Star Trek: Babylon
Andrew J. Talon
The explosion of the holographic screen caused the people within the trading post to scream and panic. A second blast from the same phaser that had destroyed the communications/advertising set up, this time into the roof, silenced that burst of noise and fear.
"Now then, every on the ground, with your hands behind your head!" Ordered the tall, bald and dark-skinned man in the center of a trio of long-coat wearing, armed intruders. At the man's right, long dark hair pulled back into a ponytail and pale, spotted hands holding out a small phaser rifle, a Trill woman motioned a few slower people down to the floor with a sardonic smile. At the man's left, a pale-faced man with golden, bird like eyes walked up to the quartermaster, holding out a bag in one hand, and a phaser in the other.
"Now then, nobody do anything stupid," the man continued in his deep, commanding voice, as he stepped forward, his oversized phaser rifle sweeping the room behind his careful gaze. The Trill woman stepped over a few whimpering people, before pausing and then turning back.
"Well, c'mon!" A lithe, elven girl, wide blue eyes partially obscured by long, curly blonde hair, stepped timidly into the trading station in bare feet, stepping lightly over the cold floor. The Trill woman nodded approvingly, before turning back to the tall black man.
"Two minutes," he said flatly, turning back to the grizzled-looking quartermaster, who was even paler than his wispy hair.
"You-You don't need to go taking our credits! There are plenty of other-!"
"bIjatlh 'e' yImev na lojmIt yIpoSmoH!!" Snarled the woman in particularly guttural Klingon. The clerk blinked quizzically.
"Huh?"
"Shut up and open the vault!" The dark-skinned man barked the translation, to which the clerk scrambled to do. The dark-skinned man raised an eyebrow at the Trill woman, who shrugged sheepishly.
"Er, sorry."
"Try to remember which planet we're on, Dax," he noted dryly. The woman smirked.
"I'll try, sir." She felt a tug on her coat sleeve, and cocked her head to look at the little blonde girl they'd brought with them. She pointed to a man on the floor, who looked as though he were going for a weapon. Dax placed the muzzle of her phaser rifle at the man's head, who froze.
"Losing your head at a time like this would simply not do," she tutted, as he cursed under his breath and dropped the small hand weapon. The Trill nodded, and smiled at the blonde girl.
"Good. You might live yet." Dax turned back towards the vault, where the dark-skinned man and pale-man were working at the access panel.
"Sir?"
"I believe I can isolate-" The pale man began, before the vault clicked and slowly slid open. The pale-man blinked quizzically. "Shall I continue the explanation?"
"No, that's allright, Data. Just remember how you did it for the next time," the dark-skinned man joked, to which Data tilted his head quizzically.
"Captain?"
"Allright, load up the bag. We only need… About this much," the captain stated, pulling up and dumping an armload of gold-pressed latinum slips into the bag, before scooping up another pile and sliding it into the bag as well. Data blinked curiously.
"Sir? Did you not-?"
"No harm in getting a little extra, correct?" The captain surmised, shoving a fourth load into the bag before slapping his hands together. "Well then! Let's be off, shall we?"
"Right. You've been a great audience, thank you so very much," the Trill woman bowed graciously, as the blonde girl curtsied nervously next to her. The blonde girl then went rigid, and began to convulse violently. Dax reached out and caught her before she fell to the floor, and looked up at the captain worriedly.
"Ben, Kes only went like this when-"
"I know." The captain grabbed the clerk and shoved him towards the still-open vault. "All of you, listen up! Get into that vault!" He turned to the clerk. "Can this vault be opened and closed from the inside?"
"Er, yes," the clerk mumbled, before the captain shoved him in. He turned to the rest of the people and yelled, "GET IN NOW! Don't come out until you run out of air, got it!"
As one, the people scrambled up and rushed for the vault, Ben and Data herding them into the container until the last one made it, before slamming it shut. They turned and headed for the door, only to be blocked by a pale, black-armored figure.
"Resistance is—" The creature began, before a shot from Dax's phaser rifle cut it off, sending it crashing face-first into the floor. The quartet ran over the downed thing, rushing over to the anti-grav car that had brought them to the small colony. The sun overhead was blocked out by the rumbling, ramshackle Borg ship, resembling a badly-put together jig-saw puzzle of a dozen other ships all ripped apart and jammed back together. Drones were dropping via long cables, that hook into their backs and kept them connected to the ship, as they ran through the town, energy weapons going off everywhere, screams and shouts. A woman burst into the street, two drones after her. She ran towards the hovercar, waving her arms.
"Please! Take me too! Plea-!" One of the drones pounced on her, digging an extraction tool into her spine, making her scream in agony. Ben punched the accelerator and gunned the engine of the hovercar, which zipped away at high speed. Darting into an alley, Ben narrowed his eyes as a pair of drones dropped from above, trying to land on top of the vehicle. The captain hit the brakes, the hovercar jolting to a stop, before he slammed it into reverse, leaving the two drones to crash into the dirt.
"Ai ya! Ben!" Dax screeched. Data tilted his head.
"May I advise against such abrupt maneuvers?"
"Don't tell me, tell them," Ben snorted, twisting about the car once out of the alley, and gunning for the outskirts. Data turned his head, and in his usual emotionless tone noted, "We are being followed."
A millisecond the hovercar jolted, as Dax cried out in shock. Ben turned on the overdrive, and darted into another alley, the Borg pursuit skimmer smashing through a few of the boxy, cheaply-constructed buildings that made up the colony, not being as nimble. Ben cursed under his breath as the Borg skimmer forced its way through the alley, smashing apart the buildings in its mad rush after the hovercar.
"Tom… Tom?" Dax shouted into her flip-open communicator. Static buzzed over the channel.
"They're jamming the area!" The Trill groaned. Ben nodded, before turning and accelerating towards a two-story building. He turned to Data.
"Data? Mind giving us a tunnel?" The android leapt from the backseat, landing nimbly on the nose of the vehicle, before raising a fist. He punched the wall of the house an instant before the hover vehicle itself rammed it, blasting open a hole. The next wall within the house got the same treatment, as did the third, fourth, and fifth, finally breaking out into the open desert outside of town. Dax flipped her phaser rifle around and fired at full blast at the center of the house. The resulting energy release into the manufactured materials caused them to combust into plasma, causing an even larger energy release into the structure of the already damaged house and the Borg skimmer doggedly pursuing them. The end result, as most physicists could inform you, was a massive explosion that smothered the Borg pursuit vehicle in flames and debris, and sent the little hover car spinning from the air displacement caused by the detonation.
"WAAAAAHHHHH!" Shrieked Dax loudly, as Kes smiled and cheered silently. Ben wrestled with the controls, until finally leveling out the hovercraft, still screaming for their ship parked outside of town. Dax huffed and panted, clutching her chest, as Kes merely grinned and bounced up and down. She then gagged, clutching her throat, before swallowing noisily. Ben shot her a glance, and she shook her head. The captain nodded, uncomprehendingly, before turning his gaze forward.
"Data? You all right there?" The captain inquired of the android, gripping the hood of the hovercar hard enough to leave imprints—Not very hard for Data to do, but still…
"I am fully functional. However, I had not anticipated the exact force of the explosion due to the conversion of the structure's building materials to plasma," the android confessed, seeming slightly shaken. Ben shook his head with a sigh.
"That's all right, Data. Not a problem."
"Kasumi to Dax. Kasumi to Dax. Hello, everyone okay there?" Inquired a light male voice from Dax's communicator. She flipped it open angrily.
"Yes, no thanks to you!" She snarled. Paris gasped on the other end.
"Wha? What'd I do? I only recently cut through the static and—"
"Tom, get Kasumi running and be ready to launch the moment we're aboard. The Borg are busy with Saint Okuda at the moment, but I don't want to wait around for them to change their minds," Ben spoke briskly. The silence on the other end of the link lasted only a second, before:
"Aye aye, sir. We'll be ready to lift off the moment you're in."
"Good."
The Kasumi was a modest transport-class vessel, one of several thousand Negima-class mid-range, warp freighters. Like all former-Federation world ships, she was unarmed, and had been given restrictions to its operational capabilities and capacities.
Like most former-Federation world ships, those restrictions had been somewhat smudged, out of necessity. The Raii Imperial bureaucrats who made up these figures had never actually been to the region these laws took effect in. Nor had they actually seen the ships these restrictions were to be placed upon. It was therefore a very good thing that Federation starship designs had been built with considerable flexibility in mind.
And, in the case of the Negima-class vessels, several additional features that made them favored for certain, less-than-legal operations. Among them: heavily shielded compartments that were part of the plasma distribution system, but were perfect for hiding things from prying eyes or sensors. Such as the big bag full to the brim with stolen money that Captain Ben Sisko tossed into one behind the bridge transporter pad. He turned, tugging slightly at his long black, threadbare coat, and walked to the cramped bridge. It actually only possessed three chairs—Two for pilot and co-pilot directly in front of the large, transparent aluminum screen, and one console behind that, for controlling the transporter and other back-up systems.
In the pilot's seat was the ever-grinning, ever cocky Tom Paris, easily sending the Kasumi out of the atmosphere of Saint Okuda. His blue eyes always shined with mischief, framed by a smooth, lightly-tanned face under a mop of unruly golden hair. His fingers danced over the controls, before pulling the manual control yoke up a few degrees. He looked over his shoulder and smiled roguishly at his captain.
"Hey, sir! No sign of pursuit by the Frankenstein fleet. And no floating parks either." The captain nodded, settling into the co-pilot seat and looking over the engine readouts. Tom looked ahead, nudging the yoke a few degrees to port.
"Kira was worried sick," the pilot spoke into the sudden silence. Ben nodded, sighing deeply.
"I needed some time… To myself." The pilot raised his brows.
"Still after you about that baby, huh?" The captain shot Paris a semi-amused, semi-aggravated look.
"What have I told you about tapping into the intercom system?"
"I told you, captain, I don't need it to pick up on things," Tom replied smoothly. He grinned. "Besides, the way you've been walking on eggshells around each other is proof enough." Ben leaned back in his chair, rubbing his eyes tiredly. He let out a breath, closing his eyes.
"I keep telling her… Now is just not the right time. And besides… What kind of life would this be for a child?" The captain raised his hands out, as though he could hold Kasumi and her situation in between their separation. He shook his head again.
"We will have children… I told her that. Someday."
"But not until you decide to," Tom added. Ben gave him a look, to which Tom smiled.
"Like I said… Eggshells. "
"Damnit… Knew I would make a terrible husband," Ben growled under his breath. Tom shrugged.
"Maybe… Huh. This is interesting." Ben looked over at Tom's console.
"What is it?"
"Seems that the Floating Treefort Fleet's found something interesting in our general area," the pilot murmured. He smirked. "A big something interesting. They've sent orders for ten heavy cruisers to deploy to this area," he pointed at a set of coordinates on the console screen. Ben frowned.
"No wonder they didn't respond to the Borg attack…" Tom shrugged.
"Well, since they only hit outer colonies, and seem more interested in stealing people's organs and household appliances than conquest, it hasn't raised much concern out of our beloved tree-hugging dictators." Tom's smirk became a frown to match the captain's.
"The hyper-subspace comms are shorting out… It's like they're being twisted around."
"Interference?" Asked Ben. Tom nodded.
"Looks like. But from what…" Both men shouted in shock as Kasumi bucked, sending Tom's toy rocket ship clattering to the deck below. The pilot looked over his readings with mounting urgency.
"Subspace distortion, only five hundred kilometers ahead! Something's coming through it!" In the viewer ahead, a huge spout of green light appeared, twirling and spinning like a sink drain. It spat out four ships, before vanishing into dissolving clouds of displaced plasma. Ben looked over his readings, his mouth dropping open.
"Those ships… They have Federation identification beacons!"
"But those ships… They violate the tonnage limit by… A really big number!" Tom gawked, as the largest vessel, long, streamlined, and predatory, veered toward them.
"What's going on, dear?" Asked a frightened-looking Kira, dressed in her traditional red Bajoran garments. Ben turned to his wife.
"We're trying to find that out now… Tom, open up a—"
"This is the Federation Starship Archangel, to unknown… Ben!" Benjamin Sisko turned to the holoscreen that had just popped up, and his jaw dropped to the console. Staring him in the face was a man he thought long dead, decked out in some strange black-and-gray uniform.
"William!"
Sorry if this seems too Serenity-ish. I only used Firefly as inspiration for this chapter. But don't worry—This is one plot no one will be able to predict. R&R!