DISCLAIMER:
"Star Trek" and all associated names and characters, with the exceptions of the ones created by myself for this story, are © Paramount. I am a fan of Gene Roddenberry's dream and just wish to keep it alive so that tomorrow's youth may gain by it as I have. This is fan fiction; there is no infringement of copyright intended with this story, nor have I written it for personal financial gain. So relax, engage at full warp and enjoy!
Star Trek: Privateer
By
Mojo2722
The bridge of the U.S.S. Hydra, a defiant class starship, had been dark for several years. Decommissioned and set for salvage in a remote starfleet boneyard, its corridors and rooms hadn't seen visitors in many years. That is why they picked it. It had been decommissioned, but not yet dismantled. It was still a fully functional starship.
The bright blue shimmer of a couple of transporter beams cut through the darkness for a brief moment. Two people materialized just in front of the main view screen, one human and one ferengi.
"Well at least we know the air is breathable." The ferengi male spoke up. He turned on a hand torch that he was carrying to add a bit of light to the pitch-black room. He walked over to the consoles at the aft of the bridge and began to tap at the black screen, waking the LCARS system up from its long slumber. He looked over to the human male, who had walked over to the captain's chair in the center of the room, and said, "I can have the lights and life support up and running in just a few seconds, captain."
"Make it quick. We only have about a twenty-minute window before the watch station's computers will come out of the loop we put them in and detect our activity. When that happens I hope to have this ship half way to the next system." He said, brushing the dust off of the control panels built into the captain's chair.
The lights to the bridge came to life with a flicker, and the LCARS systems came to life on all the workstations of the bridge. The ferengi looked over to the captain briefly, turned back to the station he was at, continued to work it, and said, "Well it's not my work you need to worry about, I can have all the secondary systems up in half that time. If your miracle worker of an engineer can't deliver on his promise of being able to cold start those engines in record time, we will all be sitting here dead in space with a half a dozen patrol craft around us with their phasers locked on."
"Don't worry Quarn, she's the best engineer I could possible swindle away from starfleet." He replied. He turned away from the ferengi, held his wrist communicator up to his mouth and spoke, "Okay, how are things going down there, Nancy?"
A woman's agitated voice replied over the communicator, "Doing okay, but there is a hell of a lot less deuterium in the tanks have than what our informant told us, I have the RCS thrusters online, and will have the fusion reactors online in several minutes, Captain Roberts"
Roberts looked back towards Quarn who was still busy at the aft consoles getting the ships systems all restarted from their long wait. He lowered his voice as not to let Quarn hear, and asked, "What about the warp engines, Nancy?"
"She replied I can't start them up until I get the fusion reactors up, and I can't get them running if I am chatting with you. So don't call me, I'll call you." she replied.
Captain Roberts was a getting a little bit nervous, they needed to have everything go according to plan if they were to get away with stealing one of starfleet's derelict space craft out from underneath their noses. He had invested all he had in this venture. The cost of the informants, the hiring of a crew, not even to mention buying discrete passage on a ferengi shuttle to get them there had wiped out every last slip of latinum that he had.
"Pinch my lobes!" Quarn cursed, he beat the control panel of the console with his fist. He boar his jagged teeth and let out a growl. "Well that is just perfect." He added with sarcastic tones. Looking over to Captain Roberts, he continued, "Well do you want the bad news, or the even worse news first?"
"Talk to me." Captain Roberts responded, as he walked towards the aft stations where Quarn stood in disgust.
"Well the bad news is that the command override codes we got from our informant are out of date. This means that even if your miracle woman can get the engines up on time, we would still be dead in the water as navigation, defense, weapons controls, and just about everything else that would come in handy to make a getaway are not in our control. The even worse news is that the sensors are working."
"How is the fact that the sensors are operational a bad thing?" the captain asked. He walked up to the console next to the one that Quarn was working at and began to work the LCARS system for every backdoor that he knew.
"I didn't say it was a bad thing, I said that it was even worse." Quarn casually replied, turning back to the console and following the captain's suit.
Hitting all dead-ends in trying to override the security protocols, the captain kept working away at the controls. He calmly asked with a single bead of sweat rolling down his forehead, "How is that, Quarn?"
"Well apparently whoever you paid off to feed that virus into the watch station's computer, must have gotten a better counter offer. Our window of opportunity just closed."
The captain stopped working the LCARS system over, turned to Quarn and asked, "You aren't telling me what I think you're telling me are you?"
"In about four minutes you will be able to tell if I am a liar or not. Four minutes at their current speed that is." He answered. Not looking up from his console and still working at a maddening pace, he reached into his pocket and fished out an isolinear optical chip. "Lucky for you, when you hired me I come prepared. Catch!" Quarn said, tossing the isolinear chip to Captain Roberts.
Captain Roberts caught the chip and asked, "Where does this go?"
Without looking and now using both hands to work the console, Quarn replied, "Well it's not a suppository, hoo-man, so I would suggest pulling the lower access panel off of the terminal in front of you, and pulling the L seventeen chip out and replacing it with that."
Captain Roberts hit the floor on his knees, and quickly pulled the access panel off throwing it out of his way. He scanned through the myriad of optical chips that were all arranged in orderly little rows until he found the one marked L seventeen. Almost as in one motion he pulled it out and let it drop to the floor with one hand, and instantaneously replaced it with the one that Quarn had given him. He got back up, looked to Quarn, and said, "If this works I'll introduce you to my sister."
Quarn smiled as he worked the controls, "If this works, captain, I'll introduce your sister to oo-mox!"
Captain Roberts held his wrist communicator up to his mouth and said, "Nancy how long till the fusion reactors are up, and we have impulse?"
"Five minutes." She replied.
He raised an eyebrow as he answered, "You've got two."
There was a moment of silence that Captain Roberts knew that she must have been cursing his name, and that of his mother's. Nancy was a damn fine engineer, but a little short on the temperament side. That is the reason she never advanced in starfleet, they don't like hotheads in command of people. Her voice broke the silence, "Just like a man. Ask them for at least five minutes and all they can give you is two!"
Captain Roberts knew better than to bother her any further with a response to her comment. He walked down to the conn station and sat down in the dusty chair. Tapping away at the controls he managed to bring up a sensor readout of the approaching patrol craft on the main viewscreen. They were close less than a couple of minutes away. He turned his head to Quarn and asked, "Is this gonna work sometime soon or are we going to be spending some fun filled years together at a Federation Penal Colony?"
"Relax, the federation doesn't send privateers to the penal colonies anymore." Quarn replied, "They hang them."
Captain Roberts looked to the viewscreen and watched as the patrol craft closed in. He waited and saw that they would be in range in less than sixty seconds when he asked, "Quarn? How much longer?"
"Patience makes the profit, captain." He replied.
Nancy's voice screamed to life over the wrist communicator, "There is your damn impulse engines, any other impossible tasks while I am at it?"
Roberts pulled his wrist communicator up to respond, "Well the warp drive would be nice."
"Let me guess, you need it in under ten minutes?" she said with irritation in her voice.
"Actually five would be nice, dear."
There was silence from the wrist communicator again and this time she didn't bother to respond back at all. The virgin ears of the computer must have been getting an earful in engineering from her right then.
The ships were seconds away and Roberts knew that they probably wouldn't be in too nice of a mood when they arrived. The patrol craft were single seat fighters/escorts that had enough firepower to heavily damage and even destroy them. A prospect he didn't look forward to. Dying was not on his list of things to do. Getting rich from piracy was, but the dying thing was definitely not on the list.
Still attempting to work over the LCARS system Quarn spoke up, "There is an incoming hail, should we respond?"
Captain Roberts turned his head and looked back at Quarn. He thought about it for a moment and responded, "Sure why not, this might be good for a laugh at our trial. Put it on screen, Quarn."
"It's audio only, captain."
"Well then put it through." Captain Roberts replied turning his head back to the conn station's controls.
A man's voice droned over the ship's com, "Attention, unauthorized intruders aboard the U.S.S. Hydra, you will power down all systems now and await a boarding party to be taken into custody."
"What do you mean unauthorized? Isn't this the rental unit that the travel agent got for me?" Roberts asked.
"Repeat you will power down all systems now and await a boarding party to be taken into custody." The man's voice impersonally droned on.
Captain Roberts looked at the main viewscreen and saw that they had surrounded the Hydra from all directions. There were six of them in all one in each direction of escape. He turned the main viewscreen to a fore view of the space outside, and of the patrol craft that was in front of them.
The ship rocked as a phaser hit bounced off of the hull, if it weren't for the ablative armor that all the defiant class ships had, that single hit would have done some damage that they could ill afford at the moment. The strict and disciplined voice of the young starfleet pilot that had spoken with him moments earlier came over the com again, "You will power down immediately or we will open fire and destroy you."
Captain Roberts caught out of the corner of his eye Quarn sitting down in the chair of the tactical station beside him. He turned his head and looked at Quarn. Quarn stared back at him, broke a wide jagged smile, and nodded his head. They both furiously started working the controls of the stations in front of them.
The Hydra lurched forward from its rest and pulsed phaser discharges shot forth from the forward phaser banks, hitting the patrol craft in front of them. With the first volley of shots hitting the tiny craft it exploded in a giant orange ball of expanding plasma. The debris was tiny and scattered off of the hull of the Hydra as they pushed through its former location.
"Shields up Mr. Quarn." Roberts ordered.
"I'm way ahead of you."
Captain Roberts piloted the Hydra up and over the bones of what used to be a constellation class starship, narrowly missing it by mere meters. The remaining five patrol craft were close in pursuit, and they couldn't risk jumping to full impulse in the middle of the salvage yard. There were too many derelict vessels here, making those speeds impossible to attain. A few of the patrol craft were in the clear for a shot and they took it. The Hydra rocked, but the shields absorbed the damage.
"That was close." Roberts commented, adding, "Can you get a lock on them with the aft torpedo launchers?"
"I can get a lock on them but it wouldn't do any good." Quarn replied as he tapped away at the controls.
"Oh really, I think that blasting to kingdom come the little bastards that are trying to kill us would be a good thing." Roberts replied. He swung the axis of the Hydra ninety degrees and maneuvered it in between two excelsior class starships that were closely parked side by side. Two of the chasing patrol craft didn't react in time and collided with the hulls of the dead hulks. Three down and three to go, Roberts thought.
"Getting a torpedo lock will do no good with the aft torpedo bays, because there are no quantum torpedoes left in them." Quarn explained.
"I see." Captain Roberts responded. He danced the Hydra around the remnants of an orbital outpost that had been decommissioned and stored in the tritanium graveyard. A couple of more phaser hits rocked the Hydra.
"Shields holding at eighty percent." Quarn commented.
"That's nice to hear." Roberts replied. Roberts saw that the patrol craft were closing fast, that's when the idea hit him. "Let's try this one." He said with a smile.
He cut the impulse engines and threw them into reverse. The Hydra moaned at the radical course correction, but it worked. One of the three pursuing craft skidded off of the deflector screens, apparently damaging one of its nacelles and went spinning of out of control away from them. The other two managed to swerve out of the way in time, however they overshot the Hydra and was now in front of them.
It didn't take Quarn longer than a spit second to target them both and send their atoms flying through the depths of space via the pulse phasers. He let off a cackling laugh that seemed to echo off of the bulkheads. He then turned to Captain Roberts and gave him a wide jagged smile. "I told you I would get things working on time!"
"Yes you did. Quarn, somehow I think you will be worth every share of latinum I promised you." Roberts said. He casually sat back and set in a course to take them out of the boneyard. "I wonder how Nancy is coming on those warp engines?"
Quarn didn't respond.
Captain Roberts turned his head to look at Quarn, only to see him looking at his control panel in disgust.
"What is it, Quarn?" Roberts asked.
"You might want to check with her on the condition of the warp drive as soon as possible." Quarn responded, tapping away at the controls of the tactical station with a look of concern on his face.
"Why is that?"
"No real reason." Quarn said shaking his head. He looked at Captain Roberts and added, "But you might want to ask her because I just picked up four galaxy class starships on short range sensors making a bee line for us at high warp."
"Hell." Roberts replied. He pulled his wrist communicator up to his mouth and spoke, "Nancy, I hope I'm not disturbing you and you're not going to like this, but…"
* End Chapter One *
Will our unlikely band of heroes get the warp drive working in time? Or will they have to make the stand and face down four galaxy class starships? But more importantly will they live to see chapter three? Tune in because this story is…
To be continued…
P.S.—the I would love any questions or comments that you all have for me you can either post them on the review page or email them to me at: mojo@iowatelecom.net