Lilo & Stitch's Star Trek
Chapter 61: Bolt From The Blue
After having experienced more than a lifetime's share of Borg architecture, Jumba was immensely glad to be running along corridors that weren't dark, green, or spewing various gasses about.
The Serenity may have been critically damaged, but from the empty hallways spaced through the ship, one would not know it at all. The clean sleek grey walls produced an air of professionalism, of 'stay calm and carry on' attitude, even as klaxons rang throughout the ship, and red lamps blinked from every wall. There were no piles of loose wires, no sparking consoles or exploding screens – if anything, the lack of anything happening rather jarred with the dangerously critical situation they now found themselves in.
The hyperdrive engine, or 'warp core', as these people called it, was situated in the Engineering bay – in fact, as Jumba had heard it, it ran through the center, in a transparent shaft that allowed the engineering crew to see directly the matter-antimatter reactions occurring in the core itself. Jumba guessed that, since an accident with the warp core would mean total annihilation, they decided they might as well have it where everyone could access it directly, without hopping into a space suit.
It was while pondering the managemental and architectural decisions of this human ship that Jumba realised that something had been nagging at him for a while in the back of his brain – the crew, or rather, lack thereof. An official exploration starship of this size, easily five times that of his own ship at least, should at least have a few hundred crew, but, apart from their convoy, there was no-one at all to be seen in the hallways of the Serenity.
Jumba decided that that was a question for another time, and instead focused on the task at hand. They were now nearing Engineering, or so he was informed by the woman named Barmez; soon they would be tying explosives to something that bent the very fabric of space. They needed to have their wits about them.
"Alright, it's just down this hall," called Barmez.
At the end of the hallway was a set of sliding doors. The only thing that singled them out from every other door on the ship was the fact that they were so much wider than any of the others.
Barmez waited a few seconds for the doors to open; when they did not, she pressed the call button. But nothing happened.
"We'll have to use the emergency release," muttered Ericson. Barmez nodded and, sliding a panel open, attempted to pull forward a lever inside.
Sparks flashed from the top corners of the doors and, for a moment, they began to open. But when only a tiny sliver was open, the motors stopped whirring, and the doors came to a halt.
"Oy, is there anyone in there!" shouted Jameston.
"Captain!" a male voice responded. "Yeah, we're all right – there were a few fires, but they're out now."
"Hey, is that a rescue party?" called another, this one female.
"It's the captain!" the first replied to the other.
"The captain?" responded another male, and a fair number more began to whisper amongst themselves.
"Shh, quiet!" said the first.
"We've just been trying to reroute power around the broken couplings," the second explained. "But the power keeps cutting in and out, and anyway, without direct access to the Jeffries on Deck 8, we've had little success."
"What should we do?" whispered Ericson. "The door's jammed tight!"
"I have an idea," replied Barmez, and she whispered it into Jameston's ear.
"Ooh, I've always wanted to try that," replied the captain, grinning. "Ever since I heard of Captain Pike's adventures on Thalos VI."
Pleakley and Jumba exchanged nervous glances.
"Olson, Carmichael, reroute power from any non-essential places you can access and create a localised forcefield behind the doors," the captain commanded. "It shouldn't have enough power to reach too far, and we're going to aim away from the warp core, but we want to keep any potential damage at a minimum. Give the field as much juice as you can muster."
"Yes, sir!" the two replied.
"Come on, everybody, you heard the lady!" shouted the female voice, and a small collection of footsteps could be heard leading away from the door.
Damage? If anything, that made Jumba feel even more nervous. Were they going to try to cut their way in?
"Ericson, get me two cutting phasers, on the double."
"Right, ma'am!" she said, and with that she disappeared down the corridor.
It was only a few minutes before she returned, carrying on either shoulder something that looked more like a thin, long rocket-propelled grenade launcher than the pistol-like phasers they generally carried.
"Here you are, captain," called Ericson, and she threw one to Jameston, who caught it effortlessly. If there was one thing that Jumba noted about this, it was that the cutting phasers certainly weren't as heavy as RPG launchers – either that, or everyone in the future possessed quite a bit more strength.
"Alright, the forcefield's up," called the man from behind the doors.
"Everyone, stand back," said Jameston.
Jumba needed no telling twice – he jogged backwards about a third of the way down the hallway. Pleakley quickly scampered after him, and Barmez brought up the rear.
"Okay, then – Ericson, I'll do the left side, you do the right, then we swap. Make sure your settings are at their lowest. On my mark"
"Roger," said Ericson, and with that she pointed the phaser at a point on the bottom of the door about a quarter away from the right edge. Jameston, in turn, pointed it at the same position from the left edge.
"Fire!"
And, almost in unison, the two held their triggers down.
Firey-orange beams shot from the phasers and hit the steel doors, and as the two moved up and around the shape of the door, a pit of molten metal was left behind, marking the path the phaser took. Tiny orange sparks leapt from the point of contact, but soon dissipated into thin air.
When the two beams reached a point a few centimetres from the door's edge in the middle, Jameston and Ericson disengaged their weapons, swapped sides, and then began to trace the path the other made. This time, the phaser wore the trench all the way through – glimpses of blue and red light could be spied through the path they left behind.
"Alright, time to make a hasty retreat," said Jameston as she finished her section, and with that, she and Ericson rushed back to the positions the others had taken.
No sooner had they done so, a tremendous metallic sound rang out from the door; a moment later, the weight of the cut sections of door grew too much for the small connecting pieces they had left to continue to hold, and they toppled over, coming to the ground with a tremendous crash.
"Thank goodness, Captain!" exclaimed the male, a yellow-topped uniform-wearing man with somewhat scruffy-brown hair, as he emerged from the opening. "We thought-"
"No time for celebrations yet, Olson" interrupted Jameston. "We've still got a Borg ship out there, and it's still a threat to not only our lives, but the lives of every living thing in the Federation."
"So call the blasted Federation!" shouted the woman, a blonde with very curly hair, who wore the same uniform as her colleague. "Without weapons and engines we're useless here!"
"No can-do, Carmichael," replied Jameston.
"Why not?"
"Unfortunately, they disabled our long-range communications," said Barmez. "We only have radio-frequency ship-to-ship, and even that's patchy at best."
Carmichael groaned.
"So I guess it's abandon ship? Unless-" and here she slanted her left eyebrow "-you have one of those hair-brained schemes brewing up in your noggin."
"You are not to talk to the captain in th-" began Ericson, but the Captain waved her hand.
"She's quite right – although it's not my hair-brained scheme this time," she replied. "Mr. Pleakley, you have the floor."
"M-me?" Pleakley squeaked.
The captain nodded.
"We're really going to trust the safety of the ship and the Federation on someone we just… picked up?" said Carmichael.
"Yes we are," replied the captain. "At the very worst, it won't hurt."
"For once, I have to agree with Carmichael," said Olson. "It does seem… convenient that we meet these people in the Delta Quadrant right next to a Borg cube, and they turn up in the Alpha Quadrant as well – with the very same cube!"
"Thank you, Olson – as little a chance I get to say that."
"We came through Bajoran wormhole!" replied Jumba.
"The exit point of the Bajoran wormhole in the Gamma Quadrant is hundreds of light-years away from where we found you, and your ship was damaged!"
"We were towed through another wormhole by asteroid's gravitational pul-"
"Oh, an asteroid." Carmichael looked to Jameston. "Captain, for all we know he could be some sort of sp-"
"I trust him," said Jameston. "Now, if you have any further objections, I will note them in my log. Do I make myself clear?"
Carmichael folded her arms defiantly.
"As crystal," she said through gritted teeth
"Now, Pleakley.
"Er… right then. Uh- do you have some kind of drawing-space?"
"You can use my console," said Olson, and he walked over to a panel and tapped a few console buttons. 'Restricted-Access Physics Diagram Generator' flashed across the screen, before being replaced by a blank area with a few buttons around the top.
"Alright, thank you… uh, Mr. Olson. Now, well, I used a 230 kiloumpra blast, but for your- uh, what is the strength rating for the matter-antimatter reaction capsule?"
It took a few minutes for Pleakley to explain exactly what he had done to the hyperdrive, a fact not helped by the differing terminology and technologies involved. Although it had technically been Jumba's plan, he stayed silent, only watching to make sure Pleakley didn't say anything wrong. After all, Pleakley was almost never in the limelight, and besides, he appeared to be making no worse a job explaining it than he himself would have done, minus his thick accent.
That wasn't to say he had no problems – he did stutter quite a bit about it; after all, Pleakley had never done well in front of people he wasn't familiar with.
"I think we could make this work," said Carmichael, finally, after the presentation was complete.
Pleakley gave a nervous smile. "Oh, uh, thank y-"
"I still don't trust you," she snapped back, and Pleakley shrank back slightly.
"Alright, we have a lot to do, and little to do it in, so let's get cracking!" said Jameston. "Pleakley, you stay here and supervise – come up to the bridge when you're done. Ericson, make sure nothing… untoward happens."
"But Captain-"
"I'll send a security detail down to relieve you, but until then I'll need someone keeping the peace. We'll probably be at sickbay when they arrive, so meet us there okay?"
Ericson nodded.
"Barmez, Jookiba, with me."
"Uh… what for the going with, Captain-lady?" Jumba replied.
"You look like a strong person, Mr. Jookiba, would I be right?"
"Well, I was best in class for shot-putting and weights-"
"And you're very good with technology?"
"Very good? Jumba is being much more than 'very good'. Why-"
"Excellent," said Jameston. "We'll be heading to the transporter room to make sure everything's alright there, and to check in with Malo, and then we'll duck into the infirmary – we'll have to discuss the evacuation plans with the EMH there. If we come across any problems – blocked accesses, computer malfunctions – I could use all the hands I can get."
"Er… okay," said Jumba.
He didn't think it was the best reasoning, but he didn't really have many objections, so he followed the two out the door and into the corridor beyond.
"I'm telling you, the chances are slim I could get it to respond, let alone work," a husky male voice could be heard saying, echoing down the hallway that Jumba, Jameston and Ericson were walking down. "From what I can tell, both the primary and auxiliary power couplings all got fried, and even then we wouldn't have enough juice to get it going."
"Couldn't you just reroute power-" began the voice of Malo – here, Bamez silently brought her palm to her forehead – but the other voice cut her off.
"Darling, you're an excellent pilot, but don't think about picking up engineering any time soon," he said. "The emergency power's already stretched thin as it is, and a transporter needs a lot of power – I couldn't free up enough non-essential sections to do so."
The trio rounded a corner and stopped – before them was a door that was sliding some way forward, and then back again. Beside it stood Ming, attempting to tap out some codes on the console, every now and then glancing at it worryingly.
"Well, that's the transporter room," announced Barmez with a somewhat fearful look on her face, as if she was about to be asked to jump through it herself.
"Teresa!" shouted Ming when she heard her voice. "And… Vi!"
"Good to see ya, Yuks," said Jameston, "Oy, Miles, how're you doing!"
"Captain!" exclaimed the male voice. "You don't know how good it is to hear from you."
"I'm guessing that's a 'fine; then." Jameston replied. "Malo, how'd you get in?"
"Oh, I ran in," Malo replied. "It was just a matter of timing it right."
"Gave me a bloody scare doing it, too!" the man named Miles said. "Do me a favour – next time you're going to try something like that, shout a warning first!"
"Um, sorry?"
"Not the time for this discussion," said Jameston. "Barmez, we need to disable that door."
"Right, on it," said Barmez, and, opening up an access panel in the wall, she took out a yellow-coloured translucent board from a slot within. The doors slowed and then stopped, with just enough space in the gap between them for a human to narrowly squeeze through.
"It sounds like you're having some trouble getting things started," Jameston observed when the two had made it to the other side of the door..
"More than enough," replied Miles. "We're in desperate need of a spacedock right now – the damage's too extensive to get transporters working again."
"Don't need to tell us twice," said Jameston. "But we're unfortunately rather short of spacedocks right now, so I'm afraid we're all out of luck in that regard. We do have a plan, though – it's down in Engineering, and we'd need all the hands we can get."
"Sounds interesting," said Miles. "I'm in, if it means actually doing something."
She nodded, and turned to face the rest of the group.
"Malo, Ming, with us to the bridge, if you don't mind. If something goes wrong, the Borg probably won't be terribly pleased, and I'll need my best pilot and tactical officer there."
"Aye, captain," the two replied in unison.
"Alright," she said, a determined look in her eye. "Let's go."
It was still a fair way to the turbolift to go when a rather curious thing happened (or at least, Jumba had thought so.) Miles slowed his pace so that he was walking with them instead of the group of humans ahead.
"They're talking about you two," he whispered out of the corner of his mouth.
"Really!?" exclaimed Pleakley, which caused a few awkward glances from the human group, "Uh, sorry, Mr. Delarky was telling us a tale about- never mind, it's not important."
They turned back and continued with their chatter,
"You should have said something about the Gorn – I tell that one a lot," continued Miles. "Yeah, they are – but I wouldn't worry about it. Just thought you aught to know."
Despite his attempts to appease their curiosity, the two nonetheless quickened their own pace so that they were within earshot of the Captain.
"-and you guys are my most trusted crewmembers – and friends," Jameston was saying. "Your opinions are important to me. That's why I wanted to ask you if you thought I'm right for trusting the two aliens."
"I trust them," replied Malo. "I mean, they've had plenty of times to betray you before – and back then, we were far more vulnerable than we are now and they didn't do anything."
"Well-" began Barmez.
"I'm not too sure," interrupted Ming. "I know you used to know them long ago, but there's no telling when in the past or future of that point these ones come from. After all, people change."
"And Carmichael did make a good point about them showing up wherever the Borg cube did," Barmez continued. "Still, I trust them if you do."
"I don't," said Ming, "but if they try anything, me and Ellie – in fact, all of us – will have your back."
"Thanks, guys," replied Jameston. "That's all I needed to know."
So, they did know them at some point in time – most likely somewhere in the future, since Jumba didn't remember ever meeting them before. He would need to make sure conversation steered away from their possible futures, then – too much knowledge about what was to come could be a bad thing indeed.
The rest of the journey to the lift was fairly uneventful – no-one really talked at all, and they didn't run into any problems. The ride in the lift, however, was far from quiet – Pleakley and Miles talked excitedly about Earth (although Miles was somewhat surprised that they knew of the planet), and Jameston, Malo, Barmez and Ming talked in hushed tones between each-other.
Not having anyone with which to converse, Jumba idly watched the lights in the shaft beyond pass them by as they rose steadily upwards.
"Well, this is us," announced Jameston as the lift slowed. "Malo, Ming, we'll see you on the bridge, and Delarky, good luck! The rest of you, with me."
The curious quartet – Jameston, Barmez, Jumba and Pleakley – all exited the lift, the three others following Jameston. Down much more familiar corridors she led them – Jumba could tell that they were heading for the infirmary once again.
"Ah, you're back," said the holographic Doctor when they arrived. "You'll be pleased to know that nothing's changed in their conditions, although I recommend continual-"
"We need to prepare the patients for evacuation," interrupted Jameston. "Can you carry that out?"
"Evacutation?" He mopped his brow. "I can prepare, yes, but unless you have a mobile emitter handy, one of you will have to stay behind to take them to the escape pods."
"I'll do it," volunteered Jumba.
"No can do," said Jameston. "Teresa, you-"
"I can walk by myself," called the voice of Experiment 426.
"Uh, that's not such a goo-"
"Argh!" he yelled – he'd tried to stand up, and had just as quickly been felled by the pain pulsing through his leg.
"I told you so," said the Doctor curtly, grabbing an instrument and tapping a few buttons on it. "Hmm – you're lucky you didn't re-fracture your tibia."
"I'll take Mr. Just Enough Rope," said 419. "You can lean, can't you?"
"As long as he doesn't put any weight on his right leg, he should be fine," the Doctor confirmed.
"Well, I guess that just leaves the little girl," said Jameston. "As I was-"
But she stopped, and Jumba turned to see why – Stitch had jumped from his place in the rafters, so to speak, and was now solemnly walking across to them.
"I'll… do… it," he murmured.
Jumba caught his eye for a moment, and started – there was none of that spark that he knew so well, just emptiness and hopelessness.
Stitch looked away, and Jumba understood why – he couldn't bear to look at him.
"Alright then," Jameston said, perhaps a little more peppery than she intended. "Let's-"
She was interrupted by the sound of running through the corridors; a few seconds later, Ericson burst through the door.
"Reporting – as – requested – sir," she said between gulps of air.
"At ease, Els!" exclaimed Jameston. "Now that everything's settled here, back to the bridge, all of us."
It had been five minutes since they had arrived at the bridge, and everything seemed to be going smoothly, despite the impacts that landed every now and then. Jumba knew that it was an illusion – nothing ever goes smoothly on a battlefield.
He glanced at Ericson, who had been, as he was uncomfortably aware of, staring at him for the past few minutes. She instinctively busied herself in the console in front of her.
On the way back, her, Ming, Bamez and Malo had exchanged some more words with the Captain; unfortunately, it had been too short a conversation for him and Pleakley to sneak up on.
Finally, the computer beeped.
"Captain, we're ready!" the voice of Carmichael said.
"Alright, deploy it."
"Yessir, Captain!" Carmichael affirmed.
A moment of silence elapsed. Everyone seemed to be listening for some sign, any sign, that the plan was working.
And then, a shuddering sound filled the air, vibrated the consoles and the floors and Jumba's bones with a rattling feeling that lasted for a good five seconds.
"Warp core deployed," said Carmichael after the shuddering stopped.
"Alright, bring us about," said the Captain. "Forward shields, full power; forward viewscreen active, please."
The Borg vessel appeared on the viewscreen, almost glaring at them as if to dare them to try to attack it.
Soon, the warp core, still glowing bright blue, floated onscreen, towards the cube. Jumba stared at it – in the engineering room, it had appeared absolutely massive, but against the cube, it looked like a flea or a gnat.
"Steady," commanded Jameston as it floated through the Borg's shields undisturbed, the area around it buzzing and flashing as it did. "Bamez, highest zoom setting and HUD, please."
Even at the highest zoom setting, the image of the core looked like a hyperdermic needle placed next to an elephant. Then again, hadn't the shuttle hyperdrive been far smaller still?
It looked a hair's bredth away, and even as the heads-up display read "125,000 m to object", Jumba couldn't help the nervous feeling – what if they ran into it? The explosion wouldn't nearly be as explosive, and-
"Now!" shouted Jameston.
It was true what they say – if you've seen one explosion, you've seen them all. But while that phrase sets the baseline of expectation, it didn't quite match the experience itself – the swirling, billowing clouds of gas merging and splitting and merging again, forming shadows and shapes and colours that made no two explosions quite alike.
This is why shows and movies about explosions were so popular, Jumba mused – everyone loves a good explosion.
"They've disengaged their tractor beam," reported Ming.
"Barmez, take whatever power you can and put those shieldsup," ordered Jameston.
"Aye," replied Barmez, tapping furiously at her console.
But the smoke parted, and sinking feeling filled the pit of his stomach as the Borg ship flew through it, with very little, if any, damage at all.
Muttered whispers filled the room, and many of the crew exchanged very nervous glances. Pleakley gasped, and clutched his lower lip.
Jameston glared at it for just a second, then turned to Ming.
"Initiate a ship-wide announcement, all channels, and printout on all stations. Evacuate this ship imm-"
"Captain," Bamez interrupted. "I'd belay that. We've got three ships, inbound. One is an old-style signature, and the others-"
She stood up in astonishment, eyes looking to her Captain as if she dare not believe it herself without her confirmation.
"It's the Federation!"
"Incoming communications!" said Ming excitedly. "Two of the ships are hailing us!"
"Don't just sit there, put them onscreen!" replied Jameston, a smile spreading across her lips.
The screen flashed, and two bridges appeared, side-by-side. On the right was a bridge much like the one they were standing in now. The various stations were lined with people; in the middle stood a pale man with short, shiny hair, almost as if it had been slicked with some hair jel a bit too often. And on the right, a large chair, larger than any man, was facing away from the screen.
"Hello there," a deep voice rang though the room, and Jumba stood back with disbelief. It was impossible.
"We saw you were having a little trouble," said the man on the right side of the screen.
"And we thought we might as well help you out," said the voice, and as the chair turned around, Jumba's suspicions were confirmed.
Captain Gantu sat in the middle of the left portion of the screen, grinning from eye to eye.