The primary bridge lighting turned to blue with flashing red bars along the bulkheads as the Red Alert klaxon sounded. Alona glanced around the bridge, both Viir-Keim and Kolaas were smiling, T'saal looked his normal calm and collected Vulcan self, Kim was focused entering commands on his console, Drake was the same. Console chirps and beeps were the only sound on the bridge, the tension was ratcheting up.

"ETA to the nebula?" Alona asked.

"At current speed, 1 hour 40 minutes Captain" Drake responded.

Silence again. Alona shook her head, disappointed. We don't have a choice but to fight. Perhaps we can disable their communications systems first then disable the ships, get to the nebula and no one be the wiser. No, its easier to just completely disable those ships and get the hell outta here. Alona knew there were times where it is easier to incapacitate a sentry and then continue the infiltration. Alright.

"Mr. Kolaas, all stop, assume an offensive posture. Viir-Keim, disabling fire only, target their communications first. Mr. Radis, see if you can disable their shields with the EWS please. Tell the CAG to get his birds ready for launch, ship killer load-outs just in case" Alona said, pausing a moment between each command. Each command was responded with an Aye.

"All stations report they are at battle stations" Kim said.

"Very well" Alona said.

"40 seconds" T'saal said aloud.

"We're being hailed" Radis said.

"On screen" Alona said and stood, taking a couple steps forward.

A Romulan appeared, Alona couldn't tell what rank he was. Alona and the Romulan stared at one another for a moment before the Romulan spoke, "Federation vessel, you are ordered to stand down and prepare to be boarded. If you do not comply within one minute, we will open fire and destroy your vessel" the Romulan said and then cut the transmission.

Alona stood there for a moment, looking at a blank screen, "Ok then" she said and took her seat.

"Mr. Radis, how are their shields?" Alona asked.

"They will be offline right about...now!"

"Viir-Keim, open fire"

Endeavour was barely moving. The Voldare-class warbirds had already encircled her, weapons trained on her vitals: nacelles, bridge, deflectors, weapons, and life support. Both Romulan captains were quite aware of the combat capabilities of a Sovereign-class. The Voldares had scanned her extensively, their tactical read-outs indicated she was heavily modified, an additional shield system, enhanced phasers, different configuration of torpedo launchers, larger than normal sensor pallets, a housed fighter squadron, her communications relays were also oversized for a Sovereign, at least in their experience.

Additionally, the ship was in offensive posture, not in a defensive posture like other Starfleet vessels would have assumed. Pirates? Most likely not. Possibly Marquis, but they would have no reason to be in Romulan space and a Sovereign would never fall into their hands. The ship confused the Voldare captains, however, what was really bothering them is how she got through their sensor buoy network without being detected immediately. Luckily, they were nearby, performing a joint patrol and adjusting buoys as needed. The lead Romulan captain told the human captain to stand down and prepare to be boarded, then ended the transmission before they could respond. The human was female, and something about her made her very interesting, but there was something odd, even different about her, he just couldn't figure out what.

From the view-screen image of the Sovereign bridge, they saw that they're at battle stations and scans show their weapons were powered up, shields active, so they were ready for a fight. Captain Setnek hoped for a fight, he hadn't seen combat for a while and taking down a Federation Sovereign-class would add a nice boost to his reputation. 30 seconds left.

"Prepare to fi-"
"Commander, our shields just went offline! I can't bring them back up" a tactical officer said.
"What?"

All hell broke loose.

Both of the Voldares shields dropped simultaneously then Viir-Keim opened fire. All of Endeavours newly installed dorsal Type-14 phasers lashed out at both Voldares and her port and starboard photon tubes lobbed three torpedoes within a second of the phaser fire. After the first burst, Endeavour began moving at half impulse, circling starboard. Endeavour's phasers continued to fire, each shot, a direct hit on the target systems. The Voldares were disabled before they had realized what had happened.

The first phaser barrage had landed direct hits on the Voldares communications, weapons and impulse engines. The torpedos finished off weapons and disabled their warp drives. The second phaser barrage was to their independent backup systems. Neither Voldares fired a single return torpedo or disruptor blast and Captain Setnek realized that neither Voldare had a chance. He knew something was different about this ship, he was scared, not from being fired upon but how their systems were penetrated, how they were easily manipulated into shutting down and locking out from their operators. No Romulan ship had ever been attacked in such a manner before. Later, logs indicated that the Endeavour had accessed their computer systems and disabled both Voldare shield systems then opened fire.

Initially, the Romulans felt this was a cowardly attack, but, after some months of study, they understood the sense in it and how effective it is to use an enemy vessels systems against its own crew. The Romulans then began to develop countermeasures against such attacks to ship systems, hardening their systems from outside attacks. They also began their own program of accessing enemy systems, from which they figured out how they could do it while a ship is cloaked. As such, they began field testing their techniques against the Klingons and as such, the Klingons began their Electronic Warfare studies.

The Voldares detected Endeavours sensors pinging off their hulls, then without a single transmission or additional weapons fire, the ship jumped to warp, leaving the two disabled ships behind. The last scans of the ship indicated she rapidly accelerated past Warp 9, on a projected course to the Azure Nebula. Neither captain had ever seen such a swift and ferocious attack come from a Sovereign-class starship before, they would never see another such attack from a Sovereign like that again.

Endeavour cruised along at Warp 9.9, not her top speed but damn near it. She stood down from Red Alert and General Quarters, the ships routine operations coming back into mind calming the crew down. Viir-Keim was throughly happy, his precise fire was instrumental in the ships escape but Alona thought it was because he got to shoot at someone. Exhaling, she looked around the bridge once more, everyone seemed to be calming down and Alpha Watch had begun. Watch-standers had begun to arrive to relieve the senior Bridge Crew when Alona stood.

"I'm going to go have breakfast, please let me know when we enter the Azure Nebula" she said and entered the Turbolift.

Captains Log, Stardate 67869. We have arrived at the designated rendezvous point, awaiting the U.S.S. Kelvin, a Luna-class starship for a day now. I was amazed at the fact that there is a Y-class planet circling an O-type star near the center of this Nebula. While, there is nothing of use on the planet, there is a Transwarp Gateway at the L5 Lagrange point of the planet. Everyone aboard is tense, unsure of how our trip through the Transwarp Conduit is going to be. I find myself uneasy as well, what I do feel though is, no matter how far flung we may end up, I will get this ship home and its crew back to Earth.

The Luna class starship is one of the more famous class of starships, boasting the U.S.S. Titan as the flagship of the class, the ship was designed as a testbed for new technologies, a long-range explorer and long range science ship. With a modular "rollpod" system, similar to the Nebula-class starship, the ship was not designed primarily for combat, unlike the Defiant-class or the Akira-class starships. The Luna purpose was to be a strong multi-mission platform for Starfleet. Able to operate without support for long periods of time, the Luna-class made exceptional discoveries while performing deep space exploration of the Gamma Quadrant. Proving to be an excellent starship, the ship also made strides in defensive design of many starships, especially science and support vessels weapon and defensive systems.

With an advanced modular rollpod, typically the advanced sensor pod is used, the Luna-class boasts one of the most advanced sensor systems ever designed and near cutting-edge propulsion systems. Uprated only once since its production started in 2377, the Luna-class has been an excellent starship to both command and work on. Since being able to conduct operations for long periods of time without support, the vessel had families of the crew aboard, similar to a Galaxy-class starship. Most of the Luna-class ships in the fleet operated on three to five year exploratory missions, so Starfleet allowed families for morale support of the crew members.

The Luna-class starships crew compliment is much smaller than a Galaxy or Sovereign-class starship, with only 350 personnel, it is manned by the most diversified crews in the history of Starfleet. With humans compromising only 15% of a typical crew compliment, Starfleet found that when the species of the crew was more diversified than on other ships it was easier for new species and cultures to speak to the Federation than a more predominately human crewed vessel. Racist? Perhaps, but it was a decision that was made based on statistics and observed fact.

The Kelvin was detected coming over the northern hemisphere of the O-type star and was hailed. It seemed that Captain Taylor was amiable, but a little leery about Endeavours mission because Kelvins sensors had detected the heavy modifications done to Endeavour for the trip. While retrofits were 'Very interesting' to Captain Taylor, he still remained uneasy about Endeavours intentions. At the same time, most of the senior staff of the Endeavour were uneasy about the Kelvin, she must have gone through the same gauntlet of sensor buoys to get to where she is now, why did her captain and crew seem so nonchalant about being here. Both crews tensions were beginning to rise when, to alleviate the situation, both Captains invited both crews over to each ship for tours, recreation, and lunch. Senior Staff between both ships rubbed elbows for dinner. Tensions diffused and friendly rivalries took its place, the Endeavour and Kelvin crews enjoyed each others company like this for three days after their meeting.

It turned out that Kelvin had been allowed through the sensor buoy network under the guise of being a science vessel on an authorized exploration of the Azure Nebula. The Azure Nebula was barely explored by the Romulans, so, what was left of the Romulan government authorized the Federation and the Kelvin entry for a three month exploration and study of the Nebula.

When the two ships got within transporter distance, Taylor and Alona began to have talks then, against orders, Alona and Captain Taylor met in person. After a brief discussion and a few contingency plans implemented, both Captains announced to the respective crews to mingle, go play, have fun, also to leave messages or letters with Kelvin for passing along to families back home when Kelvin got back. So the two crews mingled, beamed to either ship and spent 48 hours making some memories of home before leaving. Soon a small rivalry amongst the two crews broke out and that was settled by a very competitive Velocity tournament and an Anbo-jyutsu competition to settle it. In the end, many friends were made, even among the two senior staff of the ships. Friends they had hoped would remember them well.

48 hours later...

"It's time" Alona said, Captain Nathaniel Taylor nodded in agreement. They were both sitting in Alona's lounge chairs in her ready room, sipping on some iced tea.

"It's been fun, almost like a short two days of leave. I am sure there will be points on your trip back where you will find time to take a break but, I think this will be the last time your crew will see another Federation ship for a while. I hope your crew and mine had a good time, some good memories" Taylor said.

"I am sure they did, and Nate, thank you. Its been a real pleasure working with you too" Alona said smiling. Taylor grinned back.

"Perhaps, when you get back they will promote you to Admiral like Admiral Janeway, then stick you behind a desk at HQ"

Alona snorted, "Fuck that, that's one thing I will never do again. Being Chief-of-Staff under Admiral Janeway wasn't bad, it was sitting at that desk day in and day out. It got tedious in a really bad way. Honestly, I am glad she offered the mission to me"

"You still haven't told me what you are going to be doing"

Alona looked at him for a moment. It was true, she hadn't told him about her mission at all, just reciting the classic "sorry, its classified" rhetoric. She was about to recite it again, however, when she thought about it, what was Starfleet going to do to her? She may end up in another galaxy for all she knows, let alone being almost 13,000 light years out into the Delta Quadrant, she'll be pretty much untouchable for a few years to never. Taylor had told her he had received oddly vague orders to explore the Azure Nebula for three months and while exploring the Nebula meet up with another Federation starship, make sure it gets through the transwarp gateway safely, then destroy the gateway after the ships departure. No debris is to be found. She smiled at Taylor.

"Alright, Alright, but promise you won't tell anyone. Its supposed to be classified" she said. Taylor nodded.

"First, my entire crew are all volunteers, since, you know, transwarp technology is still experimental and, well, theres a possibility it could send us anywhere. If the destination calculations are off by as much as a decimal point it could send us further than our target location, if its off by a lot, we could end up in another galaxy for all we know. The Federation doesn't know much about transwarp gateways and conduits or how to use them correctly, considering all that we have learned is from the Borg we have liberated.

"So, with that being said, our target location is a detected nebula approximately 12,950 light years into the Delta Quadrant, from there we're to make our way back to Earth, all the while surveying every planetary system, contacting all species we can legally contact, and chart locations for transwarp landings and Starbases" Alona finished. Taylor raised an eyebrow.

"What makes that a classified mission?" he asked.

"Well, its because we're using experimental transwarp technology, which is still classified and the fact that we may end up anywhere"

"What are you going to do if you end up in another galaxy or further out than you expected?"

"If we end up in another galaxy, I am ascertain how long it would take to return to the Milky Way, if its determined that we would take longer than my lifetime to return to the Milky Way, we're to find the nearest uninhabited system with an uninhabited M-class planet, dismantle Endeavour and settle the planet" Alona replied.

Taylor blinked at her. Is she fucking serious? Give up, just like that, settle a planet and die. Granted, Endeavour currently has a large enough genetic pool to sustain a small population on a planet but still. Plain give up on getting home even if it takes 150 years to get home? No way she could just simply settle a planet like that, she seems too much of a fighter for her to do that.

"Would you do that? Just settle a planet if it takes 150 years to get back to Earth?" Taylor asked.

Alona smirked at him, "My lifetime is a little longer than 150 years" she said, then stood.

"We need to get underway, thanks again Captain" Alona said, Taylor slowly stood eyeing her, then nodded.

"Good luck Alona" he said shaking her hand, then tapped his combadge,

"Kelvin, one to beam over" a moment later, he was gone. Alona tapped her own combadge.

"Benson to Kim, please recall everyone that's on the Kelvin. We get underway in 2 hours" she said.