Chapter One
AJW
Well-known member
Disclaimer: I do not own most of the characters and universes that I am about to mangle around for my own demented authorial amusement – sadly, all Star Trek and Stargate concepts and characters remain the property of Paramount, CBS, and MGM respectively – I am merely borrowing them and make absolutely no profit from their use. As a result, please keep the legal attack dogs – also known as lawyers – firmly muzzled and on a leash as I have no money to give to anyone.
Authors Note: For those of you who know me you know this fic is one of my oldest fanfic concepts, with the original version being a grand twenty years old now, one that I hadn’t thought I would ever really be able to get back to properly. However, a talk with a friend of mine online led to a major plot tribble attack – as if plot bunnies weren’t bad enough now you have plot tribbles lol – and this newest attempt to reboot this venerable old fic was born. I do plan some major changes from the previous versions – though I am excluding the timeline established in Star Trek: Picard, which I actually cannot watch for long as the pacing of the stories are so bloody slow, and naturally I am excluding Star Trek: Discovery – though what those changes are well you will just have to wait and see. Now then let’s get cracking shall we.
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Chapter One
Captain’s Personal Log, Stardate: 71320.4
We have been diverted from our previous mission to investigate a spatial anomaly that has recently appeared on Federation long range sensors in a remote region of the Alpha Quadrant not far from our border with the Klingon Empire. It has been nearly a hundred years since the last manned Federation vessel entered this remote region and the whole crew seems to be gripped by a profound sense of excitement over what we might find after so long.
I have to admit that I share that excitement. It will be a very welcome change of pace after months of tension patrolling the border with the Klingon Empire and assisting with the establishment of new outposts in the region. If only I could shake this strange sense of unease I feel about this mission, I have no idea why, but I cannot help but feel like something is going to happen. What I do not know. Maybe the last few months of patrolling the border has made me paranoid, I don’t know. We’ll find out soon enough.
Sitting in the chair behind his desk in his quarters Captain Darian Parker concluded his latest personal log entry, before leaning back and swinging the chair from side-to-side thoughtfully. As he had said in the log, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something untoward was going to happen to his ship and crew in this mission to investigate the anomaly. He didn’t know what it was that was giving him these feelings – only that the profound sense of danger that he had cultivated over the years, really ever since he’d been an ensign assigned to the USS Gagarin during the first months of the Dominion War was twitching – and he vowed to be on his guard.
Still, he wouldn’t lie and say he wasn’t excited about getting to do a little bit of exploration for a change. It was after all what he, like everyone else, had joined Starfleet to do. It certainly was a nice change of pace from what they had been doing since the third-generation Sovereign-class starship – sometimes referred to as the Sojourner subtype – had first pulled out of McKinley Station eight months ago after the Resolution’s maiden voyage had been completed.
In the year since they had been patrolling along the border between the Federation and the Klingon Empire, as well as delivering supplies, equipment, and personnel to a number of new outposts that the Federation had begun building in the area. In his father’s time such a patrol would have been considered something of a cakewalk – due to the existence of the alliance between the Federation and the Empire – the perfect place to break in a new starship and her crew with the minimum amount of trouble. What little trouble encountered would normally have been the occasional band of Orion or Kzinti pirates – easily chased off if they were foolish enough to tangle with a Federation starship in the first place.
That was not the case anymore.
In the last few years relations between the United Federation of Planets and the Klingon Empire, once warm and reaffirmed in the fires of the Dominion War, had turned distinctly cool. In fact, they were now downright frosty to say the least. All of it dating back to a disaster that had taken place nearly a decade ago when the nearest star to the Romulan home system, Hobus, had abruptly gone supernova without any of the normal warning signs that it was about to do so. The resulting gamma ray burst, and subspace shockwave had slammed into the Romulan system mere days later – despite a heroic and desperate attempt by Ambassador Spock to stop it – annihilating both Romulus and Remus and neither world planetary defence shield had been strong enough to withstand the fury of the blast. Only a few hundred thousand Romulans and about three or four hundred Remans had been able to escape the system before its destruction.
The disaster had torn the heart out of the once mighty Romulan Star Empire and horrified much of the quadrant with the sheer scale of the humanitarian catastrophe. Everyone that was but the Klingons who’d ceased on the opportunity presented by the suddenly vulnerable Romulans to both settle some old grudges with the Star Empire and expand their own territory. Since then, the Klingons had been slowly but surely bulldozing their way across the Romulan Empire, taking world after world despite the fierce resistance of the remains of the Romulan Fleet.
It had sparked an exodus into Federation space by tens of thousands of Romulan civilian refugees which showed no sign of slowing down. Attempts to mediate a peace settlement by the Federation Council had only been met by harsh words, militaristic posturing, and generally unrealistic demands from the Klingons, ultimately leading to the Empire once again withdrawing from the Khitomer Accords bringing an end to the alliance between them. Since then, Klingon patrols had become increasingly aggressive towards Starfleet ships patrolling the Federation side of their mutual border, armed clashes were becoming more and more common all the time.
It was pretty obvious to almost everyone – except some of the more idealistic, peacenik members of the old guard which sadly included the likes of Admiral Picard – in both Starfleet Command and the Federation Council that, once again, war was brewing between them and the Klingons. Darian, like many of his peers, was convinced that the only reason it hadn’t started already was because – as aggressive as they could be – the Klingons were not stupid. With their forces bogged down in Romulan space they weren’t about to expand their war to include the Federation. Even the most hawkish of Klingon Generals would know full well that would be a very foolish move as the Empire wasn’t strong enough to fight both the Romulans and the Federation.
While there was still some hope that the tensions would be resolved diplomatically – keeping the peaceniks happy at least for now – the Federation and Starfleet had begun preparing for the possibility that they would not be and that they would once again be at war with the Klingons. As such they had begun preparing, upgrading their outposts along the border, and building new ones to create strong points that would stall any Klingon military advance into Federation space. Equipped with the latest anti-cloak sensors the Klingons would find it impossible to use their normal ambush tactics on the outposts, not to mention their latest weapons and defence technologies being present. The construction of additional more military orientated ships – like the Akira-class – had already begun as had the outfitting of ships with greater combat capabilities.
It was a not very subtle warning to the Klingons – assuming they’d listen which was never guaranteed with them – that while they hoped for peace, they were prepared to aggressively defend themselves and their space. The fire and pain of the Dominion War had taught the Federation some very harsh lessons, and they hadn’t forgotten them so they were getting ready to defend themselves should war come. Darian personally hoped it wouldn’t come, he had seen enough war and death during the Dominion War thank you very much, but if it did then he would do his duty and defend the Federation unto death if the need arose.
A bleep from the tabletop comm panel – rather than his comm badge – drew him out of his thoughts. “Bridge to Captain Parker,” came the familiar voice of his Andorian first officer. Calmly he reached out and touched the panel.
“Yes commander?”
“Captain we’re approaching the region where the anomalous readings are coming from,” Commander Urlet reported from the bridge. “ETA is now five minutes. You asked to be notified.”
“So, I did commander. Drop us out of warp as soon as we’re within range. Also inform Starfleet Command that we are about to arrive. I will be right there.”
“Aye sir,” Urlet acknowledged.
“Parker out,” Darian replied closing the connection. Then he took a moment to stretch, and loosen up muscles that had cramped somewhat while he had been sat her attending to the massive amount of paperwork that came with commanding a starship, before standing up, retrieving his uniform jacket from where he'd left it on the back of the chair and leaving his quarters, pulling on the jacket as he did so – inwardly grimacing as he noticed not for the first time recently how tight it was getting across his shoulders and chest.
Making a mental note to replicate a new uniform jacket in a larger size whenever he got the time, he began making his way down the corridors towards the closest turbolift, not for the first time since he'd been chosen to be her master, he noticed idly how much darker the corridors on the Resolution were in comparison to other ships he'd served on. Missing were the silver, beige, and blue tones of most other starships instead the metal bulkheads were darker more substantial grey and brown tones while still maintaining a comfortable spacious atmosphere onboard. The difference caused by the fact that the metal was a denser and more durable duranium/tritanium alloy as opposed to the normal tritanium panels, it was another very visible sign of the deteriorating situation in the quadrant as like all the Sojourner subtype Sovereigns the Resolution had been built with a greater emphasis on combat capabilities and survival. Though naturally they retained their ability to be explorers and anything else that the Federation might need them to be at any given time.
The sound of running feet approaching was another reminder to him of the more military nature that Starfleet was adopting as the quadrant continued to slowly fall apart politically. Moving slightly to one side he paused as a four of the marine detachment – all four were wearing exercise clothing that was dark with sweat – assigned to the Resolution appeared around the corner and togged past him pausing only to exchange a few polite nods to acknowledge his presence and rank. He arrived at the turbolift just as the marines disappeared around another corner.
“Bridge,” he ordered stepping into the turbolift. The computer bleeped and the high-tech lift immediately began its journey to the bridge. A change in the background noise of the ship caught his attention and he knew that the Resolution was dropping out of warp speed having arrived at the edge of the anomaly field. I wonder what we're going to find here, he thought with a smile eager to get started on the investigation of the anomalies. Whatever they found he was certain that it was going to be interesting.
Very interesting.
The turbolift slowed and stopped, the doors opening out onto the bridge. With his normal, confident stride he moved out onto the bridge.
“Status,” he ordered immediately moving towards the command chair.
“We're secure from warp speed and have the outer edge of the anomaly field, we're holding position the field is now thirty thousand kilometres directly ahead,” Commander Urlet reported promptly from the first officer's station. “We have begun running preliminary scans.”
“Very good. Put the anomaly field on screen,” Darian ordered as he sat down, shifting slightly to make his well-muscled frame comfortable in the chair. Immediately the holographic screen at the front of the bridge activated replacing the plane bulkhead with an extremely high-definition view of the space ahead of the ship. A space that glowed with a strange ethereal green light that seemed to be focused into a series of what looked like rifts that glowed with a brilliant light, smaller ribbons of light filled the area in a random pattern and the whole place seemed to ripple as though they were looking at it through a sheet of running water. Drifting around the edge of the field was what looked like an accretion disc of some kind made of rocks, dust, and interstellar gasses.
“What are we looking at,” he asked.
“Preliminary analysis shows a number of quantum and spatial distortions in subspace sir,” Lieutenant Rakan reported from the main bridge science station. “We’re also reading an intense graviton flux in the area; I cannot be sure without more data, but I think something has somehow caused the barriers that separate normal space from subspace to weaken in this region causing these anomalies to appear.”
“What could cause that,” Darien asked amazed at the occurrence. Back at the academy advanced subspace theory had been one of his favourite classes, something that had made quite a few of his classmate’s blink as they’d always assumed that a man as muscular as he would prefer pounding weights in the gym to sitting quiet reading scientific papers. He’d maintained his interest in it even after graduating and had read many of the latest papers on subspace, but he knew of no theory that could explain such an occurrence.
“I have no idea sir,” the joined Trill answered sounding even more bemused than Darien felt by the strange occurrence but also thrilled by it as investigating these kinds of things was what Starfleet officers lived for. “I request permission to launch a probe into the field it should give us more information on the anomalies.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves lieutenant,” he cautioned. “I want to know how extensive this thing is first. Launch a series of class one probes to survey the outer edge of the field. Also, what’s the accretion disc made from?”
“Aye sir,” Rakan acknowledged the order sounding chagrined at being subtly told that they needed to take their time with these things. But then his current host was only his second host and only in his mid-twenties, thus they both still had quite a bit of youthful wanderlust about them, before giving the command to launch the probes with the appropriate survey program. Then he turned his attention, and the ships sensors on the accretion disc.
Within a few moments the results came in.
“Sensors indicate that the accretion disc is composed primarily of iron and silica rich asteroids, interstellar hydrogen and helium three,” he reported, “curios we’re picking up several smaller asteroids rich in materials we’ve never seen before.”
“Interesting. Where is the nearest of them?”
“Six degrees to starboard at the edge of the field,” Rakan replied. “The rock is not very large only three or four meters across. Captain, I recommend that we beam it aboard for analysis.”
“Do it.”
“Aye sir,” Rakan acknowledged and relayed the command to the main transporter room. A moment later the readings on his console changed. “We have it sir. The main astrogeology lab will begin analysing it immediately.”
“Understood,” Darian answered a second before a dull rumbling boom, like a hundred base drums being hit at once rumbled through the hull and the deck beneath him shuddered. “What the hell? Report!”
“Sir we’re taking fire,” Lieutenant Commander Christopher Beach reported from the tactical station, even as red alert automatically began to sound, and the shields went up. But not before another blast of weapon’s fire hitting the hull shook the ship.
“From where,” Urlet asked.
“Klingon Bird-of-Prey looks like one of the new Sokat-class,” Beach reported. “They’re approaching on a bearing of zero-two-four by one-three-four. Looks like they used the anomaly to hide their approach.”
“Are they nuts,” Ensign Querr wondered from the helm. “A Bird-of-Prey, even one of the new ones, is no match for us.”
“They’re Klingons ensign,” Beach replied, “common sense is not something that is generally in their lexicon.”
“That will do commander,” Darien warned as more disruptor blasts came in, only to sleet harmlessly off the shields being absorbed so effortlessly that the deck barely shivered with the impact. “But let’s put a stop to this stupidity before it gets any further. Hail them.”
“No response,” Beach replied, a moment before a powerful impact shook the ship, “well unless you count a photon torpedo.”
“Alright if they want to fight, we’ll fight,” Darian said with a sigh of resigned irritation. He had to wonder who the hell was in charge on the Klingon ship, an idiot? Surely, they had to know that they were no match for a Sovereign-class ship, they outgunned them more than a dozen times over. “Return fire all phasers, target engines and weapons only I want them disabled and not destroyed.”
“Aye sir.”
~~//~~
Klingon Vessel
A Few Minutes Earlier
Ch’lok son of Arax of the House of Qul’ot was bored, bored and more than a little frustrated. The reason for his frustration being the fact that he had been sent out here to investigate a subspace anomaly instead of being allowed to earn honour and glory in the battlefields of the Romulan front. His elder brother was there, having already earned a number of accolades for his bravery and courage, which would only go to improve the standing of their house in the power structure of the empire – there was even talk that he could be inducted into the Order of the Bat’leth – which was so not fair. Was he not a warrior too? Did he not have the rite to earn his own honour on the battlefield? Of course, he did though his father somehow never seemed to see it, always still seemed to see him as the youngest who needed to be protected or at very least guided to the least dangerous pursuits in their house fleet.
Like surveying the boundaries of this odd quantum anomaly. An anomaly that existed in a part of what had historically been Klingon space though it wasn’t officially part of the empire at this time and hadn’t been for nearly three centuries.
The crew around him seemed to sense the foul mood that he was in at being relegated to such a mundane task. It helped that they all quietly shared the frustration as they all wanted to be on the front lines against the Romulans, not sitting here in space on the opposite side of the empire charting spatial anomalies. They were Klingons not cowardly humans who preferred charting every spatial anomaly in sight to the glories of combat.
Abruptly the sensors came to life with a warning.
“What is it,” Ch’lok asked, hoping for something interesting.
“There’s a vessel dropping out of warp on the other side of the anomaly field,” the warrior at sensors reported, “Federation starship, Sovereign-class.”
Well, I was hoping for something interesting, Ch’lok thought. “On viewer,” he ordered. The view screen at the front of the bridge came to life showing an image of the Federation starship floating there admit the stars, completely unconcerned that they were technically in a part of Klingon space even if the Empire didn’t really bother to claim or patrol this area since there was nothing of any value – be it strategic or mineral – here for them to bother with.
“Have they detected us,” he asked.
“No, the anomaly seems to be shielding us from their sensors,” the other warrior reported. “They’re own sensors are focused on the anomaly.”
“Typical of them but this time it will cost them,” Ch’lok said with a smile. “Bring us to full alert, charge all weapons and raise shields. Lay in a course to intercept, keep us as close to the anomaly as possible.”
“We are going to attack them,” L’Ret, his first officer and chief minder from his father, asked as alarms began sounding throughout the ship and the alert status bars began flashing amber. “Sir I should point out that that is a Sovereign-class starship. We are no match for them, if we engage them, they will surely quickly overpower and destroy us.”
“Normally that would be true,” Ch’lok agreed, “but they do not know we are here thanks to the anomaly. There shields and tactical systems will thus be down. If we can use the anomaly well enough, we can get close enough to land crippling shots before they even realize we are here.”
“A good plan but it is a dangerous risk. If we don’t disable them quickly enough and they get their shields up…”
“I know but as the Ferengi say the bigger the risk the bigger the win. Imagine all the honour, all the prestige we will gain if we take down a mighty Sovereign in a lowly Bird-of-Prey.”
“It will be glorious.”
“Indeed. Does anyone have any more objections?” There were none. “Excellent. Is our course set?”
“Course set. Disruptors and torpedoes ready.”
“Execute. And give me a countdown to weapons range.”
“Qapla,” the whole bridge crew chorused a moment before the impulse engines engaged and they began to stalk their much larger, and far more powerful, prey using the sensor distortion of the quantum anomaly field instead of their cloaking device as a shield against the Sovereign’s powerful sensors.
“Seventy thousand killicams to weapons range,” the warrior at tactical reported. “Sixty thousand killicams.”
“Any indication that they’ve seen us?” Ch’lok asked.
“None my lord. The Federation ship is launching probes, I believe they are planning to use them to chart the perimeter of the anomaly field.”
“Keep an eye on those probes it would not do for one of them to spoil our surprise.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Thirty thousand killicams to weapons range,” weapons reported. Ch’lok allowed himself a slight, predatory smile as his time to strike drew every closer. With any luck and with the blessing of Khaless they would disable the Federation ship with their first shots allowing them to finish her at their leisure.
“Ten thousand killicams to weapons range…. five thousand… we are now within disruptor range.”
“Bah.”
At Ch’lok’s shouted fire command their wing mounted disruptor cannons barked sending two emerald-coloured bolts of energy towards the Federation ship. In seconds they slammed into her secondary hull with a brilliant white flash – the blasts intended to pierce through to the engineer section and cause the warp core to be shut down to prevent a loss of containment. Shouts of triumph filled the bridge…
…only to die away into horrified silence as the flash faded revealing no damage to the hull, well beyond some light carbon scoring where the bolts had hit.
“What happened? Was there a malfunction,” Ch’lok demanded.
“No, my lord I don’t understand. Disruptors are functioning normally we should have punched a hole right through their hull,” weapons reported.
“I believe I have an explanation the hull of the Federation ship is covered with an ablative armour matrix of some kind,” sensors reported, “our disruptors weren’t powerful enough to breach it. My lord the Federation ship is powering shields and weapons.”
“Then we have no choice. Open fire all weapons, attack pattern chelik four.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Ch’lok watched calmly as his disruptors lashed out again this time slamming into the forming shields of the Federation starship making them flare slightly but otherwise doing no damage. More disruptor blasts shot across space and impacted the starships shields, the bolts disappearing in momentary flashes of Cherenkov radiation as the powerful regenerative shields of a Sovereign-class starship, designed as they were to withstand Borg disruptors and Jem’Hadar phased polaron beams, easily withstood them.
“My lord we are being hailed by the Federation ship.”
“No doubt they want to talk us down the cowards. Weapons send them our reply. Then switch to attack pattern Kor nine.”
A faint shiver ran through the deck as weapons sent a photon torpedo at the Federation ship along with another salvo of disruptor blasts. Neither had much effect beyond making a pretty light show around the Federation ship as her advanced shields took their firepower and stopped it cold. This time however the crew of the starship seemed to get the message as a powerful impact shook the ship.
“Direct phaser hit to our port shields,” weapons reported as another yellow-orange phaser beam slammed into them, the blows – powerful enough to stagger a Vorcha-class cruiser – shaking them violently. “Shields at eighty percent. They’re targeting our weapons.”
“Evasive manoeuvres continue attack.”
“Yes, my lord.”
~~//~~
The Bird-of-Prey turned sharply to port causing a pair of beams from the Resolution to miss cleanly, while a third only grazed them making them flare with strain. Continuing to turn the Bird climbed high and steep, attempting to throw off the bigger ships targeting system. It did little good as a beam hit the Bird dead on visibly staggering it.
In retaliation the Klingons fired four photon torpedoes from their forward launcher.
Immediately automated defence systems took action to deal with the incoming weapons. The modern descendant of electronic countermeasures began broadcasting on all known Klingon torpedo guidance frequencies, attempting to confuse the targeting lock of the torpedoes. The tactic was only partially effective as only one torpedo veered off, its lock on broken. The remaining three continued to close in on the starship.
It was then that one of the newest systems added to all new Federation vessels made its presence felt as small bolts of phased energy – similar in many respects to the discharge of pre-Federation pulse phase cannons – shot out from numerous points on the hull as close in point defence opened fire. Two torpedoes were speared nearly instantly, both detonating together in brilliant fireballs of matter-antimatter mutual annihilation. The remaining torpedo pierced the defensive fire screen and slammed into the Resolution’s starboard shields making them flare brilliantly and producing an asteroid sized cauliflower like explosion of light and energy as the torpedo detonated. The blast quickly faded as the shields absorbed and dispersed the energy back into space in the form of Cherenkov radiation.
Annoyed now the Resolution fired again unleashing multiple beams as well as a pair of her own photon torpedoes upon the impudent Klingon attack ship. Klingon shields flared brilliantly then collapsed completely as the two torpedoes impacted knocking them flat and blowing two burning holes in the hull of the Bird. Phaser blasts followed demolishing disruptors and impulse engines leaving the Bird spinning out of control helpless and burning.
~~//~~
Bridge
USS Resolution
“The Klingon vessel has been disabled sir.”
Still in his command chair Darian nodded at Beach’s report; he could see it himself on the holographic view screen. The Klingon ship was spinning helplessly like a broken toy, debris and burning plasma leaking from the breaches torn in its armoured skin. He couldn’t help but feel somewhat sorry for the crew of that Klingon ship as he knew it would be hell on Earth over there now, with numerous plasma and electrical fires likely having broken out all over the ship. While the Klingons had attacked without warning or provocation – and in defiance of all common sense that should have told them that this was a fight they couldn’t hope to win – he couldn’t help but feel for those who would be dead or dying over there.
“Scan the Klingon ship for life signs Mr Beach,” he ordered. “If there are any lock onto them and beam the idiots into cargo bay four. Make sure it is filled with the appropriate anaesthetic gas, I don’t want them making any trouble for us, while I decide what to do with them.”
“Aye sir.”
“Sir,” Rakan called out in alarm, “the torpedo our countermeasures decoyed away is on course for the anomaly field. Impact in ten seconds.”
Darian’s eyes widened. “Lock phasers, shoot it down before it hits the field,” he ordered.
“It’s to late the torpedo is entering the field.”
“On screen.”
The view screen shimmered and changed to show once again the image of the anomaly field in all its strange, ethereal glory. The Klingon torpedo was a tiny dot of green that passed into the field and travelled for a few hundred metres before the gravitational forces inside the field tore it apart triggering a brilliant explosion as matter and antimatter encountered one another with the predictable violent response. The explosion expanded outwards, rippling, and distorting and causing lightning-like forks of energy to begin dancing between the closest anomalies which began to glow brighter and brighter sending out more of the spatial lightning.
“Report,” Darien ordered watching in disbelief as the anomaly field turned into a seething mass of energy and spatial distortion in mere seconds. It seemed incredible that such a small explosion could cause such a massive and dramatic transformation in the behaviour of the strange phenomenon.
“Sensors report that the subspace fluctuations inside the field are growing in intensity and becoming increasingly random, we're also picking up increased tachyon emissions along with unusual phase fluctuations,” Rakan reported, “if I had to guess I would say that the different forces at work within the field were finely balanced and the warhead detonation has destabilized them. Sir the field is beginning to expand, at its current rate of expansion it will hit us in three minutes.”
“Helm back us off one quarter impulse,” Darian ordered. “Mr Beach did we manage to get anyone off the Klingon ship?”
“Yes sir. Twelve survivors, they’re unconscious in cargo bay four,” the other officer confirmed even as the Resolution’s impulse engines came to life and began to slowly back the starship away from the mutated phenomenon. However, before the starship could move more than a few hundred meters a massive lightning like arc of eldritch energy emerged from the anomaly field and slammed into the ship, the energy easily penetrating the shield and wrapping itself around the hull again and again both violently rocking the entire vessel and making the hull glow with a strange aura that to an observer would have looked almost like the phenomenon known on Earth as St Elmo’s Fire.
A second stream of energy erupted from the anomaly and slammed into the staggering ship and like the first wrapped around the ship violently shaking the entire vessel for a second time in as many seconds. More bolts followed wrapping the ship in an aura of shimmering almost ghostly power. The Resolution began to move but instead of backing away from the danger and despite the best efforts of the impulse engines the ship was drawn towards the brightly glowing anomaly field like an iron filing being drawn to a powerful magnet.
“Report,” Darien ordered picking himself up off the deck and settling back down into the command chair.
“Captain we’ve been hit by multiple quantum-gravitic discharges of some kind. They’ve penetrated our shields and are adhering to the hull somehow,” Lieutenant John Ashton reported from the operations console even as another shudder ran through the ship as yet another bolt from the anomaly slammed into the energy surrounding them. “Structural integrity is holding; however, we are also caught in some kind of gravitational wake. It’s overpowering the impulse engines and dragging us towards the anomaly field.”
“Helm engines to full reverse.”
“Aye sir,” Querr acknowledged increasing the speed of reverse thrust from one quarter to full impulse. Immediately an audible rumbling of strain began to fill the air and the ship began vibrating fiercely as the Resolution fought to break free of the powerful gravitic forces that had her in their invisible, irresistible grip. “We cannot break free sir the gravitational forces are too strong,” Querr reported as the rumbling of the sublight engines rose in pitch and volume turning into a howling roar. At the same time the vibration worsened escalating into a violent shaking. “We’ve slowed but we’re still being pulled towards the anomaly one minute thirty seconds to impact.”
Darien hurriedly tapped his comm badge. “Bridge to engineering can you increase power to the impulse engines?”
“Negative captain,” Chief Engineer T’Lar reported from engineering sounding as grim as a Vulcan could. “Impulse driver coils have been partially depolarised by the energy field clinging to the hull. Full impulse is all I can give you; if we push the coils any harder in their current state, we run the risk of catastrophic overload.”
“Understood,” Darien acknowledged tapping the badge again to sign off. “Mr Rakan, can we disperse the energy field on the hull?”
“It might be possible captain. We can use the main deflector to run a resonance pulse along the hull on the opposing frequency range to the energy field it should in theory cancel out the field.”
“Do it.”
“Aye sir,” Rakan acknowledged before his hands flew across his console as he accessed the controls for the main navigational deflector array and began configuring the device to generate the resonance pulse that would hopefully free the ship of the energy field that was pulling them towards the maelstrom the anomaly field had become despite the best efforts of the impulse engines to pull the ship away from the danger. In moments he made the required modifications to the deflector protocols and began priming the pulse to fire. “Resonance pulse powering up, twenty seconds till it’s ready.”
“Initiate the pulse as soon as it’s ready Mr Rakan.”
“Aye sir,” Rakan acknowledged a few moments before the whole ship shook violently again and additional alarms sounded from the engineering and operations consoles.
“Warning, warning impulse driver coil overload detected,” the ships computer reported in its usual infuriatingly unflappable female voice. “Automatic shutdown initiated.” As the voice of the computer filled the air the roaring of the impulse engines abruptly vanished as all fuel flows to the impulse drive slammed closed while emergency vents opened releasing the plasma inside the driver coils of the advanced magnetoplasmadynamic engines instantly shutting them down, preventing a detonation that would have instantly vaporised a large chunk of the primary hull and torn the ship in half.
The result was immediate and dramatic.
No longer resisting the tremendous gravitational pull of the mutated anomaly the Resolution lurched forward with a sudden violent jolt that the inertial dampeners weren’t able to completely cancel out, throwing crew members off their feet, out of their chairs or against consoles and bulkheads. Mere seconds later – faster than any of the staggered crew could recover let alone react – the forward hull of the starship impacted the edge of the anomaly.
Arcs of quantum energy raced along the whole of the ships six hundred and eighty-six metre length, brightening the aura around the ship into a twisting cocoon that clawed at the ablative armour matrix covering the ships duranium-tritanium alloy hull like a hungry lion clawing at the skin of a wildebeest. The ships outline began to blur, the space around her warping and distorting before seeming to shift from three dimensional to two dimensional to one, then in a brilliant flash the Resolution was gone, vanished into nothingness.
Moments later the unstable anomaly began to compress in upon itself, the delicate subspace super symmetry that had allowed its continued existence hopelessly compromised. With a speed that would have been frightening to any observers the anomaly collapsed, its previous broad expanse compressing down into a several small dots scarcely bigger than a football. One by one the dots joined the Resolution in vanishing, each disappearing into what appeared to be a momentary slit in the very fabric of the universe.
In less than an hour there was no sign that the anomaly field and the Resolution had ever been present at all beyond that was the shattered, burning remains of the Klingon ship that had started the trouble in the first place. A few hours later that too would vanish in a fireball as the damaged warp core, without anyone present to attempt to stabilize or shut it down, lost antimatter containment sending it and any records of what had just taken place here into oblivion.
Authors Note: For those of you who know me you know this fic is one of my oldest fanfic concepts, with the original version being a grand twenty years old now, one that I hadn’t thought I would ever really be able to get back to properly. However, a talk with a friend of mine online led to a major plot tribble attack – as if plot bunnies weren’t bad enough now you have plot tribbles lol – and this newest attempt to reboot this venerable old fic was born. I do plan some major changes from the previous versions – though I am excluding the timeline established in Star Trek: Picard, which I actually cannot watch for long as the pacing of the stories are so bloody slow, and naturally I am excluding Star Trek: Discovery – though what those changes are well you will just have to wait and see. Now then let’s get cracking shall we.
~~~///~~~
Chapter One
Captain’s Personal Log, Stardate: 71320.4
We have been diverted from our previous mission to investigate a spatial anomaly that has recently appeared on Federation long range sensors in a remote region of the Alpha Quadrant not far from our border with the Klingon Empire. It has been nearly a hundred years since the last manned Federation vessel entered this remote region and the whole crew seems to be gripped by a profound sense of excitement over what we might find after so long.
I have to admit that I share that excitement. It will be a very welcome change of pace after months of tension patrolling the border with the Klingon Empire and assisting with the establishment of new outposts in the region. If only I could shake this strange sense of unease I feel about this mission, I have no idea why, but I cannot help but feel like something is going to happen. What I do not know. Maybe the last few months of patrolling the border has made me paranoid, I don’t know. We’ll find out soon enough.
Sitting in the chair behind his desk in his quarters Captain Darian Parker concluded his latest personal log entry, before leaning back and swinging the chair from side-to-side thoughtfully. As he had said in the log, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something untoward was going to happen to his ship and crew in this mission to investigate the anomaly. He didn’t know what it was that was giving him these feelings – only that the profound sense of danger that he had cultivated over the years, really ever since he’d been an ensign assigned to the USS Gagarin during the first months of the Dominion War was twitching – and he vowed to be on his guard.
Still, he wouldn’t lie and say he wasn’t excited about getting to do a little bit of exploration for a change. It was after all what he, like everyone else, had joined Starfleet to do. It certainly was a nice change of pace from what they had been doing since the third-generation Sovereign-class starship – sometimes referred to as the Sojourner subtype – had first pulled out of McKinley Station eight months ago after the Resolution’s maiden voyage had been completed.
In the year since they had been patrolling along the border between the Federation and the Klingon Empire, as well as delivering supplies, equipment, and personnel to a number of new outposts that the Federation had begun building in the area. In his father’s time such a patrol would have been considered something of a cakewalk – due to the existence of the alliance between the Federation and the Empire – the perfect place to break in a new starship and her crew with the minimum amount of trouble. What little trouble encountered would normally have been the occasional band of Orion or Kzinti pirates – easily chased off if they were foolish enough to tangle with a Federation starship in the first place.
That was not the case anymore.
In the last few years relations between the United Federation of Planets and the Klingon Empire, once warm and reaffirmed in the fires of the Dominion War, had turned distinctly cool. In fact, they were now downright frosty to say the least. All of it dating back to a disaster that had taken place nearly a decade ago when the nearest star to the Romulan home system, Hobus, had abruptly gone supernova without any of the normal warning signs that it was about to do so. The resulting gamma ray burst, and subspace shockwave had slammed into the Romulan system mere days later – despite a heroic and desperate attempt by Ambassador Spock to stop it – annihilating both Romulus and Remus and neither world planetary defence shield had been strong enough to withstand the fury of the blast. Only a few hundred thousand Romulans and about three or four hundred Remans had been able to escape the system before its destruction.
The disaster had torn the heart out of the once mighty Romulan Star Empire and horrified much of the quadrant with the sheer scale of the humanitarian catastrophe. Everyone that was but the Klingons who’d ceased on the opportunity presented by the suddenly vulnerable Romulans to both settle some old grudges with the Star Empire and expand their own territory. Since then, the Klingons had been slowly but surely bulldozing their way across the Romulan Empire, taking world after world despite the fierce resistance of the remains of the Romulan Fleet.
It had sparked an exodus into Federation space by tens of thousands of Romulan civilian refugees which showed no sign of slowing down. Attempts to mediate a peace settlement by the Federation Council had only been met by harsh words, militaristic posturing, and generally unrealistic demands from the Klingons, ultimately leading to the Empire once again withdrawing from the Khitomer Accords bringing an end to the alliance between them. Since then, Klingon patrols had become increasingly aggressive towards Starfleet ships patrolling the Federation side of their mutual border, armed clashes were becoming more and more common all the time.
It was pretty obvious to almost everyone – except some of the more idealistic, peacenik members of the old guard which sadly included the likes of Admiral Picard – in both Starfleet Command and the Federation Council that, once again, war was brewing between them and the Klingons. Darian, like many of his peers, was convinced that the only reason it hadn’t started already was because – as aggressive as they could be – the Klingons were not stupid. With their forces bogged down in Romulan space they weren’t about to expand their war to include the Federation. Even the most hawkish of Klingon Generals would know full well that would be a very foolish move as the Empire wasn’t strong enough to fight both the Romulans and the Federation.
While there was still some hope that the tensions would be resolved diplomatically – keeping the peaceniks happy at least for now – the Federation and Starfleet had begun preparing for the possibility that they would not be and that they would once again be at war with the Klingons. As such they had begun preparing, upgrading their outposts along the border, and building new ones to create strong points that would stall any Klingon military advance into Federation space. Equipped with the latest anti-cloak sensors the Klingons would find it impossible to use their normal ambush tactics on the outposts, not to mention their latest weapons and defence technologies being present. The construction of additional more military orientated ships – like the Akira-class – had already begun as had the outfitting of ships with greater combat capabilities.
It was a not very subtle warning to the Klingons – assuming they’d listen which was never guaranteed with them – that while they hoped for peace, they were prepared to aggressively defend themselves and their space. The fire and pain of the Dominion War had taught the Federation some very harsh lessons, and they hadn’t forgotten them so they were getting ready to defend themselves should war come. Darian personally hoped it wouldn’t come, he had seen enough war and death during the Dominion War thank you very much, but if it did then he would do his duty and defend the Federation unto death if the need arose.
A bleep from the tabletop comm panel – rather than his comm badge – drew him out of his thoughts. “Bridge to Captain Parker,” came the familiar voice of his Andorian first officer. Calmly he reached out and touched the panel.
“Yes commander?”
“Captain we’re approaching the region where the anomalous readings are coming from,” Commander Urlet reported from the bridge. “ETA is now five minutes. You asked to be notified.”
“So, I did commander. Drop us out of warp as soon as we’re within range. Also inform Starfleet Command that we are about to arrive. I will be right there.”
“Aye sir,” Urlet acknowledged.
“Parker out,” Darian replied closing the connection. Then he took a moment to stretch, and loosen up muscles that had cramped somewhat while he had been sat her attending to the massive amount of paperwork that came with commanding a starship, before standing up, retrieving his uniform jacket from where he'd left it on the back of the chair and leaving his quarters, pulling on the jacket as he did so – inwardly grimacing as he noticed not for the first time recently how tight it was getting across his shoulders and chest.
Making a mental note to replicate a new uniform jacket in a larger size whenever he got the time, he began making his way down the corridors towards the closest turbolift, not for the first time since he'd been chosen to be her master, he noticed idly how much darker the corridors on the Resolution were in comparison to other ships he'd served on. Missing were the silver, beige, and blue tones of most other starships instead the metal bulkheads were darker more substantial grey and brown tones while still maintaining a comfortable spacious atmosphere onboard. The difference caused by the fact that the metal was a denser and more durable duranium/tritanium alloy as opposed to the normal tritanium panels, it was another very visible sign of the deteriorating situation in the quadrant as like all the Sojourner subtype Sovereigns the Resolution had been built with a greater emphasis on combat capabilities and survival. Though naturally they retained their ability to be explorers and anything else that the Federation might need them to be at any given time.
The sound of running feet approaching was another reminder to him of the more military nature that Starfleet was adopting as the quadrant continued to slowly fall apart politically. Moving slightly to one side he paused as a four of the marine detachment – all four were wearing exercise clothing that was dark with sweat – assigned to the Resolution appeared around the corner and togged past him pausing only to exchange a few polite nods to acknowledge his presence and rank. He arrived at the turbolift just as the marines disappeared around another corner.
“Bridge,” he ordered stepping into the turbolift. The computer bleeped and the high-tech lift immediately began its journey to the bridge. A change in the background noise of the ship caught his attention and he knew that the Resolution was dropping out of warp speed having arrived at the edge of the anomaly field. I wonder what we're going to find here, he thought with a smile eager to get started on the investigation of the anomalies. Whatever they found he was certain that it was going to be interesting.
Very interesting.
The turbolift slowed and stopped, the doors opening out onto the bridge. With his normal, confident stride he moved out onto the bridge.
“Status,” he ordered immediately moving towards the command chair.
“We're secure from warp speed and have the outer edge of the anomaly field, we're holding position the field is now thirty thousand kilometres directly ahead,” Commander Urlet reported promptly from the first officer's station. “We have begun running preliminary scans.”
“Very good. Put the anomaly field on screen,” Darian ordered as he sat down, shifting slightly to make his well-muscled frame comfortable in the chair. Immediately the holographic screen at the front of the bridge activated replacing the plane bulkhead with an extremely high-definition view of the space ahead of the ship. A space that glowed with a strange ethereal green light that seemed to be focused into a series of what looked like rifts that glowed with a brilliant light, smaller ribbons of light filled the area in a random pattern and the whole place seemed to ripple as though they were looking at it through a sheet of running water. Drifting around the edge of the field was what looked like an accretion disc of some kind made of rocks, dust, and interstellar gasses.
“What are we looking at,” he asked.
“Preliminary analysis shows a number of quantum and spatial distortions in subspace sir,” Lieutenant Rakan reported from the main bridge science station. “We’re also reading an intense graviton flux in the area; I cannot be sure without more data, but I think something has somehow caused the barriers that separate normal space from subspace to weaken in this region causing these anomalies to appear.”
“What could cause that,” Darien asked amazed at the occurrence. Back at the academy advanced subspace theory had been one of his favourite classes, something that had made quite a few of his classmate’s blink as they’d always assumed that a man as muscular as he would prefer pounding weights in the gym to sitting quiet reading scientific papers. He’d maintained his interest in it even after graduating and had read many of the latest papers on subspace, but he knew of no theory that could explain such an occurrence.
“I have no idea sir,” the joined Trill answered sounding even more bemused than Darien felt by the strange occurrence but also thrilled by it as investigating these kinds of things was what Starfleet officers lived for. “I request permission to launch a probe into the field it should give us more information on the anomalies.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves lieutenant,” he cautioned. “I want to know how extensive this thing is first. Launch a series of class one probes to survey the outer edge of the field. Also, what’s the accretion disc made from?”
“Aye sir,” Rakan acknowledged the order sounding chagrined at being subtly told that they needed to take their time with these things. But then his current host was only his second host and only in his mid-twenties, thus they both still had quite a bit of youthful wanderlust about them, before giving the command to launch the probes with the appropriate survey program. Then he turned his attention, and the ships sensors on the accretion disc.
Within a few moments the results came in.
“Sensors indicate that the accretion disc is composed primarily of iron and silica rich asteroids, interstellar hydrogen and helium three,” he reported, “curios we’re picking up several smaller asteroids rich in materials we’ve never seen before.”
“Interesting. Where is the nearest of them?”
“Six degrees to starboard at the edge of the field,” Rakan replied. “The rock is not very large only three or four meters across. Captain, I recommend that we beam it aboard for analysis.”
“Do it.”
“Aye sir,” Rakan acknowledged and relayed the command to the main transporter room. A moment later the readings on his console changed. “We have it sir. The main astrogeology lab will begin analysing it immediately.”
“Understood,” Darian answered a second before a dull rumbling boom, like a hundred base drums being hit at once rumbled through the hull and the deck beneath him shuddered. “What the hell? Report!”
“Sir we’re taking fire,” Lieutenant Commander Christopher Beach reported from the tactical station, even as red alert automatically began to sound, and the shields went up. But not before another blast of weapon’s fire hitting the hull shook the ship.
“From where,” Urlet asked.
“Klingon Bird-of-Prey looks like one of the new Sokat-class,” Beach reported. “They’re approaching on a bearing of zero-two-four by one-three-four. Looks like they used the anomaly to hide their approach.”
“Are they nuts,” Ensign Querr wondered from the helm. “A Bird-of-Prey, even one of the new ones, is no match for us.”
“They’re Klingons ensign,” Beach replied, “common sense is not something that is generally in their lexicon.”
“That will do commander,” Darien warned as more disruptor blasts came in, only to sleet harmlessly off the shields being absorbed so effortlessly that the deck barely shivered with the impact. “But let’s put a stop to this stupidity before it gets any further. Hail them.”
“No response,” Beach replied, a moment before a powerful impact shook the ship, “well unless you count a photon torpedo.”
“Alright if they want to fight, we’ll fight,” Darian said with a sigh of resigned irritation. He had to wonder who the hell was in charge on the Klingon ship, an idiot? Surely, they had to know that they were no match for a Sovereign-class ship, they outgunned them more than a dozen times over. “Return fire all phasers, target engines and weapons only I want them disabled and not destroyed.”
“Aye sir.”
~~//~~
Klingon Vessel
A Few Minutes Earlier
Ch’lok son of Arax of the House of Qul’ot was bored, bored and more than a little frustrated. The reason for his frustration being the fact that he had been sent out here to investigate a subspace anomaly instead of being allowed to earn honour and glory in the battlefields of the Romulan front. His elder brother was there, having already earned a number of accolades for his bravery and courage, which would only go to improve the standing of their house in the power structure of the empire – there was even talk that he could be inducted into the Order of the Bat’leth – which was so not fair. Was he not a warrior too? Did he not have the rite to earn his own honour on the battlefield? Of course, he did though his father somehow never seemed to see it, always still seemed to see him as the youngest who needed to be protected or at very least guided to the least dangerous pursuits in their house fleet.
Like surveying the boundaries of this odd quantum anomaly. An anomaly that existed in a part of what had historically been Klingon space though it wasn’t officially part of the empire at this time and hadn’t been for nearly three centuries.
The crew around him seemed to sense the foul mood that he was in at being relegated to such a mundane task. It helped that they all quietly shared the frustration as they all wanted to be on the front lines against the Romulans, not sitting here in space on the opposite side of the empire charting spatial anomalies. They were Klingons not cowardly humans who preferred charting every spatial anomaly in sight to the glories of combat.
Abruptly the sensors came to life with a warning.
“What is it,” Ch’lok asked, hoping for something interesting.
“There’s a vessel dropping out of warp on the other side of the anomaly field,” the warrior at sensors reported, “Federation starship, Sovereign-class.”
Well, I was hoping for something interesting, Ch’lok thought. “On viewer,” he ordered. The view screen at the front of the bridge came to life showing an image of the Federation starship floating there admit the stars, completely unconcerned that they were technically in a part of Klingon space even if the Empire didn’t really bother to claim or patrol this area since there was nothing of any value – be it strategic or mineral – here for them to bother with.
“Have they detected us,” he asked.
“No, the anomaly seems to be shielding us from their sensors,” the other warrior reported. “They’re own sensors are focused on the anomaly.”
“Typical of them but this time it will cost them,” Ch’lok said with a smile. “Bring us to full alert, charge all weapons and raise shields. Lay in a course to intercept, keep us as close to the anomaly as possible.”
“We are going to attack them,” L’Ret, his first officer and chief minder from his father, asked as alarms began sounding throughout the ship and the alert status bars began flashing amber. “Sir I should point out that that is a Sovereign-class starship. We are no match for them, if we engage them, they will surely quickly overpower and destroy us.”
“Normally that would be true,” Ch’lok agreed, “but they do not know we are here thanks to the anomaly. There shields and tactical systems will thus be down. If we can use the anomaly well enough, we can get close enough to land crippling shots before they even realize we are here.”
“A good plan but it is a dangerous risk. If we don’t disable them quickly enough and they get their shields up…”
“I know but as the Ferengi say the bigger the risk the bigger the win. Imagine all the honour, all the prestige we will gain if we take down a mighty Sovereign in a lowly Bird-of-Prey.”
“It will be glorious.”
“Indeed. Does anyone have any more objections?” There were none. “Excellent. Is our course set?”
“Course set. Disruptors and torpedoes ready.”
“Execute. And give me a countdown to weapons range.”
“Qapla,” the whole bridge crew chorused a moment before the impulse engines engaged and they began to stalk their much larger, and far more powerful, prey using the sensor distortion of the quantum anomaly field instead of their cloaking device as a shield against the Sovereign’s powerful sensors.
“Seventy thousand killicams to weapons range,” the warrior at tactical reported. “Sixty thousand killicams.”
“Any indication that they’ve seen us?” Ch’lok asked.
“None my lord. The Federation ship is launching probes, I believe they are planning to use them to chart the perimeter of the anomaly field.”
“Keep an eye on those probes it would not do for one of them to spoil our surprise.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Thirty thousand killicams to weapons range,” weapons reported. Ch’lok allowed himself a slight, predatory smile as his time to strike drew every closer. With any luck and with the blessing of Khaless they would disable the Federation ship with their first shots allowing them to finish her at their leisure.
“Ten thousand killicams to weapons range…. five thousand… we are now within disruptor range.”
“Bah.”
At Ch’lok’s shouted fire command their wing mounted disruptor cannons barked sending two emerald-coloured bolts of energy towards the Federation ship. In seconds they slammed into her secondary hull with a brilliant white flash – the blasts intended to pierce through to the engineer section and cause the warp core to be shut down to prevent a loss of containment. Shouts of triumph filled the bridge…
…only to die away into horrified silence as the flash faded revealing no damage to the hull, well beyond some light carbon scoring where the bolts had hit.
“What happened? Was there a malfunction,” Ch’lok demanded.
“No, my lord I don’t understand. Disruptors are functioning normally we should have punched a hole right through their hull,” weapons reported.
“I believe I have an explanation the hull of the Federation ship is covered with an ablative armour matrix of some kind,” sensors reported, “our disruptors weren’t powerful enough to breach it. My lord the Federation ship is powering shields and weapons.”
“Then we have no choice. Open fire all weapons, attack pattern chelik four.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Ch’lok watched calmly as his disruptors lashed out again this time slamming into the forming shields of the Federation starship making them flare slightly but otherwise doing no damage. More disruptor blasts shot across space and impacted the starships shields, the bolts disappearing in momentary flashes of Cherenkov radiation as the powerful regenerative shields of a Sovereign-class starship, designed as they were to withstand Borg disruptors and Jem’Hadar phased polaron beams, easily withstood them.
“My lord we are being hailed by the Federation ship.”
“No doubt they want to talk us down the cowards. Weapons send them our reply. Then switch to attack pattern Kor nine.”
A faint shiver ran through the deck as weapons sent a photon torpedo at the Federation ship along with another salvo of disruptor blasts. Neither had much effect beyond making a pretty light show around the Federation ship as her advanced shields took their firepower and stopped it cold. This time however the crew of the starship seemed to get the message as a powerful impact shook the ship.
“Direct phaser hit to our port shields,” weapons reported as another yellow-orange phaser beam slammed into them, the blows – powerful enough to stagger a Vorcha-class cruiser – shaking them violently. “Shields at eighty percent. They’re targeting our weapons.”
“Evasive manoeuvres continue attack.”
“Yes, my lord.”
~~//~~
The Bird-of-Prey turned sharply to port causing a pair of beams from the Resolution to miss cleanly, while a third only grazed them making them flare with strain. Continuing to turn the Bird climbed high and steep, attempting to throw off the bigger ships targeting system. It did little good as a beam hit the Bird dead on visibly staggering it.
In retaliation the Klingons fired four photon torpedoes from their forward launcher.
Immediately automated defence systems took action to deal with the incoming weapons. The modern descendant of electronic countermeasures began broadcasting on all known Klingon torpedo guidance frequencies, attempting to confuse the targeting lock of the torpedoes. The tactic was only partially effective as only one torpedo veered off, its lock on broken. The remaining three continued to close in on the starship.
It was then that one of the newest systems added to all new Federation vessels made its presence felt as small bolts of phased energy – similar in many respects to the discharge of pre-Federation pulse phase cannons – shot out from numerous points on the hull as close in point defence opened fire. Two torpedoes were speared nearly instantly, both detonating together in brilliant fireballs of matter-antimatter mutual annihilation. The remaining torpedo pierced the defensive fire screen and slammed into the Resolution’s starboard shields making them flare brilliantly and producing an asteroid sized cauliflower like explosion of light and energy as the torpedo detonated. The blast quickly faded as the shields absorbed and dispersed the energy back into space in the form of Cherenkov radiation.
Annoyed now the Resolution fired again unleashing multiple beams as well as a pair of her own photon torpedoes upon the impudent Klingon attack ship. Klingon shields flared brilliantly then collapsed completely as the two torpedoes impacted knocking them flat and blowing two burning holes in the hull of the Bird. Phaser blasts followed demolishing disruptors and impulse engines leaving the Bird spinning out of control helpless and burning.
~~//~~
Bridge
USS Resolution
“The Klingon vessel has been disabled sir.”
Still in his command chair Darian nodded at Beach’s report; he could see it himself on the holographic view screen. The Klingon ship was spinning helplessly like a broken toy, debris and burning plasma leaking from the breaches torn in its armoured skin. He couldn’t help but feel somewhat sorry for the crew of that Klingon ship as he knew it would be hell on Earth over there now, with numerous plasma and electrical fires likely having broken out all over the ship. While the Klingons had attacked without warning or provocation – and in defiance of all common sense that should have told them that this was a fight they couldn’t hope to win – he couldn’t help but feel for those who would be dead or dying over there.
“Scan the Klingon ship for life signs Mr Beach,” he ordered. “If there are any lock onto them and beam the idiots into cargo bay four. Make sure it is filled with the appropriate anaesthetic gas, I don’t want them making any trouble for us, while I decide what to do with them.”
“Aye sir.”
“Sir,” Rakan called out in alarm, “the torpedo our countermeasures decoyed away is on course for the anomaly field. Impact in ten seconds.”
Darian’s eyes widened. “Lock phasers, shoot it down before it hits the field,” he ordered.
“It’s to late the torpedo is entering the field.”
“On screen.”
The view screen shimmered and changed to show once again the image of the anomaly field in all its strange, ethereal glory. The Klingon torpedo was a tiny dot of green that passed into the field and travelled for a few hundred metres before the gravitational forces inside the field tore it apart triggering a brilliant explosion as matter and antimatter encountered one another with the predictable violent response. The explosion expanded outwards, rippling, and distorting and causing lightning-like forks of energy to begin dancing between the closest anomalies which began to glow brighter and brighter sending out more of the spatial lightning.
“Report,” Darien ordered watching in disbelief as the anomaly field turned into a seething mass of energy and spatial distortion in mere seconds. It seemed incredible that such a small explosion could cause such a massive and dramatic transformation in the behaviour of the strange phenomenon.
“Sensors report that the subspace fluctuations inside the field are growing in intensity and becoming increasingly random, we're also picking up increased tachyon emissions along with unusual phase fluctuations,” Rakan reported, “if I had to guess I would say that the different forces at work within the field were finely balanced and the warhead detonation has destabilized them. Sir the field is beginning to expand, at its current rate of expansion it will hit us in three minutes.”
“Helm back us off one quarter impulse,” Darian ordered. “Mr Beach did we manage to get anyone off the Klingon ship?”
“Yes sir. Twelve survivors, they’re unconscious in cargo bay four,” the other officer confirmed even as the Resolution’s impulse engines came to life and began to slowly back the starship away from the mutated phenomenon. However, before the starship could move more than a few hundred meters a massive lightning like arc of eldritch energy emerged from the anomaly field and slammed into the ship, the energy easily penetrating the shield and wrapping itself around the hull again and again both violently rocking the entire vessel and making the hull glow with a strange aura that to an observer would have looked almost like the phenomenon known on Earth as St Elmo’s Fire.
A second stream of energy erupted from the anomaly and slammed into the staggering ship and like the first wrapped around the ship violently shaking the entire vessel for a second time in as many seconds. More bolts followed wrapping the ship in an aura of shimmering almost ghostly power. The Resolution began to move but instead of backing away from the danger and despite the best efforts of the impulse engines the ship was drawn towards the brightly glowing anomaly field like an iron filing being drawn to a powerful magnet.
“Report,” Darien ordered picking himself up off the deck and settling back down into the command chair.
“Captain we’ve been hit by multiple quantum-gravitic discharges of some kind. They’ve penetrated our shields and are adhering to the hull somehow,” Lieutenant John Ashton reported from the operations console even as another shudder ran through the ship as yet another bolt from the anomaly slammed into the energy surrounding them. “Structural integrity is holding; however, we are also caught in some kind of gravitational wake. It’s overpowering the impulse engines and dragging us towards the anomaly field.”
“Helm engines to full reverse.”
“Aye sir,” Querr acknowledged increasing the speed of reverse thrust from one quarter to full impulse. Immediately an audible rumbling of strain began to fill the air and the ship began vibrating fiercely as the Resolution fought to break free of the powerful gravitic forces that had her in their invisible, irresistible grip. “We cannot break free sir the gravitational forces are too strong,” Querr reported as the rumbling of the sublight engines rose in pitch and volume turning into a howling roar. At the same time the vibration worsened escalating into a violent shaking. “We’ve slowed but we’re still being pulled towards the anomaly one minute thirty seconds to impact.”
Darien hurriedly tapped his comm badge. “Bridge to engineering can you increase power to the impulse engines?”
“Negative captain,” Chief Engineer T’Lar reported from engineering sounding as grim as a Vulcan could. “Impulse driver coils have been partially depolarised by the energy field clinging to the hull. Full impulse is all I can give you; if we push the coils any harder in their current state, we run the risk of catastrophic overload.”
“Understood,” Darien acknowledged tapping the badge again to sign off. “Mr Rakan, can we disperse the energy field on the hull?”
“It might be possible captain. We can use the main deflector to run a resonance pulse along the hull on the opposing frequency range to the energy field it should in theory cancel out the field.”
“Do it.”
“Aye sir,” Rakan acknowledged before his hands flew across his console as he accessed the controls for the main navigational deflector array and began configuring the device to generate the resonance pulse that would hopefully free the ship of the energy field that was pulling them towards the maelstrom the anomaly field had become despite the best efforts of the impulse engines to pull the ship away from the danger. In moments he made the required modifications to the deflector protocols and began priming the pulse to fire. “Resonance pulse powering up, twenty seconds till it’s ready.”
“Initiate the pulse as soon as it’s ready Mr Rakan.”
“Aye sir,” Rakan acknowledged a few moments before the whole ship shook violently again and additional alarms sounded from the engineering and operations consoles.
“Warning, warning impulse driver coil overload detected,” the ships computer reported in its usual infuriatingly unflappable female voice. “Automatic shutdown initiated.” As the voice of the computer filled the air the roaring of the impulse engines abruptly vanished as all fuel flows to the impulse drive slammed closed while emergency vents opened releasing the plasma inside the driver coils of the advanced magnetoplasmadynamic engines instantly shutting them down, preventing a detonation that would have instantly vaporised a large chunk of the primary hull and torn the ship in half.
The result was immediate and dramatic.
No longer resisting the tremendous gravitational pull of the mutated anomaly the Resolution lurched forward with a sudden violent jolt that the inertial dampeners weren’t able to completely cancel out, throwing crew members off their feet, out of their chairs or against consoles and bulkheads. Mere seconds later – faster than any of the staggered crew could recover let alone react – the forward hull of the starship impacted the edge of the anomaly.
Arcs of quantum energy raced along the whole of the ships six hundred and eighty-six metre length, brightening the aura around the ship into a twisting cocoon that clawed at the ablative armour matrix covering the ships duranium-tritanium alloy hull like a hungry lion clawing at the skin of a wildebeest. The ships outline began to blur, the space around her warping and distorting before seeming to shift from three dimensional to two dimensional to one, then in a brilliant flash the Resolution was gone, vanished into nothingness.
Moments later the unstable anomaly began to compress in upon itself, the delicate subspace super symmetry that had allowed its continued existence hopelessly compromised. With a speed that would have been frightening to any observers the anomaly collapsed, its previous broad expanse compressing down into a several small dots scarcely bigger than a football. One by one the dots joined the Resolution in vanishing, each disappearing into what appeared to be a momentary slit in the very fabric of the universe.
In less than an hour there was no sign that the anomaly field and the Resolution had ever been present at all beyond that was the shattered, burning remains of the Klingon ship that had started the trouble in the first place. A few hours later that too would vanish in a fireball as the damaged warp core, without anyone present to attempt to stabilize or shut it down, lost antimatter containment sending it and any records of what had just taken place here into oblivion.
