THE PURSUIT-

"Stardate 6016.1, Captain's Log supplemental. We are now twenty-two minutes from Sol. Long range scanners are on maximum as we attempt to find the Romulan ship. No signs yet, but we are proceeding at Warp 9.12 and hopefully have outpaced the ship and will reach Earth before it does." Kirk deactivated the recorder and walked over to Spock's Science Station.

"Spock, what do you think?" The Vulcan slightly raised his eyebrow. "There is an 89.5% probability that we should be able to reach Earth before Commander Charvon's ship. But only a 29.3% we can intercept the ship before it attempts time travel." "Why is that?" Kirk asked. Spock explained, "The ship is unconcerned with detection, or even attack, in our time period, merely speed.. Speed it will need to attempt a slingshot maneuver around the Sun and pass beyond the time-warp threshold. As such, it will very difficult to stop." Kirk pondered this. "What can we do?"

Spock thought for a moment. "Likely, we will have to follow it on a similar course and trajectory, and intercept the ship when it emerges from time-warp. At that point, the 'Metka' will be in a weak position and we can defeat, and if we must, destroy it." "Yes," Kirk began, "But we don't know what time-period in the past it's aiming for." He considered possibilities. "It could be attempting to attack Earth before the Romulan War, perhaps during the Xindi attack, to throw suspicion on them. It could be going back to kill Zephram Cochrane. Hell, it could be going back to blow up Apollo-11 before Armstrong touches down on the Moon." Spock nodded. "Yes, sir. There are numerous scenarios."

The next twenty minutes passed anxiously for the crew of the "Enterprise". The ship sped towards Earth. Emerging from warp some fifty million kilometers from Mars, it scanned towards the third planet and along projected trajectories from Romulan space. "Take us in closer to Earth, Mr. Sulu, " Kirk ordered. "Aye, sir." The ship on full impulse made for the planet. The captain turned to his Science Officer. "Spock? Anything?" The Vulcan shook his head. "Nothing yet, sir. Increasing bandwidth on the….wait. Sir, I have a signal. Possibly a vessel. At fifty million kilometers, 051 mark 115 …cloaked, but I have it localized!"

Kirk spun in his chair, "Sulu, plot an intercept course," The starship turned slightly and accelerated towards the unknown contact. Minutes passed, as Spock read off closing figures. "Forty million kilometers and closing." Chekov looked up from the Navigation console, "Kep'tin, she's making for the Sun." Spock interrupted. "And she's going back to warp. Obviously the vessel has detected us, sir." "Warp speed, Mr. Sulu," Kirk ordered, "Prepare for warp speed combat." The Federation starship leaped into subspace and began to close on the presumed Romulan vessel. As they approached the Sun, the cloak was dropped and a Romulan variant of the Klingon D-7 cruiser became visible.

Spock called again. "Vessel definitely Romulan, and definitely making a slingshot, hyper-warp maneuver around the Sun, sir. Computing trajectory and speed for time-warp factor." "Sir, we're still not within phaser range," Sulu reported. Kirk kept his eye on the Main Viewscreen. "Stay with her, Mr. Sulu." The Helmsman nodded. "Gravimetric warp variable at 615.052, sir," Spock declared, "Time warp initiating. Feeding matching speed and heading into our Helm station." Sulu hit a button and the "Enterprise" began an ultra-high speed maneuver around the Sun; the starship barely 10,000 kilometers above the corona. Shield alerts went off as well as an intense whining sound from the warp engines. The noise became deafening. The "Enterprise" strained at the unbelievable speeds, control boards shorted out. Power meters all went into the red. One last call out from Spock was heard over the drone. "Breaking maneuvers by the Romulan vessel!"