IV

When Luke and Picard arrived on the bridge, the Jedi Master saw that Han and Chewie had beaten them there. Han looked a little unsteady on his feet, and Chewie had a distinctly surly air about him. It didn't show in his expression, which was as inscrutable as ever, but Luke could feel irritation rippling off the Wookiee in steady waves.

"You two okay?" he asked as he moved to stand with them to the right of the captain's chair, where Picard took his seat.

"Turns out green is pretty strong," Han said, his expression bleary.

Chewie rumbled something the universal translator chose not to touch, followed by, "Geordi is a chess natural."

Luke opened his mouth, found he had nothing to contribute to the discussion, closed it.

"Mr. Data, report," Picard said, his tone of voice suggesting that he would be most pleased if the visitors would kindly shut up now.

"The anomaly has continued to grow at a steady rate since its rapid expansion at the time of the Millennium Falcon's arrival," Data told him. "Two minutes and thirty-six seconds ago, the tachyon and gamma ray output of the anomaly spiked again, just as it did when the Falcon breached it, but many orders of magnitude higher. I moved the ship out to a safe distance before contacting you."

"When will we be able to determine the type of ship breaching?" Picard asked.

"The tachyons are making it impossible to get a solid lock on anything within three hundred thousand kilometers of the event horizon," an officer Luke didn't know reported from his station. "If this follows the same pattern as the emergence of the Falcon, once the ship's cleared the anomaly completely we'll be able to get a reading."

Luke reached out with the Force, trying to get a sense of what was approaching, but he almost immediately recoiled from the strange energies of the anomaly. He blinked as he realized he had fallen to one knee and was holding a hand to his right temple.

"You okay, kid?" Han asked, concerned. Luke felt the attention of the rest of the bridge's occupants center on him as well.

"I tried to get a feeling for what's out there with the Force," Luke replied, straightening up. "It wasn't fun."

"Are you alright?" Troi asked him. "Do you need to go to sickbay?"

"No, I'm okay. I just won't try that again." Luke grimaced. "All I could tell was that whatever's coming… it's big."

As if the universe had been waiting for just such a statement to herald the new arrival, space in front of the anomaly twisted and warped dramatically before snapping back into focus, revealing –

"What the hell is that?" Will exclaimed, unconsciously rising from his seat.

Luke felt the blood draining from his face. "That's a Super Star Destroyer," he said, feeling numb. "I thought they were all accounted for."

"Yeah. Me too," Han seconded, looking just as pale as Luke felt.

"Tactical analysis, Mr. Data!" Picard snapped, his composure wavering only for a moment.

"The vessel measures nineteen kilometers in length," Data replied. "Its hull is composed of an unknown alloy which seems comparable in tensile and ablative strength to duranium. Readings show over five thousand weapon emplacements of varying types; power levels suggest that though they are individually weak compared to our phasers, their sheer numbers could easily overwhelm our shields. The ship also has a shield system similar in design and power to our own. Seventy-five thousand life-forms aboard."

Picard turned to Luke, clearly shaken. "You have more than one vessel like this in your galaxy?"

"The New Republic commands one we captured," Luke replied. "Apart from that, we only know of five others that were ever built, and they've all been destroyed. Or so we thought."

"Every time we turn around it seems like another one of these damn things pops up," Han growled. "Where the hell are they finding these things?"

"Sir, we are being hailed," Data reported.

"On screen," Picard said, standing and tugging down his uniform.

The view of the massive ship was immediately replaced with a grainy, low-resolution picture of a Rodian sitting in a command chair, wearing what was clearly a civilian knockoff of an admiral's uniform. The Rodian's large, black eyes narrowed in an expression of pleasure, and his mouthparts clenched in the Rodian version of a grin.

"Alvarro?" Han sputtered. "What?"

Picard, who had been about to speak, shot Han a withering glance before starting again. "I'm Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Federation starship Enterprise. Please state your –"

"I," the Rodian said, his voice translated into appropriately menacing Basic, "am Alvarro Griska, master of the Super Star Destroyer Hammerfist. You have one minute to give me your unconditional surrender and turn the men under your protection over to me."

"You pirate, where the hell did you get that ship?" Han shouted at him, preempting Picard again. "There's no way you built that thing!"

"Solo," Alvarro laughed. "I bought it, if you must know. You'd be amazed what you can buy when you have a big enough pile of money."

"No wonder your damn dealers cheat!"

"Mr. Solo," Picard told him through clenched teeth, "control your outbursts or I will have you removed from the bridge." He turned to Alvarro. "I'm afraid I don't know who you are or why you want custody of my guests, but I'm afraid I must deny that request. Nor will I grant you a surrender of any kind. I do not recognize your authority, regardless of whatever vessel you may command."

"Human, I am taking those men prisoner to give me leverage over the New Republic," Alvarro sneered. "The only question is how intact I leave your puny little ship. The answer lies in your hands."

"Mr. Data, end transmission," Picard said. Data cut the com line; the image of Alvarro was replaced with the sight of his massive ship rolling to bring its enormous broadsides to bear. "Get us out of here immediately. Warp two."

"Aye, sir."

Luke felt the deck thrum beneath his feat as the Enterprise activated some kind of faster-than-light drive. The ship clearly didn't leave normal space, but the stars blurred to lines of coherent light on the screen and the Hammerfist was instantly left behind.

Picard turned back to the three of them. "Gentlemen, we need to talk. Now."

A few minutes later, Picard leaned back in his chair in the conference room as Luke finished outlining the basic tactical capabilities of the ship they faced. It was not an encouraging report.

"Counselor," Picard asked Troi, "what could you sense of this Alvarro person? Was he as confident in his ship's abilities as he appeared?"

"Yes, absolutely," Troi replied. "As far as I could tell, he wasn't hiding anything."

"There's a first," Will commented wryly.

"The main question we are now faced with, then, is whether or not his ship is capable of catching the Enterprise," Picard stated. "How, precisely, does your hyperdrive function in comparison to a warp drive?"

The three guests all gave him a blank look. "Nobody except dedicated techs know how a hyperdrive works," Chewbacca spoke up. "We just know how to repair one if it fails."

"Well, how fast does a ship with a hyperdrive go?" Geordi asked. "At maximum warp, the Enterprise can cover about two and a half light-years per hour."

Solo coughed. "Well, the Falcon's got a top-of-the-line drive, which even Alvarro's Super Star Destroyer might not have, but it takes us… I'd say four or five days to head from Coruscant to the Outer Rim."

Luke leaned forward. "Coruscant's in the galactic core," he explained. "The Outer Rim is the edge of the galaxy."

Everyone sat there for a moment, sharing in a stunned silence at the incredible speed of such a device.

"But there's no way he's gonna follow you with that giant fancy ship of his," Solo said. "Just from what I saw on the bridge, you guys don't leave realspace when you use your drives. Hyperdrive puts you in hyperspace, and if you come out of hyperspace without knowing exactly where you'll be, you could end up in the middle of a star. There aren't any hyperspace charts of your galaxy, so Alvarro'll stay near the anomaly. He knows we have to go back to it to get home."

"And we must return to the anomaly and reverse its growth if we wish to save Deep Space Four," Data pointed out. "Therefore, we must find a way to combat the Hammerfist."

Solo snorted. "You've got one ship. The last time we killed a Super Star Destroyer it took two battle fleets to do it."

Picard shot him a glare. "The Enterprise may not be a match for this vessel in conventional warfare, Mr. Solo, but I believe we possess several distinct tactical advantages." He tapped his combadge. "Picard to…" He searched in vain for the sensor officer's name, gave up. "Picard to Sensors. Do you have a full report for us?"

"Yes, sir," the man replied. "Right away."

A moment later the officer entered the conference room and brought up the scans he'd done on the screen. Picard stared hard at him, trying to commit his features to memory. Brown eyes, curly hair, a beard much like Will's. "Thank you, Ensign…?"

The officer looked vaguely embarrassed. "Routh, sir."

"Thank you, Ensign Routh. Proceed."

Routh nodded and gestured at a wireframe analysis he'd compiled from the sensor data of the Hammerfist. "Before we had to leave, I managed to get a detailed enough scan of the enemy ship to pinpoint several key points. The two domes on the command tower are the shield generators. The ship's also got multiple large reactor cores along its length, and I picked up a lot of precisely regulated energy transfer activity midway along the spine. That suggests a computer core to me."

"Does this analysis agree with your knowledge of these vessels?" Picard asked his guests.

"Pretty much, yeah," Luke said. "There's no way anything in our universe could take out the shield generators without having to kill the shields the old-fashioned way first. Well, except a Death Star, but if there's one of those out there we don't know about…"

Picard raised an eyebrow. "Star Destroyers, Death Stars… Interesting nomenclature."

"They're Imperial designations," Chewbacca said. "Designed to inspire fear." The bitterness in his voice was palpable even through the translator.

"Captain," Data said, "based on the mass of the enemy ship, as well as their significant firepower advantage, I believe the best course of action would be to sabotage the vessel from within, disabling these key points in order to give us the upper hand. It would take hours to dismantle it traditionally."

"Agreed," Picard replied. "Mr. Routh, what kind of sabotage might we conceivably effect?"

"Well, judging from the size of everything involved, standard explosive charges probably won't make a difference," Routh replied. "If we could get a quantum torpedo in there…"

"The shields are too strong even for quantum torpedoes," Will disagreed.

Picard leaned forward. "Could we possibly beam a torpedo through their shields?"

"It is possible, sir," Data replied. "Judging from Mr. Routh's analysis of the vessel's shield system, it is not specifically designed to inhibit beaming, as ours are. We would still require pattern enhancers at the target sites, but it would be doable."

"Sorry," Luke said, "but – beaming?"

"We have a technology called a transporter beam that allows us to move objects or personnel from one place to another almost instantaneously," Picard explained. "The process is generally blocked by energy shields; however, since you do not possess the technology yourselves, it gives us an advantage in penetrating this ship's defenses."

"So what we're looking at," Will said, "is getting a team into the ship, where they can plant pattern enhancers at each target site. The Enterprise engages the ship in the meantime and tries to stay alive long enough to beam the torpedoes aboard for the sabotage."

"It seems like the soundest plan available on short notice," Data noted. "If we delay, the ship may move toward Deep Space Four and pose a more immediate threat than the anomaly's expansion."

"Then it's settled," Picard said, "unless any of you have an objection or something to add?"

Solo shook his head. "If you can actually pull this off, it should work. You're gonna have to worry about the Hammerfist's fighter screen, though. He'll have snubfighters loaded, and if they get enough proton torpedoes off at once they could put a dent in your ship."

"We can fly defense against them," Chewbacca said, "but Luke should probably be part of the sabotage team, which leaves us a man down for one of the gun turrets."

"Mr. Data should be part of the sabotage team as well," Picard observed, "so I'll need Will here to take the con. Counselor?"

Troi shook her head. "I'd prefer to coordinate with the sabotage team from the Enterprise. If Worf were here I'm sure he'd be willing to go, but…" She looked past Picard. "Do you have something to add, Ensign?"

Picard turned, along with everyone else, to look at Ensign Routh, who suddenly looked like he'd been caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar.

He coughed. "Well, I… I've spent a few hundred hours in the holodeck running pre-twenty-second-century spaceflight simulations. Back when they had laser turrets." He shot an embarrassed glance at Picard. "Strictly during off-duty hours, sir."

"I see," Picard said, trying to hide his amusement. "We can have a subordinate relieve you if your services would be better utilized on the Falcon, Ensign."

"Sir, I –" Routh stopped talking and ducked as Solo chucked a comlink at his head.

"Kid's got decent reflexes," Solo said with a chuckle. "I'll take him."

Routh shot him a dirty look as he picked the comlink up off the floor. "If you think it's best, sir," he said, turning back to Picard.

"Frankly, Ensign, I doubt we will need a concerted sensor analysis during the battle," Picard said. "We won't need you to tell us that we are outnumbered, outgunned, and extremely outmassed."

"Then welcome aboard, kid," Solo said with a lopsided grin. "Chewie'll show you which button fires the guns."

Picard rose from his chair, headed for the bridge. They had a plan, a time limit, and the fate of a solar system resting on their shoulders.

He could only hope they would prove equal to the task.