Alarms roared in CIC as Galactica prepared for war.
"Raptor has entered the outer flight deck." Dualla reported as the message came over her headset, "Deck crews are bringing them down now."
"Good. Have Starbuck report here immediately." Cronus replied.
"Second buoy detected on DRADIS colonel, this one from beyond position Sigma." Gaeta shouted. "We are detecting unknown energy surge, attempting to localize!"
"Frak, it's right on top of us." Cronus swore, she snagged the reciever from the main table she stood in front of Gaeta's console holding it, it's cord extended."Give me 1MC.' Dualla nodded, "All hands, maintain condition one, repeat maintain condition one. We have received a second squawk from FTL bouys. We are at Case Hermes, this not a drill."
"Have you localized that energy surge yet?" She asked Gaeta. "My guess is they'll have to slow down to engage."
"Negative Commander, I can't even tell what…" He broke off as new information flashed onto his screen, he looked up at the DRADIS console which suddenly pinged. An icon appeared titled "unknown" "Surge from astern Commander."
"Oh my gods…" Dualla whispered, Cronus drowned her out immediately barking orders.
"Initiate evasive action, Helm, pitch down 80 degrees, roll 80 degrees yaw 60 degrees, full emergency thrust!" The orders issued rapid fire, were for reminders, and had already been drilled repeatedly during weeks of travel were already being executed. It saved the Galactica. The massive ship dove, rolled and spun, it's flight pods suddenly vacating space through which a ball of plasma hurdled even as the behemoth moved.
"Enemy fire confirmed!" Gaeta shouted, "some kind of coherent plasma, yield unknown!"
"Spin FTL one, case red three. Execute." Cronus ordered as she grasped the center table and consulted the chart there, "Stand by for alpha strike, stand by FTL-" the world distorted and then snapped back, "two" she she finished. "DRADIS?"
"Enemy contact is above us, we are at position red 3." Gaeta reported quickly.
"Dorsal batteries, open fire!" Cronus ordered, "attempt time in target in salvos!"
The Galactica having suddenly moved from ahead of the enemy craft to directly below it, unleashed a fiery hurricane if death as the heavy turrets atop it roared to life. Upon analysis of every scrap of footage of the Defiant, analysts had concluded that there was simply no way to overwhelm the energy shields projected by the Starfleet vessel with the ordinance available to the colonial fleet, however, a number of analysts, Gaeta reluctantly among them, had proposed that while Federation energy shields were fully capable of shrugging off a brute force attack in terms of raw power, area disruption was a very real possibility. The principle had fortunately applied to whatever the hostiles were using. Kara's advance warning about energy weapons had inferred, in Cronus' opinion, the likely use of energy shields as well, and what she had hoped would be a confidence in them.
Her gambit paid off. Beset along an entire plane by relatively moderate kinetic impacts and explosive ordinance, the hostile's shields proved incapable of compensating, and the moment of disorientation resulting from not only the sudden appearance of a colonial battle star at point blank range but the jarring impacts of it's weaponry similarly fired at such range was enough. The hostile ship belched flame and the ship suddenly flared brightly, with secondary explosions.
"Possible ordinance detonation, detecting some kind of reactor cook-off!" Gaeta shouted as the Galactica shook. "BRACE-!" but eith a violent lurch the shuddering abated.
"Hostile neutralized." He reported a moment later. Around him people began to cheer.
"Belay that nonsense." Cronus thundered, "Dualla, confirm with engineering that FTL 2 is still hot and ready, tell them to spin up FTL 1 again as soon as can be done safely. Everyone with a pair of eyes, you point them at your screens and watch for any more of those distortions, Mr. Gaeta?" Gaeta looked up, "Would I be correct in assuming that those energy surges were our only warning of a ship closing on us at FTL speedway, in real time?" Gaeta gulped.
"Yes ma'am." He confirmed. Cronus nodded.
"Then this was one ship, people, scout class, likely part of an expeditionary force for whom we have just now confirmed our presence in this system. Stand by to engage more." She signalled to Dualla, "launch FTL relay, to Halo group, and send emergency ping through the subspace relay.
'Hostile contact encountered. Do not advise reinforcement at this time."
There was silence. Suddenly there was a ping, and then another, and then another. Reluctantly all eyes turned to Gaeta.
"Reading… multiple energy surges." Gaeta confirmed.
"Prepare to engage." Cronus announced grimly.
. *.*.
Captain's log, stardate redacted. Per General Order 3, having found ourselves to be in a state of extreme temporal displacement, specific details which could be damaging to our own timeline will be redacted from official logs.
I find myself in command of a collection of individuals associated with the native universe of myself and this vessel, and others. Their timeline has played out differently. We have found no Federation. After as detailed a survey as can be managed with the crew at hand, we have proceeded onward from Vulcan. Commander Saavik was able to identify sufficient fossil record among the planetary debris to postulate that while the planet retained some of its native fauna, at the time of it's destruction, there is no evidence of the evolutionary chain of her people. With similar results evident in the remains of Andor, it has become apparent that before these worlds were destroyed, this reality had already greatly changed from our own. This corresponds to our understanding that the Voth had no records of the Federation, nor it's member worlds. At Lieutenant Ro's request we are proceeding to the site of a stable wormhole, discovered some time in the future, relative to my own, which La'as also maintains, was known to his people. Scattered though they may be, the Voth are the only advanced race of which we are aware, that are not hostile. It is possible that there exists a gateway to their part of space. My only hope is that upon arrival, we aren't met with another graveyard.
"That's the trouble there." Lieutenant Castille said, he and Commander Marcus stood behind Kirk as he leaned cautiously over the catwalk at deflector control. He pulled back suddenly and then with a glance at Samantha and Richard, leaned back down again. Samantha placed a supporting hand at his elbow. Not far below, a portion of the bulkhead showed a ripple of discoloration.
"That kind of distortion looks like evidence of a structural integrity field failure,." Kirk said peering cautiously down, he squatted down, and gripped the rail tightly as he looked. Marcus followed him, stopping herself. Castille looked somewhat taken aback and the sudden change in posture and moved off a bit to maintain eye contact.
"Not a failure exactly but from fractional moments where the material structure is stressed at a microscopic level, beyond its limits," Marcus told him, "The field may be all that holds it together during such a distortion."
"But I've never seen such a large area affected." Kirk stared, he looked over at Marcus "This happened while we were evading the Hirogen?"
"This likely wasn't just due to our use of high warp speeds escaping the Hirogen," Marcus said thoughtfully, " but that has exacerbated structural micro fracturing. The secondary hull is something of a novel design intended to support a more advanced deflector shield, but the structural integrity field isn't compensating for it's unusual profile in the geometry of our warp field. Thanks to Lieutenant Castille's warning, we've been able to spot the stress fractures and reinforce them, but we are looking at massive fundamental flaw in this design." She turned to Kirk, "A few more weeks at high warp speed and we probably would need an extensive overhaul in drydock, and there's nothing like that for us out here."
"That's a hell of a design flaw for a deep space starship." Kirk said bitterly.
"Starfleet hadn't figured it out, in my day." Castille began then paused, "my universe too, I guess I should say.. and after repeated needs for extended repair of the Ambassador, the Challenger and the Enterprise, they changed the designs completely. The secondary hull of my ship was refit extensively, they fixed some of the structural issues but with a significant reduction in warp reactor out put and efficiency." He shooks his head. "Come to think of it, the Ambassador class was largely assigned diplomatic and support missions. We used to complain about the older ships getting all the deep space exploration assignments."
"The Excelsior and Miranda class were continuations of more traditional designs. Ships like the Constellations, and the Oberths tried to integrate the more exotic innovations of the Federations newer members... both classes had fairly well known limitations imposed on them for safety, they must have to do the same for the Ambassadors. until they could sort it all out, reductions in weapons power, shields, system redundancy…"
"All of which could have made a difference at Narendra III." Castille said bitterly. The others looked at where he stood, staring down absently, gripping the catwalk rail himself with white knuckles. With a glance at Marcus Kirk rose slowly and walked over. Castille continued oblivious,
"From what Tasha, and Ro were able to recall, design issues kept cropping up in her universe as well, but predictably enough, according to the database Ro brought back,their Enterprise C wasn't refit as of the battle of Narendra III and was still destroyed with all hands."
Kirk stood beside him quietly.
"Of course we had the chance to take a breather, make repairs, return to the fight, presumably our counterparts had a similar opportunity. "He looked at Kirk. "We never stood a chance Captain, four warbirds against a flawed ship to begin with. There's no universe where we could have won."
'But you did win." Kirk told him, "and what's more you survived." Kirk stood next to the man and carefully placed his hands on the catwalk as well, standing with him.
"I understand it was four warbirds." Kirk told him, "no time for preparation, no Intel going in. Just a plea for help, and a Starfleet crew ready to answer." He looked at Castille. "And if I understand your account, when your captain found herself in a future with the Federation at war with the Klingons, she chose to return to the past, to finish the fight. You men and women gave your lives to save the future, and you won." He turned to Castille, and placed an arm on his shoulder. "You changed the fate of a galaxy son, and it's long past time someone from Starfleet thanked you." He extended a hand.
"There was nothing broken about your ship mister. It's an honor to know that suck a crew carried the legacy of my own, Lieutenant. Thank you."
Castille, bereft of words simply nodded and shook the Captain's hand. Kirk clapped the man"s shoulder as Castille stood straighter, and then turned to Marcus.
"There's nothing broken about us either, understood? Commander Saavik has already been briefed, and my guess is Raven is already well on her way to figuring this out, but this.. design fault... serves a very important function.." He began, "When I assumed command of the Monroe, I found that she was a testbed for a highly classified project. It was built into the first flight of starships in this class, a next generation transwarp drive. It is my belief that the design of this hull is deliberate, and the only reason this class of starship struggles at high warp speeds is because she wasn't designed exclusively for warp at all."
Marcus and Castille exchanged glances.
"Another great experiment?" Marcus raised an eyebrow. Kirk nodded, then grinned a little sheepishly.
"I'm somewhat to blame for that." He admitted. "Following the completion of my first five year mission aboard the Enterprise starfleet was very interested in some of our experiences with warp drive. A mission where we encountered the Kelvans, for example, an intergalactic scouting force. They were able to significantly boost our speed, well beyond design specifications. While ultimately their equipment was responsible for the enhancements It was our hardware that demonstrated the capability." He looked knowingly at Marcus, "and you know engineers. "
"Once we know it's possible, we have to figure out how." She said, " You let the cat out of the bag."
"But there was no way to catch it." Kirk told him. "We knew we could meet much higher levels of speed than Warp theory alone could account for. We also knew that they were doing something with our navigational deflectors to project some sort of triquantum waves and other exotic effects, Mr Scott and Mr Spock worked to reverse engineer some of the process but we just didn't have enough sensor data to go on at the time, and the Kelvans hadn't been particularly interested in explaining what they were doing." He grinned ruefully, "During the course of that mission, our Chief engineer's… memory was significantly impaired."
Marcus raised an eyebrow.
"So Starfleet wanted to duplicate their results but couldn't, at least not with Excelsior, which was an advancement of known, and relative technologies. Castille summarized, then realized,
"and as far as they'd have known, this ship was lost as well." He said thoughtfully
"You think with the loss of the Monroe, maybe Starfleet gave up on that line of developement?"
"Well the engine design and the deflector arrangements here are pretty revolutionary compared to the ships I served on, and I only vaguely recall reports of problems with the class, because by the time it entered service I was assigned to Starfleet intelligence. If this initial design stayed in service longer, those ship's chief engineers might have had a way to minimize at least the structural damage, but as far as the shipwrights?." Marcus spoke up, " Yeah they were going to go back to building ships with proven technology, but that doesn't mean these particular innovations ended here. If there are any notes on these more advanced designs Ro mentioned, like the galaxy class, or Nebula class ships Yar and Ro served on, they may have the ultimate solution, because from what I understand, those ships more successfully incorporated elements of this design, and there is at least a superficial resemblance." She was thinking out loud now.
"My suspicion is that it's either an advancement in materials or structural integrity field technology, so there's got to be a way." Kirk was grinning and she stopped to grin back.
"Now that you know it's possible…" he told her, she nodded, but her expression grew serious.
"That being said, Captain, until we can shore up this hull-" she gestured to the bulkheads beyond them, "We won't be able to make regular use of this ship's top speeds at warp, and I think I may need to know more about this transwarp drive project."
Kirk looked at her sharply, but she continued.
"The Excelsior class was considerably reinforced and featured a much more powerful warp core and deflector array, but as I recall it was subject to many of the same limitations of contemporary warp drive systems, even at full output. The Constellation class hasn't performed much better. The more power you put in, the greater the production fall off at higher speeds, and the more likely you are to damage systems. " Samantha argued, "We're one ship, critically undermanned, it's a big galaxy, and a hostile one. If I don't fully understand this design, as Chief engineer, than we are inviting catastrophe, and I know full well you're going to need the full capabilities of this ship available. Finding a safe harbor could be at best like finding a needle in a haystack."
"Unfortunately there's more to the story, Commander, " Kirk cautioned, "While the Enterprise-A was in drydock preparing for launch, ''the great experiment' did indeed break every speed record in the book, at least by conventional means, and introduced eventual revisions to the warp scale, but it still ultimately failed to meet its goals. It never achieved the results that the old Enterprise was able to reach during our five year mission." Kirk said. "and just few months later, we did it again."
He looked at the others. "Spock had a half brother, Sybok, your.. great uncle, I suppose." He tossed at Marcus, "Sybok developed a new shielding protocol which reinforced our shields against stressors we would encounter in the great barrier, we were also able to reach the center of the galaxy in a very short amount of time from Nimbus III." Castille whistled, "More interestingly, so did a pursuing Klingon bird of Prey." Marcus had a glimmer in her eye. Kirk saw it.
"They followed in your wake?" She asked. Kirk nodded. She nodded to herself as well.
"Evidently Sybok had been in telepathic contact with some sort of advanced entity, it gave him the inspiration to create the unique shield designs and his modifications to the deflector field somehow managed to create a resonant gravitational attraction the the great barrier itself. He had much of the crew under some sort of hypnotic psychic influence at the time, but the sensor logs were mostly intact. We were able to reverse the process to some extent to get home, though not quite as quickly."
"So why aren't we experimenting with this technology?" Castille asked, "In my day, propulsion like that could have won us the war! Reinforcements to systems under siege, rapid resupply, even a strike on Q'onos!"
"Except the Klingon homeworld isn't between Federation space and the galactic Center." Marcus pointed out, "If the effect depends on something like the higher gravitational constant or the tremendous exotic energy output making up the galactic core then at best this is an entire new field of subspace quantum mechanics. " Kirk nodded.
"Essentially correct." He said, "And after completing her trial runs that was the Monroe's mission. The intention was to develop a technology that could build transwarp highways, where greater warp speeds became possible. Based on the briefings In the Monroe's memory banks, Starfleet made a number of test efforts but concluded that to truly explore the technology's capability they would need the power of a starship to do it, particularly, one large enough to potentially travel back at conventional speeds, in the event of only a partial success. The Ambassador class was designed to be the next generation of starship and they were confident enough to include the design needs into the class before the technology was perfected or even field tested on this scale. "
"Captain, they may not have failed this time." Commander Marcus pointed out, "They may have simply overlooked an even greater potential in this drive system, one that could change the way we view the very structure of reality." Kirk was listening so she continued, "It's a good assumption that your ship was able to travel to and from the center of the galaxy, because of the gravitational effect on subspace but it's not necessarily the only explanation and the technology could very much have developed successfully to a point, even with such a flawed assumption. I don't recall anyone ever attempting to contact that entity again?" Kirk shook his head."
"Doubtful. To continue contact, we'd have had to send a ship
" He stated, an irritated look crossed his face. "It was my explicitly stated opinion, and Starfleet concurred, that that being did not need a starship."
Marcus absorbed that. She had briefly considered the possibility of attempting to make contact in this universe, but discarded it, at Kirk's statement.
"So the properties of that entity and it's origin are largely unknown, and having read your report, it's claims of deity and divine power are likely overstated" Marcus pointed out, " but, what if it really was bringing you itself?"
"Or what if it was sitting on top of something that was." Kirk considered, "I've encountered God like beings in the past that replied on advanced technology hidden in every day items, a temple, a scepter, even a mirror… What if this power came from somewhere else?"
"In any event the drive does function, we need to better understand how, because the same properties that brought the ship here, may potentially return it." Samantha observed. Castille was nodding as he understood.
"It may be possible to return to your universe, Tasha's universe." He said. "and with all the evident redecorating here, I'd say that's good enough for me too." but Kirk shook his head.
"This ship," He told them, "didn't travel to this universe, using it's transwarp drive, it became entangled in the Nexus."
Marcus and Castille looked dumbfounded.
"Then how did it get.. here?" Marcus asked.
"Through the aid of some very powerful entities, a Starfleet Captain among them." Kirk told them, then paused, "although he was able to travel here, and as I understand it, was able to send his crew back. He remained behind as part of some kind of bargain but-"
"If it's possible to do, then we may be able to figure out how." Marcus finished, "Captain, we're back where we began, I need full access to our files on transwarp drive. Raven, Lara, Castille, and even Saavik too. It's going to take all of us to even rule out a return home, and we owe it to ourselves to try. You've made us a crew, now we need a mission, and it cannot be simply to survive in the ashes of the civilizations we once knew."
Kirk nodded and turned to think, turning back towards the distorted patch of hull that had brought him here. He faltered slightly as he turned and leaned over the rail restlessly, and then turned abruptly back to the others.
"As my first officer I have already briefed Commander Saavik but as my chief engineer and, as not only my helmsman, but one of the individuals on board most familiar with this class of ship, I am authorizing the two of you to review the material on the project. According to the ship's logs the system uses a unique power source, which is integral to the design of the drive, but once activated, the drive latched onto something other than the galactic center, and they were unable to shut it down. The crew abandoned ship when they realized they were about to be pulled out of their space time continuum, an effect that bears considerable resemblance to something else I encountered during my five year mission."
"The Defiant?" Marcus guessed. Kirk nodded. "I've done my homework on your career."
"Does this mean that it might be possible for us to return to our home universe by reversing what happened to the original crew here?" Castille asked. Marcus and Kirk looked at him, finally Marcus said.
"That seems unwise if not unlikely. This ship's original crew trained for the technology and how to use it and ultimately lost an entire starship. We are barely even manned, their experiment basically proved that we don't understand this technology, or that there are larger forces that affect it both through time, space and higher dimensions."
"One step at a time, Mr. Castille." Kirk told him, "First we need to understand what this technology does, and what the ship was originally designed to do." He turned to Marcus. "given the unlikelihood of redesigning our secondary hull and the challenges in using the trans warp drive as it was intended, we'll need to be cautious." She nodded. "Very well, Mr. Castille, coordinate with Commander Saavik and Commander Marcus to review this further. Commander you are authorized for full security access. Assemble the team you need, and brief them accordingly. Dismissed." Castille acknowledged and moved to the nearby turbo lift.
"Are you alright.. sir?" Marcus asked. Kirk looked distracted, but he shook himself. "Do you need to talk about it? We haven't known each other long, but we are… family."
"The last time I was in a deflector control complex, it didn't work out so well for me." Kirk said sheepishly. "This ship suddenly seems even less prepared for the dangers of space than the last one I was on, and that one very nearly killed me."
"Bridge to Captain Kirk." Saavik voice came over the comm. Kirk started to look for a wall panel then caught himself. He looked towards a fixture in the ceiling. "Deflector Control," the fixture lit up, " Kirk here."
"Captain, we are on course to the system Lieutenant Ro identifies as Major, but we appear to be receiving a subspace distress call."
Kirk gathered himself immediately to reply, then paused. He looked at Marcus. She signed and waved her hand helplessly.
"Understood Commander, increase warp speed to maximum." He ordered, "I'm on my way, Kirk out." He looked at Marcus. "It looks like we've found a mission after all, are we up for it?"
"The damage is already happening." She told him, "I'll have to look at the database that Ro took from the Val Jean and see what Lieutenant Yar knows about this Galaxy class ship, if I can't find something that will address this we will need to conduct some pretty extensive repairs. Be careful with her Captain, she's still a new ship."
Kirk nodded, and turned to go, but Marcus had a thought. "Captain I'd like to put Raven on this too, and possibly La'an. As you said, Raven is already curious about the engine, and as a changeling, La'an seems to have a fundamental grasp of material physics I could never approach, and he's been travelling for a long time. He might have some ideas."
Kirk nodded slowly. "Raven is an easy call, she's yours, La'an.. I suppose I'll have to trust your intuition." He looked up. "Approved. Let's get this girl up to muster."
.*.*.
Through space and twinkling stars, a message echoed. Crackling and distorted, by distance and conditions, at it's origin, a single voice struggling bravely, in the face of despair to hold to duty.
"This is Major Kendra Shaw, of the Pegasus expeditionary fleet, repeating mayday. Gods I don't even know if you can hear this Galactica, but you're our only hope, our signal will never reach home." She stopped and wiped her brow.
"You've been at it for days." The exhausted voice of Billy Kekeiya told her, from where he slumped, though strapped in forward. The two were alone in the battered hull of the Raptor "If anyone were going to answer, they would have."
"There's no way to repeat this on automatic." Kendra told him. "If anyone were trying to answer, they'd need a signal to home in on." She gestured out the view port to the ruined cargo bay of the transport, the Raptor was trapped in, and the tangled mass of equipment connected to the raptor by a cable. "We've got nothing else to work with here." She slapped the bulkhead on frustration, then grabbed it as the motion nearly sent her spinning.
"I've never been weightless for this long." Billy told her, his long lanky frame squeezed into a poorly fitted pilot suit. "Not sure if I'm deydrated, or lightheaded."
"Probably both." Kendra told him. "We probably shouldn't try fracking again, if we want to conserve oxygen and fluids."
"Not sure I have the energy to." Billy told her, "Thanks though."
Kendra rolled her eyes. "As if you did any of the work." After the third day trapped on this wreck, it was the only way to pass the time, but it had gotten old as their strength ebbed, and the lack of access to showers had resulted in- she caught herself before wasting energy on a maniacal chuckle at the pun- mounting regret. "There's nothing to do, other then sending distress calls to the one radio in the galaxy that can receive them."
"If Garner's project works at all." Billy told her. "We were lucky to be on the ship that was carrying it."
"The subspace pulse is supposed to mess with their deflector array, it should have been impossible to ignore." Kendra told him, "But we've got no way to tell if they received it." She moved up next to him, and strapped herself into the pilots seat of the Raptor, sick of floating around. "Luck has nothing to do with us. We're dying slowly."
They stared at the floating debris in the cargo bay, and the portion of spinning stars visible beyond. A blue green mass loomed into view, taunting them. In the gloom she could make out the silouette of a Viper on it's side, one of its wings broken. "The fuel from Talyor's viper will buy us another day at most."
"Or it's our ticket to the surface." Billy pointed out. Shaw shook her head. "I know you're not a pilot, just point us down." He told her.
"That plane has a broken wing." She told Keikaya, "This one has a cannibalized FTL, but has life support, which makes your plan only our last resort, even if we COULD get the Viper out of the launch bay, I doubt I could get us to the ground safely in a working viper, let alone with you on my lap." Billy said nothing. "I could try to search around for more food and water." He remained silent, despondent. Suddenly, before their eyes, three figures in space suits materialized. The one in the center looked around while another pulled out a device and began examining it. The third pointed at the Raptor, as Kendra and Keikaya stared at each other.
"Starfleet?" Billy breathed, "I thought they left!"
"Be glad they fracking didn't." Kendra said as the figures made their way to the Raptor.
. *. *.
"Kirk to Monroe, we are triangulating tricorder readings now, stand by to recieve."
Saavik rose from her chair and moved to the helm, where Castille stood over a fairly apprehensive Octavia Blake, worked the controls in her still crisp cadet uniform. Castille reached over and tapped the controls.
"Just match the roll, and adjust pitch." He told her. "Line the emitter up with the opening, see the crosshairs?"
"You really think this a training opportunity" She hissed, her voice shaking, "People could die! I've only had a week of training, and most of that was running through hallways!"
"Ensign Blake." Saavik had joined them. "For every thing, there is a first time."
"Well let's hope this isn't the first time someone beams the captain in two." Blake muttered, then abashed remembered to add "Sir."
"In point of fact, it would not be." Saavik replied raising an eye brow, "Yet the vast majority of transporta occur without incident, and ultimately, the Captain survived." Octavia started to sputter, Saavik interrupted her.
"Attend to your duties as best you are able, Ms. Blake, and trust your shipmates to attend to theirs. Mr. Castille return to Ops. We are engaged in rescue operations in a potential combat situation. The galaxy is vast, yet we explore it one challenge at a time."
"Yes ma'am." Octavia replied, letting out a breath,"Matching alignment now."
"Lieutenant Ro, continue scanning for other survivors." Saavik ordered.
"Aye aye." Ro replied, she sat at the forward Tactical console, "There are two additional vessels intact in orbit, but no signs in either, the hulk on the surface seems most likely, and additional small craft may have landed on the surface, request course change for orbital scan."
"Acknowledged. Stand by." Saavik moved aft to a science station. She tugged a panel beneath it, a chair emerged and rose. Seating herself, she began working the controls, even as she gave orders.
"Mr. Castille identify positions requested by Lieutenant Ro and transfer them to Ms. Blake.
Helm, adjust course when emergency transport is complete."
Octavia noted a number of navigational icons appearing on her console.
.*.*.
"Get the Frack away from me" Kendra shouted as a beast from her nightmares advanced on her. It's dark bony face and pointed teeth stretched into.. a smile.
"You have fight left in you, despite your ideal." It replied, "I am Antaak, a physician. I will make you well."
"What the Frack is wrong with your face?" Kendra demanded.
"She is a Klingon." A soothing voice explained, "Have your people never encountered another species before?" Kendra almost fainted at discovering that the voice belonged to a green skinned lizard woman, but took comfort in the fact that the human man standing next to her, helping her remove Billy's poorly fit space suit, seemed unconcerned by her appearance. The woman continued, "Felix, use the dermal regenerator, this man has contusions all over himself no doubt from circulatory impairment. "
"Kendra, stop, Worf was a Klingon, remember?" Billy called weakly, but Kendra had already calmed, some what, distracted, as the human made adjustments to a handheld device, and began passing it over Billy's discolored arms.
"You know of… Worf?' Antaak asked drawing Kendra's attention, "His father will be pleased to hear of this, but he is on your ship attempting to search for more survivors." She consulted the device she held and then addressed Shaw dismissively..
"You are dehydrated and exhausted. I can aid you, or you can recover on your own, over time. Though it is not the custom of your people, I encourage the latter
" She glanced at her readings again, "If your child survives it will be all the stronger.'
"My fracking what?"
.*.*
"Kirk to Monroe, we have secured the second ground site and are commensing search." Kirk reported. He stood at a cliff side entrance surrounded by heavy forest marred by a charred path of destruction ending at the wreckage of a space craft. "We've located a space craft identical to the one where we found survivors, two casualties on board, however we have also identified evidence of a firefight, and several more occupants. There's a make shift base camp here as well. Some kind of survey was being conducted."
"Acknowledged landing party. Recovery team reports they have located flight recorder data from the derelict in orbit and are retrieving it now." Saavik replied, "Both survivors are recovering, I will attempt to ascertain what parties were involved in hostilities."
"Understood. We may need them to facilitate contact if we find additional survivors." Kirk replied, "This appears to be some kind of.. religious site, but there's evidence of advanced technology, contained withing some kind of underground complex. Lieutenant Yar is conducting a security sweep."
"Do you require additional personell?" Saavik asked. Kirk looked at La'as standing beside the entrance with him and shrugged.
"If we had them to spare, I'd take them, but we can't afford to have too many people down here without experience." His communicator chirped. "Stand by Monroe." He said, "Kirk here."
"Captain, this is Lieutenant Yar " Yar stated. "We've found debris that seems mechanical in nature, there are several sealed levels down here but I'd say there were safeguards in place specific to whatever chased these people into here. There may be people down here, Captain but before proceeding any further I think we have to understand these defenses."
"Understood Lieutenant." Kirk replied, "Your status?"
Yar continued "Crewman Delos has located what appeared to be tombs, but I'm detecting active energy readings, and there is some kind of holographic interface chamber. Crewman Blake insists he recognizes a symbol adorning the chamber containing them and is requesting Ensign Reyes join us immediately. Captain this may be a historical archive and it's definitely of human origin."
"She's on her way Lieutenant." Kirk answered, "Hold position for now, Kirk out." He switched back, "Monroe do you read?"
"Standing by Captain." Saavik replied.
"Commander, we've definitely stumbled onto something big here." Kirk reported, "But I want to continue surveying other possible sites for survivors. I intend to detail Ensign Reyes, Lieutenant Yar, and Crewman Blake to this site, and lead a team to the primary crash site to make contact." He paused and the continued, "I think we've ascertained something of the nature of what happened here. These people are human, were attacked by superior forces, they're injured, they'll need our help."
"I concur, but I must point out that vessel at the primary crash site is nearly two kilometers in length. Even following it's de-orbit and collision with the seafloor, there is evidence of considerable armament, to say nothing of it's... hardy construction" Kirk nodded.
"To knock something that big out of the sky must take some doing, but having it survive crash landing is incredible." He summarized, "To do so with working armaments.. suggests military."
"And yet though there is clear evidence of air superiority, no ships remain in evidence, even a few days after this attack." Saavik noted.
"Theorize." Kirk ordered. Saavik replied,
"The goal of the agressor was not the destruction of those they attacked." She proposed, "Either they were in search of something specific, and left because they were able to collect it, or they didn't, and are still here, undetectable to us."
"Suggestions, number one?" He asked
"Our former objective was to explore this system and seek access to knowledge, and allies." Saavik replied. "We have avenues available to seek both, though they are not as we anticipated, and further, those we have encountered here appear both familiar with this potential threat, and engaged in a similar mission. I submit that our priority now, must be to render aid.
"Agreed." Kirk replied but Saavik continued,
"Sickbay reports something of an adverse response to nonhuman crew members, but one of the survivors made mention of past interaction with a Starfleet ship. The Defiant."
Kirk absorbed that. "It couldn't be the Defiant from my era " He said finally, "There were no surviving crew," he caught on, "Sisko's people. You suspect they made contact with these people."
"It is quite possible.We have yet to fully debrief the individuals we rescued, yet our mission demands my attention."
"Understood. We've got a lot to do, and we're a bit short handed." Kirk noted. "But despite their unfamiliarity with your people, I want you to conduct the interview."
"I will have Lieutenant Commander Ro assume overall command." Saavik replied. "In the mean time, given the likelihood of a defensive response with a society that does not appear to regularly interact with nonhumans, I would recommend that Maltz and Mogh provide secondary air support, rather than participate in direct first contact. I believe Mr. Delos can provide formidable security, and La'as can attend as a more.. covert support."
"Understood." Kirk replied, "We'll send two shuttles. Approach slowly, and attempt contact."
"Captain there is one more thing of which you must be made aware." Saavik told him, "The subspace signal we encountered was not intended for us. Captain it was directed at Earth and we have just received a response from it as well."
"I take it that's not good news." Kirk replied.
"The message was somewhaf encoded, Captain but I believe it indicates that a party connected to this one is on Earth, and that they are under attack as well."
. *. *.
"There's more to this planet than we ever thought possible." Tigh told Tory , as the icy peaks rushed beneath them. She leaned beside his position in the copilot's seat as Racetrack piloted. A survey team was squeezed into the back behind them and Tory had clambered awkwardly to get where she was."and whatever answered that ring, it came from here."
"I don't even recognize where we are." Tory told him.
"Currently the southern most polar region, our planetary survey team already found evidence that this was once a continent of Earth's Northern hemisphere, which tracks with what Sisko's people told us. DRADIS is picking a mountain chain under here that was once called the Appalachian Mountains, we are using as a land mark." Tigh told her.
"I read the report that an asteroid strike half a million years ago sent the Earth tumbling." Foster replied, "Miles O'Brien put a whole report in about it striking the middle of an ocean and driving a whole continental shelf underneath it's neighbors, but this region would have risen up and flowed over, pushed by the shockwaves but largely protected by the bulk of the planet."
"It should have been heavily populated bedrock a million years ago." Tigh told her, "Part of a nation called the 'United States' until presumably whatever calamity forced then to first settle Kobol. With the shift in the poles the our people wouldn't have been able to do much in this area without a really good reason to, and there really wasn't one, the coastal regions were all the focus of habitation, and there were virtually no signs of terrestrial human habitation here ever recorded. I didn't even know about the base on the fourth planet for Kobol's sake. The one that flew off with Gaius fracking Baltar." He handed a notebook back to her stuffed with maps and printouts.
"So there is a remote possibility that the remains of whatever facility that ring was trying to translate to, is located down here, somewhere, and thanks to the Defiant crew we have not only the technology to detect the signal but the Historical records of where to look." Tory mused, leafing through his note book, "Mount Weather, or Raven Rock, likely candidates?" Tigh nodded.
"As good a guess as any." He answered, "Obviously the surface terrain will have been ground about by glaciers, floods earthquakes and what have you, but if the structure is solid enough, it may be partially intact, and there was an answering signal."
"I've located the crevasse identified from orbit." Edmonds said, "something flooded this whole area at some point but the water's receded. If we come on the valley, it shouldn't be more than a few dozen meters of digging.
"If we disturb it, is there a chance…" Tory didn't know quite how to ask, but Saul had been thinking the same thing.
"Is there a chance it'll carry us off to another world?" He snorted, "that's doubtful. The dispatch Cronus sent us said that there was an ancient base with a newer one built on top, likely after we left this rock. Down here? He crossed his arms looking at the icy wasteland, "No that's older than everything we've found, so far." He pointed, "That's a signal from the dawn of time."
"You know, I have to wonder about that. A space born derelict is one thing." Their pilot Racetrack stated, "but a terrestrial transmitter that is still operational is either very well designed, or very lucky."
"Well you know what they say Ensign." Tigh replied, 'better lucky than good'."
Suddenly the radio crackled.
"Galactica to all stations," Gaeta's voice announced, " We are declaring Case Anubis, repeat we are declaring Case Anubis this is a system wide alert. We have engaged incoming hostile force, and sustained heavy damage. All units, go to ground and await further instructions, we are case Anubis, repeat, case Anubis."
"Frack!" Tigh swore, "Starbuck brought something back with her, I knew I should have stayed put up there." He shoved at Tory "Get back there and strap in." Edmonds was preparing to gain altitude.
"Stop, both of you." Foster told them, shrugging off Tigh's hand. "You know what Case Anubis means, Galactica can't stay. Even if we jumped back now, they're probably already gone."
"Accessing DRADIS relay…" a crewman at the aft console reported, he looked up. "Galactica just jumped Colonel, she's right, we can't catch her. We're reading multiple unidentified bogeys in system."
"Our orders were to go to ground." Racetrack pointed out reluctantly, "We break atmo with nowhere to go, they'll spot us."
"If we land on whatever is trying to talk to that ring, than whatever attacked Galactica will follow us right to it." Tigh pointed out.
"So we shut it off." Tory said, "If it's a facility, or base, we keep it from them. We were here for centuries and never found anything here right?"
"Sir.. it still might be better cover than trying to fly somewhere more hospitable." Racetrack said reluctantly
Tigh turned to the survey team.
"You can dig through a couple dozen meters of rock?" He asked them. They nodded. "Like your Gods-damned life depended on it, then, fine. Take us down towards the signal." he said gruffly. "Then shut it all down, we'll have to hope these mountains camouflage us from whatever's up there."
"Is the Galactica coming back for us sir?" One of the survey team members spoke up.
"Count on it." Tigh replied, "but in the event of a hostile alien encounter, our contingency was to jump out system and signal for reinforcements, which could be weeks if not months away." He looked at the frozen wasteland below. "Let's hope they come soon."
Yeah so, it was a mistake altering the format of the story to scrap the interludes, there are so many intertwining character ideas here, to say nothing of the overall tye in with Delta, that posting this while Star Trek experiences it's latest renaissance is a trip. I have arcs for Wesley Crusher, Lore, Ro, Saavik, Yar, Doctor Moriarty and others that I'd better get out and released before Picard does something with them all.