I do not own Star Trek 2009, Supernatural, NCIS or NCIS: LA.
It was amazing how quickly the news spread. Fear was rippling across Federation space like a pervasive fog. Admiral Christopher Pike stared out at the star-lit vista from his temporary office window as he listened to the nervous chatter of Starfleet officers behind him. Yes, the week was off to a stupendous start. Lucifer escaped, Enterprise missing and the entire Federation fleet was scrambling like a gaggle of frightened geese.
He remained at the window, knowing that his own calm demeanour would reassure his subordinates. He knew the younger officers thought that nothing rattled Admiral Pike, not even Captains Kirk or Winchester. The idea caused him to chuckle softly. He was very rattled every time something like this cropped up but allowing it to dictate his actions accomplished nothing.
So he waited until Miyuki scurried up to him with a PADD, the screen displaying a disgruntled looking Captain Gibbs. "Winchester fried his communications system." The Washington's captain was notorious for his terse, blunt manner. Pike found it refreshing and reassuring. Still, Winchester must have done something stupider than usual to get this level of thinly veiled irritation.
"I assume he's out looking for the Enterprise."
"He is. We're tracking Lucifer but I think we need to put that on the backburner."
"Trail's too old?"
"Too old, too faint and we can't pick it up fast enough. Kirk said something about Lucifer's subordinates making off with a sample of the stock market's base code. There hasn't been any activity on that front. Chances are they can't make use of it, not without the crazy freak's inhuman brain. Now he's on the loose and I know prison either teaches patience or rashness. Someone of Lucifer's calibre? He'll have learned patience. I think that's where we need to look."
"So we've just screwed ourselves over by not executing him when we had the chance." Gibbs sighed and Pike lowered his voice as the closest information analyst flinched at Pike's cold tone.
"Probably."
"Clear it with Vance but I have no problem with giving you a carte blanche. Pursue the investigation as you see fit. I'll send the LA after the Winchesters but feel free to call Callen back if you need him."
"You think it's going to be that easy?"
Pike dialled down the volume on the PADD. Miyuki might have nerves of steel and fathomless discretion but not everyone in the room had her integrity. He didn't need the news spreading around Starfleet. "Hell no. Keep your eyes open Gibbs or this whole thing could blow up in our faces."
Impala
"Anything?" Dean asked as they carefully searched the quadrant of space. Sam shook his head and punched another few buttons.
"Their trail just ends, as if they should be here in front of us."
"But they aren't."
"Stunning observation," Sam observed dryly.
"Atlantis cloak?"
"Why wouldn't they be answering our calls?" Sam shot back rhetorically.
Dean tapped out the beat to Back in Black on his chair arm as he scowled at the peaceful stars. "I could think of at least six reasons they couldn't answer," he mused absently and the bridge crew fidgeted. None of those reasons would be positive. "Sam, what makes you think this trail ends?" he asked.
Sam shrugged. "The trail of particles ends."
"Yeah, but what makes you think it ends? Do they disappear? Is there something funny about that? Come on man, we're in the middle of nowhere! The biggest thing around is a dying star. Enterprise doesn't go anywhere without a bang."
Dean's emphatically waving hands had Sam studying the data again. His brow wrinkled. "Actually," he began and paused.
"Actually what?" Jo demanded before she could help herself. She winced an apology to her captain, who waved it off. The curiosity was eating everyone alive.
Sam ran a few more scans until his computer warbled obligingly. "Spock and I have been making a study of cloaked ships. We haven't found any fast and hard rules but if I was forced into making an observation, I'd say it's likely the Enterprise is cloaked and in the area."
"Ash, find out if there's anything hostile in the area," Dean said thoughtfully. He didn't like sitting out in the open like this. If Enterprise was missing, letting the Impala linger about like the last cookie on the plate was a very bad idea. They needed to be in and out again before whatever took the Enterprise decided to use the Impala as a toothpick.
"Like the commander says," Ash drawled, "there aren't any hard and fast rules regarding cloaked ships, but if I had to guess, I'd say we're surrounded. More than five ships, less than twenty."
Dean had to suppress the urge to order red alert. That would aggravate the whole situation and he wanted as much time as possible to think about this. Enterprise was capable of taking on at approximately eight Romulan ships comfortably. She'd handled up to twenty but you could have built a star base from the carnage left behind. There was no sign of battle here. Whatever had happened, the Enterprise had gone peacefully or had arrived prior to the enemy and was hiding out among the enemy.
If he had to bet (and Dean Winchester was a betting man), the Enterprise was sitting pretty under her own power and command, just waiting for the opportune moment. Following that line of thought, if the Enterprise went to ground, she was probably waiting for the Impala to show up and help out. The number of enemies a ship could take on shot up drastically when there was a partner in the area to assist. "Ash, can you lock on one of our friends with enough accuracy to shove a photon torpedo down their throats?"
Ash ran a few calculations and frowned thoughtfully. "Not enough to blow their asses into vacuum but we can definitely knock out a few major systems."
Dean glanced at Sam, who shrugged. There was probably a more intellectual, peaceful way to poke the bear but Dean didn't have the patience for that. Besides, a photon torpedo always made a lasting impression. "We're going to red alert. Ash, two shots at your best target as soon as you're confident."
The missiles arced out a few seconds later, splattering against nothing for a minute. The Impala held her breath and then a battered Romulan warbird appeared. "Independent mercenary," Sam reported. Not affiliated with the Romulan government, which was good because they were still very pissed at the Impala and her captain. No need to heap burning coals on pointy-eared heads and all that.
"Make them ask for terms," Dean ordered and his crew leapt into action, the Impala charging towards the confrontation with eager hunger. When they finished with their enemy, Dean scowled in confusion. "Why aren't the rest of them picking a fight with us? We just fried their buddies. Sam, what's going on?"
"How should I know?" his brother snapped. "They're just sitting there. Wait a minute. Here's something. Wow, that's interesting."
"Saaam," Dean drawled, irritated that his brother wasn't sharing. Sam wiped the current tactical screen and zoomed in on his newest find so everyone could see. "What the hell is that?"
'That' was a flickering stream of strange violet, sapphire and emerald particles rippling around the dying star, clearly drawing their energy from the heart of the star itself. "Sam?" Dean demanded more insistently.
"I…have no idea." When Dean glared at his brother, demanding the latest crazy mishmash that would invariably end up being the correct theory, Sam shrugged. "Seriously dude. No idea. It's not screaming power or anything. It's just going around the planet and then disappears."
"Could it have fried Enterprise?" Dean asked, throttling back adrenaline. Knowing the Enterprise and her crew's knack for uniquely life/universe/mind-threatening situations, that little ripple of energy could have very well done something drastic.
Sam shook his head. "I don't think so. The readings I'm getting aren't reactive. They're just transitorily inert. It warrants a closer look."
Dean bounced out of his seat and began to pace around the bridge, thinking furiously. "Our buddies out there aren't attacking because of what happened to Enterprise." Sam didn't disagree, fiddling with a knob. "It was important enough that Enterprise stopped in their search for us to take this little detour," Dean continued.
"Or were made to take a detour," Sam contributed helpfully.
"Or were made to take a detour," Dean agreed. "So it's settled. I'm going to check it out in a shuttle. Sam, you can stay here and watch the store."
He deliberately didn't look at his brother, certain that if he did, Sam would use his bitchface to claw Dean's eyes out. "You are not going out there without me!"
"Sam," Dean stopped the rant in its tracks with his captain voice. "I need you to watch my back and I need you to do it from a position of strength. The Impala is our best position of strength and you know how to make use of her. Jo, Ash and I are going to take the shuttle. If things get squirrelly, you can use the tractor beam to yank us back."
Sam growled under his breath but acquiesced in poor grace. "Understood. But I'm not telling Ellen your plan for you."
Dean gulped.
"Maybe the sooner we get out of here, the sooner we can help Enterprise?" Jo suggested weakly, already sidling for the door.
"Good idea," Dean seconded. "Ash, get your ass in gear." The skinny navigator bolted for the lift like a kid on a sugar high, already muttering calculations under his breath, totally ignoring the mortal peril his captain was about to experience in favour of the interesting enigma that just might swallow their shuttle whole. In fact, he was so excited that he beat both his captain and security officer to the shuttle and was waiting impatiently, the sensors already online and spitting out results.
Dean feathered the controls and the shuttle obediently swooped out towards the anomaly. Soon they were hovering on the very edge of the pretty, rippling energy band, maintaining contact with a worried Sam back on the Impala. The most Ash could tell Dean was that the band was a complex, extremely powerful anomaly and not a natural one. "You're saying it's manmade?" Dean asked incredulously.
"Well," Ash drawled, "I don't know about man-made, but definitely constructed by someone or something. And recently, I might add. Starfleet was through here eight months ago and had done a survey sweep of the sector. If this had been there then, we'd have heard about it before now." Dean's mood darkened. He didn't like the sound of that. Enterprise gone missing near an anomaly that had been constructed, an anomaly that happened to be surrounded by their enemies? The situation stank like a trap. Still, so far no Romulans shot at them, the universe didn't implode and the Impala was still in one spot. So far, so good but Dean didn't dare say that aloud. As soon as he did, it would all go to pot.
"So far, so good," Jo muttered, playing with her favourite knife. Science usually bored her. Ash slapped a hand to his face and Dean sighed in despair.
Now she'd done it.
Enterprise
"Well?" Kirk asked wearily.
"Still stuck, sir." Spock's shoulders were wired tighter than usual in confusion. Kirk's first officer did not like being out of control and what had happened to them practically defined out of control.
"Great. Do we have any idea of where we are?"
"Still vorking on that, keptin," Chekov replied. "Another minute and I vill have it for you." Kirk tried to sit still and wait patiently but it was hard. One minute thirty terrified Romulan ships had ordered the Enterprise to take a gander at the funky coloured particles in space, the next they were floating in a sea of stars that were definitely not where they had started.
This stank of a trap and they – he – had walked right into it like a stupid, brainless blind sheep. He had thought taking a preliminary scan of the anomaly and handing it off to the Romulans would be enough. Apparently not. They'd gotten yanked into the slipstream of particles and then - poof! Somewhere else entirely.
"Keptin!" Chekov yelped, excitement and confusion making the kid's voice strident and heavily Russian. "Ve are barely tree parsecs from Wulcan!"
Kirk frowned. "Mr. Chekov," he began mildly, "Vulcan no longer exists. We were there, remember?"
"Yes, keptin! And I am tellink you dat ve are two point six tree parsecs from de planet Wulcan!" The navigator zoomed in on the viewscreen, turning a tiny red dot into a slightly bigger red dot.
"Mr. Chekov is correct," Spock corroborated and Kirk caught the faintest thread of emotion in the scientist's careful pronunciation.
"That means, what, we've travelled in time?" Kirk demanded incredulously.
Spock was busy letting his fingers fly over his console as his computer strained to keep up with his formidable intellect. "According to the positioning of the stars and the age of the planet itself," the Vulcan intoned with gravity, "we have indeed. Not only are we positioned near Vulcan, we have arrived during the Time of Awakening at the height of hostilities between Surak and those colloquially known as the Raptors."
Everyone on the bridge understood the deadly implications in a heartbeat.
"Shit," Kirk cursed succinctly.
"Shit indeed," Spock agreed and Kirk laughed.
Impala
"That's not good," Sam muttered under his breath when his brother's shuttle blinked out of existence. Anyone else would have panicked in no time flat but Sam Winchester was made of sterner stuff.
He reviewed what he knew. The Impala's scanners couldn't tell him where the shuttle had gone. It simply blipped out of existence. No trail to follow, no emissions. The shuttle had coasted along the stream of particles and then disappeared around the curve of the dying star.
The Impala had naturally followed them around the curve, expecting to find the shuttle sitting pretty on the other side. When that didn't happen, Sam had ordered the Impala to sit still for a minute. It was possible that they had been travelling at the same speed as the shuttle. When it was clear that the shuttle was no longer anywhere near the Impala, Sam allowed himself a minor spike of concern. He quickly determined a safe proximity and told Cas to stay well away from it.
Then Sam Winchester decided to go find the closest witness and interrogate them until they gave him the information he wanted. For lack of a better candidate, he decided to take Bobby with him. The engineer could keep up with any sort of scientific parlance they'd run into and let's face it, Bobby Singer ate durasteel hull plates for breakfast. He made damn good back-up.
Enterprise
"Hey look, it's Keptin Vinchester!" Chekov chirped from his seat. Kirk stopped conferencing with Bones (who was very unimpressed with this turn of events) and Spock.
"What?" he squawked. Chekov shrugged and Uhura agreed.
"Sir, he's hailing us. Putting Captain Winchster on screen."
"Kirk, what the hell just happened?" Three pinched, white faces peered at the Enterprise's bridge crew. They looked rattled but unhurt, much like the Enterprise when they had been shot through whatever hole in space and time they'd tripped over.
"Welcome to Vulcan, somewhere circa their 4th century," Kirk drawled.
"WHAT?"
"Hey, that was pretty much my reaction too. Better park your shuttle and get up here before anyone spots us. I'd like to cut down on the chatter before we get caught and embroiled in things bigger and more important than us." Kirk deliberately kept the terms vague. Dean caught on quickly. No names, no ship designations, nothing that could be identified. They were officially so far into 'enemy' territory that it made their previous jaunts into Romulan space look like a kiddie wading pool. Messing with the events surrounding this period of time could have catastrophic consequences. Dean cut the communication line and made a sprint for the Enterprise's shuttle bay.
"Spock, do we need to worry about altering events?" Kirk asked seriously.
Spock's eyebrows made a very deep furrow as his dark eyes dulled for a moment in heavy-duty scientific thought. The whole crew sat quietly, Chekov clearly thinking over his own theories. No offense to the whiz kid but Kirk would be relying on Spock for this particular verdict. Chekov was considered a scientific dabbler and his first love would always be mathematics.
"I cannot advise you in this matter, captain," Spock declared with finality a moment later. "There is not enough empirical data to formulate a theory." Kirk sputtered in disappointment. "However," the first officer continued, "I believe it would be wise to err on the side of caution. Unfortunately it seems we have no immediate route back."
"Uhura," Kirk began slowly, trying to sort out his thoughts and prioritize the actions that needed to be taken. "Monitor all communications in the area. Chekov, I do not want to be snuck up on by anyone. Keep the sensors sweeping at all times. Spock, find us a way back. Winchester, I could use your opinion," he finished as the lift doors whooshed open.
"We're screwed," Dean said succinctly.
Jim rolled his eyes in good-natured exasperation. "Fantastic observation, genius. Anything else we poor Enterprise idiots might have missed?"
Washington
"You mean we're now short two frontline captains?" Gibbs demanded incredulously.
Commander Winchester winced. "But our Romulan friend has told us quite a bit," he volunteered.
Gibbs snorted. "I'll bet he did." Sam Winchester could be a scary bastard when he wished. "What did you find out?"
"That he was paid handsomely by someone who was not Lucifer to lure and push the Enterprise and the Impala into the anomaly if at all possible. The only reason we're still here is because the Enterprise's disappearance made us suspicious. Enterprise probably sailed right into the trap since they had no reason to be looking for cloaked Romulan ships laying in ambush. He's now claiming that if I let him off my ship and into Starfleet custody his employer will find and kill his ass very dead." Commander Winchester wound down his report with the final finding. "None of them have a single freaking clue what happens to anyone who goes into that anomaly."
"I hope you're not planning to jump into it," Gibbs said and the manner in which he said it conveyed that it wasn't really a hope. It was an order.
"Of course not!" The kid looked indignant. "Someone needs to make sure that whoever created the anomaly doesn't come back and seal it shut. Judging by the lack of Enterprise or shuttle, it's a one-way conduit but we need to study it in order to bring them back."
Good. Someone on that zany ship had his head screwed on straight. "Admirals Pike and Vance put me in charge," he said calmly. "Find out where they went and bring them back. I'll stop by and pick up your Romulan. Finding his employer should lead us to Lucifer. Expect us in three hours. LA should be there in less than an hour. They'll back you up, but so help me Winchester if Callen arrives and you're missing, I'll ground your entire ship Earth-side myself. Washington out."
He waited until his crew was engrossed in getting the ship up to warp seven before he scowled and pinched the bridge of his nose. This was someone new. Lucifer wasn't so hands-off. Somewhere along the way the bastard had found a partner as twisted and clever as Lucifer. Gibbs punched a button on his control pad. "Duck," he greeted.
"Jethro! What can I do for you?"
Gibbs took a deep breath. Emotional profile investigation was too airy-fairy for his tastes."I need your take on this sequence of events," he almost growled. "I think we have a new player in town."
"Ah. Fascinating. Shall I come to you?"
"Nope, on my way," the captain said briskly, standing up. He needed to stretch his legs and it probably wouldn't hurt to stop by Abby's. She and McGee probably had some brain-breaking theory about this anomaly-thing that had swallowed two Federation ships.
If he was lucky, they could toss Lucifer and his new best friend into it after retrieving their missing people.