Sol System, January 24th,2154
Personal Log, Commander Shannon Styles, First officer, Starship Intrepid
Another day waiting.
The Intrepid has been patrolling the Sol system for almost 10 months. Ever since the Xindi sent their probe, and killed seven million people, Earth has been on heightened alert, every ship available has been patrolling the solar system. When Enterprise arrived a few months after event, it was being chased by Klingon vessels, makes me wonder what Archer and his crew has been getting up to in those 2 years exploring for the Klingons to chase him. The fleet drove them off, and Enterprise was refitted and sent out to find the Xindi and find out what the hell happened and why. That was 7 months ago.
Now were waiting. Waiting to see if the Enterprise comes back with answers, or the Xindi come back with a bigger weapon to destroy Earth.
For the first couple months everybody was on pins and needles, always on constant alert. As anyone can tell you, you can’t maintain that level of alert all the time. People get tired, ships need maintenance. So, we got into a ship and crew rotation schedule. The Intrepid is two weeks into her month-long patrol schedule of the Solar system. So far this patrol, all is quiet, nothing on long range scans, no weird anomaly’s, nothing since the Enterprise left for the Expanse. Very uneventful, and quite boring. But we must keep up our moral, the shit could hit the fan at any minute, without any notice.
Captain Ramirez has been a big part in the ships moral and spirit being up during these long patrols, keeping it upbeat, switching around the crew, varying the patrols, trying to keep it interesting.
I do hope Enterprise makes it back soon, just so we can stand down and relax, hell the whole world to relax.
End Entry.
“Morning Commander, sleep well?” Lt. Susan Patel asks Styles as she catches up to her walking the corridor to her shift on the bridge.
“Good enough Susan, almost got 5 hours last night”
“About as much as I got, a lot of tossing and turning, hard to shut off the brain, the balloon could go up at any time, messes with your head.”
“Yeah, haven’t had a good night sleep in 10 months, even when we’re in stand down for our maintenance rotation at Earth”
“Same, even when I’m with Raul during the rotation home. He’s also quite worried, so many of his friends have taken a job at Alpha Centauri, even with Earth Cargo just to get away from the Earth, not that it makes much difference, if Earth falls, AC and all the ECS ships are not too far behind. Whatever helps people sleep at night and relax I guess.”
“My brother just enlisted into Starfleet yesterday, he called last night to break the news.”
“He just turned 18 the other day, didn’t he?”
“Yeah, I kind of hoped he would follow my footsteps in to space, but under the circumstances, it’s a bit complicated. Not that being a civilian would save him in the end if the Xindi do come. I’m proud of him and told him so. He leaves for San Francisco next week under an “abbreviated” training schedule”
“Hope he doesn’t have delusions of grandeur and joins the MACO’s”
“That’s what I also told him, take his time, learn fast, and don’t be stupid, him being my brother, the last part will be difficult” she says laughing.
“At least it’s a bit of bright spot in this unpleasantness, give him my regards when next you talk to him, tell him I said, I look forward to ordering you around and counting self-sealing stem bolts in the cargo area” Susan says also laughing.
“Will do, how’s engineering?” Styles says turning the conversation back to business
“Everything’s in top shape, last rotation we got new injectors, based on the ones Enterprise got out there, it already increased power reserves by 8%, and the new dual-phase cannons will be ready to install at the next rotation.”
“Excellent, I’ll see you at lunch?”
“Should be able to, in a standard schedule down there, Chief Sampson isn’t into “Busy Work” which I’m supremely grateful! Not like when we were on the Neptune, Chief Mallory was of the idea, “Idle hands do the devils work” and kept us busy, even if there was nothing to do during the weeks run to Alpha Centauri, glad to be off that ship”
“It wasn’t that bad; I’d rather be doing boring AC runs than what we’re doing now.”
“Isn’t that the truth, so yes I should be free at 1300 hours, baring the universe doesn’t take a big crap on us between now and then”
“Isn’t that the truth, see you at 1300 hours or so”
“Oh, I forgot, the Captain is taking the Beta shift this rotation, Enjoy the big seat Commander!”
She shakes her head as she parts with Lt. Patel, and heads to the bridge.
Shannon looks up at the view screen, bunch of stars at impulse, as usual. She notices the time 1124, still an hour and a half to lunch. Now I know why Archer has a reputation of never sitting in the captain’s chair, it gets kind of boring up here with not much to do, granted that’s everybody up here during patrol rotation.
“Lt. Hawkins, anything new on sensors?”
“Nothing new commander, we’ll be passing within 500 million km of Neptune in three hours, and she’s still blue and beautiful as ever. I’ve been tracking a comet, nothing that big, but it will hit Neptune around the next time we pass the planet on our next patrol round.”
“That’s something a bit exciting, inform the crew of the expected impact time, helm, adjust our course on the next pass to coincide with the impact.”
“Yes commander.” Helm and Science say in unison.
Shannon smiles, and goes back to looking at her Padd, shuffling through duty schedules, fuel consumption reports, waste reclamation reports, I mean seriously, Waste reclamation reports? This is making me not want to take the captains chair, if all I do is report after report, I’ve quite better jobs than this, I think. I’ve been in Starfleet my whole adult life, so this is my only job I’ve had. So, I guess I haven’t quit one. There’s a first time for everything!
Lt. Hawkins smiles, he always likes to be on the same shift as Commander Styles. I think it’s the red hair, so big and curly, even in her customary ponytail, it’s as if she barely contains it.
Beep
“What was that Hawkins?”
“Sensors are detecting something, three AU away”
“Just something?”
“Its unknown commander, I can’t really specify what it is. It’s like a slight fluctuation in space time, we didn’t see any reading when the Xindi probe came through”
“Understood, Helm, alter course, set an intercept”
“I sir”
“Communications, let command know what’s happening, and request reinforcements join us at the earliest, and send someone to wake the captain, he’s going to want to be up here.”
“I sir, I’ll let the fleet know, and I’ll inform captain Shran as well, the Kumari is in Mars orbit at the moment”
“Understood, Tactical give me an alert, Battle stations”
“I sir, Battle stations”
The Intrepid moved towards the anomaly at full impulse, not known to them or anyone in the Sol System, the Xindi superweapon, being so big traveling through the vortex, was pushing a wave front ahead of it, altering the conduits endpoint. The wave front wasn’t that far ahead of the sphere, so just as the intrepid is traveling to the anomaly, all hell finally broke loose.
“Commander, I’m seeing 1 ship appearing ahead, there coming out of the anomaly, nothing matching any known ship, wait, oh my god”
“On screen and enhance Hawkins!”
Through the viewscreen, they see a huge sphere, the Xindi superweapon appears.
“Helm set an intercept coarse towards that giant sphere, and keep up with it as best you can, try your best not to let us get hit by the other escort ship, Tactical, weapons free when we get into range, fire at anything within range, but focus on that big sphere as much as you can. Communications, tell Earth its here and to send anything that can fire a weapon to meet us”
In unison “I sir”
The intrepid races towards the giant sphere
“Hawkins, what’s the estimated time to intercept?”
“6 minutes Commander. Commander, we have another problem, the Yosemite 3 space station is in the sphere’s course, estimate 4 minutes till the sphere and escort ship are within range.”
“Crap, understood, Styles to Engineering, Chief, can you give me anymore juice to the impulse drive, we need to catch up to the sphere as soon as possible”
“Doing that now Commander”
“Time to intercept, Hawkins?”
“5 minutes”
“Damn, were not going to make it”
At that moment Captain Ramirez exits on to the bridge. “Commander, status”
“Yes captain, the sphere appears to be headed directly to Earth, were on an intercept, less than 5 minutes, Yosemite station is in the flight path of the sphere, we won’t get there in time”
“Communications, have you informed Yosemite of the approaching sphere?”
“Yes captain, but as it’s a science station, there are no ships, nor escape pods, there’s no way out for them”
“Damn it”
“Yes sir, nothing we can do”
“Captain, there’s another ship exiting the anomaly, no known identification, but of a different design to the escort ship”
“Understood, communications, try to hail the new ship”
“Aye sir, no response, but they are on a heading to intercept the sphere, they will get to it before we do, intercept 3 minutes”
The intrepid watched helplessly as the escort ship destroyed Yosemite 3 station as the new ship intercepts the sphere and starts attacking the escort ships and sphere
“Well apparently the new guy is on our side, Tactical, set the new ship as friendly, for the moment, when in range launch everything we have”
“Aye Captain”
“Commander take the engineering station, give tactical a hand”
“Aye captain”
The Intrepid enters weapons range, and launches everything they have at the escort and sphere
“Captain, the Kumari has also entered weapons range, and are concentrating on the escort ship.”
“Understood Hawkins, Helm, concentrate your course around the sphere, tactical, I don’t want to bring any torpedo’s home after this.”
“Aye Captain”
“Helm Evasive course Epsilon, Keep us within range of the sphere”
The sphere was one giant weapon; however, it did have some defenses. Point defense batteries started to track the intrepid, the Xindi ship and the Kumari.
Hawkins yells “Captain, incoming weapons fire from the sphere”
“Helm, Evasive pattern Omega, do you best to keep us within weapons range for Lt. Thomas”
“Aye sir, Pattern Omega”
The intrepid starts to take fire, the hull plating taking most of the damage, but the spheres weapons are quite powerful.
“Direct hit to the Starboard nacelle, hull plating down 45%, whatever there shooting, it’s quite powerful”
“Understood Hawkins, we don’t need the nacelle anyways, helm, give me a slow roll, don’t let the incoming fire hit the same spot if you can”
“Aye sir, Spiral pattern”
Styles notices that whatever maneuver we try, they keep hitting the same spot
“Captain, there targeting engineering, none of our evasive is working, we have to break off or we’ll have a hull breach”
“Negative Commander, stay with her Helm, we can’t let that sphere attack Earth, even if we don’t survive”
“Yes sir, Shit, ventral plating down to 5%, one more hit and they’ll get through”
“Styles to Engineering, Sampson get your people out of there were about to have a hull breach in in your area”
“Sampson is dead” Lt Patel said, “were kind of in a bad way down here”
“Get out of there Susan!”
“Can’t, bulkheads are damaged, we”
Commander Styles hears a great wrenching sound, then the com goes dead.
“Sir direct hit Engineering, we’re losing power, we can’t maintain speed, the sphere is pulling away” Hawkins reports.
“Damn it, Tactical, fire everything we have until we’re out of range”
“Aye sir”
Styles looks blankly at her terminal, shocked, all of engineering, and her friend is gone. Taking a few deep breaths, she brings her head up.
“Hawkins, engineering status?”
“The warp core is in an emergency shutdown; antimatter pods were ejected before the last hit. That saved us from a core breach.”
Had to be Susan, she always one to think ahead in an emergency.
“Emergency generators are coming online; we’ll have impulse power in 45 seconds.”
“Understood, Helm, when impulse is restored, set course back for the sphere at best speed”
“Aye Commander”
“Guess were out of this fight aren’t we commander” Captain Ramirez says.
“Yes sir, we did our best”
Thirty seconds later, impulse power was restored, and the intrepid set course for Earth
“Commander, the sphere will be at earth in 30 seconds, there’s nothing to stop it, the escort ship was destroyed by the Kumari. The mystery ship and the Kumari are still fighting, but there not damaging the weapon. It’s over”
On the viewscreen, the sphere stops, the mechanisms around the sphere start to rotate, getting ready to fire, then miraculously, they see explosions in the sphere, getting larger every passing moment, to a point that it engulfed by the largest explosion and disintegrates three million miles from earth orbit.
“Captain” Hawkins says, “the sphere, it’s, it’s gone! ITS GONE!”
Commander Styles looks at captain Ramirez “How? None of the ships got through”
“Must have been the mystery ship. Helm, take us into Earth orbit, signal the Kumari and the other ship see if they need any help”
“Aye Captain”
What I didn’t know, a team from the Enterprise was on that mystery ship, and they boarded and destroyed the sphere from the inside. Sadly, at the time, Captain Archer was onboard when it exploded, but then as though another miracle, Captain Archer was found alive in the past by the Enterprise when it was supposedly thrown back to World War Two, with aliens helping the Nazi’s. I’ve seen the video files, if they can be believed, the enterprise always ends up in the most interesting places.
The Intrepid put in for repairs, and Archer let the world know, that they were safe from the Xindi, and that we can finally rest easy.
I went to Susan’s husband to inform him of her passing, told him that she died heroically, saving the ship when engineering was hit. Just words, she was gone, from both our lives, and only time will heal that wound, but not completely.
Afterwards all these xenophobic people came out the woodwork, Earth First, Terra Prime, all scared of the aliens on the planet. Guess no one told them all the ones on the planet helped save the Earth, but these kinds of people go deaf when they get on these kinds of band wagons. Hopefully it’s just a phase of us being scared. Its okay to be scared, but not okay to let your life be defined by it. To scared to actually live.
With the Intrepid down for a long refit to install a new warp 5 engine, and fix the damage from the battle, I took some time off.
“Good Evening Commander, how is your day” Admiral Forest says as he walks up to me while I’m sitting on a bench outside Starfleet Command
“Evening Admiral” as Styles gets to her feet.
“At ease commander, take a seat”
As she does that, she asks “what can I do you for Admiral, social call?”
“Yes and no, I heard you lost a good friend when the Intrepid was in the battle with the Xindi, and that you took some time off, I came to ask if you were doing okay?”
“Doing better sir, I knew everybody in engineering, but I knew Susan Patel for the past 5 years since we served together on the Neptune. Even got her to come with me to the Intrepid.” “Now there all gone, I’ve experienced death before sir, but nothing this personal, never a good friend, someone that I would see every day, and now won’t see every day. Just gone”
“Shannon, I’d like to say it gets easier, that you’ll get past this. In a way you will, but it will never completely go away, she’ll still be there, in your heart. You just have to give it time.”
“Aye Sir”
“Now, the other reason I came by is to ask, would like to take a temporary post while the Intrepid was being refitted”
“What kind of post?”
“The Academy, one of our instructors is retiring. She lost a good amount of her family in the initial Xindi strike, she tried to keep going as best she could, but the appearance of the final weapon over Earth broke her, she can’t stay anymore, going to go live by family and recover”
“I was wondering if you ‘d like to take up the position, you come well recommended by Captain Ramirez, and all your other captains, they all speak very highly of you and think you’d make a great teacher of the new kids”
“I’m honored Admiral, I guess I could use a break from space duty, with the Intrepid in refit, and the Enterprise and the almost complete Columbia the only ships going “Out there”.”
“I understand, you want to get out into the galaxy, not just local, its coming soon, until then, the academy could use your help, and I understand your brother has just started as well, you could look over him”
“Yeah, Okay admiral, I’ll take the job till a berth on a warp five ship opens up.”
“Done, you’ll be at the top of my list when the intrepid comes out of refit, until then, enjoy the scenery, and get with the commandant tomorrow at 0900”
“Yes sir, and thank you Admiral”
They both get up and shake hands, Shannon sits back down, as the admiral departs.
“The Academy, huh, they must be desperate to want somebody like me” she says with a smile.
