"Where is the crew?" Bones asked. Jamie was asking herself the same thing. They were on the USS Constellation after picking up a faint and garbled distress signal.
"It's the Constellation's disaster beacon, but that's all I've been able to determine, Captain," Uhura notified her. Chekov turned his chair, "Ve hawe detected heawy subspace interference. Ve vill not be able to notify Starfleet Command." Jamie ordered them to enter system L-370 to find that the seven planets in the system have been reduced to rubble.
They found the same thing in system L-374, debris where there were once healthy planets used to be. All of the systems in the sector have been destroyed except for the two inner planets in L-374. That's where they found their sister ship. The USS Constellation was under the command of Commodore Matt Decker and it was now a powerless wreck, drifting and apparently abandoned. Jamie knew of no natural cause for the planetary destruction and the condition of the Constellation led her to believe that this was the result of an attack.
Chekov's sensor scans showed that the Constellation was running with minimal life support, using up its reserve energy banks. "All zhe power plants are dead, and zhe bridge is uninhabitable. Subspace interference is preventing further sensor readings, as well as any communications beyond the distress signal." He detected no other ships in the area, so Jamie ordered them to yellow alert. She took Scotty, Bones and a damage control team to the transporter room.
The away team beamed aboard the Constellation and started to look around. Scott took the engineers to the engine room while Jamie and Bones looked around. "Captain, the warp core is a total lost and the phaser banks are empty. This ship put up one hell of a fight, lass. The only thing running is the emergency backup power. I might be able to do something about the impulse engines," he told her over the comm.
There was no sign of anyone on the ship, no crew and no bodies; it made Jamie uneasy. She comm'ed over the Enterprise to find out if they beamed down to the surface of a nearby planet but Spock informed her that the planets could not possibly sustain Human life, one was too hot and the other was too toxic.
"Come on, Bones."
He looked at her, "Where we going?"
She slid past him, "Auxiliary bridge. Might be the only place on the ship with answers and I can access the ship's logs from there." Bones nodded and followed her as they make their way through the ship. When they entered the ship's secondary bridge and found Commodore Decker. He seemed to be the only one on the ship. "Commodore… sir. Matt!"
Jamie tried to wake him up while Bones checked him over and injected him with something. The Commodore was a friend of Pike's, so Jamie met him when she was a teenager. She liked the guy, he was one of the handful of senior officers who wasn't a complete asshole to her. While Bones was watching over him, Jamie accessed Decker's logs.
"Captain's log, stardate 2258.87. Exceptionally heavy subspace interference still prevents our contacting Starfleet to inform them of the destroyed solar systems we have encountered. We are now entering system L-374. Science Officer Masada reports the fourth planet seems to be breaking up. We are going to investigate." That sounded like something she would do had she been here.
"Jamie?" Decker was coming around.
"Matt, where's your crew?" she asked.
He looked at her, "On the third planet."
"There is no third planet, sir," Bones told him.
Decker looked at the doctor, "Don't you think I know that? There was, but not anymore!" Decker explained to how his ship was attacked and disabled, unable to contact Starfleet due to the interference, he beamed his crew down to the third planet. As the captain, he was the last man aboard when the ship was attacked again. The transporters were disabled, and he was stranded.
"This attacker, sir, can you describe it for us?" Jamie asked.
He looked at her, "They say there's no devil, Jamie, but there is. Right out of hell, I saw it! That thing destroyed… it destroyed the third planet. My crew… it killed my crew. They begged for me to help them but there was nothing I could do. I couldn't help them. I couldn't…" he collapsed against her in tears and Jamie just held onto the older man. She ordered that the logs and sensor readings be sent over to the Enterprise so that Spock could take a look.
Scotty and his team comm'ed her from engineering, "Captain, Washburn says that the ship's antimatter stores were somehow deactivated." Jamie glanced at Bones.
"Scotty, could a general energy dampening field be responsible for that? Maybe the interference, too?" Jamie asked her chief engineer and waited as Scotty put it together. "
Aye, lass, it's possible, but I cannae think of anything that could generate the field," he told her.
"What did this thing look like?" she asked the commodore.
Decker began describing the being to her, "Miles long, with a maw that could swallow a dozen starships and it used some form of anti-proton beam to carve planets up into rubble. I don't know if it was a ship… or if it was a living organism." Jamie didn't like this one bit. Spock comm'ed over from the Enterprise.
"Captain, according to the data from the Constellation, this 'planet killer' is an automated weapon designed to smash planets and digest the debris for fuel. As long as there are planets to consume, the device is self-sustaining. We have calculated that the being came from outside the galaxy and its projected path will take it through the most densely populated section of our galaxy," her first officer reported.
Jamie really doesn't like this, "Bones, you ever hear of a doomsday machine?"
He shook his head, "No, Jim. I'm a doctor, not a mechanic." Spock speculated that it was a 'bluff' created by an unknown maker and intended as a deterrent.
"It's creators are presumably dead, Captain, we cannot confirm or deny that theory," Spock told her.
Bones looked at her, "Jim, I'm worried about Decker. I wanna take him over to our sickbay." Jamie nodded, the Commodore was slipping back and forth between his authoritarian captain's persona and that of a grief-stricken trauma victim.
"No, this is my ship, Kirk. This is my ship and I'm not leaving," Decker said. Jamie stood in front of him.
"Sir… Matt, there's nothing you can do here. We'll tow the Constellation home but we need to make sure that you're okay; Chris will kill me if I don't. Doctor McCoy is one of the best docs in the fleet. Let him take you over and check you out. I'll stay here and help get the ship prepped for tow."
He nodded, "Okay. Okay." Bones looked at her and called for a beam out from the Enterprise.
She went to join the engineers as soon as they were gone, a moment later, Spock comm'ed her from the her bridge, "Captain, the being has returned and is on a direct course for the Enterprise." Shit.
"Beam us back. Spock… Enterprise, come in." She lost the connection to her ship. Jamie looked at Scotty, who tried to comm over.
"Nothing, lass," the Scot told her.
"Scotty, see what you can do about the impulse engines. Washburn, you're with me. We're gonna fix the viewscreen so that we can see what's going on." She and the engineer ran over the auxiliary bridge and got to work fixing the viewscreen. Jamie didn't like not knowing what was going on. Scotty informed her that they'd have to use the warp control circuits to control the impulse engines, which will make the ship difficult for one person to handle. "You worry about your miracles, Monty and I'll worry about mine."
Once Jamie and Washburn fixed the viewscreen, the first thing that popped up was the Enterprise, approaching dangerously close to the planet killer. The ship fired its phasers and landed direct hits on the planet killer but they weren't having an effect. Jamie attempted to comm them again but she still couldn't get through. She sent Washburn back to engineering and comm'ed her crazy friend, "Scotty, I need that impulse drive."
"You bet your ass, Captain," he said over comm. A few minutes later he was back, "We can move but that's all. Give it a go, lass." Scotty is a miracle worker because he managed to give her some impulse power, which provided them with basic maneuverability just as it pulled her ship into it's tractor beam. Jamie ran from one console to another in order to get the ship moving towards the Enterprise. Jamie's plan was simple, get it's attention away from her ship.
"I wish I had phasers," she informed Scotty.
"You got 'em, lass. I recharged one of the banks." Oh, how she loves that man.
"You know… if I wasn't married, Monty…"
He laughed, "You couldn't keep up with me, lass." Jamie fired at the planet killer, which caused it to release the Enterprise from its tractor beam and come about to pursue the Constellation.
"This is a bad idea," she said to herself.
Scotty came over the comm, "Jamie, we have comms back." She hailed the Enterprise and was surprised by Decker's voice. "Matt, what happened to Spock?" The Commodore informed her that he assumed command of the ship since Spock wouldn't attack the doomsday machine. "You mean to tell me that you're the lunatic who almost got my ship destroyed?" Jamie was not happy, what is with people taking over her ship? She knows that a lot of people didn't think she should be in command but she is and if she leaves someone in the chair, it's because they are the best person for the job at hand. Decker, of all people, should know better. He gave her some crap about regulations but she really was too pissed to listen to his convoluted explanation.
"Get my ship out of here. Spock, I need a status." Jamie doesn't know what took place on her bridge but Spock was the next voice she heard.
"Warp drive out. Deflector shields down. Transporter under repair. We are on emergency impulse power," her first officer informed her.
"How long to repair warp?" she asked. Spock responded that it would take a solar day and they would lose impulse in seven hours, tops. She informed them to take all necessary evasive action when she heard Sulu say that the machine was gaining on them. Decker tried to assert his command authority, again. "Spock, as the commanding officer of that ship, I order you to relieve Decker of command." Jamie was relieved when Spock confirmed that he had command and was plotting an evasive course to rendezvous with her. She punched in the same heading to meet her ship.
"Why are you launching a shuttle?" she asked her first officer a few minutes later.
"Whoever that is, Captain, they were not authorized," the Vulcan told her. Jamie took a breath, she knew it was Decker.
"Matt, come in. I know you can hear me."
After a moment, he responded, "Your first officer made a very valid point: there's no way to blast this thing from the outside. So, I figure, I can shove this shuttle down it's throat." She intended to talk him down but she stopped herself.
"That's it. Commodore, come about and head back to the ship. The shuttle doesn't have enough power for what you're planning to do but I think the Constellation does. Spock fix those transporters and beam out the engineering team on this ship, I have an idea." They've been attacking this thing from the outside but Jamie was sure that it wasn't protected from attacks that happened inside.
"It's too late for me, Jamie," Decker tried to convince her.
She shook her head, "No, it's not. You want to get this thing then listen to me. Your idea, it should work but that craft isn't big enough. It won't do any damage. We both know I'm not the dumb blonde with a lucky streak that everybody thinks I am. I know it hurts, losing people you care about, people you were responsible for but you still have a duty to them. You have a duty to make their sacrifice worth something. It's a fact that I recently had to learn. I'm tired of watching people die when they don't have to, Matt. You don't have to die for nothing; you can get back to my ship and help us destroy this thing." Decker didn't respond but he did turn the shuttle around.
Spock had everybody but Jamie and Scotty beamed back to the Enterprise while the two of them worked to overload the impulse engines. Spock confirmed her math; the ninety-seven-megaton fusion explosion that would result from the overload should be enough to destroy the doomsday machine. Since they can't breach the hull, Jamie was going to trigger the explosion while the Constellation was inside the planet killer. She and Scotty rigged a thirty-second delay trigger for the impulse engine overload, which they could can set off on the bridge.
"Captain, you are venturing to close to the device." Spock came over the comm.
"I know, I'm going to ram this ship down it's throat like Decker was planning to do with the shuttle." Both Spock and Scotty warned her that the transporter wasn't at full functionality.
"You could get trapped over here, lass," the engineer told her. Jamie was well aware of that and she let them know it before sending Scotty back to the Enterprise. He objected, "Oh, no way in hell, lass. If something happens to you, your husband will kill me. Then he'll bring me back so that everybody else can get a turn." Jamie chuckled, that was true.
"I'll be fine, Monty. Go." He reluctantly beamed back to the ship.
When the Constellation was less than five hundred miles away from the thing, Jamie activated the time delay trigger, "Alright, guys. Get me outta here." She was beamed over to the Enterprise and found herself in the transporter room with Scotty and Kyle. Jamie and Scotty ran to the bridge just in time to watch as the doomsday machine exploded. "Sulu, get us out of here."
"Aye, Captain." The helmsman punched in the safest and most power-conserving course out of the system.
"Scotty, get a status on everything and then get some rest." Bones was standing on the bridge next to Decker.
"Jim…" Bones started.
She smiled, "I know, I know… Spock, you have the con."