, there are innocent civilians onboard."
"Captain, it would be wise for you to stand down as I have already suggested. You are a long way from home, and I would hate to see your people get hurt! Yelgrun out".
With that, the screen returned to the image of the approaching ships.
"Captain, the ships approaching do not appear to match the configuration of any known dominion ships on record. I would also like to point out that, Yelgrun did not specify which race he represented. I find it extremely unlikely that Dominion territory stretches this far across the galaxy" announced Tuvok before Janeway could sort the jumble of words out in her head.