The man ran from console to console, flipping switches furiously, but with a huge grin on his face. Beside him, two others stood, a young teenage man with curly hair and an even younger teenage woman. They were smiling as well.
The young man spoke up.
"Where are we going?"
He had to shout because of the roar of the engines
The rather eccentric man looked back at the eager couple.
"I have no idea!" he shouted over the roar the ship's systems were making. The ship shuddered briefly as it encountered turbulence from the outside.
The roar suddenly stopped.
"Doctor, have we landed?" the young woman asked, looking towards the door expectantly.
"Yes, we have!" the man called Doctor answered, racing toward the door. The young couple followed.
Just as he was about to turn the handle, the ship started up again.
"What the…?" the Doctor was back at the console in a flash, looking at one of the screens. His smile dropped quickly.
"I've seen these readings before," he mumbled to himself. Suddenly he looked up and shouted, "Hold on to something!"
The young couple didn't question him. They had been with him too long. The younger man grabbed a hold of a column. The girl grabbed a hold of the younger man.
The ship rocked about violently. Sparks flew from the consoles and from interfaces that had been recently installed. This lasted for a period of about half a minute. The ship felt like it was being pulled apart.
Finally, it stopped. What lights hadn't been destroyed came back on. What power the ship had left began to flow to all essential systems. Lights flickered.
"What happened?" the young woman asked, eyes wide.
"I don't know," the Doctor replied, confused. He stumbled over to one of the screens.
His eyes widened. He looked up at the clear column coming out from the center of the circular console. The eyes of the other two followed his.
Surrounding the column was a strange icy blue cloud-like formation.
"Doctor, what is it?"
The man referred to as the Doctor shook his head.
"Jason, Esther, I don't know what it is. I wish I did."
"Captain's log, stardate 99404.02. Captain Robert Fisher commanding U.S.S. Hawking. We have been diverted from our trip to the planet Halkan to remap a Class 5 nebula in the Ji'lon Sector. Needless to say, this is going to be one long, boring assignment."
On the bridge of the U.S.S. Hawking, the first starship of its class, Fisher hit the End Log button on his console. He leaned back, listening to the nearly undetectable hum of the warp drive and its components. He closed his eyes and listened to the beeps the ships consoles made.
"Captain? It is against protocol to sleep while working."
Fisher opened his eyes slowly. He turned and looked over at his Vulcan first officer, Solok.
"Sorry, Mr. Solok. Rough night. Didn't sleep well."
"Dr. Melvin can fix that," Solok replied with a smile. Fisher still couldn't get over the fact that this particular Vulcan showed his emotions so freely.
"Mr. Kelso, how much more time until we reach the nebula?"
"Approximately 1.6 minutes sir," the helm officer replied.
Fisher rubbed his eyes slowly as he tried to rub the cobwebs out. He watched the stars at high warp through the viewscreen.
"Wondering if we're there yet, Captain?"
Fisher looked back to his smiling Cardassian security chief, Lukak.
"Since when did you know about old earth terminology?"
Lukat's smile widened.
"I've always been interested in your culture. That's why I joined Starfleet."
Fisher nodded. "One of the first to join."
"And I've never regretted the decision. My parents always thought that I was being rash."
"Cardassia's loss is Starfleet's gain, eh?"
Lukat smiled again.
"Coming within visual range of the nebula."
"Onscreen."
The screen flashed on. An icy blue cloud met their eyes.
"You know, if you look hard enough, there's supposed to be a barely visible ring of darker matter."
Fisher turned to the voice. His ship's counselor, Gina, smiled at him. He turned back to the screen and squinted. Sure enough, his eyes picked up a ring of darker nebula matter.
"Mr. Lukat, can you–?"
And then the ship pitched violently to the left. Sparks flew from the console as the bridge darkened and went to red alert.
"Report!" Fisher shouted over the hiss of the fire-suppression systems.
"Massive verteron pulse from the nebula, captain, ""Lukat replied, "Warp drive is offline. Shields are at fifty-three percent. Impulse drive is at seventy-five percent."
"Divert all available power to the forward shields!" Fisher ordered as he climbed back into the center seat.
"Medical reports coming in, captain. Thirty-seven wounded, and the rest are just shaken up."
Fisher played with his hair, trying to make it presentable. As he did so, he asked, "Mr. Sotok, any theories on what just happened? Is there a ship in there?"
"That is one likely explanation. Approximately half a second before the verteron pulse, the ship detected a smaller neutrino pulse."
"A cloaked ship?"
"Possibly. The other explanation is the opening of a wormhole."
"A wormhole? Mr. Lukat, scan for any signs of a wormhole."
"Uh, captain…?"
Fisher turned to the screen. What he saw seemed impossible.
A perfectly circular structure had formed where before there had been a ring of darker nebula matter. What looked like ice blue liquid water seemed to be coming from the edge of the inside of the ring, flowing to the center.
The entire bridge grew silent as they watched the liquid close reach the center. As it did so, a large amount of the liquid seemed to expand from the surface. It looked like a rock had been thrown into the center, and the resulting expansion was the splash.
The expansion reached a climax, and then as if time had been reversed, it disappeared into the liquid.
"Mr. Lukat, scan that thing, whatever it is."
Lukat complied.
Just after he announced the scan complete, every console went dark then turned back on. They were replaced with the image of a holographic representation of the device. In the holographic circle was a symbol: a figure A without the bridge in between the diagonal lines. Also, on top was a small circle.
Fisher's eyes widened. He recognized the symbol!
He stood up, told Lukat to transfer all sensor readings to his ready room, went into his ready room with a grim expression on his face, and shut the door, locking it.
Lukat looked at Solok, then at Kelso, then at Gina with a startled expression on his face.
"What's going on?" he asked.
No one replied. No one had any idea what was going to happen next.
"What is that thing?"
The creature sitting next to him in the co-pilot's seat growled a reply.
"Chewie, if I knew what it was, I wouldn't have asked you, now would I?"
The creature named Chewie, also known as Chewbacca growled another reply.
"Where did it come from?" the man asked again, this time to himself.
"Han, are you seeing this?"
"Yea I am, Luke, old buddy," Han replied "What do you make of it?"
"I'm not sure, but whatever it is, it was powerful enough to drag us out of hyperspace," Luke replied.
Suddenly a woman stumbled into the cockpit.
"What happened?" she demanded angrily.
"That happened," Han replied, gesturing out towards the stars.
A large icy blue nebula sat in the middle of their window. In the center was a large dark gray-blue ring. Inside was what looked like a liquid of some sort, flowing over the surface of this ring.
"What's the size of that thing?" Leia asked.
"Big enough to fit a Death Star through," Han replied.
"Do we know what's on the other side, if anything?"
"Scanners can't penetrate the liquid," Han answered.
"Same here," Luke added.
"Well, whatever it is, it's generating a humongous amount of energy, enough to power around twenty Death Stars," Han said.
"Han! Something's happening!"
Han turned back to the ring. Something small had shown up on the scanners. A metal object of some kind.
Chewbacca mumbled something.
"Good idea, Chewie. Grab it with a tractor beam."
The metal object changed course and began its slow ascent. Han activated his screen. On it the schematic of the metal object began to form. When it had completely formed, Han frowned.
"What's the U.S.S. Hawking?"
Hope you all like this revamped version of my old story
morbiusgreen
