[ Act One ]

“Captain’s log, stardate 88260.2.

We’ve delivered the provided 3,000 metric tons of emergency supplies to the colony on Szaris III-A. While the people are certainly thankful for everything we brought, it’s not nearly enough and the colony is effectively destroyed. Ghalon Marrik, the new provisional governor, reported over 18,000 dead according to the latest sensor readings and medical reports.

I’ve relayed his request for evacuation to Starfleet Command five hours ago and am still waiting for a response. I only hope SC is taking so long to answer because they’re trying to organize more ships. There are still over 80,000 people in the colony, or what remains of it.

In preparation for the expected evacuation, I’ve ordered the Sidereal to make available any space possible. Lieutenant M’Tiras is organizing the conversion of all free areas into temporary bunks, and Lieutenant Commander Heisenberg has organized the crew to move into shared quarters to free up more rooms for evacuees. The crew is reacting to the situation with the passion and professionalism I learned they were willing to give. Hundreds of the crew volunteered and are working overtime and additional shifts, especially members of the engineering and medical departments.

Secondary explosions in the uridium deposits inside the planet’s crust are causing additional earth quakes and volcanic eruptions that further complicate the rescue operations. It appears that the initial accident ignited some underground ore veins, which are now burning through the crust like fuses between powder kegs.

We still don’t know what caused the colony’s fusion reactor to go critical, since the used model had an excellent track record of safety and stability. Any investigation will prove to be extremely difficult, since the power plant has been reduced to a smoldering crater by the explosion.

Lieutenant Commander Lebedeva and her engineers deployed addition ground probes to give the people on the surface more warning time from aftershocks, and to help us isolate the ignited veins. Ensign Arsiv is working on a way to stop the secondary explosions from propagating further. The main contributing factor appears to be that the ground between uridium pockets contains trace amounts of dilithium lattices, which convert heat into kinetic and electrical energy, which then ignites the uridium, which in turn produces more heat to agitate the next lattice.

We’re trying to adapt the solution the Enterprise-D used at stardate 42741 to solve a similar issue at Drema IV. However, so far, our attempts have not been successful, since the lattices on Szaris III-A are not large enough to be susceptible to a large-scale resonance pulse. Ensign Arsiv has also suggested to use the ship’s phasers to destroy the inter-pocket dilithium deposits, carving out a safe area like a fire break to interrupt the chain reaction.

However, this would cause significant additional damage to the continent’s tectonic plate, and our simulations can’t foresee the geological consequences of this approach. For now, I’ve decided not to implement the fire break plan, since the after effects could make the situation for the people in the colony even worse. We’ll continue working on other solutions while waiting for a response from SC.

End log.”

Sina sighed heavily and slumped back into the chair in her ready room. It’s been a long day since they arrived at Szaris III-A, and she was pushing already over nineteen hours on duty. She would have never expected the situation to be this bad, and if she’d known beforehand what awaited her and her crew, she’d have gotten here much faster with much more supplies. The assignment simply read “transport of emergency supplies and provision of relief effort to colony after reactor failure,” but nowhere did it say the planet was basically blowing up under the colonists’ feet.

The young Romulan woman closed her eyes and rubbed her temples while taking a deep breath. She was feeling tired, exhausted, but most of all frustrated. It gnawed on her that she couldn’t do more to help the people on the planet. It seems that Ensign Arsiv’s fire break plan was their best shot, but they didn’t know if it wouldn’t make things worse. She knew she would have to let her crew do the work, but it wasn’t easy for her to let go.

Sina ran her fingers through her hair, feeling the length of the thick black and dark blue strands, as she tried to tame the mane back into her signature shoulder-length pony tail. Once she had secured her hair, she opened her eyes and rose from her chair. She picked up the PADD from the desk before walking over to the replicator console. While she contemplated what she would order, her blue left eye and green right eye wandered over the device’s interface.

Eventually, Sina requested a drink that had the necessary punch to keep her going for a little more, while not tasting too terrible. She had eventually acquired quite a taste for it, after being dared into drinking it three years ago onboard the Hierophant. “Vulcan mocha, extra strong, extra sweet, two ground cubes of ice, ten degrees centigrade.”

While waiting for the pale blue swirl of energy to form into a tall glass filled with the dark creamy liquid, Sina stretched her back and shoulders, trying to surpass her normal height of one meter and seventy-four centimeters. Her athletic and well-toned body slightly shifted from one foot to the other as she moved her hands as high as she could, grasping at an invisible target far above her head. After a few more moments, the Romulan’s arms fell back to her side, and she pulled her uniform back into place before reaching for her drink.

She grabbed the cool glass and took a long sip. The chilled creamy liquid easily ran down her throat and sent a welcome shiver through her body. It took only a few moments for the sugar and caffeine to work their way into her blood. Sina quickly started feeling more awake and refreshed but knew that it would only buy her another hour, at most two, before she would really need to check out. She kept drinking and emptied the glass in a few large gulps.

With a satisfied sigh, she placed the now empty glass back on the replicator’s surface and dissolved it with the press of a button before heading towards the door leading back to the bridge. The doors opened with their well-known swoosh, and Sina returned to the bridge. The Sidereal’s command center followed the same layout as the well-known Sovereign class’s, making it one of the more comfortable and practical bridge designs currently in service. Immediately five heads rose and turned to face her.

When Sina hadn’t given any new orders to anyone after a long and silent moment, the heads went down again and continued with their work and their captain proceeded to her chair. The first officer, Lieutenant Commander Niko Heisenberg, was sitting in his chair, occupied with his PADD. The device seemed almost delicate in his hands, and his one meter and eighty-four centimeters tall muscular form filled out the chair almost completely.

Hearing his commanding officer approach, Niko looked up and nodded at Sina as she sat on the captain’s chair. The German officer with short cut dark blonde hair cleared his throat to report what happened since she had left for her ready room twenty minutes ago.

“The preparations are coming along as planned, captain. The crew has finished moving into shared quarters, which gives us a total of about 230 additional rooms. I also just got word from Shori that the holodeck and all holosuites have been converted, as well as all the free cargo bays. The hangar deck will take four more hours. We’ll not quite make it to the official evac limit, but we’ll get close enough. Once everything is done, we’ll be able to pick up about 3,700 evacuees.”

Sina nodded and sighed. “3,700 isn’t-”

“I know it doesn’t seem much, but it’s the best we can do,” Niko interrupted her, knowing exactly what his captain was going to say. His CO hadn’t been in the best mood since they arrived at Szaris III-A and getting overly pessimistic won’t be of much help anyway. “And I’m sure Starfleet will send more ships. SC can be a bit weird sometimes, but I’m sure they’ll not expect an Akira class to evacuate a whole colony.”

“Yes, you’re right. It’s just that…” Sina lifted her right hand in a frustrated gesture, only to drop it on her thigh again before she went on. “…this day’s been a hot mess since the moment we got here. First the mission briefing that turned out to be incomplete or outright wrong in all the important details, then the earthquake that almost killed Visra’s landing party four hours ago, now the delay getting a decisive answer from SC. And it’s so frustrating that we can’t do more right now.”

Niko turned his chair to face the captain. “Sina, I’m right there with you, but for the moment we’ve done what we can. This situation is not something we can brute force our way through, and we need help with this one. We must wait for the ground probes’ sensor data and let Visra and Nadya figure something out. The away teams are providing whatever help they can, and we’re beaming up the critical medical cases to treat them onboard. You won’t make things move any faster by pumping yourself full of energy boosters or caffeine or whatever, just to then collapse an hour later.”

He smirked at Sina and continued. “You’re already around fifteen hours past the end of your shift, and I’m sure there’s a Starfleet regulation about that somewhere…”

The Romulan woman raised an eyebrow and looked at her executive officer. Once she saw Niko’s wry smile and the mischievous sparkle in his brown eyes, she knew he had pulled out his dry and slightly sarcastic humor. But she also knew that he was right, and that further discussions would lead nowhere. “I know, I know,” she mumbled in not quite but almost defeated tone, and after a few more moments got up from her chair. “Guess I’ll have to go and take a break before you pull out the rulebook on me,” she responded with a smile of her own.

“Guess so…,” The Lieutenant Commander grinned and stood, moving next to the captain’s chair. “Don’t worry, the moment we get a response from Starfleet Command, or anything happens on the planet, I’ll let you know. I expect to see you well rested in, hmm, at least ten hours.”

Sina returned the smile and stood from her chair. She handed Niko the PADD and stepped away from the central seat. “Lieutenant Commander, you have the bridge. See you tomorrow.” She then turned and headed for the turbolift, while her fellow officers wished her a good night.

After she had stepped into the turbolift, Sina leaned her back against the wall for a moment. “Computer, deck four, starboard section.” The cabin acknowledged her command with a soft chirp and the lift swiftly carried her away from the bridge module, bringing her closer to her home away from home on the deck below. The lift came to a soft halt only a few seconds later, and Sina left the vehicle, quickly closing the few remaining meters to her quarters.

Once inside, Sina let out a deep sigh as the tensions of the last twenty-four hours started to gradually fade away. For the next couple of hours, she was free, and Niko and the rest of the crew would take care of business. She walked towards her bedroom, rubbing her fingers up and down the frontal seam of her Odyssey code uniform jacket to activate the well-integrated and almost invisible bioelectric zipper. The black jacket with the white shoulder parts and the stripe with the typical Command division red effortlessly opened and easily came off the Romulan’s shoulders.

“Computer, lights on, thirty percent brightness,” she said as she entered her bedroom. Instantly a subdued warm yellow-white light filled the room, making the hand-crafted daggers on their stands glimmer weakly and cast diffuse jagged shadows across the walls. Sina threw her jacket onto the bed and kicked off her shoes, then stripped out of the rest of her uniform. Wearing only her dark gray undergarments, the young Romulan strode into the bathroom, looking forward to a long hot shower.

Half an hour later, the young Commander returned, wrapped in a long pale blue Starfleet issue terrycloth bathrobe. She could feel how the effects of her sugar and caffeine cocktail from earlier was already losing effectiveness, manifesting itself in a hearty drawn-out yawn. She fetched a PADD from a dresser on her way into the living area of her quarters and dropped onto one of the recliners. Sina lazily tapped away at the device’s interface and brought up the latest letter from her adoptive mother Neila Gallagher.

Contrary to what many people thought, the opportunities for face-to-face communication with your loved ones was often quite rare. The list of reasons was quite long and included busy schedules for either party, time zone differences between sender and receiver, stellar phenomena interrupting subspace communication, system maintenance on either end, limited available channels during emergency situations, and a whole slew of other complications. This meant that most of the time, starship crews would receive and send recordings or letters, which were easier to arrange and transmit than life feeds.

Sina had received the letter four days ago, while they were loading the emergency supplies for the colony from Starbase 84. The last time she had seen her mother in person was over a year ago. Sina had been terribly busy since she assumed command of the Sidereal ten months ago, and her assignments left her little chance to return home whenever she liked. Looking at the pictures and video snippets attached to the letter managed to bring a happy smile to her face. Her mother had gotten a Labrador puppy, and the small black dog was the cutest thing Sina had seen in months.

Remembering her last visit home, the young Romulan hoped that she would someday soon be able to somehow justify a visit back to Earth. She wanted so badly to cuddle and play with the tipsy puppy, who was still stumbling over his own paws, but also to hug her mother. It tugged heavy on Sina’s heart reading in the letter how much Neila missed her. She knew that she should pay more attention to her mother, since time was a merciless killer and Neila wasn’t getting younger.

With a sad sigh she took one last look at a recording of the Labrador diving into a pile of toys, and then switched off the PADD. Eventually the Vulcan mocha wore off, and the young woman’s thoughts became more tired and more sluggish by the minute. She yawned again, and rose from the arm chair, leaving the data device behind. Sina shuffled into the bedroom, changed into her nightgown, and crawled under the covers. “Computer, lights off,” she ordered and was asleep before she had turned around a second time.

[ Act Two ]

Captain D’raxis stepped off the turbolift and entered the bridge. She had slept for almost sixteen hours straight and felt quite guilty coming back only so late. She noticed that the bridge was quite empty. From her alpha shift only Rel and Duncan where here, and conn was manned by Ensign Soriz, a male Vulcan from beta shift. Lieutenant Neirrek sat in the central chair and studied the tectonic display shown on the main view screen. Upon hearing the lift doors opening, he turned around, and immediately rose from the seat and handed over command to the CO. “Good day, Commander. Captain has the bridge.”

Sina smiled and nodded, responding in kind before taking the captain’s chair. “Captain has the bridge. Good morning everyone, sorry I’m late. I hopelessly overslept. Where’s the rest?” She asked, raising an eyebrow and gesturing at the empty stations.

“Lieutenant Commander Heisenberg is on the planet, together with Ensign Yamada and Ensign Arsiv. They wanted to discuss a plan with governor Marrik that could significantly reduce the tectonic activity on the continent. Apparently, Ensign Arsiv found a way to improve her idea of using the ship’s weapons to a degree that has much fewer side effects.”

Rel moved to his tactical station and grabbed a PADD from the top of his console, before returning to the CO. “They left three hours ago. Niko didn’t want to wake you, since nothing has been decided yet. But I’ve got the updated suggestion here for your review.”

“Thank you, Rel.” Sina took the data device, and started reading through the document. As she kept scrolling through the PADD’s data, it seemed that Visra had refined her calculations to the point, where it became apparent that the Sidereal’s main weapons were not suited for the task. But apparently the phasers of a Peregrine attack fighter could deliver the adequate firepower with the required precision.

The ship did carry ten attack fighters, and it seemed Ensign Arsiv’s new plan was to use them to simultaneously make precision strikes on multiple dilithium deposits at the same time to interrupt the chain reaction. Sina checked the suggested flight plans on the PADD. The plan was to utilize the fighters ahead of the dilithium-uridium chain reaction and use their phasers to drill into the tectonic plate to vaporize the dilithium lattices to create a fire break.

Visra had identified seven locations which would be perfect to stop the reaction, but they had to act within the next eight hours or the explosions would pass those choke points. The risk was still high, as two of the coordinates were right on top of a tectonic fault line only 2,400 kilometers away from the colony. The Alusi scientist had calculated a seventeen percent chance of the continent breaking at that line.

Now Sina understood why Niko went ahead and started discussions with the governor immediately without waiting for her. And she found he was right to do so. If the tectonic plate broke, it would release an earthquake of at least magnitude ten. That would be devastating to the colony. But weeks, possible months or even years of continuous earthquakes and volcanic eruptions weren’t much better either, considering their side effects.

Sina was deep in thoughts, contemplating one option over the other, when suddenly the bridge’s comms chirped. “Heisenberg to Sidereal. We have the green light from the governor. Rel, can you inform the captain?”

The Romulan smirked and answered before the Cardassian officer could do so. “That won’t be necessary, Niko. I’m here and already checked the new plan with the attack fighters. What’s your status?”

“Ah, good to hear you’re back. Hope you had a good night.” Niko quipped, before reporting on the colony’s decision. “Governor Marrik and the colonial council gave us the go for our new plan. While they’re not too keen on the seventeen percent chance of the continent cracking in two, they are even less optimistic about the tectonic activity subsiding on its own. If it works, and the crust stabilizes, they’ll stay in the colony. If it fails, or simply doesn’t work, we’re still prepared to start the evacuation.”

“I see. If I read the report correctly, we have at most eight hours to get it done, right?”

“That is correct. But we should be able to pull it off. Visra has already calculated the exact coordinates for all strikes, and we have enough fighters to cover them all. Since Noriko is certified on the Peregrine fighter, I had her attend the meeting to decide how to best handle it. Turns out that the required angles of attack are no problem for the fighters.”

Sina nodded with a sense of pride filling her at her officers’ solution. They had done a good job, and it made her feel a little less guilty of not being always with them. “Good. What about the colonists? Even with the failure risk relatively low, they can’t stay in the colony. If the tectonic plate breaks, the resulting earthquake would flatten every single building down there.”

“We know. And Marrik and his people are already preparing a relocation. There’s a stable plateau about five shuttle minutes from the colony. The colonists are already reconfiguring everything that flies into a personal transport. If we help with all our shuttles and ignore the passenger limits, we can fully evacuate the colony in less than six hours. That gives us two hours to stop the chain reaction.”

“Understood. I’ll have the shuttles prepared asap and sent planet-side. Is there anything else you need?” Sina asked, carefully optimistic that they could still save the colony.

“Could you replicate a giant portion of luck?” Came through the comm, and the bridge crew could clearly hear the sarcasm Niko used to cover up his nervousness. “But no, the shuttles and the fighters will be enough. That’s all for now, I’ll call again when we’re done with the evac. Heisenberg out.”

Barely had the channel to the planet closed when Sina already called the hangar deck, trying to remember who the deck boss on duty was during alpha shift. “Bridge to hangar deck. Lieutenant Monroe?”

“Yes captain, Monroe here. What can I do for you?” Came the Human lieutenant’s response.

“I need all shuttles, and I really mean all, reconfigured for maximum passenger capacity and launch ready asap. And switch off the overloading warnings. We must help relocate the colonists before we can try to stabilize the planet, and they don’t have quite enough capacity to do it themselves. I need this to be top priority for you and your team right now. Start with the Runabouts and the Argos and send them immediately to Lieutenant Commander Heisenberg’s location as they get ready.”

“Understood captain. We’ll need…” Sina could hear some brief shouts and calls in the background, before Monroe finished his response. “We’ll need about twenty minutes. Anything else?”

“Yes. In about five to six hours we need the attack fighters. Standard load-out, and double check that the phaser emitters are capable of delivering maximum power.”

“Understood. I’ll report when the shuttles and Peregrines are ready. Monroe out.”

Sina let out a sigh and sank back on her chair. The pressure of the situation was weighing down heavily upon her. She knew that the rest of her officers weren’t doing any better, with over 80,000 lives depending on their actions and decisions in the next eight hours. The Romulan pressed some buttons on the PADD to query the log entries from seventeen hours ago and started reading what had happened in the meantime. She was so buried in the reports that she jumped a little when the comms came on eighteen minutes later.

“Monroe to bridge. All shuttles have been reconfigured and we’re launching the last ones now.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant. Good job!”

“No problem, captain. We’ll start with the fighters now and keep them all ready on standby in case you need them earlier. Monroe out.”

Sina was proud of her people. The estimation of twenty minutes for twenty-five craft had seemed overly optimistic to her, but the hangar crew had even managed to beat that by two minutes. She knew how much she was asking from them right now, and that many members of medical and engineering were already working overtime. But she also knew that they were doing this because of their unwavering dedication and passion. The crew had seen images of the crater, and the destruction going on on the planet. They tried their hardest to help in any way they could.

“Sidereal to Heisenberg. We’ve just launched the last of the shuttles. How’s your situation?” Sina inquired, hoping for some good news from the colony.

“The Runabouts are already loading up their second groups, and the Argos are on their way back from the first run. The relocation’s coming along okay, but the people here are exhausted and terrified. For now, they cooperate and are relatively peaceful and organized, but I don’t know how much more they can take. We can only hope our plan works. Noriko has taken over one of the Runabouts, and Visra will be returning to the ship any minute now to make some last refinements to the coordinates and required phaser configuration.”

“Understood Niko. Keep me updated on any changes. Godspeed. Sidereal out.”

Captain D’raxis was making a mental note to make up for the stress and pressure of the situation in the upcoming weeks once their duties had returned to a more relaxed schedule again. She’d probably suggest shuffling the duty rosters a little to give everyone some more time off and increase the holodeck quotas. She could also check to get some time planet-side the next time they were a little closer to a Federation core world.

Sina went to her ready room to make a supplemental log entry, when another call came through. It was Duncan, informing her of an incoming subspace transmission. “Clark to D’raxis. Captain, we’re receiving an incoming transmission from Starfleet Command. It’s Vice Admiral Leonard Horner.”

“Thanks Duncan. I’ll take the call in my ready room, just patch him through.”

The comm channel closed and was replaced by SC’s logo on the large wall mounted display in the ready room. It took a few moments for the security details between the Sidereal and Starfleet HQ being negotiated, but once the subspace channel’s encryption was established the logo faded, and the Vice Admiral appeared.

“Commander D’raxis.” The elderly Human flag officer nodded slightly. The man looked sincere and a little intimidating, with his completely bald head, his neatly trimmed white beard, and his steel blue eyes that were still full of wit and knowledge. “I apologize for the delayed response. Hope it didn’t cause too many problems? How’s the colony’s situation?”

“No, Vice Admiral.” Sina replied, standing in front the display to show her respect to the superior officer.

“But the earthquakes and volcanic eruptions still continue. The chain reaction is ongoing, but our science officer, Ensign Arsiv, devised a plan to stop it. We will try using our attack fighters’ phasers to penetrate the crust and destroy the dilithium deposits in the continental plates. Using the Peregrines instead of the Sidereal gives us significantly more precision, and a greatly reduced risk of failure. Still, there’s a seventeen percent chance of the continental plate breaking apart during the operation, so we’re currently relocating all colonists to a save area that could survive this event.”

“I see. We greatly appreciate your efforts and dedication, Commander, but the SCE has reviewed your plan and deemed it too risky. If the plates should break, the colony’s ecosystem would deteriorate faster than we could work against it. In agreement with Admiral T’Pel and Fleet Captain Dotur we decided to evacuate the colony. However, there has been a recent development that requires the Sidereal to return to Starbase 84 as soon as possi-”

“What?!” The Commander interrupted the Vice Admiral, suddenly feeling personally challenged on her morality. “With all due respect sir, but what the hell?! Are you seriously asking us to abandon those people?”

“I understand how much stress this situation must be for you and your people, but please let’s not forget the proper protocol. No, we’re not abandoning the colonists. Haven’t you been contacted yet for the mission handover?” Vice Admiral Horner asked, the minor annoyance about Sina’s interruption and outburst clearly audible in his voice.

The Romulan took a deep breath and uttered a sincere apology. “My apologies, Vice Admiral. It’s just been two exhausting days. No, we haven’t heard of any replacement yet. What’s the deal with that, Sir?”

“I fully understand Commander, believe me. The Sidereal will return to Starbase 84, and the Aventine and Hypatia will take over the evacuation. They should arrive at Szaris III-A in less than ten hours if my information is correct. It all just came together on short notice, and I’ve basically called you just out of the meeting, so that’s probably why the communication’s been a little messed up.” Flag officer Horner explained, visibly relaxing after Sina’s apology.

“Understood.” The Romulan Commander acknowledged, mentally recalling what she knew about those ships. They both belonged to the Vesta class, state-of-the-art vessels filled with bleeding edge technology, including a quantum slipstream drive. Those ships could probably fully evacuate the colony before the Sidereal had completed one trip. “Vice Admiral, I really appreciate that SC dispatched those two ships to help the colonists. But what is the Sidereal needed for at Starbase 84, Sir?”

The elderly Human grabbed a PADD from outside the screen and pressed a few buttons to bring up the information. “During a border skirmish with the Tholians, the Kepler suffered critical damage. She survived the skirmish, but her condition is so bad that it doesn’t make sense to put her up for retrofit any more. She’s basically a full loss, and the time and material spent on repairing her would be wasted.”

He put away the device again and continued, visibly frustrated about the ship’s loss. “Even if we put in the effort to repair this over sixty years old Nebula, she would still miss her appointed upgrade slot at the San Francisco Yards. But the Sidereal would be a good substitute for the slot, and we would hate to waste that opportunity. So, the plan is to have the Sidereal drop off most personnel on Starbase 84 for extended leave and return to Earth with a skeleton crew for retrofitting.”

Sina was happy and sad at the same time after hearing the Vice Admiral’s orders. The opportunity to return to Earth, even if just for a few weeks, was good news on so many levels. She’d get to see her mother again, spend some time with her family and play with their puppy. On the other hand, she’d miss many of her friends onboard the Sidereal. She knew from experience that sometimes after such assignments the old crews never came back together.

“And one last thing, Commander.” The Vice Admiral continued. “The transfer request has been granted.”

The Romulan’s thoughts snapped back to the present in an instant. “Transfer request, Sir? Which transfer request?”

The flag officer paused for a second, then his eyes opened in surprise and a little embarrassment, and he audibly drew in a deep breath. “Oh… Well, Lieutenant Commander Lebedeva applied for the position of chief engineer on the Enterprise. She got the job. The Enterprise will meet you at Starbase 84 for the transfer.”

[ Act Three ]

“And again, thank you for your efforts, Commander.” Ghalon Marrik said, his face visibly more relaxed than it had been a couple hours before. At first the news of the stabilization effort being canceled had understandably upset him, but when he was told that some of the fastest ships of Starfleet had been redirected to evacuate his people he looked as if a boulder had been taken off his shoulders.

“No problem, governor. I’m only sorry it didn’t work out as we had planned, but I think in the end it will be better for your people. Szaris III-A is becoming more inhospitable by the day, and the sooner we get you all to safety the better.” Sina replied, nodding to the governor on the left side of the view screen. The right half of the screen showed Captain Dax, the petite joined Trill in command of the USS Aventine. “I know that your people are in good hands with Captain Dax.”

“No worries Commander, we’ll get them to a nice new place faster than you can say ‘peekaboo.’” Ezri Dax said with an optimistic smile on her face. “I also want to thank you for your efforts, Commander D’raxis. I’ve read your reports, and you and your crew have gone above and beyond the call. I can imagine how difficult the situation must have been. But I must go now. We’ve almost completed beaming up the first evacuation group. The Hypatia is also almost ready.”

“Yes, we also have to go. Starbase 84 is waiting for us. Governor, I wish you and your people all the best on your new home. Captain Dax, it has been an honor. Sidereal out.” Sina closed the channel and sank back into her chair, letting out a loud sigh.

“Quite the day, wasn’t it?” Remarked Niko, tapping away at his console to acknowledge the last handover confirmations and reports.

“You don’t say. I could have well done without the last three days, and I guess I’m not alone in this. But at least we all learned something. We learned that we should really make better scans of a planet before establishing a colony, we learned that we can reconfigure all of our shuttles in less than twenty minutes, and we learned that the Sidereal is hopelessly outdated.”

The last sentence she added with a laugh, gently padding her armrests. “But she’s still our ship, no matter what.” Captain D’raxis relaxed for a long moment with her eyes closed. After several seconds she opened her eyes again and turned towards the conn. “Noriko, set course for Starbase 84. Warp eight.”

“Aye, captain. Starbase 84, warp eight.” Ensign Yamada quickly tapped on the conn console to set the flight path and speed. “Course laid in.”

“Engage.”

The Akira class turned away from the planet, silently gliding past the two Vesta classes in orbit around Szaris III-A. She moved out of orbit, pointing towards the edge of the system, when her warp nacelles started glowing in a bright blue light, and with a fierce pounce the ship leaped to warp. The planet rapidly fell away into the darkness of space, and the view screen filled with the streaks of interstellar particles as the ship raced through the void at over one thousand times the speed of light.

“Niko, you have a moment?” Sina asked and nodded her head her ready room. Her first officer furrowed his brow slightly but nodded. The two officers stood and headed towards the door leading to the captain’s office. “Rel, you’ve got the bridge.”

CO and XO entered the ready room. Niko waited for the doors to close before he asked. “Something wrong?”

“No. Maybe. I don’t know. Did you know that Nadya was leaving us?” The Romulan replied, plopping down on her chair behind her desk.

“What? No, I didn’t know. When? Why?” Niko replied surprised, pulling the chair from in front of the desk to the side, eventually sitting next to his captain.

“Vice Admiral Horner told me she had applied for the position of chief engineer on the Enterprise. She was accepted. The Enterprise will be waiting at Starbase 84 for the transfer. I mean, I’m truly happy for her. Making CE on the flagship is a huge step forward. I’m proud of her that she made it. But I worry that I missed something, and that it’s not the Sidereal being outdated that made her make this decision, but me.”

“Oh, come on Sina, we both know that’s not the case. If Nadya was unhappy with something, she would have told. You know that she’s a perfectionist who couldn’t ever stand letting a grievance go unnoticed. I get that it’s difficult for you to hear it from a Vice Admiral instead of Nadya herself, and I’m also sad to see her leave. She was an outstanding officer and an exceptional engineer. Maybe you should simply go talk to her. We still have a few days before we reach Starbase 84.”

Sina smiled at her XO. “You always know the right things to say. Ever thought about a career as a counselor?” She teased as she stood up.

“Yes. Considered and disregarded immediately.” Niko replied, laughing softly as he followed the captain back to the bridge.

“Niko, you have the bridge. I’m going to have a chat with our chief engineer.” The Romulan woman said and headed right for the turbolift. Inside the turbolift, she queried the computer for Nadya’s current location. “Computer, locate Lieutenant Commander Lebedeva.” The reply came instantly, and Nadya was apparently in her private quarters. “Computer, deck seven, starboard section aft.” Less than a minute later, Sina stood in front of the Lieutenant Commander’s accommodation. She took a deep breath to gather her courage and pressed the bell button.

“Come in.” Sounded the reply through the speaker, and the door opened. Sina carefully stepped into the room. A moment later Nadya turned around the corner from the bathroom, wearing a casual dark green jumpsuit, covered by a long tunic in a lighter shade of green. Her shoulder-length platinum blonde hair flowed freely from her head. The one and a three-quarter meters tall and slender Russian woman looked at Sina, and her expression betrayed her feelings. They both knew what they were going to talk about.

“Captain.” She paused for a second, before she continued, having difficulties holding her CO’s gaze. “I think I know why you’re here. Please, take a seat. Can I get you something?” Nadya asked, while slowly walking towards the recliner seats in the back of the living room. She gestured towards one seat and waited until her guest had sat down.

“No, I’m fine, thank you.” Sina replied softly. “Vice Admiral Horner told me some hours ago. First, I want to congratulate you. I guess it’s every Starfleet officer’s big dream to one day make it onto the Enterprise. I’m really happy for you…” Her voice trailed off as she was searching for a way to steer the conversation towards her big question.

However, she didn’t have to, because Nadya got straight to the point as always. “But you wonder why I didn’t tell you before. I can also understand if you feel betrayed by my actions. Which…” She swallowed. “…was never my intention. I have no issues with you or your style of command, nor with any other senior officer in your staff. My primary motivation was to advance my career.”

“But why didn’t you tell me that you wanted to transfer?” Sina asked, partially - but not fully - satisfied by Nadya’s explanation.

“I didn’t do that, because I wanted to avoid unnecessary conflicts. If I had told you that I wanted to transfer off the Sidereal, but hadn’t gotten the position, how would that have left us? It would have been unnecessarily embarrassing and stressful for both of us. So, it was easier to not inform you, even more since you were not the reason for my request in the first place. I would have come to you later today, at the end of your shift to inform you. But it seems that will no longer be necessary.”

“And your secondary motivation?” The Romulan woman asked, having noticed that her CE had not spilled all the beans yet. She knew from experience that the Lieutenant Commander never used “first” or “primary” if there was only one point to talk about. Sina looked at the Augment’s light pink eyes and started to worry when Nadya’s expression became slightly agonized and she looked away from the Commander. “Nadya, are you okay?”

“My apologies, captain, but I haven’t been completely honest. There was another reason… a quite personal one…”

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.” Sina tried to console her colleague, but the proud Russian shook her head.

“No, I’m fine. And you deserve to know. It’s just difficult to find the right words…” Nadya took a deep breath and paused for a second.

“I saw the application to the Enterprise as a chance to resolve a problem that’s been ongoing since the day you came aboard almost three years ago. You know I’ve always striven to keep it professional with regards to everything I did. No matter if that were my duties, my relationships with my coworkers, or my personal conduct. And with you around, the second and third aspect started to falter.”

She slowly kneaded her hands, her nervousness completely foreign to the CO. Sina had always known Nadya as the definition of professionalism. But now, what she was hinting at tied the Romulan’s belly in a knot. “Nadya, I… I never knew…”

“Then I was successful. I tried my hardest to suppress my feelings and not let anyone, especially you, know. It would not only have been against my principles but also highly inappropriate to show affection for…”

“…your commanding officer.” Sina finished the sentence for her and watched Nadya’s head drop in a pained nod. “But why did you bottle up those emotions for all those years? Why didn’t you talk with Jeffrey about it?”

Nadya sighed softly. “Because nobody could know. Nobody. It would have affected my duties even more. Other officers onboard also dealt with their feelings, with affairs, with rejection. I couldn’t be the only one who went to the counselor for a triviality.”

Sina was shocked to hear that, and her eyes started to water up. To hear that a good and well-known colleague was leaving the ship because she thought she couldn’t have talked about her emotions. “Nadya, I’m sorry to hear that. Your emotions are not a triviality, and I’m sorry you had the impression you couldn’t talk with anyone about it. If I had known, I would have… I would…” She was desperately searching for words to express her thoughts. “Now I feel I failed you. Not only did I not notice, but I’m also respon-”

“No, don’t you think that.” Nadya interrupted her. “You’re not responsible for this situation, and neither have you failed me. You’re a good captain. The crew likes you and thinks highly of you. They think you’re a worthy successor to Shelen. These were my decisions and mine alone. There’s only one to blame, and that’s me. With my transfer, it will become much easier to deal with my sentiments. For me, as well as now also for you.”

The Romulan looked at the woman next to her and blinked her tears away. With a sob that was halfway between happy and sad, Sina just stood up and walked over to Nadya, and pulled her into a close embrace. “Why do you have to make things so complicated?” After a second, she felt Nadya’s arms close around her back and return the hug. Eventually, after another two hours of much needed talking and soul searching, both Sina and Nadya could see each other off with a clean conscience, and the captain returned to the bridge.

Three days later, the Sidereal arrived at Starbase 84. As they approached the gigantic space station, they saw a dull silvery shape next to it. Niko whistled and remarked mightily impressed. “Now would you look at that. There she is, in all her glory. Computer, focus on the ship next to the starbase and magnify.” The computer did as it was told, and a moment later the NCC-1701-G filled the whole view screen.

The new Federation flagship’s hull was sleek and elegant, yet it still projected an aura of power and strength. The primary hull was a massive forward slanted oval saucer, with two ellipsoid cutouts in its center that formed a massive bridge on the longitudinal axis. The saucer connected to the secondary hull with a short neck, not unlike the design of the Sovereign class. The hull’s next tier regenerative ablative armor was a dulled silvery brushed metal mixed with dark gray and black markings which gave the whole vessel a sophisticated and refined appearance.

The Destiny class’s engine pylons were curved slightly upwards and aligned forwards, giving the ship an agile, even aggressive, side profile. The nacelles themselves were about as long as the saucer section and quite flat compared to their width since the new coaxial warp drive required this form factor. The Enterprise-G was the first ship outside the prototypes that was equipped with this technology.

It had turned out that quantum slipstream was simply no viable alternative for larger ships. The technology’s hull shape requirements were too impractical for large vessels, and a normal warp core couldn’t generate enough energy to brute force the problem. This required the development of the coaxial warp drive for all ships that couldn’t be built into long and sleek hulls like the Vesta class. Those other designs could use the already refined quantum slipstream drive.

The crew in general was ecstatic about getting to stay on Starbase 84 for a few months. For many the last “shore leave” had been over a year ago, since the Sidereal was busy the whole time. And a space station of this type and size had much to offer that was a welcome relief and distraction for a lot of the crew. There were enough volunteers for the skeleton crew, particularly people with family or relatives on Earth or Mars who wanted to take the opportunity to visit their loved ones. The celebrations in 84’s clubs and bars were happy and loud, and the mood was good.

Also, the goodbye of Lieutenant Commander Lebedeva was bittersweet. On the one hand many of her engineering colleagues envied her. After all, the Enterprise-G was the pride of Starfleet, running the most advanced systems the Federation had developed to this date. On the other hand, many crew members would miss her. She’d been an exceptional officer, and a good friend to many on the Sidereal.

Eventually, all farewells came to an end, and Nadya officially transferred to the Enterprise-G. Shortly after she had boarded, the flagship moved out of orbit, and disappeared into the night in the flickering distortions of a coaxial warp jump. Sina sat in the captain’s chair, a glass of her favorite Vulcan mocha in her hand and looked after the departing ship. She only hoped that perhaps one day, they’d see each other again.

Not too much later the Sidereal also departed Starbase 84 and started her forty days long journey towards Earth for her much needed retrofit.

[ Act Four ]

Eight days into their travel, Sina laid on the couch in her quarters, PADD in hand, and listened to the loud music blasting through the room. Her jacket was hanging from the chair a few steps away. Her head swayed with the catchy tune, and she bobbed her crossed feet in the beat of the song. Sina had gotten off duty half an hour ago, and she was enjoying her time off with one of her favorite classics work of music. As she was typing another letter to her mother, she hummed along with the song.

“Now I’m leaving my worries behind…”

The young Romulan was happy and excited to see her mother again after over fourteen months away from home. In her last letter from when they had docked at Starbase 84 she had told Neila how much she was looking forward to meeting Jack, that three months old tiny tipsy ball of fur and cuteness. The videos her mother had sent her some time ago were so cuddly and made Sina giggle with joy, seeing the young puppy make his way across the grass, or tipsily trying to crawl onto a large pillow.

“Feel the freedom of body and mind…”

She took a sip from her Vulcan mocha, this time the normal variant, and sighed softly as the tension and stress of the day kept fading away. Sina had assumed that her time with her previous CO, Shelen Ch’iveran, had prepared her well for command duty, but being the CO of a whole ship was more stressful than she would have ever imagined.

But after sitting in the center chair for over ten months now, she admitted coyly that she wouldn’t want to give it up again. All the good things the Sidereal’s crew did, all the help they provided, all the positive change they brought to so many people all over the Federation’s territory was absolutely worth every bit of stress and work for her.

“I am Hunting High and Low…”

Sina’s thoughts drifted to Nadya. She wondered what her former colleague and chief engineer was doing right now. Even though the “loss” was still fresh in her mind, the fact that Nadya managed to get the position as CE on the Enterprise filled her with a not too small amount of happiness and pride. That name carried a mighty tradition and serving on that ship was both a privilege and a special obligation.

Sina also contemplated about Nadya’s other words. Could she have noticed it? Was she either so blind, or so obsessed with her duty that she didn’t pay attention to how an important member of her crew felt about her? She only hoped that her inattention hadn’t hurt Nadya.

“After the storm there’s a ca-”

The Commander’s singing was abruptly interrupted when the whole ship suddenly bucked wildly, and she was violently thrown off her lounger and hit the table next to it. A brief spark of pain raced through her body as her right hip painfully connected with the table’s edge with full force, before Sina could roll with the blow and catch herself.

Not a moment later she heard the alarm klaxon sound and Niko message the whole ship. “Red Alert! Captain to the bridge!”

When Sina grabbed her jacket from the chair that had fallen over from the impact, she glanced out the windows and noticed that they were no longer at warp. Her thoughts started to race what could possibly have happened, and as fast as she could she limped out of her quarters and towards the turbolift.

A few moments later she stumbled onto the bridge, every step sending a hot spark into her hip. Niko was already sitting in his own chair when she arrived. “Report! What happened?” She asked while sitting in the captain’s chair, activating the seatbelt and bringing up the control panels in the arm rests.

Her XO only briefly turned towards her, trying to keep his eyes on his own controls to not miss anything. “Our warp field suddenly collapsed. We don’t know exactly how or why, it was as if someone or something had suddenly pulled the subspace away from us like a rug from under our feet. It seems to be a spacetime anomaly affecting subspace and macroscale alike.”

“Okay, I don’t care what it is, how can we get away from it? If anyone has a suggestion, let’s have it!” Sina replied, not directed at her first officer, but rather addressing all bridge officers. “Noriko, can we go to warp again?” She asked her conn officer, a young Japanese woman with pale pink skin and her long black hair neatly tied into a bun.

Ensign Noriko Yamada shook her head as she wildly tapped away at the helm controls, growing more and more frustrated and concerned as the ship just didn’t want to respond to her commands. “No Sir. Controls are not responding. The engines can’t establish a stable warp bubble. I’ve already tried to compensate, but it’s not helping. The distortion is too strong.”

“Understood. Ensign, skip warp and try impulse. Full power.” Sina tried to keep her thoughts focused on finding a solution, instead of getting lost in analyzing the problem. There were five other highly trained professional officers on the bridge who could do exactly that, but it was her job to try and find a solution based on her colleagues’ input and findings. She quickly added, “Override the impulse limitations if you have to.”

“Aye, captain!” Noriko nodded, and tapped away at her console, bringing up the impulse controls. She entered the security override code to disable the drive throttling and entered the command to bring the Sidereal’s impulse engines to full power. While the impulse drive’s output increased to twenty-five percent, then fifty percent, then full power, then even a quarter above full power, the ship didn’t budge a millimeter from its spot.

Under normal circumstances the Sidereal would have leapt forward like a predator chasing prey at seventy-five percent the speed of light, but here it stayed in its place. It was as if they had been affixed in space by a huge invisible nail that refused to give. Not understanding how that could be, Noriko helplessly tapped on the helm controls, but it was of no use. “No change in position, captain.” She eventually reported, the tension and confusion of the situation obvious in her voice.

“Okay, full stop. No use of burning out the impulse drive.” Sina turned to her left towards the science officer’s station. “Visra, any idea what’s keeping us in place, or how we can get out of it?” Ensign Visra Arsiv furiously worked the science console, entering command after command to query and filter the sensors’ readings.

The delicately looking female Alusi’s thick leathery purple skin with its gray patterns was glistening under the red shimmer of the Red Alert lighting, and her pointed ears peaked up underneath the thick ridges running from her eyes to the top of her head. Her flat nose twitched slightly under the situation’s stress, and she nervously licked her lips and the exposed upper canines.

She stared in full concentration on her screens, her thoughts a whirlwind of information and suspicions. “It seems we’ve hit a quantum spacetime fissure dead on and are partially embedded in it. The anomaly’s rotation causes a frame dragging effect on the local subspace, preventing us from establishing a stable warp bubble.” The science officer blinked, focusing her light blue irises over blood red sclerae on the displays showing a schematic view of the anomaly.

“Can we compensate for this frame dragging somehow?” Niko interjected, holding on to his own console while the ship kept being rocked by the fissure.

“Negative.” Ensign Arsiv replied. “The distortions are too pronounced and too powerful. Our warp coils are physically unable to create a field strong enough to override the anomaly. The fissure also causes a massive curvature of spacetime in its proximity. In effect, we’re stuck halfway across the event horizon. Therefore, our impulse engines won’t be able to move the ship either. I’m afraid the anomaly’s interferences are preventing more detailed scans, giving me only limited data to work with.”

“Captain. Shearing forces on the hull are approaching upper limits. The hull won’t be able to withstand such forces for long. At current levels, structural failure is imminent in about three minutes.” Everyone turned towards Lieutenant Rel Neirrek, the Sidereal’s chief tactical officer, as he gave his report. The broad-chested Cardassian officer tapped to mute the structural alert on his console, his dark blue eyes quickly scanning the other interfaces in front of him for more damage reports.

Sina heard Rel’s report and immediately tapped her combadge. “Bridge to engineering. Reroute every bit of auxiliary power you have into the structural integrity field. Also dump impulse power, warp power, and everything else you can spare into the SIF. Take it from life support if you have to, just try to keep us in one piece for as long as possible!” She desperately hoped that this would buy them enough time to get out of the fissure. She wasn’t worried about having to go without life support for a few minutes, she was much more concerned about the Sidereal being torn to shreds under their feet.

The Romulan woman turned to Junior Lieutenant Duncan Clark at the ops station. “Duncan, dispatch a priority one distress call.”

The Scottish man with short and scrubby red-brown hair stated a confirmation and began the transmission. “Aye, captain! To all ships in range, this is a priority one distress call from the USS Sidereal. We have struck a quantum fissure and cannot get free on our own power. We are rapidly losing structural integrity and require immediate assistance. Our coordinates are…” He added their location to the message and set the transponder on repeat.

After a couple of seconds, he reported back. “Distress signal is being sent, captain, but no reply so far. The anomaly’s subspace distortion is interfering with long range comms. I can’t even tell if our message can be heard at all.”

Captain D’raxis acknowledged his report. “Understood. Keep transmitting in the blind then.” She glanced at her XO who was tapping away at his console, highly focused on a list of reports scrolling past on his display.

“Quantum fissure… quantum fissure…” He mumbled, as he continued his search. A moment later he triumphantly exclaimed, “Yes!” He turned towards Visra. “Visra, I transferred a report to your station. Can you make use of this?” Visra checked her secondary screen, and immediately started checking out Niko’s data.

“What have you found?” Sina inquired, wondering about what Niko had been searching for.

“I knew I’ve read that term before. On stardate 47391.2 Lieutenant Worf from the Enterprise-D also encountered a quantum fissure. It did exhibit different properties from this one, but eventually they managed to close the fissure with an inverse warp field. Maybe we can utilize the same method to collapse this one.”

Both commanding officers looked hopefully at their science officer, watching Ensign Arsiv work on her console with utmost focus. But after a few moments, they saw the Alusi female shake her head. “I’m sorry Sir, but that won’t work here. This anomaly is rotating, which changes completely how it interacts with warp fields. An inverse warp field will not be able close this rift. Also, the ship’s still partially above and partially below the anomaly’s event horizon, which would further weaken any potential field we could even attempt to create.”

Visra took a deep breath before she continued, knowing fully well how risky the action was she would be proposing in a second. “But perhaps there’s a different method to free us: the detonation of a quantum torpedo just above the event horizon. The interaction between the collapsing multi-dimensional membrane inside the warhead and the event horizon should create a resonance shock wave tha-”

“You want what?!” Niko exclaimed, staring at the Ensign in disbelieve. “Didn’t you say we were sitting right at the horizon? You want us to shoot ourselves with a quantum torpedo?”

“In effect, yes Sir. The explosion should create a shock wave that can push us out of the anomaly and collapse it right behind us.”

Niko drew in a deep breath before attempting a retort, but Sina quickly interjected. “It’s one option, that doesn’t mean we have to use it. Any other suggestions? Visra? Rel? Duncan?” But all addressed officers shook their heads. Nobody had another option available, especially not given the time constraints of having the ship shredded to bits, and the inability to conduct more detailed scans of the anomaly.

The comms chirped, and the ship’s chief of security was on the channel. “M’Tiras to bridge. I don’t know what’s happening up there, but the warp core is not happy about it. We’re trying to keep it together, but whatever is exerting this subspace shearing is tearing subatomic holes into the reaction chamber. If we don’t get out of here soon, we’ll have a core breach at our hands in less than five minutes.”

Main engineering had barely closed the channel when Lieutenant Neirrek reported again. “Captain, the SIF is reaching its maximum load in several sections across the whole ship. It’s about to fail in the starboard catamaran, the port nacelle pylon, the bow sections of decks eight to ten, and the battle module struts.”

“We’re running out of time. If nobody has any other idea, we have to try Visra’s plan.” Sina stated desperately, hoping against hope that there was another way. She waited a few moments for anyone to contradict her statement, but nobody did. She didn’t like the idea of detonating their most destructive weapon basically right on their skin either, especially with the ship in its current condition. But it seemed to be their only chance. “Okay then. Visra, Rel, configure a torpedo and calculate a firing solution.”

While the science and tactical officers went to work, Sina activated the ship-wide comms. “All hands, this is the captain. Immediately evacuate all outer sections. Everybody, get to the innermost compartments of the primary hull RIGHT NOW, close the outlying physical bulkheads, and brace for impact.”

Visra got up from her station and quickly crossed the bridge to Rel’s tactical console. Standing next to him, the muscular Cardassian appeared like a towering giant, being more than a whole head taller than the petite Alusi. They quickly delved into the process of configuring the warhead to the required, or rather, estimated, yield, and calculated a trajectory to the preferred destination. It took them a few minutes, and quite a bit of arguing and discussing, before they were ready.

In the meantime, despite the additional power and reinforced energy supply, the structural integrity field had failed. The anomaly’s distortion of spacetime started to tear at the Sidereal’s reinforced armor. Plate by plate, the shearing forces stripped whole sections clean of their ablative armor first, with the normal hull material quickly following second.

Niko reported the damage to his captain, and while the count of hull breaches quickly reached more than two dozen everyone was on their toes. By now all members of the crew had realized that they had not simply encountered an astronomical phenomenon, but that they were all in grave danger.

Eventually Rel reported their success. “The torpedo is ready, captain.”

Sina looked at Niko, who wordlessly nodded his support and agreement. They had no other choice, as their ship was shredded to pieces. If they waited for much longer, they risked destruction. The Romulan took a deep breath and then spoke the fateful word. “Fire!”

The brightly glowing quantum torpedo streaked away from the forward launcher in the battle module, briefly illuminating the Sidereal’s tattered hull with its deadly blue-white light, before veering off into space. After several seconds of flight, the projectile started to turn around, and followed the programmed path back to its origin. All over the ship, the crew was bracing for the now inevitable impact, holding on to the consoles in front of them, nearby walls, or even each other. The bridge officers were looking in each other’s faces and hoped for the best.

“Impact in three… two… one…” Rel was counting down, tracking the warhead’s approach on his console, while having one arm wrapped around Visra to hold her steady as there was no time for her to get back to her own chair.

Mercilessly and with deadly accuracy, the torpedo traveled to its destination and detonated, unleashing its devastating power into the quantum fissure. A blinding flash bathed the Sidereal in hard white light, and a fraction of a second later a massive impact hit the beaten-up ship like a sledgehammer.

The anomaly imploded under the warhead’s onslaught, and the dying phenomenon’s final breath, one last wave of spacetime distortion, flowed over the Sidereal. Alerts flashed on every console as the ship suffered damage that brought it to the brink of collapse, while the crew was thrown around inside like rag dolls.

The severely damaged Akira class was adrift, slowly tumbling away from the now gone anomaly like a wounded animal that frantically tried to drag itself back into its den. And like a bleeding animal leaving a trail of blood and gore behind, the Sidereal left a trail of hull plating, furniture, burning plasma, and a handful of mangled corpses in her wake. The tortured sound of tearing and deforming metal echoed throughout the ship, and the acrid smoke of plasma fires slowly filled hallways all over the ship. The Sidereal was dark and dead. She had broken her back. She would never warp again.

[ Act Five ]

All was shrouded in darkness, and thick swaths of smoke filled the air. Only random sparks and flickers of stray flames burning away at some broken console illuminated the devastated bridge. Wall and ceiling panels had broken open and spilled their ruptured wired guts out into the open. One beam had fallen from the ceiling near the science station and had crushed two empty seats underneath it.

Sina could hear the pained groans of her fellow officers and herself. The shock wave from the torpedo’s explosion had catapulted the Sidereal out of the anomaly, but not without roasting the inertia dampeners along with it. Since they were still alive it seemed Visra’s plan worked out good enough, even though the whole crew had been hurled through the air quite violently. Sina herself had been thrown into the seatbelt at full force, hitting the already bruised spot from earlier. The pain had driven the air out of her lungs and tears in her eyes, but after some deep breaths she could manage.

“Everyone okay? Anyone need help?” Sina spoke into the dark room and coughed due to the smoke. Some meters away she could see the silhouettes of her friends move in the shadows, while she struggled for a moment to release the seatbelt.

“I’m okay.”

“We’re fine, captain.”

“Nothing a medkit couldn’t fix, I hope.”

Slowly her crew was reporting in. She recognized the partially strained voices and movements of Visra, Rel, and Noriko.

“Niko? Duncan?”

“We’re both okay. Can someone try to get the lights back on?”

She was relieved to hear all her officers doing well given the circumstances. There were still a couple groans and winces now and then, but she guessed that nobody on the bridge was seriously injured. When suddenly and completely unannounced, as if on command, the emergency power supply finally managed to come through, and the lights and console around them started blinking and beeping again, she flinched. After a moment she opened her eyes and looked around.

Noriko untangled herself from her conn console and let out a painful groan, while a big bruise started to form on her forehead. Rel and Visra were still next to the tactical station, where they had been before the impact. Like an unshakable mountain, the Cardassian sat on his chair, and tried to get the tactical report system back up again. Visra stood shakily next to him, holding her left wrist, trying to hide the pain every time she moved her hand.

Niko was helping Duncan back to his feet. The first officer’s uniform was torn, his left sleeve having been ripped open to the elbow. The skin beneath the tear and on his right cheek was grazed harshly, but not bleeding yet. The young Scotsman however hadn’t been as lucky. He must have slipped off his chair and underneath the console, hitting the lower edge badly. The bleeding laceration on his forehead was testimony to this.

“Niko, Noriko, Visra, Duncan, you guys grab a medkit and patch yourselves up. Let me know if you need help.” The wounded officers mumbled their acknowledgments and shuffled to the back of the bridge where they fetched a medkit from a hidden cabinet and started giving each other first aid as fast and as well as they could. Niko waited until the other officers’ wounds had been treated, and in the meantime took a small handheld fire extinguisher to smother the flickering flames near the MSD.

Sina turned to her chief tactical officer. “Rel, sitrep. How bad is it? What’s with the rest of the ship?”

By now Rel had also managed to get some rudimentary reports, and it didn’t look good. He tapped on his console to grab the last bits of information, shaking his head slightly, before he reported. “The damage is excessive, captain. We’ve got hull breaches on all decks and in all outer sections. The EPS grid is completely gone after an explosive overload, and that discharge also destroyed our weapon and shield systems. All propulsion systems are offline, including RCS, and we’re drifting uncontrollably. Additionally, the port pylon is bent out of alignment.”

The longer Lieutenant Neirrek was talking, the more obvious it became to everyone how dire their situation was. “The still working SIF emitters run on emergency power and only cover about twenty percent of the ship. We have at least five open plasma fires, but the fire suppression system is not responding, and I can’t tell how many fires exactly there are and where due to damage to the internal sensors. Life support is also badly impaired and running on emergency power, too.”

Suddenly the comms chirped, and static filled the bridge for a moment. “M’Tiras to bri… Can a…one hear me? We got a co…reach in progre… Is so…ody up there?” They could hear Shori M’Tiras’ trembling voice through the static and interference, but after some moments the channel stabilized.

“We can hear you now, Shori. Come again, how’s the situation in engineering? Any wounded?” Captain D’raxis replied, looking at Rel and gesturing between her badge and the ceiling, trying to tell him to route the signal through the bridge module’s emergency communication relays.

The Caitian’s voice came in much clearer now, but what she had to say was even more terrifying. “Yes, but we have a much bigger problem. We’ve got a core breach in progress and we can’t stop it. It’s a wonder the containment fields haven’t failed yet, but it’s only a matter of time now. That last shock wave punched thousands of nanometer fractures into the reaction chamber and the control systems. In our current condition we simply can’t fix that kind of damage.”

“Can you eject the core?”

“No, captain. We already checked. The ejection chute has been deformed. The core’s stuck. But even if we could get it out, we’re not going anywhere. Without at least RCS thrusters we couldn’t get out of the explosion’s kill zone.”

Sina’s head sank at those words, and she closed her eyes in despair, her courage failing her. How could this have happened? What had she done wrong to end up in this situation? “How much time do we have left?” She asked her COS softly, hoping the answer would give them more time to figure out how to get out of this mess.

“We can’t tell for sure. Looks like fifteen minutes, maybe twenty. But not more.”

It wasn’t much, but at least they had a chance to think of something. Anything. Some plan, some maneuver, some clever trick to escape this disaster with their lives. Escape… of course! The escape pods! “Rel, what’s the status of the escape pods?”

The Cardassian worked on his console as quickly as he could to query the rescue vehicle systems. The initial readings on his display were discouraging. Many were inoperable or damaged beyond usefulness. Eventually he got the final numbers. “Eleven of the thirty-nine escape pods are available, the rest is unresponsive or damaged.” Lieutenant Neirrek responded, adding a carefully optimistic remark at the end. “Enough for the whole crew.”

By now most of the wounds suffered by the other bridge officers had been taken care of. The medkit’s dermal regenerator worked overtime on Duncan’s laceration, Noriko’s bruise, and Niko’s abrasions on his arm and face. After a quick scan with a medical tricorder it turned out Visra’s wrist injury was only a pulled tendon, and a small dose of painkillers and a provisional bandage took care of that.

“You want to evacuate?” Niko asked as he and the others returned to their seats. He battled with his jacket for a moment, trying to fully tear off the sleeves to not have any strands of fabric dangling from his arm. But the jacket won, and with a resigned shrug Niko simply pulled the jacket over his head and dropped it on the ground.

“Do we have any other choice? The longer we wait, the less time we have to put enough distance between the escape pods and the ship. And unless someone can squeeze compassion from a Q and produce a miracle, the core will breach in about seventeen minutes tops.” Captain D’raxis replied to Niko’s question while looking every single officer in their face in turn.

“You’re right. We have to get out of here. Shall I?” He looked at Sina questioningly, and she simply nodded in response. “Rel, broadcast the locations of the working escape pods to all functioning non-critical displays. Duncan, attach our current position and status, as well as all sensor data about the anomaly you can manage, to the ship’s log. Prepare to launch a distress beacon and the log buoy.”

Niko pressed a button on his console to start a ship-wide hail. “All hands, this is the XO. Prepare for evacuation. I repeat, prepare for evacuation. We only have eleven working pods, so make sure to wait until they are filled.”

The first officer had barely finished his hail, when Rel shouted out. “Captain!” Sina and Niko turned to Rel in unison. “We…” The Cardassian officer suddenly looked pale and… frightened… and his almost stoic calm seemed to have vanished in the blink of an eye. He stared at his display in utter disbelieve before he looked up to face his colleagues. He shook his head. “We won’t be going anywhere.”

“What do you mean?” Sina asked, while she walked over to Rel, not understanding what had suddenly shaken him like this. She got to his console, and he simply pointed at the tactical report about what the still somewhat functioning astronomical sensors had picked up at the edge of their range.

TACTICAL WARNING - CONTACT INBOUND

CATEGORY: Unidentified triquantum subspace oscillation

TYPE: Unknown. 91% signature overlap with Borg Sphere tactical long-range vessel

DISTANCE: 50.42 ly

VELOCITY: 500 ly/h

TIME TO INTERCEPT: 06:03s

Sina stared at the screen in shock. “No…” This couldn’t be happening. She refused to believe they had survived the anomaly just to be now overwhelmed by the Borg. They were in the middle of Federation territory, and there had been no signs of any Borg incursions for over three decades. Where had this sphere suddenly come from?

“Captain?” Niko asked, worried because now not only Rel but also Sina looked as if they had seen a ghost. “What’s wrong?”

“We… we have a Borg sphere on intercept course. They’ll reach us in less than six minutes.”

Niko, Noriko, Duncan, and Visra stared at the Commander and shouted in unison. “WHAT?!” Niko rushed to the console to see for himself. He too started at the display in disbelieve. “What… is there anything we can do?”

Sina shook her head in resignation and despair. “Our shields and weapons are gone. We’re immobile…” Her voice trailed off, her mind tormenting her with the terror of having to face off against the Borg. And even worse, the horror of becoming Borg. She had read the logs of Jean-Luc Picard, Annika Hansen, aka Seven of Nine, and other survivors. She didn’t want anyone to go through that agony. She’d rather die before… then she remembered the impending core breach.

“Captain? What do we do?” Ensign Arsiv asked, her voice trembling with fear. She’d heard of the Borg, but never faced them, and the things she had learned about them were shaking the young Alusi to the core.

“We fight. It will be the day I just roll over and let the Borg take anyone. We have no chance of defeating or outrunning them. But we can hold out a few minutes until the core breaches and saves us all from being assimilated. And maybe we can even take that sphere with us.” She tapped away on Rel’s console, bringing up the comms interface to open a ship-wide channel. “All hands, this is the captain. We have a Borg vessel on intercept course. Abort evacuation and prepare to repel intruders. Arm yourselves and gather in main engineering.”

She looked at her officers with desperate courage. She knew none of them would survive this day, and it killed her inside that it was her leading her crew to their deaths. Duncan and Noriko looked to the ground, sobbing softly and holding on to each other in despair, while Niko and Rel conducted themselves with the grim determination of certain death. They opened the weapons locker and retrieved a couple of hand phasers and phaser rifles.

Visra was in shock, motionlessly standing near the science station and staring at the screens, tears openly streaming down her cheeks. She blamed herself. If only she had been a better scientist she’d have found a way to escape the anomaly that wouldn’t have left the ship defenseless. She told herself that it was her fault all her friends and colleagues would die.

Sina hustled into her ready room. She paused for a second, looking at the variety of bladed weapons brandished on their wall mounts. She picked up a long intricate dagger whose design combined Terran, Andorian, and Romulan elements. Her thoughts went back to her 28th birthday, when her former captain and friend Shelen had given her this weapon as a present. He had crafted the gift himself, utilizing a special holodeck smithy simulation for the work.

Sina held the dagger’s grip firmly for a second, remembering those bygone happier times, then put it in its sheath and strapped it to her uniform’s belt. She grabbed a few more weapons off their displays - a Klingon mek’leth and bat’leth, an Andorian Ushaan-tor, and two Tilonian Nisroh. Never in her life would she have thought that the exotic hobby Shelen had taught her would one day come in handy to fight off the Borg. All the blades she carried now had been forged by herself, using the same simulated forge her friend had already used years before.

When she returned, Niko had distributed the phasers amongst the bridge crew. He himself and Duncan carried the rifles, everyone else got the hand phasers. Sina handed the blades to the other officers. Rel took the bat’leth, Duncan the mek’leth, and Noriko grabbed a Nisroh. The remaining Nisroh she offered to the still stunned Visra, who reluctantly accepted the blade.

Last, Niko took the Ushaan-tor from his CO, and nodded at her. “I’ve launched the beacon and the buoy, including all information about the sphere. We have about four minutes before it gets here.”

Sina returned the nod sadly. “Let’s go to engineering. It won’t be long…”

A handful of turbolift routes were still operational, running on their last remaining emergency reserves. Half a minute later the bridge officers entered main engineering where they were immediately met by Shori. The chief of security was wearing her signature armor suit and carried a phaser rifle in her hands. Her armor showed signs of burning, and some of her fur had been singed. Her face, and all faces around them, were filled with fear and despair, and the Caitian’s typical cheekiness had completely evaporated.

As Sina looked around, she saw bruised and bloodied faces amongst her fellow crew members, and several had improvised casts on arms or legs, or were otherwise patched up. The crew had huddled in the back of the chamber, using the warp core and the backside of main engineering to reduce the amount of flanking areas, and provide additional cover.

Shori’s voice trembled as she reported to the Commander. “Captain… we’re all here, at least all I could find. With your group we’re sixty-eight. Everyone who can use a hand has a weapon, and we also managed to grab a few blades.” She sobbed softly, blinking a tear out of her eye. “I guess I can skip the casualties…”

Sina nodded weakly. She walked towards the back of the room, sixty pairs of eyes on her. The Romulan looked at the faces of her crew, her colleagues, her friends. She even considered many of them as close as family. And now this was their final hour. What could she possibly say to them? No words could ever express how terrible she felt. The crushing guilt and despair resting on her shoulders, that it was her command that got them all killed - or worse. A sob escaped her throat, and she whispered hoarsely, “I… I’m sorry…”

Niko and Rel appeared next to her. Her first officer gently placed his hand on her shoulder. “Remember Sina, it is possible to commit no mistake and still lose. You’ve done nothing wrong. Every single decision you’ve made today, I would have also made like that. It’s not your fault the fissure was there, and neither is it your fault that the Borg are here.”

In the back one could hear Shori power up her phaser rifle. She put on the helmet and turned to the group of battered survivors to give her final instructions for the fight ahead. “Less than two minutes. Let’s get ready. Rel, you and Duncan go port side. Me and Niko will stay with the captain on this side. Everyone else form a firing line at the steps to the backside. First row kneeling, second row standing, third row filling in the gaps. Second and third rows keep your blades ready. Weapons free! Fire on any Borg that dares to show their ugly wired up face in front of the central console!”

The sound of dozens of phasers being powered up filled the room, and then the Sidereal’s crew moved into position. Their faces were masks of fear and despair, and more than a few had been crying. But they held together. They stood as one in their final battle, Cardassian next to Human, Caitian next to Romulan, Vulcan next to Bolian. With desperate courage they awaited the Borg’s attack.

A console started beeping, indicating an incoming transmission, and Shori went to check it. “Captain, we’re being hailed.”

“Oh, we all know what they’re going to say.” Sina responded with bitterness and anger. “But let’s hear it to get over with it. Open the channel.”

All gathered personnel listened to the choir of voices speak. “USS Sidereal, we have detected critical damage to your life support, structural integrity, and matter-antimatter reactor systems. Our damage control team will assist you. Stand by for transport.”

Sina first looked at Shori in confusion, then at Niko. “What?”