Kirk was shocked. Who wouldn't be, after they had met a talking prehistoric ape who had stolen Starfleet's top secret data files and threatened to destroy humanity?
'He hacked into our computer. He took all of the high-security Starfleet tactics files, secret passwords and mission catalogues. All of them.
And now he could shut down the Earth Defence Systems. And even if we managed to stop him destroying Earth, then the Klingons, the Romulans, and all the other vicious, power-crazy races in the galaxy could take over the planet and wipe us out…
And what about these experimental Klingon battlecruisers? If they're making more of them, they could win the war…
"Captain!" exclaimed Spock.
"What?" the captain muttered, lost in his whirl of thoughts.
The half-Vulcan's normally calm, flat voice rose slightly with urgency. "They are locking weapons on us!"
That was enough to wake up Kirk. His eyes darted up to the viewscreen, and the huge bulk of the Sweet Revenge II.
Unfolding out of its hull were giant racks of high-power missiles, themselves larger than most Starfleet vessels. Phaser emitters emerged from the obsidian-black icicle formations encrusting its wings. Photon torpedo launchers opened like the gaping mouths of many hungry animals.
And all this advanced, powerful weaponry, enough to destroy a small planetoid, was directed straight at the Enterprise.
"RED ALERT!" bellowed Kirk. "SHIE…"
BOOM! BOOM!
A volley of photon torpedoes and phaser beams blasted out of the Sweet Revenge II, slamming into the Enterprise. The smaller starship shuddered under the sustained attack.
On the quaking bridge, klaxons blared, emergency lights flashed crimson, and instruments squealed and chattered, all competing for attention. But the bridge crew ignored the cacophony of sound and light, putting their heads down and focusing on the much more important task of avoiding the fire from the giant warbird.
"Missiles incoming, 249° mark 3," reported Spock.
"Sulu, evasive manoeuvre Gamma 7!" ordered Kirk.
Mr Sulu instantly complied, his fingers flying over his holoscreen, sending commands through to the impulse engines and thrusters.
Manoeuvre Gamma 7 was the most difficult in Starfleet. Involving a hard turn, a steep dive, and a roll all at once, it could be fatal in the hands of an ordinary pilot.
Hikaru Sulu, however, was no ordinary pilot.
He carried out the manoeuvre with the precision and calm of a pro, and the Enterprise followed suit. Banking around hard a port, she neatly rolled and dropped under the two missiles that otherwise would have slammed directly into her secondary hull.
But as soon as the starship completed the manoeuvre, the torpedoes quickly looped around and slashed across her hull.
The bridge was now in chaos. Officers shouted out reports all at once, filling the air with a babble of commands, requests, and reports.
"Torpedoes incoming, 019° mark 9…"
"She's matching our every move, sir, I can't shake her…"
"Hull integrity in Zone 14-R reduced to 66 percent…"
"Shields down to sewenty-two percent, Keptin!" Chekov barely managed to make himself heard over the competing clamour. "If zis keeps up zey'll be down in minutes!"
"Well, fire back!" McCoy snapped, clinging to a railing so tight his knuckles had turned white. "Don't just sit there doing nothing!"
"Don't you zink I'd have already tried, Doctor?" Chekov replied tersely. "Our veapons have no effect against zer shields!"
"Well, that's marvellous!" the doctor muttered sarcastically. "Just marvellous!"
Despite the volleys of phaser beams and photon torpedoes that continued to pummel his command, despite the clamour of frantic voices, Kirk remained calm and focused. Years of experience in battle had taught him not to panic, no matter what. Keeping a clear head could allow a starship captain to focus on the battle, figure out a plan of action, and save his ship and his crew.
And his battle experience also told him something was very strange
"I don't see any sense in their attacks, Spock," he commented. "Most of them are glancing blows, only targeting our shields but not our hull. It's like he's purposely trying to miss us."
"Gutt did state that he wanted the Enterprise, Captain," Spock answered. "It is probable that he is merely trying to distract us…"
Suddenly, all the screens on the bridge flickered on and off. Readouts froze and shut down, only to restart a second later. Controls refused to respond for only a moment before returning back to life. Within seconds, everything was back to normal.
But essential bridge screens and controls didn't just restart, especially not on a state-of-the-art Constitution-class starship. Something was not right.
"Scotty?" Kirk yelled into his pickup. "What just happened?"
"It wasn't me, sir!" the engineer replied, his voice full of alarm"Something's tryin' to hack into environmental control!"
"Gutt is attempting to disable life support," Spock announced gravely from the science console, "All security and protection software has been automatically activated, but I estimate it will take them 38.169 seconds from now to bypass them."
Everybody on the bridge shared anxious looks. The stakes were so high now. If they weren't able to figure out an idea, the atmospheric pressure inside the Enterprise would instantly drop to zero.
There would be no survivors.
"Turn off life support?!" McCoy yelped. "How the hell can they even do that?"
"Bones, cut the chatter," Kirk ordered. Precious time could not be wasted on unhelpful expressions of amazement. They had to figure out a way to get out of this mess and do it before Gutt could disable life support. "There's got to be a way we can escape."
"Sir, that ship can outgun us, outrun us, and out-manoeuvre us," Sulu pointed out. "If we try to get away, it's certainly going to match our every move."
"There is the Betelgeuse Nebula," Spock stated. "At full impulse from a standing start we can reach it in less than 3.194 seconds."
"But vhat about ze ionized gases?" Chekov queried. "Our shields and sensors vill be disabled by zem! If zat varbird comes back for us, ve'll be sitting ducks!"
"I'll take those chances, Mr Chekov," Kirk replied. "Scotty, get us out of here!"
"You bet your life, Captain! Full impulse available at your command!"
"Ten seconds to life-support shutdown," Spock reported. Even his rigid Vulcan discipline could not stop his voice rising slightly with anxiety.
Kirk's fist clenched as he turned to his helmsman. "Go, Sulu!"
And with the professional calm and speed of a pro, Mr Sulu obeyed. His fingers flying over his screen, he activated the impulse drive and pushed it to maximum power.
Straightaway, the Enterprise leaped forward, accelerating to nearly half the speed of light in just a few seconds. Her impulse drive blazing, she shot into the swirling brown fog of the nebula…and disappeared.
"NOOO!" howled Gutt, slamming his fist down on his armrest. The Enterprise was gone, deep inside the Betelgeuse Nebula by now, where even his most powerful sensors could not reach. Kirk had tricked him, just like that stubborn mammoth…just like that treacherous sabress…
The crew watched their captain nervously. Gutt had the nastiest temper when he got in a rage. If they so much as spoke up, they would certainly be punished. They all had experience of that from their days in the Ice Age.
Suddenly, the fuming ape whirled around to the elephant seal behind him.
"Mr Flynn?"
"A-a-aye, sir?" Flynn whimpered, shrinking under the wrath of his captain. Ever since their encounter with the alien monolith device, Flynn had become quite smart. He knew a lot about Engineering and how to operate a 23rd century starship, almost to the point of being a know-it-all.
Which could be a problem, especially if his captain was making unrealistic demands.
"Listen here, blubber brain," snarled Gutt. "I want every last drop of power to our weapons. I'm not giving Kirk any more chances. The next time we catch a glimpse of the Enterprise, I want it destroyed!"
"But…but Captain!" protested the elephant seal. "If we push the warp cores too hard, we risk blowing up the ship! And the auxiliary reactors are already strained just powering the cloaking device, let alone…"
With a roar of fury, Gutt swatted his chief engineer. "I don't care what excuses you can give to me! Get this hunk of metal ready for battle in five minutes or face my fury!"
"A-a-aye, Captain! R-right away, Captain!" Flynn squeaked, shuffling towards the turbolift as quickly as he dared. He fumbled with the turbolift door switch for a few seconds before it finally opened, and he slipped inside and shut the door straightaway.
Silence fell once more upon the bridge. All eyes were once more on the still-seething ape standing, fists clenched, in the middle of the bridge.
Finally, with an angry sigh, Gutt sat down in the captain's chair.
"Mr Silas?" he barked. "Begin processing the new data from the Enterpise. Put it on the main screen."
"Oui, Mon Capitaine," Silas replied meekly, manipulating his controls with his blue-tinted feet. All the files he had uploaded from the Starship Enterprise began to flash past on the viewscreen. The strengths and weaknesses for every Federation vessel…the plans for a new dreadnaught starship with linear transwarp drive…charts of the newly-explored regions of space…a map of starship activities over the next week…
Gutt's eyes narrowed. "That file. Open it."
Silas instantly complied. At once, the viewscreen was filled with a 3D map of the known galaxy, crisscrossed by thousands of tiny coloured lines.
"Magnify on Betelgeuse Region, Sector 13-R."
The screen zoomed in on the area around the aging supergiant star and the closest starship routes, with slowly moving dots marking the position of each and every starship. Info windows flickered into life above each mark, detailing each vessel's registry, class, and destination.
Several cargo ships were nearby, but too far away for one of Gutt's preferred surprise attacks. An Andorian starliner would cruise past in a weeks time, but again, too distant.
But one orange line curved right past the Betelgeuse nebula…just where Gutt wanted it to be.
Gutt's anger began to subside.
"Mr Silas, bring up all info on that ship and her current mission."
"Oui." The blue-footed booby tapped in another command on his screen, and the image of a small starship emerged on the viewscreen. It had a large ring-shaped warp nacelle and a comparatively tiny arrow-shaped main hull. Definitely a Vulcan vessel.
"Ze VSV T'Pol is a Seleya -class science starship," Silas read from one of his readouts, "with a crew of 84. She is currently on a mission to ze Borama Asteroid field to test…ze new Red Matter device!"
"Red Matter?" Squint blurted out. "What's that?"
Silas brought up another file. "A form of antimatter manufactured from decalithium, zat, when exposed to regular matter, instead of annihilating, will…" He looked up at his captain, his eyes wide with amazement. "...it will create an artificial singularity!"
"A what?" grunted Dobson the boar from the security console.
"An artificial black hole!" Gutt breathed, his eyes lighting up. Forget a fleet of puny starships! This was the ultimate weapon! If he could get his hands on it, he could destroy an entire planet…and he could finally have his revenge on the humans.
They would all die in such a spectacular, painful way.
For the first time since Kirk had escaped, Captain Gutt grinned.
"Let's get this Red Matter, boys!" he ordered, chuckling to himself. "As our dear Klingon friends would've said: revenge is a dish best served cold…"
The Enterprise drifted through the murky brown fog of the nebula, hidden by the swirling clouds of ionised gas. All that could be seen of her were her ever-present navigation lights, the red glow of her impulse engines, and her swirling orange Bussard collectors shining through the cloak of the nebula.
A cloud of unease hung over everybody on the bridge. They couldn't see anything but swirling gas through the holo-glass of the viewscreen. None of her sensors were working, and her shields were inoperative. They were flying a blind and defenceless starship.
But, for the moment, they were safe.
And with nothing to distract him, Kirk could now plan a strategy to defeat Gutt and bring him to justice.
"Uhura, as soon as we're out of the nebula, send a Priority 1 message to the Exeter, Oberon, Taupo, Victory, Attenborough, and all other armed starships in the sector. We'll need all the force we can muster to bring that warbird down."
"What should I tell them?" Uhura asked.
"That his ship is heavily armed and he seems to have a dangerous hatred of humans. Just leave out the bit where he's a prehistoric ape, though. I don't think they'd take that too well."
"Neither do I, sir!" the communications officer chuckled as she turned back to her console.
"Sir!" Sulu exclaimed suddenly. "The nebula's clearing ahead."
Sure enough, the dark clouds of gas were thinning ahead of them. That could only mean one thing: that there was a clear zone ahead.
A clear zone where they could find out where they were and get back to
"That's a good sign," Kirk murmured. "Let's take a look, Mr Sulu. What's the worst that could happen?"
"Can't think of much, sir," Sulu grinned, maneuvering the Enterprise forwards, through the fog of ionized gas. Her impulse engines burning, she broke through the swirling gas clouds and into the clear patch. Coasting into its centre, she drifted to a halt.
As soon as she emerged from the nebula, her bridge screens instantly flickered back to life as the ion interference died down. Communications was still blocked, but sensors, navigational programs, and shields were all back online.
"We are in Betelgeuse Sector 29, Coordinates 56-87-21-04," Chekov reported. "From our current position we can warp straight to ze Mutara system without any major dewiations."
"Excellent work, Mr Chekov," Kirk nodded approvingly. "Set coordinates for Mutara IV."
"Aye, Keptin."
"Should I run a scan of the nebula, Captain?" Spock asked. "It would be logical. The data collected on the various gases would be most valuable to Starfleet."
"Go ahead, Spock. It'll make the scientists happy. They're mad about studying these pre-supernova emission nebu…"
Before Kirk could even finish his sentence, a brilliant flash lit up the bridge. Then another. And another.
Distracted from their tasks by the sudden bursts of light, everybody looked up at the viewscreen. What they saw was enough to
Zig-zagging through the void in front of the Starship Enterprise was a huge lightning storm. Unearthly bolts of purple lightning flickered through space, quickly forming an ever-growing web of electricity.
"What the hell is that?" McCoy yelped.
Spock checked his monitors, oblivious to the fact that the doctor's query had been purely rhetorical. "It is a concentration of static energy, similar to the lightning storms frequently observed in many emission nebulae."
"That can't be any ordinary lightning storm!" Uhura pointed out.
"You are correct, Lieutenant. While it displays many of the characteristics of a lightning storm, it appears to have no connection with the static charge of the nebula, and it contains enough energy to deform space, much like our warp drive. This is a lightning storm, but not as we know it."
Suddenly, a bolt of lightning reached out from the expanding web to impact on the hull of the Enterprise. The ship shook from end to end…and slowly started to drift towards the lightning storm.
"Deflectors up full!" Kirk yelled as more lightning arched out from the web to the Enterprise, seemingly dragging his command towards the storm. "Sulu, get us out of here!"
The helmsman struggled with his controls. "It's no use, sir! We're at full reverse and still getting pulled in!"
On the viewscreen, the lightning storm was getting stronger and stronger. Suddenly, in the middle of the web…a huge rip opened up in space, shining brighter than any star Kirk or his crew had ever seen.
Not even rigid Starfleet training could stop the terror that rose up inside every bridge officer.
"Scotty, I need more power!" Kirk howled into his pickup.
"I'M GIVIN' HER ALL SHE'S GOT, CAPTAIN!" Mr Scott shouted back, his voice nearly drowned out by the whine of tortured machinery. "She cannae take much more o' this!"
Kirk looked back up at the lightning storm, with the huge tear in space slowly growing closer and closer. Was this the end? Honestly, he was pretty frightened. He didn't want to die. Not here, or now. His gut instinct had always told him he'd die alone.
'But then again, I'm only human. We all make mistakes.'
But he'd made too many mistakes today. Taking the Enterprise to the edge of the debris field where it could easily be spotted, ordering his command into the Betelgeuse Nebula, taking his ship into the clear patch…they all led up to this.
But they had seemed like perfectly good decisions at the time. How had he been supposed to know this would happen? There was nothing he could do about his choices.
There was nothing he could do about anything anymore.
All he could do, as his ship was dragged into the gaping rip in space, was close his eyes and wait for the end.
"Scrat, where are you?" shrieked a breathless, gasping Nurse Chapel as she sprinted through the corridors of the Enterprise. She'd been chasing the squirrel through the maze of curving passageways for minutes now, ever since he'd escaped from the brig.
She actually wasn't sure how it had happened. One moment it had all been calm and quiet, the next, a huge blast bowled her over. When she had looked up, the force-field cell wall had been disabled…and Scrat was gone.
'Dr McCoy's going to kill me if he finds out.'
Suddenly, the worn out nurse glimpsed a flash of grey fur disappearing around the next corner. Chapel instantly gave chase, following the jailbird squirrel as fast as she could.
"Scrat, come back!" she screamed at him. Then she remembered that he couldn't understand a word of English. Yelling at him would not help at all.
Sure enough, her cries had frightened poor Scrat even more. Taking off down the corridor, he raced through a door…and into the impulse drive control room!
"Oh no!" Chapel gasped. 'Who knows what Scrat could (unknowingly) do in there? He could injure somebody, he could disable the engines…he could destroy the ship!'
She raced through the door after him. "Scrat, come out of there! Please, come…"
BOOM
Suddenly the ship lurched. Nurse Chapel felt herself knocked sideways.
Then everything went black.
Trapped inside a huge web of lightning, the Enterprise entered the glowing tear in space. First the saucer section, then the secondary hull, and finally the long warp nacelles entered the rip…
…and disappeared.
The flagship of Starfleet was gone.
Slowly, the lightning storm began to die down. The rip closed again, and the web of electricity fell apart. Finally, the lightning storm stopped altogether.
There was no sign that it had just swallowed the most famous starship in the Federation.
Dun dun DUN! Cliffhanger!
Sid: I haaaaate cliffhangers! I have to wait for ages before the next chapter!
Diegorules483: Tell me about it. NO, NO, not literally!
Sid: Well, there was this time when...
Diegorules483: (facepalms)
Good news: Pirates of the Ice Age 2: Dead Man's Meltdown should be posted within a week or two! :-D :-D
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