Two
Stardate 59210.5, USS Bozeman, On final approach to the Bajoran Wormhole
"Report." zhNon said from her command chair seated next to the captain.
"We're five-thousand kilometers from the event horizon." Helmsman Mok said.
"Recommend we adjust heading to one-zero-two, mark seven, Captain." Theus called without looking up from his display. "That will put us on a course to make a wide, crescent shaped pass of the entrance. We won't veer off our heading too much, and it still allows us to excite the neutrino particles."
"Come to new course and slow to impulse." Williams said.
The bridge became quite as everyone waited, tensed for a possible battle they physically could not see coming. As the Bozeman adjusted its speed and angle of approach, even the normal bridge sounds seemed to mute in anticipation.
"Anything?" zhNon asked Ops.
"Nothing yet ma'am." Carver replied instantly. "The concentration of neutrinos is starting to build. And we won't even be halfway through our approach, before the parts per million are sufficient enough to track."
"On screen." Williams ordered.
A swipe effect crossed the main view screen from left to right and changed the dark vista spotted with bright points to a tactical grid display. The squares were green, while false color images displayed the neutrino particles as a bright gold. With the amount of saturation, the screen looked like glitter suspended in dark water.
"Two minutes until we're out of range of the event horizon." Mok reported.
"Maybe it really was nothing." zhNon said to the bridge. She stood from her seat and walked over to the science station with Theus. "Your recommendation was sound Commander, but all of this, really is based off your assumption that the sensor blip you saw-"
"Sensor contact!" Goritan shouted. "Bearing two-zero-four, mark three. It's right on top of us. Ship's profile and energy signature classify it as Romulan T'varo-class light Warbird."
"Maintain heading and speed." Williams ordered. "It still doesn't know we've seen them."
zhNon strode over to the helm and said, "Prepare to come about. I want best possible angle for our torpedoes. Coordinate thruster maneuvers with tactical to fire the nano-second our targeting arcs have a positive lock."
"Commander?" Theus said to zhNon. "We can't fire on them. They haven't attacked us and we still don't know their intentions."
"I'm aware of Starfleet regulations, but these Romulans have approached us in a hostile manner. Oh and there's that little matter of them crossing into our space violating the Neutral Zone Treaty!"
"They've also just lost their home world in a cosmic genocide." Theus reminded her. "It's highly unlikely that they came all the way to the Gamma Quadrant to attack a Federation starship. They gain nothing by provoking us, or expending the resources of military materiel when they are facing the very real possibility of extinction as a species."
zhNon pursed her lips. "Let me guess. You just so happen to have an alternative?"
Theus was trying his best not to antagonize zhNon with his perceived intrusion, but she wasn't making it easy. He sighed and offered, "We can still come about as planned, however with a solid location we can now perform the tachyon sweep. They will know that we see them, and we can maintain a weapons lock while we hail them and raise shield."
"Sir." Goritan interrupted them. "The Romulan ship is changing course. They aren't accelerating, but they are coming into position on our starboard flank. If they continue, they will be able to come straight at us head on from a higher vantage."
Williams stood. "Helm, prepare to execute emergency come about. Mr. Goritan, ensure you're able to protect us and fire as soon as we begin the turn." He turned to Ops. "This could turn very bad, very quickly. Clear the outer hull and be prepared to initiate multiple emergency force fields."
Carver nodded.
"Alright Commander, you can perform your sweep. But if you so much as detect an energy spike above a milliamp, you let me know." Williams said.
"Aye sir." Theus said.
"Helm, execute maneuver."
No sooner had the command been input did the Bozeman began to move. The small, saucer ship turned hard to the left with a massive release of thrusters. As they did so, the main deflector came to life, emitting faster than light particles directly aimed at the unknown Romulan ship. With no shields, the hull of the green ship began to resonate, and glow slightly at the continuous tachyon beam targeted at them. It stopped immediately.
"Yellow alert, hail them." zhNon said.
"Shields up, channel open." Goritan replied.
Theus let out a sigh and relaxed only slightly. While they were still in danger, at least they were in their predicament with shields.
"Romulan vessel, this is Commander Gregory Williams, captain of the Federation starship Bozeman. You've been following us for quite some time while cloaked. Is there something that we can do for you?"
Everyone on the bridge stared as the small vessel decloaked. The tactical view on screen was replace by the small, sharp and dagger like shape of the ship with bright green glowing nacelles. After a moment, the star scape too was replaced as an incoming transmission showed the face of a young but stern looking Romulan male.
"Commander Williams." He said sounding menacing. "I am Commander Rukulk of the Romulan Star Empire ship Penance. And you can help me by surrendering your vessel."
Williams looked to zhNon and then back to the screen. "Commander, I'm not sure what you think is going on here, but I will not, nor will any Starfleet officer, ever surrender our vessels. I understand your people have lost much, and the Federation will do everything in its power to help. But these threats do nothing-"
Williams was cut off as a large explosion rocked the ship and threw him to the deck. The Bozeman lurched hard to the left, and then again to the right as another explosion was felt from the port side. Theus was thrown forward, and his head hit the console. He could feel a warm liquid on his forehead, and his vison became blurry.
The bridge officers scrambled to regain control of the ship, and report over the cacophony of alarms and emergency signals. A final explosion detonated directly above the bridge. It caused several consoles to overload as fires began to burn, and an acrid smell of electrical smoke filled the deck.
"R-Report!" zhNon said, through coughs to anyone.
Theus looked around and noticed that most of the bridge crew had been incapacitated. The rear where the master system display was located had become unreachable, as several overhead struts had fallen down onto the unfortunate crew members. He saw a fire at tactical, but no sign of Lieutenant Goritan. Lieutenant Carver was barely standing as she manned Ops. Lieutenant Mok was also splayed on the deck, and Commander Williams was unconscious while zhNon checked his pulse.
"Medical teams to the bridge!" Theus said. He didn't get a confirmation so he grabbed an emergency medical kit and ran toward zhNon and Williams.
"Don't." zhNon said. "We need to secure the bridge and the ship."
Theus grimace, but agreed. He returned to his station while zhNon took over at the helm.
"Commander, we were hit by three anti-matter detonations. Two on the outer hull, one on the primary right above the bridge. If our sensors are working correctly, they were in contact with us before they exploded." Theus reported.
"In contact?" zhNon shook her head. "Bridge to engineering, report…engineering can you hear me? Damn it!" She shouted. "Internal comms are down."
"Sir, incoming transmission from the Romulans. Audio only." Carver said weakly.
"P-Put it up." zhNon said.
Theus didn't turn from his station but could hear the labor in her breathing. It also sounded wet.
"If anyone is still alive over there, I would prefer not to destroy your little ship. The Empire needs as many raw resources and ships as we can acquire at the moment. Do not try to launch escape pods. We need those as well. You have five terran minutes to signal your surrender. If you do not, we will board and take the ship by force. Any resistance will be met with deadly consequences."
The transmission closed. And the three officers looked to one another, not sure what to do.
zhNon stood but then immediately grabbed her side and went down. Theus ran to support her up, and felt the cold wet blood on her side.
"You have a puncture wound." He said. "Let me-"
"No!" zhNon seethed through pain. "Take care of those Romulans first."
"Ma'am, I reviewed the logs, they deployed mines at the entrance of the wormhole. When we passed around the event horizon, they attached themselves to the hull. Rukulk must've had a remote detonator." Theus said.
"A Romulan using cloaked mines, how in character of them."
zhNon started to cough up blood. She tried to speak again but soon closed her eyes and her antennae fell limp.
"...gin...ring to bridge! Engineering to bridge!" Came the voice of Bloss over a static filled intercom.
"This is the bridge, go ahead!" Carver said.
"We were just hit with what could only have been mines."
"We-we know." Carver was sounding a little relived.
"For all the good it does. The entire EPS grid is unstable. We barely just stabilized a core breach, and all major systems are down. Main power, the main computer, weapons, warp, and impulse engines. The turbolift network is also down and we have multiple hull breaches. It's a good thing we cleared the outer decks, but we still have casualties down here. Shields are at 10% and we have partial thrusters. One more shot and we're through. Should we evacuate?"
Carver froze. Theus saw she was unsure of herself and knew this was the most dangerous position any officer could be in.
"No!" Theus said loudly, causing the Lieutenant to snap out of her inaction. "Chief this is Commander Eridos, except for Lieutenant Carver and myself, all the bridge personnel are dead or incapacitated. I'm taking command of the ship."
"But sir-"
"Are weapons completely useless, or is there a patch you can apply?" Theus asked, not giving him time to argue.
"…Sir, phasers are useless and the torpedo firing controls are fused." Bloss answered.
"Could we fire them manually? If someone went into the fire control housing?"
"Only if you have a death wish." He said. "The controls are in a section that was damaged in the attack. Even if someone did go in there, they wouldn't have an available EV suit for protection. Emergency force fields are barely holding, and I can't transfer power to shore them up. If they fire while inside the housing, the shield will drop and they will be exposed to hard vacuum."
"Can you beam me to the area, Chief?" Theus asked without hesitation.
"Again sir, all major systems are down. You can't even crawl through the Jeffries Tubes."
Theus closed his eyes and thought, but there were no other options available. He considered ordering the crew to evacuate. That he could defend them by using thrusters to put the ship in between the escape pods. But realized that the loss of life would be too high. He let out a curse and opened his eyes.
"Chief, can you get to the housing from your location?" Theus asked solemnly.
"I can." Bloss said sternly.
Theus took a deep breath. "Get in their Chief. Wait for my signal and then save us."
"Like I always do." Bloss said sounding proud. "We have four torpedoes loaded sir, two fore, and two aft."
"Thank you Chief." Theus looked to Carver. "Transfer weapons control to Ops, I'll take the helm. Divert all available power to the aft shields and tell our people to get as far forward on the ship as possible."
He took the helm station. After tapping in a few commands, he cleared up enough resolution in the distorted view screen to see the Penance approaching them. Theus then programmed a solution into the maneuvering systems and then increased the inertial dampeners only on the bridge.
"Bridge, I'm in position." Bloss reported.
"Good." Theus said. "Count down the distance, Carver."
"Aye sir. Three-thousand kilometers…two…one."
"Fire!"
Theus gave the order and as soon as Carver pressed fire, Bloss pulled a large handle that launched two Mark VII quantum torpedoes at the Romulan vessel. At the same time, he engaged full thrusters on the dorsal, forward hull of the saucer. It pushed the nose of the vessel lower to flip it upside down. The second part of his program immediately activated rear thrusters to push them away from the impeding detonation.
The artificial gravity generators strained, and Theus could feel the bleed of the excessive G-forces from the inertial dampeners not being able to handle the stress in such a weakened state. When the turn was complete, he felt himself being slightly pushed into the helmsman chair. He didn't stop, couldn't stop, or everyone on the ship would be dead.
"Direct hits!" Carver yelped. "They aren't in pursuit!"
An alarm sounded.
"Sir, they aren't coming after us, but they managed to get off a torpedo before ours took them out!"
"Arm aft torpedoes." Theus said.
"Sir, we can't fire."
"We're not firing them. Use the explosive bolts to blow off the firing tube covers, and cut gravity to that section so that they can float out as we move away."
Carver did as ordered and began to count down.
"Ten seconds to impact…five…"
"Detonate torpedoes, all hands brace for impact!" Theus said.
The shockwave almost threw Theus from his seat again. He held on as three, massive anti-matter explosions collided and sent the ship tumbling.
"Regaining attitude control!" Theus called.
After a few moments, the ship righted itself and was still. Theus checked his station and saw that there was nothing on his screen.
"Y-You did it. My Gods you did it!" Carver said, in a hushed tone.
"Report." Theus demanded.
"Sir, the Romulan vessel has been destroyed, as has their torpedo. No contacts on sensors. Should I send out a distress call?"
"No."
"No?" Carver asked, almost angrily.
Theus went back to his science station and checked some reading before answering.
"I have nothing on sensors."
"Sir, I just reported-"
"No Carver, I mean nothing. No residual ions, no graviton distortion waves, no stray neutrino emissions. Absolutely nothing!" He looked up at her. "Check your scanners, we just destroyed a warp capable Romulan ship. Unless they've switch to dilithium regulated, anti-matter annihilation to power their warp drives, we should be seeing traces of an artificial singularity."
Carver stepped from her station to join him.
"Theus, we just survive a surprise attack that could've killed us all, we have more important things to focus on. Repairs, medical treatment. Besides, there have been reports that the Romulans keep anti-matter containment pods around their cores to destroy the singularity in the event of a catastrophic breach. Two quantum torpedoes fit that bill."
Theus snapped his head up. "How did you fire two?"
"What do you mean?"
"Chief Bloss gave his life to fire from the manual control mechanism, but he had to physically be there to pull the lever. The controls are separate for each torpedo launcher, and he said the controls were fused. There's no way he could've gotten to the other, or that you could've simultaneously fired two. We shouldn't even be here in one piece. We were still close when our torpedoes detonated, and the only thing that happens is we get tossed around? With only ten percent shields? How?" Theus finished angrily.
Carver furrowed her brow but said nothing.
"Damn it Eridos, it wasn't enough to pass, you just had to go for extra credit as well, didn't you?!"
Theus turned to see Williams standing up from the deck and dusting himself off.
"What the hell?!" Theus shouted.
"It's okay everyone, it's over." Williams said to the bridge.
Theus' eyes shot back and forth as he saw every officer and crewman began to get up. They tossed the debris aside like it weighed nothing, as they too cleaned themselves off.
"That's going to stain." zhNon said, as she dabbed at the 'blood' on the side of her uniform.
Theus didn't say anything. Still at the helm station, he reached under and grabbed the emergency phaser used to repel enemies that infiltrated the bridge, tapped some settings, and pointed it at everyone.
"This is set to wide beam and the heaviest stun. Someone had better start talking."
zhNon flashed a quick smile to her captain and said, "Computer, end program."
The simulation ended. And only he, Williams, and zhNon remained in the sterile, metallic bay.
"Don't worry Theus." Williams said. "I promise you that before this is over, you will thank me."