Chapter 9

Coming Home

"REPORT," Goku hollered over the rumble.

"They've started using their plasma cannon, sir!" Mousse replied. "I think they're about ready to get serious!"

Goku snarled as he watched the image of the Leviathan as it coasted smoothly between two of Mousse's triphasic torpedos and fired off another round at them. The deck shook again, and Dana began to shake her head at her console.

"No way we can keep them from doing damage with a Plasma Cannon trained on us, Commander," she reported. "I strongly advise we try and keep them from maintaining a weapons lock on us."

"I'm doing my best," Ryouga grunted from the helm console as he rapidly lay in course corrections upon course corrections. "We're kinda going pretty fast, you know!"

"Breathe, pork butt," Dana chided him, winning a glare and a snarl from the helmsman. "Just breathe."

Mina's mind was racing as she tried to form some kind of a helpful plan. A counsellor wasn't really much help in a battle situation, but she was an Operations officer first, and that information was valuable to them. Shampoo was still a little green under the collar when it came to the operations station.

The deck shook again, and she barely registered Goku giving the order to return fire and execute a new evasive pattern. This would be so much easier if their opponent was a little slower. Gravimetric mines were a personal favourite. It was easy enough to rig one of them with a deflector and home in on specific sensor signals and...

"That's it..." Mina breathed.

"What's it, Counsellor?" Goku asked.

"It's a shot in the dark, Commander," she answered, "But I think it'll work! We have probes on board, yes?"

Shampoo raised her head to look at the counsellor now. "Many. Lots different class, too."

"What've you thought up?" Goku regarded her with a hopeful expression.

"Our probes can be configured to search for specific sensor signals," Mina began to explain quickly. "If we can configure them to look for the signal that appears whenever the Leviathan locks a Plasma-based weapon on us, they can serve as sacrificial life savers!"

Dana's face lit up as she realized what Mina was getting at.

"The probes'll be attracted to the sensor lock, and move into the way!"

"Countermeasures..." Goku mused. "I like it!"

"I can whip it up in about ten minutes here, commander," Dana crowed. "How many should I program?"

"All of them," Goku answered her, his straight face proving to the assistant chief engineer that he was quite serious.

"Aye, sir."

"Incoming transmission, secure frequency," Shampoo reported suddenly.

Goku's brow furrowed. "Is it the Leviathan?"

Shampoo checked her readout once more before looking back up at him and shaking her head.

"Not Leviathan," Shampoo replied. "Sheffield. Is Ranma calling!"

Ryouga growled from the helm console.

"Tell him we're busy!" the lost boy snarled.

"As you were, Helmsman!!" Goku snapped at him. A little song seemed to suddenly break out in his mind. Ranma, though he hadn't had much experience with him as a captain yet, was sure to know how to deal with the situation. He had just gotten that vibe from the pig-tailed martial artist.

"Put it up," Goku urged Shampoo. The Amazon complied, hitting a few keys and activating the viewscreen. An image of Ranma popped up, a worried expression on his face.

"This is Captain Saotome on board the Sheffield. Do you read me, Number One?"

Logan's eyes flashed around the corridor, his breathing finally beginning to calm down. Two of them had gotten away from him. One random officer, and the woman that he had identified as being a chief of security. He cursed himself for his own stupidity, and for getting caught with his pants down.

"You OK, Dude?" Logan asked, picking up Scott as carefully as he could. Scott hissed through gritted teeth at the pain this caused him, but allowed Logan to support him anyways.

"Been better," Scott admitted as they began to make their way down the hall for the holodeck Bones was set up at. "Bad guys got away?"

"Only a couple. That girl in the lightning uniform worries me, but the lackey that ran off was too terrified to think straight. Maybe he'll run into the turtles, or something... You ain't gonna go trying to kick it early on me, are you?"

Scott did his best to chuckle, beginning to cough a little as a result.

"You wish you would be so lucky," he rasped out.

A small grin appeared on Logan's face, and he lifted an eyebrow with an expression of sarcastic admittance.

"Sometimes I am."

Scott just snorted.

"Right.."

Will watched the viewscreen with an expressionless facade. In front of them, the Wildstar spun round to make another attack run. Once again, the Leviathan let out a barrage of fire from their Plasma cannons, causing the massive dreadnought to veer off. It pleased him to finally see things going his way. If what his tactical officer had told him was true, the Wildstar could only take so much pounding from their plasma weapons before a shield failure occurred, and then Starfleet's new pride and joy would be shut down and fall prey to his boarding parties.

"Captain, I've got another ship entering the sector at Warp 12," Riker reported from his station.

"Identify them," Will replied, his gaze not leaving the viewscreen before him.

Riker pushed a few keys before looking back up at his captain with a confused expression on his face.

"It's... the Sheffield, Captain," he answered. "They're back."

Will's brow furrowed a little. What the hell was Grissom doing here? They weren't asked to help fight the Wildstar. Their orders had been specific; to accompany the Leviathan on her pre-combat cruise to the battlefield, and then to leave. Grissom had no reason to return, and Will was certain that he wasn't here to aid them because they were oh so fond of each other.

"Now entering visual range, sir," Spike reported.

Will gave a single nod in reply. Spike entered a few commands into the helm, and the viewscreen image shifted.

But not much.

Will watched with growing confusion as the Sheffield took up a defensive position near the Wildstar.

"What the fuck is he doing?" Will asked finally, pointing his finger at the image of the Sheffield.

"Captain, his shields are going up," the tactical replacement reported. "And now all his weapons are arming!"

"WHAT THE FUCK IS HE DOING?!" Will repeated, his face turning slightly red from the anger he was suddenly experiencing as he whipped around and took the distance between where he was standing and the Ops console in three strides. With his finger still pointing at the image of the Sheffield his eyes bored into Riker, who was working his console like there was no tomorrow.

"He's ignoring my hails," the commander stated.

"I don't think he's planning on playing nice," House put in his two cents. "Seems to me like Grissom might be having loyalty issues."

Will considered this, turning his head slightly as he tossed House's words over in his mind. The Sheffield had come flying into the sector at high warp, immediately taking up a defensive posture between the Leviathan and the Wildstar. They had proceeded to ignore Riker's repeated hail attempts, choosing instead to raise shields and arm weapons.

"Captain," Riker looked up at him with wide eyes, "Commander House is right. They're hailing the Wildstar on a scrambler code I've never seen before!"

Will couldn't believe his ears. His head turned slowly to the viewscreen again, and he found himself trying to make heads or tails of how this situation had come to pass.

"Grissom's a traitor," he breathed. He found, oddly enough, that he wasn't as disappointed by that aspect as he might have expected with anyone else. After all, that little bastard had questioned and challenged him at every turn thus far. Why should he feel any pity for someone as stubborn and stupid as him?

"Your orders, Captain?" Spike asked.

Will took in a slow breath, letting it out in a sharp exhale before beginning to make his way back to his chair.

"Lock weapons on the Sheffield," he finally ordered. "Get them out from in front of the Wildstar."

Spike nodded once, turning back to his console and laying in a flight pattern. The tactical officer began laying in his attack plan, and the Leviathan was back on the move.

"Grissom wants to play chicken with Section 31," Will mused to House, who was coming up behind his chair.

"Can't honestly say that surprises me one little bit, mon capitan," House chuckled at first before leaning in to Will's left ear. "Just don't forget that Grissom is an expert strategist."

Will nodded at the sound advice.

"Don't worry so much, House," he replied. "I've never been caught picking my nose twice."

Ranma stepped forward again, both hands moving to hold the railing to the platform in front of the viewscreen.

"This is Captain Saotome on board the Sheffield. Do you read me, number one?"

There was a long pause of silent anticipation before Goku's image appeared on the viewscreen, an expression of obvious relief writ on his face.

"Captain!" Goku practically cheered. "I can't tell you how happy I am to see you!"

Ranma released the breath he didn't realize he'd been holding, the worry falling away.

"I should say the same to you," he replied. "What's your status, Commander?"

Akane's grip on Ranma loosened a little, the worry she'd been feeling up until that point beginning to diminish at the sight of the Wildstar's first officer alive and well. She didn't seem to really acknowledge the fact that she was hanging onto Ranma in front of their entire bridge crew on the view screen, but had she looked in either Shampoo's or Ryouga's direction, she would have seen the eyes of the two digging into herself and Ranma with more ferocity than a phaser rifle set to vaporize.

"We've been pursued by the Leviathan to this point, sir," Goku began to explain. "Once we discovered that they were responsible for the destruction of Deep Space 3, it became pretty clear that they were hunting us. I'm not too sure exactly why, since there's no way that they could have known we'd picked up Kuno. While we were heading for the nebula, Commander Stoltz was able to sabotage our primary computer module. It shorted out and ejected itself as a result. We've been forced to use Sickbay as a command center, since its systems were independent from the rest of the ship. If it weren't for that, Captain, we wouldn't have even been able to defend ourselves against the Leviathan."

Ranma's expression hardened as he digested Goku's report.

"So Steven is a Section 31 operative, then?"

"It appears so," Goku nodded in reply. "He's in engineering right now duking it out with Vegeta in hopes of being able to take out the warp core and escape, destroying the Wildstar. Apparently, he's a Chi adept."

"fuh," Ranma rolled his eyes. "Why ain't I surprised?"

"Commander," Grissom spoke up now. "The Leviathan wasn't chasing you because you picked up Lieutenant Kuno. They were chasing you because you exposed their involvement in the abduction of the CinC."

Ranma's eyes widened. "That's right," he remembered. "Steven was on the bridge when I was tearin' a verbal strip outta the man bug!"

Grissom's eyebrow went up. "Man bug?"

Akane looked back at him. "It's a long story."

Grissom smiled a little. "Well, you can tell me all about it once this is over. Commander," he addressed Goku on the screen again. "The Leviathan has probably determined that I'm in contact with you. If this is the case, I suggest that we get a move on things here. There's no running from them obviously, so we'll have to make a stand."

At this, Goku's smile broadened a little.

"Commander Aino may have come up with a way to bring the cards back to our favour, Captain Grissom. We're currently rigging our entire inventory of probes with sensor scanners that will identify and pursue the unique signature created by the Leviathan's Plasma weapons lock."

"Like hi-tech countermeasures," Grissom mused. "An excellent suggestion. Speaking of Commander Aino, is Commander Kino there?"

Goku shook his head. "She hasn't reached sickbay yet. I detected her power signatures not too long ago. They've been active on and off since then. She's getting closer to sickbay now. I imagine she was a little confused when she couldn't reach the actual bridge."

Grissom nodded. "Very well. Captain, Commander, I suggest we continue to engage the Leviathan. If we can bring her down, Section 31 might just get off our backs for a while. We'll be able to decide what happens next after that."

"Agreed," Ranma nodded. "Commander, can you beam us aboard?"

Goku nodded. "I should be able to, captain. I think we've got our transporter systems running. I'll need your shield frequency, Sheffield."

Grissom motioned to his Ops officer to send the requested information.

"It's being transmitted now, Commander."

With a breath that seemed to show just how much better Ranma was feeling now that he was returning home, he aimed a nod in Goku's direction.

"Beam us home, Number One."

"Aye, Captain!" Goku replied happily. The transmission ended, and he turned to look around the make-shift bridge, his eyes resting on each person individually. With a long breath, he finally spoke.

"Mr. Jorgensen, what's the status on those countermeasures?"

"Almost ready, Commander," Dana answered, looking up from her display. "Another minute or two."

"Good," Goku nodded. "Mousse, what's the status of the Leviathan?"

"She's starting to move again, Commander," he replied. "Looks like she's locking weapons on to the Sheffield now."

Again Goku nodded. "Understood. Bridge to Transporter Room 3; Lieutenant Carver, we're sending you a shield frequency. Tune your array to match, and lock on to the Captain and the Doctor on board the Sheffield. Beam them to sickbay, please."

"Understood, Commander," the Chief replied over the com. "Loading frequency now... Energizing."

The instant Carver finished speaking, a familiar transporter whine filled Sickbay, and Ranma and Akane appeared standing beside Goku, no longer holding each other. Once the cycle had completed, Ranma stepped forward and encircled Goku in a welcoming hug, giving his first officer a couple of pats on the back before pulling away again.

"It's good ta see you alive, Commander," Ranma said. "I gotta tell ya, the horror stories Grissom told me 'bout the Leviathan had me a little spooked for a bit there."

"Heh, no faith, Captain," Goku chuckled. "We're all fine."

Akane moved away from the two to examine her surroundings. Her mouth dropped a little at the sight of all the fiber-optic cables running in a mess along the floor to connect to the consoles Dana had set up. There were the tools the engineer had used strewn about the deck to mix in with them, and a few of Sickbay's LCARS displays she could see would have to be replaced now that they had been busted open for viewscreen relays and the like.

"What the hell happened to my Sickbay?!" She finally muttered in shock. Dana, hearing this, looked up at Akane with a sad sort of shrug.

"I'm really sorry about the mess, Doc," she said. "I promise I'll have my house cleaner get it all out of your way and fixed as soon as we leave."

Akane eyed Dana with a look of assessment.

"And your house cleaner is..."

"Commander Vegeta," Dana replied, an almost overly happy look on her face.

Akane rolled her eyes at the engineer with a smile before turning back to Goku.

"I'd better go help Doctor McCoy," she stated. "Where is he right now?"

"In Holodeck two," Goku replied immediately. "He has a facility set up there, and all your staff are there with him. We have a site to site transport set up right now, so you should probably beam there instead of risking travel in the corridors."

Akane nodded acknowledgement to Goku before turning to Ranma.

"Ranma," she said, a small amount of a blush appearing on her cheeks. With only a second's hesitation, she leaned up and gave him a quick peck on the cheek.

"For luck," she whispered to him, paying the growling Chinese Amazon no mind. Speaking louder, she called out, "Computer, request site to site transport. Beam me directly to Holodeck 2."

A second later, she disappeared from sickbay in another transporter flurry. Ranma, waiting until the last of her atoms had vanished, turned to face the viewscreen, where the Leviathan was just now beginning to engage the Sheffield. He sucked in a long breath before taking a few steps towards the helm station.

"OK, people," he said in a strong voice. "Let's see if we can't give the Sheffield a hand. Mousse!"

"Aye, Captain," Mousse's voice sounded almost elated to Ranma, and the young captain found himself wondering if his security chief had actually missed him. With a smirk at the thought, he continued.

"Deploy dorsal Triphasic launcher platform and bring the plasma cannon on-line. Whatever weapons are left that ya haven't fired up yet, get 'em goin'."

"No problem," Mousse crowed, setting to work.

"Ryouga, set course 227 mark 4, full impulse power. Bring us right between the Sheffield and the Leviathan."

"On it," came the reply, laced with concentration as Ryouga diligently laid in the course and set the Wildstar on the move once more.

"Shampoo, prepare ta deploy countermeasures. Sets of two at a time."

"Shampoo do," the Amazon growled back to him. For a second, Ranma turned and faced her, but she didn't once look back at him, making a very obvious point of avoiding his gaze. He imagined she was none too pleased by the peck on the cheek he had received from Akane, but found that the thought of her being upset over it actually pleased him.

Maybe now she'll get a clue! Ranma thought to himself.

"Let's get a move on, people!" Ranma ordered. "We're fighting some bad-ass dudes here!"

Beside Ranma, Goku was grinning like mad. He felt so much better now that Ranma had returned to the ship, and had a feeling deep in his gut that everything was going to be OK now.

But that was before the doors to sickbay swooped open, and a female voice rang out around the room.

"Nobody move!"

The stars still swam for a few seconds longer in front of Vegeta. Though the kick itself had done no damage to the Prince, it sure as hell made his head ring. In an instant, he was aware of the fists being driven into his gut at almost breakneck speeds. With a snarl for not expecting Steven to attack right behind his Chi blast, the engineer raised his left fist, and brought it down on Steven's head with a roar of rage.

At first, Steven was relishing the feel of adrenaline pumping fast through his veins as he ploughed fist after fist into Vegeta's stomach. The next thing he knew, stars covered his vision, and he felt his body collapse under him, barely regaining control in time to break his fall with his arms. His head pounded with new pain, and he quickly had a hand covering the struck section of his cranium. Without another nanosecond's pause, Vegeta had grabbed Steven by the midsection, hauled him a few feet off the ground, and thrown him like a football across the room to smash into the far wall, the bulkhead cracking under his impact with a mighty bang that echoed off the walls of engineering.

Steven slumped from the impact, hitting the deck with a dull thud. Amazingly, the collision hadn't knocked him out, and he hauled his torso up with his arms as an automated gag reflex let loose a spatter of blood from his mouth. Vegeta, still standing at the point where he had originated Steven's flight, straightened up uninjured and grinned.

From the floor a good twenty feet away from the Super Saiyan, Steven proceeded to wipe the blood from his mouth for the second time in just a few moments.

"Ow..." he grunted. He certainly hadn't been expecting the field goal toss. He only allowed himself another second for recovery time before hauling himself back onto his feet and glaring in Vegeta's direction. His eyes seemed to express all of the negative things he wished he could verbalize to Vegeta, but the Prince noted that he held them all inside, choosing to challenge Vegeta further with his stare instead of lowering himself to verbally berating his opponent. Once again, a smile graced Vegeta's expression.

"You're not so bad yourself, Commander," Vegeta finally spoke. "I must admit, your little distraction had me totally off guard. As you can see, however, I am not quite receptive to your treatments. Try that again, and I promise it's going to hurt..."

Steven held eye contact with Vegeta for only another instant before flicking his eyes to the warp core beside him. It sat not fifteen feet to his diagonal left, with Vegeta another ten feet on the other side of it directly ahead of himself. He only spared it a glance for calculation before turning back to Vegeta with a smirk.

"I have a high tolerance for pain," he replied evenly. Suddenly, his left hand shot out in the direction of the warp core, and a shotgun blast of Chi erupted out of his palm. Vegeta's eyes went wide, and before he could try to get in the way, the blast had slammed into the force field surrounding the core.

Shampoo growled at the intruder from her console. To her frayed nerves, finding an end to the conflict was something she dearly needed to have happen, and fast. Not that she didn't enjoy combat, but now only one thought raged through her mind, and that was leaving the bridge to go kill something in a holodeck exercise, leaving her calm enough to at least rationally take out Akane so that she would only have to scream at Ranma instead of maim him.

Now Rebecca stood with her sawed-off hefted and at the ready, clearly a biological hamper on what Shampoo wanted so badly. With a howl of frustration, Shampoo leapt from her console to tackle the Leviathan's chief of security.

Rebecca, for her part, couldn't miss catching sight of the purple-haired ops officer leaping at her if she'd tried her best to ignore it. She quickly brought her pistol to bare and fired off a single round, nailing Shampoo in her right arm.

With a yelp of pain, Shampoo crumpled to the deck, the shock to her system from the blast immediately causing her to lose consciousness.

"Shampoo!" Mousse hollered, "No!!"

He rushed to her side in an instant, paying no mind to the fact that Rebecca's weapon was trained on him the entire time, even as she looked around the bridge to keep everyone accounted for. As Mousse knelt beside Shampoo and checked her vitals, Rebecca voiced a second warning.

"I said nobody move! What, you don't speak English or something?!"

Ranma's gaze was fixed on the intruder before him. His stare carried with it icy promises of pain and suffering should Rebecca chose to open fire again. The Leviathan's security chief ignored his glare as she looked expectantly at his first officer, awaiting an answer to her seemingly pointless question.

Ranma's eyes suddenly shifted, seeming to shoot past Rebecca for a second before settling on her once again. If Rebecca would have been more concerned with Ranma in particular, she might have noticed this in time to prepare herself for the oncoming attack. As it was, her eyes bulged as she felt her well honed instincts warning her just an instant too late. From behind, she was grabbed by the arm and spun in an outward half circle, a hand suddenly placed on her back shoving her out the door she had just entered to slam into the corridor wall with a yelp of pain.

In the doorway, Commander Kino eyed them all quickly.

"Is everyone OK?"

Her eyes fell on Shampoo's body lying lifeless on the deck.

"Is she..." Lita allowed the sentence to trail, but let out a breath of relief when Mousse looked back at her and shook his head.

"No, she's just unconscious, thank God."

"Commander Kino," Ranma's voice brought her attention around to him. He grinned devilishly for a moment before continuing.

"Welcome aboard. Your timin' couldn't be better." He pointed in the direction of a recovering Rebecca. "Can ya handle her?"

Lita returned the grin now. "Absolutely!"

With that, she turned on her heel and left the bridge, the door shutting firmly behind her as she went to challenge Commander Giesbrecht.

Ranma sighed deeply for a second of contemplation before turning his gaze to Shampoo once more. He stepped over to Mousse, who hadn't yet left her side, and put a hand on his shoulder.

"Mousse," he said softly. "Let me beam her ta Holodeck 2. 'Kane and Bones'll look after her.

At first, his security chief gave no reply, but after a few seconds drifted by, he reluctantly nodded, and rose to resume his post.

"Computer," Ranma called out. "Request site to site transport. Beam Commander Shampoo to Holodeck 2."

The computer let out a few chirps, and Shampoo transported away. Taking another deep sigh, Ranma turned to face the viewscreen, intent on carrying out his original plan, when Mousse called to him from his station.

"Captain, I've got two more ships coming in!"

Goku turned hard to face him, taking a couple of steps in his direction.

"Identify them," he ordered.

Mousse fought with his console for a moment before finally giving it up and looking back at Goku in defeat.

"I can't," he replied. "Our sensors just bounce right back off. I can give you a visual of them now, but that's it."

Ranma nodded once at Goku, who responded to Mousse's offer.

"On screen then."

AN: There is only one chapter left to this story before it's conclusion, so it's coming to a close at last. I'd like to thank those of you who have read this story faithfully to this point, throughout the long delays between updates and all the craziness my life has thrown at me since I began writing it. Your reviews were welcomed warmly, and your praise and even criticism greatly appreciated!

Next up: We find out who the Leviathan's backup is, but how much good can it do against what Ranma's got up his sleeve? And if Ranma's plans aren't enough, who'll come to the aid of the Wildstar and Sheffield? Find out in Chapter 10: The Final Showdowns, The last installment before the epilogue!