STAR WARS-to-STAR TREK
"THE IMPOSSIBLE POWER"
By: Dan Bivens
Chapter Two
"Sorry, sir," sighed, very heavily, Lt.-Commander Uhura while swiveling toward an anxiously pacing, on the lower of the two-tiered bridge, Captain James T. Kirk. "I've tried every conceivable bandwidth and frequency…if that ship's receiving, they refuse to respond."
"Thank you, Uhura," Kirk tersely replied so rapidly that he verbally trod on the last of the statement made by the lovely Lieutenant-Commander in the form-fitting, and what a form to fit!, tannish two-piece. "Send a subspace message to Starfleet Command. Tell them that I firmly believe this situation has no peaceful solution. Then try and raise any starships that may be near by. And quickly, Uhura, quickly."
"Aye, aye, Captain," quickly came her reply, while allowing carefully manicured hands to hit touch-sensitive, blue-illuminated Comm controls in order to arrange just such subspace transmissions.
"Mr. Spock?" tensely asked Captain Kirk, while still pacing a little too tautly about the lower tier directly behind Helm's Lt.-Commander Sulu and Navigation's Chief DeFalco. His eyes still transfixed upon the viewscreen's display of a slowly, at sublight, approach of the spearhead-shaped ship that impossibly, apparently, passed safely through the Great Barrier at the very edge of the Milky Way galaxy.
"I have significantly intensified sensor scans of the vessel, Captain," came Commander Spock's poignant report. "I have verified that it has laser weaponry positioned all about the massive exterior. It also carries a large compliment of photon torpedoes. However, theirs is much more numerous as well as substantially more destructive than our own. In short, Captain…"
"We're outgunned," fatalistically finished the still handsome starship commander as he stopped short with eyes narrowing in regretful recognition of the exigency of their situation. "Thank you, Mr. Spock. Lt. Chekov, set systems for simultaneous launching of our photon torpedoes and instantaneous firing of phaser banks! I damn sure don't want to be caught with our collective trousers around our ankles."
"Aye, Keptin!" promptly replied an overzealous Security officer seated to one side of the circular, still!, bridge on Deck One. His fingers forcefully tapping touch-sensitive controls harder than required to preprogram weapons' usage of the celebrated starship. "Phasers ready for firing…torpedoes already loaded, sir!"
"Very good, Mr. Chekov, very good," Captain Kirk absently said while slowly easing himself into the centrally located command chair. Though it still seemed as if he might suddenly launch himself to his booty-cloaked feet at an instant's notice. Eyes still practically glued on the viewscreen's perfect representation of a sizeable ship from far, far away and a long time ago.
On the center walkway within the huge bridge area of the RAVAGER, ordinarily occupied by officers of the Old Republic positioned at port and starboard control consoles, stood Nihilus. Basically bathed in an eerie red lighting, as only the bridge of the RAVAGER could or would be, the black-robed, red-and-white masked Master of the Dark Side stood stock still. Though his facial features were wholly hidden behind that seemingly mystical mask, and though his eyes were lost to shadow, it was especially clear from his stance and overall body language that he was about to orchestrate a decidedly destructive attack.
Not an assault on ships used, in a past long since dead to the Dark Lord, by the Jedi Order involved in a civil war within that far distant galaxy. But one completely concentrated on a single, solitary starship whose firepower was proportionately lacking in direct relation to what his spearhead-shaped ship could evidently endure.
"It is almost time," murmured the masked Lord of Hunger as his finely honed mind sought out this starship's crew's connection, however weak, with The Force. "Time to test and torture…and, in due time, destroy…this starship and its multi-species collection of duty-bound dullards. I shall feed and, once strength has suffused my form once more…I shall seek out entire worlds to appease my supreme appetite! Yesssssss. Hahaha, ha, ha, hahaha!"
With a single black gloved hand extending through his obsidian robes, Nihilus easily mind-manipulated the laser-firing controls for only a few of such weapons of blistering energy. His desire was not to destroy. Not yet. He merely wanted to toy with a starship that his psionic Self, thanks to The Force and his especially powerful finessing of same, had telepathically perceived to be facilely fretted.
For they were not in touch with the midi-chlorians making up their own sub-cellular structure. They knew not…The Force.
"Captain," calmly yet firmly forewarned Spock via his Science station, "I read a fairly sharp power surge in regards to their laser weaponry."
"Chekov!" Kirk quickly and loudly ordered of the Russian Security specialist.
"Shields up full, Keptin!" was the Russian-accented response a split-second prior to…
Sshhhhhhhh-FRRRRMMMMM!
On the considerably revised grayish bridge of the ENTERPRISE, seated superior officers, such as Captain Kirk, Lt.-Commander Sulu, Lt.-Commander Uhura, Commander Spock, Lt. Chekov, and even Chief DeFalco, were spared the sharp shifting of artificial gravity in relation to solid-laser collision via shielded hull.
All the rest were summarily hurled to the solidity of the deck while everyone else, thanks to automatically lap-locking armrests, remained where they were…
"Return fire!" quickly called Captain Kirk, barely heard above the bedlam of deckplates pleading for prompt relief, even as the ENTERPRISE, as a whole, lurched and jerked in the vacuous void separating two great craft. "Phasers and photon torpedoes! Now!"
Having already anticipated such, Chekov still struggled to reach the firing controls of their primary weaponry, subsequently causing…
TRRRRRLLLLLLLLLLLL! TRRRRRLLLLLLLLLLLL!
Shh-THUMM! Shh-THUMM! Shh-THUMM!
Simultaneously, literally, phaser banks unleashed Hell via searing crimson beams, made all the more potentially destructive via their rerouting through ship's engines, while photon torpedoes, bright-white points of super-destructive energies, were sent forth swiftly from forward-pointing torpedo tubes.
No sooner seen, via viewer as well as Nihilus' midi-chlorian connection with The Force, than…
Ba-da-BRRRRRRRMMMMMM! BOOOOMMMM! KrrrrrEEEEE!
…the formerly obliterated, still showing signs of its last battle in that far, far away galaxy several billion years earlier, RAVAGER rocked, forcefully, for the first time in actual ages.
"Damn them!" angrily growled Darth Nihilus, demonstrating, for the first time since his own physical restructuring prior to pushing past this galaxy's Great Barrier, true emotionality normally expressed by some insignificant sentience when surprised. "They shall pay for their impertinence! But not before I torment them a little longer. Heheheheh, heh, heh!"
With that, Nihilus' black gloved hands were held in a mystical manner in order to redirect The Force's Dark Side dynamism.
Before full recovery could be had by the USS ENTERPRISE.
END OF CHAPTER 2