"To know and act are one and the same." Samurai proverb.
Methos slowly got to his knees and stood up. He took stock of where he was and what was going on around him. Thick clouds of smoke drifted lazily around him punctuated by flashing red pulses of light in time with the emergency lighting. Nothing remained of his opponent, not even the sword he had wielded. Quickly, he worked his way out of engineering and away from the smoke. Being immortal had its benefits, but he still experienced everything a normal person would. Pain never ranked high on his list of things to do and try. The whole ship, he noticed as he made his way back to astrometrics, seemed as if it's on standby. No one was wandering around and the few people he did see were either lying on the floor or slumped over. At first he was alarmed and using his medical background he checked to see if they were still alive, but his fears were replaced with confusion as he found that all he checked were alive and healthy but unconscious. 'The late Akharin was rather old,' he mused, 'almost as old as me. I hope the only effect his death caused was mild enough that everything will be back to normal here shortly.'
As he entered astrometrics, one of the crewmen stirred and came around to consciousness. Methos bent down and helped her to her feet. She wobbled a bit, placing a hand against the wall to steady her self. Methos tried to help by letting her other arm cling to him and waited for her to regain her wits. Nurse Chapel knew she was on the Enterprise, but she didn't really remember how she had come by the particular area she was in.
"Oh, thank you Dr. Adams," she graciously said, and after a few moments asked, "Do you know what happened?"
"Not really," he lied. "I'm quite in the dark myself. I just woke up a few minutes before you did. I assume since we are still here in one piece that we will find out from the captain soon."
"Good, I better get back to sickbay then," Nurse Chapel said, feeling a bit more herself now; she took a few steps to check her balance. "If what happened to us has happened to anyone else I bet I'll be busy for the rest of the day. Thanks again Dr. Adams, stop by if you notice anything else wrong with you!"
Methos watched for a moment as she walked down the hall to the turbolift. The doors swished open as he turned and entered his lab.
Scene Change
Kirk opened his eyes and saw red. Everywhere was red. He wiped his eyes trying to clear his vision and realized he had a rather superficial gash on top of his head that was slowly scabbing over after having bled large amounts of blood down into his face. That at least was one of the sources of red he saw, the other were the flashing red lights.
'My ship!' was his first thought, then the last thing he remembered was having an argument with Spock. "Spock?" he called out, searching the room... Kirk heard a low soft moan from the other side of the room and as quickly as he could went to help his friend. He carefully looked his first officer over for any signs of injury and then gently shook him awake.
"Jim?" asked Spock.
"I don't know what happened we may have crashed on the planet for all I know, but lets try and make it to the bridge if it's there and find out what's going on," Kirk replied, worried for his ship. He helped Spock to his feet and the two of them pried open the doors to briefing room 2.
"From what I recall, Captain, the planet below us was collapsing and it was possible that it might implode," Spock thought out loud. "It is highly illogical that this ship would still be intact had we crashed on the planet."
"Yes, that's what I was thinking," replied Kirk. "However the ship has been damaged in some fashion and I need to find out how badly she's been hurt." Moments later the red flashing light was replaced with the typical starship lighting and power again seemed to thrum to life beneath their feet.
"I believe we can attempt the turbolifts now, Captain." Spock surmised, stating the apparent obvious.
Kirk glanced over with a bemused look on his face, "Perhaps your right." Vulcan humor, he thought, takes getting used too. They entered the nearest turbolift and minutes later the doors reopened and the pair walked onto the bridge.
Scene Change
"Bridge to Engineering," Kirk asked after he had tapped the intercom button on his command chair. "Scotty, do you read me?"
"Aye, Capt'n."
"What happened down there?"
"We had a wee power surge of some sorta energy which interacted with thee dilithium matter/antimatter reaction," he said. "When thee power outputs reached critical thee EPS relays shut down and locked out the whole system."
Kirk turned to Spock and asked, "What kind of energy could have caused that... something from the planet?"
"Unknown at this time." Spock says while looking through his spectral-analysis viewer.
Kirk presses the button on his chair again. "Scotty, how long till you can bring the systems back on line?"
After a brief pause Scotty replied back, "Impulse power has already been restored along with most of the normal ship functions, sensors should be back up in about 4 hours and the warp drive will take at least another 8 hours."
"That's not good enough Scotty," Kirk demanded. "I need it sooner."
"Ach Capt'n, Ah might be able to bring the sensors back up within the hour but Ah will only be able to give you warp 4 in about 2 hours sir."
"Scotty you're a miracle worker." Congratulated Kirk and he slyly asked. "Do you always multiply your repair estimates by a factor of 4?"
"Aye, captain," Scotty boasted. "How else can Ah maintain me reputation as a miracle worker?"
Kirk turned back to look at his first officer, "Do you have anything new on the unknown energy readings?"
"Nothing quantitative, Captain." Spock claimed. "However the computer found traces of energy similar to what we found in the Omega system."
"Mr. Flint?"
"Yes Captain," he said. "While the bulk of the readings show that it is not his particular energy signature, it bears a striking resemblance. Trace fragmented amounts of his particular energy remain, however not enough for me to surmise that he had been present aboard this ship to cause the current accident"
'The immortal named Flint,' Spock mused as he told Kirk the information his scanners had picked up. 'The man whose android daughter caused this ship and Jim so many problems. She was built and taught by Flint and
Jim had fallen deeply in love with her. Flint wanted to use that to rouse emotions in his android daughter so that she would become fully human and would become a suitable, immortal mate that would help combat the loneliness Flint suffered. Her death was a tragedy and if what Dr. McCoy said was true Flint's long lifetime was also swiftly coming to an end.'
"About Psi 2000," Kirk asked, obliviously not even remembering anything about Flint's daughter, almost as if it had been erased from his head. "I know our sensors are minimally functioning, but we don't appear to be in orbit anymore?"
"Upon the sensors' return, I can extrapolate our new position with better accuracy." Spock said.
"New position Spock?" asked Kirk.
"Captain, we are no longer at Psi 2000 short range sensors confirm that. They are however intermittent and when engineering resumes their operation, I will inform Dr. Adams to present a detailed debriefing on the new position for us."
Scene Change
With the power finally restored Adams was able to get back to work. He had just finished talking to Commander Spock about using astrometrics to find out where they were.
"Cassandra, what is our current status in the Psi
2000 system?"
"This ship is no longer in the Psi 2000 star system."
"Shite, well where are we then?"
"Cor Caroli"
"What!" he said. "But where are all the asteroids and radiation... there aren't even any solar flares! Cassandra, recheck the coordinates."
"This ship is located in the Cor Caroli system."
"Where the bloody hell is Cor Caroli's other sun?"
"Alpha Canum Venaticorum does not exist."
"... well what IS here?"
"Please restate the question."
"Cassandra, please compute our location carefully," he said. "Triangulate with known pulsars..."
"Working..." the computer said. "We are in the Oort belt of the Cor Caroli system."
"Posh, I need a beer." he said. "No strike that, I need several. Fine, when all else is impossible try what's in front of your face... Cassandra, give me all the information you have on this system."
"This system has a class K star with 1 class M planet, 2 class J planets and one class Y planet. There are 2 minor asteroid belts and one major asteroid belt. There is wreckage of a large metallic structure in the major asteroid belt and there are 248 artificial satellites in orbit around the class M planet. 200 of these systems are armed with primitive lasers; the other 48 are various communications arrays."
"I see," he said. "Out of curiosity, Cassandra, is there anything else that doesn't match up with your data banks?"
"Affirmative."
"There is more to this system that doesn't match your records?"
"Affirmative, current sensor logs star charts do not match with star charts on record 8 hours ago."
"Pardon me?" he said. "Say that again but give me more details."
"Star charts from 8 hours ago do not match with current sensor logs. Several stars are missing, several stars have moved to new locations. Conclusion of stellar drift analysis indicates we are in the Earth year 2245."
"Bloody hell, Akharin, you bloomin git! What have you done?" he said. "Dr. Adams to Commander Spock!"
"Spock here"
"Sir we've got a problem."
Scene Change
"Commander's personal log... update, we lost two more ships to hit and run attacks today. My guess is they are softening us up for a major offensive. Captain Sterns hasn't slept in two days. Word is, there is some sort of ace cruiser out there that's killed two dozen of our ships in the past three weeks, but no one has survived an attack yet to confirm that," said Lieutenant-Commander Sheridan.
"Captain, picking up Minbari style transmissions. Target bearing mark 99-721 should be in visual range"
"Let me see," asked Captain Sterns.
"Silhouette confirmed, looks like a short ranged transport"
"All batteries go to ready status," came from behind from the lieutenant at the Weapons station.
"Could be a scout or a straggler that got separated from a larger fleet," speculated Sheridan.
"Could be a decoy drawing us into an ambush," Sterns replied.
"Should we pursue?"
"Negative, I don't want to risk the fleet till I know what we are getting into."
"She'll be leaving visual range any moment and the scanners can't lock on"
"Launch bay this is the captain"
"Launch bay, aye," came the reply.
"Launch solo fighter, I want that transport followed," said the Captain lost in thought.
"He's got a big start on you eagle seven," the launch bay officer said to the lone fighter.
"Roger that, maximum thrust," the pilot began his chase weaving in and out of asteroids fast gaining on the transport. As he had almost overtaken the ship the transport clipped a small rock tumbling it end on end adrift.
"Eagle seven to Lexington, he's flamed out"
"Standby eagle seven... moves us in," Sterns turned and looked at Sheridan. "Any further radio chatter?"
"Negative, she's running silent"
"Keep moving us in," Said the Captain with a pensive look on his face.
"Sir, I don't like it. Just before the transport flamed out it fired its forward thrusters cutting its velocity to almost nothing. Now if I were running from the enemy engines failing I would try and keep my inertia going on the off chance I could get away, not just lying there waiting to get caught"
"Well maybe he wants to get captured alive? Rather than taking his chances at getting killed in that asteroid field." Sterns replied.
"Or maybe they want us in a precise predetermined location. Captain, their jump engines are a lot more precise than ours they can target an area of less than one hundred yards if they jump into the middle of us..." Sheridan trailed off.
"Holy... this is fleet command, all ships break off, I repeat break off!" captain Sterns yelled.
A large whirling blue storm of energy appears in space around the fleet and all of the Earth Alliance ships within the vortex violently detonated barely leaving even burned out hulks after the explosion died away. Within the vortex an enormous aqua blue angelfish like ship appeared. Two large fin-like extensions reach far below the main body of the ship and one single shark like fin on top are seen as the ship, sleek as a fish, glides forward shooting out yellow beams of death further inciting the havoc and fulmination caused by the opening of the vortex.
"Primary systems hit, weapons and jump engines are down, only navigational thrusters still functioning, orders?" yelled Sheridan asking his captain what to do next.
"Plasma cannon is non-functional," said the weapons officer off in the background.
"Captain, Orders?" asked Sheridan. He turned to look at his Captain because of the lack of response and was horrified to see a bulkhead had collapsed where Sterns sat. Sheridan turned back to his monitor and closed his eyes for a moment as if to mourn the dead. When he opened his eyes they seemed to light up as if on fire with purpose and he asked. "Bridge to engine room, do we have any power yet?"
"Negative sir," came the reply.
"Communications?" asked Sheridan.
"Sir!"
"Can we contact Earth? Send a distress signal?"
"Its possible, but sir... that Minbari cruiser only left because they figured we were dead if we send a distress signal it'll come back and finish us off."
"If we sit here and do nothing we are just as dead"
"Roger sir"
"Firing control, do we have any tactical nukes left?" Sheridan asked.
"Affirmative, three 2 megaton warheads with proximity fuses"
"Alright I'm authorizing use of tactical nukes, firing control remove their warheads get them down to launching bay 9 ASAP. Communications stand by to broadcast a distress signal, but not till I give the order." Sheridan said to the officers under his new command on the bridge.
"Aye sir," replied the com officer.
"Now ah... I would be... less than honest if I said I was sure if this was going to work, it might it might not. We could very well blow up right along side the enemy, but at least we will have a fighting chance to take them out with us... unless someone else has a better idea?" Sheridan looked around at the different faces around the bridge trying to find someone with a better plan or idea. None of them could come up with anything better and all he received as he looked at each officer was a nod of confirmation showing their loyalty and trust in him.
"Alright we'll stick with my plan..." he said to his officers, and then mumbled to himself. 'Hell I didn't want to live forever anyway'
Scene Change
"Captain, I'm receiving a distress call," said Uhura.
Kirk half-turned in his chair, "Let's hear it."
Uhura reached out a slender dark finger and pressed down on a button on her console, while still holding her listening piece against her ear. The distress call broke the relaxed air of the bridge like a knife.
"This is the EAS Lexington... primary systems are down; weapons and jump engines are down, only navigational thrusters still functioning... Captain Sterns is dead... need medical support... I repeat, we need medical assistance...life support failing...Earth respond... please respond..."
"That's the best I can do, sir."
"Earth?" Kirk frowned. "Can you raise them?"
"No sir, I've hailed them three times now. All I'm getting is the automated distress message."
He turned and looked at his first officer. "What's their status, Mr. Spock?"
The Vulcan was leaned over looking into his equipment, his eyes illuminated by the eerie blue glow from the readouts. "Life support is functional, but failing. They still have oxygen but no gravity."
"Estimated time to failure?"
"The degradation is not serious enough to be severely dangerous at this time, Captain. They have 14 hours left at the current rate of depletion."
"Life signs?"
"At least 250 but indeterminate."
"Let's find out what's going on over there," Kirk said as he turned to look at Sulu at the helm. "Warp 1, engage"
"Aye, aye, sir,"
"Captain, I'm reading another ship approaching the Lexington. It's almost double the size and made of a crystal like hull." said the helmsman to Sulu's left.
"Someone else closer than us responding to help?"
"...Negative Captain, they are charging weapons...locking on to the Lexington."
"Warp 6! Shields up" exclaimed Kirk and he looked back at Spock. "Will we be in time?"
"Negative Captain," he said regretfully.
"Sir!" yelled the helmsman. "Registering a nuclear explosion."
"Nuclear?" asked Kirk. "Was it the Lexington?"
"Negative Captain, it was the other ship, she's heavily damaged," replied the helmsman. "She's retreating now..."
The crew stared intensely at the viewing screen watching as the once proud aqua blue ship was humbled, losing its right dorsal fin, leaving only a blackened stump, emitting a red glow and trailing sparks.
Scene Change
"Ok we've got the nukes in place... heading back to the barn," said one of the two space suited figures who were standing on an asteroid. They turned on the thruster packs attached to their backs and quickly made their way back to their ship.
"Roger that... alright send the distress signal. We've waited too long I don't know how much longer we can take."
"Commander, I think your wish may be coming true, we have an echo on vector approach. It might be them, coming into range... now."
"Bridge to navigation... the enemy has a clear shot. Fire docking thrusters, get us behind one of those asteroids let them think we are trying to evade. If they want to finish the job let them come to us."
Sheridan reached into his pocket and pulled out a picture of his wife, Anna Sheridan. He looked at it for a moment and ran his fingers over her form and then gently placed it next to the station in front of him. He took some measure of resolve knowing he could possibly see her again and said, "Here we go!"
"She's locking on sir," the operations officer cried out.
"Just a little more,"
"Confirmed weapons lock... energy spike! She's ready to fire!"
"... Now!" shouted Sheridan.
Out in space the Minbari cruiser ventured further forward past the asteroids that had previously protected the Lexington. It almost floated in space as if trying to prove its fishlike design and its gravimetric neutron cannons charged up and ready to fire. Just as the energy started to form before it was focused and fired, one of the asteroids nearby viciously exploded and a searing ball of brilliant white light. The fish like ship shuddered violently and was physically shoved hundreds of meters to the side. The explosion sheered off one of the dorsal fins leaving only a charred stump and most of the right side of the ships weapons emplacements was inoperable, melted to slag. The Black Star slowly turned trying maneuver her way back out of the field of seemingly harmless asteroids to limp her way back home for repairs.
"She's out of range of nuke two, only one left," the operations officer said.
"See you in Hell!" Sheridan exuberantly shouted.
A second asteroid exploded in space caving in the wounded Minbari cruiser. The quantum singularity broke loose from its containment and sucked the broken remains of the ship inside its new black hole environment before it winked out of existence. Only meter sized chunks or smaller of crystalline hull fragments remained to mark the passing of the Minbari super warcruiser the Black Star.
Scene Change
"Wait! Another nuclear explosion...it's gone... sir?"
Kirk looked at Spock, asking him, "Gone?"
"Scanning... it seems the alien hostile used a forced quantum singularity drive type, similar to the Romulans. Most of the ship was sucked into the resulting temporary black hole when the containment field was lost."
Kirk stared back at the viewscreen, at where the alien ship once existed, consumed by nuclear fire.