Four
Anton was fuming as he grabbed the rifle from the bed and marched outside his quarters and into the hallway. He looked to his left and then right, and started a quick march towards the turbolift. The lights in the hallway were dimmed to their minimum level – it seemed the ship was barely using any power at all. He approached the lift and slammed the call button. He heard the car stop behind the door and he stepped in. "Commander Bensings quarters." He said quickly. He was having a hard time recalling the deck she resided on. His memory seemed to be failing him in strange areas ever since he had awoken.
"Deck four." The computer responded as the lift stopped and the doors opened. The corridor beyond was in the same shape as the one on his deck – dark. He walked quickly looking at the names on the doors as he went. He finally stopped at her door and pressed the button on the wall. There was no response so he pressed the button below it. The lock disengaged as it read his DNA and the door slid aside. The smell was identical as in his quarters – it smelled of rotting decay. He pushed himself in and saw her in her bed. Her eyes were open but glazed over. "Jesus, Rebecca!" He threw the rifle on the ground and ran to her. Still alive. He checked her pulse with his finger… her body was in worse shape than his. He jumped up and retrieved a medical kit from the underside of her desk and retrieved a hypo. "You're going to have one hell of a crash later but I need you now, Becks." Anton whispered to her as he pressed it to her neck. She was unresponsive for a moment… and then he noticed her breathing increase speed.
She suddenly jumped up and slammed against the wall. "What the hell!?" She said quickly as she backed up away from him, eyes wide. "Oh shit I feel like shit." Rebecca crashed back down to the bed and looked around. "I… you… you were right! We were asleep. How… how long?"
Anton shook his head slowly. "One year, two months."
"You're… you're kidding right?" She asked as she stood up slowly. She almost fell back to the bed as her legs were shaking. She approached the mirror in the bathroom – Anton let her answer her own question as she gazed into the reflection. "I look like an old woman." He heard her say from the other room. "Give… give me a few minutes."
--
Two hours later they had successfully revived the entire command staff and a few of the senior engineering staff. All of them were in horrible shape – but they were at least now on their feet and functioning for the time being. They all walked slowly, approaching main engineering. They could already see something was different about the room as they approached the clear double doors at the end of the hall. After they walked in, they all stopped and observed the alien technology that had been rigged into the Starfleet systems. Lieutenant David Carr stepped foreword and swore under his breath as he stared at the jump drive.
"What the hell did they do to my engines?" He muttered as he turned around to face the command party.
Anton met his gaze and shook his head. "Commander Parcell will stay with you and your crew to assist in the assessment. Don't unhook anything yet – just try to give me more power. I'd like to be able to get some more systems online so we can find out just where the hell we are and what we are facing. Whoever did this to us must think we are still asleep or else they would be on top of us already. See if you can give me at least sensors, shields and communication." Anton looked up at the alien technology attached to the jump drive and shook his head. "And find out how to get that shit off of the drive."
"You got it Captain." Lieutenant Carr nodded.
Anton turned around and pushed foreword back to the turbolift. "Deck one."
A few minutes later they all piled out of the turbolift and took their stations. The panels flicked on slowly. Rebecca leaned down to be eye level with her console.
"Captain, there is a lot of dust on these."
"I noticed that in my quarters. They must have dialed back the life support systems to consume less power." Anton replied as he sat in his chair. A plume of dust poofed out of the cushioning. "Everyone, status report on your individual systems. Just give me a simple break-down. Tactical."
Valdez stared at his panel for a moment before replying. "Nothing is online sir. I can't even pre-charge the shield emitters. Phasers are offline, as are torpedo launchers. I've got red all across the board."
"Lovely." Anton replied. "Helm?"
Ensign Michaels worked his board quickly and read the readouts before he spoke. "Okay I have power to maneuvering thrusters. Impulse is offline, warp is offline, jump is online but non-functional."
Anton turned to his OPS officer, Lieutenant Jaron Temec. "OPS?"
Jaron glanced up at him, then back down to his panel. He took the longest to reply as he sifted through the information being presented before him. "Okay quick breakdown? Environmental is at twenty-percent. The mains are running steady at thirty-percent. The entire power-distribution grid…" He stopped as he saw a new readout on his screen.
"Lieutenant Temec?" Anton asked as he stood up to look at his station.
"Captain… our entire power-distribution grid has been re-routed. It looks like the remaining seventy-percent of power being generated by our jump drive is being routed outside the ship. My system can't track it."
Anton studied his panel and shook his head. "That explains why the jump drive is online but not doing much. All of its power output is being routed to that city." Anton spoke thoughtfully.
"Where are we?" Rebecca asked as she stood up. "Activate the viewscreen." The screen flashed on, revealing the industrial city outside.
"Jesus." Rich Valdez whispered as he stared at the scene beyond the viewer.
"Who did this to us?" Rebecca said suddenly and loudly. "I mean I'm kind-of pissed off about it!"
"Your thoughts are shared." Anton replied as he walked down to face the viewscreen. "Blast up all the external optical feeds, grid view." The screen suddenly divided out showing all views of the ship. Anton pointed to a specific square. "Enhance D-5." The feed changed to a view of the engineering section from the underside of the saucer. There was a massive hole cut into the side of the hull and several large power feeds running out of it.
"Well now we know where our power is going." Rebecca said dryly.
"Now we know why they did this. We probably use forty-percent of the power the jump core provides. Imagine what it could power if used to its full potential." Anton said as he shook his head. "They must have scanned us and decided they wanted our core. We provided no resistance when knocked into the dream state… we're lucky they kept us alive."
"We're going to have one hell of a shit-storm come down on us when we shut off the power to that pipe." Valdez said from his station.
Ensign Michaels swiveled his chair around to face Anton. "I can jump us out of here the minute the core comes back online for jump use. They can come at us all they want, it's not going to do them any good the moment I hit the jump key."
"Only problem with that is, we don't know where we are or who we are dealing with." Rebecca said as she glanced down at Michaels.
"He's got a point though." Anton replied to her. "We're going to have issues with that huge hole in our hull though. Emergency forcefields are going to have a hard time holding that big of a hole closed if we jump into space."
"I'll put us on earth then... or any one of the other thousands of Federation planets on file. A planet-to-planet jump is entirely possible."
"That could work." Rebecca replied slowly. "But how do we come back with the cavalry if we don't know where we are? If we start scanning the stars for a location lock we are going to be noticed in a hurry. And what if we are over the jump line? God knows where they took us, a jump to a Federation planet could be out of range."
Anton shook his head and sat down again in his seat. "So many factors." He muttered.
"Carr to Contreras." Anton looked up and smiled.
"I see you got intraship communications online."
"It was simple… they installed some piece of shit dampener into the system. I pulled it and systems started coming back online left and right."
Rebecca suddenly looked worried. "How many systems, David?" Anton looked over at her and realized where she was going with it. He looked over quickly at Lieutenant Temec who seemed to read his mind.
"The mains just jumped up to normal. That power link is severed." He said quickly.
"Well…" Carr said slowly, "…pretty much everything."
"Ah shit." Anton said as he looked over to Valdez. "Do we have shields?"
"Partial. Still no phasers… but…" He looked up and smiled, "Torpedo launchers are online."
"Shields up!" Anton said quickly as he looked down at Ensign Michaels. "Michaels – drive status?"
"Just went into the green sir. Give the word and I can get us out of here."
"Standby for a jump to any unoccupied m-class planet in Federation space... get us as close to home as you can."
"Yes sir!" He replied.
"Captain, sensors are picking up several small ships are approaching our location!" Valdez said quickly as his panel chirped.
"Lieutenant Temec, initiate an intersteallar scan. Try to determine our location – and hurry!"
"I'm on it!" Temec replied quickly.
"Mister Valdez, arm as many torpedos as you see fit. Standby to blow everything around us to hell." Anton said quickly and coldly.
"With pleasure sir. Although if we start shooting at the base of these buildings they are liable to fall right on top of us."
"Ensign Michaels isn't going to let that happen." Anton said as he glanced down at the helm station. He saw Michaels nod his head without looking back. He was still working his panel.
"The ships are almost on top of us!" Valdez said as he consulted his panel.
"Mister Temec?" Anton looked up to the ops station.
"I've got as good of a position guess as I'm going to get sir!" He said quickly. "I think I can get us back!"
"I'm going to take your word on that Jaron. Mister Valdez - do some damage!" Anton gripped his chair as everyone started to work their panels.
A brief second later multiple explosions rocked the ship. There was a bright flash and the viewscreen changed to a beautiful green field and blue sky. Anton stood up and nodded at Ensign Michaels.
"Fancy flying. Where did you put us?"
"Africa. My grandparents property… only place I knew the coordinates of an unoccupied piece of dirt on earth."
Despite what they had just been through, Anton laughed out loud. "Well you better give them a call and let them know they are going to have a crew of two hundred for dinner tonight."
"I'll get on that sir." Michaels returned his grin.
Anton shook his head and then turned to Rich Valdez. "How many torpedos did you use?"
Rich looked up from his panel and smiled wearily. "Half of our compliment."
"Jesus!" Rebecca gasped slightly. "That's over three-hundred!"
Anton raised his eyebrows. "How'd you do that?"
"Long-range transporters with the warheads set to auto-detonate. Sir, you did say 'do some damage.'"
Anton nodded. "That I did." He felt his stomach growl and was suddenly reminded of being in stasis for a year. "Someone get me Starfleet onscreen."
--
Four days later the Alpha Sinlari, Intrepied, Northridge, and Bellerophon all completed a jump together and found themselves approaching a planet with a single orbiting space station. The station was quickly overrun by Starfleet Commandos only to discover it was deserted. The computers had been wiped clean. They then dispatched shuttles to the surface of the planet, discovering the massive destruction by the three-hundred colorite torpedoes, courtesy of the Alpha Sinlari. The rest of the industrial city had been deserted… nobody to be found anywhere. All of the technology had been stripped with no indication of who they had been dealing with.
The End
