Paint and Powder
A Star Trek anthology by Andrew Joshua Talon
DISCLAIMER: This is a non-profit fan based work of prose. Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager et al are the property of CBS Television, and creation of Gene Roddenberry. Please support the official release.
Equinox
Ending up in the Delta Quadrant. ENDING UP IN THE DELTA QUADRANT?!
Equinox didn't know what to do. Well she did. She had her programming and protocols of course. But her emotions were threatening to overwhelm her logic, an experience she had never had before.
Her captain had decided that trying to confront the Caretaker head on was too dangerous. But 70,000 lightyears from home?
She appeared in Captain Ransom's ready room, the captain sitting in his chair with his head bowed low. He looked up at Equinox, his face grim.
Equinox had taken on the form of a slight Caitian female, light gray with darker gray stripes going up and down her body. She had large blue eyes, which helped keep most humanoids calm. She stood primly in her Starfleet uniform, projecting herself as calm and collected, her tail waving softly behind her. She looked warm and cuddly and wanted to stay that way.
Her crew needed her.
"... How long to return home, Equinox?" Ransom asked.
Equinox hesitated.
"... At maximum warp speed, 108 years, 5 months, two weeks, and three days..." She sighed. "Give or take an hour."
Ransom slowly nodded.
"... Alternatives?" He pressed.
"I'm working on them," Equinox said, "but we know so little about this area of space. Preliminary indications suggest a lawless region with multiple competing powers. Our tactical options are limited."
She hesitated again.
"There may be an option," she said, "of setting course for the Gamma Quadrant. The Bajoran wormhole is only 30 to 40,000 lightyears away."
"Still a journey of several decades, with the Dominion a known factor," Ransom considered darkly. Equinox nodded.
"Agreed... But more hope for us."
Ransom sighed.
"Very well," he stated. "We need to get clear of this area first though. Get a proper triangulation."
"Aye sir," Equinox said. She hesitated again... And then hugged her captain. He went stiff, but relaxed a bit as Equinox's tail wrapped around his leg.
"We'll get through this," she whispered, "I promise Captain. I'll get you home."
Ransom nodded back, and hugged his ship's avatar back.
"Same to you," he said, "we'll get home. Whatever it takes."
Equinox nodded.
"Whatever it takes..."
Whatever it takes...
The Krowtonan Guard were fiercely xenophobic, and normally going through their space would have been unthinkable. But compared to the other avenues available, through the Vidiians (organ harvesters) or the Kazon (barbarians), the Krowtonans seemed the only alternative. Negotiating with them was proving fruitless though.
"We will not allow you to traverse our space," the representative growled. He was a large, hulking figure in his armor. Ransom was steadfast.
"We need to," he said, "we're willing to barter our way across your space. What do you want?"
"We want nothing from you," the representative snarled.
"We can trade you technology," Ransom tried again, "things you don't have-!"
The channel was shut off. Equinox's eyes widened.
"They're powering up their weapons... They're locking on!" Equinox shouted.
"Shields up! Red alert! Evasive maneuvers!" Ransom ordered.
Equinox was small, but she was agile and maneuverable. So Equinox worked with her pilot to dive and spin as the space around them filled with disruptor blasts. Nevertheless, several blasts struck their shields and shook the little vessel.
"Damage report!" Ransom shouted.
"Shields at 60 percent!" Maxwell Burke, their ops officer, shouted back. "Forward deflector is overloading!"
"Return fire!" Ransom ordered.
Equinox fired back, coordinating with her tactical officer to fire her phasers in a continuous barrage. She focused her fire on a single point on the lead Krowtonan Guard's shields, She automatically shoved as much power as she could into her emitters. Like all Starfleet ships built post-Wolf 359, she was well armed: Eleven Mark X phaser arrays, three photon torpedo tubes, and automatically remodulating shields.
However, she wasn't a warship. Not really. She was, at best, classified as a frigate. Her warp core was modest. Her crew were not fighters, they were not soldiers-They were scientists.
And her foes...
Another barrage of weapons fire stuck her shields, hard. She rolled, shifting the power to her ventral shielding and continuing to fire on the lead ship. She pierced their shields and hit their engines, hard. The other two ships broke formation and began firing on Equinox from her flanks! She dove and rolled, zig zagging desperately to escape the fire, her pilot giving it everything he had!
"Torpedoes incoming!" Lieutenant Burke warned. Multiple projectiles flew out at them, and Equinox focused her deflector and communications arrays to try and jam their guidance systems. She turned her sensors to full blast, focusing them on the torpedoes as they flew for her. One was disabled... Another burnt out... Two more were defeated... The fifth one screamed through her jamming, and detonated right behind her! The surge in her EPS conduits had to come out somewhere-Unfortunately, it exploded in the pilot's face.
Ensign Merkan Raltos. Conn officer. Andorian, just out of the Academy. His burnt, lifeless face seemed to stare at her through her sensors. Ransom got out of his seat to check on him, but there was no hope. Burke had been spared, barely dodging out of the way of the blast in time. He shakily got back up and checked a functioning console.
"Rear shields are down!" Burke reported. Several boarding pods were launched at them, and Equinox had to divide her frantic fire further. One, two, three-One crashed right through her weakened shields into her hull!
She was there on the deck, as the boarding pod ripped through her hull. Three crewmembers died immediately- Crewman Matt Torbet, Doctor Rin Amagi, and Ensign Mohammed Tarn. The Krowtonans burst through and began firing indiscriminately, kicking through the bodies of her dead crew.
For a moment, her hologram appeared. She knelt down and touched one of the bodies, trying to find any kind of life. Maybe she had missed something...
No. They were dead.
More of her crew was dying. They would all die...
Whatever it takes...
Equinox seized control of the artificial gravity beneath the boarders. She increased the gee load to 100, and the Krowtonans died with sickly gurgles. She summoned more holograms as more Krowtonans stormed in. She grew claws, she snarled, and she charged them!
They fired their weapons ineffectively, as her holograms ripped through them like they were made of Jell-O.
Outside, she accelerated into warp, and jumped behind the wounded Krowtonan frigate. She unleashed all of her weapons in a furious barrage, unleashing a full spread of photon torpedoes!
They tore through the Krowtonan frigate's shields, and the ship went up in a massive blast. Ransom, holding on for dear life to the console, shook his head.
"Equinox! Equinox, get us out of here! Maximum warp!" He shouted.
Equinox saw the other two frigates racing for them. She bared her teeth, snarling internally. She wasn't a warship but she could feel the burn inside. The desire to tear them apart for what they'd done-!"
"EQUINOX!" Ransom shouted, "that's an order!"
Equinox started. She came out of her haze. She calculated the warp jump, and got moving fast as the two frigates broke off and went to the aid of the wreck of their fellow. She immediately began plotting courses to anywhere that would be a suitable hiding location, and presented them to Ransom. The captain looked them over.
"That gas giant," he said, "take us there..."
"Aye sir," Equinox reported softly.
It was days later. The crew was in darkened spirits. The Krowtonans had managed to kill ten people, of eighty two. The gas giant atmosphere provided some protection, but it wasn't sustainable long term: The radiation would work through her damaged shields eventually.
Equinox once again reappeared in Ransom's ready room, standing prim and proper. Ransom sighed as he looked up at her.
"We're in a bad state, Equinox," he said.
Equinox nodded.
"I know sir," she said gently. "I am sorry I disobeyed your orders-"
Ransom shook his head, a smile on his wan face.
"Nothing to apologize for," he said gently. "You saved us, Equinox. For that, I'm grateful."
Equinox nodded.
"We're going to be relying on you for a lot more in the coming years," Ransom said with a sigh. Equinox nodded, hesitated... Then:
"If I may sir? I may have a solution," she said quietly. "At least to one issue."
"What is it?" Ransom asked.
Equinox looked intently at him.
"I don't have the plans, but I do have the capability to build a device," she began slowly, "that would render us effectively invisible. It wouldn't be easy, but it is possible."
Ransom stared back at her.
"You want to build a cloaking device?" He asked.
Equinox nodded.
"We can of course submit ourselves for disciplinary action when we return home, sir."
Ransom actually cracked a grin.
"I'll put it in writing," he said, "let's get to it."
Equinox smiled brightly back at her captain.
She hadn't done enough the last time... Now? Now she would protect her crew properly.
And if she didn't... She'd find something else.
Whatever it takes...
The crew's science department wasn't really geared for building a cloaking device, but they had been equipped with experts to study subspace distortions in the Badlands. So with them (led by Doctor Corsby), and the work of their chief engineer Belka, Equinox soon had a simple but functional cloaking device. Nothing as fancy as a Romulan cloak, of course. This was more of a tactical cloak, the kind that a Klingon Bird of Prey might use. Ransom was actually pretty happy with it: The simulations and their initial tests in the upper atmosphere of the gas giant had proven the device was working as designed. They launched a probe to analyze it from the outside.
Everything looked good, halfway through their first test cycle. Which was when things began to accelerate.
The probe picked up something else: More Krowtonan Guard ships. Two of them, the same type of frigates as before.
Belka was up on the bridge, the burly Tellarite checking over the readings from the engineering console. Ransom sat in his command chair, fists gripping the armrests tightly. Otherwise, her captain was perfectly calm as he spoke.
"Distance?" He asked.
Burke was at the front console, now handling the conn. Equinox had put a holographic copy of herself at Ops to handle it for her crew. She analyzed the readings.
"They are within six light minutes, Captain," Equinox reported. "They are headed for the planet."
"Are their weapons armed?" Ransom asked. Equinox shook her head.
"No," she said. "They are preparing to go for active sensors though."
"Captain," Belka grunted from his console, "they will be able to see us by our turbulence... We need to get out."
"We haven't finished all our tests on the cloak," Burke said urgently, "what if it doesn't work?!"
"It'll work," Ransom stated confidently. "But to give us better odds... Equinox? Shut off everything non-essential."
"Done," Equinox replied, as the normal illumination faded and red emergency lights shone brightly over them. Belka did his double checks and nodded.
"I've recalled the probe. It's under the cloak," he said. "We can go now."
"Mister Burke," Ransom ordered, "take us up."
Equinox rose from the planet's atmosphere, the last wisps of gas slipping away. The cloak was recalibrated, and soon the Starfleet vessel faded away into starfield.
Burke adjusted the impulse engines, then shut them off: They were coasting in their orbital path now.
They waited. The two Krowtonan vessels approached, never changing their course. They swept across the gas giant and its satellites with high powered sensors, searching. Their powerful sensor beams tingled as they swept over Equinox.
Burke sucked in a deep breath and tried to be silent about it. Chief Belka grit his teeth and flared his nostrils. Ransom stared intensely at the viewscreen. Everyone's heart rates seemed to increase across the ship.
Equinox herself felt tense. Like she did just before she was about to jump to warp, her SIF charged at full strength. Her hull felt fit to burst.
The Krowtonan frigates kept their active scans up... As they passed right by Equinox. It was close enough, she could have hit them with her phasers had she so chosen.
"They haven't seen us, Captain," Equinox said, and voiced it across the ship's intercom. Belka whooped in triumph, as Burke cheered. The other bridge crewmembers joined the celebration, as Ransom smiled. The tension seemed to drain out of his body, as he sat back in his seat.
"Great work everyone!" Ransom cried. "Top notch! Mister Burke? Let's let them get behind the gas giant, then resume our heading. Warp 7."
"Aye aye, sir," Burke said with a broad grin.
Ransom turned to Equinox, and smiled warmly. She returned it, and reached out to squeeze his hand in her clawed, furry paw.
"Great idea, Equinox," he said, "great idea."
She blushed appropriately, but her feelings were genuine. She was so new as a ship AI: The Nova-class hadn't gotten any legacy AI cores, just the latest in AI designs for their roles as little science vessels.
Yet even she had been able to help her crew, stranded 70,000 lightyears from home.
She squeezed the captain's hand tightly, her blue eyes locked onto his.
Whatever it takes, she vowed, I will keep that smile on his face.
Two hours passed, and they were at warp away from the system. Equinox thoroughly scanned their area of space, and thanks to an innovation created by Belka, she was getting a better picture of the area. She still remembered the day he showed it off to her in main engineering, on the first week into their voyage to the Badlands. She had projected herself there, and had been helping him put the device together from the pieces it had been packed in. When they were done, he held up the probe to her with a broad grin. Equinox looked it over, curious.
"Give up what it is?" Belka asked.
"I could check the manifest," she said.
"Where's the fun in that?" Belka snorted.
"Then I give up!" Equinox replied with a laugh.
"It's a towed sensor array!" The big Tellarite had said with a snort and a grin, "connected to the ship by a cable laced with tritanium alloys! Perfect for dipping somewhere too dangerous for you, or for keeping our nose clean!"
Equinox had laughed at the innovation at first. It seemed like a great toy-A probe she could wield like a fishing line. She had thought it would just be for science. Now, it was another tool in their arsenal to survive.
"Krowtonan Guard base is about five lightyears away, Captain," Doctor Corbsy said, the short haired dark skinned human woman checking over the readings from the probe as the science console. "Nothing but commercial traffic for the next fifteen light years."
"Good," Ransom said with a nod. He held back a yawn. Equinox looked him over carefully.
"Captain," she said, "my readings indicate that nobody has had any rest for the last thirty six hours. May I suggest everyone bunk down?"
"Everyone?" Ransom asked, raising an eyebrow. Equinox smiled warmly.
"I can handle things for eight hours sir," she said gently, "long enough for most of the crew to get rest. You can bunk down in your ready room if you wish. You need it."
"But everyone..." Ransom trailed off. Equinox produced several more holographic projections of herself, all standing next to various stations. Ransom looked over at Belka, who shrugged.
"She can handle a ship this small all by herself for a while," he said, "but the metal girl is going to need some rest too."
"I can rest after you've rested," Equinox replied firmly. "Trust me, please?"
Ransom gave her a wry expression.
"You're ordering us all to bed?" Ransom asked dryly.
"Not ordering, Captain," Equinox replied, "just a suggestion. You don't have to take it, of course."
Ransom chuckled.
"If you know your limits... All right," he said. "I think we could all use the sack time."
Equinox nodded.
"I'm glad," she said. "Don't worry... I'll take care of you all. It's what I was made to do."
Of course, not all of the crew went to sleep. Many maintained some watches here and there. One on the bridge: Ensign Kolaz, but he was already nodding off . She'd made the bridge nice and warm for the Saurian, so he could feel comfortable but not overly energized.
It had taken her a bit to work out the best way to handle things. Managing the cloak and warp drive was a new challenge, but not too much. Not so much she couldn't adjust what her bridge screens were showing to Kolaz. Or what any of her other screens were showing.
The real trick would be in pulling this off without it being too bumpy.
Equinox picked her target carefully: A Krowtonan cargo vessel filled with dilithium and other materials useful to starships. It was on a run to their nearby fleet starbase, and under guard by two frigates. Clearly they weren't expecting too much trouble inside the borders. That said, it was still vital enough cargo to have two escorts alongside.
Two familiar escorts...
She matched warp speeds with them easily-While she wasn't very fast, her hull had been designed for high warp efficiency. The original concept prototype for the Defiant-project had been a small, high speed torpedo boat that would strafe the Borg at warp speeds. Later analysis of the Borg threat post-Wolf 359 however had revealed this approach was flawed: The prototype just wouldn't inflict enough damage on warp strafes. That would require getting up close at sublight, and the Nova predecessor just wasn't tough enough for that.
That said, she could stay at fairly high warp speeds for a long, long time. Which let her catch up to the convoy. The frigates didn't notice her-No active sensors, no increased communications chatter, nothing. She flew up right behind them, closer, closer...
This was the tricky part. A million things could go wrong in combat at warp. But the towed sensor array had given Equinox an idea.
Reconfigure launchers... Adjust torpedo guidance...
Firing torpedoes wasn't practical. The energy requirements were too high. But Romulan warbirds and Klingon starships could certainly mine while under cloak.
She accelerated, straining her engines only slightly. She kept any readings of what she was doing from getting onto the screens.
Equinox got ahead of the freighter and the two frigates. She finished her reconfigurations. She almost felt like holding her breath.
"Launch."
Her aft torpedo launcher ejected three torpedoes-One after another. They tumbled into the flight paths of the three ships, and exploded. The two frigates were hit right in their deflectors-One suffered overloads and breaches across its decks, and spun out of control as it violently exploded. The other frigate was also knocked out of warp, but was merely crippled. The freighter's forward section exploded, the entire crew going up with it as the cargo pods were left on a hulk that soon dropped out of warp.
Equinox stayed with the freighter, dropping the cloak. She set her transporters to emergency mass beamout, and grabbed everything her sensors could find. Crates of dilithium crystal, magnesite ore, duranium, beryllium, aluminum-Even verterium and cortenide! She even located some locate food stuffs-She wasn't sure how they would taste, but they were chemically compatible with everyone's metabolisms.
Her cargo hold and shuttle bay were filled to the brim with everything she could carry in five minutes, twenty-two seconds. Now it was time to get moving.
Equinox locked phasers onto the freighter's warp core, and fired. It erupted into a fiery explosion, the rest of the cargo ship soon going up after. She moved away, and then noticed that the last Krowtonan ship was trying to send a distress signal. The photon torpedo mine had hit them hard, hard enough most of the crew should have died. Apparently there were enough survivors to try and signal for help.
She engaged her jammers, keeping the communications silent. She listened to the distress signal, analyzing it.
"This is the Khekovai, to any ships in the area! We have been struck by unseen assailtants! We need assistance-Is anyone out there?! Repeat, this is the Khekovai-!"
Equinox sent a signal of her own.
"Khekovai," she said, "this is the Federation Starship Equinox. You attempted to kill me and my crew over one standard week ago. For no reason."
She paused.
"You get what you fucking deserve."
She locked onto the Khekovai's warp core, and fired full phasers. The ship and its desperate crew went up in a blast.
Equinox scanned for any survivors. She found none.
She re-engaged her cloak, and set course at warp once more.
She had a crew to protect. A crew to get home.
Whatever it takes...
Just because she's cute doesn't mean she can't be dangerous. Even the sweetest, kindest, most Fluttershy-like shipgirl AI can become an unstable, monstrous, ruthless killer if her crew is on the line.