Disclaimer: Star Wars and all related characters are the property of 20th Century Fox and Lucasfilm. Star Trek and all related characters are the property of Paramount Pictures. In other words, neither belongs to me.
Chapter 4: Again, Flight Over Fight
Vargas paced about the darkened bridge of the Assassin, going over his decision process in his head one more time. He knew it must be done. For their own survival, and the command crew's honor, he had to do it.
Their auxiliary power had failed about an hour earlier, another victim of the multiple reactor leaks throughout the ship. They were currently on emergency batteries, and to conserve power, the lights had been automatically lowered by Engineering.
We surrendered, thought Vargas. They damaged us, and we left the rest of our fleet to be destroyed. We surrendered Kessel. No, he surrendered Kessel, he corrected himself. We'll be lucky to walk away from this with our heads, much less any sort of career. That is my justification.
"Commander," called the engineering tech, breaking the officer's train of thought. Vargas strode over to the Engineering station and nodded to the tech. "Sir, auxiliary power has been restored. Engineering says it should now remain active, and we can switch from the batteries."
Vargas nodded and said, "Do it."
The tech flipped a few switches, sending the commander's orders to the Engineering crew. A few seconds later the lights brightened, returning the bridge to its normal illumination level.
Vargas gave a short sigh of relief, and then pulled another breath sharply into his chest. This was the good news, and he knew the bad would be coming very shortly.
"Sir," said the tech, "all main reactor leaks into internal compartments have been patched, but there is still a power drain. Most likely it's coming from the hyperdrive. Engineering will be able to confirm this once they clear the radiation from the engine compartments, but they report that the hyperdrive motivator has most likely been damaged beyond repair, along with the reactant injectors and the subspace flux conduits.
"They suspect one of the engines is venting drive fuel, which would account for our attitude control difficulties. We can stop the leak, but we will not be able to restore the main engines without docking at a space station."
He turned back to his station for a moment, as if double-checking something. "However," he continued, "they do expect to have the long-range communications array operational again within the hour, though not at full power. They recommend we then signal for a tow, since even at full sublight, it will take us two thousand three hundred sixty-five years to reach the nearest Imperial world…after Kessel, that is."
"Very well," replied Vargas unemotionally. That was a clarification he hardly needed. "Remind Engineering that we need to get our defensive shields operational, as well as any turbolaser and torpedo arrays that will still fire. If the Borg decide to come looking for us, I don't want to make us an easy target."
With that, Vargas marched toward the aft of the bridge. He watched all the officers and enlisted men working diligently to restore their ship to as much working order as possible. With few exceptions, they had dealt with the violent and messy deaths of so many of their shipmates in stride, and with a sense of duty. He felt pride for those under his command, and he made sure they saw it in his face.
Yet the most important officer on the ship had not been seen by anyone since their hyperdrive failed, dropping them abruptly into realspace. Captain Marten had locked himself in his office and stayed there, without as much as a call over the intercom. Not that the intercom in his office was working anyway…
It was time. Vargas narrowed his eyes and marched up to Marten's office door. The black-suited security guard said, "Sir, the captain ordered no interruptions."
Vargas glared at the guard, his cold eyes exerting absolute authority. "The captain nearly killed us all, has surrendered our garrison through his cowardice, and has failed to lead in the effort to preserve all our lives. He will answer to the crew for this, and more importantly, he will answer to the Emperor. Open the door."
The guard hesitated for a moment. He gulped quietly and adjusted his grip on his blaster rifle. Finally, he turned around halfway and typed in the lock bypass code for the office door.
"See to it that we are not disturbed. I will be escorting Captain Marten out here within five minutes." The guard nodded slowly as Vargas entered the office.
As the door closed behind him, the first thing Vargas sensed was the strong smell of vomit. He looked down and saw greenish spots on the floor, where some had obviously fallen and was drying. He next saw his captain, slumped over in his chair, his face resting on his desk.
With the sound of Vargas' footsteps on the floor, Marten raised his head. His eyes were very bloodshot and his face flushed and sweaty, obviously from all the retching he had done in the past hour and a half.
"What the hell do you want?" growled Marten through dry, sticky lips. His voice was raspy and low, almost a weak growl.
"You will surrender command of the Assassin to me," said Vargas, his voice cold and steady. "Right now, you will come with me to the bridge and make the announcement to the entire ship. While your crewmen have died and your ship blasted apart around you, you have retreated and left them all to fend for themselves. You are a coward and not even worthy to command a garbage scow."
Marten stared at Vargas as a man suddenly woken up to see a blaster to his face. He knew his first officer had little respect for him, but he never thought the man would commit outright mutiny. "What…how dare you…!"
"Spare me the dramatics, you pitiful excuse for an officer. You ordered your ship to flee the planet under your guard, as other ships in your own fleet were destroyed. The Borg never even made a demand of you to surrender Kessel. You didn't even give your fleet orders to retreat, but instead turned tail and scurried away like some Nar Shaddaa barfly.
"I say again, Captain," continued Vargas, "you will surrender command of this ship to me. Otherwise, I will have you arrested as unfit for duty, and as a traitor to the Empire. By the time you have a chance to argue your case, your so-called reputation will be buried in kilometers of Rancor manure. You'll be fortunate if the Emperor leaves your body intact."
"No! Never!" shouted Marten. With a flash of speed no rational person could have predicted in the broken man, Marten whipped a blaster out a compartment in his desk, leapt to his feet, and pointed the weapon at Vargas. "I'll kill you, you mutinous cur! Then I'll tell the Emperor this was all your fault!"
Vargas crossed his arms and glared at Marten. "Don't bother. I took the liberty of disabling it long ago, and making sure it stayed that way. And before you try them," he continued, casting a glance to the desktop controls that were inches from Marten's fingers, "I've ensured that your intercom and recording devices have been disabled. There's not enough power to run them, after all." Those last words almost drawled out of his mouth, as if he were trying to convert his anger into some kind of intense humor. "The words we speak in here will never fall on anyone else's ears."
Marten, his hand shaking, pulled the trigger on his blaster. He expected to hear the sharp sting of a blaster bolt pierce the air, and to see a hole burn into his first officer's body. Instead, he only heard the empty click of the trigger switch. Vargas did not flinch. Snarling, Marten squeezed the trigger several more times in quick succession, praying that somehow the gun would get the idea and start shooting. When it was plain that his weapon was dead, he dropped his hand to his side, letting his blaster slip out of his grip and onto the floor, where it landed with a clatter.
He reared back toward his chair, as if to physically attack Vargas. He had a strong desire to rip out the other man's larynx, but as Vargas had suddenly produced a blaster pointed at his head, Marten held himself back. If there were any motto Marten had clung to throughout his dubious career, it was that there was no shame in giving up, if only to live and fight another day. The heavyset man leaned on his desk, the muscles in his face going slack with resignation. The look of defeat on his face was more than satisfying to Vargas.
"You've planned this all along, haven't you? You filthy nerf-herder. You opportunistic piece of bantha…"
"Now, now, Captain," interrupted Vargas, speaking to Marten as he would a young child, "behave yourself. At the moment, you are still an Imperial officer. Remember, you were the one who ordered our retreat. You were the one who fled to his own office and chose to abdicate his command when his crew needed him the most.
"You now have an opportunity to save some face, and possibly survive long enough to regret your actions as an old man. You will come with me onto the bridge, and inform the crew you are officially relinquishing command to me in order to accept full blame for this incident and spare the crew any responsibility. You will then allow yourself to be escorted to the brig, where you will wait until Vader's fleet arrives. Then, if you can convince Lord Vader to remit you to military custody, you can look forward to a long, if miserable life. I know that a coward like you would choose survival over dying with honor."
Marten's bloodshot, tear-strained eyes turned up toward his first officer. Those eyes, wild in their sockets, reflected both Marten's fear for his fate and his intense hatred for Vargas. But, as much as he detested it, he had to agree with Vargas on one thing: he did want to survive, even if just a little longer. That was something he could not do with a hole burned through the center of his chest.
VVVVVVVVVVVV
Marten's office door opened, startling the guard. It had only been about four minutes since he let Vargas enter. Now, Captain Marten, his shoulders slumped forward and gait dragging, exited to the bridge. He was followed by Commander Vargas, whose upturned nose and plasteel-stiff back were clear indicators of who had come out of the meeting with the advantage.
Marten strode to the center of the bridge as nearly all the bridge crew eyed him. He straightened up and stood rigidly, except for his left knee, which wobbled slightly. Vargas stood a few feet away from him, his hands clasped behind his back, and his blaster neatly returned to the waist holster just underneath his uniform jacket.
"Activate intraship communications," ordered Marten to the communications officer. His voice was barely a whisper and was slightly slurred, as if the man had been drinking.
A short attention whistle sounded throughout the ship.
"Attention crew of the Assassin, this is Captain Marten."
Marten's voice boomed throughout the ship, and the bridge crew could hear it reverberate through the deck plates. Marten, at this moment, wished that the intercom system had been another casualty of battle. Instead, outside of the sabotaged link in his office, it appeared to be one of the few things working properly.
"I…" his throat closed for a second. He swallowed, forcing it back open. "I…accept full responsibility for our losses and officially surrender command of the Assassin to Lieutenant Commander Vargas, effective immediately. Furthermore, I am…" his voice cracked again, and he one again felt the urge to vomit on the deck. It mattered not that he had nothing left but dry heaves. He forced the rest out: "…surrendering myself into custody pending a court-martial. That is all."
While his words were met with deathly silence, the crew knew that there would most likely not be any court martial. Once Vader found out what had happened and was within range, he would hold someone responsible. And as Vader was known to crush the life out of good officers who made mistakes, they could only imagine what kind of fate he reserved for incompetent officers who committed egregious failures. For all the stories they'd been told of the Emperor's vicious right-hand man, the very thought of Vader was enough to chill them to the bone.
Vargas signaled the security guards, and they briskly stepped forward to seize the stout captain. "Captain Marten, I accept full command of the Assassin, and under Regulation 52391A-43HF, I place you under arrest and temporarily suspend your rank of Captain. You will remain in custody to face judgment by either an Imperial tribunal or the Fleet Commander." He didn't need to specify, but everyone already knew who that was. "Take him away."
The guards led Marten off the bridge and into the aft corridor. Vargas, now acting Captain of the Assassin, told the communications officer, "I will record a looping message for us to transmit. Once external communications are re-established, encode it and send it passively via HoloNet. Hopefully that will alert our fleet without telling the Borg where we are."
With that, Vargas again began making the rounds of the bridge stations, getting status updates as his bridge crew worked diligently to repair as much as they could of their ship. At the same time, he began wording his distress call in his head. If Vader were indeed the first responder, he would need one that would be the least likely to raise the Dark Lord's ire.
VVVVVVVVVVVV
Vader stood in the turbo elevator, brooding. Despite her "advanced" age, by the pitiful Jedi thinking, Leia was learning to control the Force even more quickly than he himself had in his youth; she had gone from knowing nothing of her power to matching Vader's abilities as an advanced padawan in a matter of a few years. While this gave him a sense of pride, it was also cause for concern.
He had planned to eliminate the Emperor and take his place as ruler of the Galaxy, with Leia as his right hand. Such was the way of the Sith, for generations before him. However, he was concerned that her potential would become greater than his own too quickly, and that Leia would use it against him before she was ready to lead the Empire. While he knew she was not foolish, he also knew that filial piety was not a quality that existed with the Sith. The Dark Side brought power, but for even the wise it also brought overconfidence. It was his own overconfidence that had allowed his old Master to condemn him to the cybernetic body and claustrophobic breath mask that he had learned to accept, but never to like.
He would have to watch her closely if he were to adequately control her, to groom her into one with the power, and the wisdom, to rule the Galaxy as it should be ruled.
Although those thoughts weighed heavily on his dark mind, something even more threatening had drawn, or rather wrenched, his attention away. While leading Leia in her most recent training session, he felt an emptiness begin to fill his soul; it was one he had felt before, not very long before. While it was not nearly as intense as that last time, it was a sensation he would never forget as long as he lived.
Admiral Ozzel's call from the bridge was superfluous; Vader and Leia were already on their way out of the training chamber when the comm beeped. Vader had said nothing to Leia since his abrupt order to follow him.
"What is it you're sensing, father?" Leia asked, her quiet voice just barely reverberating off the elevator walls. "I can tell something's troubling you, but not what."
Vader heard her question and part of him considered scolding her for not sensing it herself. Instead, he chose not to answer. She would learn soon enough, and he did not feel like explaining himself. As soon as the elevator doors opened, Vader strode out onto the bridge.
Leaning over a console operator's shoulder, Admiral Ozzel turned his head toward Vader. Immediately he straightened up and began marching toward the Dark Lord and his apprentice.
"Lord Vader, we've…" Ozzel started, but Vader and Leia walked right past him. In a surprised huff, he spun on his heel, tried to catch up with them, and continued, "My Lord, we've received a distress signal from the Kessel garrison. Their message says…"
"The Borg attacked the fleet," Vader rumbled. Ozzel, his mouth still open, immediately shut it and nodded. "Yes, my Lord."
Leia narrowed her eyes. The Borg? She'd read the reports filed after the last attack: the one where they had kidnapped Governor Tarkin but had then been destroyed by the Death Star. Her father had told her he expected them to return, but could never get approval from the Emperor to hunt them down. The Emperor believed the Rebellion to be more of a threat, and Leia, as much out of distant hope as concern, agreed. "Did the message say where they came from?"
Ozzel did not reply, nor even look at her, as the trio stopped at the forward windows, Vader seemingly staring out into space. Leia had sensed Ozzel's ongoing disgust with her for some time; she knew he resented her for being less than half Ozzel's age but holding a higher rank in Vader's eyes. After another heartbeat of silence passed, she reached out gently with the Force, feeling her way to Ozzel's windpipe, and applied light pressure.
Ozzel's eyes opened a little wider and he cleared his throat. When his aristocratic throat hack came up dry, he cast an askance look to Leia. She felt his pulse quicken as he finally replied in a constrained voice, "According to the Assassin's last transmission, they came from the direction of the Maw." The invisible grip on his throat relaxed, and he tried to regain his normal haughty stance. "It must have been a sensor malfunction, though. I know of nothing that could pass through the Maw."
Vader turned his head toward Ozzel. "The Borg could," he boomed, before turning back toward the rear of the bridge. Vader chose not to continue that a highly-talented pilot, or a Force-user, could navigate such a wasteland as well. Leia, for her part, turned her head to the Admiral just long enough to catch the older man's eyes, scowl menacingly, and then follow her Master.
As Vader arrived at the communications station, Captain Piett stood at attention to silently greet him. "Did any of the Kessel fleet survive?" Vader asked.
"A short time ago we began receiving an automated distress signal from the Assassin, approximately twelve lightyears outside the Kessel system. They have not responded to any hails." Piett's face was gaunt, his eyes baggy with his approaching middle age. Despite his rank, he seemed as nervous and out of breath as a fresh-faced recruit when speaking to Vader.
Vader turned his head to Ozzel, who had just appeared to his left. "Admiral Ozzel, order the fleet to set course for the Assassin's last known location. I will contact the Emperor personally and inform him. We will jump to hyperspace as soon as my transmission is completed." With that, he headed back toward the turbo elevator, Leia struggling to keep up with his accelerated pace.
Once they were inside the elevator, Leia demanded, "Father, there's something you're not telling me. What is it?"
"Once I have sent my message to the Emperor, I will explain."
Leia frowned, but chose not to protest. "The Kessel fleet may have been old, but it was still powerful enough to lay waste to an entire planet. For something to have appeared out of nowhere and wiped them out without warning…" she trailed off. She was filled with a sudden sense of dread. If this force was able to so handily crush a whole garrison fleet and fill Darth Vader with this much concern, she feared that the galaxy now faced a danger greater than even the Empire.
VVVVVVVVVVVV
"Speak, my friend."
"We have received a distress signal from the Kessel garrison's flagship. They report that the Borg have taken Kessel." And if you'd let me hunt them down, you old fool, Vader chose not to say, we may have been able to prevent this. He had always respected Palpatine for his political and strategic prowess, as well as his immense strength in the Force, but in Vader's opinion, Palpatine still made the occasional mistake. Considering the old man's extreme power and stature in the galaxy, his mistakes could be very big indeed.
"Yes, I felt their disturbance in the Force," the Emperor replied. "It seems the traitor's allies were not fully eradicated when you last faced them."
Vader clenched his teeth under his mask. The Emperor sometimes seemed to enjoy laying more blame on his Apprentice than Vader felt was warranted, "Yes, my Master, and they have amassed enough of a fleet to wipe out an entire garrison."
"This is an affront on the Empire and everything we have built. Go to Kessel and crush them."
"My fleet will depart as soon as possible, Master."
"Good. I have one more command, Vader. When Kessel is reclaimed, you and your student will travel into the Maw. I am sending the exact course to your personal station."
Vader stared at the Emperor's blue-hued, flickering image. Into the Maw? "You believe the report of the Borg coming from the Maw to be correct?"
"The Maw houses the top secret research facility where the Great Weapon was reverse-engineered and the Death Star's prototype built. Only two outside the facility, he and myself, knew of its existence. If Tarkin had indeed betrayed the Empire to the Borg, and survived your attack on the Borg ship, the Maw would have been a likely place for him to stage his treachery."
Vader felt heat sear his scarred cheeks. That is information that could have been much more useful two years ago! "I understand."
"If they have taken it as their base, destroy it."
"It will be done, Master." He bowed his head. As he said that, the Emperor's image vanished. A moment later, he both heard and felt the ship's lightspeed engines kick in.
Vader knew Palpatine was not a fool; thanks to his advanced ability of prescience, he made scant few mistakes. Vader hoped the Emperor had a plan that involved the Borg capture of Kessel. The other possibility shook him to his core; that the Borg, being so disruptive to the Force, also disrupted the Emperor's ability to foresee events. Palpatine was brilliant, but Vader was sure it was his ability to see the future through the Force that was the real reason for his repeated strategic successes.
If the second option was the case, Vader's confidence would rapidly decline.
VVVVVVVVVVVV
"Report, Admiral."
"Lord Vader," Ozzel replied, a bit surprised that Vader had managed to sneak up on him. "We've arrived at our destination. We've found the Assassin and are approaching at sublight."
"What is its condition?"
"We have not been able to establish contact with them, but sensors show their auxiliary generators are operational. Roughly half of their crew appears to have survived." Ozzel tried desperately to suppress a shudder. He knew that they would soon be facing the aliens that did this.
"Lord Vader, we're receiving a new transmission," came Piett's voice from behind. He had rushed forward so quickly that he had to catch his breath. "It's a coded distress signal."
"On speakers," Vader ordered.
Piett signaled to the communications officer at the stern of the bridge, who went to work on his console. Immediately, the bridge speakers came to life: "…perial cruiser Assassin. We have sustained heavy damage to our main engines and are operating on auxiliary generators. Our transponder systems are down, so we cannot identify your ships when you arrive. Our hyperdrive is destroyed, and we require towing to the nearest base for repairs. Please respond." Then, with a momentary burst of static, the message looped again. "This is Acting Captain Vargas of the Imperial cruiser Assassin. We have sustained…"
"Respond to him, Admiral," Vader said, watching the crippled ship through the front viewers, "now that we are apparently within their comm range." Ozzel snapped to attention and then hurried back toward the comm station. As Vader concentrated on the space outside the bridge, Leia reached out with the Force, trying to feel the presence that so disturbed Vader.
"You will sense them when we are closer," Vader said quietly to her, apparently sensing her goal. "Draw in your power and, when the time is right, we will release it together."
VVVVVVVVVVVV
The corridors leading to the cell block were empty, everyone being either busy trying to repair the ship, or having died in the battle. Marten wasn't sure if the seclusion helped, or made him feel worse. Then again, he felt it could be useful.
"Slow down," Marten ordered, his breathing heavy. "I'm not well." The guards responded by gripping his arms tighter. Damn, Marten thought ruefully, even the non-clone guards are impudent bastards.
As they kept marching, Marten's breath became more and more labored. His head bobbed forward and back with each breath, and he pressed his bound hands to his stomach.
Before the guards could react, Marten pitched forward, his feet flying out from underneath him. He collapsed into a heap on the floor, rolling onto his back, and twitching restlessly. One guard immediately pointed his blaster rifle at the captain while the other stepped away and tapped his helmet comlink.
Marten's eyes rolled in their sockets, but he managed to keep them pointed in the general direction of the first guard. The second, he supposed, was calling for medical assistance. That meant he had only a second to act.
The first guard was checking his throat for a pulse, and was holding his rifle in just one hand. Marten took advantage of that momentary lapse in caution. He whipped his hands up and grasped the rifle's rough barrel in his hands. Before the guard could react, the stock had swung back to Marten's chest and he used that leverage to pull the trigger with one of his thumbs. Had the guard not been at point blank range, the shot would have soared past his head. Fortune was on Marten's side, though, and the bolt struck the guard just below the eye.
Martin rolled to one side, repeatedly pulling back on the trigger. The shots sprayed wide in no particular pattern, but a few managed to strike the other guard before he could train his weapon on Marten.
With both guards dead, Marten rolled onto his stomach and scooted across the deck to the first one. He fumbled in the guard's belt pouch until he found the binder release key. Despite his obvious lack of coordination, Marten managed to insert the key, and the binders popped open. His hands free, he scrambled for the blaster he'd used, jumped to his feet, and started running back down the corridor.
As he ran, he reflected on what he had just done. Even if he could have survived a tribunal over his actions on Kessel, he had just killed two Imperial soldiers. Mutineers, perhaps, but after Vargas' betrayal, he had lost his trust of anyone else. They didn't understand him, and they never would. His only choice was to run. Maybe even join the Rebellion. He was sure they could use a brilliant tactician like him.
VVVVVVVVVVVV
Marten sat in the shuttle's cockpit and immediately closed the external hatch. There had been two more of the traitorous guards in the Assassin's belly launchbay's command office, assisting a handful of technicians who had been tinkering with the atmospheric shield. They had all fallen under Marten's blaster fire, though he had also, by accident, damaged the console on which they were working. Still, he had managed to reach the shuttle before anything more disastrous could happen.
He ran through the startup sequence, and just before the engines came fully online, the atmospheric shield flickered off and back on. A brief rush of air struck the shuttle, causing its landing gear to scrape against the deck, and a siren sounded throughout the bay.
Dammit! Marten thought. I have to get out of here now! He flicked on the repulsorlifts. They groaned in protest, having not had enough time to warm up. Still, they provided enough lift to raise the shuttle off its landing struts.
No time to waste, he tapped the main engine button lightly. The ship was jolted as its rear thrusters, also not fully warmed yet, let out a burst of exhaust and then stalled. The slight push had started the ship toward the empty space separating his bay from the one directly opposite. Cursing, Marten re-started the engines and tried to idle them high to force them to warm up more quickly.
The atmospheric shield flickered again, and then died completely. The hurricane-force winds seemed to grab the shuttle and pull it out toward space, just as the bay's emergency door began sliding shut from the left side of the . Marten grasped the controls and immediately engaged the rear thrusters, trying to aim for the right side of the large egress hatch. The rushing air made it difficult for him to control, but Marten knew his choice now was either to escape, or to be smashed into a bloody pulp against the closing door.
He punched the accelerator, and while the engines groaned, they did not fail this time. He gained some control back, with no time to spare. The ship crossed the threshold just as the emergency door slid past, clipping the edge of one of the shuttle's retracted wings. The shuttle yawed left just as Marten tried to aim it downward and away from the opposite bay. With a thunk and a metallic screech, the shuttle's top fin struck the Assassin's hull just at the bottom of the opposite launch bay.
Then, he was free. He raised his hands in triumph, and immediately flung them back onto the controls when he saw what was heading in his direction: a dozen more Star Destroyers, including a massive Executor-class ship.
Not just Executor-class, Marten thought with sinking dread. TheExecutor itself. Vader's ship. He swung the shuttle around and keyed the navicomputer, praying that he hadn't yet been seen.
VVVVVVVVVVVV
"Commander," called a comm technician. "Launch Bay 4 has lost its atmospheric shield. A shuttle was ejected before the emergency door could…wait…"
"What is it?" asked Vargas, leaning over the man's shoulder.
"The shuttle left under its own power, sir. The crew of that bay is not responding."
As if the console's display were giving him this information, he cast a confused gaze onto it. "Why would they take a shuttle? The control booth's seals weren't reported as damaged."
"Sir," said another technician behind Vargas. "Two dead guards have been found on level 24, corridor 83-27. They weren't there during the casualty sweep, and they were shot with a blaster."
Vargas tilted his head. Understanding then rushed through his brain like molten plasteel. "Do we have turbolasers in range of that shuttle?" he shouted to the tactical officer.
"Two banks are operational in range of the shuttle. Seven more can be brought back online in…"
"Target that shuttle and destroy it."
The tactical officer tilted his head with confusion, then immediately swiveled back to his console. "Tracking target. His shields are down. Firing solution in ten seconds."
VVVVVVVVVVVV
Shields, where are the damn shields? Marten frantically scanned the panel for the defensive controls. The navicomputer was still beeping as it continued computing his course.
Seconds later, the sensors picked up turbolaser fire heading toward him. The first couple shots missed, but they were already extremely close. Without a second though, Marten threw the hyperdrive switch. The starfield in his viewer stretched into starlines…
…just as the shuttle was struck from behind. The gravity generator in his seat just barely kept him from flying out of it, and being crushed against a bulkhead in the massive acceleration. The starlines melted momentarily into a blue swirl and congealed back into starlines, which then shrunk back into stars.
The panel in front of him started smoking as sirens blared all around him. Unsure of what to do, he thrust his hands to his ears and pulled his knees to his chest. As he started rocking, his breath caught in his throat.
In his haste to escape, he hadn't bothered to enter a flight path. He had simply shot forward in the direction the shuttle was facing at the moment the hyperdrive engaged.
Because his luck had truly gone sour, or because whatever gods there were hated him so, the planetoid growing in his front viewer was the one he'd seen shrink away a couple hours before.
Kessel.
And hovering around it, almost as if they were waiting for him, were several Borg cubes.
Marten pressed his hands to either side of his head and began crying silently.
