Chapter V: All Rules Aside

The bridge of the Odyssey seemed colder than normal. The Epsilon fleet was assigned to me. The fleet consisted of 12 ships. The Flanmore, Spartacus, Paracles, Remnant, Santiago, Ulrich, Kensworth, Blitzkrieg, Entourage, Washington, Automator, and the Saxon. Thirteen of our ships against ten of theirs, at a standstill. Like an old Western Earth movie, we tried to stare each other down. Without warning our sensors went down along with the viewscreen and helm control.

"What just happened! Get sensors back online!" I shouted. The pure rage that burned inside prompted my actions. "Wallwood! Fire a full spread of our torpedoes followed by phasers!"

"Firing photon torpedoes." He replied. "Short range sensors back online. Five of their ships have been severely damaged. Wait. They are at 100. I cannot get a concrete answer. Our shields are at 5!"

"Get us out of here!" I was disappointed. I needed some answers and I had to run away from the only chance, but a small glimmer of hope revealed itself when Lt. Wallwood spoke up.

"Sir incoming subspace message. It is for you. It originates from the Retrous system." My spirits rose a little.

"In my ready-room. T'ral you have the bridge." The thought that Sara might be alive almost put a smile on my face. Many times we have tried to reach the Retrous system, but it's heavily fortified. There is no way in there. I feel that our only chance is to successfully build this slip warp drive.

I sat there in my ready-room. I was praying to the human god. Every night Sara had prayed to him. Her prayers rang throughout my head. I quickly silenced them. My screen was flashing the incoming message warning. I opened the message and much to my dismay it was not Sara, but Dakmen and Sara's friends. The tone in Dakmen's voice was alarming. He spoke as if they were under attack. His exact words I will never forget. He said, "Gefferin, We need you. The whole system is under attack! These new enemies have taken over the planet, and the leader, I think it was Gerntekin, took Sara and my son, Deddak. Come quickly, we know you can help. Our resistance movement, The Ceridian Order, has taken over some small towns but we are constantly being stopped my these massive forces." The there was a loud bang and the door opened and the Lert were there. Dakmen pulled what I recognized as a Nova Flash. He activated it and ran. It went off with a soft bang and the flash overloaded the recording device. The transmission had ended there. I made a quick decision. As I walked out of my ready-room I shouted to Janson, "Lt. Take us to Starbase 426. Warp 10.3." We needed to get some last minute supplies before we proceeded to Retrous III.

The Odyssey proceeded to Starbase 426 and received about a third more of the armaments than capacity. Admiral Menar informed me of a possible gap in the Lert defense perimeter. The gap was verified by the incoming transmission from Dakmen. He was a bit more calm now. He said, "Gefferin, We are getting nowhere here. All rescue attempts have failed. We are officially asking for Starfleet's help. I received a message from Sara five minutes ago. She said that Deddak is alright but she cannot say the same for herself." I immediately filled with pure rage and hate, but took no action. "She said that the Lert have violated her on many occasions. Though a horrible act, we have gained a lot of information. We found a break in their defense perimeter. At 902.1 by 725.2 reference 'G.' you should be able to fit about five ships at a time, without detection. The fate of Retrous III, nay, the fate of the Federation, rests on your shoulders. Gefferin, You can help us. Get here A.S.A.P.!"

I cleared our departure with Admiral P'tal. The air, stale of fear and confusion. While on route to the given coordinates, Lt. Wallwood stated something odd, "Sir impact alerts on decks thirteen through twenty-seven, but I am not picking up anything on sensors." It took a while to register what it was.

"Roll hard to the right!" I said "Now!"

"Too late!" Shouted Lt. Janson "It seemed to be some sort of interphasic cloaking device, they have taken out our port nacelle! Impulse and Warp offline, comm is down as well. Aparrentley two Lert ships were in cloak one sacrificed itself but the explosion caused heavy damage to the other Lert ship. The Lert ship has no shields and minimal weapons. I am detecting two lifesigns very faint."

"Beam a boarding party onto the Lert ship. Bring the survivors aboard. Beam them directly to sickbay, and erect a level ten forcefield. We are going to commandeer ourselves this Lert ship. As soon as you can send out a standard distress signal. Janson you are with me. T'ral, you have the bridge. We will see if I can learn how to fly this thing."

"Aye sir"

Janson, Dr. Mkhlian, and myself stood on the transporter pad, waiting for Retan, who was late for ship to ship transport. The faint sound of running footsteps quieted everyone. They grew louder, and louder as Retan came running through the door.

"I am sorry that I am late, I was gathering the data from the other ship. I almost lost the most important one."

"And which one would that be?" I asked.

"Flight Control." She said with hesitation. We all looked at each other and laughed. Even Retan.

"Lt. Energize." And with that the four of us dematerialized. The ever familiar sight of Transporter Room 4 was quickly concealed in a blue hue. The blue changed to green as the transporter room returned to view.

"What happened?"

"We lost primary power, there is not enough for a transport. The only option is to take a shuttle and beam from there."

"That is the only way. My scans showed no places to dock a shuttle."

"Road Trip anyone?" Janson jested.

"Can this day get worse?" I muttered to myself.

The debris from the other Lert Ship and our warp nacelle was visible from the Shuttlepod. The Lert ship was sleek, but powerful. It was a silver color, with some red and black symbols. It was long, almost as long as the Odyssey. Maybe two or three decks. One major difference was that the bridge was in the exact middle of the ship. The exciting view of space is not as good as in a Federation Starship. The bridge layout was similar to that of a Cardassian warship. The command chair in the center, and on a pedestal. The controls were a bit trickier than those of the Odyssey. It is a good thing that Retan downloaded the control layout from when they snuck aboard the other ship. On the Lert ship I got the comm up and running, as well as some of the weapons. The Odyssey has repaired comm, and sent out a distress signal to Starbase 426. Janson practiced the helm on the captured ship. The plan was that when Starfleet arrives that we will try to cross the defense perimeter, and kick these guys out. Janson was still having trouble at the helm of the alien vessel. Weapons controls were a bit easier. The Lert ship was equipped with an interphasic cloaking device, which allows the ship to not only be invisible to sight and sensor detection, but to be able to pass through solid objects. A Federation vessel was secretly testing an illegal cloak, banned by the treaty of Algeron. The unstable technology set the ship adrift in space, in phasic cloak, untill it rematerialized inside an asteroid. Jeron Merdeth, Director of Starfleet Internal Affairs, ok'd our operation. We left my crippled ship behind as we left for the defense perimiter. Through the rear view we saw the USS Spartacus towing the Odyssey to the nearest Starbase. We had received an unteseted device that was supposed to mask our bio-signs and make it seem like the Lert were onboard. We had no idea if it even worked. Our crew consisted of myself, Janson, Retan, and Doctor Mkhlian.

"Take us out Janson, full impulse."

"Aye sir"

"As soon as we clear the system go to full warp."

"Aye sir" He said trying to hide his excitement but failing miserably.

"Something wrong Mr. Janson?"

"No sir it is just that I feel like the crew of the defiant. Back in the Dominion War when Captain Sisko and his crew piloted a captured Dominion vessel into a Ketracel-White facility."

"I know the event. I was sent to find the ship afterwards. I never did. And I paid dearly for it."

"Sir, Going to maximum warp."

The ship was at a comfortable temperature for both the crew and myself. And yet chills raged up and down my back. Was I experiencing genuine fear? I had not known fear before these past events. That scared me. We were about 3 hours from our destination when we received a strange message from Admiral Picard.

"Captain Rannian stand down and return to Starbase 426 immediately."

"Sorry Admiral but I cannot do that."

"I have orders to take you in by any means. And I will use those means." I cut the channel and said to Janson

"Is there anything faster that warp on this thing?"

"No sir."

"Use the interphasic cloak."

"Aye sir." The excitement quickly turned to fear for his career. He new that more was at stake that his career. He typed a set of commands into the computer. The computer stated ship status, which was translated by the universal translater within our combadges. Weapons were restricted to projectiles. No phase energy weapons yet. Retan as working around the clock to get it up and running. We all feared what would come next. No one knew. We just hoped that it was not as bad as the reports from operatives in the occupied sectors of space.