PROLOGUE

The burning carcass of a Klingon light cruiser bird of prey drifted across the vision of the bridge viewport. The crew was stunned. Captain D'Locko of the Constitution class USS Antitham was equally so. Just moments before they had come under attack by this very same ship while on what was supposed to be an unofficial patrol/reconnaisance voyage of a previously unknown Delta Quadrant planet. Somehow someone found out about the mission. Just as soon as they reached the end of their recon, right before they could warp, they had come under attack.

The ferocity and cunning of the attack was overwhelming. The Klingon ship had waited till the Antitham finished its, "night" side observation and had just reached the planet's axis facing the system's sun. Masked by the sun, the Klingon light cruiser had dropped cloack and unleashed a dazzling display of emerald fire. Caught unaware, the Antitham was slammed across her bow from the onslaught of the war bird's disruptor fire. In response, the Antitham shifted her position to put the war bird along her port quarter as she shifted all her shield power to that very same section of the ship. Weapons powered up, she let loose her own blistering fire. Ruby lances of light streaked across empty space... and met with precisely that.

The war bird had cloaked once again and had used the disruptor fire and sunlight to provide it the cover to do so. The Antitham tried to find the Klingon ship with her sensors only to be met with eight contact signatures that matched the war bird drifting in various directions. Visual sensors confirmed the decoys, eight small devices with blinking red lights drifting in space. The Antitham's crew was on alert, searching for any sign of the war bird. And a sign they got in the form of an ion trail... that ended directly above them. This was it. The end of the Antitham and her crew, and they knew it. Even so they still turned the ship about to put up one last defiant surge of fight... only to track an ion pulse signature coming from beyond both combatants.

A single question ran through the crew. Was this someone coming to aid them... or destroy them? The signature was identified. It was a long range photon torpedo with a multi tiered propulsion system that was capable of traveling incredible distances to reach its target. Two more lagged behind it. Their trajectory was headed towards a pocket of space where light was seemingly bent around something. The war bird. The torpedoes hit home, decimating the aft portion of the cloaked and unshielded war bird. The war bird became uncloaked, gouts of flame bursting forth all along the super structure. Escape shuttles could be seen leaving the war bird. Something on the Klingon ship must have hit past a critical point because the next thing anybody knew, the ship suddenly disappeared from view in a blinding flash of light. Once the after image of the ship's destruction faded, all that could be seen of the once powerful war bird was portions of the super structure still in intact and burning with the rest just debris drifting in space. Did that really just happen? D'locko thought to himself. I need to get us back to Star Fleet Command.

"Mr. Doru, plot a course to the nearest Federation planet with a Starfleet outpost there," D'Locko ordered.

"Aye sir plotting course," came his shaky response. Jittery fingers still high on adrenaline flew across the ship's navigation panel. D'locko turned to his communications officer.

"Ensign Chekov, I need you to get an encrypted burst message ready to broadcast back to Starfleet Command the moment we reach the outpost detailing what just occured," he commanded.

"Aye sir," came the dark haired beauty's reply in a calm and cool tone that matched her icy blue eyes. Her tone was thick with what could only be described as a russian accent. Limping into position, the Antitham pulled away from the system, and went to warp... but not without sending a burst transmission out to a bouy that wasn't there at the onset of the engagement. A transmission that never made it to the ship's records...