StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Okay, my original attempt at posting the first part of this fic didn't go too well, since I posted a draft instead of the finished version. Thanks to Stravo for deleting that thread.

'Path of Steel' is a Star Wars \ Star Trek crossover I’ve wanted to write for a while now. It takes place after the Imperial Remnant signed the peace treaty with the Republic for Star Wars, and a couple months after Nemesis for Star Trek.

This is my first attempt at a fanfic, so I could have asked you to be nice ... but since this is SD.net I don't think it would have been of much use.

Anyway, here goes:



Path of Steel


Prologue: Shadows Rising

"'Alea yacta est', but who saw it roll?"
- JC


Of the more than six hundred curses Captain Vell had in his vocabulary, not one was strong enough to describe the situation. Staring at his sensor screen he blinked a few times just to make sure that he wasn't hallucinating or having a nightmare. No such luck.

"Well, don't just sit there, Maxie! Get going!" he suddenly yelled.

Maxie, his co-pilot, started as if he had been in a trance and threw himself over the controls. "Didn't I tell you we shouldn't have trusted that kriffing bantha-son Derian? He probably sold us out! Didn't I tell you that?"

"Shut your hole, Maxie," Vell growled and fired up the sublight engines. The Raider's Delight shot through space at a more than satisfying speed for a tramp freighter, but it could not outrun the TIE fighters that were on an intercept course.

"Shields are up," Maxie announced. "Navicomputer is working."

"Good, now where in the stars is Tew? He's supposed to be manning the Quad Lasers!"

"If I know the coward right he's hiding under his bed and pissing liquid nitrogen right now."

It had started as a quite ordinary spice deal. Derian were to bring the spice in from Kessel, and then they would rendezvous in an uninhabited system where they'd transfer the cargo to the Raider. Vell would then take the spice to their contacts inside the Imperial Remnant. A very profitable run with the minor drawback that Vell would be taking most of the risk. Still, he had been in dire need for money and could not afford to say no.

"Time to interception?" Vell asked.

"One minute. We'll have a hyperspace path calculated in ... forty-five seconds." Maxie turned to Vell and managed a shaky smile. "We're gonna make it, cap."

Vell didn't answer; he had very bad feelings about all this. When the Raider had moved out of lightspeed at the appointed place, they had not found an uninhabited system as they had expected.

They had found an Imperial fleet mass.

At least forty Star Destroyers and over two hundred lesser ships like Carracks, Strike-cruisers, Nebulon-B frigates, corvettes and so on. It was the largest gathering of military might ever since the Imperials signed the peace treaty with the Republic, one worthy of awe even at the height of the Empire.

"Just a few more seconds," Maxie said, staring intently on the navicomputer as if willing it to calculate faster.

Vell fingered the switch that would push the Raider's Delight past lightspeed, while keeping an eye on the sensor screen. "If those fighters come closer than two klicks I'll jump blind," he silently promised himself. "Rather hit a comet or asteroid than caught by the imps."

"That's it!" Maxie suddenly cheered. "We got it, we got the-" He was cut off as an alarm suddenly sounded in the cockpit - one that warned about dangerous nearby gravity wells.

Vell groaned in dismay as he saw a ghostly white cone materializing on the sensor screen, with the Raider smack in the middle. "An Interdictor Cruiser! The sithspawn thing must have microjumped! Quick, give me as much energy to the sublight engines as you can."

Vell worked the controls, but knew it was futile. They were far to deep inside the interdictor field to escape before the TIE fighters caught up with them.




On the bridge of the Imperial Super Star Destroyer Dark Angel, Captain Ghard looked impassively as his fighters tore into the freighter like starving Mynocs on a power cable. A youngish man of average height, he was nevertheless a competent military commander and well respected by his crew.

Ghard looked down into the starboard crew pit and caught the eye of his communications officer. The man looked right back with unreadable red-glowing eyes, blue skin standing in contrast to that of his human crewmates. "Remind the fighter pilots that I want that ship disabled, not destroyed," he spoke to the Chiss. "I want to know who they are and if more ships are coming."

"Yes sir," the alien replied.

"Probably just smugglers," Ghard thought. "Still, it doesn't hurt to be careful."

Ghard turned his gaze back to the viewport, looking at the immense ring-shaped structure floating in space to the port side of his ship, the structure ... and the wormhole in the center of it.




Time: Thirty thousand years ago.

After four centuries of work, the last of the huge hypermatter reactors finally came online. A rough sphere fifty kilometers across, it would astonish Imperial engineers examining the ruins thirty thousand years later. Especially since there were nearly a thousand such reactors in the system, arranged in a circle and connected via enormous superconductors to a huge facility in the center. The facility itself dwarfed even the reactors, housing a technology so advanced even its designers barely understood the inner workings. It was the ultimate achievement for the race that had built it, not just because of the science behind it, but also due to the vast energies it would handle.

After the necessary checks had been completed, the builders of the fantastic construction gave the final go-ahead. The reactors unleashed a tidal wave of energy equal to an exploding star at the central facility, which in turn used it to create a sequence of converging ultra-high energy particle beams. In a picosecond the beams impacted with each other in an area that was far smaller than an individual electron. At that specific point in space and time the energy density was so mind-bogglingly huge that reality itself began to collapse. The effect was not unlike that of a black hole, with the noticeable difference that it bent two points in space and merged them into one.

The facility had created an atom-sized wormhole.

Normally it would have immediately collapsed again, but hyperfast computers and expert systems detected the nearly immeasurable change in spacetime. Exotic stabilization frames captured it and kept it from collapsing, dampening its instabilities.

The constructors cheered. Finally they had achieved the first major step to their goal. Ever so carefully the module that contained one of the wormhole's two throats were loaded into an unmanned ship. Guided by the most advanced AI the intelligent species had ever created, the ship jumped to lightspeed and beyond. For thousands of years the ship cruised through hyperspace, the AI never growing tired or lonely. It didn't slow down before it entered the rim of a spiral galaxy not unlike the one it had left. Without accurate maps of the galaxy it had to spend the next few centuries making small hyperspace jumps further in, but finally it came to a rest in the middle of one of the spiral arms.

It moved out of lightspeed inside a system with eight mineral-rich planets and a hot, blue star. The cargo bay doors opened, unleashing dozens of smaller vehicles that immediately fired their thrusters and set course for the nearest planet. Those vehicles were self-replicating droids. They would rip ore out of a planet or asteroid, refine it and build components from it, which in turn would be used to construct more droids. Thus their numbers would rise exponentially.

After a century of replicating, the droids reached a preprogrammed number and entered a new phase of their programming. The billions of construction droids began converting any and all mass in the system into a far bigger stabilization frame than the one that already existed onboard the ship. Whole planets were simply dismantled and turned into millions of tons of building materials. As the construction of the donut-shaped structure slowly crept forward with the original frame as starting point, the wormhole began to stretch.

Their work took nearly a thousand years, but when it was completed the structure massed billions of tons, and the wormhole itself had expanded to a diameter of two hundred kilometers. The exact same thing had long since been done in the galaxy the AI had left, and the result was a fully traversable artificial wormhole binding two galaxies together.

Ironically, for the next twenty-five thousand years no one would utilize this ultimate engineering achievement. The race that had constructed it had been caught in the crossfire in one of the endless wars of Xim the Despot. Although they fought bravely, they had been unable to avoid the extermination of their kind. But that didn't matter to the AI. It didn't require a reason for its existence and could maintain the wormhole and the necessary infrastructure indefinitely.

Thus the wormhole remained forgotten by the universe for twenty-five millennia.




Time: Three years ago.

"This is Captain Ghard of the Imperial Star Destroyer Predator hailing unknown ship. You are trespassing in Imperial space and are required to identify yourself."

Ghard looked out the viewport on the alien ship hovering right in front of them. The sleek shuttle-sized craft had moved out of lightspeed virtually on top of them, causing alarm klaxons to go off all across the bridge. He frowned and examined the craft; it didn't match any configuration he knew off. Also, it didn't have much in the way of cargo space. "Not smugglers then. Operatives from Republic Intelligence, perhaps?" Ghard couldn't think of anyone else that would enter the Imperial Remnant via the backdoor, so to speak.

"Imperial Star Destroyer Predator," came the reply over the speakers. The voice spoke Basic, but with a slight accent Ghard couldn't place. "This is shuttle Thynor. Request permission to dock. Our passenger wishes to speak to Captain Ghard."

Ghard exchanged surprised glances with Kolm, his second in command. Out of all possible responses, he had not expected this. He motioned for the communications officer to mute the sound. "Scan that ship. Are there any explosive devices onboard?"

"Negative, sir. The shuttle doesn't even have any weapons."

"Very well, then. Allow them to dock. Assemble a couple stormtrooper squads in the hangar. Commander Kolm, you have the bridge."

As Ghard entered the shuttle hangar, the alien ship had slid past the atmosphere shields and was gently settling down at the deck. The stormtroopers had taken up positions and were training their weapons on what appeared to be the ship's exit hatch. With a slight hiss the hatch opened and three humanoids stepped out.

They were all wearing a type of uniform Ghard had never seen before, as well as a flight helmet complete with a breathing mask that hid their facial features. However, he was able to deduce that one of them were female because of her ... female attributes. If any of them were distressed of the number of blaster rifles aiming at them, no one showed it.

"Remove your flight gear," Ghard called, breaking the silence.

Obediently they reached up and unstrapped their flight helmets and breathing masks, taking them off. Ghard's jaw fell open as he saw three pairs of red eyes staring back at him.

"I am Syndic Mitth'allin'nuruodo, daughter of the one you call Grand Admiral Thrawn," the female Chiss spoke calmly. "I have a proposal to make."




Time: One year ago.

Captain Nell seemed to regard the two men standing in his office, but in reality he was considering the events of the past few hours. Tall and lean, and with jet-black hair, he was the type of man who commanded respect by his very presence. At only 31 years he was incredibly young for a Star Destroyer Captain, even in the present deteriorated state of the Empire. Normally he should have been a mere Lieutenant, or a Commander at most. What made his position even more impressive was that he had risen through the ranks due to sheer skill - not due to political maneuvering or by having friends in high places.

He nodded toward one of the men. "Report."

"Sir, we have successfully detained the crew of the captured ship, and are having them undergoing interrogation as we speak. They were speaking a language that was completely alien to our protocol droids; luckily, they were all carrying a so-called 'universal translator.' Once we had downloaded its files, we were able to decipher their language. Apparently they call themselves 'Ferengi', and seem to be a race of traders - much like the Neimoidians. In their society making a fortune is the ultimate goal." The man's grimace clearly showed what he thought of that. "There are several powers with star travel technology where they come from, all roughly at the same level of technology."

"And their ship?" Nell asked.

"Our preliminary report shows that it is rather primitive, but I must stress that we don't know if this is an actual warship or not. They use some kind of subspace distortion drive in order to travel faster than light, but we believe this drive is slower than our own hyperdrives. It does have energy shields but those are weaker than our own."

Nell nodded. "I see. What about weapons?"

"The ship is outfitted with three types of weapons; one is a electromagnetic disruption weapon that works much like our own Ion Cannons, but not nearly as powerful. Their primary beam weapon is something they call a 'phaser', which ignite an exotic chain reaction in matter. It is less effective against shields and dense armor, however. Finally, they have a torpedo launcher that fires torpedoes with an antimatter warhead. We have not tested these weapons, of course, but I don't think they pose a threat to this vessel."

Nell turned to the other man. "And what have your men uncovered?"

"The wormhole is fully stable as we suspected, sir. Probes have revealed that it leads to a galaxy so far away that it isn't even on our maps. The ring-shaped structure is maintaining the wormhole, but the technology behind it..." the man shook his head. "I can't even begin to describe it. It's far beyond anything we even have theories about."

"What about the ruins?"

"The ruins appear to be the remains of the apparatus that was used to create the wormhole in the first place. I am afraid I can't tell you anything more. It is so advanced it'll take decades and centuries before we even begin to understand how it worked."

"But the wormhole is safe to traverse?"

"Yes, sir. Of that we are certain. The structure has extensive autorepair systems, and the artificial intelligence controlling them seem to be only concerned about maintaining the wormhole. You can send a Super Star Destroyer through it without any danger. I wouldn't recommend you put up an interdictor field anywhere near it, though. There's no telling what a planet-sized gravity well would do to it."

Nell nodded again. "Thank you for your report, gentlemen. Have our crypto experts slice into the captured ship's flight computer and pull out whatever star maps and strategically valuable information they can find. Dismissed."

The Captain sat in deep thought for several minutes after the two men had left. Normally he would have contacted Bastion immediately and reported his find, but the times were far from normal. Knowing that Admiral Pellaeon would view his actions as treason, but also knowing that what he was doing was right, he tapped a button on his desk. "Put me in contact with Captain Ghard. On a secure comlink, mind you."




Time: Eight months ago.

Pellaeon walked into his private quarters with a satisfied smile on his face. With the peace treaty with the Republic, his efforts in rebuilding what remained of the Empire were coming along nicely. Although they had severe problems with pirates that thought they could profit from the Empire's weakened state, they should be able to weather it until more acute problems had been dealt with. Suddenly, Pellaeon's chain of thoughts was interrupted as he realized he wasn't alone in the room.

Ghard stepped out of one corner, staring hard at Pellaeon. "Hello, Admiral."

"Captain Ghard? What are you-" Pellaeon cut himself off as he saw Ghard holding a blaster pistol. "What's the meaning of this, Captain?" he demanded.

"The meaning, Admiral, is your death," Ghard sneered back. "You have caused the Empire more than enough damage."

Pellaeon frowned. "Damage? If this is about the treaty with the Republic-"

"No, the treaty was necessary," Ghard said contemptuously. "It is your subsequent actions that have caused this. You have scrapped fifty Star Destroyers!"

"Doing that was just as necessary as the treaty," Pellaeon shot back. "Now that we don't need to maintain those ships, we can spend our resources on rebuilding-"

"Rebuilding!" Ghard spat. "How can we rebuild when pirates and smugglers are operating as they please in Imperial space? We don't even have enough ships to keep Hutt pirates from raiding our worlds. Hutts!"

"It was necessary," Pellaeon repeated harshly. "We needed those resources to rebuild."

"And how much will that cost our citizens in the mean time?" Ghard asked in a voice like frozen iron. "How many loyal Imperials will be killed because of-" He suddenly cut himself off. "Why in the cloak of the sith am I standing here justifying myself? You wouldn't understand the truth if it danced naked in front of you. You have failed the Empire, Admiral. Goodbye."

Without further ceremony, Ghard pulled the trigger. Pellaeon's skull erupted in a shower of blood, gore and bone fragments, soiling the floor and a substantial part of the wall.

"It is done," Ghard muttered. Calmly he re-holstered his blaster and stepped out of the room. Walking down the corridor, he knew that those few guards who were in place would suddenly go blind as he passed them. The surveillance cameras on their hand would mysteriously short out.

Even so, he stopped short and nearly pulled out his blaster again when someone stepped out in front of him, but relaxed as he saw whom it was.

"Is it done?" the fat Moff asked.

"Yes, sir, it is. Pellaeon is dead."

The Moff rubbed his hands together with glee. "Good, good. The Moff's Council will be in command now." He nodded toward Ghard. "And I'll of course make sure you are properly rewarded, Captain."

Ghard nodded back, as if he actually believed that. "If everything go as planned, you and your sithspawn council will be disposed off within a week."




Time: Now!

"Sir, the ship has been disabled."

"Excellent," Ghard replied. "Send out an assault shuttle to board it. I want everyone caught alive."

"Yes, sir."

Ghard glanced down the starboard crew pit again. Only three of his bridge crew was Chiss, but that was a lot more than it had ever been during the glory days of the Empire. Personally, Ghard had never had anything in particular against non-humans, although the indoctrination he had received on the Academy had made him distrust them. This distrust had evaporated in short order, though. The Chiss made very good Imperials.

He understood completely the reason for granting non-humans permission to serve in the Navy and Army. The Verpine, for instance, made better starship mechanics than any human could ever hope to be, yet none of them had ever been inside an Imperial ship as anything else than prisoners. The Sullustans on their hand made superior navigators, but none had ever set foot upon an Imperial bridge. It was foolish not exploiting such talent.

Ghard sighed. However, he didn't expect any other aliens than the Chiss to join up anytime soon, due to the Empire's earlier racist policy. It would take decades to remove their distrust of the Empire.

"Sir."

Ghard turned to face a young Lieutenant snapping to attention. "At ease, Lieutenant. What is it?"

"The last few bulk freighters has moved out of lightspeed. The gathering is complete. Shall I inform the Admiral?"

Ghard considered. "No, I think I'll inform her myself. Order the fleet to form up."

"Yes, sir."

As Ghard strode across the bridge, heading toward the office of the supreme commander of the Imperial forces, he received more than one respectful glance from the crew. Unlike some Imperial officers he could mention, Ghard knew how to inspire his men in ways Darth Vader never would have thought of.

Ghard frowned to himself. He had to think back to realize exactly how it happened; each step in their conspiracy had seemed so minor and necessary. The Moff's Council had made the Chiss that had contacted him, Mitth'allin'nuruodo - or Thallin as she was known as in the Empire, into the supreme commander of imperial forces. Their plan had been to use her as a figurehead and exploit her family tie to Thrawn as propaganda. When the Moff's Council was killed by terrorists, terrorists who were hunted down by Thallin personally, she had been left alone on the top. Next she had exploited the mystique surrounding her father's name and consolidated her position, appointing young and eager officers as new Moffs. Then, five months after Ghard killed that idiot Pellaeon, he found himself reporting for duty to Admiral Thallin.

Making a mental shrug he figured it may be for the best. While she didn't have the genius of her father, she was a cunning tactician and strategist - something the Hutt pirates had learned the hard way. Ghard grinned at the memory. The Hutts had decided to raid one of the Empire's larger shipyards, thinking that they could get away with a shipload of valuable reactor components. Thallin's forces had been outnumbered by a factor of four, yet she had swiftly constructed the most well-crafted trap Ghard had ever seen. Each time the Hutts stroke, they found themselves countered and forced to fall back with heavy losses. Slowly, Thallin had begun an englobement maneuver, clearly trying to trap and eradicate them. The commander of the pirate fleet had realized this and decided to retreat while he still could - which had been exactly what Thallin had wanted them to. As the pirates reoriented their ships and prepared to jump to lightspeed, TIE bomber that had been hiding behind nearby asteroids had come roaring in and unloaded their proton torpedoes. Imperial casualties had been minimal and only one Hutt ship had survived - because Thallin wanted it to carry the tale.

No, what troubled Ghard was the why. Why had the Chiss decided to team up with the Empire? What would they gain doing so? Thallin had been rather close-mouthed about that when she first contacted him, only pointing out how the Empire would benefit. But back then he had not known that she would in effect become the new ruler of the Empire.

Ghard entered the Admiral's office and saluted as soon as the door closed behind him. That is, he started to salute, but froze halfway. Admiral Thallin sat in the middle of the dimly lit room, red eyes glowing in the half-dark. All around her holograms floated in the air, holograms of artworks from a dozen worlds. Ghard recognized one of them as a famous sculpture from Corellia. He tore his eyes away from the artworks and stared alarmed at the Chiss. She couldn't be...?!

Thallin had apparently already deduced what was going on in his mind. "I have said it time and again, Captain; I don't have the talent of my father." Her voice was smooth and controlled. Making a sweeping gesture toward the holograms, she continued. "This is purely for pleasure."

Ghard breathed relieved - and a little disappointed. "Yes, Admiral. I'm sorry. I was going to report that the last few ships have arrived. The fleet is ready to enter the wormhole at your command. Also, we encountered a small ship - a freighter - a few minutes ago. I believe they are smugglers, but I took the liberty of capturing it intact anyway."

"Very good. Have the wormhole guards be on be on alert in case they were to rendezvous with fellow smugglers here." She tapped the armrest thoughtfully. "Unfortunately, it seems like we won't get any reinforcements from the Chiss Defense Fleet. The Ssi-ruuk are making a nuisance of themselves again."

Ghard frowned irritatingly. This fleet was composed of ship the Empire really couldn't spare - which meant that they wouldn't get any reinforcements without weakening it catastrophically. The Chiss had ships - not as capable as a Star Destroyer, of course, but still more powerful than anything else out there in the Unknown Regions - but the prospect of reinforcements in case things turned bad had now vanished. And worse; with the alliance with the Chiss had come nearly two hundred and fifty extra sectors of space to police. Granted each of those sectors were very sparsely populated, but combined they added up to 5-6 normal sectors. Only a few of the worlds in that area was directly controlled by the Empire, most were self-governed dominions allowed to do whatever they pleased as long as they acknowledged the Empire's supremacy. A few were even independent allies like the Chiss.

The thought of the Chiss reminded him. "May I ask one question, Admiral?"

"Why, of course," she said with a smile. "Unquestioningly subordinates are generally a bad thing."

"I'm not denying that the Chiss is the best that has ever happened to the Empire for a very long time, but what do you get out of it? Why ally with us?"

Thallin seemed to conceder the question. "My people has been plagued with invaders for much of their history, but although the price often was high we always won in the end. Many of us fear that this trend may not continue." She paused for a moment. "The Ssi-ruuk is on the border of what we can handle unaided; we fear that one day we may meet something that can and will destroy us. Already we know about many powers that could do so, but luckily they either aren't hostile or they don't know we exist. It was this fear that allowed the more liberal elements of my kind to stage a coup and seize power. Protection and aid; that is what we get out of it. Does that satisfy your curiosity, Captain?"

"Yes Admiral, it does."

Thallin taped a button and the holograms winked out of existence. "Then there is no sense in delaying any more. Accompany me to the bridge, Captain. It is time to travel to a galaxy far, far away."

Your off to a good start. i like it so far.

Excellent story, I hope to see more soon!

Interesting story, pretty colossal construction for a time when the SW galaxy is still largely undeveloped but now open to exploration with the invention of the hyperdrive.

Chapter 1: Night's Dawn

"We are the nemesis from a distant star."
- Inkubbus Sukkubus


The darkness in the center of the huge donut-shaped construction made the empty space surrounding it look light by comparison. The wormhole's event horizon greedily sucked up any light that hit it, giving a viewer the impression that its perfect darkness was on the brink of spilling out to contaminate the universe. For the crew on the Miranda-class Starfleet vessel that hovered in front of it, it was a menacing sight indeed.

Lieutenant Commander Dunson glanced once at his captain out of the corner of his eye, before going back to examine sensor readings. While most Miranda-class ships had been taken out of commission, a few had been kept to be used as unofficial 'punishment.' Starfleet members who didn't conform to Federation ideals or who otherwise had brought anger upon themselves from those higher up, were transferred to a Miranda and sent out on boring and unimportant missions.

Dunson was one of those unfortunates. Captain Anderson was another.

How Anderson passed the entrance exam into Starfleet Academy Dunson would never know, let alone how he had risen to the rank of Captain. Anderson was infamous within Starfleet for seeing only what he wanted to see and never admitting mistakes.

With a record that was something of a parody with its numerous disciplinary actions, Starfleet Command had finally gotten fed up and tried to give him a dishonorable discharge. Unfortunately, Anderson had curried favor with some Admiral who vetoed the decision. In the end they had given him the Miranda-class USS Monarch Monarch and sent him out to map star systems near the Typhon Expanse.

Of course Captain Anderson had interpreted it as an important mission that would not soon be forgotten by Starfleet Command.

"Well? What do you have?" Anderson asked impatiently, sitting on the edge of his command chair.

"Sir, the anomaly appears to be a wormhole," Dunson spoke, unable to keep the excitement out of his voice. "The surrounding structure is maintaining it, keeping it stable. I can't say for sure, but the Bajoran wormhole differs so much from this one that I suspect it has been created artificially."

"Excellent. Send a message to Starfleet Command about our finding here.” He leaned back in his chair. “Of course, they probably already know."

"Yes, sir," Dunson said and carried out the order. "What makes you think they already know?"

"Oh, please! You don't think they'd send an entire ship out here just to map star systems? They must have known."

"But sir, we were the first Starfleet vessel ever to visit this system."

"Nonsense! They knew it was here."

Dunson heaved a sigh. "Whatever you say, sir."

Captain Anderson nodded satisfied and turned toward the viewscreen. "Now, let's see where the other end of that wormhole is. Ahead one quarter impulse."

Commander Cole, Anderson's second in command, spoke up carefully. "Captain, we don't know exactly how stable that wormhole is. Perhaps a probe-"

Anderson turned toward his second in command with a grin on his face. "Prove it."

Cole blinked. "What?"

"Prove that the wormhole is unstable."

"I never said it was unstable. We don't know-"

"Aha! So you admit it is stable?"

"No, I-"

"You admit it is stable. Thank you, Commander. One quarter impulse," he repeated.

Dunson groaned inwardly as the female conn officer reached for the controls. "Let's hope that thing won't rip us apart or collapse as we traverse it." Before she could type in the appropriate commands, however, a beep from his own console informed him that short-range sensors were picking up something that had not been there before.

"Captain, I'm picking up six sensor contacts... it's coming from the wormhole," Dunson said, unable to hide the surprise in his voice.

On the viewscreen the tip of something was pointing out of the wormhole's event horizon. In a few heartbeats it grew into the bow of a huge dagger-shaped vessel, pushing itself out of the wormhole. The ship seemed to have been designed to instill fear in an enemy's heart; dark, menacing and powerful, dedicated to the single purpose of making war. As if this sight wasn't intimidating enough, mere moments later five similar ships joined it.

"A first contact situation!" Anderson said and clasped his hands. "Mr. Dunson: Give me everything you have on those ships."

"I'm afraid there isn't much, Captain. The vessels are approximately..." His eyes popped. "...one point six kilometers long. The hull is armored and seems to be impregnated with neutronium, which makes it next to impossible to get a scan of the insides of the ship. They also have an extremely strong energy shield operating that furthers obscure readings. However, I am detecting at least one hundred and twenty beam weapons of various sizes on each of the ships."

"Which makes them a threat by a considerable margin," Commander Cole interjected. "I recommend we send a transmission to Starfleet Command about what's happening here."

For once Anderson seemed to have lost his bravado. "Yes, yes, do that. And raise our shields, please."

"Yes sir," Dunson replied. "Transmission is out- Captain, I have a new sensor contact. A big one."

'Big one' was an understatement. Even though the previous alien ships were huge by Federation standards, the vessel that was now poking its bow out of the wormhole dwarfed even them. It took nearly half a minute for it to emerge, and when it did the bridge crew stared in stunned science at the massive warship. Far bigger than the largest Federation starbase, it outgunned the other vessels by orders of magnitude. It was a war machine of such incredible proportions, Dunson caught himself praying to a god he didn't believe in. Behind it, dozens of other vessels began to emerge, but none bigger than the deadly monster in the middle of the fleet.

A bleep from his consol caught Dunson's attention, and through a supreme effort of will he tore his eyes away from the viewscreen. "Captain, we have new sensor contacts. The alien capital ships are deploying fighters and are targeting us. We are also being jammed."

"A hostile act!" Anderson bellowed. "Go to Red Alert!"

"Shields are up, weapons armed," came the reply from the Monarch's tactical officer.

"Shall we go to warp, sir?" Cole asked.

"No, target the alien flagship and fire torpedoes."

Dunson stared incredulously at the Captain. "You're not actually thinking of fighting that thing?"

"We are more powerful than them, now do as I say!" Anderson yelled, a tickle of drool running down the corner of his mouth.

With a sense of dread Dunson tapped a button, and the Monarch spat out four glowing torpedoes. As they streaked toward the massive alien ship, Dunson could hear the Captain mutter, "They attacked me! The rabid fuckwits dared to attack me!" A second later the photon torpedoes impacted harmlessly on the enemy vessel's shields.

"Direct hit," Dunson reported. "No damage."

"Fire phasers!" Anderson ordered with madly rolling eyes.

Phase fire lashed out from the Monarch's phaser arrays, but was again stopped by the alien ship's shields.

"Again direct hit, but no damage. Enemy is returning fire."

Bolts of orange light exploded from the hostile ship, tearing into the Monarch. Its shields were overwhelmed in milliseconds, and on the bridge chaos erupted as consols exploded and the deck disappeared from below the crew's feet. Dunson was thrown out of his seat when the ship lurched violently and landed on his left arm. Dazed by the explosions that were filling the bridge with smoke and flying shrapnel, he tried to get up. The attempt was stillborn as the deck still heaved like a wild animal and his left arm didn't work properly.

Dunson raised his head to call for help, but then he saw Captain Anderson - like in slow motion - tumbling trough the air from a particularly violent lurch. As he landed on the deck, a plasma conduct beneath it ruptured. The explosion ripped one of the captain's arms off and sent him flying again. Another explosion sent a hail of deadly shrapnel his way, one of them cutting his other arm off like an axe. Anderson landed on an undamaged consol, which then promptly exploded and threw him toward the viewscreen, ripping both his legs off in the process. The captain hit it with a sickening crunch, splattering blood over half of it, then slid down to the deck. As his blood flowed out of his body and all over the bridge, he looked up at the viewscreen and saw several of the alien ships vanishing into the darkness of space with flickers of motion.

"Oh, I see," he croaked. "Running away, eh? YOU YELLOW BASTARDS!"

A second later the Monarch's antimatter containment fields collapsed, and the antimatter did the only thing it could do when it came into contact with ordinary matter. With a titanic explosion the Federation ship was blasted apart, leaving only a rapidly expanding cloud of plasma and debris.

Of Captain Anderson only atoms remained.




On the command walkway of the Dark Angel Captain Ghard glanced at Thallin at the corner of his eye. She stared expressionless at the cloud that had once been a starship with eyes that had suddenly grown colder than a dead moon. Ghard steeled himself for an explosion.

Deliberately she turned to the weapons station, piercing the officer in charge of the forward Ion Cannons with her eyes. She was actually smaller than Ghard himself, and he was only of average height. Her dark hair was tied back into a ponytail, and she had this sleek physique that made people that looked at her think 'frail'. All combined this gave her the impression of being young and girlish, yet she loomed over everyone on the bridge like a titan. "I was under the impression that I ordered that ship disabled, not destroyed," she said softly.

The rather pale officer licked his lips. "I- Ma'am, I just ordered all the Ion Cannons to open fire simultaneously, so we could disable it as fast as possible. I don't know why-" He cut off as a young Lieutenant rose up and snapped to attention.

Thallin turned those menacing eyes to him, and Ghard caught himself thinking that the officer was a braver man than him. "Do you have anything you want to say, Lieutenant?"

"Yes, ma'am. When the ship exploded we detected a blast of hard gamma radiation. The only explanation for that is if the ship carried a large amount of antimatter, which it probably used as an energy source. Our Ion Cannons must have disrupted its containment fields and thus caused the explosion."

"Indeed." For a few moments Ghard wondered if she would order the execution of both of the men, but then a little of the cold seemed to leave her eyes. A little. "Very well. Inform the other ship captains that they must use their Ion Cannons sparingly if they wish to capture a ship. Proceed with deploying the fleet."

The bridge crew breathed a sigh of relief as they began relaying orders. This galaxy would soon be theirs.




Picard sighed as the Starfleet logo replaced the face of Admiral Janeway on the screen. Another day, another mission. He leaned back in his chair and glanced around in his office. It wasn't as spacious as the one in his old ship, but the Enterprise was still in dry dock undergoing repairs after his little adventure with the Romulans. In the mean time he had been given temporary command of the Nebula-class Peacekeeper. While he liked the name, he longed for his old ship. Problem was, he might not sit on the Enterprise's bridge ever again. It seemed that he had steeped on more toes than he had initially thought during the debacle with the Son'a and the Ba'ku. If his guess were correct, his command on the Peacekeeper would soon be made permanent while the Enterprise would be given to some other captain.

And now this.

Grumbling he exited his office and entered the bridge. "Set course for star system T-3457," he called as he sat down in his command chair.

"Yes sir," came the reply from the helm, which was manned by one Susan Lawton.

"T-3457?" Commander Powers frowned. "That sounds like it's near the Typhon Expanse."

"Correct, Number One. It is," Picard replied. "The USS Monarch reported they had found something they believed to be a stable wormhole twenty-four ago. Mere minutes later they sent a new report claiming several alien ships had exited the wormhole. Since then we haven't heard anything, and there is reason to believe the Monarch has been destroyed or disabled. Starfleet Command has sent out a fleet-wide Yellow Alert and ordered twenty ships to set course for the Typhon Expanse. Since the Peacekeeper is the closest of them, we are to investigate the incident."

Picard's little speech was meet with silence for a few moments, before Powers spoke up. "We don't know for certain that the unknown ships are hostile, right?"

"No," Picard said firmly. "Therefore we shall do absolutely nothing to provoke them. For all we know the Monarch may have problems with their subspace radio. We shall do our best to achieve peaceful contact with this new species. After the Dominion War and the Borg intrusions, Starfleet is not interested in a new conflict - and that's putting it mildly." He nodded toward the man sitting at Tactical. "However, I have been ordered to assume the worst, so we'll go to Yellow Alert for now. Mr. Walton?"

"Yes sir," the tactical officer replied. "We're now at Yellow Alert."

"Course plotted in," the conn officer reported.

"Engage."

As the Peacekeeper entered warp, the man at the helm opened his mouth as if to say something but seemed to change his mind and snapped it shut.

"Is there anything at your mind, Mr. Cross?" Picard inquired.

"No, sir. I just- Sir, what if they are hostile? I mean, we're only one ship."

Picard regarded the young man. According to his personal file, Robert Cross had proven to be skilful in Advanced Offensive Starship Maneuvers in the simulator. After joining up near the end of the Dominion War, he had risen remarkably quickly through the ranks – probably due to the Federations lack of manpower after the war. Even so, he had never been in actual combat before. "Our mission is just to investigate," Picard said and tried to smile encouragingly. "If we encounter hostiles, we are to retreat and report to Starfleet Command. Besides, the Monarch only reported six sensor contacts. Starfleet has survived crisis far worse than that."




The Gorn ship rained disruptor fire upon the Tal Shiar listening outpost. Shields buckled and failed, and the attacking ship began cutting into the space station's hull, producing geysers of escaping atmosphere and vaporized hull material. Taken completely by surprise and unarmed, it was little the Romulan commander could do. Built inside Federation space, they had taken every precaution to ensure it wouldn't be discovered. It was equipped with the most advanced cloaking device in existence, one that not even the most sophisticated sensors could detect. Thus they had relied upon the cloaking device for survival, not weapons. As the horrified Romulans saw their outpost crumble around them, they could only wonder how the Gorn had managed to detect them.

The Romulans would not have been much wiser if they had known that the 'Gorn' ship was crewed by anyone but Gorn.

On the bridge of the Odin Captain Alexander Williams watched as his ship laid waste to the outpost. The operation had gone superbly. Even though the Romulans had managed to send out a distress signal, blame for the destruction would fall upon the Gorn. They would of course deny it all - and the Romulans wouldn't believe them since the attacking ship looked exactly like a Gorn vessel, from appearance and down to warp signature. It was a clandestine mission no Starfleet captain would have had the stomach to carry out. But Captain Williams was not of Starfleet.

He was not even of the Federation.

"What's their status?" he asked.

"Their hangar is neutralized, so they can't escape. All life-support is gone. Venting atmosphere detected on all decks," came the dispassionate reply from Lt Commander Robbins, his tactical officer.

"Keep firing."

It was not out of an act of cruelty that he didn't give the Romulans the chance to board the escape pods. His specific orders had been to neutralize the Tal Shiar outpost. When the word 'neutralize' was used it usually meant 'destroy the target so quickly and efficiently that the enemy is left scratching their heads wondering what happened.' Besides, warfare was never civil.

The Romulan space station began to drift off-axis, its position control engines destroyed and no longer able to counter the trust made by air escaping through numerous hull breaches. It was already beyond salvation.

"The stabilization field of the station's quantum singularity is fluxating," Robbins reported.

"Cease fire," Williams ordered. "Take us away from the station. Full impulse."

As the Odin pulled away, the outpost's power source finally lost its stability. In a magnificent release of energy, the quantum singularity blew the space station into radioactive dust. The deck trembled slightly beneath Williams' feet as a shockwave of plasma hit his ship.

"Shields?"

"Down to 93%. No damage."

Williams grinned at his bridge crew. "Well, that was our last mission, time to head home." The Odin and its crew had been cruising up and down the Neutral Zone for nearly six months.

"Do you think people back home will give us a medal?" Kathy Miller joked from the conn.

"Hardly," Williams snorted. "Unless we blow up Romulus on our way home. Set course for-" A bleep from the communication officer's consol interrupted him.

"Sir, incoming message from High Command. They intercepted a subspace transmission from Earth directed at the USS Peacekeeper. Apparently a Starfleet vessel reported they had encountered six alien ships, and then all contact was lost. The Peacekeeper was ordered to investigate the incident, but High Command are worried they can't handle it and are ordering us to do the same."

Williams frowned. "The Peacekeeper. That's Picard's ship, isn't it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Figures. Well, set course for the Typhon Expanse, warp nine point nine," he said and sat down in the captain's chair. "Do we have any agents onboard the Peacekeeper?"

"One moment, I'm checking." Miller worked her consol. "Affirmative. We have one Commander Aleksandrov posing as Lt Commander Robert Cross.

"Aleksandrov?" Williams blinked. "Not Ivan Aleksandrov?"

"Yes, actually," Miller said surprised. "Do you know him, Captain?"

"Yes," Williams sighed. "I knew him back during my Academy days. Within the Secret Service he has been transferred from section to section, division to division for years now. Psycopolitical Warfare, Counterintelligence, Technology Surveillance, Electronic Warfare... he's been all over the place."

"What, is he some kind of screw-up? Why haven't they kicked him out, then?"

"Oh, he's no screw-up," Williams said and rubbed his face. "He usually accomplishes his missions. It's just that when he does screw up, he does so in a most spectacular fashion. 'Massive collateral damage' is his fucking middle name." He fixed Miller with a dead serious gaze. "If we find wreckage from the Peacekeeper and Ivan floating around in an escape pod, we'll know whose fault it is."




Ghard's footsteps against the metal floor gave away echoes as he walked down the corridor in the newly constructed Alpha Base. So newly constructed that the environmental control systems weren't up to speed yet; it was so cold he could see his breath misting in front of him. The base was located on a marginally habitable world only a few short lightyears from the wormhole. It was to be their headquarters for the conquest of this galaxy.

He entered Thallin's office and saluted. This time there was no holographic artworks around her, but rather a single huge hologram of the galaxy they currently resided in. Billions of tiny specks of light extended from floor to ceiling, with a bright red dot representing Alpha Base.

"Captain, I believe you have a report to me?"

"Yes, ma'am. The last bulk freighters are unloading their supplies as we speak. The self-replicating miningdroids are chewing on this system's fifth planet, as well as the asteroid belt. Most of the fleet is exploring the nearest star systems, with probe droids scouting out more distant stars. The Star Destroyers Majestetic and Dark Nebula are guarding the wormhole, cloaked. That should be enough to take out anything that may be in the area."

Thallin nodded. "Excellent. However, while we have adequate maps of this part of the galaxy, we do lack political and military intelligence on the various powers here." She tapped a button on her armrest, and a small area of the holographic galaxy was painted green.

"This is the Romulan Star Empire. The Ferrengi prisoners described as the leading military power in they call the 'alpha' and 'beta quadrants' of the galaxy." She pushed another button and a new area below Romulan space appeared in dark red.

"The Klingon Empire. The Klingons are a warrior race and the mortal enemies of the Romulans." A third button and a twice as big area were painted in light blue to the left of the Klingon and Romulan empires.

"The United Federation of Planets. They are largely a peaceful power but paradoxy allied with the Klingons." A fourth button and a part of the galaxy to the left of the Federation were drawn up in brown.

"The Cardassian Union. A militaristic people that has nearly been eliminated as a military power due to a recent conflict known as the Dominion War." One last button and the hologram winked out.

"We have superficial knowledge of their technology and large power fractions, but that's not enough. We need intimate knowledge of logistical and industrial facilities, strategically important worlds, current fleet positions and so on."

"I'm sure we could send a ship into Romulan space and pull an information dump." Ghard suggested.

"No. Federation ships more often than not double as science and diplomatic vessels. Hence they carry a much more extensive database than the other three powers. Further, their computer systems are very centralized, making it difficult if not impossible to slice into them covertly. That leaves us with capturing a Federation vessel or invading an outpost."

"Yes, ma'am. We have located several minor Federation outposts and colonies, all easily within striking distance. I suggest the outpost in system 223b - or Kapos system as the Federation calls it. Its defenses are minimal."

Thallin nodded. "Send Captain Nell on the Star Destroyer Griefmaker to invade the outpost. Tell him he is also at liberty to capture any alien ship he may encounter, as long as it does not endanger his primary mission. All officers must be captured alive, of course."

"Yes, ma'am. You'll have the information you require shortly."




One moment the star system was seemingly empty save for the massive structure maintaining the wormhole, in the next the Peacekeeper moved out of warp speed inside it.

Picard studied the viewscreen with the intensity of an explorer discovering something momentous. "Well, it appears that the Monarch was correct. Is there any sign of them?"

"Unfortunately, yes," Lawton said. "I detect a large amount of debris composed of the same type of materials used in starship hulls. Also, several nearby asteroids have been irradiated by gamma radiation, probably the result of the Monarch's antimatter going off."

Picard's shoulders sank an inch. "A new wormhole, and blood is already been spilled." Aloud he said: "We should keep in mind that this is no guarantee that the alien ships are hostile. This could simply be a misunderstanding." But the words sounded hollow even to him.

"Captain, I'm detecting something very strange here," Lawton said. "I have some sort of probe on my scanners - I didn't detect it at first due to interference from the wormhole. It seems to be standing still for a few seconds, then it pull a few hundred meters away and... just vanish from my sensors. Approximately four seconds later it reappears, then the cycle repeats itself. It's like it’s cloaking."

Picard frowned to himself. Having a probe perform such a maneuver made absolutely no sense at all, unless... "Unless it's not cloaking at all, but ducking in and out of a starship's cloaking field!"

"Shields up!" he called. "But do not arm weapons. Let's see if we can still resolve this peacefu-"

"Sir, we have five vessels inbound at high warp."

"More of them?" Picard thought. "Take no further action, but be ready."

However, the ships that exited warp right in front of the Peacekeeper was not alien ships, but decidedly of Federation design. All were Intrepid-class vessels, making them some of the fastest ships Starfleet had.

"We are being hailed," Lawton said.

"On screen."

The viewscreen split in two; the top part showed the five Intrepid-class ships, the bottom a grim-looking bearded man. "Captain Picard," the man said. "I am Captain Webb and I lead this task force. All your orders has herby been suspended. Please leave the system immediately and resume your prior mission."

"Now wait a minute," Picard demanded. "Just what is going on here? My orders came directly from Starfleet Command-"

"That is irrelevant," Webb interrupted. "Section 31 is taking this matter in their own hands, and my authority supersede yours. I repeat; leave now."

"Hold on. We suspect there's a cloaked ship in the system, and-" Picard never got to finish the sentence.

A dagger-shaped warship of titanic proportions materialized out of nowhere. It loomed over the lesser Federation vessels like the very manifestation of violent intent. The next few events happened so fast neither Picard nor Captain Webb had time to react. A hailstorm of green energy erupted out of the alien ship, tearing trough shields and blasting into hulls like the hand of death. In a heartbeat it was all over, and all that was left of the ships from Section 31 was an expanding cloud of shattered debris.

"Fire weapons!" Picard called in horror. Never before had the Federation lost half a dozen ships so quickly. "Turn us around and go to warp immediately!"

As the Peacekeeper began to turn, its main phaser array opened fire. It was for naught as the gigant’s forward shields harmlessly absorbed the beam. And then it fired again, spitting out three orange bolts of energy. The two first bolts hit the Peacekeeper's saucer section, while the third impacted on the ship's port warp nacelle. The Starfleet vessel began tumbling trough space as its impulse engines fired erratically.

On the bridge Picard was thrown forwards as the ship's bow lurched violently 'down'. He landed hard by the helm, impact knocking the breath out of his lungs. Sparks and white smoke erupted of every consol, and every alarm klaxon he knew of blared at the same time.

"Engineering to bridge," came an urgent voice over the communicator. "We have a core breach!"

"Eject," Picard coughed, with the helm station crackling and hissing at him. "Eject it."

Seconds later a huge explosion made the Peacekeeper lurch again, and Picard held on for his bare life. After a while, the explosions and lurching seemed to die down. Rising to his feet on the still shuddering deck he surveyed what remained of his bridge, and was dismayed. The air was thick with smoke, every computer screen he could see was either black or displaying some kind of error message, and a fire burned in what had once been the weapons consol.

"Status," he called. "And put out that fire."

"We have next to no control over the ship," Cross reported. "The weapon they hit us with seemed to be designed to fry all control systems while leaving the target relatively intact. We can't fire weapons, we don't have shields, we can't maneuver - hell, we're lucky to have some measure of life-support."

"And the warp drive?" Picard asked, although he already knew the answer.

"Gone with the wind. We barely got the core out in time, and the explosion damaged the ventral part of our hull."

"What about long range communications?"

"Knocked out along with the main computer. I'm giving it a cold reboot as we speak. We should be able to reestablish control of impulse engines and a few other systems when it comes back online, but it'll take at least fifteen minutes."

"So we can't run, we can't fight and we can't even call for help." Picard shook his head. He could not remember ever having been in a worse situation, not even when the Borg had boarded the Enterprise.

"What's that?" Powers said and pointed at the flickering viewscreen.

Picard turned and saw that four smaller craft had left the behemoth of a warship and was now growing progressively larger as they speed toward the Peacekeeper. "Too slow for attack craft, so what are they?"

"They are assault shuttles," Cross suddenly breathed. "They carry boarders."

"I think you may be right," Picard replied. "These people can't have transporters. Can you determinate their target?"

"Yes, sir. Two of them are heading toward engineering by the looks of it, the two other will end up near the bridge."

Picard tapped his combadge. "This is Captain Picard to all hands. The enemy is approaching in shuttles and will attempt to board. All security personnel be ready to repel them. Concentrate the defense around engineering and the bridge. Picard out." He nodded to Cross. "You'd better start erasing all sensitive information from our systems."

"Uh, I can't, sir. The main computer, um-"

Picard frowned irritably. "Right, right. Well, get a few more security personnel up here just in case the boarders make it this far."

"I'm sorry, but the turbolifts are voice activated and requires the main computer in order to interpret commands..." Cross shrugged helplessly.

"Mr. Cross, please remind me to have the designer of the main computer shot when I find him."




Lieutenant Langone crouched behind the makeshift barricade of storage boxes, phaser rifle in hand. All around him over forty men and women from security clustered around him, similarly armed.

He tapped his combadge and spoke, "Langone to bridge. We're in position."

"Acknowledged. The enemy shuttle is docking now, be ready. Bridge out."

Langone forced himself to relax. He and his men had been ordered to defend against the boarders that would move against the bridge. The airlocks ahead of them seemed like the most likely target, so he had concentrated half of his team here in the hope of creating a chokepoint and repulse the invaders. The other half he kept in reserve at the fallback position, just in case things got ugly.

"Good thing they don't have transporters, or they would have popped up all over the place," he thought.

The sound of metal striking metal announced that the enemy was docking their craft, and the tension in the corridor leaped up by an order of magnitude. "Everyone be ready," Langone called. "Open fire as soon as you see them."

For a few brief seconds there was silence, then came the high-pitched whine as a cutting tool began working on the airlock.

Langone gitered his teeth. "Come on, you've fought Jem'Hadar. These people can't possibly be any worse."

Langone flinched despite himself as the door suddenly blew in. A humanoid soldier, clad from head to toe in white armor, leaped out of the cloud of smoke like a wraith. Red bolts of energy spat out of the weapon he carried, one of them hitting an Ensign in the torso and burning a hole straight trough his chest. Half a dozen phaser rifles fired simultaneously, hitting the trooper at various parts of his body. But he had not even hit the floor before two more identical white figures stormed out of the hole in the airlock.

"Fire! Fire! Fire!" Langone yelled, and the air was filled with phaser blasts and red bolts. He pulled the trigger as fast as he could, barely taking the time to aim his rifle. Screams from the wounded and explosions as enemy fire hit bulkheads and decking dazzled him. Langone killed one, two, three of the armored enemies, but for every one he killed two more would take his place, literally walking over the dead body of their fallen comrade.

"It's a chokepoint, damn it! It's a fucking chokepoint, and you are suppose to die!"

Mere seconds into the firefight the corridor was thick with smoke, and the number of phaser blasts that returned the enemy fire had grown progressively fewer. Langone realized that this firefight could only have one outcome.

"Retreat!" he called. "Retreat to the fall-back position!"

Langone and his team-members immediately abandoned their posts and began running for their bare life down the corridor, some occasionally throwing a quick snap-shot at their pursuers. Throwing a quick glance over his shoulder he saw thirty or forty more enemies spilling in through the airlock unopposed.

With energy bolts whizzing past him he tapped his combadge. "Langone to Ensign Hill. We are falling back to your position and we have pursuers," he breathed and tried to ignore the screaming of people who had been hit. "Prepare to give us cover fire. Inform the bridge."

"Yes, sir."

Langone tried to run faster while shutting out the constant screaming. Each scream announced that another member of his team had been hit; each explosion by red bolts striking the bulkhead that another man or woman would be killed by shrapnel. He was sucking breath down into acing lungs by the time he saw the barricades of the fallback position. With one last effort he leaped over the storage box and landed heavily on the other side.

"Lieutenant!"

Langone looked up into the troubled face of Ensign Hill. "Yes, what is it?"

"Lieutenant, where's the rest of the team?"

"What?"

Hill pointed at something behind Langone. "The team, Lieutenant! Where's the rest of it?"

Langone turned to look and saw... three Ensigns, one with a piece of shrapnel standing out of his shoulder. He nearly leaped up to look over the barricade. A trail of dead men and women marked the path he had run. "Oh, god. Thirty-eight people."

He slumped down to sit beside the barricade and looked helplessly up at the young Ensign. Horror flashed across the man's face as he realized the truth. "All of them?"

Langone nodded numbly. The silence was suddenly cut short by the now so familiar sound of the enemy troopers firing their weapons. Langone cursed and snatched his phaser rifle. "Everyone be ready."

"The assholes will pay for this," he silently promised himself. "They'll pay dearly."




"Retreat! Get into Engineering!" Lieutenant Lee's call came as sweet music to the remnants of the security teams assigned to defend the Peacekeeper's engineering bay. Over the last few minutes they had seen their numbers dwindle from two hundred and forty to less than fifty. Now the white clad enemy soldiers had set up some kind of tripod-mounted rapid-fire weapon that were raking through their ranks, obliterating anyone caught in its sights.

They fired as they backed toward the open door, killing two of the armored boarders. The enemy didn't seem to have any regard whatsoever for their own lives, however. Under cover of the rapid-fire weapon they continued to advance, firing red energy bolts as they went.

Seconds later some twenty battered and bleeding men and women spilled into Engineering, some taking up positions at the corners to give cover fire. Lee risked a peek around the corner to see if there were any more Starfleet personnel alive out there, and an energy bolt nearly took her head off. "Close the doors," she called, and breathed out in relief as the doors slid into place.

"This battle is over," she thought and tapped her combadge. "Lieutenant Lee to bridge."




On the bridge of the Peacekeeper, Picard's fingers clenched the armrest of his command chair. The battle against the invaders was not going well at all. According to Commander Powers' estimates the enemy were now controlling seventy per cent of the ship. The only bright spot was that they still held Engineering and the bridge. Barely.

"Lieutenant Lee to bridge."

"Bridge here, go ahead," Picard answered.

"I have retreated into Engineering, sir. I have sustained over ninety per cent casualties and am unable to repel the enemy. Situation is untenable."

Picard closed his eyes. Ten minutes after the enemy boarded his vessel they had wiped out most of his security personnel. "Stay where you are. We'll see if we can divert reinforcements-" Suddenly he was cut of by an high-pitched whining coming over the combadge.

"Captain, they are cutting themselves through the door," Lee said. "Reinforcements won't do any good - they are just too heavily armed and too well trained. We must abandon ship." A sudden explosion in the background followed by the sound of weapons firing put an end to the conversation. "Drive them back!" Lee yelled, who obviously had forgot to turn off her combadge. "Watch the left flank - drive them back, damn it!"

In a few seconds the shooting gradually died out, and so did Lieutenant Lee's desperate yells. An eerie silence hung over the bridge as everyone waited, hoped that Lee would speak again.

"Lieutenant?" Picard finally said. "Are you still there?"

Silence.

"Lieutenant Lee, please respond."

Silence.

"Lieutenant-"

Crunch!

The burst of static made Picard jump. "What the devil was that?"

"That was the sound of a combadge being crushed under a boot," Cross said dryly.

Picard glared at the enemy vessel displayed on the viewscreen. "Mr. Cross, how long until we have long range communications back?"

"The main computer should be finished rebooting in three minutes, but the enemy is jamming us so I don't think it'll do much good."

Picard sighed and made a decision. "That means that this vessel is lost to the enemy. However, Starfleet must be informed about what has happened here. Commander Powers, you are to take a shuttle and try to escape this trap. Jump down the turbolift shaft if you have to." He knew that Powers' chance of succeeding was slim indeed, but it had to be tried.

"Now, wait a minute," Powers objected.

"And that's an order," Picard interrupted and touched his combadge. "Bridge to Lieutenant Langone."




Langone threw himself flat on his stomach, narrowly avoiding two energy bolts that flew through the space he had been in a heartbeat earlier. They hit the bulkhead and produced a shower of red-hot shrapnel that stung his back.

"Bridge to Lieutenant Langone."

"Yes, I'm here," he breathed hoarsely.

"Can you spare a few men to escort Commander Powers to the hangar?"

"Is he nuts?" Langone shook his head to clear it. "Absolutely not, Captain. We're fighting right outside the turbolifts, and I have six bloody men left!" He chuckled in a sudden fit of black humor. "Expect visitors soon."

"They are coming!" One Ensign yelled.

Langone shut off his combadge and peeked over a storage box that acted as cover. A dozen of the armored soldiers were advancing toward them, weapons blazing.

And then they were upon them.




On the bridge Picard looked gravely at his crew. "Set phasers to kill." No other orders were necessary, they all took up positions behind whatever cover they could find and waited.

When the door to the turbolift at last blew in, Picard caught the first trooper in the throat. However, two more jumped in as the first one fell to the floor, bathing the bridge in pulses of blue energy. The bridge crew fought valiantly, but in the end there could be only one outcome.

Picard was among the last few that still fought on when a blue pulse caught him in the chest. Stars erupted across his vision as every nerve in his body fired simultaneously. He only halfway felt his twitching body hit the deck.

"Stun beams? They want us alive?"

Then there was darkness.

Sorry it took so long - I've been busy with finals. I will try to be faster from now on.

Oh, and I'm not sure if 'Captain Anderson' (:twisted:) was over the line or not. Your opinion?