Chapter 12: Deep in the Past
" ... Capitaine?"
" ... Lieutenant-Commander? Pardon, but you must wake up. ... "
Groggy and still exhausted, it took Capitaine a moment to remember why she was in Sick Bay and lying on the floor. Standing to her feet, she found her jacket and boots neatly placed to her side. Phaedriel and Morek were looking at her curiously; racing to her feet and making herself presentable, Capitaine was quiet as she did so. Partially embarrassed and partially tired from the past several days.
"All ready, Phaedriel?
Morek, I assume you'll be prepared for our return?"
"Yes, Lieutenant-Commander. I am awaiting your final approval on the team. I have several volunteers and selected several able bodied candidates to accompany you."
Handing Capitaine a PADD, she saw Phaedriel's name wasn't on the list, as well as Kovroht and most of her bridge officers. While re-looking over the list, Morek inched his way closer, wanting to speak but not wanting to interrupt; Capitaine had to distinctly pause and tell him to voice his concern.
"Capitaine, Captain Drake hasn't provided me with much information, but he assures me that any affects by the triolic radiation 'should be minimal and easily fixable'. But for you, I've created several more hypos for your physiology: they can't be replicated so each must be hand-made."
"Thank you, Morek." Taking a handful of hypo vials, Capitaine returned to the PADD, noticing now that everybody on the list was Human, Vulcan, Andorian, or Tellerite. Selecting Dina and T'Vrell, Capitaine hesitated on choosing Versallia, then filled the rest with squad crewmen.
"Not feeling up to going, Phaedriel? 23rd century Starfleet included other species not just those four."
"I am sorry, Lieutenant-Commander, but I can not go with you. Other species were still uncommon; and to attract the least attention, you will need to blend in."
" 'Blend in'?" reaching up to feel her hair, Capitaine looked over to see that Morek now had a dye spayer in his hand. "What color would you prefer, Lieutenant-Commander?" He asked politely.
...
Still playing with her hair, Capitaine felt she had lost a little part of herself. She couldn't get used to the feeling of not seeing blue hair on her bangs or ponytail. Versallia didn't seem to mind too much on hers, and it did help put Capitaine at ease; 'it wasn't permanent'. As for uniforms, the color switch was confusing to some but, 'its just a color'.
As for the uniforms themselves, Capitaine felt very self-conscious about wearing a skirt and Versallia had to remind her of the bigger picture. But despite what was common, it wasn't unheard of for higher-ranking female officers to not wear skirts. Still wearing a lieutenant-commander's rank, Capitaine was happy to wear pants and cover up her thighs and legs. The rest of the team had little problems. Dina wouldn't put away her hat, Capitaine almost had to choose another person but Versallia somehow convinced Dina otherwise.
With only a small team of eight, they stood at the Devidian portal, accompanied by security teams and medical teams who would wait for them on their return. Their equipment customized to look like 23rd century equipment and their weapons all enhanced to a phase variance more vulnerable to the Devidians. Phaedriel accompanied them to the portal, she assured Capitaine that Kovoroht and TzHault would keep Belan away and Zarva would keep the portal open and stable.
All looking to Capitaine for leadership, she took a deep breath and took the first step through.
...
Stepping through the portal seemed to be like stepping down to a step that wasn't there. Capitaine felt she was falling and reflexively shot out her arms, expecting to grab something. But felt nothing, but it was only an instant.
Tripping her way out of the portal, the room was now so much cleaner; the smell, the equipment, the lights, and all the little creatures of which there were now none. Turning around, Dina stumbled through as she had and seemed to panic when she wasn't wearing her hat, until she remembered she wasn't wearing it in the first place. As everybody arrived, there was growing curiosity why there wasn't anybody else here. They were at the computer core that was completely empty, not even a guard or a technician was present.
"... my equipment seems to be malfunctioning!"
Over hearing her team, Capitaine did a quick check on her own, finding that all her equipment didn't seem to work outside five to ten feet, and even then its gatherings were inaccurate. A nurse found his medical equipment didn't work unless it was pressed against the skin. Readings from their weapons were sketchy, and being unable to test them, they were set to a low stun.
Versallia seemed to have some worry about time travel. Although she only reminded everybody once, to Capitaine, she kept repeating herself.
"We need to be very careful here, Capitaine. If we damage the station or injure anyone, we could damage the timeline irrevocably. Even if Drake doesn't care about the Temporal Prime Directive, we should. We're still Starfleet officers, after all."
"Thank you for reminding us, again, Versallia. ... I see why you're not in medicine. ... "
The station was in medical lock-down, nobody could get in or get off the station, essentially an unofficial quarantine alert. Challenged by the new found fact that their equipment wasn't entirely functional. Capitiane scrounged around with the others trying to find a way to overcome the radiation or the dampening or whatever was causing these malfunctions.
For almost an hour, it was quiet but someone was now approaching. The doors opened with a accusing *whoosh* and in stepped a science officer wearing lieutenant's cuffs. Capitaine ducked behind a console and everybody else quickly did the same. Only Capitiane and two others could see him, but the rest waited on whatever they were told. T'Vrell crouched behind her, suggesting to disable him without any harm. Some of the others agreed. Capitaine couldn't see what the rest thought but knew this decision wasn't unanimous.
As the lieutenant stepped closer, he was stopped by his communicator, someone named 'Ensign Svoboda' identified him as 'Lieutenant Myers'. He was the technician that was absent from the beginning. Having hid and waited this long, T'Vrell knew it was too late to talk their way out, but Capitaine knew subduing him wasn't the best option. Luckly, Myers didn't stick around, after doing a brief check on the computer core, he left to where ever Svoboda was.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Capitaine was the first to step out and the others followed suite. Some were in disagreement that they had waited so long, while others felt they had no other choice. Turning back to their malfunctioning equipment, it was decided to make subspace field emitter locally. A computer catching her eye, Capitaine made a sinde step to discreetly place the 'strange device' into the computer, returning to the group to find that they had broken into many of the computer terminals searching for parts.
Versallia unlocked the doors and they all walked out uniformly, with Capitaine in the lead. She couldn't tell what they were doing, but knew she had to look confident and sure of herself. If they were caught, she had no idea what would happen, now or in her own time.
Whether her confidence was real or feigned, Capitaine was holding herself together, controlling herself not to even breath out of step. And for that effort, it worked, 'the others probably did it much better', she thought to herself, but it all worked. They had passed another security team who did nothing but greet them and kept patrolling.
After as much avoidance as could be afforded, Capitaine and her team entered into the Engineering section. In need of an induction coil as the final missing component, this would be best place to get one both discreetly and without any real harm to the station. With the coil soon in her hand, Capitaine was crawling out from underneath when another security team, lead by a lieutenant, barged in demanding an explanation. She was a dark-skinned human, her voice was firm and gruff, and she and her team seemed to all act off the same note. Being the ranking officer, they immediately approached Capitaine who was currently holding a coil freshly taken from the generator's power coupling.
"I don't recognize you, lieutenant-commander, and I certainly don't remember hearing of any maintenance on these generators."
Nervous enough as it was, Capitaine could barely stammer out some syllables, hastily looking to her team for help. Everybody looked back at her silently, and Capitaine couldn't help but become silent and stare unconfidently back at the lieutenant. The lieutenant, unsheathed her phaser and pointed it against Capitaine, repeating herself,
"We are on high alert, lieutenant-commander. Whose authority are you acting on?"
Looking off to the side, Capitaine noticed T'Vrell and the security crewmen were now slowly approaching the lieutenant's team. But Capitaine's glance off-focus was noticed. Each activating and aiming their phasers in quick succession,
"Hold it right there!"
Everybody froze; a standoff that wouldn't end well regardless of who attacked first. Now thinking on her toes, literally, Capitaine randomly stitched together everything she was thinking, hoping it would do.
"I'm, ... we is the, are an, ... a consulting specialist looking for the ... source vector. The station commander gave me, of my own authority ... I'm supposed to be here."
"Oh, really?"
"Yes? ... I *am* supposed to be here!"
The lieutenant, whose teammates called Simien, stared a good long while at Capitaine and the two never broke eye contact for several minutes. Meanwhile everybody was silent, their individual attention diverted to the person at the end of their weapon, each drawn with safeties off, all waiting for anything to attack and defend themselves.
As the light again flickered blue, Simien and Capitaine stopped and looked nervously around. Looking back to each other, Simien lowered her weapon and gathered her team to leave, allowing Capitaine to finish. Hastily putting the finishing touches to the field emitter, Capitaine knew she wouldn't survive another confrontation, this incident alone could have gotten them all discovered, arrested, or killed. As she was now alone with her team, Capitaine was trembling, shaking almost uncontrollably. She stood behind Versallia, who understood and politely stood in front of her so that Capitiane could calm herself without the rest of team eyeing her.
Heading towards the station's scanning regulators, Capitaine found several doors still locked or guarded. Having to walk through a several public spaces, Capitaine kept having to remind herself to keep calm and keep a confident-like demeanor. It was all going well until the last door opened into a make-shift sick bay. The doctor being an older man with dark hair, he looked up immediately at them and shouted them over. Unwanting to gather more attention, Capitaine told the team to disperse among the room, while she, Versallia, and T'Vrell would see what the doctor wanted.
"Don't just stand there, come over and give me a hand!"
Approaching him, something looked familiar but Capitaine couldn't quite understand why. It took Versallia to realize this was Doctor McCoy *before* his assignment to the Enterprise. Realizing who this was, Capitaine hesitated and forced T'Vrell and Versallia to stop before tripping over each other.
"C'mon, people are dropping like flies and it's all I can do to keep up."
" ... What do you need me to do, Dr. McCoy?"
"Blue flashes ... Ghost stories ... theres a reason for it and we need to stop it. People are dying all over!"
"We need to help him as much as possible." Versallia whispered into Capitaine's ear, almost loudly enough for McCoy to hear. Not questioning Versallia's sudden departure from the no-interference-policy she so strongly upheld, Capitaine pulled out her tricorder and began listing off some readings she hoped Dr McCoy would understand.
"How should I know that? I'm a doctor, not an engineer like you! Suppressing brain activity, neuronic-energy, radiation, and this station's crazy engineer! But I keep saying the blue flashes are still happening anyway. We need some way to replace all that energy being removed, to 'jump-start' their brains somehow ... "
"Like ... cold-restarting a warp engine?"
" *That's* one way of looking at it ... but its so much more complex and sensitive and delicate and ... maybe that's the key!"
Grabbing his tricorder, Dr McCoy scanned some of his patients, telling Capitaine to record his readings. Knowing she had little medical training or experience, Versallia took over. Capitiane and T'Vrell watched as she took down notes and values almost instantly as they were being recorded, almost as if before McCoy told her what to record. Once finished, Versallia handed McCoy the tricorder, Capitaine seemed surprised when McCoy didn't realize it was a 25th century device, but maybe he just wasn't concerned at the moment.
"Alright, lieutenant-commander, your officer did well but I still need to restore the mind to its base line state, so ... ready to try some neurosugery?"
"What?!" Shocked, Capitaine jumped back, and in her mind she screamed out of disbelief. Staring at Dr McCoy in stiffness and uncertainty, he started chuckling, first at his own joke than at Capitaine. Handing her a box of cortical stimulators, he told her what settings to set each at. These were simple devices and Capitaine was able to set most of them, T'Vrell and Versallia finished the rest and helped McCoy test them on his patients.
They worked and McCoy excitedly left to tell the station commander, T'Vrell accompanied him to quell any questions about who they were. Gathering up her team, they continued to apply the scanning regulators.
By this time the blue lights seemed to flicker on and off regularly, like clock work, but at this point they didn't flicker off; they stayed blue. Installing the regulator, it showed the radiation was triolic, coming from the nearby Driffen's comet. Their time running out and realizing they would need to piece everything together later, Capitaine focused everyone on finding a way back home.
Going back to the computer core wasn't a very fond option, they had left too much of a trail already and returning would stir up more trouble than they were prepared to handle. Using a cortical stimulator, Versallia reversed the settings and connected it into an reactor. The stimulator shorted but created a temporal portal. Surprised and now alittle paranoid about Versallia, Capitaine was ready to send her team back through; she would wait for T'Vrell to return. As the first few jumped through, Versallia stopped the next with new information. The portal she made was generating an intense amount of radiation, the short trip through might be enough to kill them before on *this* side of the portal. Except for Capitaine, Versallia noted.
Restating that she was waiting for T'Vrell, Capitaine opted to revisit McCoy for a cortical stimulators. A 'chelation dose of hyronalin' Versallia corrected her, Capitaine was starting to feel what she thought was the radiation poisoning and she left to find the doctor.
Running through the station, now alone, Capitaine was frantically searching for Dr McCoy. After running through several rooms, it occurred to her to contact T'Vrell. But it wasn't T'Vrell who answered, it was the Station Commander.
"This is the Station Commander Kendra Reaver, to whom am I speaking?"
" ... this is the lieutenant-commander of the consulting specialist ... consulting team. I'm trying to contact my science officer."
" 'Consulting specialists'? ... Alright, lieutenant-commander, the doctor says you're with him, you helped him find a cure ... no, a resistance to the disease on my station. So, ... your science officer is here."
Capitaine could hear Dr McCoy and T'Vrell speaking in the background as well as other voices. Finding T'Vrell, it looked as if there hadn't been an incident, the station commander had simply picked off the communicator while she was being treated. Relieved, Capitaine was rejoined with T'Vrell but had to pull Dr McCoy aside.
"Look, lieutenant-commander, you're an awfully awkward 'consultant'. ... I'm not sure who you *really* are or where you came from, but I'm not one to look a gift-horse in the mouth, or the shoulders either."
Taking a moment of pause and confusion at hearing that last statement. Capitaine looked twitchingly at her shoulders which now had a number of streaks across them, *hairline* streaks. Feeling her hair again, she saw that the hair dye had been flaking off her hair, like dust and lint, and it was now returning to its natural blue color.
Caught up in the panic that her disguise was literally falling off, McCoy had talked a while more and was now discreetly offering a handful of hyronalin stimulators and hypos. Shyly smiling at him, Capitaine shook his hand and took the hypos, leaving a dusty imprint on his hands the artificial color of her hair. Embarrassed and now scooching away, Captaine heard as he chuckled and whipped it off on his pants.
...
Returning to Versallia, Capitaine found her on the floor and the others were either dead or in a coma-like state. Scanning frantically, Dina appeared behind her, startling the two of them.
"Dina, what happened?"
"I'm sorry, ma'am. The Devidians detected our portal. We tried to hold them off, but there were simply too many. I was checking the periphery at the time. I'm sorry we couldn't."
Reassuring Dina and distributing the hyronalin, Dina and T'Vrell carried Versallia and Capitaine would carry the rest. Setting the reactor to close the portal after they left, Capitaine picked up the remaining crewmen and jumped through the portal.
The experience was same, like falling, like panicing, despite having expected it. Capitaine emerged to find Morek already handling the crewmen and tending to the dead. Those who had jumped through first hadn't survived, and Capitaine felt the weight of their deaths already added to the crewmen she was carrying on her shoulders.
...
" 'Driffen's Comet', eh? That explains a lot more than you realize, Capitaine. However, we can't simply destroy it in *our* time because the Devidians have the means to travel to the 23rd century and used its energy from *that* time. ... Take my word when I say 'I already have clearance', so your assignment is to destroy the comet in the 23rd century. I'm not going to ask you to commandeer a ship of that time, but I'm sending back, you and your entire ship."
"Couldn't I have just done that for *this* assignment as well?"
"Simply: 'the odds were not in your favor'. But this time, I'll make the arrangements. Prepare yourself and your crew, Capitaine. Drake out."
"Yes, Captain Drake."
Sitting back in her chair, it slowly dawned on her the magnitude of what was about to happen. She and her ship was about to go *back in time*. There were so many things that could happen: what if they arrived too early, or in the wrong place, or ... was Captain Drake going to ask her to ram the comet with her ship.
That last thought, seemed alittle far fetched but uncomfortably within Captain Drake's asking potential. Giving an update to Phaedriel, Kovroht, and Zarva, Capitaine headed to the Medical Bay to checkup on her officers. Versallia and one of the others would be fine, they were more resilient, but the others didn't make it. Making a stop at Elisa's bio-bed, Capitaine was reminded that Elisa still needed rest for about a week before she could even be awoken.
Capitaine wished Elisa could be with her. This whole setting was frightening; more so than her encounters with the Borg, the Klingons, or the Undine. Elisa was always the braver, more courageous part of their friendship, also being a little reckless. And despite currently being stronger, braver, or more knowledgeable, Capitaine missed her; feeling an empty space where she would normally be.
Saying a silent good bye, Capitiane walked out feeling sorry for herself but also a feeling of pride in her crew and her ship. She was confident that they would survive whatever 'arrangements' Drake would make. Soon she would take on an assignment many would only dream of and few were qualified for. This assignment proved she could handle is well and Drake entrusting created a small sense of pride. But upon looking out a window into the darkness of space, Capitaine remembered that many parts of her were still as a child's; a 'naive child's' as several had already told her.
...
'A slingshot maneuver around a star' should have been a helmsman's dream but Anne took it with quiet obedience. Nothing seemed to bring her any sense of joy or comfort. Everything seemed to depress her for some reason.
Captain Drake brought them to the Bepi 113 System, a classified system that was removed from public knowledge. His ship stopped short, reminding Capitaine that he would 'await her mission completion'. Phaedriel and Kovroht, hesitated and looked to Capitaine for the final go-ahead; they didn't care much for Drake or his reassurances.
Anne flew perfectly and the ship soared through time and as the viewscreen came into focus, Drozana Station came into focus, but clean, regulated, and looking new: a standard Federation Deep Space Outpost.
"Uhmm, something's not right with the hull, or our warp signature ... in fact engineering seems a little sketchy, if you know hat I mean ... "
Hearing Zarva over the comms, Capitaine looked to Kovroht or T'Vrell if they had any answers. Pulling up the viewscreen, a layer of energy seemed to surround the ship, reflecting their scanner back, it was a ship-sized holo-emitter, they had every external appearance of a Klingon D7. The bridge was silent at first, Kovroht let out a small cheer as she felt a sense of adventure being back inside a Klingon vessel, even if only holographically.
"Klingon vessel, this is the USS Ruben James. You match the description of a ship wanted for attacking the colony at Gliese. Unless you have solid proof, we will take immediate action."
Still confused or admiring the state of the ship, hearing a hail so suddenly brought all ears to T'Vrell's comm console. Responding had no effect, the Ruben James wouldn't even communicate. As a volley of phaser bursts hit the shields, Capitaine decided what had to be done. Finding the reference for that particular ship, Phaedriel found exactly how to disable it. But in addition, Commodore Jacob Ross was only an officer with a sometimes rash but efficient and honorable personality; he was not recorded to be killed or injured until years later.
Although outwardly being a two hundred year old style cruiser-of-the-time, the Epitaph still have all the advantages a 25th century ship could provide. Easily disabling the Ruben James, it was brought to attention that the comet couldn't simply be destroyed here and now. Technically, it could, but the amount of energy it possessed would be instantly released and would wreak death and havoc on the station and any ship nearby. To make matters worse, there was a Klingon fleet approaching, although officially non-aggressive, Starfleet and the Empire were still at each other's throats.
...
Deciding to manually reinforce the Ruben James's and the station's shields, Capitaine rushed teams together. They didn't have time to 'blend in' or seem discreet, they had to get in and get out. Phaedriel, Dina, and T'Vrell would board the Ruben James. She, Kovroht and Zarva would work on the Station's. Kovorht put on an old-style Imperial uniform to fit the Empire's at the time. It surprised Capitaine, but it made sense, yet Kovroht had no delight in the idea.
Zarva had finished modifying their weapons to a pure proton-like variance, although she only worked on so many. Not wanting to put more crewmen's life on the line, the number of weapons limited the number of people that could be part of the away teams.
Beaming onto the station, Capitaine jumped to ground, reflexively dodging a bottle thrown in her direction. Kovroht quickly shot the attacker, and fortunately her phaser was already on stun. They had to keep casualties to a minimum, especially casualties caused by themselves.
The blue light made the situation more ominous than it actually was: a bar fight in which the Devidians had now intervened. But as ominous as it appeared, it actually was, the Devidians were using the situation and sucking the life out of people with no regard to the larger picture or how important that someone might be.
Quelling the barfight with a wide-beam stun burst, Capitaine and Zarva revived the Starfleet Officers while Kovroht revived the Klingon officers. Putting everybody at ease, the lights again flickered blue, but much more intense than usual. With only the three of them and so many helpless people, they stood with their backs together, ready to act on whatever appeared.
But nothing happened.
The light stayed blue and as it dragged on, Zarva continued to tend to the civilians as Capitaine and Kovroht stood watch. Being the engineers, Capitaine and Zarva revived someone familiar, Montgomery Scott. He seemed unaffected by the Devidians, atleast for the moment, to which he accounted to his drinking habits.
Zarva told Scott their plans while Capitaine was sure to leave out any identifying remarks. They were both excited to meet him in person, Scott practically wrote so many of their textbooks throughtout their Academy classes, his words and works were held in such high esteem.
Scott reviewed their plan but stated that it wouldn't work as well as they planned, a ship was little like a station. Finishing his drink, he set out to work, Kovorht didn't have the admiration for Scott as Capitaine and Zarva did but she didn't want to be around the Klingons when they were fully conscious.
"Just as you said, the triolic energy is increasing! We'll be cooked like haggis if we don't do something about it."
"... 'haggis'?"
"Can you find Cassidy, she runs a wee store on the station, she should have a quantum flux regulator that need. A Mk I should do, but a Mk II would do better."
Taking a moment to understand, it did make sense, but wasn't within the standard protocol, but it was Montgomery Scott who was saying to do so. Leaving Zarva and Kovroht to help Scott, Capitaine went back out to find Cassidy. Looking around, Scott hadn't told her what Cassidy looks like or where she'd likely be.
Walking up to an Orion waitress, named Selei. For an Orion, she wore about as much as expected, and Capitaine could also detect a certain aura about her, but she was a type of angry, wanting to fondle and fawn over a barely conscious Captain McQueen. Shaming away Capitaine for her recklessness, Capitaine noted to herself that Selei was of no help. Finding the bartender, he directed her to Cassidy who was barely conscious and shaken up, she could barely stand or talk.
Putting Cassidy on the communicator with Scott, she couldn't talk very much or very well; Scott suggested to give her a nerve tonic, at which she smiled. Going back to the bar, Capitaine forced herself to ask around to figure out what Cassidy would want. After finally creating something that sounded like what everybody said Capitaine picked up the glass and returned to find Cassidy.
"I'm an engineer, not a waitress ... " Capitaine ranted to herself, she hated having to do all this, all these strange descriptions, these drinks and their concoctions made no sense to her, ... but to Elisa they would.
After what was atleast the fifth try, Capitiane held in her hands a little dainty glass of something she didn't understand. Handing it over to Cassidy, she perked up and stretched as Capitaine hurried her along. Cassidy simply opened a crate and handed Capitaine a Mk II regulator. Although Cassidy offered a lift to carry it, Capitaine simply reached and grabbed it with one hand, startling Cassidy whose voice was starting to get shaky again as she said,
"Good bye."
Returning to Scott, Capitaine was amazed at how he could so quickly and explain so simply how to connect a quantum flux regulator in the station's main directional shield lattice. Receiving confirmation from the Epitaph that the station would be safe, she learned that Phaedriel had finished on the Ruben James as well; all was ready to destroy the comet.
Almost alittle jealous that Zarva was able to get many of her curiosities answered, Capitiane knew it was time to return to the ship. Feeling a vibration in her pocket as she was about to transport out, she sent Zarva and Kovroht ahead as she "needed to look into something first'. Looking at her Device it had a brief description of Scott's theory on suspending an organism in the transporter buffer. Confused at what this meant, Capitaine approached Scott still trying to figure out how to word her question.
"Mr Scott, sir, I've a strange question."
"Go ahead, ask away, lass. A strange question in thus a strange time, is nothing strange at all."
"Have you ever thought of suspending a *something* alive in a transporter buffer?"
"... aye, *that* is a strange question. I'll have to get back to you ... but ... that *does* have something possible. What's your name?"
"Oh, I'm ... just here for now, sir, *visiting*. Just wondering."
With that final sentence, her Device let out a faint vibration and with that, Capitaine knew what the Device had meant. Saying a brief goodbye to Mr Scott, Capitaine returned to the Epitaph. But a favorable situation on the station was not the same up above. The Klingon fleet was intending to fight, but not with the Federation. The D7 the Epitaph was disguised as bore the marks of a Duras ship, which apparently had done more that just attack a colony at Gliese.
Sighing in frustration, Capitaine knew these Klingon ships were no match for the Epitaph, but their interference meant all the more trouble. The lead ship, the IKV Quv captained by B'Vat, who definitely needed to survive, but at the moment he wouldn't live without them dying first.
Preparing a volley of torpedoes for the comet, the Epitaph disabled ship after ship like they were nothing. Fortunately because of their shield's and cloaking conjunction, the Klingon's wouldn't have any long-term affects from the comet's destruction. But as the torpedoes were ready, B'Vat had positioned himself between them and the comet. He was prepared to ram and destroy both their ships.
His engines to full, he almost scrapped the across the hull. His warp pylons short circuiting the holo-emitters on the Epitaph's secondary hull. But aside from appearances, neither ship was severely damaged. Anne had dodged the ship enough so they remained on-course and the Quv wouldn't have enough time to circle around. Above the comet, Capitaine gave the order and the torpedoes flew straight and true, completely obliterating the comet. The shock shook the ship, but otherwise all the energy was absorbed by the shields and dissipated into space. The intensity and stress of the moment calmed and although the Klingons were rallying for another attack, Anne piloted the Epitaph away from the action and soon beyond sensor range. Their mission was done.
It was now back Green Alert and everything functioning as normal, but something finally occurred to Capitaine and she wasn't the only one to realize this: "How were they to get home?"
- END OF CHAPTER -