Acknowledgements: Picard's statement is remarkably similar to the battle report on http://www.startrek.com.
=/\= Part V =/\=
---------------------------------------------
USS Ffestinog, En Route to System Vulcan
Deck 3, Ready Room
1000 Hours
It all was rather anticlimactic, thought Captain Beddoes idly. He had half expected to have his ship stopped and searched by some MPs after Sarevok had waltzed off with classified information, especially after the Vulcan informed him that, in all likeliness, the yeoman would forget to erase the system access files. Sanzei had a volcanic temper and Beddoes definitely didn't want to be on the receiving end of it. And, after some quick talking to get him out of the station, he was happy that he wasn't.
Sarevok hadn't taken much time to figure out the encoding on the information he had obtained from the yeoman, proving that even the most expensive systems could be circumvented with a little ingenuity. If the Klingons discovered that seducing minor officers in the Starfleet bureaucratic system could provide them with valuable classified information, wondered Beddoes, the integrity of the fleet might be compromised. Then he realized that girls didn't like bumps on guys.
The computer chimed three times, signaling that the file had been debugged of all known "tracers," as they were called, programs that would send notice to Starfleet Command that somebody was opening a file without authorization. This was Beddoes' first time doing anything of the sort, and he was still nervous despite being light-years away from Alliance. He felt like getting outside the ship and kissing the engines.
"Well," said the captain, taking a deep breath, "let's see what we've got here. Computer, open it." There was an acknowledging beep as the Federation insignia materialized on the screen, and for a moment he was afraid that Sarevok had pissed off the gods of hacking and there were still tracers on the file. Those fears were rapidly put to rest, however, as the familiar visage of one of the most famous commanders in Starfleet appeared before him. "Now we're talking!" he exclaimed. "I'm going to have to buy that girl a drink." Then he settled down to listen.
"My name is Jean-Luc Picard, captain of the Federation starship Enterprise. This tape is a report on the events leading up to the Veridian III mission, made as dictated by Starfleet operational protocols immediately after the destruction of my vessel in 2371. Full details of the incident have not been cleared for declassification as of this date, but as far as you are concerned, this is all that is relevant to your situation."
Typical Starfleet, groaned Beddoes inwardly. Just when I thought we'd won.
"The USS Enterprise was ordered to investigate a distress call coming from the Amargosa Laboratory, and an away team beamed to the laboratory discovered two dead Romulans and five humans left alive after a mysterious attack. One of these survivors was a Dr. Tolian Soran, a 300-year-old survivor of the El-Aurian incident that killed Captain Kirk. The energy ribbon which damaged the Enterprise-B and killed the captain is called the Nexus, a temporal anomaly moving through space. To anyone or anything inside the Nexus, linear time has no meaning and a person can experience anything that he or she desires; in fact, there is such an overpowering feeling of joy so addictive that once there it is almost impossible to leave. Soran was desperate to return to the Nexus and recreate that joy with the family he lost when his world was assimilated by the Borg.
"After Lt. Commander Data plotted the course of this Nexus in Stellar Cartography it was discovered that Soran planned to do this by destroying an entire sun when the Nexus passed close to the System Veridian. Destroying the system would alter spatial forces, thereby changing the path of the Nexus and allowing Soran to re-enter the phenomenon.
"I took it upon myself to dissuade him, but the joys of the Nexus were apparently too great for Soran to see reason. Meanwhile, Soran's cloaked Klingon allies managed to severely damage the Enterprise-D. The ship suffered a warp-core breach and Commander Riker ordered the saucer section separated. Fortunately, most of the crew were uninjured after an...hairy...landing on the planet of Veridian III. As the Nexus rapidly approached, Soran fired a trilithium torpedo into the sun, destroying it and sending us both into the temporal anomaly. The survivors of the Klingon attack, as well as the two hundred and thirty million inhabitants of the system, were killed."
Captain Picard's face was a mask of neutrality, but even Beddoes could see the effect that must have had on him. The man had a lot of guts despite his unfortunate tendency to call a meeting whenever anything remotely bad happened.
"Everything from that point onwards is still under review by Starfleet Intelligence, and, as such, remains under Priority Red classification. The implications of this phenomenon are, of course, astounding. The effects could have on an otherwise reasonable being can easily be shown by Dr. Tolian Soran's obsession with the Nexus, an obsession that eventually led to insanity. Suffice it to say that Soran's plan did not succeed, thanks to extraordinary heroism in the face of fire.
"And that is the end of this report. You will receive further details as other incidents become declassified. Thank you for your time." Picard's face disappeared from the screen as the tape wound itself to a stop.
"My God," whistled Beddoes, sliding the precious disk into his desk drawer. "No wonder this thing was classified..."
And if Sarevok's memory hadn't faded over the years and the Hyperion really had been exposed to this "Nexus," the admiral and everybody on board his ship would be in very deep shit by now.
"Communications," he said into the intercom, "Get me a channel to Admiral Forester at once." Almost immediately, he amended that statement. "A secure one."
"That will take some time, Captain," his communications officer warned. "We've got listening posts all over this sector."
"Do what you can. I'll be up there at once. Beddoes out."
---------------------------------------------
Listening Post 24601, Deep Space
Primary Data Recorder
1000 Hours
After the reshuffling of Starfleet, responsibility for military intelligence was given to SciFleet technicians who were so disgusted by the shoddy condition of the Federation's sensor net that they wondered how espionage even got done when the gunslingers were in control. With the blessing of TacFleet admirals, the technicians were assigned a few ships and began to refit and repair the listening posts scattered across Federation territory. Priority was given to the Romulan Neutral Zone and outlying colonies, followed by critical trade routes and military bases and outposts; and as a result LP-24601was one of the last on that list. The modifications had been completed only a few days ago and the new location of the listening post would only be transferred to TacFleet databanks after the technicians finished the final leg of their mission.
But LP-24601was definitely online.
Its finely tuned sensors picked up a faint reading from a ship it identified as the USS Ffestinog. Instantly, it cut through the TacFleet encoding, broke into the link and sent a copy of the transmission to any SciFleet ship in range for review. Anything else would eat static.
---------------------------------------------
USS Peacekeeper-A, Holding Escort Position
Bridge
1000 Hours
"Sir!" Lieutenant Borodin bolted upright in her chair at the communications console. "We're picking up a broadband transmission coming from an unregistered sensor station somewhere in the vicinity. I can't pinpoint the location exactly--too much interference. But it's definitely a Federation signal. I should be able to hack it, but..." She gave S'Taelh a puzzled look. "Somehow it's not accepting any of my access codes."
"Sound Yellow Alert," said the Vulcan immediately. "Signal the Hyperion that we are moving to investigate and will rendezvous as soon as possible."
"Hyperion acknowledges, sir. They report they are having engine trouble and are slowing to warp six point four until the problem is cleared up."
"That is unfortunate. Helm, plot a course to the listening post as quickly as you can. I want to be back here before anything else happens."
As the Peacekeeper turned away from its course, S'Taelh couldn't help wondering why routine diplomatic escort missions would always get so...complicated.
Bridge
1036 Hours
"Entering the sector now," reported the helm officer. "You should be able to pick up the signals loud and clear now."
S'Taelh glanced over at Borodin, who looked back helplessly. "Still static, sir. If this was a Federation signal I would be able to decode it but the computer doesn't seem to recognize the frequency. We might have to consider the possibility that this is a probe droid planted by, say, the Romulans."
The lieutenant commander flinched at his officer's accusation. That had always been a sore point. "Sensors at maximum," he ordered sharply. "Let's see if they tells us anything."
---------------------------------------------
Listening Post 24601, Deep Space
Main Computer
1036 Hours
The computer had been set to activate once it detected signs of hostile intrusion and now it whirred to life, its mechanical mind quickly analyzing the situation. An unknown scanning frequency was sweeping the area, one that, while definitely not up to SciFleet standards, did have the potential to break into its archives.
Its programming took over from there. An emergency message flashed through subspace almost instantaneously, and three milliseconds later a command was sent to the safety fuses planted on each one of the listening post's four solar panels--deactivating the force field surrounding the antimatter battery.
A few milliseconds more and all that was left of LP-24601 was a rapidly expanding cloud of dust.
---------------------------------------------
USS Peacekeeper-A, Deep Space
Bridge
1036 Hours
S'Taelh let loose a dreadful Orion expletive. "Helm, get us out of here before we're detected. If Starfleet finds out about this they're going to court-martial and drum us out of the service."
"Not if they don't find us." The helm officer turned to the console, a grim smile on his face. "Heading back towards the Hyperion--"
The captain tightened his grip on his chair. "I think it's too late for that," he said. "See that?" What was unmistakably the outline of an Federation cruiser had appeared on the screen--and approaching quickly.
His science officer looked frantic. "I couldn't pick up anything with my scanners just a second ago!?!" he said, gesticulating madly towards his screen. "Only ships with transwarp drive could respond to a distress call that fast!"
"Check the data registry. USS Talaria, NX-26781. A transwarp testbed, armed and operational."
"Well, whoever they are they're hailing us!!" shouted Borodin as what was unmistakably the voice of a very angry SciFleet commander came through the speakers. "I'm trying to jam them--"
Idiot. Now we can't be written off as some strange sensor anomaly. "Ops, engage the phase cloak and set a course for the Hyperion," ordered S'Taelh. "Maybe the explosion will mask our engine signature." Or maybe Kieran will pull some rank and save our asses before we get courmartialed out of the service.
He would have been much more worried if he had known that the Talaria had just finished plotting an intercept course.
---------------------------------------------
USS Ffestinog, En Route to System Vulcan
Bridge
1046 Hours
Beddoes' face looked unusually serious as he finished outlining what he had gleaned from the stolen tape. "So basically you're carrying what could quite possibly be the deadliest weapon ever invented. And you think the holodeck is bad? Hell, what we're dealing with--it's the real thing."
"But that's impossible! Everything on board this ship is real, I guarantee that!"
"All the same, you'd better get it checked at a starbase. Who knows what else may be on that tape that Starfleet's not showing us--"
All of a sudden, the sounds of a loud explosion filtered through the speakers, almost immediately followed by a rain of sparks that showered down on the Hyperion's bridge. Captain Beddoes' heart lodged itself somewhere between his mouth and his windpipe as he saw Admiral Forester go down.
"Hold on!" he shouted before the visual lock shivered and disappeared entirely. "Helm! Maximum warp!"
---------------------------------------------
USS Hyperion-C, En Route to System Vulcan
Bridge
1046 Hours
Admiral Kieran Forester had been in charge of a starship long enough to know when a little jolt was a little jolt and when a little jolt would probably lead to the destruction of the ship. As he picked himself up from the floor, head reeling, he felt the rumblings of another explosion just seconds before it hit the ship. Kieran clutched madly at the railing and barely managed to avoid tumbling down again.
"What the hell was that!?" he shouted above the din of the sirens, struggling to stay on his feet.
"I don't know, sir, but that's some crazy shit that's happening--hold on, here comes another one--" The young science officer braced himself as another explosion ripped through the bridge. The science panel disintegrated in front of his horrified eyes.
"Tell me what that crazy shit is!"
"I've just lost my console, but as far as I can tell, it's some kind of warp core breach, energy surge in the phase cloak--wait--hull integrity's going down, sir! We're at 94%--wait, make that 83%--and holding, force fields are up but we won't be able to power them for long--"
"Emergency decelerate!" the admiral ordered immediately. "Cut all power from our engines and activate our batteries!"
"But sir, doing that at Warp Six could rip the ship to pieces!" protested the helmsman.
"And you stay at Warp Six and the ship will rip itself to pieces!" Taking advantage of a momentary respite in the explosions, Kieran dashed across the bridge to the helm. "Do I have to do everything myself?" he snarled, and punched the command.
For one agonizing second, the Hyperion's hull creaked and groaned under the stress of the maneuver. Kieran recoiled as the engines' dull hum rose in pitch to become an agonized howl, his eyes still locked on the helm officer's controls. The thin red bar on the bottom slowly faded to a pale yellow, and then to a bright green. All of a sudden, the engines abruptly stopped their humming and shut down.
Kieran slumped in his seat as the helmsman reported in: "Maneuver successful."
"Can somebody give me a casualty count?" the admiral called out weakly.
The science officer gingerly touched his scorched console. "Not with this," he said, brushing off some ashes from his fingers. "As it stands now it won't even tell me if our engines are online."
There was a crackle of static and the interim chief engineer's voice came through the intercom. "Admiral, we've got more than a few dead and wounded down here--would you mind giving us a hand?"
The words "more than a few" sent an involuntary shiver down Kieran's spine. "Can you reach Sickbay?" he asked.
"That's the problem. Communications down here have been cut, otherwise we'd let the CMO know about the way things stand. We've only just gotten to the AC dragging the injured, and I don't think they can make it very far."
"I'll detail a medical team to your position right away."
"All I need." The intercom clicked twice.
---------------------------------------------
USS Peacekeeper-A, En Route to Rendezvous Point
Bridge
1046 Hours
"At least we don't have to charge weapons," remarked S'Taelh wryly as he watched the distorted star lines flash by on the viewscreen. "A good thing about being pursued by a friendly vessel. Can we enhance the operation of our scanners with the excess power?"
"Would that do anything for us, sir?" His science officer looked at him skeptically. "We can't see the side of a fucking barn while the cloak's running and we're at warp. Besides, whatever's after us would probably detect the scan and blow us to pieces."
"Agreed. Albeit with less colorful language," said the captain. "Out of curiosity, then, how can certain unnamed denizens of the galaxy target things while cloaked?"
"You're thinking about normal cloak, sir, which works far more simply. If you'd really like me to explain the physics--"
"That will be fine, Ensign." S'Taelh made sure to cut him off before he could go any further. Once a scientist warmed to his favorite topic, it would be impossible to shut him up. "Do you detect pursuit?"
"As I said, we can't see the side of a fucking--"
"Ah." The Vulcan made a mental note to see if he could get a science officer without a mouth like a trooper. "ETA to rendezvous, then?"
"At present speed..." The science officer glanced at the console. "Four minutes. We're close."
S'Taelh nodded. Enough of the small talk, he upbraided himself. Life will start getting interesting if that starship's followed us.
---------------------------------------------
USS Hyperion-C, Holding Position
Auxiliary Control
1048 Hours
CMO Caitlin Denning arrived minutes later to find Auxiliary Control turned into a makeshift hospital. Farrelly was on the comms again, giving Kieran a rundown on what was broken on the ship. "It would be quicker to tell you what's not broken," the interim chief engineer was saying--the standard response. "We're alive, but only just. One more hit and the entire ship will go to pieces."
"Are the warp engines working?"
Caitlin could sense the engineer's hesitation, and she reminded herself to get up to the bridge and prescribe something for high blood pressure after she was done here. "Well...they're not dead, I can tell you that."
"Translation?"
The engineer heaved a sigh. "That means we don't know, sir. The warp core's been restricted ever since the first officer was fried by the radiation and your ED has probably made it worse. We've been forced to evacuate all personnel. If there's something wrong, our detectors ought to be able to find it. The problem is, we don't know if our detectors are malfunctioning or not. We have to send somebody in there to check it out."
There was a loud, uncomfortable silence on the other end. "Very well," the admiral said finally, his voice barely audible even amplified by the speakers. "I'll go check it out. Keep me posted on developments, Lieutenant. Kieran out." At that, Auxiliary Control broke into a cacophony of shouts and exclamations.
Caitlin struggled to be heard above the din. "How long?" she asked Farrelly.
"With the radiation in there? I don't think he'll last for thirty minutes--much too short a time to find the leak."
"Oh, shit," she muttered. Then, without another word, she grabbed a stim from her pack and started to shoulder her way through the crowd.
"That won't work," shouted Farrelly. "You'll have to incapacitate him, not poison him!"
Caitlin turned back with resignation. "Who said I'm going to even touch him?"
The doors hissed shut moments later, but she could see the horrified look on the engineer's face nonetheless.
---------------------------------------------
USS Peacekeeper-A, Holding Position
Bridge
1050 Hours
The counter on the tactical officer's panel flashed 4:00 in bright red letters as the Peacekeeper's warp engines shut down. "All stop," called S'Taelh.
"Aye, sir. All stop," echoed the helmsman. Seconds later, the sublight engines were shut off as well, leaving the massive Sovereign dead in space.
"Anything?" S'Taelh turned expectantly to his science officer.
"We have ourselves a reading," he replied, brows furrowed. "But that's all. There's a ship out there, and I'd be willing to bet it's the Hyperion. A bit off course, as far as I know, but that's the best I can give you."
"So what's the problem?"
"There's another ship on our sensors, right where the Hyperion ought to be but apparently isn't. We would have hit it if we hadn't stopped when we did."
S'Taelh started. "Could the Talaria have arrived before us?"
The helmsman snorted. "At transwarp? It could make it to Sol and back in less than a day. If we had one of those babies..."
"So we're effectively blind."
"That is correct."
"And there's no chance for a deep scan?"
"Then we'd just reveal ourselves, and whoever's in charge of the Talaria won't be very happy to see us. It's cat-and-mouse, sir, if I may draw the analogy. The question is, do we want to be the hunter or the hunted?"
"An apt analogy," said S'Taelh approvingly. "So tell me, Mister Anderson--how do you say to being felines today?"
Slowly, a wide grin spread across the science officer's face. "You son of a bitch!" he shouted exultingly, and then went to work.
---------------------------------------------
USS Hyperion-C, Holding Position
Engineering
1050 Hours
Visions flitted through the admiral's head like butterflies as he silently stepped into the bulky suit which he knew wouldn't protect him from the radiation inside.
FLASH.
"Good. Learinton, make your course 053 mark 12. Hunter, set speed 31 and prepare for high energy turn." Both lieutenants muttered their assent and made the inputs on their consoles.
"David, ready torpedo launchers. Fire only on my command." On the screen, the behemoth passed beneath them.
"Execute HET! 180 degrees!" The Hegemony's rear starboard side loomed in the viewscreen. "Torpedoes only! Fire!"
Four torpedoes tore into the weakened shield at point blank range. The third knocked out the shield, and the fourth impacted on unshielded hull.
"Set phasers to pulse fire, target aft weaponry and drone defense systems! Fire!" Crimson phasers, one blast after another, lanced into more unprotected sections on the Hegemony's hull.
"Drone racks, launch!" Two blazing missiles zipped away from the Hyperion--
FLASH.
--and into an old listening post decommissioned for 'testing duty.' It erupted in a satisfactory flash of flame as the two missiles slammed into its midsection. Kieran frowned.
"Lieutenant, why didn't the other rack fire?"
The lieutenant squinted at the console. "Sir, it looks like the number two rack jammed again. The engineers are working on it, but both racks will have to be taken offline."
Kieran growled. "All right then, let's move on to the photon torpedoes. Torpedo launcher status?"
"Four of the launchers are fully loaded and ready to fire."
"Four? This ship has six photon tubes, what's wrong with the other two?"
The lieutenant again checked his console. "Commodore, the auto-loader mechanisms on tubes three and four are not functional. They will have to be loaded manually."
Kieran sighed. "And how long will that take?"
"About three times as long as--"
"Sharia, get me--"
FLASH.
"--intraship!"
"Aye, sir. Channel open."
The commodore cleared his throat ceremoniously. "This is Commodore Forester speaking. Starfleet has sent me the orders for this mission. They tell me to distribute them on a need-to-know basis, with all that kind of bureaucratic bullshit. Well, I think you all need to know.
"We're on a top-secret mission to rescue an old ambassador from the Romulans. If we fail, nobody will know. Supposedly, we will have encountered a strange anomaly and disappeared without a trace. And if we succeed, we'll get no recognition whatsoever. So we're risking it all for nothing that can be put on paper.
"I will drive you harder than you've ever been driven before. I'll force you to do all sorts of seemingly useless tasks. You'll do them. And when you're done, I won't pat you nicely on the back and give you a commendation. I'll scream my ass off and tell you to do it again. You think the guys at the Academy were tough? I used to teach at the Academy. I'm tougher.
"But when we're all done with this mission, we're going to get into the biggest goddamn bar this side of the galaxy and I'll buy you all a drink. First, though, we need to survive. And to do that, you'll have to listen to me. Is that clear?"
Kieran hoped that the crew was nodding.
"Good. That is all." He closed the channel and lay back on his bed, seeing--
FLASH.
The crew of the Hyperion and the Peacekeeper. He felt himself break down as a vacant coffin, draped with the flag of Starfleet, passed him on the parade grounds of Starfleet Academy. An empty grave, he thought. And all the technology of my ship couldn't save him...
Twenty-one fighters shot above the skies of San Francisco. One of them peeled away and screamed downwards towards the Academy. It recovered at the last minute, soaring back upwards to rejoin its squadron. A tribute to a fallen officer.
Twenty-one guns fired in simultaneous salute as the coffin was carried into the cemetery. Various admirals began to speak, but Kieran found himself suddenly uninterested.
"What's wrong?" Ryan Laskir, wearing a somber expression on his usually blithe face, walked up to the him.
"I--I--well, I don't know--it all just seems so trite, so useless..."
"Come on, now," he said quietly. "He gave his life for us. You call that useless?"
"Well--"
"I've known him for around sixty years and I still don't think I can understand him. But suffice it to say that he did his duty--to us, to you, to Starfleet."
FLASH.
"We used to be like him," Kjolgaard said quietly, his hand never leaving his captain's shoulder. "Remember the time we snuck into Professor Fischer's lab and replaced the stuff in his test tubes with sugar water?" He chuckled. Almost got us kicked out of the place, but we weren't. We were too good. But now, now, now...it's all different. Look at this around you." The first officer picked up the book and brushed some dust off of the cover. "If you had told Admiral Moore that a hundred years later people would be able to recreate the past he would have sent you to the funny bin."
Kjolgaard sighed. "It's past our time, Kieran. We can put on new uniforms and command new ships but you know as well as I do that they're just idle pretensions. Let the new generation take over now. Let them replace the stuff in your test tubes with sugar water. It'll almost get them kicked out of the place but they won't be. Since they're too good. We're just old graying relics of antiquity, my friend. Just let go..."
FLASH.
"Kieran!"
A clarion call through the fog, bursting through the dark shadows like bright sunlight--
"Kieran!"
Caitlin Denning rushed up to him and ripped off his helmet. "Oh my god," she screamed. "Kieran! Answer me! Kieran!"
He stared at her for a second, her form wavering in his field of vision. His mouth tried to form a word, any word, but it wouldn't respond.
Sobbing hysterically, she fumbled for a hypo and stabbed it into his arm.
Spasms of pain shot through his nerves, and he screamed and hollered at the top of his lungs that he wasn't dead, that he was still alive--
Then.
Darkness.
---------------------------------------------
USS Peacekeeper-A, Holding Position
Bridge
1051 Hours
S'Taelh braced himself in his chair as his science officer powered up the scanners. "Anything?" he asked tensely.
"Can't tell at this range," the officer cursed, and delivered a hard kick to his console. "Can we get in closer?"
The helmsman looked at him questioningly. "Sir, that will probably reveal our--"
"Do it."
He shrugged. "Very well. Accelerating to one-quarter impulse." The two ships on the viewscreen started to solidify into coherent images, a far cry from the churning white eddies they had been moments earlier.
"Anything?"
"Just a little bit more...they haven't detected us yet...just a little bit--" And then, suddenly: "Weapons launch! Weapons launch! Four--wait, make it six--six drones from the ship in the rendezvous point, set to disable! In phase cloak, we have no shields--"
"Helm, evasive!" shouted S'Taelh immediately.
"I can't safely do anything, they're closing fast--"
"Now would be a good time to get us out of here!"
"Well, I could try the Picard Maneuver...Brief acceleration to warp, then back to impulse--"
"I know what the goddamn maneuver is! Do it before those drones hit us!"
Taking a deep breath, the helmsman activated the warp engines, jumped to Warp Two, and then decelerated to impulse immediately.
S'Taelh had just breathed a sigh of relief as the drones swerved to hit the mirror ship or were destroyed by the warp field when there was a sickening crunch.
The Peacekeeper had collided with the Hyperion.
---------------------------------------------
USS Hyperion-C, Holding Position
Engineering
1051 Hours
Like all Starfleet officers, Caitlin was trained to deal with life-and-death situations in a calm and steady manner, but now she fumbled in her medical pouch with increasing panic. The corridor lights exploded one by one around her, plunging the entire deck into darkness, lit only by the eerie throbbing of the alarms. Through the mental haze that threatened to envelop her Caitlin still recognized them. Collision, she thought dully. And then: "Mary sweet mother of God..."
Hull breach!!
She began to tug Kieran's limp body--still encased in the bulky radiation suit--away from Engineering. "Give me some help here," she pleaded, her breaths becoming shallower in the thinning air. There! There was the airlock, a mere twenty feet ahead of her. But the sudden loss of oxygen was too much. With one last helpless look at her commander, she sank lifeless to the ground.
The sirens were still wailing.
---------------------------------------------
USS Peacekeeper-A, Holding Position
Bridge
1052 Hours
S'Taelh held on for dear life as his ship shuddered around him. "What did we hit!" he shouted as the science officer struggled to stabilize the deflectors. Luckily for them all, the Peacekeeper sported top-of-the-line shielding that had allowed it to survive the near-fatal collision. But only just.
"The only other thing in the system!" the science officer shouted back. "The Hyperion got knocked off course by an explosion in their warp core--"
"--so their shielding's offline," finished S'Taelh. Shit! "Bridge to McClellan, come in, come in."
The transporter officer's voice filtered through the comms. "McClellan here," she said, panting slightly, and only then did S'Taelh realize that she was off-duty during the shift.
"Damage to systems?"
"Engine's shot up pretty bad, but the transporters should still work."
"Get a lock on the Hyperion's personnel and beam them on board before it blows--"
"Weapons launch! Weapons launch!" interrupted the science officer. "Two drones, targeting our auxiliary power, set to disable!"
"You hear that?" growled S'Taelh. "Hurry up!"
"I can't get a lock! They seem to be melting in and out of realspace, I'm trying to compensate--"
The intercom abruptly cut off as the ionic discharge from the drones' warheads reached the power core. All aboard the Peacekeeper, critical systems ground to a halt. They were disabled.
S'Taelh reacted instantly. "Everybody out!" he yelled, pushing his bridge crew towards the turbolift and sealing the doors. With any luck it would withstand the pressures of a vacuum long enough for the Talaria to rescue the officers inside.
Strapping on a EVA suit locked inside emergency storage, he lifted his phaser and began blasting a hole through the top of the bridge. Here goes nothing, S'Taelh thought to himself, and launched himself towards the stars.
---------------------------------------------
USS Hyperion-C, Holding Position
Outer Engineering
1054 Hours
The Hyperion's hull was badly pockmarked and punctured, S'Taelh could see, and he directed himself towards one of the larger breaches. The faint glow of his repulsors was the only light in the corridor as he touched down. His magnetized boots locked themselves to the floor with an inaudible clank
S'Taelh crept forward slowly in the darkness until a little beep from his helmet's computer told him that it had found what he was looking for. Whispering a prayer to whichever god held the Hyperion in its good graces, he hit a button on the side of the wall. A gauzy blue force field shimmered into existence and sealed the deck from vacuum. The deck automatically began repressurizing.
Finally, thought S'Taelh with more than a little relief. First time anything went my way today.
Deactivating his magnetic boots, S'Taelh strode past the cold, frozen corpses of those unlucky enough to be here when the collision occurred and into the inner bowels of the ship. Maybe there were still some survivors.
Engineering
1056 Hours
The first thing Kieran sensed as he opened his eyes was that he could breathe again. I'm alive! was the first thing that went through his mind. And then he began to take in lungful after lungful of full, sweet, refreshing air as he closed his eyes once more.
FLASH.
"Kieran!" Caitlin's voice rang loud and sharp in his ear, and when he looked up he could see her right there in front of him. "Oh god, I thought you were--"
FLASH.
"--dead!" Her feminine features suddenly melted into what was unmistakably S'Taelh's angular face. "We have to get you inside before the temporary force--"
FLASH.
"--field is breached!" Caitlin grunted as she struggled to raise the admiral from the ground. "Just in here! Not very far to go,--"
FLASH.
"--not at all...give me some help, Admiral. Can you stand up?" S'Taelh picked Kieran up and braced the admiral against his sturdy frame. Together, they hobbled towards the--
FLASH.
--door to the warp core, and Caitlin held the admiral upright as she opened it. Together, they stumbled inside and fell on the ground, panting, when--
FLASH.
Kieran stared from one to the other. Caitlin and S'Taelh, S'Taelh and Caitlin. Doing exactly the same thing, but two different people nonetheless. Their voices melded together, their bodies, becoming one for a single infinitesimal moment and then splitting again.
FLASH.
S'Taelh laid the admiral down gently but couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't right. He whirled around to see the warp core offline and the phase cloak generator pulsing purple--
FLASH.
--and red and orange and green and yellow, then a blur, shifting colors so fast that it stretched across the entire room and then beyond so Caitlin found herself dizzy. Bolts of pure energy crackled around it, out of it--
FLASH.
--and finally, something occurred to Kieran--Commodore Caitlin Hope Denning had been killed at the Battle of San Paolo while she was serving on board the medical cruiser Salvation--
FLASH.
"Come on, Admiral!" S'Taelh's voice bore a sense of urgency now. "I need to get you out of here before radiation exposure kills us--"
FLASH.
The Nexus! realized Kieran. An alternate reality where your deepest wishes can come true!
FLASH.
"--like it killed Boris and Dane!" Caitlin took hold of his hand and tried to drag him away from the crackling energy ribbon--
FLASH.
The words of Dane Kjolgaard came rushing back to him..."Just let go..." Kieran repeated quietly. "Let go..." Richtofen, Kaisen, S'Tasik, Dane...all of them seemed terribly far away, and yet they were right above him, shades of a time past diving in and out of his thoughts, sending a chilling numbness down his spine--
"Let go..."
...his friend for nearly a century, loyal companion and officer, there when he needed her the most...the next generation of captains, young, brave, and unbelievably stubborn like his father, the future of Starfleet...
"Let go..."
Ghosts swirled around him. He could have back the past, make wrong the mistakes, but it would all be false, it would all be an illusion...Caitlin Denning beckoned, and he ran forward to her...
"Let go..."
...grabbed her in his powerful arms. With a last long look at her beautiful face, he threw her into the writhing inferno and covered his eyes as her face contorted in agony, green eyes running together with blazing red hair, her form liquefying until she became energy herself.
The strands of the Nexus came together as one, forming a brilliant pillar that rose up from the Hyperion's engine room and leapt into space. And with a final FLASH, it was gone...
---------------------------------------------
USS Ffestinog, Holding Position
Bridge
1100 Hours
"Oh, Jesus," moaned Captain Beddoes. "We've missed the action again."
=/\= Part V =/\=
---------------------------------------------
USS Ffestinog, En Route to System Vulcan
Deck 3, Ready Room
1000 Hours
It all was rather anticlimactic, thought Captain Beddoes idly. He had half expected to have his ship stopped and searched by some MPs after Sarevok had waltzed off with classified information, especially after the Vulcan informed him that, in all likeliness, the yeoman would forget to erase the system access files. Sanzei had a volcanic temper and Beddoes definitely didn't want to be on the receiving end of it. And, after some quick talking to get him out of the station, he was happy that he wasn't.
Sarevok hadn't taken much time to figure out the encoding on the information he had obtained from the yeoman, proving that even the most expensive systems could be circumvented with a little ingenuity. If the Klingons discovered that seducing minor officers in the Starfleet bureaucratic system could provide them with valuable classified information, wondered Beddoes, the integrity of the fleet might be compromised. Then he realized that girls didn't like bumps on guys.
The computer chimed three times, signaling that the file had been debugged of all known "tracers," as they were called, programs that would send notice to Starfleet Command that somebody was opening a file without authorization. This was Beddoes' first time doing anything of the sort, and he was still nervous despite being light-years away from Alliance. He felt like getting outside the ship and kissing the engines.
"Well," said the captain, taking a deep breath, "let's see what we've got here. Computer, open it." There was an acknowledging beep as the Federation insignia materialized on the screen, and for a moment he was afraid that Sarevok had pissed off the gods of hacking and there were still tracers on the file. Those fears were rapidly put to rest, however, as the familiar visage of one of the most famous commanders in Starfleet appeared before him. "Now we're talking!" he exclaimed. "I'm going to have to buy that girl a drink." Then he settled down to listen.
"My name is Jean-Luc Picard, captain of the Federation starship Enterprise. This tape is a report on the events leading up to the Veridian III mission, made as dictated by Starfleet operational protocols immediately after the destruction of my vessel in 2371. Full details of the incident have not been cleared for declassification as of this date, but as far as you are concerned, this is all that is relevant to your situation."
Typical Starfleet, groaned Beddoes inwardly. Just when I thought we'd won.
"The USS Enterprise was ordered to investigate a distress call coming from the Amargosa Laboratory, and an away team beamed to the laboratory discovered two dead Romulans and five humans left alive after a mysterious attack. One of these survivors was a Dr. Tolian Soran, a 300-year-old survivor of the El-Aurian incident that killed Captain Kirk. The energy ribbon which damaged the Enterprise-B and killed the captain is called the Nexus, a temporal anomaly moving through space. To anyone or anything inside the Nexus, linear time has no meaning and a person can experience anything that he or she desires; in fact, there is such an overpowering feeling of joy so addictive that once there it is almost impossible to leave. Soran was desperate to return to the Nexus and recreate that joy with the family he lost when his world was assimilated by the Borg.
"After Lt. Commander Data plotted the course of this Nexus in Stellar Cartography it was discovered that Soran planned to do this by destroying an entire sun when the Nexus passed close to the System Veridian. Destroying the system would alter spatial forces, thereby changing the path of the Nexus and allowing Soran to re-enter the phenomenon.
"I took it upon myself to dissuade him, but the joys of the Nexus were apparently too great for Soran to see reason. Meanwhile, Soran's cloaked Klingon allies managed to severely damage the Enterprise-D. The ship suffered a warp-core breach and Commander Riker ordered the saucer section separated. Fortunately, most of the crew were uninjured after an...hairy...landing on the planet of Veridian III. As the Nexus rapidly approached, Soran fired a trilithium torpedo into the sun, destroying it and sending us both into the temporal anomaly. The survivors of the Klingon attack, as well as the two hundred and thirty million inhabitants of the system, were killed."
Captain Picard's face was a mask of neutrality, but even Beddoes could see the effect that must have had on him. The man had a lot of guts despite his unfortunate tendency to call a meeting whenever anything remotely bad happened.
"Everything from that point onwards is still under review by Starfleet Intelligence, and, as such, remains under Priority Red classification. The implications of this phenomenon are, of course, astounding. The effects could have on an otherwise reasonable being can easily be shown by Dr. Tolian Soran's obsession with the Nexus, an obsession that eventually led to insanity. Suffice it to say that Soran's plan did not succeed, thanks to extraordinary heroism in the face of fire.
"And that is the end of this report. You will receive further details as other incidents become declassified. Thank you for your time." Picard's face disappeared from the screen as the tape wound itself to a stop.
"My God," whistled Beddoes, sliding the precious disk into his desk drawer. "No wonder this thing was classified..."
And if Sarevok's memory hadn't faded over the years and the Hyperion really had been exposed to this "Nexus," the admiral and everybody on board his ship would be in very deep shit by now.
"Communications," he said into the intercom, "Get me a channel to Admiral Forester at once." Almost immediately, he amended that statement. "A secure one."
"That will take some time, Captain," his communications officer warned. "We've got listening posts all over this sector."
"Do what you can. I'll be up there at once. Beddoes out."
---------------------------------------------
Listening Post 24601, Deep Space
Primary Data Recorder
1000 Hours
After the reshuffling of Starfleet, responsibility for military intelligence was given to SciFleet technicians who were so disgusted by the shoddy condition of the Federation's sensor net that they wondered how espionage even got done when the gunslingers were in control. With the blessing of TacFleet admirals, the technicians were assigned a few ships and began to refit and repair the listening posts scattered across Federation territory. Priority was given to the Romulan Neutral Zone and outlying colonies, followed by critical trade routes and military bases and outposts; and as a result LP-24601was one of the last on that list. The modifications had been completed only a few days ago and the new location of the listening post would only be transferred to TacFleet databanks after the technicians finished the final leg of their mission.
But LP-24601was definitely online.
Its finely tuned sensors picked up a faint reading from a ship it identified as the USS Ffestinog. Instantly, it cut through the TacFleet encoding, broke into the link and sent a copy of the transmission to any SciFleet ship in range for review. Anything else would eat static.
---------------------------------------------
USS Peacekeeper-A, Holding Escort Position
Bridge
1000 Hours
"Sir!" Lieutenant Borodin bolted upright in her chair at the communications console. "We're picking up a broadband transmission coming from an unregistered sensor station somewhere in the vicinity. I can't pinpoint the location exactly--too much interference. But it's definitely a Federation signal. I should be able to hack it, but..." She gave S'Taelh a puzzled look. "Somehow it's not accepting any of my access codes."
"Sound Yellow Alert," said the Vulcan immediately. "Signal the Hyperion that we are moving to investigate and will rendezvous as soon as possible."
"Hyperion acknowledges, sir. They report they are having engine trouble and are slowing to warp six point four until the problem is cleared up."
"That is unfortunate. Helm, plot a course to the listening post as quickly as you can. I want to be back here before anything else happens."
As the Peacekeeper turned away from its course, S'Taelh couldn't help wondering why routine diplomatic escort missions would always get so...complicated.
Bridge
1036 Hours
"Entering the sector now," reported the helm officer. "You should be able to pick up the signals loud and clear now."
S'Taelh glanced over at Borodin, who looked back helplessly. "Still static, sir. If this was a Federation signal I would be able to decode it but the computer doesn't seem to recognize the frequency. We might have to consider the possibility that this is a probe droid planted by, say, the Romulans."
The lieutenant commander flinched at his officer's accusation. That had always been a sore point. "Sensors at maximum," he ordered sharply. "Let's see if they tells us anything."
---------------------------------------------
Listening Post 24601, Deep Space
Main Computer
1036 Hours
The computer had been set to activate once it detected signs of hostile intrusion and now it whirred to life, its mechanical mind quickly analyzing the situation. An unknown scanning frequency was sweeping the area, one that, while definitely not up to SciFleet standards, did have the potential to break into its archives.
Its programming took over from there. An emergency message flashed through subspace almost instantaneously, and three milliseconds later a command was sent to the safety fuses planted on each one of the listening post's four solar panels--deactivating the force field surrounding the antimatter battery.
A few milliseconds more and all that was left of LP-24601 was a rapidly expanding cloud of dust.
---------------------------------------------
USS Peacekeeper-A, Deep Space
Bridge
1036 Hours
S'Taelh let loose a dreadful Orion expletive. "Helm, get us out of here before we're detected. If Starfleet finds out about this they're going to court-martial and drum us out of the service."
"Not if they don't find us." The helm officer turned to the console, a grim smile on his face. "Heading back towards the Hyperion--"
The captain tightened his grip on his chair. "I think it's too late for that," he said. "See that?" What was unmistakably the outline of an Federation cruiser had appeared on the screen--and approaching quickly.
His science officer looked frantic. "I couldn't pick up anything with my scanners just a second ago!?!" he said, gesticulating madly towards his screen. "Only ships with transwarp drive could respond to a distress call that fast!"
"Check the data registry. USS Talaria, NX-26781. A transwarp testbed, armed and operational."
"Well, whoever they are they're hailing us!!" shouted Borodin as what was unmistakably the voice of a very angry SciFleet commander came through the speakers. "I'm trying to jam them--"
Idiot. Now we can't be written off as some strange sensor anomaly. "Ops, engage the phase cloak and set a course for the Hyperion," ordered S'Taelh. "Maybe the explosion will mask our engine signature." Or maybe Kieran will pull some rank and save our asses before we get courmartialed out of the service.
He would have been much more worried if he had known that the Talaria had just finished plotting an intercept course.
---------------------------------------------
USS Ffestinog, En Route to System Vulcan
Bridge
1046 Hours
Beddoes' face looked unusually serious as he finished outlining what he had gleaned from the stolen tape. "So basically you're carrying what could quite possibly be the deadliest weapon ever invented. And you think the holodeck is bad? Hell, what we're dealing with--it's the real thing."
"But that's impossible! Everything on board this ship is real, I guarantee that!"
"All the same, you'd better get it checked at a starbase. Who knows what else may be on that tape that Starfleet's not showing us--"
All of a sudden, the sounds of a loud explosion filtered through the speakers, almost immediately followed by a rain of sparks that showered down on the Hyperion's bridge. Captain Beddoes' heart lodged itself somewhere between his mouth and his windpipe as he saw Admiral Forester go down.
"Hold on!" he shouted before the visual lock shivered and disappeared entirely. "Helm! Maximum warp!"
---------------------------------------------
USS Hyperion-C, En Route to System Vulcan
Bridge
1046 Hours
Admiral Kieran Forester had been in charge of a starship long enough to know when a little jolt was a little jolt and when a little jolt would probably lead to the destruction of the ship. As he picked himself up from the floor, head reeling, he felt the rumblings of another explosion just seconds before it hit the ship. Kieran clutched madly at the railing and barely managed to avoid tumbling down again.
"What the hell was that!?" he shouted above the din of the sirens, struggling to stay on his feet.
"I don't know, sir, but that's some crazy shit that's happening--hold on, here comes another one--" The young science officer braced himself as another explosion ripped through the bridge. The science panel disintegrated in front of his horrified eyes.
"Tell me what that crazy shit is!"
"I've just lost my console, but as far as I can tell, it's some kind of warp core breach, energy surge in the phase cloak--wait--hull integrity's going down, sir! We're at 94%--wait, make that 83%--and holding, force fields are up but we won't be able to power them for long--"
"Emergency decelerate!" the admiral ordered immediately. "Cut all power from our engines and activate our batteries!"
"But sir, doing that at Warp Six could rip the ship to pieces!" protested the helmsman.
"And you stay at Warp Six and the ship will rip itself to pieces!" Taking advantage of a momentary respite in the explosions, Kieran dashed across the bridge to the helm. "Do I have to do everything myself?" he snarled, and punched the command.
For one agonizing second, the Hyperion's hull creaked and groaned under the stress of the maneuver. Kieran recoiled as the engines' dull hum rose in pitch to become an agonized howl, his eyes still locked on the helm officer's controls. The thin red bar on the bottom slowly faded to a pale yellow, and then to a bright green. All of a sudden, the engines abruptly stopped their humming and shut down.
Kieran slumped in his seat as the helmsman reported in: "Maneuver successful."
"Can somebody give me a casualty count?" the admiral called out weakly.
The science officer gingerly touched his scorched console. "Not with this," he said, brushing off some ashes from his fingers. "As it stands now it won't even tell me if our engines are online."
There was a crackle of static and the interim chief engineer's voice came through the intercom. "Admiral, we've got more than a few dead and wounded down here--would you mind giving us a hand?"
The words "more than a few" sent an involuntary shiver down Kieran's spine. "Can you reach Sickbay?" he asked.
"That's the problem. Communications down here have been cut, otherwise we'd let the CMO know about the way things stand. We've only just gotten to the AC dragging the injured, and I don't think they can make it very far."
"I'll detail a medical team to your position right away."
"All I need." The intercom clicked twice.
---------------------------------------------
USS Peacekeeper-A, En Route to Rendezvous Point
Bridge
1046 Hours
"At least we don't have to charge weapons," remarked S'Taelh wryly as he watched the distorted star lines flash by on the viewscreen. "A good thing about being pursued by a friendly vessel. Can we enhance the operation of our scanners with the excess power?"
"Would that do anything for us, sir?" His science officer looked at him skeptically. "We can't see the side of a fucking barn while the cloak's running and we're at warp. Besides, whatever's after us would probably detect the scan and blow us to pieces."
"Agreed. Albeit with less colorful language," said the captain. "Out of curiosity, then, how can certain unnamed denizens of the galaxy target things while cloaked?"
"You're thinking about normal cloak, sir, which works far more simply. If you'd really like me to explain the physics--"
"That will be fine, Ensign." S'Taelh made sure to cut him off before he could go any further. Once a scientist warmed to his favorite topic, it would be impossible to shut him up. "Do you detect pursuit?"
"As I said, we can't see the side of a fucking--"
"Ah." The Vulcan made a mental note to see if he could get a science officer without a mouth like a trooper. "ETA to rendezvous, then?"
"At present speed..." The science officer glanced at the console. "Four minutes. We're close."
S'Taelh nodded. Enough of the small talk, he upbraided himself. Life will start getting interesting if that starship's followed us.
---------------------------------------------
USS Hyperion-C, Holding Position
Auxiliary Control
1048 Hours
CMO Caitlin Denning arrived minutes later to find Auxiliary Control turned into a makeshift hospital. Farrelly was on the comms again, giving Kieran a rundown on what was broken on the ship. "It would be quicker to tell you what's not broken," the interim chief engineer was saying--the standard response. "We're alive, but only just. One more hit and the entire ship will go to pieces."
"Are the warp engines working?"
Caitlin could sense the engineer's hesitation, and she reminded herself to get up to the bridge and prescribe something for high blood pressure after she was done here. "Well...they're not dead, I can tell you that."
"Translation?"
The engineer heaved a sigh. "That means we don't know, sir. The warp core's been restricted ever since the first officer was fried by the radiation and your ED has probably made it worse. We've been forced to evacuate all personnel. If there's something wrong, our detectors ought to be able to find it. The problem is, we don't know if our detectors are malfunctioning or not. We have to send somebody in there to check it out."
There was a loud, uncomfortable silence on the other end. "Very well," the admiral said finally, his voice barely audible even amplified by the speakers. "I'll go check it out. Keep me posted on developments, Lieutenant. Kieran out." At that, Auxiliary Control broke into a cacophony of shouts and exclamations.
Caitlin struggled to be heard above the din. "How long?" she asked Farrelly.
"With the radiation in there? I don't think he'll last for thirty minutes--much too short a time to find the leak."
"Oh, shit," she muttered. Then, without another word, she grabbed a stim from her pack and started to shoulder her way through the crowd.
"That won't work," shouted Farrelly. "You'll have to incapacitate him, not poison him!"
Caitlin turned back with resignation. "Who said I'm going to even touch him?"
The doors hissed shut moments later, but she could see the horrified look on the engineer's face nonetheless.
---------------------------------------------
USS Peacekeeper-A, Holding Position
Bridge
1050 Hours
The counter on the tactical officer's panel flashed 4:00 in bright red letters as the Peacekeeper's warp engines shut down. "All stop," called S'Taelh.
"Aye, sir. All stop," echoed the helmsman. Seconds later, the sublight engines were shut off as well, leaving the massive Sovereign dead in space.
"Anything?" S'Taelh turned expectantly to his science officer.
"We have ourselves a reading," he replied, brows furrowed. "But that's all. There's a ship out there, and I'd be willing to bet it's the Hyperion. A bit off course, as far as I know, but that's the best I can give you."
"So what's the problem?"
"There's another ship on our sensors, right where the Hyperion ought to be but apparently isn't. We would have hit it if we hadn't stopped when we did."
S'Taelh started. "Could the Talaria have arrived before us?"
The helmsman snorted. "At transwarp? It could make it to Sol and back in less than a day. If we had one of those babies..."
"So we're effectively blind."
"That is correct."
"And there's no chance for a deep scan?"
"Then we'd just reveal ourselves, and whoever's in charge of the Talaria won't be very happy to see us. It's cat-and-mouse, sir, if I may draw the analogy. The question is, do we want to be the hunter or the hunted?"
"An apt analogy," said S'Taelh approvingly. "So tell me, Mister Anderson--how do you say to being felines today?"
Slowly, a wide grin spread across the science officer's face. "You son of a bitch!" he shouted exultingly, and then went to work.
---------------------------------------------
USS Hyperion-C, Holding Position
Engineering
1050 Hours
Visions flitted through the admiral's head like butterflies as he silently stepped into the bulky suit which he knew wouldn't protect him from the radiation inside.
FLASH.
"Good. Learinton, make your course 053 mark 12. Hunter, set speed 31 and prepare for high energy turn." Both lieutenants muttered their assent and made the inputs on their consoles.
"David, ready torpedo launchers. Fire only on my command." On the screen, the behemoth passed beneath them.
"Execute HET! 180 degrees!" The Hegemony's rear starboard side loomed in the viewscreen. "Torpedoes only! Fire!"
Four torpedoes tore into the weakened shield at point blank range. The third knocked out the shield, and the fourth impacted on unshielded hull.
"Set phasers to pulse fire, target aft weaponry and drone defense systems! Fire!" Crimson phasers, one blast after another, lanced into more unprotected sections on the Hegemony's hull.
"Drone racks, launch!" Two blazing missiles zipped away from the Hyperion--
FLASH.
--and into an old listening post decommissioned for 'testing duty.' It erupted in a satisfactory flash of flame as the two missiles slammed into its midsection. Kieran frowned.
"Lieutenant, why didn't the other rack fire?"
The lieutenant squinted at the console. "Sir, it looks like the number two rack jammed again. The engineers are working on it, but both racks will have to be taken offline."
Kieran growled. "All right then, let's move on to the photon torpedoes. Torpedo launcher status?"
"Four of the launchers are fully loaded and ready to fire."
"Four? This ship has six photon tubes, what's wrong with the other two?"
The lieutenant again checked his console. "Commodore, the auto-loader mechanisms on tubes three and four are not functional. They will have to be loaded manually."
Kieran sighed. "And how long will that take?"
"About three times as long as--"
"Sharia, get me--"
FLASH.
"--intraship!"
"Aye, sir. Channel open."
The commodore cleared his throat ceremoniously. "This is Commodore Forester speaking. Starfleet has sent me the orders for this mission. They tell me to distribute them on a need-to-know basis, with all that kind of bureaucratic bullshit. Well, I think you all need to know.
"We're on a top-secret mission to rescue an old ambassador from the Romulans. If we fail, nobody will know. Supposedly, we will have encountered a strange anomaly and disappeared without a trace. And if we succeed, we'll get no recognition whatsoever. So we're risking it all for nothing that can be put on paper.
"I will drive you harder than you've ever been driven before. I'll force you to do all sorts of seemingly useless tasks. You'll do them. And when you're done, I won't pat you nicely on the back and give you a commendation. I'll scream my ass off and tell you to do it again. You think the guys at the Academy were tough? I used to teach at the Academy. I'm tougher.
"But when we're all done with this mission, we're going to get into the biggest goddamn bar this side of the galaxy and I'll buy you all a drink. First, though, we need to survive. And to do that, you'll have to listen to me. Is that clear?"
Kieran hoped that the crew was nodding.
"Good. That is all." He closed the channel and lay back on his bed, seeing--
FLASH.
The crew of the Hyperion and the Peacekeeper. He felt himself break down as a vacant coffin, draped with the flag of Starfleet, passed him on the parade grounds of Starfleet Academy. An empty grave, he thought. And all the technology of my ship couldn't save him...
Twenty-one fighters shot above the skies of San Francisco. One of them peeled away and screamed downwards towards the Academy. It recovered at the last minute, soaring back upwards to rejoin its squadron. A tribute to a fallen officer.
Twenty-one guns fired in simultaneous salute as the coffin was carried into the cemetery. Various admirals began to speak, but Kieran found himself suddenly uninterested.
"What's wrong?" Ryan Laskir, wearing a somber expression on his usually blithe face, walked up to the him.
"I--I--well, I don't know--it all just seems so trite, so useless..."
"Come on, now," he said quietly. "He gave his life for us. You call that useless?"
"Well--"
"I've known him for around sixty years and I still don't think I can understand him. But suffice it to say that he did his duty--to us, to you, to Starfleet."
FLASH.
"We used to be like him," Kjolgaard said quietly, his hand never leaving his captain's shoulder. "Remember the time we snuck into Professor Fischer's lab and replaced the stuff in his test tubes with sugar water?" He chuckled. Almost got us kicked out of the place, but we weren't. We were too good. But now, now, now...it's all different. Look at this around you." The first officer picked up the book and brushed some dust off of the cover. "If you had told Admiral Moore that a hundred years later people would be able to recreate the past he would have sent you to the funny bin."
Kjolgaard sighed. "It's past our time, Kieran. We can put on new uniforms and command new ships but you know as well as I do that they're just idle pretensions. Let the new generation take over now. Let them replace the stuff in your test tubes with sugar water. It'll almost get them kicked out of the place but they won't be. Since they're too good. We're just old graying relics of antiquity, my friend. Just let go..."
FLASH.
"Kieran!"
A clarion call through the fog, bursting through the dark shadows like bright sunlight--
"Kieran!"
Caitlin Denning rushed up to him and ripped off his helmet. "Oh my god," she screamed. "Kieran! Answer me! Kieran!"
He stared at her for a second, her form wavering in his field of vision. His mouth tried to form a word, any word, but it wouldn't respond.
Sobbing hysterically, she fumbled for a hypo and stabbed it into his arm.
Spasms of pain shot through his nerves, and he screamed and hollered at the top of his lungs that he wasn't dead, that he was still alive--
Then.
Darkness.
---------------------------------------------
USS Peacekeeper-A, Holding Position
Bridge
1051 Hours
S'Taelh braced himself in his chair as his science officer powered up the scanners. "Anything?" he asked tensely.
"Can't tell at this range," the officer cursed, and delivered a hard kick to his console. "Can we get in closer?"
The helmsman looked at him questioningly. "Sir, that will probably reveal our--"
"Do it."
He shrugged. "Very well. Accelerating to one-quarter impulse." The two ships on the viewscreen started to solidify into coherent images, a far cry from the churning white eddies they had been moments earlier.
"Anything?"
"Just a little bit more...they haven't detected us yet...just a little bit--" And then, suddenly: "Weapons launch! Weapons launch! Four--wait, make it six--six drones from the ship in the rendezvous point, set to disable! In phase cloak, we have no shields--"
"Helm, evasive!" shouted S'Taelh immediately.
"I can't safely do anything, they're closing fast--"
"Now would be a good time to get us out of here!"
"Well, I could try the Picard Maneuver...Brief acceleration to warp, then back to impulse--"
"I know what the goddamn maneuver is! Do it before those drones hit us!"
Taking a deep breath, the helmsman activated the warp engines, jumped to Warp Two, and then decelerated to impulse immediately.
S'Taelh had just breathed a sigh of relief as the drones swerved to hit the mirror ship or were destroyed by the warp field when there was a sickening crunch.
The Peacekeeper had collided with the Hyperion.
---------------------------------------------
USS Hyperion-C, Holding Position
Engineering
1051 Hours
Like all Starfleet officers, Caitlin was trained to deal with life-and-death situations in a calm and steady manner, but now she fumbled in her medical pouch with increasing panic. The corridor lights exploded one by one around her, plunging the entire deck into darkness, lit only by the eerie throbbing of the alarms. Through the mental haze that threatened to envelop her Caitlin still recognized them. Collision, she thought dully. And then: "Mary sweet mother of God..."
Hull breach!!
She began to tug Kieran's limp body--still encased in the bulky radiation suit--away from Engineering. "Give me some help here," she pleaded, her breaths becoming shallower in the thinning air. There! There was the airlock, a mere twenty feet ahead of her. But the sudden loss of oxygen was too much. With one last helpless look at her commander, she sank lifeless to the ground.
The sirens were still wailing.
---------------------------------------------
USS Peacekeeper-A, Holding Position
Bridge
1052 Hours
S'Taelh held on for dear life as his ship shuddered around him. "What did we hit!" he shouted as the science officer struggled to stabilize the deflectors. Luckily for them all, the Peacekeeper sported top-of-the-line shielding that had allowed it to survive the near-fatal collision. But only just.
"The only other thing in the system!" the science officer shouted back. "The Hyperion got knocked off course by an explosion in their warp core--"
"--so their shielding's offline," finished S'Taelh. Shit! "Bridge to McClellan, come in, come in."
The transporter officer's voice filtered through the comms. "McClellan here," she said, panting slightly, and only then did S'Taelh realize that she was off-duty during the shift.
"Damage to systems?"
"Engine's shot up pretty bad, but the transporters should still work."
"Get a lock on the Hyperion's personnel and beam them on board before it blows--"
"Weapons launch! Weapons launch!" interrupted the science officer. "Two drones, targeting our auxiliary power, set to disable!"
"You hear that?" growled S'Taelh. "Hurry up!"
"I can't get a lock! They seem to be melting in and out of realspace, I'm trying to compensate--"
The intercom abruptly cut off as the ionic discharge from the drones' warheads reached the power core. All aboard the Peacekeeper, critical systems ground to a halt. They were disabled.
S'Taelh reacted instantly. "Everybody out!" he yelled, pushing his bridge crew towards the turbolift and sealing the doors. With any luck it would withstand the pressures of a vacuum long enough for the Talaria to rescue the officers inside.
Strapping on a EVA suit locked inside emergency storage, he lifted his phaser and began blasting a hole through the top of the bridge. Here goes nothing, S'Taelh thought to himself, and launched himself towards the stars.
---------------------------------------------
USS Hyperion-C, Holding Position
Outer Engineering
1054 Hours
The Hyperion's hull was badly pockmarked and punctured, S'Taelh could see, and he directed himself towards one of the larger breaches. The faint glow of his repulsors was the only light in the corridor as he touched down. His magnetized boots locked themselves to the floor with an inaudible clank
S'Taelh crept forward slowly in the darkness until a little beep from his helmet's computer told him that it had found what he was looking for. Whispering a prayer to whichever god held the Hyperion in its good graces, he hit a button on the side of the wall. A gauzy blue force field shimmered into existence and sealed the deck from vacuum. The deck automatically began repressurizing.
Finally, thought S'Taelh with more than a little relief. First time anything went my way today.
Deactivating his magnetic boots, S'Taelh strode past the cold, frozen corpses of those unlucky enough to be here when the collision occurred and into the inner bowels of the ship. Maybe there were still some survivors.
Engineering
1056 Hours
The first thing Kieran sensed as he opened his eyes was that he could breathe again. I'm alive! was the first thing that went through his mind. And then he began to take in lungful after lungful of full, sweet, refreshing air as he closed his eyes once more.
FLASH.
"Kieran!" Caitlin's voice rang loud and sharp in his ear, and when he looked up he could see her right there in front of him. "Oh god, I thought you were--"
FLASH.
"--dead!" Her feminine features suddenly melted into what was unmistakably S'Taelh's angular face. "We have to get you inside before the temporary force--"
FLASH.
"--field is breached!" Caitlin grunted as she struggled to raise the admiral from the ground. "Just in here! Not very far to go,--"
FLASH.
"--not at all...give me some help, Admiral. Can you stand up?" S'Taelh picked Kieran up and braced the admiral against his sturdy frame. Together, they hobbled towards the--
FLASH.
--door to the warp core, and Caitlin held the admiral upright as she opened it. Together, they stumbled inside and fell on the ground, panting, when--
FLASH.
Kieran stared from one to the other. Caitlin and S'Taelh, S'Taelh and Caitlin. Doing exactly the same thing, but two different people nonetheless. Their voices melded together, their bodies, becoming one for a single infinitesimal moment and then splitting again.
FLASH.
S'Taelh laid the admiral down gently but couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't right. He whirled around to see the warp core offline and the phase cloak generator pulsing purple--
FLASH.
--and red and orange and green and yellow, then a blur, shifting colors so fast that it stretched across the entire room and then beyond so Caitlin found herself dizzy. Bolts of pure energy crackled around it, out of it--
FLASH.
--and finally, something occurred to Kieran--Commodore Caitlin Hope Denning had been killed at the Battle of San Paolo while she was serving on board the medical cruiser Salvation--
FLASH.
"Come on, Admiral!" S'Taelh's voice bore a sense of urgency now. "I need to get you out of here before radiation exposure kills us--"
FLASH.
The Nexus! realized Kieran. An alternate reality where your deepest wishes can come true!
FLASH.
"--like it killed Boris and Dane!" Caitlin took hold of his hand and tried to drag him away from the crackling energy ribbon--
FLASH.
The words of Dane Kjolgaard came rushing back to him..."Just let go..." Kieran repeated quietly. "Let go..." Richtofen, Kaisen, S'Tasik, Dane...all of them seemed terribly far away, and yet they were right above him, shades of a time past diving in and out of his thoughts, sending a chilling numbness down his spine--
"Let go..."
...his friend for nearly a century, loyal companion and officer, there when he needed her the most...the next generation of captains, young, brave, and unbelievably stubborn like his father, the future of Starfleet...
"Let go..."
Ghosts swirled around him. He could have back the past, make wrong the mistakes, but it would all be false, it would all be an illusion...Caitlin Denning beckoned, and he ran forward to her...
"Let go..."
...grabbed her in his powerful arms. With a last long look at her beautiful face, he threw her into the writhing inferno and covered his eyes as her face contorted in agony, green eyes running together with blazing red hair, her form liquefying until she became energy herself.
The strands of the Nexus came together as one, forming a brilliant pillar that rose up from the Hyperion's engine room and leapt into space. And with a final FLASH, it was gone...
---------------------------------------------
USS Ffestinog, Holding Position
Bridge
1100 Hours
"Oh, Jesus," moaned Captain Beddoes. "We've missed the action again."