Race for Atlantis Redux

by Slim Dim

A new ship, a new crew, a new captain, but an adventure older than time…When Plato wrote of the lost city of Atlantis he could never imagine the scope of what he had uncovered. Single document

Dark Frontier A Star Trek Series:

Race for Atlantis

Dark Frontier: A Star Trek Series

Race for Atlantis

"the time for fighting is now!"

By Robert Dearsley

Dark Frontier a star trek series

Race for Atlantis

"Scientists have tried to explain why all the races we have encountered are hunaniod; coincidence, some srot of common ancestor?

What if it wasn't by coinsidence that we all look the same what if it was by design?"

Dr P.R. Flox 2160AD

preface

There was no individuality only the group consciousness, and her. Drone ten of fifteen, the human formally known as Shauna Decker was woken early from her regeneration, had she been capable of individual thought she might have wondered why she had been woken, but as it stood she moved mechanically toward the antechamber where 'She' waited, the ever-present mother.

As she moved her mind was probed. Flashes of a past life moved behind her unblinking eyes as she walked.

A young man; tall mid twenties; her wedding; there first joint assignment; the joy of being together. Stop, query, what is joy? The drone stood statue like trying to process the request. Emotion is irrelevant. The drone continued. The birth of there children.

Then it was there, the drone stood in front of its creator, it mother. It's Queen.

"I have a special mission for you." The queen began, speaking into the mind of its creation.

The incessant chirping of the communications console roused John from a fitful sleep. Whilst he could not remember the dreams that had been plaguing his night they were evident from the rumpled, sweat covered, bedclothes.

Pulling on a dressing gown he walked over to the offending console and tapped a control. The revolving Starfleet logo in the centre of the screen was replaced by the visage of an upper crust admiral, who John recognised as Admiral Hendrix.

"Captain Decker we have received some disturbing reports of Borg activity from the Atlantis excavation in the Antarctic. Only last week the Pluto defence station destroyed a Borg ship with orders to take the Atlantis colony."

John pulled his coffee from the replicator, sipped and winced in distain.

"Why do you feel the need to tell me this sir?" John replied, leaving his eyes closed against the glair of the screen, the addition of "at this ungodly hour of the morning" was left unspoken.

"Starfleet feels that you are the best man to head the security team to protect the excavation from the next attack, and we are sure there will be more."

"Well when you find the only remaining colony of an ancient civilisation that spanned the galaxy you're going to get some interest from people like the Borg." John said sarcastically.

Hendrix gave a surprised snort of laughter. "I suppose so. Get you're team ready for a departure at 0800 hours."

With a tart good buy the admiral cut the communication. As he was turning to leave John noticed the blinking box that indicated a pre-recorded message.

Deciding that he probably wouldn't get back to sleep anytime soon, he opened the message.

A man hunched down into a large cream parka appeared on the screen.

"John, old buddy, we're about to brake the permafrost, hopefully we'll be down onto the city in the next couple of days. I know you're on leave, so come down and watch if you want, I know it was always a passion of yours." The Man, who John recognised as Mark, reached forward and the communication cut out.

"I suppose I should get a team together." John mumbled and wandered back into the bedroom to get changed, a quick glance at the clock showed him that it was 2.46.

Shellac walked into the ruling chamber, with a quick duck of recognition to the Senator, she began.

"Praetor we have news that the humans have almost uncovered the secrets of the old-ones." She began. "What would you have us do?"

The elderly man paused. "We have peace negotiations with the humans; we will wait and see what they have to say for themselves."

"With all due respect, the humans have no right to that knowledge; it should be by right ours." Shellac began.

"Silence!" the Praetor barked. "I will hear no more of this."

With a quick nod to the old man, Shellac moved toward the entrance, before she reached the door she already had his downfall plotted.

Out in the darkened corridor she was stopped by a tall Romulon his head shrouded by a hood.

"We can not listen to that old fool, we must act." He whispered. "The Tal'Shear will not stand by and let such a treasure fall into the hands of enemies." He handed her a small Isolinier chip Take the Griffin and find out how much the humans know.

Mark hunched over the console his hood up even inside the old shack, against the perishing cold.

"When will the Starfleet Troops arrive?" He asked the figure on the screen.

"Captain Decker and his team will arrive at 0800 hours SET." The Admiral answered.

"Wait, Decker, as in John Decker? I thought he was on leave?"

"He was recalled for this assignment. Hendrix out." The admiral was replaced by the slowly rotating logo.

He glanced as the chronometer on the hut's wall. They would be here in about half an hour, John was going to be in a bad mood, he had taken the two weeks leave to stay at the old family home in Surry, it was the twentieth anniversary of Wolf 359, where John's parents had been killed. He wasn't going to like this interruption.

"What's up mate?" Alex asked ducking into the tent.

"Starfleet are sending a team down to protect us after the Borg attempts at the city." He said very matter of fact. The amount of effort the Borg had put into getting to them maid him nervous.

"What's up?" She repeated, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"I guess it just makes me nervous. And there Sending John Decker, so he'll be in foul mood the whole time."

Alex laughed at that. "He not like the cold or something?"

"It's the twentieth anniversary of his parents' death." Mark said simply.

Alex just razed here eyebrows under the hood and let her breath out a soft whistle. "Poor bloke."

John stood in front of the large granite monument. It was composed of a spire of grey polished stone shooting up through a copper ring; it was surrounded by hundreds of gravestones. The whole park was a tribute to those who had given there lives in the defence of the Federation, against the Borg at Wolf 359. Carved into the surface of the pillar was the line.

"We will not go gentle into that good night!"

"Rage, rage against the dieing of the light." John quoted the next line.

"I thought you would be here." Alice voice maid him jump. "Sorry." She said shrugging.

"I've got to go, Starfleet have called me in for the defence of the Atlantis dig."

She just nodded and watched as he walked off through the forest of gravestones. Her fingers trailed over the inscription.

"May I be a light to you in dark places." She murmured.

chapter one

Captain John Decker stood in the transpoter room; he pulled the lapels of the maroon coat up as he watched the rest of the thirty strong sectary team file in. He had maid a point of trying to remember the names of all of them. Now he was struggling to remember even one, names had never been one of his strengths, the oriental girl was ensign Sing, and the tall lanky one next to her was Meriwether.

"John, you ok?" Lt. Commander McKenzie tapped him on the shoulder.

"Fine Alan, was just trying to remember their names." He smiled. "You know what I'm like with names."

Alan laughed. "If the worst comes to the worst just point and yell 'hey you'. I'm sure none will mind."

John and Alan had met five years ago when John had, then commander, had been in command of the Nightingale medical station. Alan's sister Sam McKenzie had spent almost six months there recuperating after being hit in the side by a photon grenade; whilst there John had become good friends with both her and her older brother.

"Ready to go sir." A Lieutenant, for the life of him John couldn't remember his name, said briskly.

"Thank you Lieutenant." McKenzie said whilst John tried to remember the man's name.

McKenzie watched as John, along with the first ten men positioned themselves on the transporter pad, John nodded to the ensign at the controls who initiated the device and seconds later the pad was empty.

He hoped John was ok, his old friend seemed distracted, and from experience he knew that usually meant the other was bottling up some strong emotion.

He turned to the chunky dark-heard girl, who couldn't have been more than twenty, at the controls.

"They are through ok sir." The ensign said. It was then McKenzie noticed the screen behind her, the headline on the news fader read.

"Record crowds expected for tonight's Memorial ceremony."

His face seemed to light up in realisation. "That would be why John is a bit out of it." He muttered, stepping onto the transporter pad.

"Ensign Hepburn, we are ready for transport." He informed the transported tech.

He cursed under his breath as the room dissolved into a desolate Antarctic plain.

"John." Mark called holding the hood of his coat against the strong wind as he jogged over to the group of Starfleet officers. "Did you get my message? Not that it matters?"

"Got it." John replied pulling his coat tighter. "Earlier this morning actually."

Nodding mike ushered his old friend toward one of the temporary buildings.

John paused to give instructions to McKenzie, before following the other.

Mark waited for John to push the door closed against the harsh weather.

"I pity you lot, having to patrol in this."

"Yup, that's going to be fun." John replied pulling his coat open. "So what you found?"

"You know me too well." He gestured the other over to a table, upon which was a small device.

"What is it?" John asked pushing his hair out of his face as he leaned forward.

"Were not sure, we found it with the wreckage of an Atlantian shuttle about five kilometres away, it looks like it should fit into something." Mark turned the device over to show John the underside. "So far we've been unable to power it up."

"Have you tried bathing it in EM radiation?" John asked helpfully.

"Not yet shall we give it a try?" Mark was already moving toward the tech bench.

Vetch, watched the Human scientists fumbling around making perpetrations to for the following day's drilling, set to start in just under five hours, if what he had overheard was correct.

Safe behind his personal cloak he had been watching the humans for weeks now, reporting back to Shellac constantly. Maybe, when he got out of this wasteland he would kill her, and then maybe he could be the one that agents reported to.

He had to be more careful now that there were security officers keeping watch. Even with his cloak if someone was looking in the right direction at the right time, they would see his footprints. From where he was he had a good vantage point to watch the drilling.

"Ready?" Mark asked placing the device onto the stand in the centre of the shielded tank.

"Ready." John said from the controls. He began manipulating the console, gradually increasing the field intensity.

All of a sudden the device sparked to life and a green beam was emitted from it. The beam shone around the room, as if scanning for something, then faded out of life.

"That was disappointing." John said, rising from where he had ducked behind the console.

"Hum, well it was working; perhaps it just has to be in the right place." Mark suggested.

"Perhaps, but I should get some sleep before my shift." John said making for the door.

"Are you going to be around for the opening?" Mark asked placing the device back into its padded container.

John paused holding the door open. "Defiantly, McKenzie will be there as well, we're making sure two of the teams are on duty at the time." Then he ducked out the door, squinting at the sun that hung low in the sky.

Vetch saw his chance as the leader of the security detail, intelligence said his name was John Decker, paused holding the door open. He quickly darted through the open door, his footfalls hardly heard above the howling wind. Once inside he waited silently watching as the Archaeologist moved around making sure everything was stowed away, finally the man pulled the door open and maid his way out into the snow.

Vetch maid his move scanning the room he saw one thing of value, a small device that was obviously from the Atlantis colony, he snatched it and maid for the door.

He pulled the door open cursing his own stupidity as one of the Security officers, noticing the door swing open, came to investigate. Hopefully she will just think it was the wind or something, Vetch thought pulling the ceramic knife from his belt.

The girl pulled a tricorder from her belt, but fumbled to open it with the thick gloves she was wearing. He would have to make it look like an animal attack, but still killing her would attract too much attention, but he couldn't let himself be found.

Sing pulled her gloves off to open the tricorder, and was about to give the area a cursory sweep when McKenzie's voice caught her attention.

"Sing." He came jogging up to her. "You're off shift, get some sleep."

"Eye sir." She said pausing with the tricorder half open.

"Well come on then." McKenzie said giving her a gentle shove toward the barracks.

Vetch stood the perpetual twilight and breathed a sigh of relief as the two officers wandered off toward the barracks.

John stood next to Mark his phaser rifle slung over his back; he pushed a stray lock of hair out of his face.

"Alright people, this is it!" Mark called dramatically, and pulled a bottle of champing for somewhere. He tossed it down into the drill shaft, where the scientists watched it fall and smash on the ice at the bottom.

"It'll take more than that to break the ice!" McKenzie called from the other side of the whole. Where he waited with Sing, Meriwether, and a group of archaeologists who were to be the first to go down when it was opened.

"This is it." Mark whispered to John. "What it's all been building up to." John just nodded. "I know you'd rather be home moping, especially today, but at least give it a chance to take your mind off things."

Mark was one of the few people who had known John since before his parents had been killed. He had seen the change it had maid to a once lively and happy young man, who always had the centre of attention, and the harts of some of the hottest girls in school. It had all been torn away from him, he became insular, Mark had done his best to help his friend get back to his old self, it had taken a long time and John was by no means totally at peace with it, but he was a lot better.

Vetch watched as the human dropped a bottle into the hole in the ice. What was the point, he thought, why couldn't they just get on with it?

At last the phaser drill was aligned and began to cut through the last hundred meters or so of ice and into the city, he began to pick his way over to where a group of them were gathering to go down into the city.

"According to the scans we have done, this shaft should come down into the inner ring, by one of the entrances to the main antechamber." Mark said as John watched the drill cut through the ice, the subtle hints of excitement on his face only evident to Mark.

"Done!" The drill operator called, as the last of the ice gave way to reveal a dark corridor. Mark pulled a flair from his pocket and twisting it to activate it dropped it into the darkness. The dull green light didn't do much to brake the darkness but it was soon joined by others lending there glow to its, until it gave some illumination.

Alan McKenzie clambered onto what was dubiously called a lift, in actuality it was a cage suspended from a crane that had been set up in place of the drill, the whole procedure had taken less than ten minutes.

"Ready to go?" The crane operator called. McKenzie nodded and the cage slowly descended through the ice shaft and into the city. He couldn't help but feel that he was being watched, but when he turned all the others on the lift were looking over the side as he had been. Putting it down to paranoia he readied his rifle, just as the lift dropped through the hole and into the city.

"You know that we are the first people to go down here in over thirty thousand years?" One of the archaeologists said rather condescendingly, as the team fanned out the beams of there phasers cutting the darkness

"I'd rather not take the chance." McKenzie said through gritted teeth scanning the corridor, oh how he hated pedantic people. "You never heard of transporters?"

Mark stepped out of the lift cage to see one of the others having a hushed conversation with the security Lieutenant.

He caught the tail end of it as he approached.

"Look will you just let us do our jobs!" the Lieutenant whispered through clenched teeth.

Mark cut off the others reply. "I'm sorry, Lieutenant, but I'm sure you can appreciate that we would like to stick to the illusion that we are the first people here in thousands of years." He cut the other archaeologist off again. "As I'm sure we will appreciate that caution is always better that rushing in headlong."

At that point the door to the Central chamber swung open grating against the floor of the cavern. Ensign Sing moved to cover the entrance lest something come out to get them.

Peter was about to make another comment when Mark ground the heel of his boot into the other mans foot.

Alex came up behind him. "Wow." Was all she could think to say.

Vetch jumped back as the door opened afraid that it would give him away. He had no time for the caution that the humans were showing, and had taken matters into his own hands manipulating the controls to open the door to the central chamber. As the lucky officer from the night before, moved to cover the door he ducked through and into the chamber.

The chamber was huge, Mark whistled in appreciation of its size, the roofs sweeping curve that was lost to darkness was mirrored by the bowled shape of the floor. A walkway lead to a platform in the centre, the platform was easily a hundred meters across and in its centre was a small pedestal.

Without warning a Romulon appeared on the central platform.

"At last the power of the Old ones' is mine!" He called; McKenzie, who was standing next to Mark, dropped to one knee targeting the intruder, who razed a small device over his head. As it caught the light Mark recognised it, it was the device they had found. How had the Romulon gotten his grubby hands on it?

Vetch raised the stolen device over his head in a victory gesture, before placing it into the recess on the pedestals surface.

The device came to life shooting a beam of green energy toward the ceiling; then it fanned around the room almost like a sensor sweep. As it did so it left a holographic map of the galaxy painted in greens. It was that point that the Borg drones materialized. One grabbed him, and its assimilation tubules slammed into his neck. He could here the collective in his mind like a wave coming to wash away his individuality, but in the same moment he knew everything. As quickly as he could he sifted though the information. The Atlantians, known by his people as the old ones, were an ancient race with massively powerful technology that had once inhabited this galaxy, most of this galaxy, then inexplicably they had disappeared, and earth was the only known location of a colony.

He bit down on the implant in one of his molars, it activated a synaptic device that transmitted his thoughts at that time and then emitted an anti-electrolyte into his brain killing him.

McKenzie spun to fire at the drone that had appeared, but he was fractionally too late, as the things assimilation tubules slid into Mark's neck, shoving Nanites into his blood stream. Without thinking McKenzie fired into the drone's chest the force of the blast knocking it backwards.

chapter two

John watched as the next load of scientists was loaded into the lift. There were times when he wondered what his life would have been like had his parents not died, would his love of archaeology come first? Would he be the one down there cataloguing all the strange and wonderful devises that they were bound to find? He looked back over his life, it wasn't so bad, and he enjoyed what he did in Starfleet.

His thoughts were broken by a scream that cut across the wind-swiped plane.

"All units move in!" He called into his com unit, already running for the borehole. At the edge he took a running jump and caught hold of the cable; only the heavy duty gloves stopped his hands from being ripped to shreds, as he slid down the steel cable to land atop the cage.

Landing in a combat crouch on one knee he scanned the corridor, not seeing any movement he dropped to the floor seconds before the cage started to rise.

"Resistance is futile." John whirled to see a Borg drone step out of the shadows. The first shot, a blot of kinetically charged plasma, took the drone in the shoulder, the force of the impact spinning it; the second shot smashed into the things back and it dropped to the floor.

It was then that he noticed the open door, through which came an ominous green glow.

McKenzie fired into the chest of another drone, to little affect. Scrabbling backward, trying to avoid a traitorous fall from the catwalk, he desperately tried to remodulate his phaser. Not looking where he was going he tripped, falling hard on his back. He tried to push back with his legs but could get no grip on the smooth metal.

Seeing the drone advance on McKenzie John instinctively fired into its back, and with a shower of sparks it fell from the catwalk.

McKenzie nodded to John by way of thanks as he clambered to his feet.

Mark writhed in pain as the Nanites forced their way through his bloodstream, causing his veins to expand painfully; it was as though his blood were boiling. He could just make out the blurred shape of John, through the film gradually developing over his eyes.

Captain John Decker knelt next to his old friend.

"Come on, we've got to get you some help." He said encouragingly.

"No help for me." Mark gasped, his body wracked by another spasm. "Got to kill me. They can't know what I know."

"No there has to be something."

"Don't condemn me out of some twisted loyalty, dam-it!" Mark grabbed the phaser rifle with the last of his failing strength and pushed the barrel under his chin.

"God-damn-it!" John yelled in exasperation, yanking the rifle from his friend's grip and firing into an advancing drone.

"Down!" An ensign yelled, reflexively McKenzie ducked, narrowly avoiding a dart fried from one of the drones.

"What the hell." He exclaimed, as the dart impacted into the wall behind him. Nannites dribbled down the wall in a black spider web affect. The ensign shrugged turning back to fire into the advancing drones.

A shriek drew McKenzie's attention to Sing who was pinned down by a drone; he finished remodulating his rifle and shot at the drone, it's back exploded in shower of sparks. He watched her try to stand and fall, clutching at an injured leg.

"Stay down. " He ordered placing a hand on her shoulder. "Merewether?" He called.

"Resistance is futile." The dark haired ensign turned to expose the web of Borg technology spreading over his face.

The drone that had been Merewether clamped his hand around McKenzie's neck and lifted.

The plasma grenade took Merewether in the side, sending his broken corps skidding over the edge of the catwalk and down in to the darkness.

"John pleas just pull the trigger." Mark pleaded; he could already here the collective whispering through his mind.

John pulled the hand phaser from his belt and fired into his best friend's face.

Tears formed in his eyes as the Mark's dead body slumped against the pedestal and fell; down through the holographic constellations into the darkness bellow.

The drone fired another dart, McKenzie just managed to avoid being hit and returned fire smashing the drone back against the curved wall.

"I think that's the last of them." He said coming to stand beside Decker, who was looking down into the darkness. "John, it's over." He repeated more quietly. In the background he could hear someone telling Starfleet to dispatch ships to find the Borg ship.

The two friends stood side by side as the green holographic map shimmered around them.

Captain John Decker sat in a cramped shuttle pod, his mind lost in thought about the events of the previous week. Almost as soon as his debriefing about the Antarctic had finished he'd been packed off into a shuttle and sent up to Utopia Planitia Ship yards, and now he was in a what could only be described as an oversized airlock with engines. He couldn't remember who had famously called them that. Probably Kirk or someone like that.

"Beautiful isn't she?" The pilot said.

John leaned forward so he could look out the window at the ship, his ship.

"The Ithaca, most advance ship in the fleet." The pilot elaborated. John resisted the urge to get sarcastic, but in trough was entranced by the sleek lines of the ship. Not that the ships weapons load out wasn't impressive; eleven torpedo bays, each capable of replicating Photon and Quantum torpedoes. Along with ten omni-directional phasers and two pulls turrets, and the ability to lay mines maid the ship a formidable enemy.

"Sir, if you could sit back whilst we dock." John followed the pilot's instructions looking out the small, elliptical viewport opposite as they drifted into the main shuttle bay.

"Shuttle Oh Five, you are down safely and ready for disembarkation." The Docking controller's voice came over the com. The pilot just nodded for John to clamber out.

By contrast to the interior of the shuttle he had spent the last few minutes in the shuttle bay was spacious, easily capable of holding four Danube Class Runabouts, although there were only tow currently present.

"Captain, so glad to make your acquaintance." Admiral Picard's voice cut through the silence of the cargo bay.

I don't need this, not now. John thought as he turned to see the tall balding Admiral who looked tiered. Not him, anyone but him.

"I'm sure the feeling is mutual." He said extending his hand for a firm hand shake, his voice betraying how tiered he felt.

"Perhaps we should begin our tour." The Admiral said picking up on the tiredness in the Captain's voice. "Let's start with engineering." He followed Picard him toward the exit with a sigh. It had been a long week.

John leaned back against the turbo-lift wall and closed his eyes. For just a moment he could see the view from his window in his parents' house, out onto a small field lined with trees. He was always amazed at how much they had grown every time he went back there.

"And for our final stop," Picard said rousing John from his daydreaming. "The Bridge." As if on cue the turbo-lift doors opened to reveal the bridge.

Captain Decker followed Picard out onto the sleek spacious bridge. He looked around at the officers manning the stations. "Bridge crew seems a bit fresh?" He commented, only the lilt at the end making it the question that Picard answered only by gesturing, to the door to the briefing room, situated behind the main bridge. John followed the admiral into the well lit, room, whose walls were painted in a grey blue colure favoured by star ship designers.

"This is you're bridge crew, Captain Decker." Picard used his full title as way of introduction. "We have; Ensign Bates, you're operations officer." He gestured to a young fresh faced man sitting at the foot of the table.

The rest of the crew were introduced; Ensign Rachel Rhodes, the helm officer, a young girl with fair hair and grey eyes: Lieutenant Amy Wentworth was next, sat with her back to the viewers, her dark hair pulled back in a pony tail, her smile warmed John down to his toes: Finally Commander Quiche, a tall dark Vulcan sat in the seat next to that reserved for the captain.

John made sure that he gave everyone eye contact as he crossed the room to his chair, and sat. Although Amy did hold his eyes with an unspoken question, one that they had both been ignoring for far too long.

"If I may begin?" Picard coughed politely. "The situation as it stands, is that both the Borg and the Romulons are interested in finding other Atlantian colonies, most likely both parties are interested in pillaging the sites for any available technology."

The Admiral paused to tap a control on the wall, and the viewers at the back of the room flicked from water-colure landscapes to images of the map from the Atlantian colony.

"We must assume," he continued, "that both parties have as much detail on this map as we do."

"But, haven't we had longer to study it? The original I mean." Ensign Bates piped up.

"Better to assume they know as much as we do." John put in. "I know I'd rather assume the worst and be proven wrong than assume the best and be proven wrong." Seeming satisfied by the captain's explanation Bates sank back into his chair.

"Well put captain. As I was saying, both parties have access to this map." Picard continued. "We have been able to locate certain potential sites of colonies, one in particular." He tapped a control and one of the planets was highlighted. "Starfleet cryptologists believe it was designated as 'Waypoint'."

"Why would the others want to go there?" Amy asked; John couldn't' help but watch her uniform pull taught over her body as she leaned in.

"They're going strait for the grand price." The others turned as Decker leaned forward. "If these are just colonies, then imagine what there home world must be like."

"Essentially Captain Decker is right." Pickard said. "You are to go to Waypoint, and are authorised to use any and all measures to stop the Borg and the Romulons getting any technology. If they do it could tip the balance of power in the quadrant."

"Hold on." Amy said looking at the map behind her. "That planet is in Breen space."

"I understand you're concerns." The admiral said evenly. "But we have a plan to get you in and out with no problem. We have developed a temporarily stable artificial wormhole. After I have finished the briefing you will travel to the Midas Array where they will open the temporary wormhole, and allow you to pass through." He razed his had to stop Amy's further questioning. "The Ithaca's primary deflector has been rigged to open one for the return journey, however if you have to make multiple jumps it will take ninety minutes to recharge before it can be used again." With that Picard turned to leave. "Captain Decker If you will escort me to the shuttle bay?"

John got out of his chair wondering why the admiral wanted an escort to the shuttle bay. Sighing he followed the other to the turbo lift. Once inside he leaned against the wall letting his head loll back his eyes closed.

"Captain, are you alright." Picard asked genuine concern in his voice.

John sighed. "Permission to speak candidly sir?" Picard just nodded. "It's just having all this, now, now of all times. Seeing you, here now!"

"I'm sorry about you're parents." The admiral said leaning against the wall. "It's been a long week for us all."

"I know, it's all too much, and now seeing you." He left the thought unfinished, sinking down until he was almost sitting on the floor. "I don't know if I can do this, now right now. I killed my best friend last week, god-dam it!" He closed his eyes as tears began leaching out of the corners.

"I am sorry for you're loss, but needs must." There was the swish of the door, and he was gone leaving the captain alone.

"For fucks sake!" Decker cursed pounding his fist into the wall beside him.

"Deck 5 officer quarters." He demanded and the lift was off.

Amy absently tapped a control on her console and the small screen shifted from a schematic of the ship to their projected flight path. She was worried about John, he seemed distant. She hoped he would pull out of it soon.

She thought he had gotten over what had happened at Wolf 359, but recent events must have brought it all back.

"Lieutenant Wentworth, is our exit rout clear of all traffic?" Quiche's voice broke her from her revere.

"Uh," she glanced at her console. "It would appear so sir." She said after giving the display a second's scrutiny.

Decker walked into his quarters, he snatched a pad from atop one of the packing creates and, with an anguished cry flung the thing across the room. The pad hit the wall and fell to the floor with a plaintive chirp.

"God DAMN it!" He cried and collapsed against the wall. "Why now? Of all times?"

The sleek ship cleared space dock, and jumped to warp. On the bridge Amy stepped back from her station as it was taken over my Ensign Handgun, a tall lanky woman with bright orange hair.

Once in the turbo lift she requested the location of the captain, and redirected the lift to Deck 5.

John stood in his quarters, above a large couch the main window looked out onto space where stars streaked past like someone had thrown a bucket of oil into the blackness of space. He had always liked watching the stars go by while the ship was a warp, each of them a shooting star. But no matter how many times he wish for it the desire of his heart would never be satisfied.

As he stood a watched his mind drifted, back to that day.

"John get down!" Mark called ducking behind a broken pillar as weapons fire spattered his previous location. John stayed low crawling forward until he could see their attackers, he razed the paintball gun and fried a couple of shots off into the crowd of students, he managed to catch one of them before he had to duck and cover against a volley of pellets.

"Time up." The computer voice intoned. "Blue team wins." The landscape evaporated back into the grey confines of the holotank.

"Hey good work, you really had us pinned down for the last couple of minutes." John said clapping one of the others on the back.

"Hey, we got lucky at the beginning when you were in the old church." The other was talking about when the others had gotten the jump in an old church, when one of the others had stumbled, and John had stopped to help him.

"John Decker?" A thin man in a Starfleet combat uniform walked up.

"What is it?" John asked all the laughter falling from his face like rain.

"Would you come with me?" The Officer said in that same thin tense voice. This had happened once before, when his mum had been wounded in an attack.

"Catch up with you later!" Mike called as the others started off, his expression saying that he would be there if John wanted to talk.

John followed the Officer into one of the school's conference rooms. Alice was sitting there next to a Vice Admiral.

"What's going on?" John asked looking around. "Ali?" She just shook her head.

"John, Alice Decker I'm sorry, we have some bad news. It's about your parents." The rest of the man's words were lost in the tide of emotion, which threatened to suck him under and wash him away like a pebble in a river.

But he held it together, just, for Alice' sake. It wasn't until later when he was alone in one of the labs, it came out and for a time he just let it wash over him, again and again, until he was empty, empty and alone.

Captain John Decker was pulled from his river by the chiming of the door.

"Who's there?" He asked choking down emotion.

"It's me." Amy's voice was muted due to coming through the door instead of over the COM.

"Go away." He called.

He heard her inputting her security override, and then the doors swished open.

"John?" She said standing on the other side of the room, although the few feet between them might as well have been a thousand miles.

"But I would walk fife hundred miles, and I would walk five hundred more." He murmured. Amy closed the distance between them with a couple of long strides.

"John you have to let it go. You can't afford to live in the past." She said.

"I know." He straightened and pulled his tunic down. "It's just all that has happened over the past few weeks, it's getting to me is all."

She could almost see him pulling himself back together into the man she had know for over three years now.

chapter three

"Michaels, are the secondary power couplings online?" Rej Barkley asked the lanky man manipulating the controls opposite.

"Yes sir. They should be coming online now." He replied. "All backups in place, we should be ready to try and project the tachion beam as soon as the secondary containment comes online." Rej nodded and bent over his console, where he was running a final test on the guidance systems.

"Wish we had more time to test this." Michaels voiced the opinion of the whole team.

Shellac sat on the bridge her War Bird, the Griffin, reading the databurst from Vetch.

"Commander. We have received word of the federation preparing to use their artificial wormhole technology to get to one of the colonies. It would appear they are trying for the 'Dead World'." One of her crew reported.

"Understood, dispatch ships to stop them, also inform our task force and redirect them to that sector." Shellac didn't know why, but saying the name of the planetoid sent a shiver down her spine.

"Understood Commander."

Captain Keg Da'an stood from his chair, in the centre of the Challenger's Bridge, and paced to the helm station.

"Something bothering you sir?" Jones, the Galaxy class ship's commander asked as he walked around the tactical console to take his seat.

"It's quiet, to quiet." Da'an said looking from his first officer to the view screen. The Challenger was charged with the protection of the Midas Array. Da'an knew that this was important, especially in the current climate.

"The calm before the storm?" Jones commented.

The Ensign at ops looked quizzically at his console for a second, then shook his head.

"What is it son?" Jones said noticing the ensign's confusion.

"Sensor ghost sir. Thought I saw something for a second, but its gone now." He replied.

"Do a quick diagnostic of the sensor arrays, just to make sure it isn't going to happen again."

"Captain!" The security officer bellowed. "We've lost contact with one of the patrol scouts!"

"Where?" Da'an asked.

"Grid Five zero five, sir! Should I order one of the others to investigate?" The officer asked, brusquely.

"Send two, and tell them to keep communications open with us." Jones ordered. Da'an was used to Jones taking charge of the bridge crew in these situations; he even appreciated it as Jones' tactical training was better than his own.

"Rodger that, Read Five you're with me. Over." The fighter pilot's voice came clearly over the COM.

"Rodger that sir, Five falling into formation. Out." The other fighter's communications came in on the same channel.

"Read One to Challenger. We have reached the coordinates and there's no sign of Read Seven. Read Five what do you make of it? Over."

"Five here checking drift currents, I'm picking up debris. Over."

"One, Five, we read you; any sign of what destroyed Seven? Any weapon signatures?" Jones asked.

"Read One here, we are not picking up any weapons signatures. Over."

"Five here, confirm nothing on any EM bands, or subspace frequencies. Over." There was a burst of static. "Fuck me! Where did that come from?"

"Five, watch it! Defensive formations, active scanners on. Over."

"What happened?" Jones asked. Static responded. "Read One, report!"

"One here, we are under attack, Five is down, repeat five is down. We require assistance, can't get a lock on them. Can't bloody see them. Read one out!"

"Set course for their position. Go to read alert!" Jones ordered.

"Sir?" The(ops officer said looking up. "Just as they were attacked I saw that sensor ghost again."

"Someone is firing though a cloak." Da'an said, as the light dawned on him. "Recall all the fighters; order them to take up position around the array." He Ordered.

"Sir with all due respect." Jones started. "A retreat is not tactically sound under the circumstances."

"Alex, they are trying to draw us away from the array, they could already have ships in position to attack the array." He could see the wheels spinning in the other man's mind as he assimilated the infozmation.

"How far out is the Ithaca?" He finally asked.

"Two minutes sir!" The ops officer called over the claxons.

"Alright, deploy gravity mines and glofballs to cover our retreat." Take us to within 500 kilometres of the array and hold position, keep an eye out for those sensor ghosts. Inform the Ithaca of events, ask them to make best possible speed." As he spoke he moved toward the ops console. "Yeoman can you rig the necel vents to release a cloud of heavy Tholon particles."

"It will take a couple of minutes. Sir the ghosts are back, the fighters are down."

Jones met Yeoman's eyes and what she saw there calmed her.

"We don't have time for that!" Da'an said about Jones' plan.

"Captain, we don't have a choice, we can't fight what we can't see."

"To vent the particles we have to drop our shields sir." Yeoman intervened.

"Captain, we have to give the Ithaca a fighting chance."

Da'an looked at his bridge crew; he knew that they would all gladly sacrifice themselves for the Federation. "Alright release the cloud." He turned back to the view screen tugging on his tunic.

"Captain it was a pleasure serving with you." Jones said moving to stand beside him.

"Report!" Decker all but bellowed as he ran the few steps from the turbolift to his chair just aft of centre on the Ithaca's bridge. Unlike that of the Challenger, which was painted in browns and creams the Ithaca's bridge was done in greys and blues/ Instead of sitting he stood hands behind his back just in front of the command dais, this placed him in the exact centre of the bridge.

"We received an encoded message from the Challenger. They have been attacked by an unknown force." Bates said.

"Increase speed to warp nine." Decker ordered. "Updated ETA?"

"Just under a minute. Sir." Rhodes said from hr console, behind the captain and the command dais.

"Thank you ensign." Decker said without turning. "Shields up, bring all weapons online."

Amy's finger flew over the console as she brought the shields up and armed all the ships weapon systems. Outside the ship the omnidirectional phaser strips glowed as the pre-fire sequence pulsed energy through them. Either side of the bridge stack pulls turrets rose from the hull on hydraulic rams, each of the two turrets was a squat cylinder, much like World Ward II pillar boxes only each turret contained two heavy pulls cannons similar to those used on the Defiant class. Torpedoes were replicated and loaded into the three torpedo cannons. And extra layer of shielding was erected over the bridge and around the warp core.

"Captain all weapons online and ready, shields up." She reported, the events of the last hour pushed out of her mind by protocol, and a flood of adrenaline that she always got as they went into battle. "Sir what are our priorities?" She asked.

"Protect the Midas array long enough for them to open the wormhole; our orders are to go as soon as the wormhole is open." He sounded bitter, it wasn't something any of the others were likely to have picked up on, but then she had known him longer than most.

It chaffed on Decker that his orders were to abandon those on the Midas array if they had to. 'The first rule of war, never leave someone behind.' No one knew who had said it, although it was officially sighted to M.R. but had always wondered if it was a play on words, or the begging of a name, Mr…

"Captain we are approaching the array." Rhodes called. Over the read alert claxons that Quiche had called for.

"Understood!" He yelled. "Computer mute alert sirens." At his command the sirens silenced.

"Sir, the Challenger's shields are down." Amy said, the surprise ion her voice was evident to them all.

"What do they think their doing?" Rhodes voiced what they were all thinking.

"They are releasing Heavy Tholon particles." Bates informed them. "They must by trying to disrupt the cloak of the attackers."

As they watched Five Romulon war birds appeared around the Galaxy class ship and the station.

"Commander, the cloak is offline. " One of Shellac's officers called from his station.

"Fire on the Challenger, order the others to attack the station." She Barked.

One of the officers swung the Griffin's weapons on the unprotected Federation ship.

"Captain they are firing on the Challenger… and the station." Bates called, the adrenalin making him shout when he had no need to.

Decker had to make a split second decision, to save the challenger or engage those that were attacking the station.

"Sir the Griffin is firing on us." The Challenger's security officer said, quietly. His voice still carried over the silent bridge.

As they watched the green glowing energy of the Romulons' disruptor streaked toward them. They had no time to raze their shields. The Grey from of the Ithaca swept over the view screen momentarily blocking their view of the Romulon ship. It's weapons fire raking over their shields, but doing little damage.

"Challenger, this is Decker on the Ithaca, we would appreciate the help with the defence of the Midas array." The other captain's voice came over the com along with a small hint of sarcasm.

"Understood Ithaca, we are moving in to attack, my security officer will coordinate with yours. And thanks for the save Captain."

"Return fire!" Shellac ordered her officers who were working frantically. "Cover the other ships while they make a run at the array."

Jones Gripped the ops console as the ship shuddered beneath him. "Those two are making a run on the station. " Yeoman said pointing to the symbols on her console which was currently displaying a tactical view of the area.

"Ithaca two of the ships are making a run on the array, go for them we'll cover you."

Shellac watched as the Challenger occupied their weapons fire while the Ithaca moved to attack the other War Birds. "Damn him!" She cursed. Bring all weapons to bear on the ship called Challenger, ignore the fighters."

Her officers complied, and a spread of thirty plasma torpedoes overloaded and collapsed its shields.

"Fire!" She yelled over the warning alarms. The Griffin's weapons fired again.

"Shields down!" The Ensign that had taken over when the Challenger's security officer was killed by an exploding power conduit yelled over the warning sirens. "Their firing again!"

"Evasive manoeuvres!" Jones ordered.

"No good sir, we're too close."

Shellac sat back in satisfaction as the front half of ship formally known as the Challenger was reduced to ashes. "Bring all weapons to bear on the Ithaca."

"Captain, the challenger is down." Bates called.

"Romulon ship is firing on the Midas array." Amy said.

"The Griffin is locking weapons on us." Rhodes put in.

"Fire on the ship that's attacking the array. Target weapons." Decker ordered.

The Ithaca fired a stream of twenty-four torpedoes into the lead Romulan vessel, smashing into critical systems causing it to back wildly. At the same moment the wormhole bloomed open.

The Romulons gained enough control over their ship to slam it into the side of the station.

"What the hell just happened?" Rej Yelled over the alarms, as the lights went down to emergency levels.

"Massive damage to the tertiary core." One of the engineers reported. "Secondary damage to the containment systems on level five."

"Not good, not good, really not good." Rej muttered trying to rebuild containment on the wormhole systems, and failing.

"Sir, we've lost the main computer." Michael called from his console. "I can manually regulate the systems from here but not for long. Get out, and tell the Ithaca to get a move on!"

"No!" Rej snapped trying to pull him away from the console. "You go; I'll be able to hold it for longer."

"Can't." Michael said sweat beading on his forehead. "If we stop to swap over it'll destabilise. Now go!" He yelled.

Rej went, sprinting for the shuttle bay. He jumped into a shuttle just as disrupter fire ripped through the hull opening the bay to vacuum. Rej breathed a sigh of relief, before realising that none of the holes were big enough for him to get the shuttle through, and the doors weren't going to work without the computer online.

"Bugger." He muttered opening a com link to the Ithaca. "Ithaca this is Commander Barkley we can't hold the wormhole for long, go now!"

"Understood Barkley, Ithaca out." Came the abrupt response.

He turned the shuttles weapons on the biggest of the holes and managed to blast away a large enough section of hull to get though.

"Captain, the Romulons are blockading the wormhole." Quiche reported from ops, Bates had been taken to sickbay with plasma burns.

"Bugger." Decker cursed. "Can we get through?"

"I think so but it's going to be tight." Rhodes fingers were already flying over the console, as Decker gave her the order to go for it. The Ithaca swooped down rolling to port, as she got directly below the lead Romulan ship she jumped to warp directly upwards, the inertial dampers fought the sudden acceleration and lost, throwing all the crew to the floor. But it worked; Rhodes killed the warp engines as soon as they were in the wormhole.

On the Midas array Michael fought with the power flow, trying to keep the wormhole open long enough for the Ithaca to get through. As soon as the Ithaca was through he dumped all the power he could into a self perpetuating feedback loop, overloading the stations systems one at a time. He could hear power relays blowing out all over the station, as systems went down, his last thought before the extrapolator on the deck blow him blew was, "Got you, you bastards."

Rej jumped to warp as soon as he was clear of the station, but stopped and looked back as soon as he was to a safe distance. He watched as the Ithaca ducked under the Romulan blockade and into the wormhole, almost as soon as the ship was through power relays on the station began to blow out, he knew it would be mere seconds before containment went on the main core, he turned his head from the searing light of the blast that vaporised all the Romulan ships.

"Good luck." He whispered before seating course for the nearest Federation station.

chapter four

Shellac moved silently down the outer corridors of the senate building, to her right was a view over the capital through the pillars that surrounded the inner building.

"Shellac, you have failed." The figure stepped out of she shadows.

"Master I have tried, I can still win this, I will join our forces at the Dead World, and we shall win. It is only one ship." A hint of desperation crept into her voice as she spoke.

"Look at the capital!" He snapped, gesturing to the panorama at her back. "It has fallen into chaos. The Reemans are rising against us. Time is up!"

"No, I can do this!" She pleaded. "With the power of the Old Ones, we can take Romulus back!"

The man shook his head. "You don't see with one eye like the rest of us." She didn't notice as he drew a Knife from his cloak. "While you take the fleet off on this hunt the Empire is weakened, the Reemans have taken advantage." With a quick move he sliced her cheek open. "You will not fail me again!" He snapped. "Now join your fleet."

Shellac turned and ran.

Decker looked out of the windows of the Mess hall; the Ithaca had two eating establishments, one on the port side that was a luxurious bar restaurant, the other to starboard, which was a basic mess hall, where John was now. The usual starscape had been replaced by the blue swirling of the wormhole. He knew they would be out in a couple of minutes, and looked forward to being able to see the stars again, but knew that he would have to go back to the bridge soon. The wormhole was supposed to deposit them five light years from the planetoid. He looked down at the pad in his hand, sitting to read it. The planetoid they had named Waypoint, for some reason it had been knocked out of orbit from its sun and now drifted through space, without the energy from the sun to power the water and nutrient cycles the planate had died and been reduced one bitterly cold desert.

The Breen General surveyed the holo through the visor of his combat helmet.

"What would a Federation ship want with that planate, it is already dead." He asked his First Commander.

"We do not know General. The Federation is strange in its ways." The Commander said.

"Or perhaps they know something that we do not." The General postulated. "We will follow them and monitor them, if they find anything of worth we can then take it and if they do not then we will destroy them." He turned to the Trooper suspended in the holotank who controlled the ship. "Take us to the dead moon." He commanded.

As Shellac walked onto the bridge of the Griffin the quite murmuring grew in intensity. Her hand involuntarily reached to the healing knife wound on her cheek.

"How long until we reach the Dead World?" She demanded. They had caught up to the rest of the fleet in just over five hours, using a stolen slipstream drive.

"We should be within sensor range in approximately thirty minutes." The officer replied unfazed by the anger in his commander. Secretly he wondered if it would better to have her assassinated, her emotion may become a liability for the mission.

Third of Five, once an overweight Bejoran who's body was now heavy with muscle, moved from the centre console to initiate repairs on a non-critical system, he was immediately replaced by Five of Five. Who in human life had been a slender leggy athletic woman, this figure although not suited for heavy work, unlike Third, was useful for long range recognisance where a high level of stamina was required or situations where a bulkier droid would not physically fit.

The queen looked down on her creations, and then interfaced with Five of Five, the ship, a small but heavily armed and armoured recon vessel, was only twenty five minutes from the planate. Having acquired the information, the queen left.

John stood dead centre of the Ithaca's bridge as the planetoid loomed in the view screen, the planet seemed odd; no rim of light where the night side and day side met.

"What are surface conditions like?" He asked, turning to the ops station.

"Temperature is only minus twenty degrees Celsius. Must still be some geothermal activity. No wind, nothing." He turned to the captain. "I'm picking up underlying Deckeron radiation, highest concentrations around the southern tropic, opposite side of thd planatl to us."

"Is it safe to send an away team down?" Decker asked.

"We should be ok as long as we stay on this side of the planate, but I can't get any accurate readings, so you'll have to hoof it to find the facility." Bates responded as the captain walked over.

"Can we beam down, if we have that sort of interference?" Quiche asked from the engineering console.

"We could beam a team down using one of the drop boxes, but beaming someone up would be difficult." Bates looked up from his console. "Although if we used one of the drop boxes they have the emergency beacons, so we should be able to get the back ok." He tapped a few commands into his console. "Yes, the beacon on the drop box would be able to reach us. No problem."

"Good." The captain straitened. "Prepare one of the drop boxes, and an Argo. Bates, Wentworth, your with me, Commander Quiche you have the bridge, order one of the Marine teams to meet us in cargo bay five." With that Decker headed for the turbo lift, with Amy and Bates trailing behind him.

Ensign Sam McKenzie came to attention as Lieutenant Handgun came up to her.

"At ease." McKenzie cam down from attention. "McKenzie, I'm putting you in charge of the team going down to Waypoint with the captain." She said putting a hand on the younger woman's shoulder. "I know this will be your first command since…"

"Since Madras Five." McKenzie finished for her. It had been on Madras Five that she had become CO of her team when the Commander in charge was killed, and had tried to distract a Dominion encampment so the rest of the team could get past, it had worked; a little too well, McKenzie thought idly fingering the scars on her right wrist, a photon grenade had done massive damage to the right side of her body, putting her in physical therapy for half a year. The doctors had said she was lucky to survive; dermal regeneration had only left her with a small amount of scarring on her wrist and down the back of her shoulder blade. It was how she had met Captain Decker; he had been in charge of the Nightingale medical facility where she had been sent to recuperate.

Handgun nodded to her and she jogged off to get ready.

Decker sat down opposite Ensign McKenzie, in the drop box. The drop box was a new invention pioneered in the closing years of the Dominion war, had enough armour to survive an indirect hit from a photon torpedo and could be used as a base of operations, the other man function was it allowed a team to be beamed down and up under less than ideal circumstances. It allowed for a certain margin of error while beaming in, and out, as the drop box' beacon could be locked onto and the box along with everything inside could be beamed up.

"Beaming down now." The transporter tech's voice cam over the COM.

The Pod materialised in the middle of a plane, currently being plagued by gale force winds.

As the door hissed open one of the Marines who had taken position by the door was caught and whipped out the door by the wind. Decker threw himself forward and grabbed the man by his utility belt, grabbing the door frame with his other hand, hooking a foot round the door frame.

"There's climbing equipment in the locker back there! Go!" McKenzie yelled over the howling wind.

"Hurry!" Decker called urgently. The Marine moved toward the back room with the lockers in trying to keep a hold of something so he didn't get blown off.

It seemed like he was back there for an age, Decker could feel his fingers slipping over the metal doorframe.

Seeing the Decker's grip on the doorframe slipping Amy lunged forward grabbing his one hand in both of hers and slamming her body against the wall braising her feet against the lintel. It was then the Marine came back with the rope.

"Throw it to them!" McKenzie yelled the man did what he was tolled, tying one end to a metal clip he threw it accurately toward Amy; she grabbed for it in one hand and began trying to tie it around the captain. Meanwhile the other Marines under the guidance of McKenzie got a hold on the rope and began pulling them in, as soon as they were back inside Amy hit the switch that closed the door, and they all breathed a sigh of relief.

"Bates." The Captain said between gasps. "You said there wasn't any wind."

"Sorry sir." Bates flushed and looked at his feet. "Wait, it must be due to the Ithaca being in orbit."

"Come again?" McKenzie said looking at him.

"Ok Wind is caused by the movement of air from high pressure to low pressure, this is usually caused by the air being heated, but not always, it can be due to gravity of another body pulling on the atmosphere, normally, there is so much movement in a planet's atmosphere that this is mute but here there is no movement in the atmosphere so this gravity wind is exacerbated. If the Ithaca brakes orbit it should die down fairly quickly." He explained.

Decker nodded. "Ithaca, this is Decker, we're going to have to ask you to break orbit and move back." He finally regained his breath and stood.

"Eye sir." Came the reply form the ship.

Bates had been right, within five minutes of the Ithaca pulling back the wind abated and they ventured out onto the plane.

"Bates can you do a terrain scan for something that might be a structure." Decker asked, as McKenzie ordered two of the Marines to secure the Drop box.

"Sir, I think I've found something." One of the Marines said from behind the hut.

As they rounded the hut corner of the hut the Marine handed his tricorder to the captain, Decker looked down at the IR image of what looked like a giant ant hill.

"Its approximately one point five Kilometres away." Bates said looking at his own tricorder.

"Alright, let's get going then." Decker said jumping in the Argo.

"Like hell you're driving!" Amy quipped pushing him out of the drivers seat and taking it herself.

Within five minutes they arrived at the base of the giant anthill structure.

"Captain, I just did a GPR scan of the mound, there is a building inside." Bates clambered out showing the captain the display on his tricorder. It showed a wire frame outline of the mound in blue and in white a complex of interconnected spires and buildings that seemed to go below ground level.

Seeing the captain expression Bates jumped in. "Yes sir sixty percent of the facility is underground." Decker nodded in response.

"So how do we get in?" Amy asked.

"There seems to be an entrance a hundred meters to our left." He pointed, and led the way as they moved.

"How would this have formed?" McKenzie asked as they walked.

"I would assume that the sediment built up during wind storms like the one we caused." He responded without looking up from his tricorder.

"Ok." She said nonplussed by the response.

"They would happen every time the planate drifts past another astral body, or even if a passing ship gets too close." He elaborated looking up. "Here." He pointed. "Well behind about five meters of sediment."

"Any ideas how we get in?" Decker asked again.

"I think I can cover this one." One of the Marines said removing explosive from his backpack. "If you would get behind the Argo?" He moved to place the explosives. Around where the tricorder display indicated there was an entrance corridor. When he was done he retreated to join the others behind the Argo.

"Fire in the hold!" With that he detonated the explosives.

As the dust cleared they moved forward into the entrance corridor, they had no need to work the door as it had been destroyed by the blast.

"You two." McKenzie pointed to two of the Marines. "Guard this entrance, make sure we aren't followed."

The pair nodded and took up positions either side of the wrecked door, pointing their gun-mounted flashlights out into the darkness.

"Don't draw attention to yourselves; use the night vision instead of the flashlights." Decker said, in response the pair deactivated their flashlights and hefted the guns so they could see through the sights.

Leavening the two men scanning the darkness the rest of the group mounted the Argo and headed further into the facility.

"General we are detecting a fleet to Romulon ships headed for the Federation ship, we are also picking up a Borg unit on long range sensors." His Commander announced looking up from his console.

"Show me." The General demanded.

The Commander tapped a few controls and the Hologram in the middle of the bridge resolved into a tactical schematic showing the planate, and the ships. Each ship had a box of scrolling text next to it.

"Take us in on the opposite side of the planate to the Federation ship, let the radiation conceal us." He ordered the pilot.

Decker stood in the small pool of light provided by the headlights of the Argo.

"We need to find some way of getting power back online." He said looking around at the others for suggestions.

"Where would we even start looking for the generators for this place, even if we thought for a minute we might be able to fix them?" Sam snapped.

"Sir?" Bates moved his tricorder over the wall. "There would appear to be residual current in the bases systems. I've traced the intensities." He showed the captain the display on his tircorder which had the same wire frame outline of the facility, but this time it was overlaid with lines and patches of blues of varying hues.

"It would appear that the power systems are concentrated around her. He pointed to a section filled with vibrant blue that was about five levels down toward the centre of the facility.

"Shall we get moving then?" Decker said jumping back into the Argo, the others followed suite and they headed off into the darkness.

"Sir, I'm picking up a Borg scout vessel on long range sensors." The Ensign at ops said turning to quiche.

"That's all we need." The security officer said. "Along with the Romulons."

Although Quiche chastised the officer for his comment it didn't make it any less true, it would be hard enough to avoid the Romulons, and now putting the Borg into the mix made confrontation an almost certainty.

"Sir the Borg vessel has just dropped out of warp and is headed for the planet's surface at full impulse." He looked incredulously at his console even as he reported the readings.

"It would appear the Borg want to get to the surface rather than engage us." Quiche postulated aloud.

"Or they're waiting for the rest of their fleet to get here," the security officer said, "that was a long range scout."

"And we do still have the Romulons, to deal with." Rhodes put in.

Quiche nodded absently. "How long until they are within weapons range?"

"Approximately one minute sir, the Borg vessel over took them in transwarp." The Ensign at ops answered.

"How did they catch up to us so fast?" Rhodes asked.

"No time for that now." The security officer said, his hands already flying over his console bringing shields and weapons online. "We have active weapons locks; they'll be within firing range in just over ten seconds!"

"Evasive manoeuvres!" Quiche barked. "Options?"

Rhodes put the ship into a dive rolling into a parabolic ark that took her past the lead vessel and up through their formation on a vertical coerce, the ship slowly rotating on her axis so as to spread the damage evenly between the shield generators. As her hands finished the sequence she glanced at the astrometrics readout for the area.

"Sir," she called over the red alert claxons, "there is a boron nebula approximately one and a half light minutes off to our starboard bow. Perhaps we can use it to our advantage."

"Yeah they'd never follow us in there." The ops officer called back.

"NO." The security officer agreed. "They'd just ignite it with us inside."

"Not helping." Quiche barked.

"I'm thinking more the Ricker Manoeuvre." Rhodes said. She had read about it. The then Commander Ricker had used the Enterprises buzzard collectors to collect volatile gas from a surrounding nebula then venting it into pursuing ships who ignited it with their own weapons fire.

"Commander the Federation ship has engaged the Romulons." One of the Breen officers said looking up from his console.

"What of the Borg vessel?" His commander asked.

"It would appear to have made a run for the planet."

The Commander looked at the holo of the Dead Planet, what was there that would attract them all. If the Romulons and the Borg were interested then it must have great tactical advantage. "Send a squad of troops down to find out what they are all after, and to secure it by any means necessary."

Paul Mathers peered out into the darkness through his night vision scope, seeing no movement he straightened his tall and lanky yet somehow regal form, looking over at his companion Mike Davion, Mike was Romanian, and his first name rather hard to pronounce but he consented to being called Mike, and now Paul couldn't even remember how to pronounce his actual name.

"You ok?" He asked.

"I'm ok, bit stressed is all." He replied absently still scanning the darkness. "Wait, I've got movement." He said sweeping the rifle from side to side, trying to pick up the figure again. Paul hunkered down behind a fallen piece of ceiling and hefted his gun so he could see through the sight. As he did so a red laser beam swiped across the entrance, they both ducked under it even though it was only an optical beam. Paul tapped the com unit attached the collar of his uniform. The collar mounted device was to allow more discreet communications.

As he did so another beam joined the first, then another, then another. The two officers stayed down as the beams swiped back and forth over the darkened entrance.

"Do you think our position has been compromised?" Mike asked his voice carrying in the tense darkness.

"Not sure." Paul replied. "They've found the entrance but I don't know if they know we're here."

"You will be assimilated." The voice came from the darkness, as though hundreds of people were speaking in unison.

"I think they know we're here?" Mike said flatly.

Paul thumbed the power modulator on his rifle up to max, and with the other hand reached out into one of his thigh pockets and pulled out a mini chemical flair, he twisted the cap igniting it and tossed it not toward the drones but down the passage way, in the eerie green glow they could just make out the outlines of the Borg drones, on first count he made over ten of them, but as he looked back there seemed to be less.

"Fire!" He called, and the two officers opened up into the drones, their phaser fire cutting down the first droid a leggy human female, who convulsed once then died. He moved on to the next one, who razed its arm and fired a small glowing dart into Mike's neck, he collapsed convulsing as a black spider web spread out from the wound, Paul cried out and fired into the drone that had shot Mike, his first shot disintegrated the arm, and the second took its head off.

He made a dash for mike, strafing across the corridor firing as he went.

"Mike, mate, stay with me." He said, his gloved hand clamping on the other's shoulder.

Mike gasped, his body raked by another bout of seizures, as the nannies in his system coagulated, into a lump that moved up his neck toward his ear before bursting out of his skin to form into one of the Borg implants, just bellow his ear. "You got grenades?" He asked breathily.

Paul pulled a small cylindrical device from one of his chest pouches, the grenade was a small thing only a couple of centimetres in diameter and about five high. He pressed into Mikes blackening hand.

"Go get out of here!" He gasped, giving Paul a weak shove down into the complex.

Paul moved backward down the corridor firing as he went, he saw Mike pull the energy clip from his weapon and tie the grenade to it, seeing what he was about to do Paul turned and made a dash for the corner. The last thing he heard was Mike yelling. "Come get some you ass holes!" Then a huge explosion ripped down the corridor.

"Captain we have engaged the Borg." Paul's voice cam over the com followed by weapons fire; There was a cry and the signal cut off.

"Sir if we can get power back we can seal the bulkheads." Bates said before quickly turning back to give directions to the Marine who was at the Argo's wheel.

"How far?" Decker asked.

"Should be just about…" The Argo rolled to a halt in front of a large imposing door that looked very heavy, and well armoured; and closed. "Here." He finished.

"So how do we get in there?" Decker asked.

"Don't think we could blow it without endangering the structural integrity of the surrounding area; and I wouldn't want to try and blow it without an idea of what's on the other side." The Marine who had blown the outer door said.

Bates scanned the door, moving his tricorder over its surface.

"Anything?" The captain asked, looking at what could have been a control mechanism to the right of the door, as with all the Atlantian controls it was at chest height on them. He stepped back a tired experimentally punching the pad.

A blue-green light emanating from somewhere above the door beam swept down over each of the away team members in turn. After it had covered the last of them a hologram of a human sprang up in front of the door, before dissolving; as it did so the door sprang open, in the same moment a low humming filled the corridor. The two Marines moved to cover the interior of the room, Decker, Amy and Bates just behind them, leaving McKenzie alone to cover their rear.

Decker was in awe at the huge room they had walked into, in its centre a giant column came up from a shaft thousands of meters deep to disappear into the domed ceiling.

"So how do we turn it on?" Amy asked, still in aw of the massive device in front of her.

Bates moved over to what appeared to be the main console, one of the Marines a constant shadow. After a couple of minutes of going over the console with his tricorder as well as his eyes, he looked up at the others.

"It would appear that it has been rigged for a quick reboot of all the major systems from this station." He hopped up to get a look at the controls as if to confirm this. "Strange. It's as though they knew this would happen."

"Go for it, as soon as you have systems on line, we need to seal off the bulkheads." Decker said. McKenzie was still trying to raise the team that she had left at the entrance.

Paul hunkered down in the pitch darkness his head still reeling from the confrontation with the Borg, he could have sworn some of them just disappeared. But that wasn't possible, was it?

He pulled his mind back to the present with a physical effort and flipped open his wrist tricorder, he tapped in several commands and the small rectangular screen lit up with the wire-frame schematic that Bates' had been using to navigate, he tapped another sequence and small blips appeared around the screen, white indicated the rest of the away team, they were all in the power centre, the group of green blips that moved down the entrance corridor where Mike had made his last stand, they were the Borg, as he watched a cluster of six blue blips appeared, he checked the legend to the right of the screen, they were Romulans. There was a crackling of static and McKenzie's voice came over the com channel, although it was broken by and distorted due to bad signal.

"Alpha team come in… repeat… are you…" With a pop the signal cleared. "Alpha team are you there?"

He quickly tapped the badge on his chest. "Mathers here sir, Davion's dead. I don't know quite where I am, but I'm picking up both Borg and Romulans."

"Understood, meet us at the following coordinates. McKenzie out." His wrist tricorder chirped as it received a data-burst. It pinpointed a location toward the centre of the structure, where according to the schematic there was a giant shaft going from the top of the structure deep into the planate, it was then the lights came on, he was blinded by the brightness for a second his eyes used to total darkness. With a grunt he set off giving the tricorder a last glance, a green blip suddenly appeared by the Romulans party, they must be under attack but where had it come from, a second appeared, it had just come from no where. Then another cluster of blips appeared in one of the tunnels that lead to the central shaft, the one the other officers were headed toward, he glanced over at the legend again, they were Breen and the others were headed right toward them.

"McKenzie, come in! Lt Wentworth, Captain? Can you hear me?" He all but shouted into the com badge, all that replied was static. Damn!

The General shifted his weight from foot to foot as he waited, he didn't like waiting, he preferred action, although he knew it was necessary, timing was everything in war.

"Sir I'm picking up power readings from a giant structure on the planet's surface, it must be what they all want." One of his officers informed him. Now was the time for action.

"Can we beam down into the structure?" He demanded.

"Some sort of sporadic inference is stopping us beaming into large areas of the complex but there seem to be some small transport windows, where the risk is low enough to warrant insertion." The officer said brusquely.

"Do it! beam them down!" The General snapped.

Gretna set up the transport enhancers around their beam in location; it would help the Griffin lock on to them when the time came to beam back. She had just locked the last one into place then activated it when a Borg drone appeared out of nowhere, it was as though the air was melting dissolving, to reveal the drone that was already in movement its assimilation tubules darting for her neck, she couldn't move, didn't have time to do anything but cry out as the nannites shoved there way though her system. The disruptor blast took her in the back of the head she died instantly, her last thought, where the hell had it come from?

Decker fired a burst from his phaser before ducking back behind the wheel of the Argo; he took a moment to take in the battle, one of the marines was hunched behind a support beam the other had flattened himself into a doorway on the opposite side of the corridor, Amy and McKenzie were with Decker crouching behind the Argo firing bursts over it whenever they could. The Starfleet officers were effectively pinned down by weapons fire from the Breen contingent they had run into a few minutes previous.

As he watched the pillar exploded from a particularly violent blast the marine fell back flinging up his arms to protect his face from the shrapnel, the Breen soldiers turned there weapons on the exposed officer, but before they could open fire the remaining Federation officers rose from there hiding places and as one opened up into the enemy tactical team dropping three of the seven strong team.

During the ensuing chaos the unhurt marine dragged his partner into the Argo, as the others piled in,

"Drive!" Decker yelled at Bates who was in the vehicle's driver's seat.

"Where?" Bates yelled back. Decker pointed to the door they had been heading for, on the other side of the regrouping Breen. "I thought you'd say that." he muttered throwing the Argo into first and gunning the engine. "Here goes nothing."

McKenzie hefted the torpedo launcher onto her shoulder and fired into the group of Breen and the group of federation officers ducked down covering themselves as the Argo rocked through the blast and toward the opening at the corridor's end.

Paul Mathers peered round the next corner sweeping the small area with his phaser before moving from cover. Sporadic lighting had come up shortly after he had lost contact with the others, if he had to guess other generators were coming online and allowing other secondary systems come activate.

He heard phaser fire from down the corridor and ducking to one side he checked his tricorder. There was a cluster of Breen troops who must be firing on who the tricorder listed as Alpha team, Decker and McKenzie.

He moved quickly and quietly round the corner toward the sounds of gunfire, as he did there was a whooshing sound and he only just managed to duck back behind the pillar as the torpedo exploded, he still had to shield his face from the wash of superheated air the explosion gave off. The Breen soldier landed on his side less then three feet from Paul, his armour must have protected him from the heat. In the seconds it took the other regain his bearings Paul fired a quick shot that ended him.

"Sir we should seal this door." McKenzie called as the other spilled from the Argo; the marines were scanning the huge room they had emerged into.

"Do it." Decker ordered and Bates moved over to a small control panel.

Breen weapons fire sipped through the open door causing the other to throw themselves for cover. "And make it fast!"

"Nearly there." Bates yelled over the cacophony of weapons fire. Amy leaned round him to return fire. "Got it."

As he spoke the door began to close.

The Remaining Breen had rallied themselves and were making a concerted push to get through the doorway. Unfortunately that put them in Paul's way.

He was trying to find a way round them when the door started to slide slowly closed.

"Bugger it." He quietly cursed reaching for a grenade. "Bugger." He cursed again finding he had none of the small cylinders left. "Oh well plan 'B' it is." He reached into a different pouch and pulled out a concussion mine. They were used for light demolitions. He armed it and slid it across the floor toward the Soldiers, then maid a run for the narrowing gap between the door and floor.

Everyone was surprised to see Paul dive through the doorway seconds before the door slid shut. A second later there was a loud bang followed by two heavy thuds.

"What now?" Amy asked looking around the dimly lit room.

"I've locked this room down, all the doors are sealed." Bates said looking up from his tricorder. "That should give us some time."

Decker turned in a circle taking in the room. It was massive, easily six or seven hundred meters across, and looked vaguely circular, the team were on a wide walkway that ran around the outside of the room, and in the centre was a massive column that rose into the darkness.

"We're in the central ring." Bates said simply. Like all the other Atlantain structures they had encountered this was laid out in a triple ring pattern with two outer rings and, in this case, the central tower constituting the innermost ring.

They all started as a loud thud came from one of the doors.

"Sounds like they're trying to break through." McKenzie said. "How long will those doors hold for?"

"Should be ok for now." Bates replied. "They're reinforced so should be able to take a bit of a beating, but I wouldn't give them more than twenty minutes.

"Alright let's get to work." Decker snapped. "Bates this colony was supposed to have a more advanced map room, try to find out how we activate it. You. " He pointed to the marine who was nursing his injured comrade. "Make him safe to travel then help Mathers set up defences for when those doors give. McKenzie with bates. Wentworth with me."

The group scattered to there respective jobs.

The deck fled from under Rhodes' feet and only her grip on the console stopped her from falling.

"Ten seconds to range!" The security officer called.

The Ithaca glided toward the Boron nebula her shields taking hits from the Romulans ships.

"Within range." Ensign Gomez called from the ops station.

"Do it!" Quiche barked.

The Ithaca seemed to shimmer, then disappear. In her place was a probe.

On the Griffin's bridge the Romulans at operations stared at his readouts.

"Sir!" He called to Shellac. "The probe is emitting some sort of gravity field."

"What?" Shellac snapped. What could they hope to gain by emitting a gravity field?

"The nebula! It's moving!" the officer called out in shock.

"Call the fleet off, tell them to scatter." She barked.

"Sir, it's working!" McDougal the Ithaca's security officer exclaimed.

"Fire." Quiche ordered.

The Ithaca, the real Ithaca came out from behind the shadow of the planet and fired a single torpedo into the cloud of volatile gasses that was gradually being pulled toward the Romulans fleet; the torpedo detonated igniting the gasses around the ships. Although some of the Romulans fleet had managed to pull away ten of the thirty ships were caught and there hulls ruptured as the extreme heat caused the metal to melt and buckle power relays blew out causing secondary explosions that crippled the ships.

"You know what they say, if you can't lure the Romulans to the nebula take lure the nebula to the Romulans." McDougal quipped.

Quiche just rolled his eyes; there was no point to further chastising the man and his usual withering look was defected by the other man's jovial attitude.

"We only got a third of them." Gomez said.

"Better than nothing." McDougal retorted. Rhodes was forced to agree with him. 'Every victory no matter how small counts.' That was what one of her academy lecturers had said.

"Sir I'm picking up two, no three Breen Heavy Cursers." Gomez said.

"Now that's not fair!" McDougal exclaimed, from behind the security station, throwing his hands up in mock despair.

"General. The battle group will be here shortly." One the Breen Lieutenants said looking up from the holotank display.

"Good." The General said tapping a control that shifted his display to a tactical view of the battle. The Federation ship had managed to cripple a third of the Romulans fleet. Shocking how could they let one ship do this to a whole fleet?

He turned to the pilot. "Take us around the planet; I want to strike as the fleet arrives."

The pilot maid the coerce changes without acknowledgement, the General was used to it, the trooper was in a semi comatose states having his mind joined with the ship.

"What?" Shellac demanded of the tech manning the Griffin's sensors.

"There are ten Breen ships on an intercept course." The tech repeated patently.

"I heard you the first time." She all but screamed. Turning she took a deep breath and centred herself. How were they going to fight the Ithaca and the Breen? Then it occurred to her, perhaps they didn't.

"Open a com channel to the Ithaca." She ordered.

Decker was looking at the central column that seemed to stretch both upward and downward into infinity. The sides were a mass of pipes and conduits running vertically along its length, some bending outward to merge with the walls. Despite this there were large sections of smooth metal, most intersecting with wide walkways that connected the perimeter with the column; several of these had doors or alcoves in.

He watched Amy twist a chemical flair into life and drop it into the chasm that separated them from the tower, it fell down and down until it was lost to the darkness.

Decker slung his phaser over his shoulder and pulled a tricorder from his belt. He checked the readouts glanced back to the chasm then back to the readouts, he whistled appreciatively.

"How deep is it?" Amy asked.

"It goes all the way down. Right to the planetary core."

"My god." It was her tern to whistle appreciatively.

"Captain. I believe I have it." Bates' voice pulled them from there revere.

"You've found the map room?" Decker asked as the pair moved to join Bates and McKenzie.

"Not quite sir. There is a recess here." He gestured to a console mounted on the back wall of the alcove. "It seems to have the same configuration as the one in the Antarctica map room." He looked at Decker. "Do you have the device?"

In response Decker pulled the small device they had salvaged from Antarctica from a pouch on his belt, he gave bates a searching look then handed it over.

"Ensign McKenzie I want you to stay and organise our defences, Bates your with me and Lt Wentworth." Decker said as he Bates and Amy arranged themselves in the alcove.

"Sir." McKenzie acknowledged and set off at a jog to rejoin the other marines.

Bates inserted the device into the panel. A hand rail slid round to block the entrance at about shoulder height. And the floor of the alcove began to rise.

"Oh." Decker said as the small lift began its long ascent.

"Commander I would strongly suggest you accept my offer." Shellac said patently.

"I will consider what you suggest and get back to you imminently." Quiche replied equally patently. He nodded to Gomez who cut the communication channel.

As soon as the channel was closed McDougal piped up. "Sir you can't seriously consider her offer."

"I never thought I'd say this but I agree with McDougal." Rhodes offered. "They can't be trusted, She'll stab you in the back as soon as look at you."

"I know." Quiche rubbed at his chin and not for the first time idly considered growing a beard. "But she dose have a point, if we join forces we would stand a much better chance of defeating the Breen task force."

"Maybe so but She'll just sell us out to them." Gomez added.

"I'm not saying we trust them, just work with them. Gomez reopen the channel."

Shellac's visage appeared on the main viewer, she was smiling like the proverbial cat.

"What have you decided?" She asked quickly getting to the point.

"What guarantee do we have that you won't turn on us?" Quiche asked.

"We have a mutual goal that would be better served working together than apart." She said silky smooth.

"What would that be?" McDougal demanded.

"Survival."

"I agree to this temporary alliance." Quiche said straitening his tunic. "If you will allow the Ithaca to fall into formation with your ships, and give my tactical officer to access your fleet communications."

"Agreed." Shellac cut the communication channel.

"Sir." McDougal said sounding mildly surprised. "The Romulans are changing formation to allow us to fall in with them we have the centre slot. I also have access to their fleet com channel."

"Good." Quiche said. "I want you to code an offensive programme into our communications."

"On it sir." McDougal responded, and the Ithaca moved into the centre of the Romulans fleet.

chapter fuve

After what seemed like an eternity, although Decker's watch tolled him it was only fifteen minutes, the platform emerged from its pitch black ascent up the centre of the column onto a small platform, no more than thirty meters across with a railing running around it at chest height to the officers. The space around them stretched off into darkness in all directions, Decker wondered how high they were.

"Sir, we seem to have climbed over three kilometres from our previous location, which puts us at just over two kilometres above ground level." Bates said looking up from his tricorder. Decker made a mental note to look at the man's record, he was sure it didn't mention any telepathic abilities.

"Where do we go now?" Decker mused aloud his gaze gliding over the smooth surfaced around him with no sign of a control panel.

"There seems to be a path leading off that way." Amy said pointing with her right hand toward a bridge that stretched out away from the platform they were on.

"Sir take a look at this." Bates held out his tricorder it had the wire frame schematic that he had produced earlier but now it was zoomed in on the top of the central tower. It looked like there were two columns coming up from either side of the central ring and rising up the tower to this point where they were connected by a bridge, with a small platform in its centre. Three white blips on the right hand pillar indicated their location.

Without another word Decker lead the trio onto the bridge toward the central platform.

McKenzie scanned the room waiting for the first signs of trouble; they had set up mines at each of the doors which would provide both deterrents for the attackers and a warning for the security officers. At the moment they were grouped around the Argo the wounded man was in the back his leg wound sealed as best they could, it had turned out to be a deep wound and whatever they were using seemed to have been corroding the edge of the wound, luckily they had managed to clean it up and stop the corrosion, but the field med kit was in no way equipped to heal the wound properly, so they had to make do with biding the leg and shoving a drip into his arm to help replace fluids. They were now on guard for any of the mines going off.

Without warning a dart seemed to come out of nowhere headed toward one of the Marines, luckily he saw it coming and managed to dodge it.

Seconds later the air in front of McKenzie seemed to shimmer and melt back to reveal a Borg drone its arm already extended to attack, running on pure instinct McKenzie threw herself backward trying to swing her phaser up to fire, but even as she tried she knew she was too slow.

Paul's phaser blast took the drone in the side of the head snapping it sideways the second shot took its extended arm clean off, and finally McKenzie's shot bored a large hole in it's torso, the drone dropped inertly to the floor.

"That's new." McKenzie breathed pulling herself to her feet. She tapped her com-badge. "McKenzie to Decker, the Borg have breached the perimeter." Silence responded.

"Three seconds until the Breen fleet are within weapons range." McDougal announced.

Quiche looked around the Bridge, there was a tension running through the officers that he anticipated was due to there uneasy alliance.

As the Romulans battle group came into weapons range of the attacking fleet they spread out they each had there assigned target, seven of the ships to each of the Breen cruisers. The Ithaca joined the Griffin engaging the lead vessel.

"Sir our weapons can't penetrate their shielding." McDougal yelled.

"Oh god!" Mike Patten called from operations. "There's another Breen ship inbound."

The Commander had a moment of satisfaction. Their momentary delay had allowed all of the Romulans ships and the Federation ship to be committed to an attack on the battle group.

"Arm the main cannon and lock onto the nearest Romulans vessel." He commanded, and his officers scurried around to make his orders come to pass.

He turned back to the holo-tank which showed the battle, to watch the demise of the Romulans flagship.

"Firing!" One of his petty officers called.

The massively powerful blast that was powered by a controlled cascade warp reaction fired from the Breen ship's main weapons arm and lanced across space toward one of the Romulans ships. The weapon impact tore through the ship's shields and her hull almost severing the bridge from the rest of the ship the blast wake overloaded power relays on and around the ship's neck causing secondary explosions.

Shellac watched as one of her ships was torn apart by the Breen weapon.

"Change to attack pattern five, one, one!" She called, her voice ringing throughout the bridge.

"Attack pattern five, one, one." The pilot acknowledged.

"The rest of the fleet reports change, as dose the Federation ship." The communications officer reported.

"Order the Federation vessel to flank us." Shellac barked. "And take us into attack the new Breen ship."

All over the bridge her crew acknowledged her orders.

"Falling into formation with the Griffin sir." Rhodes said, happy to be able to speak normally now the read alert claxons had been muted.

"Reinforce the forward shields and lock weapons on the Breen ship." Quiche ordered. His gaze swept over the bridge and her crew. Ensign Michael Patten manning operations, seemed frightened, McDougal was hunched intently over his console, next to him Lt. Corbin was hard at work muttering into his com unit making sure all the fighters would be ready to go at a moments notice, Ensign Rachel Rhodes seemed to exude a nervous energy as she worked her console.

"We will be within range of their defences in five seconds sir!" McDougal called. "Permission to fire."

"Given, attack pattern five oh one." Quiche's voice rallied them all into action, as the Ithaca rolled to port raking weapons fire down the Breen ship's starboard side but to little affect.

"Sir." Patten said looking up from his console. "It would appear the Breen ship is protected by a mine field. Our weapons fire is being intercepted by cloaked mines, and at a guess they must replicate themselves to replenish the defences."

"If both us and the Griffin could concentrate weapons fire on a single spot we might be able to overwhelm the replenishment and make a hole." McDougal offered.

"Give the Griffin our attack coordinates and notify the rest of the fleet of the information." Quiche ordered. "And launch the fighters."

"Sir the federation ship has requested fire support on a specific location to try and punch through the Breen defences." One of the officers reported.

"Very well, fire at the coordinates they gave us."

The Griffin swung round and began firing her weapons.

"Flight this is Alpha squad, we are clear and engaging the target." Lt. Coal said into his com, before bringing the fighter round on an attack run.

"Beta squad, making our attack run now." Joans' voice came over his com.

"Understood Beta one. Alpha squad form up on me!" He called, reinforcing his forward shields encase of defensive weapons fire.

"Alpha. Beta, Remember brake off five hundred meters from target to avoid friendly fire." The flight controller's voce cam over the general com channel.

"Alpha squad lest go." Coal dumped reserve power into his phaser cannons and began the attack run, the recital on his HUD indicating the target, next to it was a countdown timer, counting the seconds until the target was in range, peripherally he could see the blazing green energy of the Romulans disruptors and torpedoes, a fraction of a second later joined by the incandescing gold of the Ithaca's phasers and photon torpedoes, his attention was devoted on the white recital and the small quickly descending number next to it, five, four, three, weapons fire racked over his shields, three, two, a blip indicated his forward shields were below fifty percent, one, zero. The recital turned read and Coal hit the fire control, the phaser cannons lit up and the energy bolts slammed into the target. A siren sounded as his forward shields collapsed, half a second before the distance indicator beeped to tell him he was coming up on five hundred meters from the target. He pulled his fighter up into a steep climb, switch reserve power to his dorsal shields.

Weapons fire tore into the side of the Breen vessel rupturing plasma conduits, the vessel spun out of control in space spewing warp plasma until a final torpedo from the Ithaca slammed into its damaged wing igniting the plasma.

Decker spun about still trying to take in the vastness of the chamber they were in. Amy had moved off to one side trying to raze the security team, it would seem that the interference was cutting off their communications. Bates was trying to fit the control device into the control panel that graced the centre of the bridge.

"Got it." He exclaimed, as the console sprang into life and green lines flew across the walls headed toward the ceiling. They seemed to coalesce into a large sphere mounted high above them before sweeping down in a wave of green energy leaving in its wake a holographic map similar to the one they had encountered in the Antarctic. But bigger, much bigger.

"Is that…" Decker said words failing him.

"Yes sir, that's the whole galaxy." Bates confirmed.

"Wow." Was all Decker could think to say. After a moment of reflection he pulled himself back together. "Can you locate Atlantis?"

"Hang on a second." Bates said working the console. After a minute the hologram shimmered, Bates cursed and the map dissolved.

"What happened?" Amy asked, moving up to stand beside Decker.

"Not sure." Bates tapped the console franticly as he spoke. "Some sort of dormant subroutine came online; it looks like the whole station is beginning to power up."

Decker's attention was caught by a buzzing that came from the ceiling. "What the hell?" His question was cut short as a robot came flying down from the ceiling. It stopped just above their heads hovering for a second. Before any of them could react metallic arms shot out wrapping themselves around Bates' shoulders and pulling him up and away toward the ceiling.

"Damn." Amy cursed. "I can't get a clean shot."

"Commander, the Federation ship he destroyed one of our cursers." A Breen Lieutenant said looking up from the holotank display.

"How?" The commander snapped.

"They managed to penetrate our defences with concentrated weapons fire."

The Commander seethed, how could they have destroyed a Breen vessel.

"Order the fleet to pull back." He snapped. "We shall wait until they are not suspecting us.

"Sir. The Breen ships are pulling back." One of the techs called over the Griffin's bridge.

"Understood order all the ships to target the Federation vessel." Shellac snapped.

"Yes sir." The weapons tech responded. After a couple of seconds he turned to face her. "The Federation ship had maid no response to our weapons locks."

"Perhaps they haven't detected the locks, perhaps they are damaged." Another tech postulated.

"Whatever they are planning it will be to no avail. Fire!" Shellac ordered. The tech tapped the fire control, but instead of the satisfying sight of Romulans weapons fire tearing the Ithaca to shreds the bridge lighting flickered and went offline, seconds later the green hue of the emergency lights bathed the Griffin's bridge.

"What happened?" Shellac snapped.

"I don't know." The tech responded. "Power systems shut down just as we were about to fire."

"It must be something the Federation ship did." Another tech said trying to make sense of the scattered reading his console was giving him.

"Damn them!" Shellac screamed.

"It worked." McDougal said. "The hack we managed to transfer into the Romulans fleet has activated their dry-dock procedures, main power is offline and the computer is running a system by system scan."

"Good." Quiche replied. "How long will it last?"

"The system scan will take a bout an hour, but the computer will lock down any damaged systems until they disengage the dry-dock procedures." Patten said. "Sorry I don't know how long that will take." He finished before Quiche could ask him.

Quiche liked Patten and was surprised that he hadn't been on the short list for the Ithaca's operations officers. "What is the status of the Breen ships?" He asked.

"Unknown sir, I lost sensor contact with them when they went behind the planet, but there are warp trials leading out of the area." He said, as he finished speaking his console chirped. He tapped a few controls and peered at the results. "Sir, a signal pulls just came from a complex on the palate's surface." He said looking up.

"Where was it directed?" Rhodes asked quickly. Quiche gave her a reproachful look, and then turned back to Patten.

"It appears to have been omnidirectional." He responded. "I'm working on decrypting it but it's going to take time."

"Understood." Quiche said his attention turning back to the planate, "Can we contact the away team?"

McDougal turned back to his console and worked at the controls for a minute. "I can't raze them; the complex seems to be emanating a dampening field that is stopping us from getting clear readings from inside."

"I'm guessing that the away team are inside." Rhodes commented.

The holographic map was gone, it had been replaced with a holographic scan of a human, presumably Bates, and line upon line of foreign text swirling around Decker and Amy where they stood on the control platform. As they watched the form of the hologram began to change, the arms and legs grew longer in proportion to the body, the arms developing a second joint, an extra thumb appeared on the hand below the little finger, the head became longer the eyes larger and more bug like, and the ears were replaced with organic handle like structures.

"What is happening?" Amy asked. Decker just shook his head in response.

Almost without warning a large cylinder descended from the darkness above them to land at the back of the platform. With an ominous hiss it opened and a being like the one depicted on the hologram stepped from within.

Both officers razed their weapons and pointed them at the creature.

"Who are you and what have you done with my crewman?" Decker demanded his weapon never wavering.

The alien seemed undisturbed by having the weapons shoved in it's face and in a deep rumbling voice replied.

"The answer to both those questions is one and the same."

"What the hell dose that mean?" Amy snapped still sighting down the barrel of her rifle.

"When you know one the answer to your other question should be clear, and the answer to both is closer than you might think." It replied in a deep vaguely poetic voice.

"Where. Is. Bates?" Decker's voice had dropped to a threatening growl, as he punctuated each word with a thrust of his own phaser rifle.

"Here!" The creature snapped back pointing a long finger at himself.

Both officers stood agape for a couple of seconds.

"But how?" Amy was the first to recover.

"Did you not see the displays of the bio-forming?" It asked.

"You mean the holograms?" Decker said, disgust registered on his face for a moment, letting the rifle swing by its strap he rubbed the heels of his hands into his face, before running fingers through his hair pushing the slightly longer than regulation bangs from his eyes.

"Yes." The creature seemed pleased, like a teacher when their student finally gets a complicated subject. "Your; 'Bates' was used to facilitate the reactivation programme."

"Reactivation?" Amy looked about her, although the gun never left the creature's chest.

"Why yes, what is the point in receiving a station, or a ship without producing an operator. In time the production and farming facilities will reactivate and production of a full crew can begin."

"Farming?" Decker snapped his tricorder closed and subtly slipped it back into his pocket. "I have a feeling you don't mean wheat and barley?"

"Oh no, your fodder is of no concern to us, what we need is far more advanced."

"Us?" Decker ventured. The creature nodded, an odd motion with its elongated head.

"What if we kill you?" Amy snapped. "Then who will run the facility?"

"There will be others, the time is coming. Awaken was called and other facilities will soon revive and begin our repopulation." The creature turned in a grandiose motion as the systems in the tower powered up flooding the walkway with a blue green light.

"You and those like you will be taken for processing." It reached out and tapped a control. In response a hologram appeared of McKenzie and the security detail holding position behind one of the makeshift barricades.

All of a sudden the air behind the creature seemed to melt away, and a Borg drone stepped out before the Atlantian could react assimilation tubules slammed into it's neck.

Decker stepped forward and before the drone could react shoved the barrel of his phaser rife under the drones chin and fired. The drone collapsed backward its head mostly disintegrated by the blast.

They turned back to the Atlantian whose neck was greying with the bulging veins that characterised assimilation. As they watched the deformation began to recede.

"What the hell?" Amy said.

"If you think something as primitive as that can stop us then you are…" He was cut off as Decker fired into his head, at point blank range it was fatal.

"How's that for primitive?" Decker said into the sudden silence.

Both Sam and Paul swung their phasers on the lift and it descended to their level.

"Hold fire! Hold fire!" Decker ordered as he and Lt. Commander Wentworth came out of the lift compartment.

"What happened up there? And where is bates?" Sam asked as they came over.

"It seems our presents reactivated the station." Decker said by way of explanation.

Sam nodded acknowledging that the captain didn't want to waist time with a more complete explanation. "Do we have an exit strategy? The station seems to be blocking communication with the ship, and one would assume is also blocking transport."

"We need to get back to the drop pod, but we can't leave this station intact." Decker walked toward the Argo. "How many demolition charges do we have?" He said turning to Paul.

"Six photonic charges plus another ten high yield explosives. What do you have in mid sir?"

"You're the demolitions expert." Decker reposted. "Where do we put them to get maximum damage?"

Paul stopped and thought about it for a second. "Ok," He began flipping open his tricorder. "the base seems to be powered by two reactors here and here." He pointed to a room two floors below where the towers that dominated the chamber they were in seemed to widen, before carrying on down into the planate. "I recon if we place charges on them then it will create enough secondary damage to pull down the central tower, which will probably take the rest of the facility with it."

"Alright lets go!" Decker said looking up.

They went.

chapter six

"That's the last of them." Paul said as he tapped a final command into the explosive charge and stood up.

They had managed to get down to the reactor room and set the charges without incident, McKenzie and Amy had the entrance covered while Decker was tending to the wounded marine as best his first year medical training allowed.

Phaser fire sounded from outside the entrance, causing Amy and McKenzie to duck behind consoles and Decker and Paul to grab for their rifles. As they watched a pair of Romulans backed through the door firing, they didn't even notice the Federation officers as they backed toward the centre of the room. A small spider like robot leaped from the doorway into view the Romulans fired, one of them got a lucky shot and the thing dropped to the floor smoking, its inertia cancelled out by the force of the disruptor blast.

They watched weapons ready as the little robot twitched and lay still.

A Borg drone stepped in behind the small robot; it had been Klingon in life, the remnants of its forehead ridges still present, although now perforated with implants. It razed one huge heavily muscled arm about to fire assimilation tubules. Decker's shot was deflected by its shield, but got its attention; it turned on Decker firing a dart which missed the Starfleet officer's head by inches. Then it roared a battle cry and charged at the Argo.

Decker jumped clear of the vehicle as the drone crashed into the side of it' crumpling the chase around its bulk. The drone twisted free sending the Argo tumbling; Decker winced remembering the officer still inside the vehicle, before ducking under the outstretched arms of the charging drone. This time the Borg anticipated the dodge and with surprising agility knocking the captain from his feet, sending his rifle spinning away.

The Borg drone loomed over Decker, at least seven feet tall. Decker tried to shuffle backwards but the drone brought a massive foot down on the captain's ankle eliciting a cry of pain and a string of curses. Then it stepped forward so its massive bulk was straddling the captain.

Decker squeezed his eyes shut against the pain of his crushed ankle and reached a hand into one of the pockets on his combat jacket, his fingers closed round the small cylindrical device and he pulled his hand out pinging the rubber cap off the grenade as the drone grabbed him by the shoulder and began pulling him to his feet, the last act of a desperate man he shoved the armed grenade into the drone's knee joint and twisted free. He hit the floor and kept rolling covering his head with his arms as the grenade went off sending the drone flying.

"We will never talk." The Romulans said before Decker could even ask him a question.

Paul and Amy had pulled the marine free of the Argo while Sam had covered the Romulans who had thrown down their weapons upon realising they were surrounded. The marine wasn't looking too good, Sam had done all she could for him, but the tumble he had taken in the Argo had reopened the wound, and from what they could tell a fractured rib had punctured his lung, add that to having both legs broken and their was very little they could do for him without getting him back to the ship.

"Do you want to live?" Decker asked, wincing as Sam tried to set the bones of his leg.

The Romulans looked confused for a second. "What?" One finally asked.

"If you don't make any trouble then…" He winced again. "Then we'll take you with us back to the Ithaca. You'll be granted full POW status and returned to the Romulans Empire as soon as we are able."

"We accept your terms." One said after a moments pause.

"Thought you would." Decker said, as Sam finished binding his ankle. He nodded to her and tired putting his weight on it, he cursed but didn't fall and after a few tentative hobbling steppes he seemed ok.

"Alright lets get out of here." He said and headed for the door.

"Sir we have a problem." Paul said. "The timer fuses were damaged by a ricochet while we were fighting the drone."

"What about remote detonators?" Sam asked.

"The signal won't get through the jamming field." He replied. "One of us has to stay behind and set the charges manually."

"I'll do it." The injured marine piped up. They all looked at him. "Oh come on. I've got what, a couple of hours at most? You'll never make it out if you take me with you."

Decker cursed then nodded. He hobbled over to the other man and handed him the detonator.

"Give us thirty minutes then blow them." Then the captain held the others hand.

"The order sir?" the marine asked.

"Given. God speed." Decker stood and saluted, the marine saluted back and they left Amy helping the captain.

Decker fired his hand phaser at the group of partially assimilated Romulans and ducked back behind the pillar. "How long have we got?" He asked Sam who was beside him.

"Just over five minutes." She replied. "We've only another hundred meters to the entranceway."

Paul swung around the pillar he was using for cover and snapped off a couple of shots that dropped the last of the Borg drones.

"Let's get going." He called moving down the corridor to check for other groups.

Sam helped Decker to his feet and the started off down the corridor.

He checked his watch, just about thirty minutes. A drone appeared above him, this one had been human, a young woman, the cybernetic implants did little to detract from her shapely curves. She bent over him extending her arm.

"Fuck you." He said as he pushed the control on the detonator.

They had were out of the complex and moving as fast as Decker's ankle would allow toward the drop pod when there was a huge explosion from the complex the force of the blast threw the tones of sand that had built up over the into the air. The shockwave hit them knocking them from their feet sending Sam sailing a couple of feet through the air to slam into the side of the drop pod. The Romulans jumped to their feet one grabbed Sam's dropped rife and trained it on Decker as he clambered to his feet, Paul jumped toward the captain talking him to the floor as the Romulans fired, the blast skimmed the back of Paul's combat jacked. Amy returned fire hitting the Romulans square in the chest.

Paul groaned bleeding freely from his back wound, as Amy ushered the Romulans into the drop pod, Decker and Sam followed her carrying Paul.

"Drop pod one this is Ithaca. We can't get a signal lock, the beacon has been damaged and the debris in the atmosphere is blocking transport." The signal was filled with static so much so they could hardly make out the voice on the other end.

"Can you send down a shuttle?" Decker asked flopping into a seat.

"Confirmed we are dispatching a shuttle but due to atmospheric disturbance we will have to meet you tow kilometres due west of your position." The signal faded into static.

"I've got the rendezvous coordinates." Amy said.

"There is no way we can make the R.V. with our wounded." Sam said gesturing to Paul, who was laying on a table, and the captain.

"What about the ETSUs?" Amy asked. The ETSUs or Emergency Transporter Storage Units were based on the transport stasis that Montgomery Scott had managed to do with the Jenolen's transporter, being essentially portable transport buffers that an injured crew member could be beamed into for easy transport back to the ship.

"Problem we only have one and at least two injured." Sam said, then dropped to her knees, holding a hand to her head. "Make that three." She gasped before collapsing.

"Concussion, looks bad." Amy said after running her tricorder over her. "I've given her something for the pain, and to stop brain swelling, but she'll be out cold for at least twenty minutes."

"I have an idea." Decker said. Amy looked up at him. "We can only put one signal in the ETSU right?" Amy nodded. "What about…" He gestured around to the drop pod they were sitting in. "If you beam the Drop Pod into the ETSU then get to the RV and rematerialise it so we can get into the shuttle."

"It wont. Work." Paul gasped. "Drop pod too complex, it will overfill the buffer." He dropped his head for a moment. "You might be able to get it in there but." He closed his eyes against the pain. "But the power drain would be massive, you'd have maybe ten minutes max."

"How did you do on the academy physical?" Decker asked smiling?

"Four minutes thirty for the kilometre run." She said smiling. "You could really do with McKenzie; she did it in four minutes exactly, an Academy record."

"Do it." The captain said.

Amy stopped breathing hard and checked the power gauge on the ETSU just over half gone, and she was only half way, she wiped sweat from her eyes then ripped a strip from he jacked tying it round her head in a makeshift bandana, then pulled the jacket and gold undershirt off, leaving just the grey blue sweat top on and set off again at a fast jog.

"Any sign of them?" Rachel Rhodes asked the Marine who was standing at the shuttle's open rear door keeping watch.

"No marm; but there seems to be movement from the downed Borg ship. We should moved off before they come fully back online." He replied.

"We wait." Rhodes snapped. "Let me know when the Borg start coming at us."

"That would be the sound of me shooting them marm." He quipped. "Or right now." He said and fired.

"I'm picking up Lt. Commander Wentworth's com badge." Rhodes called. "She'll be here in just a sec."

"I hope we can keep them off us that long." The marine fired again.

Amy heard phaser fire and pushed forward harder until she crested the small hillock. She could see the lights emitted by the shuttle and Borg drones headed toward it. Cursing herself for not bringing a weapon she headed in a dead sprint toward the shuttle.

"We have to go now!" The marine called.

"Hold on I have an idea." Rhodes called firing up the thrusters and sending a could of dust up around them as the shuttle rose from the ground. She swung the shuttle over the group of drones that who were after them. Before spinning the craft so the still open door was pointed toward Amy who was headed for them in a dead sprint. Just as they were about to pass over the Running figure she cut power to the engines and the shuttle dropped like a stone right on top of a group of advancing drones, as the shuttle thumped down and Amy stumbled into the back compartment she fired the vertical thrusters up to max and reestablished power to them. Seconds before a drone clambered in the shuttle shot upward, the sudden jolt throwing the marine from his feet as the shuttle rose over a hundred meters in a matter of seconds. She stabilised the craft out and set the autopilot to take them back to the Ithaca.

"Is everyone ok?" She asked, stepping into the aft compartment.

"Your crazy." The marine said. "You could have blown the power couplings to the thrusters with that stunt."

Brushing off his remarks she stepped over to Amy who was lying on the shuttle deck breathing hard.

"Where are the others?" Rhodes asked, kneeling beside her.

Amy tapped the ETSU she was holding, which chirped in response.

"Shit." She cursed regaining her breath. "Need more power." She said gesturing to the ETSU. Then it dawned on Rhodes, she snatched the unit from Amy and dashed over to the bulkhead pulling the cover from the ETSU's power pack and opening the power conduit, she quickly connected the shuttles main power to the ETSU.

chapter seven

"Good as new." Shauna Fadden said as she removed the clamp from Decker's leg. "Might be a bit sore for a few days but you'll be fine."

On the next bed Nurse Chapman, a young woman with greyish blond hair cropped farley short, was running a dermal regenerator over Paul's back and McKenzie sat on the bed opposite nursing a cup of herbal tea.

"Thanks Doc." Decker said swinging his legs of over the side of the bed and tentatively lowering his weight onto his left ankle. "I've got to get back to the bridge." He said happy that he could walk without screaming.

"Ok." She sighed. "Just try not to abuse the ankle too much, no impact work, try and avoid running for a day or so until the bone had had a chance to fully ossify."

By the time she had finished he was out the doors and on his way to the nearest lift.

Jennifer Chapman finished closing the marine's wound and deactivated the sterile field. "Finished." She said putting the dermal wand back into the med pack.

"Why thank you." He said swinging his feet from the bed. For a moment Jen was entranced by his naked upper body, her eyes travelled up the line of his nicely toned chest across his shoulders and up the line of his neck, when she reached his face his blue eyes met hers. His lips seemed to move but she couldn't hear any sound come out.

"Sorry." She said blushing and turning away. "What were you saying?"

"Do you have some clothes I can put on?" His deep cultured British accent was so dreamy. "Or would you rather I return to my quarters like this?" The gesture almost got her looking at his chest again. She quickly hurried off to get him a gown. He nodded thanks and pulled the light blue top over his head, the colour seemed to compliment his tanned complexion well.

Shortly after he left she turned and thumped her head into the support column that separated the bed she was at from the next.

"Idiot." She muttered. "Complete Idiot."

Shauna came over and put a hand on her shoulder. "It happens to the best of us."

"Status?" Decker snapped walking onto the bridge and taking his seat.

"All stations report fine. We're headed back to Federation space." Quiche replied.

"We took a bit of a beating off the Breen." Lt Commander Jermyn put in. "But nothing she couldn't handle." He patted the console next to him affectionately.

"What about the Romulans, and the Borg." Decker asked, then after a pause. "Oh god we're in over our heads."

"The Breen pulled back when we took out their flagship, we disabled the Romulans vessels for a time, and there was only one Borg ship, which hit the planate at full impulse." McDougal reported from the secondary security console where he had moved to when Amy had taken the security console back.

"Ensign Gomez to the bridge." A crisp female voice came over the comm.

"Report Ensign." Decker said tapping the communicator built into the armrest of his chair.

"We've finished studying the recordings you managed to get at the station." She said.

"Ok." Decker tapped another control. "All senior staff report to astrometrics."

Decker spared Lt Handgun a quick reproachful look as she stepped through the door to the astrometrics lab, before turning his attention back the holoscreen that was showing the Atlantian map from the Waypoint map room.

"This map covers the whole galaxy." Mike Patten was saying excitedly, Decker had maid a mental note to watch him after Quiche's report suggested he would make a good replacement for Bates.

"They mapped the whole galaxy?" Rachel asked, her voice holding the same awe as Patten's

"They colonised the whole galaxy." Gomez said from the other side of the viewer.

"Colonised?" Amy blurted out. "The whole galaxy?"

"Yes." Gomez said patently. "We have established the locations of over five hundred stations and colonies spread out across the galaxy."

"Jesus." Handgun muttered.

"Have you been able to establish the purpose of any of the complexes?" Rhodes asked.

"We just got a translator programme from Starfleet cryptology." Patten said. "It should finish momentarily." As he spoke the green Atlantian symbols on the map were replaced with blue English.

"I have a question." Jermyn piped up. "Do we know what the signal the Way point complex put out was?"

"We've been working on decoding that." Patten responded. "The translation is roughly 'awaken', although we're not sure of the exact syntax. The question is; what was the signal sent to? And what awaken actually means?"

"Was that the entire message?" Quiche asked thoughtfully.

"No the word was followed by a hex component we're still working on that bit."

"The Atlantian said 'awaken was called' do you think this is what he meant?" Amy suggested.

"It would seem the most likely answer." Quiche added still deep in thought.

Decker all but jumped forward. "It said that other facilities would reactivate, and begin to 'farm' us."

"Oh god." Amy's words reflected what they all thought. "If other stations are reactivating… I mean…" she was lost for words. "What if they start attacking people, farming us?"

"We have to assume that there is a way to shut them back down." Decker said putting a hand on her shoulder to calm her. "And I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that the controls to do that would be in Atlantis its self."

"It would be logical." Quiche put in. "Can you locate Atlantis?"

Patten and Gomez studied the map in silence for a moment.

Finally Patten razed his hand to point at the map "I believe it is here."

"That's very close to the Galactic core." Rhodes said. "Closer than anyone has ever managed to get. Well unless you believe some of the Enterprise logs to be strictly accurate and not a matter of perception. I have no idea how we would get there its thousands of light-years from explored space"

"Approximately five thousand." Patten corrected her.

"We could probably use the wormhole technology to get their but the power requirements would be enormous, given our current position, we would have to travel twenty six thousand four hundred light-years." Gomez added. "We'd need to tap into the power of a sun to get enough power to create a wormhole that long artificially."

"But the Begoran wormhole travels 66650 light-years." Amy said.

"Scientists still don't fully understand the processes that make the Begoran wormhole work. We need massive amounts of power to make an artificial replication, and ours anent nearly as efficient."

"Captain we are receiving a distress call." The urgency in McDougal's voice travelled over the com.

"Transfer it to astrometrics." Decker ordered.

"Understood sir. Transferring." The com channel was cut off.

After a moment the map was removed from the holoscreen and replaced with the image of a klingon.

"This is the Klingon battleship Neg-Vash we are under attack from an unknown force and request assistance." A console behind the Klingon erupted in flames and the message looped back to the beginning.

The captain tapped his com badge already halfway to the door. "Decker to bridge; change course to intercept the Klingon ship, maximum warp." The bridge officer acknowledged, as Decker hit the corridor at a sprint, the rest of the bridge crew following.

"Sir we are within range of the Klingon vessel." Patten's voice rung out across the tens bridge.

"Open haling frequencies." Decker ordered leaning forward in his char looking at the badly damaged Kling ship hanging in space.

"Open sir." One of the techs responded.

"Klingon vessel this is the Federation star ship Ithica responding to your distress call. Please respond." Decker sat back and waited.

"We're not getting more than the automated repeat of the distress call sir." The tech reported.

"Is it possible they have lost communications and can't contact us?" Amy asked.

"There com system should be online, otherwise they wouldn't be able to transmit the distress call." Patten responded

Decker stood and stepped forward to the centre of the bridge. "Any sign of what ever was attacking them?" He asked.

Patten pored over his controls for a moment before responding. "No ships sir but there is a strange structure around the third planate in this system." He checked the console. "It's emitting a power signature."

"Still no response from the Kling vessel." The tech reported.

Decker nodded. "What's the status of the Klingon vessel?"

"Shields are down, their weapons are offline, the main rector is offline, the hull seems to be sealed, emergency power appears to be functioning but there doesn't seem to be any viable life support." Patten reported.

Decker nodded and thought for a second. "Lt. Handgun, Patten. Put an away team together and Prepare to beam over to the Klingon vessel."

The pair nodded and left the bridge

- 60 -