Chapter 3
It all began in the morning. It was around seven o'clock and people were going to work this Monday. Danny had his day off and Grace had school vacation so they decided to visit the swimming pool in downtown. It was small and not very noticeable between all these huge skyscrapers. Well, there were skyscrapers but nobody knew that soon there wouldn't be going to be. Danny and Grace stood outside waiting in the queue.
Everybody walked quietly down the streets, cars were driving carefully with their swearing drivers. Suddenly, Danny only saw a green flash light and everything went as horrific as in every single catastrophic movie. The green light hit the middle of the street which exploded into thousands of splitters of asphalt that were thrown through the air. People screamed and try to escape the blowing rocks, they fell down on the people, made them as thin as stamps. Danny took Grace on her arm and ran with her toward the swimming pool building to be safe from flying rocks. Then, there was nothing.
People came out of their shelters again and looked at the huge hole in the street and the debris lying around. They looked up into the sky to see where it came from. 'There!' Grace suddenly shouted and pointed into the sky. Danny gazed up and saw a shadow coming out of the blue sky. It came closer and he heard people yelling and running when they realized that it was a huge space ship taking course down to Earth. Danny held his daughter close to him and together they ran back into the building avoiding to be overrun by panicking people. Danny saw more flash lights, heard more explosions but right now there were no asphalt pieces flying around. They weren't firing on this street again but somewhere very near. He heard the alarm of the fire brigade going off. He pressed his daughter to him. Suddenly, Earth trembled and there was a huge jerk and without thinking they both ran off to the streets for the thousandth of time.
He turned around just to see the huge hall collapsing. It was just falling down as if there was no ground. It went all dusty immediately and everybody threw himself down to the floor for not having such a huge area to be hit on with something. Danny covered his little daughter and couldn't believe what was just happening. It felt like the end of the world. Perhaps it was, he thought.
When sight got clear again he whispered to his daughter to lie still. He looked up and saw people lying next to him, he didn't know if they were still alive or already dead. He heard screams that were far away and he saw flash lights, far away. Another district was under attack. But who? That was his next question. Who attacked America in the middle of the day. He thought about Al Qaeda, perhaps a second 9/11. Perhaps Hamas or any other terrorist group. Which nation had such weapons? He waited for eternity and when the other citizens started to stand up he did so, too. No more light, no more destruction. Danny looked around. There was dust on the street, the buildings were no more than ruins and debris and rubble was shattered everywhere. As far as he could see this destruction was leading down to the street. He saw injured people on the streets, trying to crawl somewhere for help.
It was all silent, as silent as it had never been before in this city. He heard a paper flying through the air, he heard the rubble falling from the people standing up. Everybody gazed up to the sky, expecting more flying objects. Danny helped his little girl up and cleaned her a bit with his hands. She was dusty and had minor injuries. Blood was flowing down her left arm. Danny had a closer look and then looked into her small, blue eyes. They showed fear and she obviously didn't understand what had just happened. She looked around, at all those bodies. Danny had never wanted her to see dead bodies. He sighed and softly touched her head. She looked at him, she said nothing but asked about what happened. She's so young, Danny thought and hugged her deeply. They stood there for over a minute, just hugging each other, until the silence of nobody saying a word was broken by sirens.
Sirens of police and of ambulance. Danny took his daughter's hand and they walked over to the ambulance car.
Police officers were shouting and firefighters were running around trying to help the helpless. Danny just watched his daughter getting medical care. She did not cry, she did not show anything in her face. He sighed and looked around. This damn big cities, he thought.
'Emergency power reserves are working again', Harry Kim explained in the briefing three hours later.
'Meanwhile, the Cardassians have fired Torpedos on the surface. We take along that the governments of USA, the Cardassian's target, have no idea who have fired on them although the Cardassians may have appeared on their screens' Tuvok added.
Janeway nodded. She had no idea how to continue working.
'Sorry that I am late' Tom said when he came in after having opened the automatic door by hand. Like them, most of the systems were still off line. Turbolifts were replaced by Jefferies tubes (wow, I never knew it was written like that; looked it up on memory-alpha).
'Captain, I have bad news' he added and sat down on his chair.
'Most of the Cardassian crew beamed down on Earth' he explained after Janeway's surprised look. Janeway needed time to realize what happened.
'Do we have transporter energy, B'Elanna?' she asked.
The Engineer nodded. 'We may transport up to three persons down but I cannot promise to beam them up directly afterwards.'
'We're going down, too' Janeway decided.
'Seven, Tom, you're going to accompany me. The rest of you will work on regaining the main power system. And if you managed to do so, try to either get the Cardassian ship under your control or destroy them.'
'Captain?' Chakotay asked surprised about that last order.
'You heard me. Earth is in danger and the Federation as well.'
'Perhaps it will help us to understand if you tell us how you know. We have no contact with Starfleet commando' Chakotay mentioned.
'It is not necessary for you to know. I will tell you when this mission is over and as long as you don't start a mutiny we have nothing else to worry about. Trust me' Janeway said and left the briefing room, followed by Seven and Tom Paris.
It was late night again and Danny actually should be sitting in the flight back to Hawaii. Instead, all flights from and to and inside the whole American continent have been cancelled. The attacks were currently in the news, everything right now was hell. Danny and Grace sat in the overcrowded hospital once more and watched injured being taken care of. His cell phone was broken and he knew that his wife was going to kill him after what has happened. He tried to talk to Grace and calmed her down. As much as he could.
They sat in the waiting room of the huge hospital and it was overcrowded inside. Nobody talked but stared at the huge plasma screen which repeated the attack again and again on CNN. Suddenly the TV went black and back to the studio again. 'I apologize for this short interruption but now the president of the United States want to speak to you tonight' the news speaker explained and the screen switched over to a faked background with the flag of the US hanging in the background. The president stepped in front of the scene.
'Good evening my dear fellow citizens,…'
'Which time are we exactly in?' Janeway asked. 'The year 2012' Tony said and pointed to a huge screen on the street. They all were clothed in usual clothes from Earth, 21st century and Seven wore a hat that covered her implants and gloves for her hand. 'The Cardassians are detected fifty meter in front of us' Tom said and they walked on and arrived at the hospital.
They saw a Cardassian standing outside, as a guard if anything went wrong. In contrary to the Starfleet officers, he didn't hide his unusual neck and face and therefore earned a lot of suspicious glances of the citizens. Without attracting attention, Janeway, Tom and Seven walked on to him and stunned him with a phaser when they stood just in front of him. Nobody noticed it as they were all occupied for getting somewhere safe while Earth was going down. Together, the three Starfleet Officers pulled the heavy Cardassian to the back of the hospital where nobody could watch them. He came to consciousness again and Janeway kneed down to him.
'What are you planning? Why are you here on Earth?' she asked.
'I won't say anything.'
'Why do you want to destroy Earth?' Tom asked.
'Because you have allowed the Bajorans entering the Federation.'
'Actually, this is none of your business' Seven mentioned in her neutral way.
'It is. It is not their right to-' But before he could finish his sentence he was beamed upon his Cardassian ship again.
Janeway sighed.
'Let's enter the hospital' she said and they walked in through the back door.
It was overcrowded and the three split up so that they could search faster. It wasn't difficult for Janeway to make out a bunch of Cardassians standing on Earth in 21st century and she walked toward them. They seemed to discuss something but when she came nearer she noticed that one of them was kneeing at the table. It looked like he was planting a device under the table. Suddenly, all of them were beamed up again. The people, the injured and the doctors, suddenly stopped moving as these strange people disappeared into nowhere. Janeway directly kneed down on the table.
'It's an explosive device' she muttered to herself and hoped that nobody heard her. She didn't care about temporary prime directive anymore and used her communicator: 'Janeway to Bridge. Right next to me there is an explosive device. Can you detect it?' 'Positive' Harry Kim answered. 'I beam it up.' Janeway saw the bomb disappearing and when she looked up she saw a lot of people looking at her. 'Don't care' she muttered to herself. She had just saved Earth.' She hailed Tom and Seven and five minutes later they were back on the ship.
'What kind of explosive device was it?' Tom asked when they entered the bridge.
'We have no idea since it exploded directly when we beamed it into space' Tuvok explained.
'Great. And how do we get back in our time?' Harry Kim asked. 'The wormhole disappeared.'
Janeway looked at Seven. She seemed to have no idea either.
'By the way, we destroyed the Cardassian cruiser. They had to have the shields down to beam their guys up' Chakotay explained. Janeway nodded. Great. And what now? 'Captain, a ship just appeared from nowhere' Harry Kim suddenly said. 'It's the Relativity.'
Janeway smiled. It was the first time she was glad to see Braxton. He would bring her home and tell her never to play with time again. But on the other side it meant, that Federation still existed in 29th century. And this was the best message to hear even if it meant to listen to whatever this captain told her and how angry he was.
Okay, I have ended it far too shortly but I assume nobody has read until here anyway. If you did, please review. And I promise that my next story is going to be better.
