Author's Note: Hello all you lovely people! I apologize for not posting last week as well as this chapter being shorter then my normal chapters I posted in the past. It's not that I got lazy I was having a major writers block because I wasn't sure how I wanted this chapter (along with going into the movie) to be written.
Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek! All rights belong to JJ Abrams (movie references) and Gene Roddenberry (TOS references). Any grammatical errors or mistakes you find I hope you can forgive me! Happy reading everyone!
After what happened with Admiral Marcus and the incident with our ship being trapped in Klingon space, I made sure that we did extra checks just before we left any station. Didn't matter if we came from a Federation space station or an unknown planet. Any time our ship was docked, just before we would take off back into the black abyss I made sure that our crew was the last people to do final checks on the Enterprise after running it by with Captain Kirk and Admiral Pike of course. Only our most skilled and trusted personnel would be in charge of the final checks, and only three were chosen specifically by the Captain and the Admiral.
So with the help of both Khan and Scotty we would do the final checks and we wouldn't go into space until Jim got the stamp of approval from all three of us.
"Allyson, warp core is functioning just as she should be. I've double and triple checked as requested, no leaks or anything out of the ordinary that I could see that was personally tampered with." Khan called in to my station just as I was in the process of doing a few checks myself.
"She's good to fly, Ally!" Scotty chimed in at the same time.
"We've gotten the green light from both Chief Engineer Scotty and Engineer Singh, Captain." I informed Jim as I brought up the schematics of the Enterprise.
"And what of Commander DeLuca?" Jim asked with a sly smile.
"Final approval? Everything looks good on my end." I nodded my head, content with what I was reading. "Sending the go ahead to Yorktown base to disengage the locks. Standby to take us out Mister Sulu."
"Aye, Commander." Sulu's voice answered as I contacted the people manning the station that oversaw the ships that were going in and out of the base.
Answering my orders, the moorings that were keeping the Enterprise docked were immediately retracted as we separated from the space dock. It was then that Sulu took control of the ship, thrusters firing up as we took off into space, and while Sulu flew the Enterprise toward the nebula I kept a constant watch in case there were any slight changes throughout the ship.
"Lieutenant Uhura, open a ship-wide channel." Jim called, immediately jumping into his duties as our captain the second he got comfortable in the captain's chair.
"Yes, Captain." Nyota said as she moved about her station, flipping the switches above her console as a whistle from the captain's chair notified Jim that he was free to speak when he was ready.
"Attention, crew of the Enterprise. Our mission is straightforward. Rescue a crew stranded on a planet in uncharted space. Our trajectory will take us through an unstable nebula, one which will disable all communications with Starfleet. We're gonna be on our own. The Enterprise has something no other ship in the fleet has, you." From the corner of my eye I saw Jim take a glance around to the crew stationed around the bridge as myself and Sulu concentrated on maneuvering the ship through the uncharted nebula. I was monitoring the space around our ship, making sure to keep clear of any of the large objects that we were moving past while Sulu kept the Enterprise steady as we moved forward. "And as we've come to understand, there is no such thing as the unknown, only the temporarily hidden. Kirk out."
"Easy there, Mister Sulu…careful." I called to the man as together we navigated through the nebula, making sure to avoid hitting any of the large masses of rocks that were getting dangerously close to our ship. Thinking fast, I took momentary control of the ship to move away from a large mass I detected on my screen that was out of peripheral vision on our viewscreen. From all around we would see flashes of light, hearing the rumbling of thunder in the distance, and the lights throughout the ship had flickered before turning off due to a stray lightning strike disturbing the power of the Enterprise. From behind we could hear the loud clap of two large rocks that had collided just as we passed through. My body wobbled from the strong vibrations that rippled through the ship as we continued on course to avoid getting hit.
"Mmm. Readings indicate cloud density diminishing, sir." Chekov read out as we saw the rocks starting to lessen, and straight in front of us I could see a planet further ahead just as the lights aboard the bridge flickered back on, my eyes squinting at the sudden brightness before adjusting.
Kalara started to speak, in a language I couldn't understand, but the device that was installed into her uniform started to simultaneously translate her words for us as she spoke. "This is Altamid. My ship is stranded here."
We brought the ship closer the details of the planet from space became more prominent as we pulled the ship into orbiting the planet at a safe distance.
"Approaching Altamid. Class-M planet." Spock read off his findings from his station. "Massive subterranean development. But limited to no life forms on the surface."
'No life forms?' I thought as Spock had graciously transferred over his findings to my station, rereading what was on my screen, and by the end I felt a slight shiver inch up my spine. 'How…strange…' Something about this situation we found ourselves in didn't sit right with me. Kalara's story didn't seem right, she says that her crew is down on that planet, yet there's no readings of anything showing up on Spock's station. Things just weren't adding up.
There was a strange notification that suddenly popped up on my screen, constant beeps coming from both my station and navigation that alerted us that something was approaching, and from what I was seeing it was coming toward us at an alarming speed.
"Proximity alert, sir!" Chekov alerted Jim of what he was seeing on his screen, bringing it up on the viewscreen. "We have an unknown ship heading right for us."
"Lieutenant Uhura, hail them." Jim requested from Nyota as he leaned forward in his chair.
"Yes, Captain." Nyota immediately responded by attempting to get in contact with the unknown ship that was headed straight fro us. From what we could see on the viewscreen we couldn't make out any distinguishing details, just an empty space, but every so often we would see a disturbance. A distortion and a glimmer effect in the distance like we would see with the cloaking device on a Klingon warbird. "No response. I am picking up some kind of signal." Nyota had rerouted the signal she was hearing and broadcasted what she was hearing throughout the bridge. From her station it sounded like a type of chitter. "They're…jamming us."
"Magnify, Mister Sulu." Jim ordered as he pushed off his chair to get a better look at our viewscreen.
As the Enterprise zoomed in, getting a closer look at whatever was headed toward our ship, it had picked up individual blobs of light. But it wasn't just one singular object, as our ship got a closer look it started to identify multiple objects headed straight for us.
"What is this?" Jim turned back to ask Kalara, and when she gave no answer, giving Jim a blank stare another shiver passed through my body. An eerie feeling settling in causing me to react even before Jim gave the command, I reached over to my station and sounded the alarm and at the same time Jim had started yelling to prepare for whatever was headed our way. "Shields up! Red alert!"
Just as the alarm blared over the speakers throughout our ship, red lights flashing all around us, we all had jumped into action. I reached out to enforce the shield all around our ship for preparation as I made a few calls down to engineering.
The distortion on our screen suddenly broke apart, breaking away from whatever formation they had been in and a swarm of whatever we were seeing started to fly toward our ship as Jim commanded us to open fire. But as I was monitoring my screen and our main viewscreen, I noticed that our phasers were doing minimum damage, and any torpedoes we shot out passed right through the swarm as they looked to be creating a hole to avoid our attacks.
"Sir, our phasers are having minimal effect and our torpedoes can't track their mowements!" Chekov yelled in a slight panic, a complete contrast to Jim who kept a straight face at the oncoming storm.
"Fire everything we've got." Jim ordered. I moved around and started activating all the firepower we had, granting full permission to any who was manning those stations at this moment to fire at will when they saw an opening.
"Captain, we are not equipped for this manner of engagement." Spock advised Jim, delivering some grave news as we continued to hang on and brace ourselves for the impact.
As we came into contact with the swarm of ships, multiple damage was showing on the ship's schematics that were flashing 'danger' on my station. "Captain, reporting multiple hull damage as well as our main sensory array has been taken out!"
"Shield frequencies have no effect, sir!" Chekov yelled out over the constant barrage on our ship.
"They took out the dish! Shields are inoperable!" Sulu called out as both him and myself attempted to find another way to protect ourselves from the ambush.
There was no end to the series of onslaught on our ship from the unidentified enemies, and the longer we stayed idle in the planet's orbit the more warning signs were appearing on my screen as they kept up their relentless attacks.
"Warp us out of here, Mister Sulu." Jim ordered as he went back over to his chair.
"Yes, sir." Sulu took the command from Jim and pushed the lever that controlled our warp functions, but we were getting no response from our ship. A new alert window opened up on my screen that was showing major damage being done to the nacelle pylons, a the structure that connected our engines and nacelle's, warning me of the permanent damage being done to our ship.
"Why the hell aren't we moving?" Jim yelled over the alarms, demanding for some type of answer to what was going on with his ship.
"I can't engage the warp drive, sir!" Sulu informed.
"Scotty, I need warp now!" Jim called down to engineering.
"I cannae, sir! The nacelles, they've…" Scotty began to say before the schematics on my screen started to blink around the area of our ship's pylons, giving me an answer even before Scotty could complete his sentence. The nacelles weren't responding to our requests simply because we didn't have any.
"They've what, Mister Scott!" Jim called back to Scotty, thinking that communications had been cut off due to something happening down in engineering.
"Due to the enemy's calculated attack, they have targeted our pylons and separated them from our ship. The nacelles are gone, Captain, our warp engines have been destroyed." I felt my stomach drop, with this attack on our ship we're now just sitting ducks in space. "Warp is…impossible."
"Security, engage all emergency procedures. Active protocol 28 code One Alpha Zero." Jim made a ship wide announcement to any officers that were roaming the halls of our ship. "All personnel to alert stations."
At the authorization of our Captain, Leonard was the first to move before I saw Spock do the same.
"Leonard-" I called out as he came to a stop, backtracking his steps to come to stand beside me.
"Medical and Engineering personnel need to prepare for a search and rescue, if any, of any officers on our ship. I must report to my station, Ally." Leonard recited and I simply smiled.
"I know, I was going to tell you to be careful out there." I wished him luck, Leonard gave me a smile in response as he leaned forward and placed a quick kiss to my cheek before dashing off to meet Spock inside the main turbo lift.
"Sir, I have hull breaches in levels 12 to 15, 6, 9, 31, and 21, sir." Chekov notified us of his findings.
From all over the ship, officers were reporting to my station of the breaches and what was transpiring down on the levels. "Levels are reporting in, the enemy has forced their way into our ship, officers are standing by to open fire at the first sign of life…"
"Captain!" Scotty's voice called, reconnecting with the intercom on the captain's chair. "There's a chance I can reroute the energy reserves from the warp core to the impulse engines."
"If we can get back into the nebula, maybe we could lose them." Jim spoke to himself, what choice did we really have? If we stayed here, we'd be destroyed, and all the lives on this ship would die. We will deal with the damages back at Yorktown. "Do whatever you have to, Scotty."
"Khan!" I heard Scotty's voice yell out. "Wee man! Let's go! We have work to do!"
I heard yelling coming through all the intercoms of the ship, and slowly I started to see individual life signs of our officers going out at an alarming rate. In a blink of an eye I saw a line of officers close to engineering go out which was a cause for concern. Our crew was being wiped out before my very eyes.
"Jim, our security officers are being wiped out, I'm getting reports of several lifeforms exiting the ships that have breached the Enterprise before the line goes dead." I reported before hearing panicked yelps coming from multiple levels throughout the ship once again. "I've lost contact with levels 6 through 15, Captain."
"Allyson!" Khan's voice came in through my earpiece as he used his personal communicator to speak to me. "I'm down in the warp core assisting Mister Scott in the process of refitting the plasma conduits. Shuttle crafts that were attempting to escape have been taken out."
"I will inform the Captain, be safe down there, the three of you!" I yelled as I felt another tremble go throughout our ship as I attempted to keep my footing.
"Captain." Spock's even voice came through from the navigation console.
"Go, Spock." Jim quickly went over to answer, getting up from his seat at the sound of our First Officer.
"I've identified the individual who appears to be leading the attack party." From Spock's line it sounded like he was returning fire as I heard his phaser go off. "He infiltrated the archive vault and removed the artifact from our mission on Teenax."
"Hold your distance until…" A loud disruption came from Spock's communicator before his line went dead. "Spock!" Jim made an attempt to reconnect to our First Officer only to have a sad whir respond to our request. "Spock!" When Jim's second attempt failed he turned around to the two security officers that had been stationed on the bridge at the time. "You two, with me. Ally, try and attempt to get back in contact with Spock. You have the conn until I return."
"Yes, sir." I nodded as I walked around my station and motioned toward a familiar face that was on standby. "Lieutenant Lawton, you have my station. Try and find a way to get back into contact with Commander Spock. Keep me informed if you hear anything from the other levels."
"Yes, Commander." Tina Lawton, my trainee promoted to Lieutenant that I was mentoring for a while now, stood up from one of the stations and made her way to my own as I moved to sit at the captain's chair.
"Keep a close eye on the captain's whereabouts throughout the ship!" I called out as another wave of attacks hit our ship. I reached over the intercom on the captain's chair and called for Khan's communicator. "Khan, now would be a good time for that boost!"
"Working on it Allyson!" Khan yelled out as I heard an explosion in the background on his end. "We're almost done."
"Commander DeLuca," Tina called for my attention. "Captain Kirk has made contact with an unidentified life sign."
'Come on, come on!' I thought as my hand tightened around the arm rests of the captain's chair, and as if my prayers were answered the ship started to vibrate and start up as our engines came to life.
"Yes! We are at 100% impulse." Chekov turned his chair to me.
"Great work, Mister Scott! Mister Singh!" I reached out to Khan's communicator before turning to our reliable pilot. "Mister Sulu maximum impulse towards the nebula!" I ordered as I watched Sulu reach for the warp lever. While Chekov and Sulu attempted to get us out of this mess my eyes were concentrated on the view in front of me until something in the corner of my eyes caught my attention. I noticed that Kalara had taken a glance at the viewscreen in worry the second Sulu had moved and her reaction was strange in my opinion. Not once had I not seen any type of reaction from the woman when we were being attacked, but now that we had the chance to escape she showed concern.
I hadn't spoken my concerns to Jim thinking that I was just imagining things, but this story of Kalara's had seemed suspicious. If her ship had crashed, all crew would be expected to take escape pods, and yet Kalara alone escaped? Her reaction now just confirmed that I had every right to doubt her story, something wasn't right about this, but I couldn't concern myself with it until we got out of this mess alive.
Our ship had begun to move, and I bit my bottom lip in hopes that we could escape from the enemy inside the nebula.
"Commander! We're not moving fast enough, their attacks are picking up!" Tina read her readings, and just as she spoke the ship began to violently shake as many of us were thrown from our seats. "They're-they're moving as a singular unit, releasing a full frontal assault on the pylons connecting the hull to the docking assembly!" I heard Tina gasp before I turned my full attention to the woman.
"Report, Lieutenant Lawton!" I ordered as I saw her expression drop, she was terrified by what was being read out on my station that only she could see at this current time.
"They've…they've destroyed the pylon, ma'am." Tina said as she attempted to clear her throat and even out her voice. "We're now caught in the planet's gravity, the saucer is falling."
"Kirk to Bridge!" Jim's strained voice came out from the captain's chair. "What's going on with the ship!"
"We are losing the inertial dampeners!" Chekov yelled in hopes that Jim could hear.
"Systems are failing ship-wide, Captain!" Sulu called.
"Emergency bulkheads are sealing, but structural integrity is at 18% and falling, Jim!" I yelled as the ship continued to shake as the saucer of the Enterprise started to spiral downward.
"…abandon ship, Allyson." Jim's solemn voice came from the intercom he was at as I looked toward Chekov and Sulu, the air around us grew heavy as we replayed Jim's words in our heads. A part of me wished there was something we could do, but the reality of our situation was that there was nothing in our powers that we could do. No miracle that could save us like it did in the past. There were only so many times we could cheat death.
"Sound the alarm." I ordered, my heart aching at the words that came out of my mouth, to any who heard me. The lights above began to flash as a woman's voice made a public address for everyone to begin making their way to the nearest escape pods near them.
"We need to give those pods a chance to escape. Can you lead those ships away?" Jim asked.
"Impulse engines are still trying to draw power from the warp reserve." I responded. "We cannot move until the saucer is separated."
"I'll handle it." Jim said as Sulu and I shared eye contact.
"Aye-aye, sir." I said, my voice cracking as Jim's connection cut out.
"Abandon ship. All personnel evacuate immediately." The woman's voice repeated over and over again. I started to drown out the noise around me as we could only sit and wait until Jim was able to successfully separate the saucer for us to buy some time for the crew to escape.
"Lieutenant Lawton, I need a personal favor." I got up from my seat and moved over to my station. "I want a status report on Doctor McCoy and Engineer Singh."
Tina was quick on my request, working as fast as she could as I tapped impatiently on the rail surrounding my station. "Engineer Singh is still in engineering with Chief Engineer Scott, they're making their way toward the escape pods. But I cannot find any life signs of Doctor McCoy. He could have already got into his escape pod, ma'am."
I bit the bottom of my lip, I didn't want to believe that something bad had happened to my Leonard, I wanted to believe that there was a chance he had already escaped, but my station was never wrong...Leonard wasn't on the saucer. With the amount of damage that had been done to our ship, the possibility of my doctor being caught in the blitz or sucked out into space was inevitable and I couldn't help but think of the negatives.
I could only hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. I couldn't let that get to me just yet, being in charge while Jim and Spock were gone I had to concentrate on evacuating our crew to safety. Or what was left of our crew.
"Abandon the bridge, and make your way to the Kelvin pods. Only a few of us need to stay behind to wait for the Captain to separate the saucer." I yelled to those who were looking to the us for answers. "Sulu, Chekov. Status on the whereabouts of the Captain?"
"I don't understand, the saucer should be free by now!" Sulu said as he looked around on his station.
"The Captain should be there!" Chekov answered.
"Evacuate the bridge!" I ordered, jumping up to assist one of the offers who had tripped and fallen to the ground just as the saucer started to tilt.
"Commander!" Tina's fearful voice called out to me as she came to kneel beside me.
"Lieutenant Lawton, take this officer and assist them to their pod, and then you take your own." I ordered as I passed the officer over to Tina's care.
"Commander, I…" Tina seemed like she wanted to say something, she was stuck in a trance as her hands and legs started to shake as she attempted to stand with the officer I had entrusted to her.
"I know you're afraid, everything happened so fast before we could even react." I reached out and gripped her shoulder. "But we must stay strong and carry out our duty to the very end. If we panic, we make mistakes, and that can cost the lives of the people in our care." I nodded my head in assurance. "We'll pull through this, Lieutenant."
I couldn't promise that, and I think Tina knew that as well, but even if it was false hope and the possibility of making it out of this mess alive was bleak it was something that she needed to hear. Something to hope for…and something we both needed to hear.
Tina nodded her head after a few minutes, fear being replaced by determination as she got up to her feet to support the officer she was now in charge of.
"Impulse engines drawing power from auxiliary generators." Chekov reported. The three of us, along with a few others were the only ones left aboard the bridge as we waited for Jim to report back in before a large blast ripped open our locked doors.
Before any of us could react, the intruder had attacked the two that were standing beside me, this intruder was dressed in a metal suit that glowed green as I saw their weapon turn to where I was sitting. I stood up and reached for my phaser, if I was going to die I wasn't going to go down without fighting. I thought this was my end, it seemed like they weren't taking any prisoners, but instead of their weapons firing I heard a phaser go off and the intruder that had forced their way onto our bridge had dropped to the ground. A familiar face stood in the doorway and I smiled.
"Captain!" I called out in relief as he hesitantly stepped closer to the navigation console.
"How many of the crew are still aboard the saucer?" Jim asked.
"None." I heard Sulu say as I went over to check on the condition of the two that had fallen to our enemies hands. "But if I'm reading this correctly, the intruders are taking them."
"Captain, we are caught in the planet's gravity. We cannot pull away." Chekov said as we stared at the viewscreen, watching as the planet got closer and closer the further the saucer began its descent.
"Get to your Kelvin pods." Jim ordered, both Sulu and Chekov obliged to his request as they turned to leave toward where the escape pods were located, leaving Jim and myself standing alone. All around us, those that had stayed behind to assist us once the saucer was separated started to head to their pods as well.
"Jim, about Kalara-" I was about to say before Jim shook his head.
"I know…" Jim said as he took a glance to where Kalara had gone off to. "make sure everyone is secured into their pods, and then you take yours and you get out of here."
"Yes, Captain…" I said as I turned around to head toward where my pod was located.
"Allyson." Jim called back to me just as I was helping Chekov into his pod. "Whatever happens, we must protect our crew."
"Aye, Captain." I said as I stepped into my Kelvin pod, and just before the glass case closed I said one final thing to Jim. "Stay alive, Jim, no matter what. We'll find each other down on the planet."
I watched Jim nod, getting one final glance at the bridge I've grown familiar with over the course of four years going onto five. Just as my pod jettisoned out into space, I got a glimpse at the saucer of the ship, seeing the name of our ship flash before falling further down to the planet below.
'Thank you for getting us through our missions alive. You were a wonderful old ship.' I thought back to the memories that were created on that ship as I gripped the bars that held me in place in the pod. 'Goodbye 1701.'
My pod was falling, my course laid in for the planet below before I felt my pod jolt to the side. The readings I was getting inside my pod notified me that I was no longer in control of my escape pod. The enemy had taken control of my pod and was taking me to god knows where.
I'm sorry if this chapter was a little disappointing, I really wanted to capture that feeling of distress and just...heartache at seeing the Enterprise and the crew being distraught and our main characters not being able to do anything in their power to salvage the situation as we see in the movie. But I promise it will get better! (Yes, I did steal some of Sulu's lines, but I don't think he minds. I'd like to think him and Ally have a good relationship where they'd just tease each other about it if things weren't so grim).
If you are enjoying yourself and my story: review, follow, and favorite! But it's not mandatory =) just knowing that you gave my story a chance, decided to read my creation makes me incredibly happy! I hope you are all staying safe!
-SO
