The Endeavour sat 1,350 kilometers to the port side of the Transwarp Gateway. Endeavours job was to funnel the necessary power to the conduit while the Kelvin fed the proper data entry into the conduits main computer, activating the conduit. After the gateway would be activated and a stable corridor would form, Endeavour would transit through and Kelvin would then open fire on the gateway destroying it and any evidence that would indicate that there was a Federation presence there.
Feeding power to the gateway was the easy job, Kelvins AC-22 Bio-Neural Super-Series Computer Core was a more advanced computer core than Endeavours. While the most modern Bio-Neural super computers are AC-23s and AC-24s, Kelvin had a greater computing capability when compared to Endeavours AC-20 computer core. Even though Endeavour utilizes an older computer core, she is not the only remaining starship that uses an AC-20 computer core. In fact, AC-19s and AC-20s are found on most starships with only the newest classes utilizing AC-22, AC-23, and AC-24 computer cores. AC-21 cores are usually used for science, medical and other support vessels because of the larger storage capacity it has. The main differences between each generation of computer cores is complexity of the bio-neural gel packs and faster computing capabilities.
Bio-Neural Computer cores utilize Bio-Neural Gel Packs or BNGPs for transfer of information. To quote a section of the AC-20 manual from Starfleet Advanced Starship Design Bureau: Normally mounted at strategic locations along the ODN pathways, each BNGP consists of an artificial bio-fluid that allows transmission of neural signals. The heart of the BNGP is a packet of neural clusters, grown copies of strands similar to those found in the brains of sentient beings. These clusters give the ship's computer 'instinctive' data processing and routing ability as well as allowing the ship's computer to utilize 'fuzzy logic' to speed up probability calculations much as a living, breathing entity would. By distributing gel packs throughout a starship's computer system information can be organized more efficiently, therefore processed more quickly and speeding up response time.
The data entry went by easier than expected, the computer on the gateway received the information easily, calculated and adjusted for error, then broadcasted to both ships that it was ready for activation. Endeavour then began to emit a power transfer beam to the gateway. The gateway came to life as its own micro generators sparked to life, stoking the embers that Endeavour lit. After a moment the gateway was fully online, indicating it was still ready for activation.
Kelvin entered the activation code and both Endeavour and Kelvin gave the gateway some distance as it came online. After a few moments, the gateway indicated ready, in which Kelvin entered the calculations and computations for entry points, exit points, distances, stability probability points and so on. When Kelvin had finished they had signal Endeavour they were ready to activate the gateway. Endeavour acknowledged and began to emit tachyon pulses at alternating frequencies from her main deflector, soon an aperture began to form, followed by sensors detecting subspace distortions and detection of triquantum waves, finally the aperture opened completely and the conduit was stable.
Endeavour hailed Kelvin.
"Captain Taylor, just wanted to say thank you for all your assistance" Alona said with a smile.
"Good luck Captain Benson, hurry back, I am sure there will be many people wanting you to return as quickly as possible" Taylor said.
Alona smiled and nodded, "End transmission" Alona said, turned and sat in her chair.
"Alright, begin emitting the chroniton field throughout the ship. Begin projecting a structural integrity field ahead of the ship, let me know when you're all ready" Alona said. After a moment, everyone reported ready and Alona ordered Endeavour into the aperture.
Kelvin remained at the gateway for 5 minutes after Endeavour had entered the conduit before she targeted the gateway with her weapons. Just as Kelvin was about to fire, her sensors detected a cloaked vessel nearby. When they began to investigate, maneuvering slowly away from the gateway, a Scimitar-class Warbird decloaked some 50,000 kilometers off her port quarter. Captain Taylor had opened hailing frequencies when the Scimitar opened fire with all 19 forward facing disruptor cannons and fired a full spread of eight photon torpedoes from every one of the 18 forward facing torpedo tubes. Kelvins shields managed to take most of the incoming disruptor and torpedo fire but they finally failed after the sixth salvo of torpedoes. Badly damaged, Kelvin was lucky enough to return fire, but Captain Taylor knew she could not last long, even with just using the phasers and torpedoes for point defense.
Still keeping his part of the mission in mind, Taylor managed to move Kelvin between the Scimitar and the Gateway, putting his forward shields and the bow of the ship into the heavy fire. Seriously outgunned and taking extremely heavy damage, Captain Taylor ordered abandon ship, then with her remaining stern torpedo launchers set to rapid fire, Captain Taylor opened fire on the gateway. Kelvin managed to fire two full salvos of ten torpedoes each, nearly depleting his entire magazine, at the gateway completely destroying it. Kelvin then rolled to port, bringing her ventral weapons and shields to bear, but moments after she rolled her ventral shields failed and her warp core was breached after a plasma torpedo ripped through main engineering. It cut through the upper deck section of the warp core as well as punched through her plasma coolant tanks and one antimatter containment tank. The warp core breach was nearly instantaneous, of all 48 of her 6-man lifeboats on board, only nine lifeboats and one type-9 shuttle were far enough away from the explosion when she was consumed in matter/antimatter fire.
When Kelvin failed to report in, four days later, the Federation launched a full investigation into her whereabouts at the time she last reported in. Hampered by the Romulans for several months which turned into a year, the Federation finally gave in and officially listed her lost, with all hands aboard. The Halus, the Scimitar-class Warbird that had opened fire on the Kelvin, was the only vessel that knew the fate of the ship and her crew. Unfortunately, the Romulans were under extremely strict orders to keep the fact that there were more Scimitar-class warbirds in existence a secret. Secrecy of said ships was the primary reason why the Halus had no choice but to open fire when she was detected and then capture her surviving crew to take back to Rator III for processing then to be quietly shuffled to mining camps.
As Endeavour entered the aperture, Alona expected a jolt from the ship but nothing happened with the ship shifting at all beneath their feet, they simply began gliding through transwarp space. The gateway was programmed to eject them at a certain point, she just hoped it would be at their target locale. Their estimated time to cruise through transwarp space was around 10 minutes. Considering Voyager spent 26 minutes in transwarp space while traveling from the transwarp hub to earth, Endeavours trip was to be relatively shorter.
Suddenly, the ship began shifting, rocking, then a constant vibration with a humming background noise. It was due to the gravitational shear and that the ship was not originally designed to project a structural integrity field ahead of it, but the ship could handle it albeit noisily. Four minutes into transwarp space. A severe jolt rocked Endeavour.
"Gravitational shear is increasing slightly, compensating" Bari said, she was at her bridge station instead of down in Main Engineering.
Of all people on board, Bari was the most experienced when it comes to transwarp usage, being a former Borg. Alona had an idea of what transwarp travel was, the basics on how it is works and how to get a conduit going, but the intricacies of it, how to use it, Bari was far more versed in transwarp travel.
"May as well intensify the chroniton field as well, just to be safe" Alona said.
"Aye, ma'am" Bari said.
The humming increased and the vibrations got worse to where it seemed like the ship was hitting turbulence in an atmosphere. Eight minutes into transwarp space. 'Please land us in the target locale' she thought. She didn't like the thought of being used to test experimental technology, especially when there was nearly 1,200 extra people involved, all of them relying on her to make sure the shit doesn't hit the fan, or if it does, it doesn't hit the fan too hard. She shook her head slightly.
"Exit aperture detected ahead, another three minutes" T'saal said.
Three minutes? We should have only a minute left. 'Dammit, I knew something was going to happen' Alona thought. At least we shouldn't be too far off course then, maybe 15,000 to 18,000 light years instead of 13,000. Only adds a couple extra years to the journey, its fine. Another heavy jolt.
"Gravitational shear is still increasing, I am widening the projection field and intensifying it" Bari said calmly. After a moment, the turbulence-like bumps calmed down a little, the jolts less severe.
"30 seconds" T'saal said. 29, 28, 27, 26...
Alona activated the viewscreen
"10, 9, 8, 7" T'saal began counting down.
"...3, 2, 1. Exiting, NOW!"
Endeavour gave a great heave and a shudder as she exited the transwarp corridor. Immediately, Bari began to realign the structural integrity field and shut down the chroniton field.
"Large object ahead! Weapons fire detected all around us!" T'saal said.
"Red Alert! Get the shields up now!" Kim bellowed.
The viewscreen portrayed the hulk of a massive ship, easily dwarfing Endeavour, drifting. Plasma fires could be easily seen from it. There was no external lighting which indicated the vessel had no power. Endeavour was drifting as well, impulse engines having to cold start, but maneuvering thrusters still worked. A couple of torpedos zipped by the bow of the Endeavour streaking towards another target. Energy beams streamed by her stern.
Kolaas was frantically entering in commands, the ship was reacting sluggishly, but she was at least reacting. Slowly Endeavours bow dipped and she slipped under the hulk.
"Impulse is back online" Bari said.
"Shields are online, charging weapons" Viir-Keim said.
"Hold your fire" Alona said, "Do not fire unless we're purposefully fired upon, I can understand a stray torpedo missing its target or a phaser blast missing its target and hitting us, but if we're attacked specifically, return fire only at the attacking vessel. Mr. Kolaas, get us out of here" she added.
"Aye, ma'am" Kolaas replied.
Endeavour shuddered, Alona looked at Viir-Keim. "A stray tetryon blast ma'am, impacted dorsal amidships, shields held" he said.
Endeavour zigged, zagged, ducked and dived through the battle. It appeared the battle was taking up at least an AUor more of space. No one specifically targeted her, but many of the ships scanned her thoroughly, only to realize that the ship is not from these parts and is only trying to get out of the fight. Endeavour never fired at anyone and had slowly increased to 3/4 impulse to get out quickly. Jumping to Warp was too dangerous at the moment, too many objects that she could collide with in her transition from sub-light to faster than light.
During her escape Endeavour did plenty of scanning as well. Utilizing Voyager's computer database, they were able to identify the two forces, it appeared that the two sides were the Hirogen and Benthan species. According to the database, Hirogen ships never really grouped together unless they were hunting a relatively tough adversary so it was confusing to see several hundred Hirogen vessels working as a fleet locked in battle against a fleet of Benthan ships. After several minutes, Endeavour exited the battlefield. As she exited, she detected two Hirogen battleships following her.
Like most Hirogen vessels, their "battleships" were small considering the size of other battleships encountered by Starfleet. Around the size of an Intrepid-class starship, these battleships packed considerable firepower for their size. A pair of these battleships could overpower an Intrepid-class starship, maybe even a Luna-class starship, but the Hirogen had never encountered something as big as Endeavour. They also never encountered Alona Benson. Following procedure, Alona hailed the two battleships and as expected, neither responded, both had charged weapons and were moving in an attack formation.
"Hirogen warships, this the Federation starship Endeavour, stand down, do not fire. We have no quarrel with you or the Benthans, we wish to peacefully dep-" Alona was interrupted by Endeavour shuddering under several blasts from their plasma cannons.
"Mr. Kolaas, take us to warp, nearest uninhabited system" Alona said. Endeavour jumped to warp and the battleships followed her, they managed to catch up to her and began firing again.
Endeavour rocked and shuddered under Alona's feet. Her shields could take this kind of fire, but at some point they were going to have to fight back. "Hail them again, tell them if they fire on us one more time, we will be forced to return fire" she said.
The Hirogen warships did not respond and continued firing. Endeavours shields ate up the incoming fire. Alona wondered if they assumed that most Federation vessels were like Voyager, unfortunately for them, they were going to find out differently. She sighed.
"Very well, Mr. Kolaas take us out of warp and execute evasive maneuver pattern echo-niner-niner, Viir-Keim, attack pattern delta-four if you please" Alona said.
Endeavour dropped out of warp and rolled 20 degrees to port, snapping left and baring her dorsal phasers. She then slowed to 2/3 impulse power, standard combat speed for a Federation starship. Following Endeavour, the Hirogen dropped out of warp about 100,000 kilometers behind her. Her quick turn to port, baring her broadside, forced the Hirogen battleships to separate into two different directions, Endeavour open fire on the closest one, firing a few quick bursts from her phasers forcing the battleship to flee. Seeing this, the second battleship came around, firing rapidly on Endeavours starboard quarter.
Responding, Endeavour rolled and came starboard, lashing the Hirogen battleship with her phasers and firing four quantum torpedoes at the ship. Having never seen or experienced quantum torpedoes before, Endeavours small four-torpedo salvo actually bypassed the Hirogens ships shields and impacted on its hull.
While only trying to disable the vessel, neither Viir-Keim or Alona had realized that quantum torpedoes resonance frequencies could bypass Hirogen shield technology. As they impacted on the hull, Endeavours sensors detected several hull breaches then a warp core breach in progress. Alona attempted to beam the Hirogen crew aboard, however, their shields were still up. Having no choice but to move to a safe distance, they watched as the Hirogen vessel exploded. The entire time Alona had tried to hail them and request they lower their shields but again, they never answered hails.
Silence filled the bridge as the ship exploded, most of the bridge crew had never experienced having destroyed an attacking vessel before. It wasn't Alona's first ship she had destroyed in battle, having served during the Dominion War and some of the border skirmishes since then, some of the shock of it had stopped getting to her, even so, it wasn't their intention to destroy the vessel. None of them expected the quantum torpedoes to just go through their shields like they weren't there. By the looks of Kolaas and Viir-Keim, it wasn't their first time killing someone either.
Alona broke the silence with a sharp command, "Get us out of here, Mr. Kolaas, resume previous course, maximum warp"
She was disgusted though. Not with Viir-Keim or herself, but with the Hirogen. They did not request for help, they didn't launch escape pods or lifeboats, they didn't even lower their shields while their ship destroyed itself. She understood their mentality, they were a warrior species, similar to Klingons they might value an honorable death. While barbaric, it was their culture, their societal mentality and she had no right to impose upon it. She shook her head, what if there were children abo-. No Alona, you know better than to go down that road, don't even think about it.
"T'saal, have you ascertained our distance yet?" Alona asked after a moment.
"Yes ma'am, by my calculations, by the verification of star charts, Voyagers database, and Starfleets Stellar Cartography onboard database, we are 49,879 light years away from Federation space, approximately 36,929 light years off our targeted exit point. Our estimated time at maximum speeds to return to Federation space is 18 years, 10 months" T'saal said calmly.
"What? We weren't in transwarp space long enough to travel that distance. How the hell did we end up being out this far?" Kim asked, then looked at Alona. She shook her head, she didn't know either.
"Unknown sir, I will make this a priority for my department Captain" T'saal said turning his attention to Alona.
"Mine as well ma'am" Bari said.
"Very well, let me know when you two find out something" Alona said, then quietly to herself, "et sic incipiat"