Welcome back, thank you for being here, and thank you to everyone who's reviewed so far. In this one, we'll follow Christine Chapel facing the unimaginable.

Christine noticed she had been staring out the viewscreen for some valuable seconds and quickly glanced back to the displays.

The course was clear, and the exit straight ahead. She waited. The exit came closer, sensors showed impact in one second…and the ship shuddered, and stopped.

It was leaning to the side, intent on following the anomaly's gravitational pull while the impulse engines were powering ahead. Pushing some buttons, Christine tried forcing the impaired engines to give her just a little bit more speed, but they protested noisily, the ship shuddered even more violently and continued to be repelled by the gravitational forces.

One look at the ship's sensors told its unwilling commander what she feared. There was no exit. Only an entry exerting an insurmountable gravitational push to everyone who dared trying it as an exit.

She cut all power to the engines, and the roaring died down. The ship righted itself and drifted on, following the stream of the anomaly and resuming the course of the loop.

The beep of the sensors made her jump. Debris field ahead, the display told her. Of course, how could she have forgotten?

Instinctively, she powered up the engines, reversing this time. The engines wailed, then stabilised. The ship had stopped again.

Christine Chapel looked ahead, contemplating the darkness of the viewscreen with an empty stare. She grabbed the edges of the console so hard it hurt as the full extent of her situation became clear to her.

She was alone. Alone in an anomaly, surrounded by dead friends. She would not attend any burials, and there would be none for her. This fold in space would envelop her forever; the only living being among corpses. Well, maybe not for long.

She glimpsed her fate in a moment of cruel clarity. Sooner or later, the impulse drive would fail and the ship would be pulled into the debris field ahead where she would either be killed immediately or be grievously injured to the point of dying slowly and in pain. Even if she survived the debris, the ship would receive further damage to critical systems, eventually destroying it or making it uninhabitable, and she would die. She would die alone.

The realisation of her impending demise hit her, and she shuddered. She also felt very cold all of a sudden. A clenching feeling started in her torso and paralyzed her. The common factor of all the ways this could end was death. There would be no one left to tell what had happened to the starship Enterprise and her valiant crew. There was no means of escape and there were no possibilities of survival.

If only she could try escaping at warp speed. Her console told her that the warp drive was still fully functional, but the anomaly's structure prevented a successful warp field, rendering their fastest means of propulsion useless.

Christine gasped at the outrageous idea this had prompted. The warp drive was stable, she just could not use it to fly. She could still use it to blow up the ship. There might not be possibilities of survival, but there were possibilities of death.

With this strangely comforting realisation in mind, she made a decision and stood up. She left the middle console and walked over to the science station again.

As she sat down to start the sequence, she faltered again. Which destruct method should she choose? One would leave the ship a live-less husk by detonating charges and overloading the electrical systems. The other would result in one fiery explosion as the antimatter containment collapsed and the warp core overloaded. She settled on the latter, the one she had originally thought of. It sounded like it might be quicker, and she might as well go out with a bang.

Trying not to think about who had touched these buttons before her, and had sat in this chair, she positioned herself in front of the monitors and turned on the console, addressing the ship's computer.

"Computer, this is Commander Christine Chapel. Request security access."

The computer beeped as it acknowledged her identity, the confirmation appearing on the screen.

Christine took a deep breath.

"Computer, destruct sequence one. Code one, one-A…"

The code appeared on the screen, the blue lettering shining accusingly. The computer was waiting for the next authorisation code.

This was the point where it could all fall apart. Usually, the three highest-ranking officers were needed for carrying out this fatal decision.

If the computer objected, maybe she could tell it to scan for life signs and confirm that she was the only one left. Maybe it already knew. Maybe she could sabotage the system if it didn't.

She knew she was stalling. There was no way she could sabotage such a complex system. Before she'd even try, she'd rather take a phaser down to engineering and fire it at the core.

But she knew the codes, she might as well try putting them to use before taking desperate measures.

"Computer, destruct sequence two. Code one, one-A, two-B…"

For what felt like a small eternity, nothing happened. Maybe the auto-destruct system was broken and it would not work at all. Or was the computer processing her authorisation and would soon object? Part of her wished it would.

Then, the display lit up with the second code. Maybe the system was broken. Maybe it couldn't differentiate who entered the codes. Or it had detected she was the only one still able to carry out these steps. It had already accepted the first code from her, after all, and that was usually the one given by the commanding officer. Whatever the reason, the computer was cooperating, waiting for the third code that would advance its destruction.

"Computer, destruct sequence three. Code one-B, two-B, three…"

The third code was quickly accepted without protest and the computer spoke.

"Destruct sequence completed and engaged. Awaiting final code for one-minute countdown."

This was it then, the choice that would seal her fate. She dared to turn around to the centre seat. He would not tell her what to do. No one would; never again. She was in command.

She faced the display again, which was prepared for the final code. The empty space where it would appear seemed like an impatient demand.

Christine closed her eyes and then relented the final code for her fiery death, calmly reciting a sequence she never thought she'd have to use.

"Code zero, zero, zero. Destruct. One."

The computer activated red alert.

"Destruct sequence is activated."

A scarlet number sixty appeared on the screen and started counting down.

After some seconds, she tore her eyes away from the monitor. She did not want to watch her time run out. The computer would tell her soon enough.

She let her look wander through the metal O that was her bridge. The centre of command and decision-making, though some might argue that the most important decisions were made in sickbay. The reflective surfaces flickered in the crimson glare of the red alert as if the funeral pyre had been lit pre-emptively.

Not only the helm and navigation console had suffered badly. There wasn't a single station not disfigured by scratches and scorch marks. Still a young ship in comparison to her predecessor, the Enterprise-A was destined to meet her demise before her time.

Wasn't it before all their time?

She didn't even know the dead helmsman's name, but he seemed awfully young.

Uhura, she had aged gracefully so far, and Christine knew she would have continued to age with beauty, imbibed with characteristic charm and elegance.

Pavel had been the light of each party, and the epitome of professionalism on the bridge. He had come far, and he would have made it even further. He still looked boyish and always had kept an air of innocence, but she knew that behind those puppy-eyes had lived one of the strongest men she had known.

Dr McCoy, dear old Leonard, had always grumbled about his age. But it was this grumpy strain to his gentle soul that had attested for the tenacious energy residing in his sensitive nature. It had been the absence of grumbling and the unbelievable gentleness with which he had said his good-bye to Spock that had told her he was dying, more than her medical scanner could have.

And Spock would not outlive them, after all. They hadn't known if he would live as long as Vulcans, but he had not aged as fast as humans.

Christine stood up and walked the few steps to the captain's chair. Steps that were probably her last. But she tried not to think about that and focussed on Spock, or what remained of him, instead.

He had thankfully died sitting. He seemed in a deep sleep, with his chin resting on his breast, and his eyes closed.

He had aged. There were lines on his face that hadn't been there twenty years ago. But compared to his human comrades, he had barely changed. As a human, he might have been considered middle-aged, for a man of his father's race, he was still young, a Vulcan in the prime of his life.

There was a heart-wrenching fragility to his limp form. He had always appeared strong and relentless, but in death all the façades he had erected seemed stripped away, leaving only the empty shell of a sensitive spirit.

She stepped as close to him as she could, and took his limp, cold hand in hers. It was still damp from the tears she had shed before.

"Ten."

The computer's voice had started counting down aloud, reciting its final words as Christine was thinking hers. It would have the last one.

"Nine."

Christine Chapel, Captain of the Enterprise. It did have a nice ring to it. It was a pity her only act of command had been to blow it all to pieces. She pressed his hand tightly.

"Eight."

After the five-second mark, the possibility to abort the destruct order would cease. She could still stop it now. But her fate was sealed either way. She would die at Spock's side, not just the way she had imagined.

"Seven."

Did it hurt, dying? She should have asked him sooner. She should have... A tear of regret rolled down her cheek as she looked at the dead, unseeing face. She was the last those eyes had seen.

"Six."

They could have done so much more, every one of them. They could have been so much more. Her future was a matter of seconds, and Spock's was past already.

"Five."

There was no way back now. She kept her eyes fixed on Spock and her thoughts on all their yesterdays. She didn't want to see the numbers, and she didn't want to think about their deaths.

"Four."

Sickbay, five-year mission. She had told him she loved him and he had said he was sorry. A year later, he had wiped away her tears when she had come to his cabin. No one was wiping them away now.

"Three."

Three times. He had told her three times, on separate occasions, that he was sorry, for something he could not control or comprehend.

"Two."

"I'm sorry, Spock."

"One."

To be continued...

One more to go. I guess you have a lot of questions by now. And I dare say they will be answered.