Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Star Trek TV series, Motion pictures, Novels or Games. They belong to their respective creators and Copyright owners. This story is created with no monetary gain in mind. I make no money from it. It is not to be sold or rented.

Hyperion

=H=

Episode 1: To Boldly go into the future

=H=

Part 1

=H=

Acting Captain's Log

Stardate 96991.17

Memories, they're a strange thing. I can remember being the First Officer of the USS Copernicus, yet those memories are distant, like something that happened years if not decades ago. They're old and fading, yet I could swear they happened not so long ago. Of course, that's not strictly speaking true. As I dictate this log, it is Stardate 96991.17 – decades since I officially died when the Copernicus was lost with all hands covering Admiral Green's retreat.

One moment I was on the bridge, disruptors and torpedoes cutting the ship apart around me. Next thing I know, I stood confined by a force field facing the man I originally knew as Ensign Hunter.

Damn, I'm too sober to even think about temporal mechanics and the consequences of them.

Computer, delete that last sentence…

That's how it really began – I was supposed to get a dump of information straight into my head so I could operate freely in the next century, including all I needed to know corresponding to my rank. That was Hunter's or should I say, Daniel's plan. Then something went wrong. Or perhaps right – if we're all lucky, the temporal cold war he spoke of was now over one way or another. Anyway, I digress. I should have appeared at Spacedock One, as if exiting a holosim and went on with my new life. The same should have been true for the few fellow survivors from the Copernicus.

Instead, a month ago I found myself face first on the deck of a damaged ship from the future. Let me tell you, she wasn't entertained by the snag either…

"Captain, we've got a situation." Hyperion's command AI announced.

Computer, pause and save log.

=H=

Captain's ready room

USS Hyperion

Captain Devin Shran opened his eyes and looked at the holographic image of Hyperion's controlling AI. She was a slim human woman, petite, green eyed and with a shoulder length hair the colour of bright flame. Even in a day and age when appearance was more or less optional, she would be a head-turner if she was of flesh and blood. Or had a working android body.

"The Klingons decided to declare war after that mess at P'Jem?" Shran made an educated guess.

"Not yet. We just received a distress call from the transport SS Azura."

"Put it on screen." Shran ordered.

Hyperion's avatar dissolved in moths of light to be replaced by a holographic window displaying a distorted image of a Bolian female.

"To any ships in range… Dana Broth… of the transport S.S. Azura… Warp Core containment… down… radiation… Please help… communications… life supp… failing…"

"Set course to the Azura, Yellow alert. Can you hail them?"

"Aye, Captain. Paranoid much?" Hyperion asked after her avatar materialized. "There is no response from the Azura."

"You know as well as I do how our first milk run mission turned out."

"Klingons, infiltrators, dead Ambassador, and a shot up monastery..." Hyperion began counting on her fingers. "Perhaps I should make a request to be renamed the Enterprise."

Shran froze at that joke. She was joking, right? "Let's not. We've already run into more than enough trouble." Devin finished off his tea and got up from his desk. "And its Acting Captain, 'Hype."

"You're the only one I'll accept as a commander, Captain. You're the only confirmed Temporal Agent in this time, thus you're my commanding officer."

"And I still don't know how you sold that to Admiral Quinn and the rest of Starfleet's brass." Shran's antennas twitched in grim amusement.

"I merely pointed out that without me, this hull would lose over sixty percent of its capabilities and nowadays, Starfleet isn't in a position to throw away such an asset, the part of the Temporal Prime Directive notwithstanding."

"Don't remind me. Two weeks of non-stop debriefings, two days of downtime, another two weeks of refresher courses and testing..." Shran groaned.

"Then you got to shoot Klingons!" Hyperion brightly pointed out.

"I still want to shoot certain members of Starfleet Intelligence and the JAG corps." Shran shook his head and left the ready room for the bridge.

"Captain on deck!" The pleasant contra-alto of Lieutenant Tarsi Valerra, his acting XO and fellow temporal refugee echoed over the futuristic bridge. She sat at the tactical station in front of the captain's chair, which was in the centre of the bridge.

"I have the con." Shran declared. "As you should be aware, we're diverting to assist the S.S. Azura. It should be a mere accident, however given our luck, especially mine, we're going to assume trouble beyond an engineering failure. At best we'll use this as a training opportunity, at worst, we might just be ready for whatever the galaxy is ready to throw at us." Shran stated. "Engineering, status?" He asked and sat in his chair.

Hyperion helpfully provided a holographic window showing Skarvin's bearded face down in Engineering. The Tellarite was the second of the three officers who survived the Copernicus' destruction thanks to Daniels.

"Everything's in order, duh." Skarvin scowled. "Our girl's brand new and what little damage we took above P'Jem has been repaired for over a day now. I'm just running regular maintenance drills and training the scrubs so they don't break something that's working."

"Cheerful as ever I see. Do carry on." Shran nodded at his friend and Hyperion closed the connection. "T'Met, anything on sensors?" He addressed his Science officer and the last officer to survive from his time. She was all right, for a Vulcan, rather easy on the eyes, which kind of helped. Nothing like the new Chief of Security, Rurvet that Starfleet Intelligence stuck on his ship.

"Only freighters moving on the usual trade lanes. No anomalies in range, nor do we have any sign of cloaked ships." She added pointedly.

What happened above P'Jem was embarrassing. Granted, no one really had a reason to suspect that a group of Klingon Birds of Prey and a cruiser could have sneaked so deep within the Federation undetected and even Hyperion's advanced sensors had to look for cloaked ships to notice them. Of course, there was also the little disturbing fact that the general tech level of this era was more advanced than both Shran's new memories and Hyperion's databanks indicated. Advanced enough, that the Paladin battlecruiser while a very powerful ship was far from an unstoppable juggernaut against the usual suspects. It didn't help that whatever sent them in this time the way they were significantly damaged the ship up to the point that a lot of equipment had to be replaced with components that were more or less standard for Starfleet vessels of this era. On the bright side, R&D was busy going over the wrecked tech and everyone should be receiving upgrades across the board sooner rather than later.

"I said it above P'Jem, I'll say it again, I want us constantly running scans for cloaked ships, no matter where we are. In fact, make this a SOP." Shran ordered.

"I agree, Captain." Tarsi shot from her console.

"I've logged it in, sir." Hyperion added. "ETA to the Azura's location – ten minutes at maximum Warp."

"Lieutenant Rurvet, I want a full boarding party ready for deployment – security, engineers and medical personnel. Have the EMS spin out and the Med Bay ready, post security in there just in case too."

"Paranoid much, sir?" Tarsi asked.

"Merely cautious. I don't trust our luck. Do you?"

"Hell, no!"

With his staff busy carrying out his order, Shran relaxed back in his chair and observed the bridge. Not for the first time he had to admit that the blue and grey tones were soothing and reminded him of the frozen fields of Andoria. He liked this colour scheme more than both that of his Starfleet back in the day and what he saw as standard these days. His gaze flickered to the seats of his subordinates - in the Hyperion there were no stations except a few in Engineering and medical where people were required to stand. Instead, everyone had a seat securely bolted to the floor complete with a shock harness – a standard that has happened after the multiple conflict and all out wars the Federation would be fighting in this era.

Speaking about fighting, a few minutes later, Tarsi's head snapped up.

"Captain, we're detecting energy discharges from Azura's general location. It's weapon's fire."

"Red Alert. Inform Satrfleet we're going in hostile situation. Chief Rurvet, I want security teams both ready for transport and deployed at critical locations across this ship. Tarsi, continue to monitor the situation as we approach. What are we looking at?"

"I'm running comparison of the weapon fire with what we have on record… I believe there are Orion Raiders after the transport, sir." Hyperion stated.

"Pirates and slavers then." Shran grimaced. To think that the Orions were still up to their old tricks in this day and age...

=H=

Soon, the Hyperion dropped out of Warp at the edge of a desolate and unremarkable star system a few light years from Earth. The place was nothing of real use and didn't warrant even a real name – merely a designation that if someone didn't know better would assume it was a random string of numbers and letters. The Azura had dropped out of Warp in the outer system's asteroid belt – probably a last ditch attempt to buy time or even lose the pursuers among the asteroids.

"We've got short range distress call – clearing it up now..." Tarsi reported.

"Put it on the main screen." Said screen split in two moments later – on the left it showed the same Bolian woman who sent the original distress call and the other half continued to display tactical view of the surrounding area. So far there were at least two light craft attacking the transport. Interference from the battle and the asteroids could be masking more.

"Please help! We're being pursued by Orion Raiders… crew injured… we're talking heavy weapons fire..." The transmission fizzled out.

"They're being jammed." T'Met reported. "We'll need to get closer to burn through it. I'm implementing counter-measures against standard Orion ECM."

"Good work. Helm, bring us in. Hyperion, Offensive Configuration. Engineering, run constant shield re-modulation. Tactical, weapons hot and I want overcharged torpedoes loaded and ready for launch."

The Hyperion darted through the asteroid field and as she approached the pirates it soon became clear that there were four of them – two were busy hammering the transport that was desperately trying to flee while two more kept back and flew on overwatch. That by itself rang alarm bells in Shran's mind – this was too much discipline for your typical raiders. On the other hand, the scans of their ships were conclusive – despite the ECM it was obvious that they were old light corvettes of the type that have been in service long before Shran joined Starfleet. Even the four of them shouldn't be a match for a standard Starfleet cruiser of this era, much less a Paladin.

"Comms, hail the pirates and politely ask them to stand down, deactivate their weapons, bring down their shields and prepare to be boarded. Tactical, designate hostiles Raider One through four."

"Aye, sir." The youngest member of his bridge crew, a young human woman, nodded eagerly and relayed his demands to the raiders. "No response, sir."

Meanwhile, the tactical plot refreshed showing the newly designated enemy ships.

"Their funeral. Helm, we're going after the two corvettes on overwatch first. Full Alpha strike on Raider One. As we overtake Raider Two, shunt reserve power into the phasers and hammer it. Attack Pattern Beta One."

The two corvettes on defence duty managed to just begin turning around once they detected the Hyperion when the cruiser entered its effective weapons range at full impulse before suddenly decelerating. Phasers lanced at the closest enemy ships and by the time a pair of photon torpedoes struggling to contain their anti-matter loads launched and could reach it, the corvette was exposed to their unexisting mercy. The projectiles smashed into polarized hull and detonated with megatons of nuclear fury.

"Raider One is gone, sir. Tarsi reported. "Shunting reserve energy into forward phaser banks and engaging Raider Two."

The second Orion corvette lost its shields with the first salvo and the second cut into it like a hot knife through butter. A moment later that ship vanished in the heart of an anti-mater explosion.

"Raider Two is gone as well. We hit its Warp Core."

"That was an overkill. Comms, hail the remaining Raiders and demand their surrender. Tactical, if they haven't surrendered in fifteen seconds or if they continue to shoot at the transport, take them out." Shran ordered coldly.

"Still no response."

"Raiders Three and Four are turning to face us. The Azura just cut off all acceleration and it is venting air and plasma."

"Tactical, fire at will."

Raider Three met the fate of its first two consorts – phasers depleted her shields and two torpedoes erased her from existence. Four was luckier – now that Tarsi was more familiar with how much damage one of those old ships could take, she managed to leave it drifting through space after a deft application of precise phaser fire.

"Chief Rurvet, I want boarding parties to secure the disabled Raider, get any survivors either in the brig or Medical as appropriate and scrub their computers of anything useful. T'Met, can we contact the Azura?"

"Negative, sir. Their power levels are rapidly failing, there is radiation all over the ship and as far as I can tell, they will soon lose containment of the Warp Core."

"Transporter room, can you beam up the survivors from the Azura?"

"Only a few, sir. There is too much radiation related interference."

"Get rescue party and security to the shuttle bay. Beam up any survivor you can and transport me to the Armoury. Lieutenant Valerra, you have the ship. Chief Rurvet, you are in charge of boarding and securing the crippled Raider. Chief Engineer, report to the Shuttle bay after gearing up for hostile deployment." Shran issued a string of orders.