As the turbolift came to a stop, Akell Sinajj tucked an errant lock of vibrant violet hair back behind her ear before stepping out onto the bridge of the U.S.S. Theia, her first command. In seconds, her eyes darted around the various stations and beta shift crewmembers manning them, noting that Lieutenant Andersson was standing at tactical on the upper level, before her eyes locked onto the viewscreen and the unusual metallic structure it displayed. She stopped dead in her tracts for a moment as she examined the unknown object, trying to discern if it was a ship, station, probe, or simply debris. Whatever it was, it wasn’t from any species she had encountered before.
She turned to the watch officer and headed towards him. “Report Lieutenant.”
“We’d just entered system Zeta-Epsilon-one-four-alpha when long-range sensors picked this object up in orbit of the seventh planet,” Andersson stated, looking at the readouts coming through on the tactical display. “As soon as we ran a scan, it broke orbit and is on an intercept course, moving at one-tenth impulse.”
“Have you tried hailing it?”
“Yes sir, we’ve had no response.”
“What did our scans reveal?” she asked, turning to Ensign V’Sol at science.
“All scans were unable to penetrate the objects hull, there appears to be some sort of dampening field in effect that nullifies our sensors. We are detecting no subspace or EM emissions and it’s propulsion systems are unlike any I have seen before.”
“So we have no idea if its armed.”
“Correct Captain,” the Vulcan confirmed.
Sinajj looked back at the object slowly creeping towards them and felt her ridged brow tighten. Their mission to the Zeta-Epsilon Sector hadn’t intended to include any first contacts, every probe and long-range scan of the region hadn’t shown any signs of intelligent life—which was why it was being looked at for possible colonisation by the Federation.
“Open a channel.”
Lieutenant (j.g.) zh’Sharis at tactical nodded when the channel was open. Sinajj took a breath, ready to make her very first contact with an unknown species.
“I am Captain Sinajj of the starship Theia, representing the United Federation of Planets. We are here on a mission of exploration and were unaware that this system was inhabited, we mean you no harm.”
She paused and waited for a response. She looked at tactical, but zh’Sharis shook her head.
“We seek to make peaceful contact with other species, but if that is not your wish then we will withdraw and leave you alone.”
Again, the tactical officer indicated no reply. Sinajj motioned for the channel to be closed and studied the alien object once more. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled, a sensation she’d come to trust over the years.
“All senior bridge officers, report to your stations,” she called into the intercom, stepping down onto the command arena level and taking her seat, her eyes never leaving the object (which every fibre in her being was screaming threat). “Conn, back us off, nice and slow.”
“Aye sir.”
This was her first chance at command, something she knew not many were happy about given the reputation of Boslics in the quadrant, but she had dedicated her adult life to Starfleet and had taken to heart all the training she had been given. The mission to Zeta-Epsilon was meant to be a milk run, a routine charting and cataloguing assignment, nothing terribly exciting but also nothing too taxing for a new crew, none of them had expected to be going up against an unknown danger.
The turbolift opened and the first bridge officers to arrive was Lieutenant Reiko Hara and Ensign Zynn Ral-Aani, both in cream-coloured Gi, and took over at tactical and flight control respectively, their beat shift subordinates giving them a quick rundown of the situation. It didn’t take either long to get up to speed.
“Shields up, Captain?” asked Hara.
“Not yet, Lieutenant, we don’t want to provoke them any further.”
Next to enter were Lieutenant Commander Dael Cozan and Ensign Ejan Rem, both dressed casually whilst the faint hint of garlic, lemon and chilli accompanied the pair of them out of the turbolift. They too quickly took their posts, Ejan seated beside Ral-Aani and Cozan taking the second chair in the command arena, the Betazoid’s onyx eyes narrowed as he studied the alien object.
“What is that?” he asked her quietly.
“Unknown, Commander. Scans are being blocked and it’s not putting out any sort of signal. Can you sense anything from it?”
He scrutinised it for a moment longer and shook his head. “I’m not getting any thoughts or emotions from it, but there is a strange ‘presence’ of sorts that I can’t quite get a read on.”
“Any hostile intent?”
“Nothing quite that coherent, Captain. It’s almost like when I encounter a Ferengi, or other telepathic resistant race, I can tell that they’re there but can’t get anything from them.”
Sinajj looked back at the object. “Lets just hope the Ferengi haven’t had some sort of technological overhaul, they’re tricky enough as it is.”
The last officer to join them was Lieutenant (j.g.) Rachel Bishop, the only one to be in uniform as she had no doubt been in one of the labs since her shift ended. She quickly took over from V’Sol and began to run her own battery of scans. Though Sinajj had taken her time to pull together a crew she could be proud of and knew that the beta shift crew would be more than capable, they’d still only been together for six weeks and this was their first potential hostile encounter, so she wanted her department heads to take point.
An alert sounded on every sensor. Ejan got to it first. “Unknown is increasing speed, now at one-sixth impulse and accelerating.”
“Conn, bring us about and increase to half impulse.”
“Half impulse, aye,” the newly graduated officer replied.
The object was no increasing speed, getting closer to them, with no way to determine what its capabilities were. The Theia had attempted to make contact and had been moving to withdraw, both of which had been ignored, making their intentions more and more likely to be hostile, which meant they would need to be ready to defend themselves.
Before she could issue the order Cozan said, “Sound yellow alert.”
The panels illuminated, warning the crew of the new level of readiness as shields were raised and weapons were placed on standby. Her senses were telling her then needed to act, to get ahead of whatever that thing was and make the first move, but she knew that was a mistake. Locking weapons could very well spark a fight and be all some of the more narrow-minded brass at Headquarters needed to strip her of her fourth pip. No, she needed to do this by the book. They could very well have stumbled on a system that another race had claimed for themselves and they were simply trying to scare off any interlopers, at least that was the best case scenario she could come up with.
“Captain,” Ejan began looking over his shoulder at her and Cozan, “they have matched our speed and continuing to increase.”
“Ensign, full impulse power. Open another channel to them.”
“Channel open.”
“If you have claimed this system, I apologise for our trespass. We meant no offense and will withdraw immediately; you need take no further action.”
“No response, sir,” said Ejan.
She looked at Cozan, but his eyes were fixed on the screen as beads of sweat formed on his brow. She system he was trying to reach out telepathically and make some sort of connection with whatever might be on the object, but clearly wasn’t having much luck. Or so she thought.
Suddenly his head jerked to the side as though he’d been struck.
“Commander?” she asked, placing a concerned hand on his tensed bicep.
It took him a moment to recover, from the corner of her eye she noted Ejan looking back at them, but she remained focused on her XO. Slowly he shook his head and then fixed his eyes on hers.
“We have to get out of here, now.”
“Ral-Aani, take us to warp five. Engage.”
“Aye sir.” The young Cebelran quickly input the commands, locking in their course and bringing the warp drive online but before he could hit the activation control every sensor screamed for attention.
“Unknown is flooding the area with some sort of charged particle, sensors are having a hard time analysing,” reported Bishop.
Ral-Aani hit the warp control, but nothing happened. He quickly checked and confirmed everything then tried again, but the ship remained at sublight. “Captain, whatever that particle field is it’s disrupting subspace. I can’t establish a warp bubble.”
She looked back at Cozan. “What is it, Commander? What did you sense?”
“It’s as though whatever is on that thing has suddenly fixed all its focus and attention on us. Before we were an oddity, but now it’s very interested in just what we are.”
“Unknown is closing fast.”
Sinajj clenched her jaw. There was no more messing around. “Red alert, ready all weapons. Ejan, put me on every frequency and bandwidth.”
“You’re on, sir.”
“Unknown vessel, stand down. We come in peace and had no aggressive intent by entering this system, but if you do not cease your current actions we will deem them as hostile and defend ourselves. I repeat, stand down.” She signalled for the channel to close again and didn’t need to be told that they were once again ignoring her.
“The particle field is intensifying. Still no indication of weapons being charged,” Bishop informed her.
“Establish weapons lock but hold your fire.”
“Target locked. Phasers fully charged, fore and aft torpedo bays loaded,” confirmed Hara, her voice as level as any Vulcans.
“They’re still closing, thirty seconds to weapons range,” said Ejan.
“Standby on evasive manoeuvres, try to give them the slip so we can get out of this particle field and go to warp.”
“I’ll keep us free of any gravity wells in the system,” replied Ral-Aani, nodding his enlarged conical cranium. The young officer might have been fresh from the Academy, but whilst there he graduated third in his class and demonstrated his skills at the helm exceeded officers who’d been at the post for a decade longer than he had—she’d been very lucky to get him for the Theia.
“Weapons range in fifteen seconds.”
On the viewscreen, a sudden blinding pulse emerged from the alien vessel, quickly followed by three others.
“Evasive pattern omicron!” Cozan ordered.
The Renaissance-Class ship pitched hard up its z-axis, turning to port to evade the incoming volley of weapons. But as the starship escaped the original line of fire another volley emerged from three entirely different weapon ports, by the looks of things the hostile ship was covered in turrets.
Despite Ral-Aani’s best efforts two of the blasts slammed into their shields, rocking the ship and her crew hard. The helmsman quickly entered a new pattern of course corrections and tried to keep them moving.
“Damage report.”
“Shields down to sixty-seven percent. No damage to the hull.”
“Phasers at maximum, return fire.”
At the touch of a button, the Theia returned fire with multiple hits from her phaser arrays, each one finding their mark. Sinajj watched the viewscreen as every beam seemed to disperse across the ships hull, the power of her type-eight phasers seemingly dissolving as they hit.
“Multiple direct hits, no signs of any damage,” Hara confirmed.
Bishop turned away from her sensor displays. “It looks like that dampening field obscuring our sensors absorbed the impact of our phasers.”
Sinajj frowned. Two hits had depleted their shields by a third and their phasers had no effect, they were at a considerable tactical disadvantage, which meant they had to adapt quickly if they wanted to get out of this in one piece.
“Lieutenant, programme the phasers for a Borg encounter, keep them rotating through the frequencies, we might get lucky and find a weak point. Bridge to engineering, divert emergency power into the shields, keep them up as long as you can.”
“Acknowledged Captain,” Lieutenant Drikahrys replied from the engine room.
“Phasers ready,” stated Hara just as the ship rocked from another impact.
“Fire and stand ready on torpedoes.”
The phasers found their target again, though as before the impact was dispersed for most of them, however a few caused a noticeable ripple in the dampening field. Hara saw it too and concentrated fire, tuning their weapons into the similar frequencies, never letting up. Ral-Aani kept their manoeuvres tight, managing to keep as many of their nine arrays pointed at the hostile as possible, allowing multiple strikes before the alien ship concentrated fire and he had to break them away.
“Still no damage detected, but the dampening field is fluctuating wildly.”
“Lock torpedoes,” Cozan ordered.
“Torpedoes locked.”
“Dispersal pattern sierra. Fire.”
A moment later, a volley of five photons launched from the starship in a tight grouping before separating out and corkscrewing in towards the alien ship. The destructive matter/antimatter detonations ploughed through the energy field around the ship and into the hull, but for a moment aside from the impact explosions nothing seemed to change.
“Report.”
“Confirmed impacts for all five torpedoes.”
“The dampening field has gone, but sensors are still having a hard time penetrating the hull. I can’t even tell if our torpedoes hit any critical systems.”
“Sir, the ship has stopped moving,” added Ejan.
As Sinajj slowly rose to her feet, Cozan ordered, “Ready a second spread.”
Her eyes were locked onto the alien ship, it’s gunmetal grey hull now pockmarked with five sizeable holes, but there was no signs of fires within the object (fire didn’t burn in the vacuum of space but in the oxygen atmospheres of ships they would linger, which could mean whoever built that ship wasn’t from an M-Class environment), nor did any of the external lights flicker or fade, it was as though nothing had happened to them.
“What about the particle field?”
Bishop quickly looked at her monitors again. “It’s no longer generating the field, but levels in the immediate area are still high, we’ll need to leave the system to go to warp.”
Get out! a voice in the back of her mind cried out. This wasn’t the time to give in to curiosity, they needed to withdraw and regroup, figure out what the hell had just happened and contact Starfleet for advice on how to proceed.
“Ral-Aani, get us out of here. Maximum impulse.”
“Setting course two-one-seven-mark-twelve. Full impulse, aye.”
As soon as the ship turned to leave the system the sensors dried out again. “Energy spike from the alien ship!” yelled Bishop.
Before any orders could be given the hostile suddenly erupted in a brilliant burst of light, which vanished just as quickly. In that instant the Theia was hit by a shockwave which knocked Sinajj off her feet, landing hard on her knees. Gritting her teeth against the pain she hauled herself up on the back of Ejan’s chair.
“Report!”
“The ship just imploded somehow. It’s sent out a massive graviton field, pulling us towards the epicentre,” Ejan replied as he tried to make sense of the sensor readings.
“What’s at the epicentre?”
“Some sort of spatial fissure, I can’t get any accurate readings!”
“All engines, full reverse!” bellowed Cozan.
“It’s not having any effect; we’re still being pulled towards it. Contact with the fissure in twenty-six seconds.”
She scrambled back to her chair. “Bishop, run every scan we’ve got. Ejan, launch an emergency communications beacon.”
Once back in her seat, Cozan slapped the intercom. “Bridge to all hands, brace yourselves.”
“Comm beacon launched.”
“Contact in twelve seconds. Eight.”
Sinajj gripped her armrests, pushing herself as far back in her chair as she could, every muscle tensed, jaw clenched against the teeth rattling vibrations the ship was subjected to. Her ship. Her first command, her first mission, now her first hostile engagement, none of which had exactly gone well. Exactly what they’d stumbled on was still a mystery, one she wasn’t even sure if they’d have a chance to figure out.
“Five, four, three, two, one.”
At the last moment, she screwed her eyes tightly shut and braced for whatever was about to come.
* * * * *
She turned to the watch officer and headed towards him. “Report Lieutenant.”
“We’d just entered system Zeta-Epsilon-one-four-alpha when long-range sensors picked this object up in orbit of the seventh planet,” Andersson stated, looking at the readouts coming through on the tactical display. “As soon as we ran a scan, it broke orbit and is on an intercept course, moving at one-tenth impulse.”
“Have you tried hailing it?”
“Yes sir, we’ve had no response.”
“What did our scans reveal?” she asked, turning to Ensign V’Sol at science.
“All scans were unable to penetrate the objects hull, there appears to be some sort of dampening field in effect that nullifies our sensors. We are detecting no subspace or EM emissions and it’s propulsion systems are unlike any I have seen before.”
“So we have no idea if its armed.”
“Correct Captain,” the Vulcan confirmed.
Sinajj looked back at the object slowly creeping towards them and felt her ridged brow tighten. Their mission to the Zeta-Epsilon Sector hadn’t intended to include any first contacts, every probe and long-range scan of the region hadn’t shown any signs of intelligent life—which was why it was being looked at for possible colonisation by the Federation.
“Open a channel.”
Lieutenant (j.g.) zh’Sharis at tactical nodded when the channel was open. Sinajj took a breath, ready to make her very first contact with an unknown species.
“I am Captain Sinajj of the starship Theia, representing the United Federation of Planets. We are here on a mission of exploration and were unaware that this system was inhabited, we mean you no harm.”
She paused and waited for a response. She looked at tactical, but zh’Sharis shook her head.
“We seek to make peaceful contact with other species, but if that is not your wish then we will withdraw and leave you alone.”
Again, the tactical officer indicated no reply. Sinajj motioned for the channel to be closed and studied the alien object once more. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled, a sensation she’d come to trust over the years.
“All senior bridge officers, report to your stations,” she called into the intercom, stepping down onto the command arena level and taking her seat, her eyes never leaving the object (which every fibre in her being was screaming threat). “Conn, back us off, nice and slow.”
“Aye sir.”
This was her first chance at command, something she knew not many were happy about given the reputation of Boslics in the quadrant, but she had dedicated her adult life to Starfleet and had taken to heart all the training she had been given. The mission to Zeta-Epsilon was meant to be a milk run, a routine charting and cataloguing assignment, nothing terribly exciting but also nothing too taxing for a new crew, none of them had expected to be going up against an unknown danger.
The turbolift opened and the first bridge officers to arrive was Lieutenant Reiko Hara and Ensign Zynn Ral-Aani, both in cream-coloured Gi, and took over at tactical and flight control respectively, their beat shift subordinates giving them a quick rundown of the situation. It didn’t take either long to get up to speed.
“Shields up, Captain?” asked Hara.
“Not yet, Lieutenant, we don’t want to provoke them any further.”
Next to enter were Lieutenant Commander Dael Cozan and Ensign Ejan Rem, both dressed casually whilst the faint hint of garlic, lemon and chilli accompanied the pair of them out of the turbolift. They too quickly took their posts, Ejan seated beside Ral-Aani and Cozan taking the second chair in the command arena, the Betazoid’s onyx eyes narrowed as he studied the alien object.
“What is that?” he asked her quietly.
“Unknown, Commander. Scans are being blocked and it’s not putting out any sort of signal. Can you sense anything from it?”
He scrutinised it for a moment longer and shook his head. “I’m not getting any thoughts or emotions from it, but there is a strange ‘presence’ of sorts that I can’t quite get a read on.”
“Any hostile intent?”
“Nothing quite that coherent, Captain. It’s almost like when I encounter a Ferengi, or other telepathic resistant race, I can tell that they’re there but can’t get anything from them.”
Sinajj looked back at the object. “Lets just hope the Ferengi haven’t had some sort of technological overhaul, they’re tricky enough as it is.”
The last officer to join them was Lieutenant (j.g.) Rachel Bishop, the only one to be in uniform as she had no doubt been in one of the labs since her shift ended. She quickly took over from V’Sol and began to run her own battery of scans. Though Sinajj had taken her time to pull together a crew she could be proud of and knew that the beta shift crew would be more than capable, they’d still only been together for six weeks and this was their first potential hostile encounter, so she wanted her department heads to take point.
An alert sounded on every sensor. Ejan got to it first. “Unknown is increasing speed, now at one-sixth impulse and accelerating.”
“Conn, bring us about and increase to half impulse.”
“Half impulse, aye,” the newly graduated officer replied.
The object was no increasing speed, getting closer to them, with no way to determine what its capabilities were. The Theia had attempted to make contact and had been moving to withdraw, both of which had been ignored, making their intentions more and more likely to be hostile, which meant they would need to be ready to defend themselves.
Before she could issue the order Cozan said, “Sound yellow alert.”
The panels illuminated, warning the crew of the new level of readiness as shields were raised and weapons were placed on standby. Her senses were telling her then needed to act, to get ahead of whatever that thing was and make the first move, but she knew that was a mistake. Locking weapons could very well spark a fight and be all some of the more narrow-minded brass at Headquarters needed to strip her of her fourth pip. No, she needed to do this by the book. They could very well have stumbled on a system that another race had claimed for themselves and they were simply trying to scare off any interlopers, at least that was the best case scenario she could come up with.
“Captain,” Ejan began looking over his shoulder at her and Cozan, “they have matched our speed and continuing to increase.”
“Ensign, full impulse power. Open another channel to them.”
“Channel open.”
“If you have claimed this system, I apologise for our trespass. We meant no offense and will withdraw immediately; you need take no further action.”
“No response, sir,” said Ejan.
She looked at Cozan, but his eyes were fixed on the screen as beads of sweat formed on his brow. She system he was trying to reach out telepathically and make some sort of connection with whatever might be on the object, but clearly wasn’t having much luck. Or so she thought.
Suddenly his head jerked to the side as though he’d been struck.
“Commander?” she asked, placing a concerned hand on his tensed bicep.
It took him a moment to recover, from the corner of her eye she noted Ejan looking back at them, but she remained focused on her XO. Slowly he shook his head and then fixed his eyes on hers.
“We have to get out of here, now.”
“Ral-Aani, take us to warp five. Engage.”
“Aye sir.” The young Cebelran quickly input the commands, locking in their course and bringing the warp drive online but before he could hit the activation control every sensor screamed for attention.
“Unknown is flooding the area with some sort of charged particle, sensors are having a hard time analysing,” reported Bishop.
Ral-Aani hit the warp control, but nothing happened. He quickly checked and confirmed everything then tried again, but the ship remained at sublight. “Captain, whatever that particle field is it’s disrupting subspace. I can’t establish a warp bubble.”
She looked back at Cozan. “What is it, Commander? What did you sense?”
“It’s as though whatever is on that thing has suddenly fixed all its focus and attention on us. Before we were an oddity, but now it’s very interested in just what we are.”
“Unknown is closing fast.”
Sinajj clenched her jaw. There was no more messing around. “Red alert, ready all weapons. Ejan, put me on every frequency and bandwidth.”
“You’re on, sir.”
“Unknown vessel, stand down. We come in peace and had no aggressive intent by entering this system, but if you do not cease your current actions we will deem them as hostile and defend ourselves. I repeat, stand down.” She signalled for the channel to close again and didn’t need to be told that they were once again ignoring her.
“The particle field is intensifying. Still no indication of weapons being charged,” Bishop informed her.
“Establish weapons lock but hold your fire.”
“Target locked. Phasers fully charged, fore and aft torpedo bays loaded,” confirmed Hara, her voice as level as any Vulcans.
“They’re still closing, thirty seconds to weapons range,” said Ejan.
“Standby on evasive manoeuvres, try to give them the slip so we can get out of this particle field and go to warp.”
“I’ll keep us free of any gravity wells in the system,” replied Ral-Aani, nodding his enlarged conical cranium. The young officer might have been fresh from the Academy, but whilst there he graduated third in his class and demonstrated his skills at the helm exceeded officers who’d been at the post for a decade longer than he had—she’d been very lucky to get him for the Theia.
“Weapons range in fifteen seconds.”
On the viewscreen, a sudden blinding pulse emerged from the alien vessel, quickly followed by three others.
“Evasive pattern omicron!” Cozan ordered.
The Renaissance-Class ship pitched hard up its z-axis, turning to port to evade the incoming volley of weapons. But as the starship escaped the original line of fire another volley emerged from three entirely different weapon ports, by the looks of things the hostile ship was covered in turrets.
Despite Ral-Aani’s best efforts two of the blasts slammed into their shields, rocking the ship and her crew hard. The helmsman quickly entered a new pattern of course corrections and tried to keep them moving.
“Damage report.”
“Shields down to sixty-seven percent. No damage to the hull.”
“Phasers at maximum, return fire.”
At the touch of a button, the Theia returned fire with multiple hits from her phaser arrays, each one finding their mark. Sinajj watched the viewscreen as every beam seemed to disperse across the ships hull, the power of her type-eight phasers seemingly dissolving as they hit.
“Multiple direct hits, no signs of any damage,” Hara confirmed.
Bishop turned away from her sensor displays. “It looks like that dampening field obscuring our sensors absorbed the impact of our phasers.”
Sinajj frowned. Two hits had depleted their shields by a third and their phasers had no effect, they were at a considerable tactical disadvantage, which meant they had to adapt quickly if they wanted to get out of this in one piece.
“Lieutenant, programme the phasers for a Borg encounter, keep them rotating through the frequencies, we might get lucky and find a weak point. Bridge to engineering, divert emergency power into the shields, keep them up as long as you can.”
“Acknowledged Captain,” Lieutenant Drikahrys replied from the engine room.
“Phasers ready,” stated Hara just as the ship rocked from another impact.
“Fire and stand ready on torpedoes.”
The phasers found their target again, though as before the impact was dispersed for most of them, however a few caused a noticeable ripple in the dampening field. Hara saw it too and concentrated fire, tuning their weapons into the similar frequencies, never letting up. Ral-Aani kept their manoeuvres tight, managing to keep as many of their nine arrays pointed at the hostile as possible, allowing multiple strikes before the alien ship concentrated fire and he had to break them away.
“Still no damage detected, but the dampening field is fluctuating wildly.”
“Lock torpedoes,” Cozan ordered.
“Torpedoes locked.”
“Dispersal pattern sierra. Fire.”
A moment later, a volley of five photons launched from the starship in a tight grouping before separating out and corkscrewing in towards the alien ship. The destructive matter/antimatter detonations ploughed through the energy field around the ship and into the hull, but for a moment aside from the impact explosions nothing seemed to change.
“Report.”
“Confirmed impacts for all five torpedoes.”
“The dampening field has gone, but sensors are still having a hard time penetrating the hull. I can’t even tell if our torpedoes hit any critical systems.”
“Sir, the ship has stopped moving,” added Ejan.
As Sinajj slowly rose to her feet, Cozan ordered, “Ready a second spread.”
Her eyes were locked onto the alien ship, it’s gunmetal grey hull now pockmarked with five sizeable holes, but there was no signs of fires within the object (fire didn’t burn in the vacuum of space but in the oxygen atmospheres of ships they would linger, which could mean whoever built that ship wasn’t from an M-Class environment), nor did any of the external lights flicker or fade, it was as though nothing had happened to them.
“What about the particle field?”
Bishop quickly looked at her monitors again. “It’s no longer generating the field, but levels in the immediate area are still high, we’ll need to leave the system to go to warp.”
Get out! a voice in the back of her mind cried out. This wasn’t the time to give in to curiosity, they needed to withdraw and regroup, figure out what the hell had just happened and contact Starfleet for advice on how to proceed.
“Ral-Aani, get us out of here. Maximum impulse.”
“Setting course two-one-seven-mark-twelve. Full impulse, aye.”
As soon as the ship turned to leave the system the sensors dried out again. “Energy spike from the alien ship!” yelled Bishop.
Before any orders could be given the hostile suddenly erupted in a brilliant burst of light, which vanished just as quickly. In that instant the Theia was hit by a shockwave which knocked Sinajj off her feet, landing hard on her knees. Gritting her teeth against the pain she hauled herself up on the back of Ejan’s chair.
“Report!”
“The ship just imploded somehow. It’s sent out a massive graviton field, pulling us towards the epicentre,” Ejan replied as he tried to make sense of the sensor readings.
“What’s at the epicentre?”
“Some sort of spatial fissure, I can’t get any accurate readings!”
“All engines, full reverse!” bellowed Cozan.
“It’s not having any effect; we’re still being pulled towards it. Contact with the fissure in twenty-six seconds.”
She scrambled back to her chair. “Bishop, run every scan we’ve got. Ejan, launch an emergency communications beacon.”
Once back in her seat, Cozan slapped the intercom. “Bridge to all hands, brace yourselves.”
“Comm beacon launched.”
“Contact in twelve seconds. Eight.”
Sinajj gripped her armrests, pushing herself as far back in her chair as she could, every muscle tensed, jaw clenched against the teeth rattling vibrations the ship was subjected to. Her ship. Her first command, her first mission, now her first hostile engagement, none of which had exactly gone well. Exactly what they’d stumbled on was still a mystery, one she wasn’t even sure if they’d have a chance to figure out.
“Five, four, three, two, one.”
At the last moment, she screwed her eyes tightly shut and braced for whatever was about to come.
* * * * *
