July 13, 2411
Delta Volaris Cluster
PK-452642B System
U.S.S. Redemption Mess Hall
I ripped into the steak with great vigor. I tried to take my mind off the monotony of the survey. I closed my eyes and listened to the conversations around me.
"Why is an Avenger out on a survey mission?" A petty said to an ensign. That was what I was thinking. I'm one of the best out there, so why am I stuck on a patrol when I should be blowing up Borg? I was about to toss another piece into my mouth when the intercom went off.
"Captain to the bridge."
I planted my head on the table, sighed, took one last bite, and ran off to the bridge.
I stepped out onto the bridge. "This better be good, Commander."
The Andorian stood up and turned to me. "We just detected a rift two hundred kilometers in front of us."
I frowned. Sensors should have detected it by know. "Yellow Alert. Nelen, are we in range to do a detailed scan?"
The Voth science officer nodded. "We were in range five minutes ago."
I nodded. "Start scans."
The Redemption's deflector dish began to scan. Then, of course, things went to shit.
Having turned around to take the Chair, I was in the process of sitting when the ship shook. I lost my balance and fell in between captain's and the first officer's chairs. It would have been almost comical if we weren't in this situation.
"Report!" I yelled as I pulled myself up. The ship had automatically gone to Red Alert.
"A second after we started scanning, the rift's gravitational pull multiplied!" Nelen yelled. "We're being pulled in!"
"Shannon, full reverse!"
"Aye sir!"
The Redemption strained against the pull.
"No affect!" Shannon said with alarm. The rift grew closer on the viewscreen and the shaking intensified.
"All hands, brace for impact!"
April 29, 2013
Elevation: 1 mile
Somewhere above Virginia
Flying. There's nothing like it. You can describe it in poems, songs, whatever. It can't beat the real thing. Especially when you're flying with your family.
And above the clouds.
No, we weren't on a plane, or using gliders. Just wings. As in the flap-like-a-bird kind.
I'll assume you've heard of me. (If you haven't, get with the program.) My name is Maximum Ride. I've been though what seems like everything, wolf-hybrid attacks, whitecoats, genocidal madmen. But having an freaking spaceship fall from the sky right in front of me is a first.
It was like any normal day in the lives of genetically mutated bird kids. Iggy and Gazzy were "experimenting" with the fine art of farting. I stayed well clear of them. Nudge was trying to fix Angel's hair in midair. And Fang- he gave me one of his half-smiles. I turned away, trying to hide my huge blush.
Then the spaceship fell.
It screamed out of nowhere. It was covered in a black tinge that shone dully, was the size of a aircraft carrier and gave off this weird thrum. I as I backpedaled hard, I caught a glimpse of a word written on the side of it; USS Redemption. Then it fell into the clouds.
"What the hell was that?!" Total said from my jacket.
No one answered him as there was a distant boom. I idly wondered if it hit the ground before it rose from the clouds on a pillar of flame. (Bird kid poetry there.) It pointed it's nose to the sky, and, with a deafening roar, was gone within seconds.
Everyone just stopped there before I said, "Lets find a place to spend the night."
"We're caught in the planet's gravity well!" Nelen shouted over the chaos.
"Thrusters!"
The Redemption fought against gravity, and slowly won, but not before falling beneath the cloud layer. I swore I saw some birds above the clouds. With a final jolt, the shaking stopped.
"We have stabilized." Shannon said.
"Take us out of atmosphere and engage cloak."
Soon we were in space and out of sight. "Debriefing in fifteen minutes. I want to know what the hell happened. Thorin!" I shouted over the intercom. "Briefing in fifteen. I want a damage assessment."
"What the hell happened?" I asked Nelen.
"It was some kind of wormhole. Took us all the way back to Earth."
I put my face in my palms. This was not a good day. "Let me guess." I said. "We went back in time."
"Ummmm, yes. 2013 to be exact."
I just sat for a second. "Can we get back?" I asked him.
"Not as of yet. I have the entire science team analyzing it."
I turned to Thorin. "Go ahead."
"We're pretty fine across all decks, but some warp coils were knocked out of alignment."
I groaned. That mean landing on the surface, using shuttles to lift the warp coils, and replacing them from the industrial replicator.
"How long?" I was not looking forward to the DTI.
"Three days."
Three days. Three days in a world looking outwards and for alien life.
"We could land in a severely isolated area." Thorin suggested. "Then I could modify the cloak to cover us from above and extend the field to cover the shuttles."
I nodded. The plan sounded good. I looked around the table. They were in agreement too. "Do it."
Virginia
Somewhere in the Appellation Mountains
I directed the flock to a large clearing, where, after a quick dinner, and a huge discussion over what we all saw we took to the trees to sleep. I offered first watch. I stared into the sky, wondering if that ship was up there. My eyes started to droop. I closed my eyes, about to fall into sleep, but not before I heard a distant thrum. I didn't realize for second as the noise got louder. I snapped my eyes open and looked up. The thrum was getting closer, but where was the ship? I crouched on the branch and unfurled my wings, about to look for it, but all of a sudden, it appeared out of nowhere. It was hovering about five hundred yard off the ground.
"Guys!" I yelled over the noise. "Wake up!"
They snapped awake immediately.
"What's going on?!" Iggy shouted, being blind and everything left him disoriented from the omnipresent hum.
I left the others to answer him as I watched doors open on the underside of it and what looked like landing gear extend from it. The incredibly topheavy-looking craft floated down and landed.
"Max?" Nudge asked tentatively. "Who are they?"
"I don't know." It couldn't be whitecoats. They would have caught us long ago if they had this. Speaking of which, they would love to get their hands on this. I turned to our native mindreader. "Angel?"
"There's no hostile intent, at least not to us." She closed her eyes. After a moment, she snapped them open. "There's over five hundred people on board."
My mouth hit the floor. At that moment there was a loud clunk from the ship and a door on the back started to open. Out flew several boxy little ships, actually quite cute-looking.
"Max." Fang said, communicating sentences with a word.
I nodded. "Lets move farther away."
April 30, 0900 hours
U.S.S. Redemption
Bridge
I was watching the work through the rearview camera. Progress was slow. We only had a few warp coils to fix on the starboard nacelle, but the entire port nacelle's warp coils were fried. I sighed and felt the need to get out.
"I'm going for a walk." I told Tallasa.
She nodded. I went down to the armory real quick to grab two Compression pistols, my gauntlets, and a tricorder. I set the pistols to stun. I walked out down the ramp and took off into the woods.
"Ok, we've seen the same spaceship twice. How much of a coincidence is that?" I said, taking a seat on a tree stump.
"Oh, I would love to get my hands on the explosives on there." Gazzy said evily.
I gave him the look and turned to Angel. "What did you feel on there?"
Her eyes unfocused as she remembered. "I felt some definite human presences, but there we some on there that felt... different. Not wrong, but different."
"Should we talk to them?" Nudge asked, being the only one out of all of us that had any social grace.
"No." Fang and I said at the same time.
"Talk to who?" A voice that I knew all too well. I turned around and a person that should be dead stood there.
"Why can't you stay dead?" I told Ari. Totally alive, not dead Ari. Who was probably another copy. Because he had died. Twice. And guess who was behind him. Normal, everyday Erasers. Who were supposed to be extinct. Why do they keep coming back from the dead?
"Because I want you dead." He said, smiling the entire time. Definitely a copy.
"Let's get this over with." I said, unfurling my wings. Ari roared and went wolf while the flock sprang into action. I jumped over Ari in a wing-assisted leap, and brought my feet down on a surprised Eraser. I turned and clapped my hands on another's ears and his eardrums popped. I heard a roar behind me and turned to block Ari. I gave off a series of fast, unpredictable punches. Ari stumbled back, but recovered and lunged.
100 meters from battle
I sighed. I had taken a quick jog into the forest and was about to turn around to go back to the Redemption when I heard a roar. I stopped. That was close. I pulled my pistols and creeped towards the noise. I as I approached I began to hear the sounds of a full-fledged hand-to-hand battle. I pushed a brush aside and I stopped dead. There, in the clearing was wolfs and kids with wings. Now, it wasn't the weirdest thing I've seen, but it was pretty high up there. There were about thirty wolfs standing, and about six bird kids, and they were holding their own. One particularly large wolf rose to face a teen with beautiful brown wings. So far she had taken out ten wolfs, but this particular wolf seemed to slightly scare her. These wolves seemed to want to kill them all. I quickly flipped my pistols to kill and raised one on the big one's head.
I parried Ari and gave him a face full of feathers. He stumbled back and slashed at me, but I had already jumped back from him. I prepared myself to jump back, but another Eraser clotheslined me with a fist. I stumbled, seeing stars. Ari came up and slashed, tearing my side to shreds. I fell to my knees, too shocked to cry in pain and holding my side. Ari laughed and raised his claws. No one was in sight to help me. No Fang. What happened next was kinda a blur. What looked like light hit Ari full on and he stumbled to the side. Then a bolt of light struck his head and his head exploded. I mean, blood and brains. I didn't have much time to ponder as I passed out.
I erupted from the bushes, pistols set to full auto and moving down the wolves while running to the fallen kid. One man came to face me and swung with a claw. I blocked with my gauntlet and embedded a blade in his throat. I brought my pistols on the last man, but an eight-year old placed a devastating uppercut. I dropped beside the teen and brought my tricorder across her wound. Quite deep, one broken bone, two bruised. To stop that she had a mild concussion. I lifted my jacket, ejected one of my blades and cut off some of my undershirt. I wrapped it around my hands and applied pressure on her wound.
"MAX!" A shrill voice said. All the kids were running towards me and, well, Max.
"She needs medical attention." They all tensed at that. I sighed. "Look, I'm trying to help. I have a way to get her to help instantly. If you need to stay with her, fine. Just don't freak out."
The tall one with dark hair seemed to be thinking. I just couldn't read him.
"Fang." The small blond one said. "He's ok."
Fang nodded. I tapped my combadge. "Redemption, seven to beam directly to sickbay. One female teen in need of immediate medical assistance. Have a security team on standby."
The shimmer washed over us and I saw the kids eyes widen.
I materialized on the medbay's floor and was immediately swarmed with medical personnel.
"Deep wound, two bruised ribs, one broken and she has a mild concussion. She's lost a lot of blood." I told the Bajoran doctor Darmk. "I don't think normal blood will work." I said, eying her wings and the other kids, who were marveling at the ship.
Darmk nodded, examining the ship scans as the nurses lifted Max onto the main table. Fang was at the bed side immediately. I dropped my rags and pushed him away from the table. "She's in capable hands, but you need to stay back."
Fang seemed to want to resist, but he decided against it and sat down on another bed.
"Captain." Darmk called. I came over to him and his console. "You were right. I've never seen anything like this. It's human-avian DNA. I can't synthesize any right now, but she needs some blood."
"Alright." I turned to Fang. "We-"
"We'll do it." He said interrupting me. "Iggy and Max had to give blood for me once. We'll do it again."
One of the nurses went and got the blood while Tallasa walked in and saw the five standing kids. "Captain." She called. I turned. She indicated the medical office.
"Computer, close biohazard door." The door shut and Tallasa turned on me.
"What are five kids from our past doing on board!?"
"They were fighting for their lives with these wolf hybrids. Tallasa, these kids have wings."
Tallasa's eyes grew wide and she looked at the kids who were sitting on the beds.
"Captain, you need to get out here." Darmk called over the intercomm. "Now."
"On my way." I hit the door control. As I walked out, Darmk was once again pouring over his console. Max may have looked bad, but it looked like the staff could handle it.
"Sir, I don't think you'll believe this." Darmk looked up at me. "These cells regenerate super-fast. I haven't seen anything like this since-"
"Khan." I said, looking at Max, and watched as a cut sealed up. "Their Augments."
Author's notes: MAAAAAAAAXXXXXXX! No, wait, wrong person. *cough*This takes place between the books Max and Fang. Also, in STO time, this takes place before the Delta Quadrant and the renewed Undine threat.
