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Star Trek: Ithaca
Episode Two: “Zero Degrees Zero”

The Atalanta dropped out of warp on the edge of the Wild Lands, slowing to a dead stop.
On the bridge, the crew looked towards the viewscreen, the look of horror on their faces apparent. The large viewscreen displayed an image of two Federation attack fighters drifting dangerously close to a subspace vacuole. One of the fighters was heavily damaged -it appeared from a distance that the vessel had collided with something. Gray rather grimly reported that there was only two life signs aboard the fighters -one of which appeared to be in distress.
   Ayesha instinctively called out to her first officer, Suvan and ordered him to beam the fighter occupants aboard.
   Thomas rose from the command chair and joined Ayesha at the centre of the bridge and asked “What do you think went on here?” crossing his arms and taking a long hard look at the terrifying sight that greeted them.
   Ayesha shook her head, she was just as unsure as Commander Warren and despite how she felt about this diversion, she was just as concerned. Ayesha hoped that this wasn’t the Dominion’s doing. Whilst they were still a long way away from Tyco-Echelon, The Ark and the front lines, she was worried that the war may have finally reached them.
   “Commander Warren!” -Bobby called, “I’ve located the other four fighter craft!”
   “Thank god…” -Warren remarked, elated. “Where are they ensign?”
   “Point three nine lightyears away, it looks as though they’ve made it to the Lorrenta Asteroid.”
   The Lorrenta Asteroid was a rogue asteroid that had been caught in the gravity well of the subspace vacuoles. It was Hood’s favourite jumping off point for tactical weapons simulations and war games. The asteroid supported a loose Class-L atmosphere, which made it possible for humanoids to spend brief periods of time on the surface without wearing breathing apparatus or environmental suits.
   “Based on these scans sir, the fighters must have crash-landed several hours ago, their ion trails are erratic and indicate that they had to make a sudden course correction.” -Young explained.
   Warren turned to Trent, “Are the occupants of this set of fighters aboard?”
   “Yes sir, transport was successful, they’re in sickbay.”
   “Understood, tractor the fighters into the shuttle bay …” -Warren then turned to Ensign Young, “ … Once the fighters are onboard, lay in a course to Lorrenta.” Both Young and Trent acknowledged the commander in unison.
   Turning to Ayesha, at his side, he paused before asking her to go down to sickbay and to check on the survivors, he could see that her mind was elsewhere. That she was still understandably worried about her parents. She acknowledged his orders and made her way towards the turbolift. “Ayesha…” his voice softened, “we’ll get to Tyco on time, I’ll make sure of it.” -the commander remarked, attempting to reassure Gadde.
   Ayesha nodded and smiled slightly. She clasped her hands together behind her back and straightened her posture as she waited for the turbolift to arrive. “Thank you, sir.” -she remarked softly, as the doors slid open before entering the turbolift…

*_*_*_*

Materialising on the primary trauma bio-bed in sickbay, Lieutenant Eva Tsu, still wearing her environmental suit was cold and unconscious. Voss beamed in a few seconds after her and was immediately treated by the medical team. He watched from afar as Doctor Lowra Naalli, the starbase’s chief medical officer treated her injuries. Naalli, a Betazoid barked orders at the Atalanta’s quite inexperienced medical team -reminding them that this was not a drill, that lives were hanging in the balance.
   Ensign Sojen appeared worried, he was shaking and his concerns for his fellow flight teammates, for Tsu was overwhelming him somewhat. The empathic, Betazoid side was in overpowering his Vulcan need to suppress his emotions and it was clear that he was concerned that he may have done more harm than good by trying to treat Tsu.
Thankfully his concerns are alleviated when, through a back handed compliment, Naalli mentions to one of the nurses that whoever gave Tsu the cordrazine probably saved her life.

As Naalli and her staff work on Tsu, Ayesha arrives in sickbay. Spotting Sojen, stood in the corner of the room, cradling his bruised arm, she makes her way over to him to enquire as to what happened out there in the Wild Lands.
   Taking a moment to gather his composure, Sojen explains that their fighter craft lost power, that something within the vacuoles disabled the fighters. Ayesha asks if that ‘something’ was an enemy craft, to which Sojen explains that he wasn’t able to run a comprehensive scan, that it all happened so fast. “One minute we were on a routine training mission, the next thing I know, Commander Hood’s team had vanished and we’re fighting for our lives.”
   Putting a reassuring arm around the ensign, Ayesha tells him that everything will be alright. That they’re aboard the Atalanta now and that there’s nothing to worry about.
   “But what about Hood, Commander, have you located him and the others?”
   “Gray and Ensign Young have found them, looks like they made it all the way to Lorrenta before bailing out.”
   Sojen looked puzzled; “Ensign Young, sir?.” he asked, having never met the latest edition to the Atalanta crew.
   “Our new helmsman, he’s taken over from Chris Patrick who’s transferred to the Roger-Young.” she explained, before continuing, “Once you’re all fixed up, I want you to review the black boxes … work with Suvan and Jerzan to find out what really happened out there. We need to identify if there’s a threat to the system.” -she spoke, praying that it wasn’t the Dominion.
   “Yes m’am.”

Whilst Gadde and Sojen spoke in the corner of the room, Doctor Naalli breathed a sigh of relief -she and her team had managed to stabilise Tsu.
   “Who is she anyway?” -Naalli asked, having never met the lieutenant.
   “I’m not sure, doctor, possibly one of Lieutenant Hood’s new recruits?” replied Gadde.
   “Well whoever she is, she’s damned lucky, she’d have probably lost her arms completely if those breaks had been any more severe. Made of titanium this one…”

Eva Tsu had always been lucky. Damned lucky. She was convinced that someone, or something was looking out for her. Some extra dimensional power or maybe even God himself -not that she was one for religion.
The lieutenant woke, starring right up and into Doctor Naalli’s dark brown Betazoid eyes. The doctor offered her a smile before speaking, “You gave us quite a scare … Lieutenant?”
   “Tsu, m’am. Eva Tsu … I transferred from the Enterprise two days ago.”
   “Ah, so not only do we have someone who’s ridiculously lucky and practically made of titanium, but we have a minor celebrity in our midsts.” the doctor quipped.
   “Flattered, I’m sure.” -she smiled as she tried to make herself sit upright.
   “Oh no you don’t, you’re staying put lieutenant. Those bones need to heal.”
   “But the others, what about Commander Hood and the others?”
   “Put it this way, lieutenant. If you stay put, you’ll find out for yourself.”
   “Sir?” - Eva looked worried
   “We’re en-route to them now, crashed on some damned asteroid, they’ll be fine, I’m sure of it.”
   “You’re quite confident about that aren’t you?” -to which Naalli smiled,
   “I’m a Betazoid lieutenant, I can sense things…”

*_*_*_*

Several hours later and after collecting Hood and his team -all of whom were largely uninjured from their landing on the asteroid, the Atalanta set course for Tyco-Echelon. Warren had gone below decks to speak with Hood and his team about what happened in the Wild Lands leaving the bridge in the capable hands of Commander Gadde.
The decision to leave Ayesha in command was purely to keep her distracted, to give her something to do -he knew that it was important to keep her mind busy, to keep her from thinking about her parents. He left the bridge having told her to begin battle drills, to make sure the Atalanta was prepared for every eventuality -that they must keep it together if they were to encounter the Dominion fleet.

Making his way into sickbay, Thomas found himself greeted by the sight of Naalli and the nursing staff treating Hood’s team and by the sight of someone he had not seen in years.
After rather hurriedly enquiring as to the status of Hood, Warren made his way over to Eva, who was now sat upright on the bio-bed talking to Sojen. Asking the ensign to give him and Tsu some space, the commander was clearly surprised and expressed that he had no idea she was onboard. Tsu explained that she had been transferred to Starbase 185 only recently, that she did not have time to pay her respects to him prior to departing on the training mission.
   “What are you doing here?” he asked, looking down at her -she had not changed one bit.      “I just told you, I was transferred.”
   “By whom?” -he asked, pulling up a stool and sitting down beside her.     “By Fleet Captain Pierce.”
   Warren looked at Eva with complete disbelief. How his oldest friend and commanding officer could keep this from him was a mystery. Why Pierce would do this to him after Warren had only just got his life back together, following his relationship with Tsu was unbelievable.
   As the pair conversed, somewhat rather heatedly, Lowra’s attention from treating one of Hood’s tactical flight officer’s was distracted.
   “It took me years to get over you. You cost me my marriage!” -he angrily remarked, standing back up again and puffing out his chest, ready to give her another volley.
   “We both went into that relationship knowing what would happen, Thom, don’t go blaming all of this on me.”
   Warren shook his head and banged his fists down on the side of Tsu’s bio-bed -attracting the attention of Doctor Naalli once again.
   “Right that’s enough you two, you out!” -she sternly remarked, ordering the commander out of sickbay.
As Commander Warren stormed out of the sickbay, almost knocking over Sojen in the process, Lowra asked Eva if she was alright. Eva shook her head and let out a deep sigh. It didn’t take an empath to realise that Eva was understandably unhappy by the way she had been treated by Warren. Lowra could see it in her eyes, she could sense that Eva had been dreading this encounter. And whilst Lowra had never met Eva before today, she knew the reasons behind Commander Warren’s divorce from his wife. “So… you’re the other woman.” -Naalli rather directly remarked.
   “I… I…” -Eva tried to respond, but couldn’t. She simply slumped back down on the bio bed. She was in pain, but not only from the pain of her injuries, but from seeing the man she once loved look at her with destain -Eva had never seen Thom like this before and it was a sight that she did not relish, nor want to see again.
As Doctor Naalli left the lieutenant to her thoughts to check on Hood, Eva wondered if she had made the right decision in coming here, taking the assignment and to work on the same starbase as Warren. Eva wondered if her luck had finally ran out. The last time she saw Warren she was stood in front of two admirals, fighting for her career, fighting to keep her job in Starfleet. Their relationship nearly cost her commission, but it was Warren that lost the most. Thom Warren lost his wife and irreparably damaged his relationship with his son -not only that, but it cost him his command.
Life for Thomas Warren had not been easy following his relationship with Eva. It almost destroyed him. Pierce saw that, he watched Warren drink away his nights. He watched him coast through staff meetings, loose interest in his job and watched as his wellbeing spiralled out of control -to the point where he could be found in the mess hall drinking when he should have been on duty.
Eva never really knew how bad things had gotten for Thom, but she did know that it cost him his command of the starship Pytheus -one of the many vessels that made up the Ithaca Task Force. Eva knew Thom had a good friendship, strong friendship with Fleet Captain Pierce. And as she lay on the bio bed, nursing her injuries, feeling sorry for herself, she wondered just why in hell Pierce, the commander’s oldest and dearest friend, had asked for her to come here, to be a part of the Starbase crew. It made no sense, but she was determined to find out…

*_*_*_*

Jonathan Pierce climbed finally climbed into bed after what had been an exceptionally long day. He had spent hours speaking to Admiral Dawson explaining his actions, going over his reasoning for not sending the Atalanta to the front lines. Thankfully Dawson understood his motives and like Warren before her, she agreed, off the record, that she would have probably done the same if she found out that one of her closest colleagues family needed help.
Pulling up the somewhat scratchy Starfleet issue bed sheets around him, Pierce cocooned himself, as he found himself slipping slightly into the grove that he slept in the night before. Something that caused him to smile a little as he thought to himself that he really should get around to flipping his mattress. Despite being unbelievably tired, he found that his mind wasn’t quite willing to switch off.
He had spent all day reading the progress reports coming in from the Atalanta. He was concerned about Ayesha, Thom and the others, yet after being on duty for fourteen hours straight, he knew he needed some down time.
As he lay in his bed, looking out at the stars through the large viewport adjacent his mind began to wander and he hoped that he would finally drift off to sleep, so that he could be ready for what tomorrow would bring.
But his mind, his subconscious had other plans...other memories to process...

*_*_*_*

How Denby Costello survived the Borg invasion of Earth was nothing short of a miracle. A lot of good men and women died that day. He wasn’t a religious man, hell he was only a boy when the Borg came for a second time, but he prayed for a miracle to happen, he got down on his hands and knees and prayed for something, anything to stop the Borg from destroying the fleet, from destroying Earth.
Twenty nine minutes later, the Enterprise arrived and shortly thereafter targeted the Borg Cube that had decimated the fleet and opened fire on a specific set of coordinates, destroying the cube.
As the Enterprise gave chase, pursued the sphere that was ejected from the exploding cube, Denby would have seen nothing but destruction.
The state of the art fleet of Federation ships lay in ruin and he had not faired much better. His hands were burnt, having raised them in front of his face to shield himself from an exploding console. Only that wasn’t enough. His right was gone, his left damaged, but salvageable.
He was blind. Scared.
The sobbing and calls for help died down after what felt like an eternity as the surviving members of the crew clung to the wreckage of the Appalachia.
And as those cries for help fell silent, Denby wondered if they would ever be rescued.
It took a full hour and ten minutes for the rescue fleet to secure the area. An hour and ten minutes to decide whether or not to beam rescue crews, evac teams and medical personnel aboard the damaged ships.
Denby had started to give up hope. But as the sounds of voices started to once again echo around the wreck of the Appalachia, Denby’s hope of being rescued began to resurface.
He like many others called out, crying out to the rescue teams, hoping to be heard, hoping to be found.
And he was.
Captain Jonathan Pierce and a team from one of those rescue ships had arrived on the scene and systematically began making their way through the corridors, checking compartments and crawl spaces for survivors.
The doors to the small room that Denby had sealed himself inside of were prized open and was told that he would be okay. That they were here to help. That everything would be okay now.
Denby sobbed. Uncontrollably at first, but as a pair of caring arms wrapped around him, his tears subsided.

Jonathan Pierce did not leave his side, he made sure that Denby was well looked after and received the highest standard of care. He fought for the medical teams to take good care of him, knowing full well that there were people in far greater need of their services than Denby.
Days turned into weeks. Weeks into months. Pierce did not give up on him, he saw something in the young ensign that reminded him of himself at that age. Scared and alone.
He visited Denby every day, making sure that he was looking after himself, taking care of himself and making sure he attended his counselling and rehabilitation sessions at Starfleet Medical.
Pierce had become more than a friend to Denby and he reminded the young ensign of his late father.
He never understood why Pierce stuck around, stayed by his side and cared for him. Nor did he know how to repay him for his kindness and generosity. He simply accepted it. No thanks were needed. No repayment was expected. The quiet, unspoken gratitude was enough.
But Denby wanted to repay him, or at the very least show Pierce what he meant to him.
Just four months later he went back to work, slightly stoic and still on the mend, Denby Costello found himself with a new purpose and a new starship to serve upon. Under a captain he knew so well, yet barely knew at all.

“Take her out, son.” Pierce spoke, standing beside Denby at the controls of the shuttlecraft.
The ensign looked outward through shuttle’s large viewport and beyond Earth Spacedock’s shuttlebay doors, the Odysseus was waiting, shimmering in the cold light of space. He took all of it in, but the thought of going back out into the cold, back out into the stars frightened him. Denby noticed his hands begin to shake as he concluded the pre-flight checks and so did the captain.
“It’s ok son, you got this.” He spoke, placing his hand reassuringly on his shoulder. “It’s time to see what we’re both made of. It’s time to go build an Ark...”

*_*_*_*

Lieutenant Denby Costello had always enjoyed working the night shift. There was a sense of calm that came with it and in his role as chief operations officer of both Starbase 185 and the USS Odysseus, he always relished that calm. For someone who was in his late twenties, Denby had experienced a lot in life. He had had his fair share of disappointments, his fair share of action, so standing watch aboard the Odysseus at night, whilst the rest of the crew were off duty in the lounge or tucked up in bed at night was something that he welcomed.
Denby made his way around the aft sections of the bridge, surveying the consoles as he passed. Starting at Engineering II, he reviewed the progress on Chief Engineer Denver’s upgrades to the warp core before moving on to the missions ops stations where he was greeted by a young ensign running a diagnostic on the sensor array. After taking some time to chat with Ensign Cross, Denby made his way down to the front of the bridge, where Lieutenant Mischa Burton, the ship’s chief helm officer was plotting a course for tomorrow’s patrol course around the Hawkeye Nebula.
The soft chirps and beeps of the helm console were almost soothing as Burton worked the helm. She delicately keyed in slight adjustments to her flight plan and made notes on what to look out for for Ensign Davidson who would be working the day shift.
Denby paused behind Mischa and took a moment to look out of the viewscreen. The image of the Starbase, silhouetted by the Hawkeye Nebula was impressive, although Denby always thought that the sensors did not do the nebula justice -he always preferred seeing the nebula from the command centre of the starbase, it’s panoramic view of the nebula through the huge viewports made it, made him feel as though he was floating in space.
As he stared into the abyss, he noticed something peculiar, bolts of green light flashed in the blueish white nebula like lightning.
Resting a hand on the back of Mischa’s chair’s headrest, he scrutinised the images that were being displayed on the viewscreen, trying to process what was going on out there.
   “Mish, do you see that?” he asked the young helmswoman.
   Mischa looked up from her console and turned her attention to the viewscreen. She could see it too, the green…’lightning’ grew brighter, nearer. Without looking, acting out of instinct, Mischa hit several commands on the helm console and magnified the image on the viewscreen.
   “Looks like weapons fire.” Burton replied.
   “Confirmed, sir.” the ensign working the mission ops station replied, getting up from his console and making his way over to tactical. The ensign trained the sensors on the location of the ‘lightning’ and began a tactical analysis.
   “Yellow alert.” Denby uneasily called, moving towards the command chair at the centre of the bridge. “Mish magnify the viewscreen, four hundred percent. I want to see what’s going on out there.”
   “Aye sir.”
   As Burton increased the resolution of the image on the main viewer, Ensign Cross looked up from his console in sheer disbelief. “Sir, I think there are two ships out there, engaged in battle.”
   Costello turned to Cross and ordered him to verify his readings, “Double check, ensign, I want to know who or what we’re dealing with.”
   “Confirmed sir, the sensors are detecting a slight subspace variance…” he paused, he’d seen this before, he recognised the variance, “I’m pretty sure one of the ships is Romulan.”
   “What the hell?” Denby expressed, they were lightyears from Romulan Space and in almost a year and a half of The Ark being here, they had not once encountered the Romulans. This was a first and something that Costello was concerned about.
   “There!” Mishca pointed at the viewscreen, causing Denby to stand to attention. As he crossed the bridge to join her, she replayed the last few seconds of sensor data on the viewscreen. The viewer shifted from the live sensor input to that of a still image of something, a distortion at the centre of the nebula.
   “Move the image forward, frame by frame, point two second advancements.” Denby asked, scrutinising the image.
   Mishca moved the images forward as requested. Ensign Cross was right, one of the ships out there was Romulan, a D’deridex-Class warbird to be precise, she was firing on something else.
   “Okay, switch it back to real time.” Denby spoke, maintaining his gaze firmly on the viewscreen. But as Mischa replaced the image with that of the live sensor data, Denby’s jaw dropped, his eyes widened, his heart began to beat harder in his chest.
   A green bolt of lightning -a disruptor beam to be exact, ricocheted out of the nebula, narrowly missing the Odysseus. The Galaxy-Class starship shook somewhat as the beam tore through the vacuum of space, almost coming into contact with the port side of the saucer section.
   “Damn, that was close!” Mishca exclaimed.
   “Too close…” Denby said, once again taking his seat at the centre of the bridge, by which time Lieutenant Commander Glenn Burke, the Odysseus’ chief security officer arrived on the bridge, relieving Ensign Cross from tactical.
   “What’s going on, Lieutenant?” Burke asked, his tone authoritative as he began to take charge of the situation.
   “Two vessels in a cloaked battle in the nebula sir. That volley almost took out the port side of the saucer…” Denby reported, relieved to see Burke. “…shall we go to red alert, sir?”
   “Do it…” Burke replied as he quickly took charge, ordering Mishca to bring the Odysseus to a more defensive posture, closer to the starbase. “Bring the ship to three one six mark five, keep us in between the fleet and The Ark.”
   “Aye sir.” Mishca responded, instantaneously working the helm console, keying in commands and bringing the ship about.
   “Ensign Cross, hail The Ark, tell them we are at red alert, that we have incoming, one maybe two Romulan warbirds ask them to confirm and to provide us with instructions.”
   Seconds later, as the Odysseus shook again, this time harder, Fleet Captain Pierce appeared on the viewscreen in his civilian clothing -clearly having just been woken from his slumber by the call.
   “Commander Burke, report.” Pierce spoke, his voice a little gravely from having only just woken up.
   “Two ships engaged in battle sir, looks like we are caught in the crossfire.” Burke’s posture straightened as he addressed the captain. “Shall we engage?”
   “I’ve ordered the fleet to gather around the station, get yourselves out there, but be careful. Doval’s advised that they’re not responding to hails.”
   “Understood sir, Burke out.”
   “Lieutenant Burton, take us in, maximum impulse.” Burke spoke, making his way down to the command chair where Denby was busily monitoring the ship’s systems from the command chair’s armrest displays. “Costello, take tactical, I need someone with your eye on this…no pun intended.”
   Denby smiled, “Aye, sir.” he replied, evacuating the command chair and making is way to the tactical station. As he did another volley of disruptor blasts hit the Odysseus.”
   “Shields down to eighty percent, commander.” Cross reported.
   “Wait…” Costello interjected, arriving at the tactical console. “…that was different, that wasn’t Romulan.” Denby spoke, looking down at the display in front of him, “That was Klingon weapons fire, sir.”
   “What the hell are the Klingons and the Romulans doing out in the nebula?” Mishca thought to herself aloud.
   “Whatever they’re doing, they’re jeopardising The Ark, that last volley nearly took out one of the habitat pods.” Cross spoke, frantically working the auxiliary tactical console.
   “The Betelgeuse and the Scuti have been hit sir!”
   The Odysseus bridge crew’s attention immediately turned to the viewscreen. They looked on in horror as a disruptor beam tore through the vacuum of space, out of the Hawkeye Nebula and sliced through the Scuti’s starboard nacelle pylon, sheering the nacelle clean off the Miranda-Class starship’s hull before exploding. The Betelgeuse didn’t fair that much better, debris from the Scuti’s exploding warp nacelle pummelled the hull of the Orbeth-Class starship, puncturing it’s upper hull. Costello and the others watched with open jaws as they saw the Scuti’s atmosphere beginning to vent into space, expelling debris and personnel into the void.
   “This ends now.” Commander Burke spoke, his arms crossed and his gazed fixed on the viewscreen. In fact, as he gave the oder to begin a multi-directional, wide beam phaser volley towards the attacking vessels, he did not once take his eye off the viewscreen. “Mr. Costello fire!”

The Galaxy-Class Odysseus’s phaser arrays lit up, multiple phaser beams from both the saucer section’s arrays fired towards the nebula, towards the last known coordinates of the Romulan and Klingon vessels. Another volley of phaser energy was expelled from the underside of the engineering hull, whilst another beam was fired from the aft of the huge Galaxy-Class starship, outward in the hopes of landing on one of the attacking ships.
   Seconds later, the D’deridex-Class warbird was visible, “Direct hit, sir!” Denby cried, “…It worked sir!”
   “Well that certainly got their attention.” Mishca spoke, once again pointing at the viewscreen, at the image of the D’deridex altering course. The warbird was no longer giving chase to the Klingon vessel, which still, miraculously had not been seen this entire time and was coming directly for the Odysseus.
   “Hail them!” Burke barked, his eyes emblazoned with anger.
   “Still no response sir.” Cross responded.
   “Keep hailing them, continuous messages, tell them that we mean business, that we’re not going to stand for this much longer.”
   Seconds passed, the warbird grew larger and larger on the viewscreen. If any of the crew had to guess, it looked as though the warbird was making a direct run on the Odysseus. But suddenly, at the last second, the warbird veered off to port as a volley of Klingon disruptor blasts struck it’s forward hull. The Klingon vessel de-cloaked, revealing itself to be that of a bird-of-prey -how the bird-of-prey had managed to survive this long against a D’deridex-Class Warbird was impressive, given how massively outgunned and outmanned it’s crew would have been. Despite it’s diminutive size, in comparison to the warbird, the bird-of-prey began systematically targeting various sections of the warbird. Why they took this long to open fire, to de-cloak was unknown, but what ever the reason, it had paid off and after less than two minutes since they de-cloaked, the Romulan warbird tucked it’s metaphorical tail between its legs and retreated back into the nebula.
   “Sir…” Denby looked up from the tactical console, “…the Klingons, sir, they’re hailing us!”
   “Finally, hopefully we’ll get some answers. On screen, Mr. Costello.”
   The viewscreen flickered slightly and the image of the Klingon bird-of-prey that lay directly in front of the Odysseus was replaced by that of an image of someone both Glenn Burke and Denby Costello had not seen in a long time. Instead of a Klingon commander, stood a Vulcan female in a now outdated blue Starfleet uniform. The look on Burke and Costello’s face was a picture as the Vulcan lieutenant commander acknowledged and addressed the Starfleet crew.
   “Lieutenant Commander Burke, it is agreeable to see you again…” she spoke, before surveying the bridge, “…I must speak to Fleet Captain Pierce at once, is he aboard the Odysseus?”
   “The captain is aboard the starbase and I can only assume, like me, he is wanting answers, Commander Saavik.”
   Saavik, The Ark’s chief science officer nodded, it was logical that like Burke, Captain Pierce would want to know why she was not only onboard a Klingon bird of prey, but also engaged in battle with a Romulan warbird. “We shall beam to the starbase at once, commander.”
   Burke’s eyes narrowed, “We?”
   With that, Saavik stood to her left, revealing Commander B’Nor, a mid-ranking, but prominent Klingon ambassador. Both Glenn and Denby recognised the commander instantly, she had been instrumental in the early diplomatic efforts in getting Romulus to agree to a Federation starbase being built so close to Romulan space. If it wasn’t for B’Nor and several other high ranking diplomats, the Romulan Empire would have never agreed to The Ark’s construction, so close to the Romulan border. Pierce spoke highly of her, but like Saavik, the Klingon commander had not been seen of for months and like Pierce, Burke, Denby and The Ark’s senior crew were becoming concerned for B’Nor and Saavik’s safety.
   “Ambassador B’Nor, I’m relieved to see that you are in good health.”
   “An odd choice of words, Commander Burke.” The commander spoke, rising from her chair at the centre of her bridge. “It was disappointing to see how poorly defended your Ark is, commander.”
   Glenn shifted uncomfortably and offered a cursory smile at the ambassador, as not to offend her. “We were caught by surprise, Ambassador, I can assure you that will not happen again.”
   “Now that I am here, I can assure you, commander, that The Ark will become the most highly defended outpost within the Federation, for the information that I bring today, that we bring with us today, will change the landscape of this sector forever…”

The comlink to the bird-of-prey ended abruptly. Leaving Burke, Costello and Burton dumbfounded. The whole reason that The Ark was built in the Iota-Leonis Sector, in the Brilnari-Star System was due to it’s remote location, far from the front lines. It was a safe and secluded sector of the galaxy, flanked by the Hawkeye Nebula, providing cover for The Ark, for Starbase 185 to remain safe from Dominion intrusion. The thought of the landscape of this sector being changed forever filled the Odysseus crew with an unsettling sense of dread. They were safe here, but for how long.
Denby Costello finally took his eyes of the viewscreen. He sensed the same feeling of trepidation he did when he returned back to Starfleet after the Borg Invasion. He did not like it. Yes, he had changed, had grown had come to terms with what had happened, but now, B’Nor’s words resonated deep inside of him and it chilled him to the bone…

*_*_*_*

Having lost time picking up the tactical flight squadron from the Lorrenta Asteroid, the Atalanta was now back on course for Tyco-Echelon at maximum warp.
The bridge crew were on high alert as the Atalanta neared the Tyco-Echelon system. Gadde was understandably apprehensive and it was beginning to show -her usual cool replaced by that of barked orders and snapping at the junior members of the crew. Only ten minutes ago, she had given both barrels to Ensign Young for not recalibrating the warp-manifold sensors correctly. He now sat quietly, with his head down, somewhat embarrassed at the helm, piloting the state of the art vessel towards Tyco, running sensor scans and brushing up on his evasive manoeuvres in case they were to take the Atalanta into battle.
   As Warren entered the bridge, looking like someone who had just seen a ghost, his face white and his eyes looking tired, Lieutenant Gray looked up from the science station and reported his latest findings from the long range sensor scan of the Tyco-Echelon region.
   “Commander Gadde…” he paused, noticing Warren entering the bridge, “…Commander Warren, I’m detecting some unusual readings up ahead, coming from Tyco.”
   Warren switched his direction of travel, from towards the command chair, to join Jerzan at the tactical post. Ayesha rose from the centre of the bridge and made her way around to Science I.
   “What have you got, lieutenant?” Ayesha asked.
   “I’m not quite sure, but I think I’ve seen these readings before.” Jerzan responded, pulling up the sensor data onto the larger screen above him. The larger monitor displayed an image of the Tyco-Echelon System, overlaid with various sensor readouts, one of which, the readout that had peaked Jerzan’s attention was that of an electromagnetic readout, emanating from what he believed to be one of the Dominion ships nearing the system. They were still too far away to get an accurate, high resolution scan of the Dominion fleet, but he knew that what he was reading on the sensors was not that of a Dominion vessel.
   Both Ayesha and Thom studied the readings. Gadde knew exactly what Gray was referring to however, Warren was unsure at what he was looking at. Ayesha had seen those readings before. She looked at Jerzan with wide eyes, the colour from her face was now starting to fade and she could feel her hands beginning to tremble. As she clenched her hands into fists, she took a deep breath and spoke, “That’s not a Dominion fleet.”
   “I tend to agree, Commander.” Jerzan spoke, his voice hushed.
   Despite being somewhat unsettled by Eva Tsu’s arrival on the Atalanta and still processing why his oldest friend and commanding officer had assigned his former…mistress to The Ark’s tactical flight squadron without first consulting him, Thom could quite plainly see that whatever the sensor readings represented, whatever memories they brought back for Jerzan and Ayesha was clearly having an effect on them and he could tell by the looks on their faces, that whatever was out there, heading towards Tyco-Echelon was something to be concerned about. “Lieutenant…Commander, care to let me in on what we’re looking at?” Thomas respectfully asked.
   “I…I believe we are looking at the electromagnetic frequency of the.” Jerzan started,
   “The Fen Domar.” Ayesha interjected, her eyes wide in horror at what she was seeing. The resolution on the scans increasing with each passing second that they grew nearer to Tyco, the information updating in front of them, confirming Jerzan’s hypothesis. Yet, Commander Warren was still none the wiser. “I can’t…I can’t do this!” Ayesha spoke, louder then she probably intended. Taking a step back, she shook her head, “This can’t be happening.” she spoke, tears filling her eyes, her hands trembling, her body shaking.
   “Ayesha, wait!” Jerzan called, as she bolted for the turbolift.
   But she did not turn around, she had to get out of there. She felt as though all of the air had been sucked out of the bridge. She felt as though she was going to loose consciousness, she had to get out of here, had to leave the bridge. The thought of the Fen Domar being back, headed towards her mother and father’s home, her home filled her with complete terror and she had to leave, hell, she would have jumped out of the airlock if she could, she was that frightened…

*_*_*_*

Ensign Sojen was in a bad mood. More accurately; the crew around him were mostly anxious and their misgivings about diverting away from Tyco to rescue the flight team had seeped into his core. Being of two races whose physiologists and cultures are fundamentally shaped by emotion, Sojen was at constant emotional odds with himself.
   As he entered turbolift three on his way to his temporary quarters, Sojen was surprised to see the turbolift was already occupied. So consumed by the feelings of others, he had failed to sense the presence of the woman with whom he was sharing the space.
   "Deck seven," Sojen said as he nodded respectfully to the officer, who looked as though she was barely keeping it together, her breathing was erratic and was visibly trembling. The process of elimination was almost immediate. Sojen recognised the woman to be Commander Ayesha Gadde. Yes, they had both served aboard Starbase 185 for almost a year and a half, but the pair had never formally been introduced or even spoken to one and other.
Sojen's curiosity swarmed over him and his impulse control melted away. He turned to Commander Gadde and offered a look of apology as the question escaped him. "Is it true? Were you there? During the incursion?"
   Gadde had always kept her distance from Sojen, for this exact reason. She knew all about the young Vulcan/Betazoid tactical flight officer from her friendship with Sam Hood. Sam always spoke highly of Sojen, but there was something about Sojen’s empathic abilities that gave her the creeps, something that bothered her and given her past, given all of her anger, grief and guilt that she carried just below the surface, she made a point of avoiding him. But her fears were bubbling up, bubbling out of her and it was clear to her why Sojen had asked what he had.
   Ayesha looked at Sojen and fought back what she wanted to say, to tell him to mind his own business, to tell him leave her alone, but instead she angrily corrected him, "Were you there, m'am?" -she immediately regretted saying that, but right now she was in no mood to talk and in no mood to relive her past with someone she barely even knew.
   Sojen raised an eyebrow as he sensed Gadde’s displeasure with how his initial query was posed, but her emotions were pouring out of her, hence his question. He recoiled internally a bit and put up his walls. Still, he was curious, the flashes of telepathic imagery were difficult for him to process. "Yes, M’am, of course, my apologies, commander." Sojen stood at attention. His attention to protocol was either very professional or mocking. His face gave no indication as to which. "Were you there, ma'am?"
   A few moments later, the turbolift arrived at Sojen's destination. The journey was awkward and uncomfortable for both of them, Ayesha chose to ignore the half Vulcan and had remained totally silent, trying to keep the thoughts of the Fen Domar to herself. Gadde was deep in thought, somewhere far far away from here. She wasn’t thinking about her parents, or of the fleet approaching her home, her thoughts were light years away, in the past...

*_*_*_*

Five Years Ago…
The starship Odysseus swung about, her shields raised and her weapons primed. Despite the sudden manoeuvre, the Galaxy-Class starship still maintained its majestic nature as it came about to tackle the intruder.

Captain Christopher Howard stood at the centre of the bridge barking orders to his senior staff, to which they all responded too and acted upon instantly.
"Shields and weapons systems charged, all decks are standing by Captain." -the ship's tactical officer sounded.
"Bringing us to three one two, mark six five nine" -reported the helmsman.
"We'll be in scanning range in one minute, captain." -an unfamiliar voice from the science station reported.
Howard looked over to Science I and noticed that his chief science officer wasn't there, he looked at the young lieutenant occupying Commander Dyson's chair and asked for his whereabouts.
"The commander is indisposed at the moment sir, he asked me to take his duty shift." -the polite young woman replied.
"And you are, lieutenant?" -It wasn't like Captain Howard not to know who he was serving with however, they'd recently gone through a large crew changeover on Mars and he wasn't familiar with the brunette to his left.
"Lieutenant Ayesha Gadde, I transferred over from Utopia three days ago."
"Well, once this is all over Gadde, we'll get better acquainted. Would you be so kind as to give me a preliminary report on the intruder vessel?"
Ayesha worked the console like an experienced officer many years her senior -it was like she was playing at a concert, her nimble fingers hitting all the right keys and Howard was her conductor.
"Astrometric scans show an unknown hull configuration and components. Life signs are indeterminate and the ship's energy readings are off the scale."
"Do you believe their acting in a hostile manner?" -the captain enquiries.
"Aside from circumventing all of our known defences and parking themselves in a polar orbit, I don't believe so sir." -she replied after a quick glance of the sensors.
"Tactical, are their shields raised?"
"I cannot make that determination at this time." Suvan Trent, the young half Vulcan tactical officer replied.
"Negative captain..." Ayesha interjected, "...I've detected what appears to be hull polarisation technology however, they do not appear to be online." Ayesha reported, much to the experienced tactical officers chagrin.
"Polarisation tech?" Howard thought out loud, "...there hasn't been that kind of tech on a starship for almost two hundred years!"
"Indeed, Starfleet replaced polarisation tech with shielding back in the 23rd century, sir."
"Comms, open hailing frequencies." -the captain ordered, making his way over to join Ayesha at the science station.
"No response sir."
Gadde looked puzzled, she kept pouring over the raw sensor data as it came in, it just didn't make sense. It was as though the ship had travelled through time but there were no indicators of variance -not only that, the core of the ship was heavily shielded by an unknown metal, the likes of that which couldn't be mined by conventional means.
"Lieutenant Gray, try using the low band frequencies." Ayesha suggested, wondering if their communications array was to advanced.
The speakers crackled heavily, someone had responded, but who?

Captain Howard stood along side Ayesha and Jerzan, scrutinising the sound that was pouring out of the speakers; it was an unusual sound, somewhat terrifying -Ayesha worked her magic in manipulating the sensors in attempt to identify what the alien ship was transmitting however, this time she wasn’t having much luck. Gray attempted to assisted her, the Trill lieutenant noticed something that she had stumbled upon and asked her to reconfigure the translation matrix to a modulating decryption sequence.
“WE ARE THE…” -a broken voice started, “….WE ARE THE…” -the voice repeated, the sound cutting out every time; “…PLEASE HELP.”
With that the tension on the bridge began to melt away.
“Any joy on scanning the interior?” -he asked, making his way back to the centre of the bridge to take a seat in his chair.
“Negative captain.”
“Can we beam aboard?” Jerzan asked.
Ayesha analysed the sensor data and believed it was possible, “It’ll be a rough transport, but I believe we can beam through a section on what I can only deduce as their bridge.”
“PLEASE HELP.” The speakers relayed
Captain Howard returned to his feet, he looked over to Ayesha and Jerzan -“Ok, lets get over there, I want to find out just where the hell that thing came from.”
“Yes sir.” -Ayesha replied, starting to become nervous.
Howard sensed that she wasn’t expecting to go beam aboard an alien ship that had somehow managed to get through every one of Vulcan’s defences and park itself in a high polar orbit when she came to work this morning, but he knew in the last couple of hours that she’d earned her stripes, that it was time to cut her teeth on something bigger now. “Don’t worry, lieutenant, we’ve got your back…”

The Galaxy-Class, USS Odysseus dwarfed the alien vessel that had managed to circumvent every known Starfleet security protocol, every defence system and the fleet that patrolled Sector 001. The damaged alien ship hung in high orbit over Vulcan like a fly in amber as the Odysseus moved into transporter range.

The air was thick with smoke, a fire burnt out of control on one of the lower decks and the suppression system had failed, flooding the remaining four decks with a dense black smoke. The darkness within what would be the command centre aboard a Federation starship suddenly lit up with that of the hue of three transporter beams which deposited Gadde, Gray and Captain Howard in the thick of it.

Ayesha immediately pulled out her tricorder and began scanning the ship whilst Jerzan and the captain stood ready with their phasers set to stun.

Choking on the smoke, Ayesha was unable to concentrate on her tricorder readouts -covering her mouth with her hand, she turned to the captain, “We can’t stay in here.” -she remarked, coughing heavily.

“Agreed, lieutenant” -Pierce replied, also struggling to breath.

Jerzan lead the way to the back of the command centre however, he didn’t make it more than two metres before disappearing from sight. “Arrrgh!” -he cried.

Disorientated, Gadde called out to him but she couldn’t see him.

“Lieutenant!” -Gray shouted, “Where are you?!”

“INTRUDER ALERT” -an automated voice called. “AUTOMATED SYSTEMS ACTIVATED”

The fear running through Gadde was turning to panic -she’d managed to keep her cool thus far, but with Jerzan having vanished, she was scared and could barely breathe.

“Howard to Transporter Room One, three to beam up!” -the captain attempted to call for evacuation but there was no response.

‘INTRUDER ALERT” -the automated voice called out again.

Gadde could hear something whirring, as if something was powering up, “We’ve gotta get out of here, captain.”

“I’m not leaving with out Gray, remodulate the tri…” -with that, he’d gone.

Gadde was alone, she’d moved only a few meters away from Howard yet, it was enough for him to disappear like Jerzan before him.

For a second, it appeared that the smoke had cleared somewhat, she was able to catch her breath and also spot somewhere she could ride this out. Cowering underneath what looked to be a computer terminal, she climbed underneath and attempted to locate the captain and Gray.

“AUTOMATED SYSTEMS ACTIVATED, FIRE SUPPRESSION SYSTEM ONLINE.”

Something wasn’t right, it was as if this ship was much older than it appeared -it took almost four minutes for the fire suppression systems to fully activate and as it did, as the toxic smoke was pulled into air vents that encircled the command centre’s ceiling, her perception of the room changed and was replaced from that of a smoke ridden command centre to a room filled with death…

Climbing out from underneath the console, Ayesha surveyed the command centre and looked on in horror at the sight of six alien corpses scattered around the room. One at the centre of the centre, three huddled around what Ayesha had determined to be the helm and two at the tactical terminal.

The technology, displays and interior hull didn’t match, it was a hodgepodge of designs however, Gadde’s assessment of the alien ship had to wait; she needed to find her crew.

“AUTOMATED SYSTEMS ONLINE” -the ship’s computer called out again, it was the same voice that sent out the message to the Odysseus. Unable to determine if it was a distress call or a computer malfunction, Gadde put that to the back of her mind and pulled out her tricorder to work the nearest of the ship’s consoles in an attempt to locate Captain Howard and Lieutenant Gray.

Placing her tricorder on the console, Ayesha attempted to power up the terminal. Still very aware that she was breathing heavily and shaking somewhat, Ayesha told herself to get it together, that she had to stay professional, that she had been in worse situations than this and must get herself and her two senior officers home.

Tapping her com badge, Gadde opened up a verbal interface with the tricorder and began ordering it to access various functions in order to access the ship’s computer.

A small but noticeable beam of energy suddenly expelled itself from the tricorder and into the computer terminal. The computer immediately sprung to life and what she was greeted with was somewhat surprising. The terminal was in Romulan.

“What the hell?” -she remarked. Thankfully, the young lieutenant knew basic Romulan and was able to work the station, accessing the ship’s schematics, Ayesha was, in no time able to work the display and locate Jerzan and Howard.

“Thank God!” -Ayesha had found them and they were still alive. “Tricorder, display the quickest route to Captain Howard and Lieutenant Gray.” -she asked; -with that, the display changed to a cross section of the ship. Ayesha wasn’t far away, they were two decks down in what Ayesha read in her broken Romulan as either the brig or waste control. Hoping for their sake it was the brig, Gadde downloaded the ship’s schematic into the tricorder’s memory bank and picked up the scanner.

As Ayesha made her way out of the alien ship’s command centre, a blast of energy screeched past her left ear -it was that close that she could actually feel her hair singe as the blast of energy flew by.

“Cr’de Bench Lo Coldekk MAAAH!” -an alien voice proclaimed.

Immediately turning around and swooping down to the ground, Gadde saw what could only be the ship’s captain slumped in his chair, holding a Romulan disruptor.

“COLDEKK MAAAH!” he shouted again

“We’re here to help you!” she replied as another blast rocketed past her, again narrowly missing the lieutenant.

“COLDEKK MAAH POSTA NMAHHH!” -he shouted, she had no clue as to what the alien was saying, the universal translator clearly wasn’t working however, it didn’t take a genius to realise he was pissed.

“AUTOMATED SYSTEMS ONL…” -the automated voice spoke again, strangely in perfect English yet, Ayesha didn’t get a chance to hear the remainder of the automated voice’s announcement. In an instant, Ayesha had been displaced, transported somewhere else…

The alien captain, who for the most part looked human, except for the ridges and dark markings above his eyes tried to pick himself up out of the captain’s chair and upon noticing his fellow crewmen dead on the ground, let out an almighty raw.

“CHENZO CALISAANHMAH” -his cry winded him, he had clearly been affected by what ever had brought them here. He made his way slowly over to one of the other computer terminals and keyed in several commands.

“AUTO-DESTRUCT SEQUENCE INITIATED” -the computer responded, again in English.

Ayesha had heard that last announcement in it’s entirety…as did Christopher and Jerzan to whom she had been reunited with. They found themselves in the brig -thankfully, the power to the cell in which they found themselves in had failed. Jerzan and Howard were busily accessing the ship’s computer core when Ayesha materialised on the hard bed inside one of the cells.

“So glad you could finally join us, lieutenant.” Howard smiled, making his way over to greet her. He helped her up and placed both hands on her shoulders, he quickly looked her up and down before making eye contact, “Are you okay lieutenant?”

“I believe so,” she replied, shaken.

“We’ve been able to access the ship’s power core, to attempt to disable the auto destruct.” Captain Howard remarked, believing it to having been triggered by their arrival.

“Their captain’s alive.” Ayesha reported, “He set the auto-destruct.”

“Captain, you better come take a look at this.” -Jerzan nervously remarked, looking at the console in either fear or sheer excitement.

“What is it?” Howard and Gadde both joined Gray at the console, “The ship’s made up of over twenty nine different interfacing alien races technology. There’s literally tech here from almost every quadrant of the galaxy.”

“How the hell haven’t we seen this before.”

Ayesha suddenly noticed something on the screen that she recognised, “Magnify this section,” she pointed to the ship’s auxiliary computer core.

Captain Howard, now holding Gray’s tricorder ran a quick scan of the core’s energy signature, “I haven’t seen anything like that for almost a century.”

Ayesha took a look at the tricorder, “No wonder the announcements are in English, it’s a Starfleet -look at this.” -she held out her tricorder and displayed a modified composited schematic of the auxiliary computer core -it was most definitely of Starfleet design however, something that wasn't used aboard ships today, more something that would be more at home aboard a Constitution-Class starship.

"NCC..." -Ayesha started, reading from the display "...1786..., U.S.S. Jupiter”
If only the link to the Odysseus’ computer core was still established, Ayesha would have cross checked the readout from the tricorder with the historical database.

"The Jupiter was lost with all hands over a century ago." Jerzan reported,

Both Ayesha and the captain were somewhat surprised with the lieutenant's recall, "I’m somewhat of a buff when it comes to the constitution-class deep space programme..." -he remarked. “...and I was there when it went missing.” Gray continued as the pair continued to look at him in disbelief. “You can see my spots today right?” He joked, as if to remind them that he was a joined Trill.

The Captain wondered just what the hell the Jupiter's auxiliary computer core was doing aboard the alien ship however, he didn't get a chance to ask further questions,

"ATMOSPHERE OFFLINE." the computer sounded.

Quickly checking the display in front of him, Howard reported that they had less than two minutes of air left, "We've gotta get out of here and fast!"

*_*_*_*

Present Day…
The doors to the turbolift swished open, snapping Ayesha out of her trancelike state and back to the Atalanta, back to the turbolift. It was as though the air had been sucked out of the lift carriage, the commander gasped for air. Her night terrors, her flashbacks had overwhelmed her...

Sojen had been unknowingly tethered to Commander Gadde while he was in her trance. The imagery escaped him, but he was bathed in the the Commander's emotions. When Ayesha came to, Sojen had a sick feeling wash over him. He felt panic and terror grip Ayesha. "Commander? Are you-"

She was hyperventilating and fell to the floor. "Hel..." -Ayesha cried, "...help!"

"Sojen to Sickbay! Medical Emergency! Deck 7!!!”

To be continued…

Image Credits:
Starbase by Raul Mamoru
Galaxy, Miranda and Warbird by The Lightworks
Spacescape by Starkiteckt Designs

Image by JonBromLE1

Description
Star Trek: Ithaca
Episode Two: “Zero Degrees Zero”

The Atalanta dropped out of warp on the edge of the Wild Lands, slowing to a dead stop.
On the bridge, the crew looked towards the viewscreen, the look of horror on their faces apparent. The large viewscreen displayed an image of two Federation attack fighters drifting dangerously close to a subspace vacuole. One of the fighters was heavily damaged -it appeared from a distance that the vessel had collided with something. Gray rather grimly reported that there was only two life signs aboard the fighters -one of which appeared to be in distress.
   Ayesha instinctively called out to her first officer, Suvan and ordered him to beam the fighter occupants aboard.
   Thomas rose from the command chair and joined Ayesha at the centre of the bridge and asked “What do you think went on here?” crossing his arms and taking a long hard look at the terrifying sight that greeted them.
   Ayesha shook her head, she was just as unsure as Commander Warren and despite how she felt about this diversion, she was just as concerned. Ayesha hoped that this wasn’t the Dominion’s doing. Whilst they were still a long way away from Tyco-Echelon, The Ark and the front lines, she was worried that the war may have finally reached them.
   “Commander Warren!” -Bobby called, “I’ve located the other four fighter craft!”
   “Thank god…” -Warren remarked, elated. “Where are they ensign?”
   “Point three nine lightyears away, it looks as though they’ve made it to the Lorrenta Asteroid.”
   The Lorrenta Asteroid was a rogue asteroid that had been caught in the gravity well of the subspace vacuoles. It was Hood’s favourite jumping off point for tactical weapons simulations and war games. The asteroid supported a loose Class-L atmosphere, which made it possible for humanoids to spend brief periods of time on the surface without wearing breathing apparatus or environmental suits.
   “Based on these scans sir, the fighters must have crash-landed several hours ago, their ion trails are erratic and indicate that they had to make a sudden course correction.” -Young explained.
   Warren turned to Trent, “Are the occupants of this set of fighters aboard?”
   “Yes sir, transport was successful, they’re in sickbay.”
   “Understood, tractor the fighters into the shuttle bay …” -Warren then turned to Ensign Young, “ … Once the fighters are onboard, lay in a course to Lorrenta.” Both Young and Trent acknowledged the commander in unison.
   Turning to Ayesha, at his side, he paused before asking her to go down to sickbay and to check on the survivors, he could see that her mind was elsewhere. That she was still understandably worried about her parents. She acknowledged his orders and made her way towards the turbolift. “Ayesha…” his voice softened, “we’ll get to Tyco on time, I’ll make sure of it.” -the commander remarked, attempting to reassure Gadde.
   Ayesha nodded and smiled slightly. She clasped her hands together behind her back and straightened her posture as she waited for the turbolift to arrive. “Thank you, sir.” -she remarked softly, as the doors slid open before entering the turbolift…

*_*_*_*

Materialising on the primary trauma bio-bed in sickbay, Lieutenant Eva Tsu, still wearing her environmental suit was cold and unconscious. Voss beamed in a few seconds after her and was immediately treated by the medical team. He watched from afar as Doctor Lowra Naalli, the starbase’s chief medical officer treated her injuries. Naalli, a Betazoid barked orders at the Atalanta’s quite inexperienced medical team -reminding them that this was not a drill, that lives were hanging in the balance.
   Ensign Sojen appeared worried, he was shaking and his concerns for his fellow flight teammates, for Tsu was overwhelming him somewhat. The empathic, Betazoid side was in overpowering his Vulcan need to suppress his emotions and it was clear that he was concerned that he may have done more harm than good by trying to treat Tsu.
Thankfully his concerns are alleviated when, through a back handed compliment, Naalli mentions to one of the nurses that whoever gave Tsu the cordrazine probably saved her life.

As Naalli and her staff work on Tsu, Ayesha arrives in sickbay. Spotting Sojen, stood in the corner of the room, cradling his bruised arm, she makes her way over to him to enquire as to what happened out there in the Wild Lands.
   Taking a moment to gather his composure, Sojen explains that their fighter craft lost power, that something within the vacuoles disabled the fighters. Ayesha asks if that ‘something’ was an enemy craft, to which Sojen explains that he wasn’t able to run a comprehensive scan, that it all happened so fast. “One minute we were on a routine training mission, the next thing I know, Commander Hood’s team had vanished and we’re fighting for our lives.”
   Putting a reassuring arm around the ensign, Ayesha tells him that everything will be alright. That they’re aboard the Atalanta now and that there’s nothing to worry about.
   “But what about Hood, Commander, have you located him and the others?”
   “Gray and Ensign Young have found them, looks like they made it all the way to Lorrenta before bailing out.”
   Sojen looked puzzled; “Ensign Young, sir?.” he asked, having never met the latest edition to the Atalanta crew.
   “Our new helmsman, he’s taken over from Chris Patrick who’s transferred to the Roger-Young.” she explained, before continuing, “Once you’re all fixed up, I want you to review the black boxes … work with Suvan and Jerzan to find out what really happened out there. We need to identify if there’s a threat to the system.” -she spoke, praying that it wasn’t the Dominion.
   “Yes m’am.”

Whilst Gadde and Sojen spoke in the corner of the room, Doctor Naalli breathed a sigh of relief -she and her team had managed to stabilise Tsu.
   “Who is she anyway?” -Naalli asked, having never met the lieutenant.
   “I’m not sure, doctor, possibly one of Lieutenant Hood’s new recruits?” replied Gadde.
   “Well whoever she is, she’s damned lucky, she’d have probably lost her arms completely if those breaks had been any more severe. Made of titanium this one…”

Eva Tsu had always been lucky. Damned lucky. She was convinced that someone, or something was looking out for her. Some extra dimensional power or maybe even God himself -not that she was one for religion.
The lieutenant woke, starring right up and into Doctor Naalli’s dark brown Betazoid eyes. The doctor offered her a smile before speaking, “You gave us quite a scare … Lieutenant?”
   “Tsu, m’am. Eva Tsu … I transferred from the Enterprise two days ago.”
   “Ah, so not only do we have someone who’s ridiculously lucky and practically made of titanium, but we have a minor celebrity in our midsts.” the doctor quipped.
   “Flattered, I’m sure.” -she smiled as she tried to make herself sit upright.
   “Oh no you don’t, you’re staying put lieutenant. Those bones need to heal.”
   “But the others, what about Commander Hood and the others?”
   “Put it this way, lieutenant. If you stay put, you’ll find out for yourself.”
   “Sir?” - Eva looked worried
   “We’re en-route to them now, crashed on some damned asteroid, they’ll be fine, I’m sure of it.”
   “You’re quite confident about that aren’t you?” -to which Naalli smiled,
   “I’m a Betazoid lieutenant, I can sense things…”

*_*_*_*

Several hours later and after collecting Hood and his team -all of whom were largely uninjured from their landing on the asteroid, the Atalanta set course for Tyco-Echelon. Warren had gone below decks to speak with Hood and his team about what happened in the Wild Lands leaving the bridge in the capable hands of Commander Gadde.
The decision to leave Ayesha in command was purely to keep her distracted, to give her something to do -he knew that it was important to keep her mind busy, to keep her from thinking about her parents. He left the bridge having told her to begin battle drills, to make sure the Atalanta was prepared for every eventuality -that they must keep it together if they were to encounter the Dominion fleet.

Making his way into sickbay, Thomas found himself greeted by the sight of Naalli and the nursing staff treating Hood’s team and by the sight of someone he had not seen in years.
After rather hurriedly enquiring as to the status of Hood, Warren made his way over to Eva, who was now sat upright on the bio-bed talking to Sojen. Asking the ensign to give him and Tsu some space, the commander was clearly surprised and expressed that he had no idea she was onboard. Tsu explained that she had been transferred to Starbase 185 only recently, that she did not have time to pay her respects to him prior to departing on the training mission.
   “What are you doing here?” he asked, looking down at her -she had not changed one bit.      “I just told you, I was transferred.”
   “By whom?” -he asked, pulling up a stool and sitting down beside her.     “By Fleet Captain Pierce.”
   Warren looked at Eva with complete disbelief. How his oldest friend and commanding officer could keep this from him was a mystery. Why Pierce would do this to him after Warren had only just got his life back together, following his relationship with Tsu was unbelievable.
   As the pair conversed, somewhat rather heatedly, Lowra’s attention from treating one of Hood’s tactical flight officer’s was distracted.
   “It took me years to get over you. You cost me my marriage!” -he angrily remarked, standing back up again and puffing out his chest, ready to give her another volley.
   “We both went into that relationship knowing what would happen, Thom, don’t go blaming all of this on me.”
   Warren shook his head and banged his fists down on the side of Tsu’s bio-bed -attracting the attention of Doctor Naalli once again.
   “Right that’s enough you two, you out!” -she sternly remarked, ordering the commander out of sickbay.
As Commander Warren stormed out of the sickbay, almost knocking over Sojen in the process, Lowra asked Eva if she was alright. Eva shook her head and let out a deep sigh. It didn’t take an empath to realise that Eva was understandably unhappy by the way she had been treated by Warren. Lowra could see it in her eyes, she could sense that Eva had been dreading this encounter. And whilst Lowra had never met Eva before today, she knew the reasons behind Commander Warren’s divorce from his wife. “So… you’re the other woman.” -Naalli rather directly remarked.
   “I… I…” -Eva tried to respond, but couldn’t. She simply slumped back down on the bio bed. She was in pain, but not only from the pain of her injuries, but from seeing the man she once loved look at her with destain -Eva had never seen Thom like this before and it was a sight that she did not relish, nor want to see again.
As Doctor Naalli left the lieutenant to her thoughts to check on Hood, Eva wondered if she had made the right decision in coming here, taking the assignment and to work on the same starbase as Warren. Eva wondered if her luck had finally ran out. The last time she saw Warren she was stood in front of two admirals, fighting for her career, fighting to keep her job in Starfleet. Their relationship nearly cost her commission, but it was Warren that lost the most. Thom Warren lost his wife and irreparably damaged his relationship with his son -not only that, but it cost him his command.
Life for Thomas Warren had not been easy following his relationship with Eva. It almost destroyed him. Pierce saw that, he watched Warren drink away his nights. He watched him coast through staff meetings, loose interest in his job and watched as his wellbeing spiralled out of control -to the point where he could be found in the mess hall drinking when he should have been on duty.
Eva never really knew how bad things had gotten for Thom, but she did know that it cost him his command of the starship Pytheus -one of the many vessels that made up the Ithaca Task Force. Eva knew Thom had a good friendship, strong friendship with Fleet Captain Pierce. And as she lay on the bio bed, nursing her injuries, feeling sorry for herself, she wondered just why in hell Pierce, the commander’s oldest and dearest friend, had asked for her to come here, to be a part of the Starbase crew. It made no sense, but she was determined to find out…

*_*_*_*

Jonathan Pierce climbed finally climbed into bed after what had been an exceptionally long day. He had spent hours speaking to Admiral Dawson explaining his actions, going over his reasoning for not sending the Atalanta to the front lines. Thankfully Dawson understood his motives and like Warren before her, she agreed, off the record, that she would have probably done the same if she found out that one of her closest colleagues family needed help.
Pulling up the somewhat scratchy Starfleet issue bed sheets around him, Pierce cocooned himself, as he found himself slipping slightly into the grove that he slept in the night before. Something that caused him to smile a little as he thought to himself that he really should get around to flipping his mattress. Despite being unbelievably tired, he found that his mind wasn’t quite willing to switch off.
He had spent all day reading the progress reports coming in from the Atalanta. He was concerned about Ayesha, Thom and the others, yet after being on duty for fourteen hours straight, he knew he needed some down time.
As he lay in his bed, looking out at the stars through the large viewport adjacent his mind began to wander and he hoped that he would finally drift off to sleep, so that he could be ready for what tomorrow would bring.
But his mind, his subconscious had other plans...other memories to process...

*_*_*_*

How Denby Costello survived the Borg invasion of Earth was nothing short of a miracle. A lot of good men and women died that day. He wasn’t a religious man, hell he was only a boy when the Borg came for a second time, but he prayed for a miracle to happen, he got down on his hands and knees and prayed for something, anything to stop the Borg from destroying the fleet, from destroying Earth.
Twenty nine minutes later, the Enterprise arrived and shortly thereafter targeted the Borg Cube that had decimated the fleet and opened fire on a specific set of coordinates, destroying the cube.
As the Enterprise gave chase, pursued the sphere that was ejected from the exploding cube, Denby would have seen nothing but destruction.
The state of the art fleet of Federation ships lay in ruin and he had not faired much better. His hands were burnt, having raised them in front of his face to shield himself from an exploding console. Only that wasn’t enough. His right was gone, his left damaged, but salvageable.
He was blind. Scared.
The sobbing and calls for help died down after what felt like an eternity as the surviving members of the crew clung to the wreckage of the Appalachia.
And as those cries for help fell silent, Denby wondered if they would ever be rescued.
It took a full hour and ten minutes for the rescue fleet to secure the area. An hour and ten minutes to decide whether or not to beam rescue crews, evac teams and medical personnel aboard the damaged ships.
Denby had started to give up hope. But as the sounds of voices started to once again echo around the wreck of the Appalachia, Denby’s hope of being rescued began to resurface.
He like many others called out, crying out to the rescue teams, hoping to be heard, hoping to be found.
And he was.
Captain Jonathan Pierce and a team from one of those rescue ships had arrived on the scene and systematically began making their way through the corridors, checking compartments and crawl spaces for survivors.
The doors to the small room that Denby had sealed himself inside of were prized open and was told that he would be okay. That they were here to help. That everything would be okay now.
Denby sobbed. Uncontrollably at first, but as a pair of caring arms wrapped around him, his tears subsided.

Jonathan Pierce did not leave his side, he made sure that Denby was well looked after and received the highest standard of care. He fought for the medical teams to take good care of him, knowing full well that there were people in far greater need of their services than Denby.
Days turned into weeks. Weeks into months. Pierce did not give up on him, he saw something in the young ensign that reminded him of himself at that age. Scared and alone.
He visited Denby every day, making sure that he was looking after himself, taking care of himself and making sure he attended his counselling and rehabilitation sessions at Starfleet Medical.
Pierce had become more than a friend to Denby and he reminded the young ensign of his late father.
He never understood why Pierce stuck around, stayed by his side and cared for him. Nor did he know how to repay him for his kindness and generosity. He simply accepted it. No thanks were needed. No repayment was expected. The quiet, unspoken gratitude was enough.
But Denby wanted to repay him, or at the very least show Pierce what he meant to him.
Just four months later he went back to work, slightly stoic and still on the mend, Denby Costello found himself with a new purpose and a new starship to serve upon. Under a captain he knew so well, yet barely knew at all.

“Take her out, son.” Pierce spoke, standing beside Denby at the controls of the shuttlecraft.
The ensign looked outward through shuttle’s large viewport and beyond Earth Spacedock’s shuttlebay doors, the Odysseus was waiting, shimmering in the cold light of space. He took all of it in, but the thought of going back out into the cold, back out into the stars frightened him. Denby noticed his hands begin to shake as he concluded the pre-flight checks and so did the captain.
“It’s ok son, you got this.” He spoke, placing his hand reassuringly on his shoulder. “It’s time to see what we’re both made of. It’s time to go build an Ark...”

*_*_*_*

Lieutenant Denby Costello had always enjoyed working the night shift. There was a sense of calm that came with it and in his role as chief operations officer of both Starbase 185 and the USS Odysseus, he always relished that calm. For someone who was in his late twenties, Denby had experienced a lot in life. He had had his fair share of disappointments, his fair share of action, so standing watch aboard the Odysseus at night, whilst the rest of the crew were off duty in the lounge or tucked up in bed at night was something that he welcomed.
Denby made his way around the aft sections of the bridge, surveying the consoles as he passed. Starting at Engineering II, he reviewed the progress on Chief Engineer Denver’s upgrades to the warp core before moving on to the missions ops stations where he was greeted by a young ensign running a diagnostic on the sensor array. After taking some time to chat with Ensign Cross, Denby made his way down to the front of the bridge, where Lieutenant Mischa Burton, the ship’s chief helm officer was plotting a course for tomorrow’s patrol course around the Hawkeye Nebula.
The soft chirps and beeps of the helm console were almost soothing as Burton worked the helm. She delicately keyed in slight adjustments to her flight plan and made notes on what to look out for for Ensign Davidson who would be working the day shift.
Denby paused behind Mischa and took a moment to look out of the viewscreen. The image of the Starbase, silhouetted by the Hawkeye Nebula was impressive, although Denby always thought that the sensors did not do the nebula justice -he always preferred seeing the nebula from the command centre of the starbase, it’s panoramic view of the nebula through the huge viewports made it, made him feel as though he was floating in space.
As he stared into the abyss, he noticed something peculiar, bolts of green light flashed in the blueish white nebula like lightning.
Resting a hand on the back of Mischa’s chair’s headrest, he scrutinised the images that were being displayed on the viewscreen, trying to process what was going on out there.
   “Mish, do you see that?” he asked the young helmswoman.
   Mischa looked up from her console and turned her attention to the viewscreen. She could see it too, the green…’lightning’ grew brighter, nearer. Without looking, acting out of instinct, Mischa hit several commands on the helm console and magnified the image on the viewscreen.
   “Looks like weapons fire.” Burton replied.
   “Confirmed, sir.” the ensign working the mission ops station replied, getting up from his console and making his way over to tactical. The ensign trained the sensors on the location of the ‘lightning’ and began a tactical analysis.
   “Yellow alert.” Denby uneasily called, moving towards the command chair at the centre of the bridge. “Mish magnify the viewscreen, four hundred percent. I want to see what’s going on out there.”
   “Aye sir.”
   As Burton increased the resolution of the image on the main viewer, Ensign Cross looked up from his console in sheer disbelief. “Sir, I think there are two ships out there, engaged in battle.”
   Costello turned to Cross and ordered him to verify his readings, “Double check, ensign, I want to know who or what we’re dealing with.”
   “Confirmed sir, the sensors are detecting a slight subspace variance…” he paused, he’d seen this before, he recognised the variance, “I’m pretty sure one of the ships is Romulan.”
   “What the hell?” Denby expressed, they were lightyears from Romulan Space and in almost a year and a half of The Ark being here, they had not once encountered the Romulans. This was a first and something that Costello was concerned about.
   “There!” Mishca pointed at the viewscreen, causing Denby to stand to attention. As he crossed the bridge to join her, she replayed the last few seconds of sensor data on the viewscreen. The viewer shifted from the live sensor input to that of a still image of something, a distortion at the centre of the nebula.
   “Move the image forward, frame by frame, point two second advancements.” Denby asked, scrutinising the image.
   Mishca moved the images forward as requested. Ensign Cross was right, one of the ships out there was Romulan, a D’deridex-Class warbird to be precise, she was firing on something else.
   “Okay, switch it back to real time.” Denby spoke, maintaining his gaze firmly on the viewscreen. But as Mischa replaced the image with that of the live sensor data, Denby’s jaw dropped, his eyes widened, his heart began to beat harder in his chest.
   A green bolt of lightning -a disruptor beam to be exact, ricocheted out of the nebula, narrowly missing the Odysseus. The Galaxy-Class starship shook somewhat as the beam tore through the vacuum of space, almost coming into contact with the port side of the saucer section.
   “Damn, that was close!” Mishca exclaimed.
   “Too close…” Denby said, once again taking his seat at the centre of the bridge, by which time Lieutenant Commander Glenn Burke, the Odysseus’ chief security officer arrived on the bridge, relieving Ensign Cross from tactical.
   “What’s going on, Lieutenant?” Burke asked, his tone authoritative as he began to take charge of the situation.
   “Two vessels in a cloaked battle in the nebula sir. That volley almost took out the port side of the saucer…” Denby reported, relieved to see Burke. “…shall we go to red alert, sir?”
   “Do it…” Burke replied as he quickly took charge, ordering Mishca to bring the Odysseus to a more defensive posture, closer to the starbase. “Bring the ship to three one six mark five, keep us in between the fleet and The Ark.”
   “Aye sir.” Mishca responded, instantaneously working the helm console, keying in commands and bringing the ship about.
   “Ensign Cross, hail The Ark, tell them we are at red alert, that we have incoming, one maybe two Romulan warbirds ask them to confirm and to provide us with instructions.”
   Seconds later, as the Odysseus shook again, this time harder, Fleet Captain Pierce appeared on the viewscreen in his civilian clothing -clearly having just been woken from his slumber by the call.
   “Commander Burke, report.” Pierce spoke, his voice a little gravely from having only just woken up.
   “Two ships engaged in battle sir, looks like we are caught in the crossfire.” Burke’s posture straightened as he addressed the captain. “Shall we engage?”
   “I’ve ordered the fleet to gather around the station, get yourselves out there, but be careful. Doval’s advised that they’re not responding to hails.”
   “Understood sir, Burke out.”
   “Lieutenant Burton, take us in, maximum impulse.” Burke spoke, making his way down to the command chair where Denby was busily monitoring the ship’s systems from the command chair’s armrest displays. “Costello, take tactical, I need someone with your eye on this…no pun intended.”
   Denby smiled, “Aye, sir.” he replied, evacuating the command chair and making is way to the tactical station. As he did another volley of disruptor blasts hit the Odysseus.”
   “Shields down to eighty percent, commander.” Cross reported.
   “Wait…” Costello interjected, arriving at the tactical console. “…that was different, that wasn’t Romulan.” Denby spoke, looking down at the display in front of him, “That was Klingon weapons fire, sir.”
   “What the hell are the Klingons and the Romulans doing out in the nebula?” Mishca thought to herself aloud.
   “Whatever they’re doing, they’re jeopardising The Ark, that last volley nearly took out one of the habitat pods.” Cross spoke, frantically working the auxiliary tactical console.
   “The Betelgeuse and the Scuti have been hit sir!”
   The Odysseus bridge crew’s attention immediately turned to the viewscreen. They looked on in horror as a disruptor beam tore through the vacuum of space, out of the Hawkeye Nebula and sliced through the Scuti’s starboard nacelle pylon, sheering the nacelle clean off the Miranda-Class starship’s hull before exploding. The Betelgeuse didn’t fair that much better, debris from the Scuti’s exploding warp nacelle pummelled the hull of the Orbeth-Class starship, puncturing it’s upper hull. Costello and the others watched with open jaws as they saw the Scuti’s atmosphere beginning to vent into space, expelling debris and personnel into the void.
   “This ends now.” Commander Burke spoke, his arms crossed and his gazed fixed on the viewscreen. In fact, as he gave the oder to begin a multi-directional, wide beam phaser volley towards the attacking vessels, he did not once take his eye off the viewscreen. “Mr. Costello fire!”

The Galaxy-Class Odysseus’s phaser arrays lit up, multiple phaser beams from both the saucer section’s arrays fired towards the nebula, towards the last known coordinates of the Romulan and Klingon vessels. Another volley of phaser energy was expelled from the underside of the engineering hull, whilst another beam was fired from the aft of the huge Galaxy-Class starship, outward in the hopes of landing on one of the attacking ships.
   Seconds later, the D’deridex-Class warbird was visible, “Direct hit, sir!” Denby cried, “…It worked sir!”
   “Well that certainly got their attention.” Mishca spoke, once again pointing at the viewscreen, at the image of the D’deridex altering course. The warbird was no longer giving chase to the Klingon vessel, which still, miraculously had not been seen this entire time and was coming directly for the Odysseus.
   “Hail them!” Burke barked, his eyes emblazoned with anger.
   “Still no response sir.” Cross responded.
   “Keep hailing them, continuous messages, tell them that we mean business, that we’re not going to stand for this much longer.”
   Seconds passed, the warbird grew larger and larger on the viewscreen. If any of the crew had to guess, it looked as though the warbird was making a direct run on the Odysseus. But suddenly, at the last second, the warbird veered off to port as a volley of Klingon disruptor blasts struck it’s forward hull. The Klingon vessel de-cloaked, revealing itself to be that of a bird-of-prey -how the bird-of-prey had managed to survive this long against a D’deridex-Class Warbird was impressive, given how massively outgunned and outmanned it’s crew would have been. Despite it’s diminutive size, in comparison to the warbird, the bird-of-prey began systematically targeting various sections of the warbird. Why they took this long to open fire, to de-cloak was unknown, but what ever the reason, it had paid off and after less than two minutes since they de-cloaked, the Romulan warbird tucked it’s metaphorical tail between its legs and retreated back into the nebula.
   “Sir…” Denby looked up from the tactical console, “…the Klingons, sir, they’re hailing us!”
   “Finally, hopefully we’ll get some answers. On screen, Mr. Costello.”
   The viewscreen flickered slightly and the image of the Klingon bird-of-prey that lay directly in front of the Odysseus was replaced by that of an image of someone both Glenn Burke and Denby Costello had not seen in a long time. Instead of a Klingon commander, stood a Vulcan female in a now outdated blue Starfleet uniform. The look on Burke and Costello’s face was a picture as the Vulcan lieutenant commander acknowledged and addressed the Starfleet crew.
   “Lieutenant Commander Burke, it is agreeable to see you again…” she spoke, before surveying the bridge, “…I must speak to Fleet Captain Pierce at once, is he aboard the Odysseus?”
   “The captain is aboard the starbase and I can only assume, like me, he is wanting answers, Commander Saavik.”
   Saavik, The Ark’s chief science officer nodded, it was logical that like Burke, Captain Pierce would want to know why she was not only onboard a Klingon bird of prey, but also engaged in battle with a Romulan warbird. “We shall beam to the starbase at once, commander.”
   Burke’s eyes narrowed, “We?”
   With that, Saavik stood to her left, revealing Commander B’Nor, a mid-ranking, but prominent Klingon ambassador. Both Glenn and Denby recognised the commander instantly, she had been instrumental in the early diplomatic efforts in getting Romulus to agree to a Federation starbase being built so close to Romulan space. If it wasn’t for B’Nor and several other high ranking diplomats, the Romulan Empire would have never agreed to The Ark’s construction, so close to the Romulan border. Pierce spoke highly of her, but like Saavik, the Klingon commander had not been seen of for months and like Pierce, Burke, Denby and The Ark’s senior crew were becoming concerned for B’Nor and Saavik’s safety.
   “Ambassador B’Nor, I’m relieved to see that you are in good health.”
   “An odd choice of words, Commander Burke.” The commander spoke, rising from her chair at the centre of her bridge. “It was disappointing to see how poorly defended your Ark is, commander.”
   Glenn shifted uncomfortably and offered a cursory smile at the ambassador, as not to offend her. “We were caught by surprise, Ambassador, I can assure you that will not happen again.”
   “Now that I am here, I can assure you, commander, that The Ark will become the most highly defended outpost within the Federation, for the information that I bring today, that we bring with us today, will change the landscape of this sector forever…”

The comlink to the bird-of-prey ended abruptly. Leaving Burke, Costello and Burton dumbfounded. The whole reason that The Ark was built in the Iota-Leonis Sector, in the Brilnari-Star System was due to it’s remote location, far from the front lines. It was a safe and secluded sector of the galaxy, flanked by the Hawkeye Nebula, providing cover for The Ark, for Starbase 185 to remain safe from Dominion intrusion. The thought of the landscape of this sector being changed forever filled the Odysseus crew with an unsettling sense of dread. They were safe here, but for how long.
Denby Costello finally took his eyes of the viewscreen. He sensed the same feeling of trepidation he did when he returned back to Starfleet after the Borg Invasion. He did not like it. Yes, he had changed, had grown had come to terms with what had happened, but now, B’Nor’s words resonated deep inside of him and it chilled him to the bone…

*_*_*_*

Having lost time picking up the tactical flight squadron from the Lorrenta Asteroid, the Atalanta was now back on course for Tyco-Echelon at maximum warp.
The bridge crew were on high alert as the Atalanta neared the Tyco-Echelon system. Gadde was understandably apprehensive and it was beginning to show -her usual cool replaced by that of barked orders and snapping at the junior members of the crew. Only ten minutes ago, she had given both barrels to Ensign Young for not recalibrating the warp-manifold sensors correctly. He now sat quietly, with his head down, somewhat embarrassed at the helm, piloting the state of the art vessel towards Tyco, running sensor scans and brushing up on his evasive manoeuvres in case they were to take the Atalanta into battle.
   As Warren entered the bridge, looking like someone who had just seen a ghost, his face white and his eyes looking tired, Lieutenant Gray looked up from the science station and reported his latest findings from the long range sensor scan of the Tyco-Echelon region.
   “Commander Gadde…” he paused, noticing Warren entering the bridge, “…Commander Warren, I’m detecting some unusual readings up ahead, coming from Tyco.”
   Warren switched his direction of travel, from towards the command chair, to join Jerzan at the tactical post. Ayesha rose from the centre of the bridge and made her way around to Science I.
   “What have you got, lieutenant?” Ayesha asked.
   “I’m not quite sure, but I think I’ve seen these readings before.” Jerzan responded, pulling up the sensor data onto the larger screen above him. The larger monitor displayed an image of the Tyco-Echelon System, overlaid with various sensor readouts, one of which, the readout that had peaked Jerzan’s attention was that of an electromagnetic readout, emanating from what he believed to be one of the Dominion ships nearing the system. They were still too far away to get an accurate, high resolution scan of the Dominion fleet, but he knew that what he was reading on the sensors was not that of a Dominion vessel.
   Both Ayesha and Thom studied the readings. Gadde knew exactly what Gray was referring to however, Warren was unsure at what he was looking at. Ayesha had seen those readings before. She looked at Jerzan with wide eyes, the colour from her face was now starting to fade and she could feel her hands beginning to tremble. As she clenched her hands into fists, she took a deep breath and spoke, “That’s not a Dominion fleet.”
   “I tend to agree, Commander.” Jerzan spoke, his voice hushed.
   Despite being somewhat unsettled by Eva Tsu’s arrival on the Atalanta and still processing why his oldest friend and commanding officer had assigned his former…mistress to The Ark’s tactical flight squadron without first consulting him, Thom could quite plainly see that whatever the sensor readings represented, whatever memories they brought back for Jerzan and Ayesha was clearly having an effect on them and he could tell by the looks on their faces, that whatever was out there, heading towards Tyco-Echelon was something to be concerned about. “Lieutenant…Commander, care to let me in on what we’re looking at?” Thomas respectfully asked.
   “I…I believe we are looking at the electromagnetic frequency of the.” Jerzan started,
   “The Fen Domar.” Ayesha interjected, her eyes wide in horror at what she was seeing. The resolution on the scans increasing with each passing second that they grew nearer to Tyco, the information updating in front of them, confirming Jerzan’s hypothesis. Yet, Commander Warren was still none the wiser. “I can’t…I can’t do this!” Ayesha spoke, louder then she probably intended. Taking a step back, she shook her head, “This can’t be happening.” she spoke, tears filling her eyes, her hands trembling, her body shaking.
   “Ayesha, wait!” Jerzan called, as she bolted for the turbolift.
   But she did not turn around, she had to get out of there. She felt as though all of the air had been sucked out of the bridge. She felt as though she was going to loose consciousness, she had to get out of here, had to leave the bridge. The thought of the Fen Domar being back, headed towards her mother and father’s home, her home filled her with complete terror and she had to leave, hell, she would have jumped out of the airlock if she could, she was that frightened…

*_*_*_*

Ensign Sojen was in a bad mood. More accurately; the crew around him were mostly anxious and their misgivings about diverting away from Tyco to rescue the flight team had seeped into his core. Being of two races whose physiologists and cultures are fundamentally shaped by emotion, Sojen was at constant emotional odds with himself.
   As he entered turbolift three on his way to his temporary quarters, Sojen was surprised to see the turbolift was already occupied. So consumed by the feelings of others, he had failed to sense the presence of the woman with whom he was sharing the space.
   "Deck seven," Sojen said as he nodded respectfully to the officer, who looked as though she was barely keeping it together, her breathing was erratic and was visibly trembling. The process of elimination was almost immediate. Sojen recognised the woman to be Commander Ayesha Gadde. Yes, they had both served aboard Starbase 185 for almost a year and a half, but the pair had never formally been introduced or even spoken to one and other.
Sojen's curiosity swarmed over him and his impulse control melted away. He turned to Commander Gadde and offered a look of apology as the question escaped him. "Is it true? Were you there? During the incursion?"
   Gadde had always kept her distance from Sojen, for this exact reason. She knew all about the young Vulcan/Betazoid tactical flight officer from her friendship with Sam Hood. Sam always spoke highly of Sojen, but there was something about Sojen’s empathic abilities that gave her the creeps, something that bothered her and given her past, given all of her anger, grief and guilt that she carried just below the surface, she made a point of avoiding him. But her fears were bubbling up, bubbling out of her and it was clear to her why Sojen had asked what he had.
   Ayesha looked at Sojen and fought back what she wanted to say, to tell him to mind his own business, to tell him leave her alone, but instead she angrily corrected him, "Were you there, m'am?" -she immediately regretted saying that, but right now she was in no mood to talk and in no mood to relive her past with someone she barely even knew.
   Sojen raised an eyebrow as he sensed Gadde’s displeasure with how his initial query was posed, but her emotions were pouring out of her, hence his question. He recoiled internally a bit and put up his walls. Still, he was curious, the flashes of telepathic imagery were difficult for him to process. "Yes, M’am, of course, my apologies, commander." Sojen stood at attention. His attention to protocol was either very professional or mocking. His face gave no indication as to which. "Were you there, ma'am?"
   A few moments later, the turbolift arrived at Sojen's destination. The journey was awkward and uncomfortable for both of them, Ayesha chose to ignore the half Vulcan and had remained totally silent, trying to keep the thoughts of the Fen Domar to herself. Gadde was deep in thought, somewhere far far away from here. She wasn’t thinking about her parents, or of the fleet approaching her home, her thoughts were light years away, in the past...

*_*_*_*

Five Years Ago…
The starship Odysseus swung about, her shields raised and her weapons primed. Despite the sudden manoeuvre, the Galaxy-Class starship still maintained its majestic nature as it came about to tackle the intruder.

Captain Christopher Howard stood at the centre of the bridge barking orders to his senior staff, to which they all responded too and acted upon instantly.
"Shields and weapons systems charged, all decks are standing by Captain." -the ship's tactical officer sounded.
"Bringing us to three one two, mark six five nine" -reported the helmsman.
"We'll be in scanning range in one minute, captain." -an unfamiliar voice from the science station reported.
Howard looked over to Science I and noticed that his chief science officer wasn't there, he looked at the young lieutenant occupying Commander Dyson's chair and asked for his whereabouts.
"The commander is indisposed at the moment sir, he asked me to take his duty shift." -the polite young woman replied.
"And you are, lieutenant?" -It wasn't like Captain Howard not to know who he was serving with however, they'd recently gone through a large crew changeover on Mars and he wasn't familiar with the brunette to his left.
"Lieutenant Ayesha Gadde, I transferred over from Utopia three days ago."
"Well, once this is all over Gadde, we'll get better acquainted. Would you be so kind as to give me a preliminary report on the intruder vessel?"
Ayesha worked the console like an experienced officer many years her senior -it was like she was playing at a concert, her nimble fingers hitting all the right keys and Howard was her conductor.
"Astrometric scans show an unknown hull configuration and components. Life signs are indeterminate and the ship's energy readings are off the scale."
"Do you believe their acting in a hostile manner?" -the captain enquiries.
"Aside from circumventing all of our known defences and parking themselves in a polar orbit, I don't believe so sir." -she replied after a quick glance of the sensors.
"Tactical, are their shields raised?"
"I cannot make that determination at this time." Suvan Trent, the young half Vulcan tactical officer replied.
"Negative captain..." Ayesha interjected, "...I've detected what appears to be hull polarisation technology however, they do not appear to be online." Ayesha reported, much to the experienced tactical officers chagrin.
"Polarisation tech?" Howard thought out loud, "...there hasn't been that kind of tech on a starship for almost two hundred years!"
"Indeed, Starfleet replaced polarisation tech with shielding back in the 23rd century, sir."
"Comms, open hailing frequencies." -the captain ordered, making his way over to join Ayesha at the science station.
"No response sir."
Gadde looked puzzled, she kept pouring over the raw sensor data as it came in, it just didn't make sense. It was as though the ship had travelled through time but there were no indicators of variance -not only that, the core of the ship was heavily shielded by an unknown metal, the likes of that which couldn't be mined by conventional means.
"Lieutenant Gray, try using the low band frequencies." Ayesha suggested, wondering if their communications array was to advanced.
The speakers crackled heavily, someone had responded, but who?

Captain Howard stood along side Ayesha and Jerzan, scrutinising the sound that was pouring out of the speakers; it was an unusual sound, somewhat terrifying -Ayesha worked her magic in manipulating the sensors in attempt to identify what the alien ship was transmitting however, this time she wasn’t having much luck. Gray attempted to assisted her, the Trill lieutenant noticed something that she had stumbled upon and asked her to reconfigure the translation matrix to a modulating decryption sequence.
“WE ARE THE…” -a broken voice started, “….WE ARE THE…” -the voice repeated, the sound cutting out every time; “…PLEASE HELP.”
With that the tension on the bridge began to melt away.
“Any joy on scanning the interior?” -he asked, making his way back to the centre of the bridge to take a seat in his chair.
“Negative captain.”
“Can we beam aboard?” Jerzan asked.
Ayesha analysed the sensor data and believed it was possible, “It’ll be a rough transport, but I believe we can beam through a section on what I can only deduce as their bridge.”
“PLEASE HELP.” The speakers relayed
Captain Howard returned to his feet, he looked over to Ayesha and Jerzan -“Ok, lets get over there, I want to find out just where the hell that thing came from.”
“Yes sir.” -Ayesha replied, starting to become nervous.
Howard sensed that she wasn’t expecting to go beam aboard an alien ship that had somehow managed to get through every one of Vulcan’s defences and park itself in a high polar orbit when she came to work this morning, but he knew in the last couple of hours that she’d earned her stripes, that it was time to cut her teeth on something bigger now. “Don’t worry, lieutenant, we’ve got your back…”

The Galaxy-Class, USS Odysseus dwarfed the alien vessel that had managed to circumvent every known Starfleet security protocol, every defence system and the fleet that patrolled Sector 001. The damaged alien ship hung in high orbit over Vulcan like a fly in amber as the Odysseus moved into transporter range.

The air was thick with smoke, a fire burnt out of control on one of the lower decks and the suppression system had failed, flooding the remaining four decks with a dense black smoke. The darkness within what would be the command centre aboard a Federation starship suddenly lit up with that of the hue of three transporter beams which deposited Gadde, Gray and Captain Howard in the thick of it.

Ayesha immediately pulled out her tricorder and began scanning the ship whilst Jerzan and the captain stood ready with their phasers set to stun.

Choking on the smoke, Ayesha was unable to concentrate on her tricorder readouts -covering her mouth with her hand, she turned to the captain, “We can’t stay in here.” -she remarked, coughing heavily.

“Agreed, lieutenant” -Pierce replied, also struggling to breath.

Jerzan lead the way to the back of the command centre however, he didn’t make it more than two metres before disappearing from sight. “Arrrgh!” -he cried.

Disorientated, Gadde called out to him but she couldn’t see him.

“Lieutenant!” -Gray shouted, “Where are you?!”

“INTRUDER ALERT” -an automated voice called. “AUTOMATED SYSTEMS ACTIVATED”

The fear running through Gadde was turning to panic -she’d managed to keep her cool thus far, but with Jerzan having vanished, she was scared and could barely breathe.

“Howard to Transporter Room One, three to beam up!” -the captain attempted to call for evacuation but there was no response.

‘INTRUDER ALERT” -the automated voice called out again.

Gadde could hear something whirring, as if something was powering up, “We’ve gotta get out of here, captain.”

“I’m not leaving with out Gray, remodulate the tri…” -with that, he’d gone.

Gadde was alone, she’d moved only a few meters away from Howard yet, it was enough for him to disappear like Jerzan before him.

For a second, it appeared that the smoke had cleared somewhat, she was able to catch her breath and also spot somewhere she could ride this out. Cowering underneath what looked to be a computer terminal, she climbed underneath and attempted to locate the captain and Gray.

“AUTOMATED SYSTEMS ACTIVATED, FIRE SUPPRESSION SYSTEM ONLINE.”

Something wasn’t right, it was as if this ship was much older than it appeared -it took almost four minutes for the fire suppression systems to fully activate and as it did, as the toxic smoke was pulled into air vents that encircled the command centre’s ceiling, her perception of the room changed and was replaced from that of a smoke ridden command centre to a room filled with death…

Climbing out from underneath the console, Ayesha surveyed the command centre and looked on in horror at the sight of six alien corpses scattered around the room. One at the centre of the centre, three huddled around what Ayesha had determined to be the helm and two at the tactical terminal.

The technology, displays and interior hull didn’t match, it was a hodgepodge of designs however, Gadde’s assessment of the alien ship had to wait; she needed to find her crew.

“AUTOMATED SYSTEMS ONLINE” -the ship’s computer called out again, it was the same voice that sent out the message to the Odysseus. Unable to determine if it was a distress call or a computer malfunction, Gadde put that to the back of her mind and pulled out her tricorder to work the nearest of the ship’s consoles in an attempt to locate Captain Howard and Lieutenant Gray.

Placing her tricorder on the console, Ayesha attempted to power up the terminal. Still very aware that she was breathing heavily and shaking somewhat, Ayesha told herself to get it together, that she had to stay professional, that she had been in worse situations than this and must get herself and her two senior officers home.

Tapping her com badge, Gadde opened up a verbal interface with the tricorder and began ordering it to access various functions in order to access the ship’s computer.

A small but noticeable beam of energy suddenly expelled itself from the tricorder and into the computer terminal. The computer immediately sprung to life and what she was greeted with was somewhat surprising. The terminal was in Romulan.

“What the hell?” -she remarked. Thankfully, the young lieutenant knew basic Romulan and was able to work the station, accessing the ship’s schematics, Ayesha was, in no time able to work the display and locate Jerzan and Howard.

“Thank God!” -Ayesha had found them and they were still alive. “Tricorder, display the quickest route to Captain Howard and Lieutenant Gray.” -she asked; -with that, the display changed to a cross section of the ship. Ayesha wasn’t far away, they were two decks down in what Ayesha read in her broken Romulan as either the brig or waste control. Hoping for their sake it was the brig, Gadde downloaded the ship’s schematic into the tricorder’s memory bank and picked up the scanner.

As Ayesha made her way out of the alien ship’s command centre, a blast of energy screeched past her left ear -it was that close that she could actually feel her hair singe as the blast of energy flew by.

“Cr’de Bench Lo Coldekk MAAAH!” -an alien voice proclaimed.

Immediately turning around and swooping down to the ground, Gadde saw what could only be the ship’s captain slumped in his chair, holding a Romulan disruptor.

“COLDEKK MAAAH!” he shouted again

“We’re here to help you!” she replied as another blast rocketed past her, again narrowly missing the lieutenant.

“COLDEKK MAAH POSTA NMAHHH!” -he shouted, she had no clue as to what the alien was saying, the universal translator clearly wasn’t working however, it didn’t take a genius to realise he was pissed.

“AUTOMATED SYSTEMS ONL…” -the automated voice spoke again, strangely in perfect English yet, Ayesha didn’t get a chance to hear the remainder of the automated voice’s announcement. In an instant, Ayesha had been displaced, transported somewhere else…

The alien captain, who for the most part looked human, except for the ridges and dark markings above his eyes tried to pick himself up out of the captain’s chair and upon noticing his fellow crewmen dead on the ground, let out an almighty raw.

“CHENZO CALISAANHMAH” -his cry winded him, he had clearly been affected by what ever had brought them here. He made his way slowly over to one of the other computer terminals and keyed in several commands.

“AUTO-DESTRUCT SEQUENCE INITIATED” -the computer responded, again in English.

Ayesha had heard that last announcement in it’s entirety…as did Christopher and Jerzan to whom she had been reunited with. They found themselves in the brig -thankfully, the power to the cell in which they found themselves in had failed. Jerzan and Howard were busily accessing the ship’s computer core when Ayesha materialised on the hard bed inside one of the cells.

“So glad you could finally join us, lieutenant.” Howard smiled, making his way over to greet her. He helped her up and placed both hands on her shoulders, he quickly looked her up and down before making eye contact, “Are you okay lieutenant?”

“I believe so,” she replied, shaken.

“We’ve been able to access the ship’s power core, to attempt to disable the auto destruct.” Captain Howard remarked, believing it to having been triggered by their arrival.

“Their captain’s alive.” Ayesha reported, “He set the auto-destruct.”

“Captain, you better come take a look at this.” -Jerzan nervously remarked, looking at the console in either fear or sheer excitement.

“What is it?” Howard and Gadde both joined Gray at the console, “The ship’s made up of over twenty nine different interfacing alien races technology. There’s literally tech here from almost every quadrant of the galaxy.”

“How the hell haven’t we seen this before.”

Ayesha suddenly noticed something on the screen that she recognised, “Magnify this section,” she pointed to the ship’s auxiliary computer core.

Captain Howard, now holding Gray’s tricorder ran a quick scan of the core’s energy signature, “I haven’t seen anything like that for almost a century.”

Ayesha took a look at the tricorder, “No wonder the announcements are in English, it’s a Starfleet -look at this.” -she held out her tricorder and displayed a modified composited schematic of the auxiliary computer core -it was most definitely of Starfleet design however, something that wasn't used aboard ships today, more something that would be more at home aboard a Constitution-Class starship.

"NCC..." -Ayesha started, reading from the display "...1786..., U.S.S. Jupiter”
If only the link to the Odysseus’ computer core was still established, Ayesha would have cross checked the readout from the tricorder with the historical database.

"The Jupiter was lost with all hands over a century ago." Jerzan reported,

Both Ayesha and the captain were somewhat surprised with the lieutenant's recall, "I’m somewhat of a buff when it comes to the constitution-class deep space programme..." -he remarked. “...and I was there when it went missing.” Gray continued as the pair continued to look at him in disbelief. “You can see my spots today right?” He joked, as if to remind them that he was a joined Trill.

The Captain wondered just what the hell the Jupiter's auxiliary computer core was doing aboard the alien ship however, he didn't get a chance to ask further questions,

"ATMOSPHERE OFFLINE." the computer sounded.

Quickly checking the display in front of him, Howard reported that they had less than two minutes of air left, "We've gotta get out of here and fast!"

*_*_*_*

Present Day…
The doors to the turbolift swished open, snapping Ayesha out of her trancelike state and back to the Atalanta, back to the turbolift. It was as though the air had been sucked out of the lift carriage, the commander gasped for air. Her night terrors, her flashbacks had overwhelmed her...

Sojen had been unknowingly tethered to Commander Gadde while he was in her trance. The imagery escaped him, but he was bathed in the the Commander's emotions. When Ayesha came to, Sojen had a sick feeling wash over him. He felt panic and terror grip Ayesha. "Commander? Are you-"

She was hyperventilating and fell to the floor. "Hel..." -Ayesha cried, "...help!"

"Sojen to Sickbay! Medical Emergency! Deck 7!!!”

To be continued…

Image Credits:
Starbase by Raul Mamoru
Galaxy, Miranda and Warbird by The Lightworks
Spacescape by Starkiteckt Designs

Image by JonBromLE1