This story is set in 2408, the year before the Star Trek Online story begins.
This story also serves as the prequel/essential story to "Return of Ja'Dok" and other planned series and/or stories.
Stardate 85315.23
Bajor Sector, 17 Light Years from Deep Space 9...
The U.S.S. Carthage, a Discovery Class Federation Science Vessel, headed at Warp 6 towards the strategically positioned Federation Station; Deep Space 9.
The ship had recently undergone a refit of its propulsion systems, systems which were unique to the Carthage. Standard Discovery Class vessels were no less than an updated Intrepid Class design. Being generally sleeker than the Intrepid, the forward saucer section remains largely the same shape, but is generally thinner, and the aft section, which housed the aft Shuttle Bay and the nacelles with their respective pylons, is also generally thinner, but redesigned with less spherical influence on the upper aft section which instead mainly featured a much more edgy design. Finally, the Warp Nacelles were usually a round cylindrical shape, being propped up by the pylons which were already at a higher angle of around thirty degrees and had fin-like props below the secondary hull which were primarily used for protection for the aft section of the secondary hull, mainly due to it being more vulnerable to weapons fire because of the design.
The Carthage, instead of the standard round nacelles, featured the nacelles from an experimental prototype ship that never went into production; the Cochrane Class. The Cochrane was also based off the Intrepid, but its systems and its overall shape were completely unrecognisable in comparison to both its predecessor and the new Discovery. The nacelles were vertically thinner and featured armour plating on it – an adaption of the special armour an alternate timeline Admiral Janeway brought back with her from the future. The nacelle design was completely covered in standard and special armour with the bussard collector(s) only being displayed by a thin slit at the end of the structure.
Captain Alex Ooiue, the Carthage's commanding officer and a 6ft 1in Human Male Starfleet Officer with short brown hair, went over various war-related reports in his ready room. The war with the Klingons, started in early 2406, over two years before, had been powerful pressure imposed on the Federation, mainly due to the Klingons' capability in both Ground and Space combat. Their warriors were formidable and their ships unrivalled with burst firepower. The Federation, however, used ships that consistently took down enemy ships with sweeps of phaser fire, but there were ships, such as the Defiant, and it's other variant designs like the Sao Paulo and the Vigilant classes, were useful for their own burst damage, much like Klingon ships.
The report the Captain was reading detailed hostilities in the Khitomer sector and how the Klingon advances into some systems seemed to be part of a larger plan. In any case, the Captain knew he'd be called into battle on the Klingon front eventually, once the constant raids of the True Way around Deep Space 9 and Cardassian space had settled down of course.
T'Pon, the ship's First Officer, chimed the Captain over the comm. channel, "Bridge to Captain, you'd better get out here, sir," she requested urgently.
"On my way," the Captain responded, closing down his monitor and discarding data padds to the table before heading onto the bridge, which resembled its predecessors layout; the Intrepid.
The bridge was a heavily modified Intrepid Class bridge design, with two large cylindrical panels, flanked behind the left and right of the Captain's chair, less metal fencing between the upper and lower sections of the bridge and generally a bigger design. The rest remained largely the same, with the Captain's Ready Room to the right of the bridge, facing the viewscreen, and the conference room to the left on the opposing side.
The Carthage had dropped out of warp some 17 light years away from their destination, with the immediate attention grabbing issue being a large white and blue distortion in the path of the vessel.
"Report," the Captain ordered.
"There's a temporal distortion dead ahead. The distortion appears to be at least 3km in diameter," responded Lt. Cmdr. Jessica Thompson; Science Officer of the U.S.S. Carthage.
Lieutenant Commander Jessica Thompson, a 6 ft. long haired brunette Human Female, was the Science Officer of the U.S.S. Carthage, third in command, and Alex's fiancé. Their relationship was complicated with Starfleet, and they often found themselves in the line of sight Starfleet regulations, due to a senior officer being involved with someone under his command. She and Alex went to the academy together back in 2396 to 2397 before Alex graduated first. They didn't see each other for another decade, until the day she was assigned to the Carthage as the new Chief Science Officer.
"Where did it come from?"
"Unknown, we were forced to drop out of warp when its unusually strong gravitational field started affecting our warp field," Commander T'Pon answered.
"Bridge to Engineering," the Captain chimed over the comm., "John, is there any way you can reinitialise the warp field successfully despite the anomaly?" he asked, wanting to avoid any sort of temporal distortion of any kind.
"Negative, sir; the gravitational forces generated by the anomaly are too powerful for us to establish a successful warp field. I'm trying alternate scenario's right now, sir, but I'm just not sure if they'll be successful or not to overcome it," the Bolian Engineer replied.
"Keep at it," the Captain stated, "Helm and Science, could we get far enough away on impulse and simply move out of its gravitational range?" he inquired.
"The distortions aren't affecting impulse capability, sir; just warp," Commander Thompson reported.
"Confirmed, I can manoeuvre the ship away from the distortion, but the gravitational field may still affect us from a significant distance away," Helm Officer Tribalt reported.
"Maybe we can find a way to close the portal down," Cmdr. Thompson reported, before her console started blaring bleeps at her, "Captain, gravitational forces within the anomaly are increasing significantly," she urgently stated.
"Sir, we're being pulled in!" Tribalt exclaimed.
"Full reverse!" the Captain shouted, attempting to overcome the shaking on the ship by finding his way to his chair, which he barely managed to accomplish.
"No effect!"
"Brace for impact!"
Within just a few short seconds, the Carthage was pulled into the temporal anomaly.
Unknown Location
The ship, damaged from the trip through the anomaly, emerged on the other side at a slight angle. On board, the crew regained and resumed their positions with a little difficulty, often gripping for nearby support from the various pillars and walls for support in getting to their feet.
"Report, what's our location?" the Captain requested, curious as to where, and when, the now closed anomaly had taken them.
"Approximately some 500 light years from where we were, sir; the star charts don't register a lot of the stars locations to the present time but I am able to make out our approximate position taking into account a number of variables, such as stellar drift," Jessica reported.
"Then when are we?"
"Checking..." Jessica halted a moment before swallowing hard at what she was about to say, "Approximately 200 years into the past; the year is 2206."
Staring at the viewscreen in disbelief, the bridge crew attempted to fathom what had just happened.
"Ar..." the Captain made several attempts at starting a sentence, but failed each one of them before finally regaining his composure enough to start a sentence, "Are you sure?" he barely muttered.
"Yes sir; there's no question. We've just been transported over 200 years into the past some 500 light years away from where we were." In that instance, the sensors bleeped wildly once again, signalling to Jessica that an unidentified ship was nearby, something she reported the second she saw it.
"Can you identify it?"
"I can," Tactical Officer Grachob commented, forcing inquisitive looks from half the bridge crew, "It's a Qualon vessel."
"Qualon? Wait, Grachob; are they your extinct enemy you spoke of?" the Captain inquired.
"Indeed they are, if this is 200 years ago and around our space, then it doesn't surprise me that it's one of them."
Helm Officer Lt. Tribalt and Tactical Officer Lt. Cmdr. Grachob were the literal physical giants of the crew. Grachob was an alien known only as a 'Chobe', an 8ft dark blue skinned two-horned beast whose physical body easily more than doubled any standard Human. According to what little information Grachob had told the Federation about his species, they were located some 500 Light Years away from the Federation and the surrounding powers and were all genetically engineered by themselves for a war against their now extinct enemy. Any further information about his species, Grachob simply did not provide which left a question of trust for Starfleet when pondering to accept his application to Starfleet. The sheer strength and military mind of Grachob, and likely the Chobe in general, was the reason he became the Tactical Officer of the Carthage.
The Chobe, or at least Grachob, possessed almost a flat fact with a ridged nose and some ridge-like features around their mouths with a single smooth ridge running down the top of their head towards the centre-point of the their horned which gathered above the eyes. Instead of standard humanoid ears, the Chobe possessed coral-like hearing which doubled the standard hearing range of a normal Human and instead of eye brows; the slit-like blue eyes were surrounded by bone-coloured ridges which formed a pattern around the eyes. Additionally, just above and below to the side of each eye, stretched two thin, long bone structures which made up another mart of their horn structure protecting that extended cranium. Finally, the main feature of the Chobe, the bone-structured horns, extended upwards and back over the large Chobe cranium into extended points which lengthened the side of each tip of both horns.
Tribalt was the half-human half-Chobe Helms Officer of the Carthage. He was, quite literally, half-way between Human and Chobe. He did not possess the Chobe-like facial features, with the exception of the coral-like ears and his dark blue skin, and him looking more human than others, but he did possess the horns of the Chobe to his cranium which, whilst still bigger than normal Humans, was still smaller than those of a standard Chobe. How he ended up like that remains a mystery to everyone, even Tribalt himself.
"They may know about the anomaly, open a channel to the Qualon vessel," the Captain ordered, an order which was immediately carried out.
The viewscreen filled with the golden, heavily ridged bald face of what was apparently a Qualon. Its head appeared bulky and there was no external distinguishable feature like the Chobe, with the only exception being the heavy ridges in its skin. The rest of the face appeared normal, including humanoid ears, but the golden face and the heavy ridges threw off any kind of standard humanoid look.
"You are trespassing in Qualon space, leave immediately, or your vessel will be seized by the Qualon Confederacy," the Qualon Captain demanded in a low toned voice.
"This is Captain Alex Ooiue of the Federation starship U.S.S. Carthage. If you have observed us coming through the anomaly, you know full well we aren't supposed to be here. Did you open the portal, or are we looking in the wrong place?" Captain Ooiue bluntly asked, not wanting to waste time in getting to the point.
"It does not matter; you are trespassing in Qualon space, and we have given you a warning. Under Qualon jurisdiction, we have authorization to seize your vessel and everyone aboard. All of your technology now belongs to us," the Qualon Captain announced before closing the channel.
"Shields up; red alert. Grachob, you know the Qualon ships' weaknesses, disable the vessel as best you can, but I don't want them destroyed. We'll likely need them to reopen the anomaly so we can return to our time."
"Aye," Grachob acknowledged.
The Qualon vessel had a bulky main hull that rounded off at the front and angular at the back with two bulky nacelle pylons stretching half way across the hull before the nacelle was attached on the other side. Additionally, the ship had a third pylon, similar to the other two, leading below the hull to a smaller hull section which housed a large deflector array and a rear hanger bay filled with small fighters. These fighters were primarily used as either distraction, to wear down the hostile ships' shields or simply to provide cover for the main vessel itself, but they were small and easily destroyable and wouldn't stand a chance against the Carthage. The Qualons knew this, so they decided to spare the fighters for another day.
The Carthage began its evasive manoeuvres and waited for the Qualon vessel to fire first in order to make sure they didn't start the conflict officially, of which the alien vessel took several seconds to do so that, upon hitting the Carthage, reduced its shield by 19%. A minor hull breach or crack of any kind was expected on the Federation vessel, but the weapon didn't even bleed through the shields at all.
"Captain, this type of Qualon vessel is fairly new in this time period, and it is equipped with a modulating antiproton beam array which can be adjusted on the fly to reduce energy shields or inflict better hull damage; depending on the situation. Judging by the reduction in shields and the lack of hull damage, I'd say the Qualons have opted to get our shields down first," Grachob informed the Captain.
"Target that weapon and fire," the Captain ordered.
The Carthage's attempt to breach the Qualons' shields were more effective than they realised, making the crew of the Carthage realise they were facing an enemy with inferior technology. It didn't take before the Qualons attempted communications again.
"Sir; the Qualon vessel is hailing us," reported Operations officer Lt. Loza.
"Stand down, Tactical; on screen," but before the viewscreen became filled with the golden face of the Qualon Captain, Grachob had an objection to make.
"Captain, these Qualons attempted to have our ship captured and our people experimented on! We shouldn't listen to them!" the Chobe loudly voiced.
"And we don't, we'll never get back to the future. Besides, the Carthage outmatches them. I know you and the Qualons have history, a very long history, but if you raise an objection like that again based on a clouded judgement, I'm putting you on report. Understood?" the Captain firmly settled on. He knew instantaneously why Grachob would raise an objection like this, and he warned him not to do it again; both as an order and as sound advice.
"...yes... sir..." Grachob reluctantly agreed, still furious that they had spared the Qualon vessel at all.
"Now as I was saying; on screen."
The Qualon Captain's ridged golden face fill the viewscreen once again. "It appears we underestimated you. We apologise for any inconsideration we caused you, perhaps we can discuss your circumstances on your ship? I'm sure that would be beneficial to you," the Qualon suggested.
"Why would we agree to that? You attempted to take over my ship and initiated hostile action."
"Because we know how to send you home."
With that last statement, the Captain knew he didn't have a choice. The Qualon had backed him into a diplomatic corner, something even an Ambassador would find difficulty in navigating out of. As a result, he was forced to agree to let the Qualon Captain, with two of his subordinates, on board.
