Star Trek: A New Century: A Time of Terror
Prologue
8 October 2408
USS Enterprise NCC 1701 F, patrolling the edge of Federation space
"Captain's Log: Stardate 85310.83; the crew is as restless as it has been most of the year since Starfleet Command had put us on patrol duty."
Captain Michael Walker paced the ready room. He was bored. He didn't know what Starfleet Command was thinking, in assigning the Enterprise to patrol the border of the Federation in an area where there had not been any trouble for the last two decades. And that was they had been doing for most of the last year. There had been the occasional distress call, and natural disaster that the ship had attended to. But otherwise it was week after week of patrols, with nothing interesting for the crew to do, other than to maintain the ship. There was no ways about it, crew morale was low. He knew that most of his crew were those who had joined Starfleet for the excitement of exploring the unknown.
He was considering contacting Starfleet Command and asking why the Enterprise was assigned in an area that it was totally unsuited for.
"Bridge to Captain" the voice of the tactical officer came over the intercom.
"Report," he said.
"We are receiving a distress call from a Federation freighter about two light years away," the tactical officer said.
"I will be right up."
"Acknowledged," the tactical officer said.
.--.
"ETA to source of distress call is 30 minutes, Captain" the helm officer, Samuel Lewis, said as the captain came onto the bridge.
"Any further information?" the captain asked.
"There is none, the call ceased as soon as we had received it, very weird," the tactical officer, T'Shala Verys said.
"Explain, what do you mean by weird, you don't usually describe happenstances as such" the captain asked.
"It may not be logical, but I felt something, coming at this ship across the light years, something, malicious, for the lack of a better term" T'Shala said. She did not elaborate any further.
"Long distance scan results indicate a slight spacial distortion over the area captain; I recommend we proceed with caution," the Assistant Science Officer, Una McDonald, said.
The Operations Manager took a moment to compare the results to the ships database before speaking. "Distortion is well inside safety protocols for use of all equipment at full potential."
"Could it be a Q incident?" Lewis asked, "He usually uses local space-time distortion as a bit of a calling card if I recall correctly."
"Unlikely," T'Shala intoned, "He is currently setting a 'Good Example' for his offspring and mainly interacting on colonized worlds. Also, the spacial distortion is dissimilar."
"So something new then." said the science officer Sara Livingstone, a trace of excitement colouring her voice.
"Absolutely" the Captain said.
To be continued.