Chapter 1

Lt. Commander Data looked at the bleeping lights on the personal console of the Captain's chair on the bridge. It was his turn to do the graveyard shift. Rather than being not too thrilled about it as many would be, he was rather indifferent to it. It made no difference to him whether he defrag and do self maintenance at this hour, or another. He was impervious to the human need to sleep according to a circadian rhythm. Plus, he was happy to do it, as the crew was taking their most recent post to patrol their territory in the furthest reaches of their Federation as a chance to rest their weary minds. But Data's ability to rest unaffected by circadian rhythms wasn't the issue at hand.

"Commander, there is a general incoming communiqué originating from an unknown vessel in the Vergana System."

Data processed the information over in his computerized brain. The Vergana system was 2 hours away at maximum warp. "Put it through," he instructed the Ensign at the communications station, trying not to let his contemplation escape in his tone.

An android he might be, but ever since he had the emotion chip installed, he found it difficult to keep some of the emotions he was experiencing from coming out in his speech. He envied Picard for his ability to keep neutral tones in his speech when commanding. Mind you, Data told himself, Picard had much more experience with said activity.

Data watched; his interest peaked. There was a visual portion to the message which the Ensign brought to the viewing screen. The image in front of him was nothing he'd seen before. The back drop of the scene was unmistakably a bridge. The layout of such seemed to be rather universal regardless of the species. But the technology and architecture of the design was completely foreign to him. He searched his internal processing data bank for any file that resembled what was in front of him. Milliseconds passed, and his search was complete rendering nothing. Knowing his search perimeter would have to be widened, Data focused his attention on the face that was delivering the message.

Again, his data bank had no file matching the visage of the alien he was studying. There was no mistaking that the individual was of the feminine sex of her species with the angles and shape of her face, the lines of her neck. There was some kind of tattoo or birthmark that graced the corners of her eyes, and those lines were soft and gentle. Still, Data had no information stored in his positronic brain that was compatible with such marks. And then, there was the unmistakable bust indicative of female. Of course, Data could recall some species that were unisex, and some in which the females were hard to differentiate from the males, but that was beside the point.

He refocused on the face that was staring at him. She had a very graceful jaw line and a cheek bone structure that most would associate with royalty. A top her head, in the place of hair was a crest of darkly colored feathers. She was covered with silver colored armor that seemed to move with her instead of hinder her like one would expect from any type of metal armor. Her eyes were white, reminding him somewhat of the pupil and iris-less eyes of his friend Geordi. However, the alien's eyes, although lacking the definition of iris and pupil, seemed fixed on some visual stimulus on the alien ship before they turned to face the screen. Even though Data knew she had no idea who she would be speaking to, her eyes seemed to burn at him with some sort of intensity.

"Uck talen mal treninin merek la'al sus'ni'on!" Her voice seemed insistent, pleading, but rather calm, although neither the Enterprise's computer nor Data recognized the language. However, there was no mistaking that this was a distress call, as the bridge crew of the Enterprise all cringed when the unmistakable images of a console exploding filled the bridge of the alien ship, sending bodies across the deck followed by screams of agony and surprise.

The message from the female alien continued, and thought its words were not at all understood, the message in it was clear. They needed help.

"Ensign Moran, how old is that distress call?" Data queried.

Moran tapped some keys on the console in front of him and furrowed his brow. Data was not sure why concentrating made humans contort their faces so, but it was an action he mimicked well before he gained access to emotions. "Sir, the signal is approximately 1 hour and 20 minutes old."

Data nodded at the Ensign and tapped his communicator on his chest. "Data to Captain Picard."

The blip-blip sound of the communicator being activated on the other end sounded and Picard's voice followed. "Picard, here. What is it, Commander Data?"

"Permission to alter our course to the Vergana System to answer a distress call of an unknown alien vessel?" He questioned.

"Permission granted," the Captain's voice chimed through. "However, due to the unknown nature of our callers, let's approach the situation with caution, Data. Proceed at maximum warp, but raise us to yellow alert."

Data did not have to tell the security officer to make the necessary arrangements as the lights on the side paneling of the deck pulsed with a yellow glow. He knew that the senior members of the Enterprise crew would be arriving on the bridge, shortly. So much for their rest, Data thought to himself.

Then he left instructions with the communications officer to send a response, letting the alien ship know there was help on the way.

Several light years away, lying on a burning bridge of a Shi'ar Imperial Cruiser, Gambit's consciousness started to slip, a blackness starting to overtake his mind. Stay awake, homme. He instructed himself.

He desperately thought about the distress call Lilandra had sent out hours ago. No one had answered, so far. Why? Surely her Empire would come running to the aide of their Majestrix. What the hell was taking them so long?

And then, the fog of the darkness that started to overtake him was interrupted by a sound bringing Remy hope. "This is the Federation Starship Enterprise. We have received your request for aide, and are in a course to rendezvous."

His heart skipped a beat, and somehow his body managed to find some extra adrenaline to combat his urge to faint. The words were in English. Using his new found energy reserve, Gambit put all of his effort into dragging himself to his feet to get to the communications array. He needed to get an established communication with this ship, let them know their hail had been received.

His hand grasped the console, and he used it as leverage to pull himself up, but the console was fuzzy. Rather, his vision was blurry and blurring even more. Behind him, he heard Lilandra yelling. Through his spatial awareness, he could sense one of these beings that had boarded the ship nearing Lilandra.

Distracted from his original intention of sending off a communiqué, Gambit turned to face what was now a hand to hand combat between Lilandra and the enemy. He cringed as he heard the snap of a bone. Mustering up any ounce of strength he had left, he picked up some debris that was lying in amplitude across the deck floor. Now he had a weapon.

He hit the attacker squarely on the head from behind. Nothing. Merde alors!! What did it take? Any firepower they put at these guys was only effective for so long, before they adapted to it, and hand to hand combat seemed useless. They were strong.

Gambit took another swing at the creature, using the piece of debris as if it were some kind of sword. At least this time, the attacker became distracted from his original target and was now focused on Remy.

And then it spoke in some horribly empty voice. "Resistance is futile."