Chapter Five

Boarding Party

Marine's Log: Stardate 4566.20 --First Lieutenant Sommerfeld reporting. We marines aboard the Interceptor act mostly as a Special Forces extension of the standard security force. Fortunately, that means we don't need anyone "higher up" than me. Unfortunately, it also means we have to do what the "standard Starfleet people" say. Even if we don't want to. –End log entry.

Tony really and sincerely didn't want to go on a boarding mission, especially one on a ship they knew almost nothing about that belonged to an alien species.

"Sir?" came the voice that raddled him form his…unpleasant memories. It was one of his closest friends, Third Lieutenant Alex Ward.

"Sorry, I was lost in thought," he responded weakly. He didn't know why he was having flash backs, this ship was nothing like a Borg ship. It was actually more like a Romulan one: pretty well lit, not damp like a Klingon ship, all the halls looked alike, several dead ends. Not at all Borg. "Ensign Billings, what's your tricorder reading for this hallway?" So far their tricorders had been just about worthless.

"It says it goes all the way trough, no turns, several off shoots. But I've been wrong before," he responded, tapping his screen several times.

"Let's hope not this time," Tony said as he headed down the corridor. The five other people in the boarding party followed. A standard Marine boarding party includes six people: in this case, four Standard Marines and two technicians. If they need to, they could split up into two groups of three.

So far they hadn't meat any opposition: no security personnel, no automation, no booby traps, little difficulty in general. The only real problem they were having was a lack of hallways that actually went anywhere.

"This is getting frustrating," Alex said as they ran into another wall. He turned to go back down the hallway.

"No, it's already frustrating," Tony replied, turning to follow him. He was beginning to wonder how the aliens go around this stupid ship.

"Sir," Billings started then stopped to fiddle with his tricorder.

"Yeah?" Tony asked turning to face him.

"This wall doesn't register on my tricorder," he responded looking up helplessly.

"It doesn't show up on your scientific tricorder?" Tony asked, transporter packing his phaser rifle in exchange for a tactical tricorder. He started scanning with it.

"It doesn't: not as energy, not as matter, not at all."

"It shouldn't. It's a tactical hologram," Tony responded, tapping his comm. badge. "Away Team, regroup on this position."

"Aye, sir," came the response as the rest of the team came back down the hallway.

"What's the big deal?" Alex asked as he walked up next to Tony, looking over his shoulder. "What's that for? Doesn't the wall show up on the scientific tricorders?"

"Actually, it doesn't. And it shouldn't," Tony responded, drawing his Meteor Phaser Pistol. After he shot the wall in three different places (to the shock of all the people present), it faded to reveal a long corridor. "It's just a hologram," he finished.

"Oh," Alex responded slowly.

"What formation should we use?" Billings asked, transporter packing a phaser compression rifle.

"SWAT?" Tony asked in response. He was referring to the old SWAT type formation: someone takes point and lead out as the others follow at varying distances. He was meat with a unanimous nod. "Fine, I'll take point," Tony finished as he transporter packed his tricorders.

As he moved down the hall, a side door opened and an alien jumped out. It was roughly humanoid: about two meters tall, covered in thick, dark gray fur. It had a slightly elongated snout with large lower fangs. It held some sort of large projectile weapon in its large, clawed hand. As it came out, it roared loudly and fired a shot at him.

"Whoa," Tony yelped as he stepped back and shot at it. On the impact, the alien's fur vibrated slightly and it staggered a few steps, falling over. "Okay, that was odd," Tony said as he tapped his comm. badge. "Sommerfeld to Interceptor."

"Captain Sommerfeld here, go ahead Tony," came the response.

"Are your sensors still being jammed?"

After about two seconds, Michelle responded, "No, not really. Why?"

"What's your life form reading?" Tony asked as he started down the hallway again.

"Humanoid. Almost Romulan with some that look Klingon, but not very many," she replied after a moment.

"Is that it? No unknown life forms or anything else?" he asked as he came to an intersection. He took his tricorders back out and started scanning.

"No…none that I can find. Why?"

"I just shot something that looked more like a gorilla for earth than anything else." As he finished scanning, the last person in the formation came up behind him. He motioned for Alex's team to move off to the right.

"You're sure? It could have been a battle suit or something," Mike asked as the team split up: Alex's team went right and Tony's went left.

"Yeah, I'm sure. It died too easy to be a suit of some sort." The hallway they went down had the same color schema as all the others: light green over dark green with a handrail at the border. No real distinguishing marks on any of the walls.

"It could have been a hologram," Amber offered. She didn't like the idea of Tony being on an Away Mission since she was probably the one that knew the most about his experience with the Borg. She had been there that day… She never wanted to think about it again. She was brought out of her unpleasant memories by Tony's response.

"No, not a hologram. If it were a hologram, it would have faded out after I shot it, but it didn't. It just fell over," he responded as he saw something that caught his attention. "Now, what's this?"

"What's what?" Mike asked. He wasn't really happy about his son going on this mission either. He knew that Tony had been stranded on a Borg vessel, but that's all he knew. The only mention of it in any records was that it happened and Tony wouldn't talk about it. He was worried that the experience would consume his son and turn him into something that no one could even imagine.

"I don't know. It looks almost like a holodeck hologram after being shot." As Tony moved closer to the anomaly, he began to realize that they had walked into a trap of some sort. "This is bad," he muttered as Romulans started coming out of the woodwork, literally.

"What's bad? Report!" Mike ordered as he stood up and stepped forward. The last thing he wanted was an Away Team they couldn't get back to the Interceptor.

"It's a trap!" Tony yelled as he transporter packed a Type IV-B Medium Range Combat Support Phaser. He began shooting wildly, knowing his own guys would stay behind him. They had shot about half the Romulans that had jumped out at them when more came running down the hallway toward them. "Fall back! Fall BACK!"

"Transporter Room! Beam back the Away Team!" Mike ordered.

A few seconds later cam the discouraging response, "Sir! I can't! There's some sort of transport inhibiter around the ship!"

"What!"

"Oh, this is bad," Amber muttered under her breath. It's starting again. It was just like what happened on the Intersession: Tony beamed over with a standard Away Team, wound up in a trap, and couldn't get back. They had been station on it together: she had been at the helm and heard everything that went over the communication channel.

"There's too many of them!" came the horrified exclamation from one of Tony's teammates, she didn't know who.

"Keep shooting! Don't give up!" Tony responded. He sounded desperate. They needed help, but the Interceptor couldn't give it. "Fall back! Go back down the hallway!"

"They're coming that way too! There's no way out! We're trapped!"

"Fight! Keep fighting!" Tony ordered. He knew their chances of survival were nonexistent, but he needed to fight. To keep fighting. Just like before.

He had been in a group of three. They were his two closest friends. When they were assimilated, it hurt. It hurt more when he had to kill them to save his own life. He had been the only on to survive. He never really got over that.

"Sir, they've stopped," Sergeant Cunningham said.

"What?" Mike asked over the comm. link

"They've stopped, no one else is coming," Tony said in awe. "Get their weapons, we'll need them."

As they spread out to collect the disruptor pistols, Tone could hear Michelle say, "Sir, the hostile is moving off."

"Helm, lay in a parallel course," Mike ordered.

"Aye, sir," Amber responded. She didn't like the way this was going. She didn't want anyone on a hostile ship, especially Tony. They had been close friends ever since he got stationed on the Intersession. But their relationship had been rock after he got back from the Borg sphere.

"Sir, the hostile is acceleration to Warp Two," Michelle said. She wasn't exactly comfortable with how the mission was going. She didn't really know any of the Marines on board the Interceptor, but she had a good impression of Tony. He's a good officer and gets along well with the crew.

"Match speed," Mike said. He hated this feeling of helplessness, but there wasn't anything he could do about it. He couldn't beam them back. He couldn't open fire or stop them from getting away. He sat down and put his head in his hands.

"Aye, sir," Amber replied. She felt just as helpless. She began to wish that she had never been transferred. At first, she thought she' like it. The fastest ship in the fleet and she would be at the helm. But now, she began to reconsider her position here. It was too threatening.

"Sir, we're approaching a planet. It's in an uncharted system, but the hostile is headed right for it," Michelle reported.

"What do the long range sensors say?" Mike asked looking up.

"Inconclusive. It looks something kind of like Romulus, but not really." Michelle could tell he was nervous, but she didn't know what to do about it.

"Sorry I'm later. What'd I miss?" Beth asked as she stepped off the turbo lift. She had been asked to help get the survivors from the Santa Maria settled in.

"Not much," Michelle answered sarcastically. "Ton's just stranded over on a hostile ship that we can't transport to or from. It's heading for an uncharted planetary system."

"He's stranded again?" Beth asked as she sat next to her father. "What's that? Like the fifth time since he joined the Marines?"

"More like six," Amber said as she did some random thing with her consul. She didn't know what she was doing, but she needed to do something.

It had been fifteen hours since they beamed over to this stupid ship. Or was it just fifteen minutes? Tony wasn't sure.

They had encountered two other groups of Romulans (nowhere near as large) and regrouped with Alex.

"What is going on here?" Alex asked when they finally got back together.

"I think we're on some sort of holodeck. But I don't know how to get off," Tony responded, looking down the corridor past the other men to be sure no one was coming.

"Computer: End program," Alex said as Tony tried to stop him. More Romulans came running down the hallway trying to shoot them.

"Great," Tony said in frustration. "I've already tried that," he added as he phasered two Romulans. "It just causes more trouble." He phasered three more Romulans, and started moving down the hall the other way when there was a giant explosion.

It knocked him forward, causing him to drop his rifle. When he looked up, all the Romulans were gone. So was the corridor; it had become a black room with off green lines forming little boxes on all the walls, the floor, and the sealing. "A holodeck," he muttered as he stood up. "Is everyone okay?"

"I am," Alec said as he stood. But when he put his weight on his left leg, it buckled and he fell forward. "Okay…maybe not."

"Sanchez, check him out. Where's Billings?" Tony asked as he looked around. Five of the six people looked relatively fine, but someone was lying over to one side. "Oh, fudge."

He went over to see what was wrong. He couldn't find a pulse. "Hunt, get over here! Billings is hurt!"

Hunt went over and ran his medical tricorder over him. "He's already dead, Tony," Hunt said, looking his friend in the eye.

"What killed him?" Tony asked angrily.

"Disruptor burns," Hunt responded hesitantly. He knew what this would do to his friend: He always took this kind of thing hard.

"Dang it," Tony muttered as he stood up and walked over to the computer control panel next to the holodeck door. He hated loosing people, even before he was trapped on the bloody, stupid Borg ship. He started fiddling wit the panel while he was thinking about that mission and what happened. About the people who went with him and how they died. There screams for help while the Borg assimilated them. The way it felt when he had to kill them. And, the worst part, telling their families.

He was so focused on the panel and his own memories that he didn't notice Hunt walk up behind him. "You okay, Tony?"

"I'm fine. Why shouldn't I be?" he responded harshly.

"You don't sound fine. You sound like you're going to phaser someone."

"Good, there's a lot of people to phaser on this stupid Romulan-ship-want-be," he snapped as he finally got the door open. "Sanchez, Grimes, stay with Ward."

"Sir, there are more of those warships approaching," Michelle said, standing next to Beth.

"How many?"

"Three big ones," Jesse responded, punching buttons on his consul. He was trying to find a way to beam through their transport inhibitor. It wasn't working.

"Sir? Do you want to break off pursuit?" Amber asked. She really didn't want to, but she knew they'd probably have to.

"Put the hostiles on screen," Mike ordered, hoping that it wasn't as bad as it sounded. It was.

The main viewer changed from a view of a small ship with star streaks around it to a view of three large ships closing on their position. "Yes, break off pursuit," he3 respond reluctantly. He really and greatly wished he could either continue the pursuit or (preferably) get his son off that ship. "Ready forward weapons systems."

"Aye, sir," Jesse responded. As he started the targeting sequence, he sent a written message to Tony and his group. He just hoped his comm. badge would pick up on it.

As they came about, the enemy ships armed their weapons arrays, consisting of mostly disruptors. The first ship fired, narrowly missing the port shields.

"Hold fire," Mike said as one of the other sips fired, hitting the forward shields. "Fire all weapons on my mark." One of the ships passed over them and fired on their dorsal shields.

"Shields at ninety percent," Jesse reported, adjusting his targeting pattern.

"Wait for it," Mike said as one of the ships came up on the starboard side. "Wait for it."

""Shields at eighty-five percent," Jesse informed them as a torpedo impacted their starboard shield. She didn't know why they were holding fire and he didn't need to. He drew on his time in the Marines, when he almost never knew the reasons behind his specific orders but he knew his commanders were always on task.

"Helm, one hundred eighty degrees to starboard. Tactical, fire!" Mike ordered as they spun around and fired a full spread of torpedoes and phasers. One of the ships exploded and the other tow pivoted slightly.

"All three ships disabled," Michelle said as they resumed their pursuit.

Tony was nearing a corner in the corridor and used his tricorder to scan around it. It picked up three Romulans.

His comm. badge peeped. They heard it and started around the corner. "Fudge," he muttered as he backed down the corridor. Tony really didn't need this right now.

His little group had already fought three other groups of Romulans. Hunt goy hurt and had to stay behind and it wasn't looking good for Alex's groups either.

He found a room he could retreat to. No one was there. He went in and his badge peeped again. They heard that one too. "Perfect, just perfect," he muttered as he looked around for away out. There wasn't one. "Perfect."

He could hear the Romulans talking outside the door. They sounded like they were arguing, but he couldn't understand them because the door muffled their voices too much. He found a table he could turn over to use for cover. As he did, his badge peeped again. "I know," he almost yelled.

"Fudge," he muttered again, knowing that the Romulans had heard that. They started to open the door. He squatted behind the table. The door opened and they fired.

Since they weren't aiming, they didn't hit anything. One came in and fired again, this time grazing the edge of the table, almost hitting Tony's head.

"Whoa," breathed as he ducked lower. He had put the table with one edge against the wall so they couldn't get at him that way.

Another Romulan came in as the first came around for a better shot. Tony fired at him as he came into position. He stumbled backwards and fell. The other fired at the table in an attempt to puncture it. It didn't work.

As the third Romulan came in, the second continued to fire on the table. He concentrated on the edges, trying to drive Tony back against the wall. The third came up to try to shoot over the top, but Tony was ready for that.

He had rolled over onto his back, staying well away from the other edge. When the Romulan put his hand over to shoot, Tony fired first. He fired his rifle at setting ten, vaporizing the Romulan.

He heard a communicator peep; he sprang up to fire on the other Romulan before he could call for reinforcements. But it wasn't a "he." She was beautiful: slender, fair skinned, dark shoulder length hair, and frightened eyes. She dropped the communicator she was holding and stared at Tony.

He was going to shoot as soon as he had a shot, but he stopped himself. Instead, he said, "Drop you disruptor." She jumped but didn't drop it. "I'm not going to shoot you," he said, pointing his rifle down and to the side.

"Why?"

"What?"
"Why aren't you going to shoot me?" she asked as she let it go. She sounded scared, but not as scared as she had looked.

"Because…you're no longer a threat," Tony responded, not entirely sure himself.

"I am Romulan. You are not. I pose no threat?" she said in broken English.

"Not when you're scared. You dropped your weapon pretty willingly. And it's okay if you speak Romulan," Tony responded.

"You can tell?" she asked, looking even more scared.

"I've been around a lot of scared women; the look is pretty universal," he responded as he started picking up the items that her colleagues were carrying. But he was careful not to take his eye off her. He had been around a lot of scared women, but most had been braver than most scared men.

She started to bend, like she was going to pick up her disruptor. "Maha," Tony said as he leveled his rifle on her again. "I don't doubt your courage, but I'd be very careful if I were you."

"You wouldn't have dropped your weapon so soon, would you?" she asked as she stood up again.

"No, I probably wouldn't have," he responded, going back to what he was doing. "But I probably wouldn't have come in so soon either."

That surprised her, and she gave him a quizzical look. "Yet you came onto our ship."

"Yeah, but that's different," he responded as he stood and went to get her disruptor and communicator. "You see, on the Interceptor, we have special security to deal with intruders. And I didn't come here alone." His badge peeped again and he tapped it.

"Message from Commander Jesse Lewis," came the automated voice, followed by: "Tony, you need to find and disable the transport inhibitor or we won't be able to get you off of that ship."

"Perfect," Tony mumbled to himself. "Just perfect."

"What was that about?"

"Nothing," he responded more harshly than he meant to, sticking his head out the door and looking both ways. "Can you take me to the main bridge?"
"I couldn't," she practically gasped.

"I didn't think so, but it couldn't hurt to ask," he responded as he lowering the setting on his phaser rifle. "I'm not going to kill you, but I can't have you following me," he added as he shot her. Heavy stun, just enough to give him a head start.

He went back into the corridor, being careful not to be seen. He continued down the way he had been going, stopping every so often to scan for life forms. He didn't find any. "So far, so good," he muttered under his breath as he rounded another corner.

He came to a dead end. There was a door that looked like a turbo lift, but he couldn't get it to open. "There ought to be a manual override or Jeffery's tube around here somewhere," he muttered as he started scanning more thoroughly.

He did find a Jeffery's tube but he also found four Romulan security guards that were closing on his position. Fast.

Amber was having trouble focusing, especially since this was her third shift in a row.

"Miss Moore, you should go get some sleep," Beth said. She had relieved Mike two hours ago.

"No thank you, ma'am," she responded, making her fourth course correction in two minutes.

"That's an order, mister."

"Yes, ma'am," she responded reluctantly, standing to go.

Beth hated doing that, especially since Amber was one of the few people that Tony had let get close to him after...his experience.

He had always had trouble making real friends, but after his encounter with the Borg, he had all but stopped trying. But Amber, she was different.

She was one of the few people he could be comfortable with. He even had trouble being with her, his own sister. Sure, she had always been an authority figure, but they had always been able to talk. Until…

"Ma'am?" a lieutenant interrupted her thoughts.

"Yes, Miss McAllister?" she responded, turning to the science station. Michelle didn't really need to rest, but the crew's moral was better if she went through the usual shift changes.

"I'm picking up some sort of radiation," she responded.

Beth went over to see it for herself. "Is it the same as that ship generated?" she asked, motioning vaguely to the view screen.

"I don't think so, ma'am," she responded, looking up and pushing her shoulder length blonde hair behind her ear. "But I know it's not natural."

"What's the origin?"

"Undetermined."

"Is it dangerous?"
"It doesn't look like it," Jesse responded. He had picked up on it shortly after Kayla. "It looks more like some sort of sensor dust."

"Sensor dust?" Beth asked, turning to face him.

"Yeah, it's an experimental technology. It's supposed to pick up anything that comes in contact with it and give a detailed description," Kayla answered, looking more closely at her consul. "But I've never heard of it being tested before."

"It sounds useful," Beth said, heading back to her seat. "Try to steer clear of it."

Tony had barely gotten the door closed behind him before the Romulans came around the corner. It was smaller than the Jeffery's tubes on the Interceptor, but he didn't really mind. Once he got the door sealed, there would be little, if any, chance of being caught.

He crawled through it, trying not to make any noise, until he came to a junction. "Great, right or left?" he muttered, taking his tactical tricorder back out. It didn't pick up any life forms to the right, but there was an unusually large amount of power consumption to the left and forward. He checked to see how many Romulans where that way, then proceeded with caution. "Left it is."

"Sir, the hostile is headed into the sensor dust," Lieutenant McAllister reported.

Mike had relieved Beth twenty minutes ago and had been filled in. "Is there anyway to stay within sensor range of it without following it in?"

"Negative, sir," Jesse responded. "The field is too large."

"But…" Kayla began.

"Yes, lieutenant?" Mike asked, turning to face her.

"Well, sir. Theoretically, we could jam the signal by copying the receiver's subspace frequency," she finished, looking up from what she was doing.

"Can you tell what it is?"

"No, sir the receiver is too far out of range. But if we stay out of it and fluctuate our receiving frequency, we should be able to find the right one and find the ship again right away."

"Start modulating but keep that ship in sensor range," he responded, turning back to the front of the room.

As Tony crawled along the tube, e noticed a considerable raise in humidity. "What…?" he muttered as he started scanning again.

"Klingons!" he whispered to himself. He had expected more Romulans or even more of those beast-things. But Klingons?

Unless the were prisoners. But then why the environmental change? He had heard of benevolent captors, but never anything like this before.

As he continued, there were more and more Klingons. The tube forked, but he needed to go to the right and it only continued straight or to the left. He had just passed another access point, so he packed up to get out.

When he got there, there was a guard posted and he wasn't patrolling. So Tony decided to wait and see what would happen. Nothing did.

Realizing that he couldn't wait too long, he opted for a confrontation. He stuck his head out to get a better idea of where the Klingon was. He almost got it blown off.

"That was smart," he sarcastically reprimanded himself as he retreated back into his little hole. He drew his Meteor Phaser Pistol, set it to level ten, stuck it out the access port and fired. He heard the scream of someone being vaporized and crawled out, being careful out to get noticed by anyone.

He started down the hallway quietly. This par of the ship looked nothing like the rest of it. It was more metallic, harsher. No two inches looked alike, but you couldn't tell one hallway from the next.

He crept along, hardly making a sound, until he came to the hallway he needed to take to get to the power surge. He assumed that it was the transport inhibitor, since it would take a great power expense to cover the whole ship with a single one.

When he got to the room it was in, he couldn't find the controls. He found several curious looking cords, but there wasn't any way to disconnect them. He had found the transport inhibitor but couldn't turn it off.