Skyfall (ST)

[Psychic_Sandwich]

This is my first foray into ST fic writing, although not my first fic. Since I'm not a Trekkie, and also since I want to at least try to keep this internally consistant and don't have the best knowledge of physics, Trekverse or otherwise, I thought I'd post this here so that people that are probably a lot smarter than me can comment on it, and pull me up short if I start doing something completely bizzare. Hopefully, It'll be an enjoyable read as well.

Feel free to poke holes in it as much as you like. Don't worry about my fragile ego. I've tried to catch as many spelling/grammar errors as possible, but no man is perfect.

And just to head off any possible problems with plaugarism, I've also posted this on SB.com under the username 'Screwball', so if anybody sees it there, it's me, not somebody else.


Skyfall

Disclaimer: Star Trek is not mine. If it was, I wouldn't be having money problems. The Thousand Systems are my own creation.

* * *

Prologue

HMS Spartan never even saw the distortion bomb that killed her. One moment, there was a forty thousand ton cruiser holding formation with the rest of the Eighth Cruiser Squadron, the next, there was an expanding debris field. Pacific, Tennyson and Hermes dissolved into wreckage seconds later, and Roman was crippled when the bomb meant for her misfired, detonating several thousand kilometres short of it's target.

The bridge of the squadron command ship, HMS Ajax, was in utter chaos when the Commodore in command of the squadron reached his station. He had just enough time to ask the Officer of the Watch “What the hell...” before another D-bomb tore his ship apart around him.

* * *

Konteradmiral Otto Bauer watched the British ships die under his squadron's missiles, and allowed himself a small smile. The enemy hadn't even had time to launch their ready drones.

“Hans.”

“Yes, Herr Konteradmiral?”

“Prepare a dispatch drone for Generaladmiral Mauser, alpha priority. Message reads 'Target enemy picket elements destroyed. No drones launched. The attack can proceed as planned.”

“Yes sir. At once.”

The young officer bent over his console, tapping out a string of commands. A short time later, a small lump of machinery detached itself from the side of the matte black cruiser, and flashed into supralight, heading towards the outer reaches of the system, near the Oort cloud.

* * *

The space near the planet was rent with the ugly pockmarks of antimatter explosions and the headache inducing spasms of twisted space produced by distortion weapons. The remnants of mushroom clouds were still present in the atmosphere of the world below the battle, marking the former locations of cities that were now little more than plains of glass. Streaks of light showered down on the planet, where the wreckage of ships and orbital stations fell into the atmosphere, or were flung by the detonation of a warhead, and burned up before it could reach the ground.

It was obvious that the defending fleet had lost. Most of the wrecks drifting around the planet were theirs, and most were still in their parking orbits. What had been a large complex of military stations were now wrecks, taking thousands of personnel with them into death, along with the multitude of light ships that had been docked at them. The dull grey vessels still in action were outnumbered by their black opponents, and most of them were significantly smaller as well. Most of the main line units had been destroyed at anchor.

The surviving defenders had launched what was clearly a breakout attempt. A needle shaped column of ships, headed by the few remaining battleships, lunged desperately away from the planet, fighting to avoid being pinned against the world and providing perfect targets for their enemies' battle line. The attackers rained fire upon the desperate ships, but the defenders had chosen their location well, and they smashed through the shell of dark ships riding a wave of antimatter flame, spewing dispatch drones as soon as they escaped the seemingly solid wall of point defence systems that would have intercepted the automated messengers.

Most of the would-be escapees died, smashed into wreckage before they could escape into supralight, but here and there, squadrons did make it through the hail of missiles, and sped away from the battle at maximum speed. Like a swarm of hornets, the attackers light units pursued the fugitives.

* * *

Captains Log, Stardate 2834.3. The Enterprise has, for the past several months, been involved with Starfleet survey efforts at the edge of the Federation. So far, there have been no events of note. We have encountered no intelligent races, with or without supralight capability. The area appears to be bare of life supporting worlds, almost suspiciously so, according to Mr Data. We are currently en route to an unsurveyed system designated MX336, accompanied by the USS Chickasaw.

Picard was interrupted by the admittance chime on the door to his ready room. Pausing his log, he turned his chair to face the door.

“Come.”

The door opened quietly, allowing Data into the room. He stopped a short distance inside the door.

“Sir, sensors have detected multiple transient subspace anomalies in close proximity to one another The source appears to be moving across the MX336 system.”

“Subspace anomalies?” Picard frowned as he rose from his chair.

“Yes sir. The Chickasaw has detected them as well. They appear to be short lived, no longer then a tenth of a second, however, they are replaced by fresh anomalies as they fade.”

By now, they were standing in the centre of the bridge, gazing at the streaks of light that filled the viewscreen. It was set to zero magnification, and the yellowish pinprick of light directly ahead of them was growing almost imperceptibly larger.

“Time to visual range?”

“Approximately 45 minutes, sir.”

“Very well. Inform the Chickasaw that we intend to investigate, then adjust course to intercept.”

The minutes seemed to creep by. While, in and of itself, a subspace anomaly, or even several, were not usually anything particularly special- they were common enough, after all, especially for the Enterprise- the crew had been slightly bored with the uneventfulness of their assignment so far. Even Picard, although he hadn't let anyone know.

They were barely fifteen minutes away when the ensign manning the sensors spoke up.

“Sir, I'm getting additional readings.” The ensign gulped. The look on his face told Picard that he wasn't going to like this new information. “Sir, there appear to be multiple antimatter detonations accompanying the anomalies. I'm also detecting energy weapons fire and a debris trail.”

“Yellow alert. Raise shields and open hailing frequencies.”

“Aye aye sir!”

* * *

It was not, Vice Admiral Lord New Salisbury mused, a good day. He glanced at his left arm, splinted and held to his chest by a pressure sling, and then at the bloodstain that splattered a nearby bulkhead where Sub-lieutenant de Valier had died. No. Not a good day at all. Mentally, he cursed the Germans for their surprise attack. He cursed the incompetence of Admiral of the Fleet Lord Rock Fall, cursed the complacency of most of the crews of 4th Fleet and he cursed the bean counters who had refused to pay for a proper perimeter detection net at Crestwell. The sole reason that they weren't all dead was because the god-damn Huns had blundered into BC-div fifty on it's unscheduled departure vector. The two battlecruisers had died, of course- no battlecruiser ever built could stand up to even a single battleship in a straight fight, let alone more than thirty of them from a position of complete surprise- But the destruction of the two ships, in plain view of Crestwell Station's sensors, had given 4th fleet a brief warning. New Salisbury imagined that a German junior flag officer would be getting an earful for that little gaffe right about now.

The warning hadn't been enough to save the fleet. 4th fleet was far from combat ready, composed as it was mostly of obsolete ships with substandard crews, either too green, too stupid, or just plain bad. It was a dumping ground, a place for the dregs. Unfortunately for New Salisbury, it was also a major fleet base, the purpose of which was ostensibly to guard the frontier with the Reich. Increasing tensions with the Germans had prompted the redeployment of several cruiser squadrons- of which his own 34 Squadron was the most powerful, with four Thermopylae class battlecruisers and twelve Hero class cruisers- to boost the strength of 4th fleets screen, in preparation for the redeployment of several battlesquadrons to the area as a show of strength. Of course, that idiot Rock Fall hadn't used them, preferring to instead give picket duty to his cronies, who could be trusted not to intercept any of his very expensive, very illegal goods shipments, mostly of mysteriously 'lost' military grade hardware.

The same competence which had blacklisted his squadron with the station commander had ensured that it had survived the massacre of most of the rest of 4th fleet. New Salisbury felt no shame in hoping that Rock Fall had died painfully. Their escape had not been painless, however. Ypres had been destroyed in the breakout from Crestwell, and Achilles and Hector had been slowly picked apart in the running battle the squadron had been fighting with pursuing German scout elements for the past four days. New Salisbury was confident that he could destroy his opponents- he had three battlecruisers left, and they only had one after the death of the second yesterday- but he had a nasty suspicion that the squadron hounding him was in contact with heavier forces, and stopping to finish them off might allow those follow up ships to catch him. So, he ran, hoping that he would be able to loose his pursuers, or bleed them to death, so that he could get back to the Empire and bring a more detailed account that a panicked drone message to his superiors.

So far, that didn't seem like it was happening. They were deep in the Charred Worlds now, the planets that all the nations in the Thousand Worlds had banded together to destroy, in order to end the threat that they posed, and end the campaign of horror launched by a single madman. There were no nav beacons here. Nobody was exactly sure of their location any more. His navigation officer, Hannah Anderman, thought that they were in the New Detroit system, but the sensor hash caused by the constant jamming made it almost impossible to get a proper fix on their location. In any case, the long chase would have to end soon. Consumables of all sorts were running low, and Reprieve had suffered a hit to her drive cells. Unwilling to abandon her, New Salisbury had been forced to drop out of supralight. That hit had been freakishly bad luck. His squadron had run our of supralight capable missiles on the second day. The Germans, who habitually carried larger stocks of the long range ordnance, had stretched their supply out longer, but that missile was almost their last. They had used no more in the battle that had trailed across the ruins of the New Detroit system, sticking instead to conventional propulsion missiles and beams.

Fortunately for New Salisbury, the Hero class was beam heavy, giving them far more striking power over their range than a more conventionally armed cruiser, and the German acceptance of close action had played into his hands. His three BC's- well, two now, after the death of Reliant in taking down the last Hun BC- had a more conventional missile armament, with only light beams as backup, but they were still BC's, and therefore the equal of any two normal cruisers. It had been going rather well, and 34 Squadron had all but annihilated their pursuers.

It was at that point that fifteen more German cruisers had dropped out of supralight. The battered 34 Squadron had dove desperately into the German formation in an attempt to close the range enough for it's heavy beam armament to be decisive, but it had payed a heavy price to do so. Reprieve, Guerriere, Lancelot and Mordant and been blasted to atoms, and Odysseus and Theseus had been crippled whilst closing. All but Terror and Charlemagne had been crippled or destroyed in the ensuing battle, but the enemy squadron had broken. Terror and Charlemagne were pursuing the last three German ships towards the planet that had once been the major inhabited world of the system, while the rest of the squadron limped towards a rendezvous over the moon that had once been the local headquarters of the Holy Fleet.

“Sir! Sir! Incoming contacts! Bearing three three two by six eight one. Moving at SL 9.7!”

New Salisbury almost groaned. Another German squadron would finish them. He only had two combat capable ships, and they were on the opposite side of his formation than this new contact, and over three AU's away to boot.

“Identification?” He barked.

“Unknown, sir. Warbook gives a negative match.”

New Salisbury was about to demand an explanation, when the Midshipman that had taken over the comm section from the late de Valier leapt to his feet.

“Unknown communication! Sir, they're broadcasting over multiple Marcus Bands with no encryption or security protocols!”

“Well, somebody wants to make sure we can hear them. Analysis?”

“I... I think it's an FC protocol, sir. I can't think of any other reason that they'd be broadcasting like that.”

“First contact? I have to say, it's bloody inconvenient of them to find us right this minute. Bounce a comm laser off of Theseus. We'll have to use their comm array until we can get ours operational. Standard FC protocol response, if you please, Mr Ollivers.”

“Yes sir.”

* * *

[Enigma]

Interesting. Is this a Wing Commander\ST crossover?

[Falkenhorst]

I sure would like to see more of this, you're off to a good start.

[Psychic_Sandwich]

Interesting. Is this a Wing Commander\ST crossover?

No. The British, Germans et al are my own concoctions.

I sure would like to see more of this, you're off to a good start.

Thanks.

[Psychic_Sandwich]

Skyfall

Disclaimer: See prologue.

Chapter one- In the name of Her Majesty.

* * *

The pinpricks of light on the veiwscreen that had been all that was visible of what was undoubtedly a ferocious combat had died away by the time the Enterprise and her Lunaclass consort had taken up a position that ensured the unknown ships would be able to receive transmissions. The ships were still too far away, even with magnification, to make out anything more than the glint of starlight on metal, but the burning plumes of atmosphere spilling from many of them left no doubt that the battle aboard those vessels was not over. The enemy had just changed in nature, from enemy ships to fire , decompression and, for medical staff wrecked and broken bodies.

“This is Captain Jean Luc Picard, of the United Federation of Planets starship USS Enterprise to unidentified vessels. We are a peaceful survey expedition, and mean you no harm. Do you require assistance?”

The bridge was silent. The officer monitoring communications tapped several commands into his console, the looked at Picard and shook his head.

“This is Captain Jean Luc Picard, of the United Federation of Planets starship Enterprise, to any unidentified vessel. Do you require assistance? Please, respond.”

After a brief pause, there was another head shake.

“Captain, I if I may make a suggestion.” Data's voice was polite as always.

“Go ahead, Data.”

“These ships have obviously been in heavy combat. Ignoring the possibility that they cannot receive communications at this range, it may be the case that combat damage has removed their ability to receive communications from any great distance. I recommend we move closer before attempting to communicate again. It might also be advisable to transmit a list of acceptable frequencies, both subspace and radio, in order to ensure understandable communications.”

“An excellent idea, Data. Helm bring us to two one two by three six nine, quarter impulse.”

Wordlessly, the helmsman complied.

It took barely two minutes for the starship to close the distance enough that the mysterious warships could be studied in detail. Riker was the first to make an observation.

“I don't see any nacelles. Could they be sublight ships?”

“Unlikely. There does not appear to be a viable base for non warp capable ships in this system. In addition, the probability of all traces of nacelles or equivalent structures being destroyed on all of the vessels is low.” Data glanced at a sensor display over the operators shoulder. “Interesting. Although six vessels still appear to be under power, they do not appear to posses either structural integrity fields or navigational deflectors.”

“No structural integrity fields?”

“No sir. They show no sign of gross structural failure, however, with the exception of areas suffering from severe battle damage.”

“Who builds ships without a structural integrity field?”

“Unknown, Commander. It may, however, account for the lack of nacelle equivalents.”

“All stop.” Picards' command brought silence back to the bridge of a short moment. “Open hailing frequencies.”

“Hailing frequencies open, sir.” Picard tugged his tunic into a better fit, then began once more.

“This is Captain Jean Luc Picard of the United Federation of Planets starship Enterprise to unknown vessels. We are a peaceful survey expedition, and mean you no harm. Do you require assistance?” It was, on the face of it, a silly thing to ask when the ships in front of him were clearly suffering from heavy damage, but the Federation had learned long ago that things usually went better if you were polite and helpful to potential threats, rather than blundering into a murky situation like a bull in a china shop, and accidentally making a new enemy. Disappointed by the lack of response, he was about to repeat himself when the Lieutenant at the comm station coughed.

“Sir, I think I'm getting a response. It's not on any of the standard channels, but it's clearly an artificial signal. I'm not sure about quality on that frequency.”

“On-screen.”

“It, uh, it doesn't seem to have a visual component, sir.”

“Very well. Audio only.”

“Aye sir.”

The bridge was silent except for a the crackle of static received emerging from the blank viewscreen. Picard was about to resend his greeting when a voice briefly broke though to mess of white noise.

“....34 squa.....recei....tify....”

Picard frowned. The garbled snippet of speech had been useless at conveying information, but it had certainly sounded like English. Which was odd. The Universal Translator shouldn't have been able to translate such short fragments into any understandable form.

“Can you clean it up?” He asked.

“I'm trying, sir, but our receivers aren't designed for that subspace frequency. I'm getting nothing on radio, either. There's a limit to how much I can boost our reception.”

“Very well. As high as you can, please.” The man's fingers danced across his console.

“That should be better, sir. It still won't be perfect, but it's the best I can do.”

Picard nodded his thanks, and then turned to the front of the bridge once more. By now, that was habit, even when the individual on the other end of the link couldn't see him.

“Greetings in the name of the United Federation of Planets. We did not receive the entirety of your last transmission. Could you please repeat?”

“ This is Admir... Salisbury.....the....Intolerant, commanding 34 squadron.... Navy. We.... receiving your transmis.... Identify....”

Riker leaned towards Picard.

“That sounds like a military designation. We can't talk to him like this. Maybe he can adjust his transmitter?”

“A sound idea, Number One. Intolerant, we are having difficulty receiving you. Can you increase the frequency of your transmission?”

* * *

“Well?” New Salisbury demanded of Ollivers.

“I think they're asking us to switch transmission to a more energetic Marcus Band, sir. If that's the case, then sorry, but no can do. If our comm array was operational, maybe, but Theseus is limited in its' possible transmission spectrum.”

“Well, that's a blow.” He punched a button on the arm of his shock frame with his good hand. “Lieutenant Harrison, give me a status report on our comm array.”

The voice of the Intolerant's chief engineer floated out of the frame's speakers.

“Not good, sir. We took a laser hit right through the main power runs, and it looks like most of the main dish has been crystallised by a nearby AM detonation. I might be able to give you some functionality with a secondary dish once we've restored power, but proper repairs are a yard job.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant.” He cut the connection. “Well, that's that. Ollivers, inform our friends out there that we are unable to comply with their request. Lieutenant Kostanzakis!” The small, blonde woman who headed his tactical section spun to face him from where she was hunched over one of her subordinates repeater displays.

“Sir?”

“Your analysis of those vessels, if you please.”

“They're built for speed, sir. Both of them have exposed drive cells, and they're very lightly built. The larger is only about half the total volume of a Hero, although it's about the same length. They appear to have raised some sort of local jamming field; I've no idea how it's done, but it's just preventing me from getting detailed scans of 'em, so I can't give you any details about potential weapon load out or armour composition. I can tell you that they should be falling apart with that sort of flimsy design, and I don't have the foggiest idea why they aren't. So far, they've demonstrated an accel about twenty percent that of maximum military power.”

“If it comes to it, can we take them?”

“To be honest, sir, I have no idea. That jamming field of theirs can't be much use in combat- I can still tell exactly where they are, and I can still target them- I just can't see details. Makes sense for ships that might wind up in FC situations, I suppose. If you can't tell what they have, you'd be less likely to pick a fight, and it isn't the type of hostile action that full up combat EW is. That hull design can't give them a lot of structural strength, so a few Mark Tens should really mess them up, if the need arises. Well, unless they're built of something we've never heard of.”

“Indeed, indeed.” New Salisbury gazed at the two amber 'unknown' icons on the flag bridge's tactical plot soundlessly for a few seconds, considering his next move. “Susan, in your opinion, are they hostile?”

Susan Kostanzakis blinked at the use of her first name. New Salisbury was usually the epitome of military punctilio. He rarely spoke familiarly to his subordinates even off duty- he called his twenty five year old grandson 'Lieutenant', for God's sake- and use of a forename while on duty was unheard of.

“Uh... no, sir. If I were in their position and wanted to finish what the bloody Krauts started, I wouldn't have dropped sublight. They have to have full magazines, so they could have just blown us away in passing.”

New Salisbury grunted. “Very well. Bring the squadron to Condition 2, and signal Terror and Charlemagne. Tell them to break off pursuit and rendezvous with the squadron at our current position. Mr Ollivers, patch me back through to this Captain Picard.”

* * *

“Negative...... damage to transmitter.... impossible...”

The voice was different this time, Picard noted. Much younger. Presumably a junior officer replying in his Admirals' stead. The meaning of the message was clear, even through the maddening static; sorry, we can't comply, our transmitter was damaged in the battle. Riker summed up the general feeling in response to the news.

“Damn. That's going to make this a lot harder.”

“It will indeed Number One, but they do seem to be willing to talk, at least.” Picard was relieved at the reasonable response the two Federation ships seemed to be getting, especially on what had been a battlefield less than half an hour earlier. Still a battlefield if you counted the apparent chase that was still ongoing near the lifeless second planet of the system. The details of that were indistinct- both sides were blanketing subspace and realspace alike with heavy jamming, to a far greater degree than anyone on the bridge had seen before- but it seemed likely that the victors of the battle were hounding the losers to death.

“Data, what are your impressions of their ships?”

“I believe that they are built with technology somewhat behind our own, sir. In addition to their apparent lack of structural integrity fields, or indeed, shielding of any kind, their major armament appears to be old-style laser cannons. They do, however, have large quantities of antimatter on board, far more than any equivalent sized Federation ship would carry. Presumably, some of that is contained in missile warheads, but I would expect a portion of it to be dedicated to power generation. I suspect that they are built for endurance, sir, effectively fulfilling the role that cruisers performed at the beginning of the twentieth century. In combat, I imagine that they would be at a disadvantage to any modern craft, if they do in fact lack shields, although it is likely that antimatter warheads would pose a danger.”

“Laser cannons” Riker was clearly surprised at the crudity of the technology.

“Yes sir. I detect approximately two classes of weapons; large chemical lasers, mounted exclusively on the smaller vessels, and smaller carbon lasers, mounted on all of them. The larger unit appears to be primarily missile armed. There are approximately two thousand life signs on the large ship, and half that on the smaller craft. Many of them are in critical condition.”

“Enterprise.... accept offer... assistance. Hold your current position. Intolerant will... boat bay ready to.... smallcraft... warned, any hostile moves.... fire upon you...”

“That last bit didn't sound too friendly. Are you sure it's safe to send anyone over?”

“Relax, Will” Troi spoke up from her position in her seat. “I don't feel any hostile intent. I think it's just a warning. If anything, they're scared of us.”

The councillor's statement, combined with his natural desire to help those in trouble, didn't really leave Picard a real choice. He didn't know what had happened to provoke the combat that he had seen concluded here, but it was his duty to aid those who needed help- within the bounds of the Prime Directive, of course. Longer term, it was possible that the Federation could act as a mediator to end whatever conflict was ongoing.

“Data, Counselor Troi, you're with me. Number One, you have command. Could you please have Dr Crusher and Geordie met us in the shuttlebay, along with an appropriate security detail.” His face creased into a smile. “It might be wise to alert them to our intentions first, however.”

* * *

The trip to the ship that they had managed to identify as HMS Intolerant- presumably, the flagship, and predictably, the largest vessel in the unknown squadron- took longer than any of the occupants of the shuttlecraft were accustomed to. Widespread use of transporter technology, along with the short ranges most ships interacted at, either completely eliminated the need to transfer personnel by smallcraft, or meant only short trips. Enterprise and her consort were holding position further away than was standard, however, to avoid possibly upsetting their unknown visitors.

The other alien vessels had been too far away to observe properly, visible only as the origin points of plumes of burning vapour. They had been treated to an extremely good view of Intolerant, however, and Picard had mixed opinions. The designers clearly subscribed to a different philosophy than those of the Federation; the ship was plainly functional, being, essentially, a along, slope sided box, flattened out to give an almost diamond cross section. It was coloured a flat, unreflective grey, a far cry from the gleaming titanium hulls of most Federation ships. The angular lines of the hull were interrupted by mysterious domed structures, crude looking antennae, and a disconcerting number of torpedo tubes and small, rounded turrets, as well as the blackened wreckage of battle damage. Towards the rear of the ship, the hull bulged outwards in what Picard had originally thought was some form of superstructure, but could now recognise as an engine housing of some sort. Exactly what form the engine within took was unknown, but whatever it was, it clearly wasn't an impulse engine.

It wasn't exactly ugly- it had a simple, geometric appeal- but it was a far cry from the graceful, sweeping hulls produced by the Federation, and the lack of any structures resembling nacelles made the vessel extremely odd looking to the Alpha Quadrant officers.

Noticing that the name of the ship, and it's serial number, BC-78, were both printed in English had produced a brief moment of confusion. There was, after all, no conceivable reason that an unknown race would use Roman letters and Arabic numerals. Data had proposed a 'lost colony' theory, but had admitted that there really wasn't enough information available to know the true explanation. It had, however, explained why the universal translator had had no problems with the disjointed snippets of words available- the transmissions had already been in English, and no translation was necessary.

They had been guided to the 'boat bay' by a simple laser guidance system and blinking lights on the hull. The lights were obviously intended for the purpose; they blinked in a constant, repeating pattern that Picard suspected was a standard signal indicating the location of their destination. The view of the hanger through the shuttlecraft windows had been disappointing. It was a large room, about twice the size of the shuttlebay on the Enterprise, and sealed off from the vacuum outside by a large airlock, clearly constructed for craft slightly larger than most shuttles. The interior was as drab as the exterior of the hull. The gleaming floors and walls of Federation ships were replaced by an unflattering grey, only a few shades lighter than the exterior that they had just flown over. There were several people moving about within the space, most dressed in what appeared at first to be simple dark blue jumpsuits, but on closer inspection, turned out to be extremely slim spacesuits. They were labouring frenetically on multiple tasks. It appeared as if the boat bay had been converted into an impromptu damage control centre and, in one section, a makeshift morgue. Dr Crusher gasped at the rows of cloth covered bodies laid out in one corner of the deck, surrounded by broken machinery and damage control equipment. No one on the shuttle was particularly eager to see the ruined bodies under those draped cloths.

A helmeted humanoid wielding two glowing batons guided them to rest in an unoccupied area of the hanger, in between two larger craft whose streamlined profile and air foils indicated they were intended for use in atmosphere. What really caught his attention, however, was the Union Jack mounted on the bulkhead above the entry hatch of the boat bay. It was becoming increasingly clear that this wasn't just another group of aliens, a suspicion confirmed when he exited the shuttle, and was greeted by a short, red-headed, female, and obviously human girl, dressed in the same dark blue spacesuit as the other personnel in the boat bay.

His greeter was obviously shocked to see a human walking down the ramp from the unfamiliar shuttle, but she brought herself back under control admirably, and snapped off a salute. Picard, taken by surprise, returned the salute awkwardly. There was an awkward silence as the two officers looked at each other, but the woman finally appeared to decide that whatever it was she was waiting for probably wasn't going to happen.

“Ah, welcome aboard, sir. I'm Sub-lieutenant McKenzie.” She pronounced the rank 'Sub-leftenant'. “The Admiral's complements, he's waiting for you in the mess. If you'll follow me, I'll escort you there. I apologise for the lack of a proper side party, but all our marines are engaged in more pressing matters at the moment. I'm also afraid that you escort won't be able to take their weapons into the same room as the Admiral. They'll have to wait outside.”

* * *

The mess turned out to be a large room with a canteen running along one wall. Tables were stacked on top of one another in one half of the room, creating an open space in the other, filled only with a single, much smaller, table. There were a number of humans in the room, and all were dressed in the universal dark blue suit.

“I don't care if you think you can catch them before they go to supralight, captain.” The voice belonged to a man on the older side of middle age. His dark hair was streaked with white, and he sported a bushy, greying moustache, currently bristling with anger. He was holding a set of headphones to one ear, and shouting down an attached boom microphone. “Break off your pursuit and rendezvous with the rest of the squadron over St Christopher now, or by God, I'll have you in front of an Admiralty board so fast your head will spin! That's an order, Captain!”

Their guide coughed politely, then braced to attention as the man directed his attention towards the newcomers.

“Ah, Captain Picards' representatives. Thank you Mr McKenzie, dismissed.” The redhead held her position for several seconds, then turned and departed. The man, presumably 'Admiral New Salisbury', indicated the chairs positioned at the round table.

“Please be seated, gentlemen, ma'am. I'm Admiral New Salisbury. Allow me to introduce Commodore Nakamura, my chief of staff.” He indicated the tall asian man standing next to him, loaded down with folders of hardopy, and continued. “And Mr Ollivers, the acting head of my communications section.” Ollivers was a thin, wiry looking youth with grey eyes and black hair.

Picard extended his hand to New Salisbury, who looked at it in confusion for a moment, before grasping it firmly and shaking. “I'm Captain Picard. This is my Operations Officer, Lieutenant Commander Data,” New Salisbury stared hard at Data, as if trying to determine what exactly he was. “The head of my engineering department, Lieutenant Commander La Forge, Enterprise's chief medical officer, Dr Crusher, and Counselor Troi.”

“Welcome to the Intolerant, Captain. Now, if you don't mind my asking, what in God's name are you doing out here in the Charred Worlds? This is not a safe area of space, certainly not suitable for merchantmen.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me. You're obviously not aliens, and with ships like those, you aren't military either. That leaves merchants, and I would be interested in knowing what brings a pair of merchant ships all the way out here.”

“I can assure you, Admiral, that we are not merchants. We are a Starfleet survey expedition, charting this area of space for the Federation.”

“Do you think me a fool, Captain? There is no organisation named 'Starfleet', and the only Federation I can think of is the Kanto Federation. Forgive me, Captain, but neither you nor your ships are Kantoan. I'll ask again; what are you doing out here?”

“I was not lying, Admiral. We are a survey expedition out of Starbase 67. I have no idea what the 'Kanto Federation' is, but Starfleet is the military and exploratory arm of the United Federation of Planets.”

“And what, pray tell, is the United Federation of Planets?”

“The Federation is the foremost power in the Alpha Quadrant, an organisation of over 150 member worlds who have banded together for mutual protection. This area is on the edge of the Federation, roughly seven thousand light years away from Earth...”

“That is enough, Captain! I do not appreciate being given the run around! Every schoolchild learns about the start of the Fifteen Year War, and the Burning of Earth. Now, I will ask one more time, and I would like the truth, please!”

“Admiral, I guarantee you, I am being truthful. Mr Data has prepared an information package that will confirm my statements. We have a possible explanation as to how there is more than one planet named Earth- we know of at least two, one of which is the Federation capital.”

“Is that so?” New Salisbury didn't sound convinced. “Well, show us this information package, then. You had better be convincing.”

“Mr Data, if you please?”

“Of course, sir....”

* * *

AN: Thanks to my beta reader, tryglaw.

[Enigma]

MORE! please? And I mean now.

[Psychic_Sandwich]

You'll have to wait a bit. I had this chapter mostly planned out by the time I finished the prologue, but I'm much less further along on Chapter 2. I've got uni work to finish first, but fortunately, the Easter holiday starts on Saturday.

[Enigma]

You'll have to wait a bit. I had this chapter mostly planned out by the time I finished the prologue, but I'm much less further along on Chapter 2. I've got uni work to finish first, but fortunately, the Easter holiday starts on Saturday.

Way too long. Screw uni, work on the fic.

[fusion]

Come on more, more, more, it is great, nothing is important besides your fic.!!

[Singular Quartet]

School is occasionally more important. Given how much writitng I do in class, though, that's something else.

So yeah, writing is more important than everything.

[dragon]

Off to a very good start keep up the good work.

[DrMckay]

Whoo. very nice start. really pulled me in.


looking forward to more, good luck with uni stuff

[Psychic_Sandwich]

*Hooks thread up to a lightning conductor, and zaps it with the storm outside.*

It's alive, alive! Mad they called me, mad! I, who have discovered the secret to eternal life!

Or maybe not. This is actually an old chapter; I only realised after I sent the next chapter to my pre-reader that I'd forgotten to post this here, and now I'm really embarrassed.

Anyway, enjoy, and know that the next chapter is, for all intents and purposes, done.



Skyfall

Chapter 2

Disclaimer: See Prologue


Sir Richard Chapman, Admiral of the Fleet, First Sea Lord, military head of the Royal Navy, and indeed, the highest ranking officer in the British military, looked out of the transplas window of the conference room at the Johnson River and sighed. From here, life in Kings Landing looked almost unchanged; the river was still crowed with shipping, ranging in size from small tourist ferries capable of holding only a few dozen people to large river barges, most almost a hundred meters in length.

There were differences, however. Whereas the barges and other cargo ships- small, compared to the massive ocean-going container ships- normally carried inert goods, mail for the garrison on Henry's Island, or cars prepared to disembark at one of the terminals further downriver, now they were crowded with men and women in the scarlet dress uniform of Princess Helen's Fusiliers. Instead of mail and expensive antiques, food or clothes, their storage holds were filled with rail guns, all-threat missile launchers, combat exoskeletons and unpowered battle armour, all earmarked for unloading at the Henry's Island military spaceport.

More red jacketed soldiers waited at the piers on the far bank, filing onto the barges moored there, waving and smiling to the flag waving civilians on the other side of the temporary railings erected by the police. Distantly, he could hear a band playing 'It's a Long Way to Tipperary'. Further down river, Wellington tanks, Salamander IFVs and Victoria command units, fresh from the Royal Ordinance storage depots at the western edge of the city, rolled into the holds of larger vehicle transports, under the watchful eye of soldiers in exoskeletons.

With a sigh, he removed his white peaked cap, turning and placing it gently on the polished surface of the wooden table that dominated the room, before lowering himself gratefully into a chair. Despite his apparent good health, despite the stories that were still told about 'Brass Balls' Chapman, he was an old man, almost 96 years, and standing out in the full glare of the summer sun for hours in a thick, heavy full dress uniform, while watching thousands of young men and women march past on their way to what, for many of them, would be their death, probably on an icy, frozen world not fit for human life, whose only use was as a fuelling station for long range patrols, was uncomfortable and tiring.

Of course, he hadn't had time to change into something more comfortable before this meeting, either, not even to remove his damn uncomfortable parade shoes. At least he had something to drink, although he wished it was something stronger than the simple glass of water standing next to his cap.

“I want to know what's being done, Admiral! According to this,” the large, black haired man at the head of the table slapped the folder on the table in front of him. “According to this, you are diverting no additional battlesquadrons to the theatre, only light units. Why? We need to win this war as quickly as possible, show all the Systems that it is unwise to pick a fight with us! Moreover, we need to reassure the public that everything is under control.”

Chapman sighed and took a sip of his water.

“Because, Mr Ragel, we don't need any additional heavy units.. We have more and bigger battleships, which means that in any stand up fight, we have the advantage. As Admiral Howser demonstrated perfectly well at Hanna's World.”

“If we're so superior, Admiral, why was 4th Fleet destroyed so easily at Crestwell?” Ragel opened his folder and leafed through it. “It says here that less than ten percent of Fourth Fleet survived Mauser's attack. Ten percent, Admiral. Of those one- one- was a battleship, and only three were battlecruisers. As I understand it, only one of those vessels will be returned to duty, and the others will be scrapped. In what way is that indicative of crushing local superiority, Admiral? Because from here, and from where the public is sitting, it looks like a disaster.”

“I don't disagree that Crestwell was bad, Mr Ragel. It's the single greatest loss of British naval power since the Battle of Grendel's Star. However, Fourth Fleet was in no way ready for combat. They had no perimeter detection net, their ships were old, they had only minimal supplies on board, and most of the crews in that fleet failed their last Combat Readiness Evaluation.

“It's my opinion, and the opinion of the rest of the General Staff, that a significant number of these problems, most damningly the lack of a sensor perimeter, can be laid directly at the feet of the late Lord Rock Fall, and...”

“Now wait just a damn minute!” The angry shout came from the foot of the table. Chapman turned to regard the short, rather pudgy blond haired man who had slammed his palms onto the tabletop with a resounding smack.

“I won't have you pinning the blame for all this on Tommy! If he was that bad, why didn't you relieve him? Besides, three weeks isn't enough time to run a proper investigation.”

“My Lord, I assure you, your brother is not being used as a scapegoat. Pulling an example out of thin air, the late Lord Rock Fall denied permission to Lord New Salisbury of 34 Squadron to set up a limited perimeter sensor network in his squadrons area of operations, and ordered him to place his sensats in storage on Crestwell FSB. Three days later, seventeen million pounds were deposited in his personal account, a sum roughly equal to the current value of twenty Mk Five sensats on the illegal arms market. You will be interested to know that customs has apprehended a group of unscrupulous individuals attempting to sell sensats with serial numbers matching those assigned to 34 Squadron to the Germans.”

The current Lord Rock Fall, younger brother of the man that had commanded Fourth Fleet during the surprise German attack gaped at Chapman, mouth hanging open, before shaking himself and glaring at the Admiral.

“Preposterous. Tommy would never...”

“Get your head out of your Goddamned arse you little punk! Your brother was a crook, and maybe a traitor as well; the investigation into that is still ongoing. The only reason he had command of Fourth Fleet was because I couldn't dismiss him while you had control of the purse strings, and I needed somewhere to send the greasy little bastard where he couldn't do much damage!”

“How dare you! I... I... I'll have your commission! I'll...”

There was a polite cough from the head of the table.

“That's quite enough, gentlemen. Let us at least attempt to remain civil.” Helen Van Guthrie, Prime Minister to Her Majesty Queen Anne IV leaned forwards and placed her elbows firmly on the table. “This is not the time or place to deal with this. Now, Admiral, why are you diverting only minimal heavy units to reinforce Second Fleet?”

“As I said, Ma'am, they don't need heavy units. As far as we can tell, we've got an edge over them by three battlesquadrons, and our BBs are bigger and nastier than theirs as well. Furthermore, they've had to split their fleet; Admiral Perks is still holding New Havana, and considering the size of the New Havana SDF, well, Fritz isn't getting in there any time soon. Mauser's got Jaeger covering Perks with three squadrons. That brings our advantage over their main fleet to six squadrons. Seventy two battleships, gentlemen. That's a decisive advantage, especially with Bill Howser in command, and we've pinned down the locations of all but one of their heavy squadrons. They're nowhere near the theatre, and none of them show any signs of preparing for movement.

“On the other hand, they outnumber our cruisers almost three to one, and the situation is even worse with respect to battlecruisers. We can manage a screen for Second Fleet, and an escort for vital convoys, but nothing more than that, not without stripping Howser of his screen, which I'm not willing to do.

“Without those ships, we can't secure our supply lines, we can't engage in long range scouting, we can't disrupt Mauser's supply convoys and we can't secure systems to the flanks of our advance. The numbers speak for themselves; we've lost almost nine million tons of shipping so far, most of which was carrying replacement personnel, medical supplies, consumables, protective clothing and less important spare parts. The only shipments I can guarantee protection to are munitions and critical parts. That's it. It would be foolish to advance with such a tenuous supply chain, hence the diversion of light units. Think about that, three million tons in three weeks. Those are not favourable numbers.”

“And if your intelligence on German ship locations is wrong? That's hardly inconceivable, you know. God knows, they managed to slip an entire fleet past you.” Ragel, glared at Chapman. “I do hope you plan to investigate that intelligence failure as... thoroughly... as you plan to investigate Rock Fall's supposed shortcomings.”

“The investigation is already underway, Mr Ragel.”

There was a polite cough from the head of the table. “If I am to understand you correctly, Admiral Chapman, you say that there is no indication of a German follow up attack anywhere? Not to support their current active units, or to open a new front?” Van Guthrie's voice was, as always, calm, polite and well controlled.

“Ah, yes ma'am. It's almost as if they didn't know Mauser was going to move. There are German squadrons and fleets coming to increased readiness states all along the frontier, but it's not pre-planned. The timing for each unit is about right for the time it would take a drone to make it from Wardenhowe to Potsdam, and then a drone to reach each formation from Potsdam.”

“And they are not going to attack?”

“No. They're taking on supplies, mostly ordnance, but there's been no sign of them assembling the type of fleet trains needed to move formations of the necessary size.”

“Well, then I will have to insist that you consider Mr Ragel's request that heavy units be diverted. Not only will it have an excellent effect on public perception, but it will, when we drive the Germans back, provide the sort of overwhelming force we need to win decisively. Perhaps enough to renegotiate the border in some of the disputed areas. At the very least, we may be able to force a German withdrawal from the Necklace.”

“Ma'am, I...”

“That's an official request, Admiral.”

“Ah, yea, ma'am. I'll arrange for the Tenth and Fifteenth Battlesquadrons to be dispatched. That will certainly provide 'reassurance' to the public.” The Tenth and Fifteenth were the two most powerful permanent formations in the Thousand Systems.

“Excellent. Now, Admiral, let's get on with this briefing.”

“Of course,” Chapman pressed on of the buttons on the armrest of his chair, and the display screen at the far end of the room leapt to life. “The principle formation we have in theatre is Second Fleet under Admiral Howser. Second Fleet has fifteen battlesquadrons assigned, seventeen including the Tenth and Fifteenth, giving it a battleship complement of one hundred and eighty vessels, or two hundred and four with the new additions. Of those, twenty are King William class, five are...”

* * * *

“Geordie, what's your opinion on their technology?”

The command crew of the Enterprise was gathered in the conference room. They'd been in this star system, called 'New Detroit' by their British counterparts, for the better part of a week, assisting with the repairs to the group of ships known as 34 Squadron. While the Federation frowned on directly assisting parties involved in a war, or even providing indirect assistance, it was also expected that Starfleet vessels would render assistance to damaged ships in need of aid, irrespective of their origins.

Moreover, Picard wasn't about to leave the British squadron to it's fate without offering whatever aid he could. Doing so would have been a perfect example of a what not to do in a first contact situation. Leaving damaged ships to die in a dead system far from home would give nothing but a bad impression. Apart from that, leaving people to die in the coldness of space just wasn't done.

“It's very strange, sir,” Geordie moved to the wall terminal at one end of the room, bringing up an image of one of the odd, boxy British ships. “Data was right when he said they didn't have any structural integrity fields and shields. None of the work parties we've sent over have seen anything resembling a forcefield, despite extensive decompression in large parts of those ships. They've had to do a lot of work in suits.”

He manipulated a control, and large sections of the schematic on the display turned red.

“We've not been able to get into many 'secured' areas. They don't want us looking at their drives and weapons systems, which isn't all that surprising. We have managed to get a look at the supralight drive- that's their name for a warp core- and a couple of generators on Odysseus, one of the cruisers. They managed to get a bad plasma leak from the feed to their nacelle equivalents, their drive cells. Ensign Bard and his team contained it with some portable force fields and eventually sealed the breach, and they managed to get some reading of Odysseus's engineering spaces.

“First, I can tell you that they don't make extensive use of plasma conduits; they use superconducting cables everywhere except their drive system. Data thinks that's because they don't have structural integrity fields. They need everything to be much more durable than we do, and of all the advantages plasma conduits offer, extensive durability isn't one of them. We offset that with structural integrity fields. They don't have that option.”

“How is that strange?” Riker asked. “They're not the first people the Federation's encountered that have managed warp dive, but not yet developed other advanced technology. Why is it strange for them to be a couple of hundred years behind us?”

Data spoke up. “It is strange because that does not appear to be the case commander. Analysis of debris retrieved from the damaged ships by work crews indicates a highly advanced materials science base, considerably beyond that of the Federation. Indeed, we have identified several samples of what appear to be molecular scale circuitry, something has been hypothesised, but never successfully implemented. They appear to have a technology base as advanced as our own, apart from a complete lack of anything beyond the most basic energy field technology, which appears to be reserved for use in antimatter reactors. Presumably, there is a reason that it's application is so limited, possibly due to size or reliability issues.”

“Data's right,” Geordie said, after the android had finished speaking. “I couldn't take separate samples from some of the material we recovered, it was so tough, and that same stuff almost fried one side of the test chamber with microwaves when I exposed it to high levels of electromagnetic radiation in a scan. God knows what they use it for.

“Some of the oddities are just a different design philosophy, of course. We have a warp core that acts as an antimatter reactor as well. That's an efficient combination, and minimises the space and mass used for both systems. As far as I can tell, they keep their reactors and warp core separate from each other. That makes good sense for something designed as a pure warship, especially with no shields, whereas we gave efficiency concerns priority over optimisation for combat. Their reactors don't seem to be as good as ours- the lack of proper containment fields limits them a lot- so they've got multiple reactors on each ship.”

“Yes, I can see how it might be inconvenient to have two vital systems in the same place if you're worried about them being blown up. I take it that they have the capability to pose a threat to us?” As far as Picard could tell, the alternate humans didn't seem overly hostile, but they had five ships compared to his two. Even if three of them were damaged, that still represented a significant edge in numbers, and it wasn't impossible that things would go sour, no matter how unlikely that looked at this point.

“Oh, yes sir. Now that I've got readings on one of their reactors, I can tell you right now that, with the amount of antimatter they've got on board, they have to have some pretty hefty torpedoes. There's no way they need that much just for power generation, and has far as I can tell, they've been fighting a running battle for a while, so they have to have expended a fair slice of their torpedoes. I figure they actually have us beat on pure yield, but I couldn't say anything about any other capabilities, not without a opportunity to examine. So, if they hit us, they can hurt us. Their energy weapons are nothing to write home about, though. Data said it earlier; nothing but lasers. They won't be a problem four our shields, although they are impressive examples of high energy laser technology.”

“So, we have a bunch of non-Federation humans with an extensive tech base, a nation of unknown size, and the capability to, at the very least, make a nuisance of themselves?” Riker didn't sound particularly happy about the prospect. Picard couldn't blame him. There was always the risk, of course, that a newly encountered race would prove fractious or difficult to interact with; such was unavoidable considering the wide variety of alien psychologies that existed within the Alpha Quadrant and beyond, and was part of the reason the the Prime Directive was so important for Starfleet. Immature races given access to advanced technology, it was thought, would be far more likely to make themselves into a problem, assuming that they didn't do their civilisation fatal damage before they had the chance to establish themselves as a proper space faring civilisation.

The Federation accepted that possibility with magnanimity. It was always a risk, but hopefully they could be guided onto a more peaceable path, under the firm guidance of the Federation. When all was said and done, they were still a 'new' race, and such behaviour was, if not acceptable to the galaxy at large, at least half expected.

These newcomers were humans, however, which presented a problem. Humans were inextricably linked with the Federation in the perceptions of hundreds of races. The capital of the interstellar giant was on the human homeworld, humans made up a disproportionate percentage of it's military and government, and many of it's most well known figures, including the heroic Kirk, were humans. Unavoidably, any action taken by humans reflected on the Federation. For humans educated and raised in the Federation, this was no great worry. Appropriate ideals and mores had been drilled into Federation humans since birth. They could, usually, be counted on to act in a responsible manner.

These new humans, however, were a different matter entirely. Obviously, the only sample the Enterprise had was of military personnel, so very little about the society at large could be reliably concluded, but the fact that they felt the need to build dedicated warships was worrying, as was the fact that they were operated by crews that were undeniably military personnel. Starfleet had adopted military rank structures, but at it's core, it was a exploration force, not a dedicated military, and it showed in the attitude of it's personnel. A humanity that had not given up war to the greatest extent possible, not even amongst themselves- human bodies discovered in the wreckage of the vessels destroyed by 34 Squadron- would not reflect well on the Federation, and that upset Riker.

It was mildly upsetting to Picard as well, but that was not what concerned him the most. He was a student of history. The best way to avoid the mistakes of the past was, after all, to know about them. In all the history he'd read, all the events he'd relived on the holodeck, no race he'd come across demonstrated the gift of humans for slaughter. Klingons were more outwardly violent, and revelled in conflict more than any human, but they stuck to their honour code. Humans used every dirty trick they could come up with. Cardassians and Romulans were masters of deception and obfuscation. Neither could match the ferocity of a humanity roused to anger. Ferengi were experts in wringing maximum value from every last scrap of latinum to sustain a conflict and protect their interests, but could not match the willingness of humans to stress or even break their economy and nation if it meant victory. Quite apart from that, he'd never found any race willing to engage in the slaughter of the trenches, or inflict on themselves the horrors of the Eastern Front. Nobody matched humanities ability to kill senselessly. Even the Dominion, in the grand scheme of things, never descended to the level of the Nazis or the Eugenics Wars.

With the Federation, they were spared that unpleasant aspect of humanity. They'd learned their lesson, and strived mightily to keep the darker side of humanity tightly leashed. With these newcomers, there was no such guarantee, and the prospect of unleashing that dark genie upon an unsuspecting Alpha Quadrant was... unpleasant, to say the least.

“An accurate summary, commander,” Data replied to Riker's comment. “It is unlikely, however, that they will attempt to cause trouble outside their own area of influence while they are occupied with their own internal conflicts.”

“That's not much of a comfort, Data. All wars end eventually.” Riker frowned at the ship floating in the display screen.

“Relax, Will,” Troi leaned backwards, crossing her legs and placing her hands on one knee. “I don't sense any hostility towards us. They're angry, yes, but only towards their enemy. We're safe from them at the moment, and Admiral New Salisbury seems to be a reasonable man. I'm sure we'll be able to maintain a cordial relationship.”

“Indeed, counsellor. We can't form a judgement of them without more extensive contact, Number One. Basing our assessment of them solely on a single, isolated military unit recovering from what was obviously a hard fought battle is unfair to them, and won't give us any accurate information.” Picard swivelled his chair towards Beverly Crusher, seated near the foot of the table. “Doctor, what's your opinion of our British friends?”

“They're as human as you or I, captain. Most of them are in good health, apart from wounds sustained in combat. All the people I've helped to treat had all of their teeth, normal blood pressure and cholesterol levels and good eyesight. They do show signs of genetic tampering to a significant degree at some point in the past, several generations at least, but there's little evidence of anything significant in the recent past, beyond corrective therapy for genetic diseases. That tampering had to have been fairly widespread; they all show some signs of it. It's nowhere near the extent of modification found prior to the Eugenics Wars. If I had to guess, I'd say it was an attempt to tailor colonists for new planets; most of the modifications give improved tolerance for different oxygen concentrations and pressures, a greater tolerance for high or low gravity, that sort of thing. I can't find any evidence that they've set out to create 'superhumans'.”

That was worrying, but not unduly so. Certainly, if they'd been inclined to go down the route that Picard's humanity had gone, there wouldn't have only been relatively small, limited modifications at points a long time in the past; they would have been much more extensive, and would likely have continued closer to the present, especially in the military, where enhanced strength, reaction times, endurance and toughness would be undeniable boons. No doubt some of the modifications would have some of those effects; somebody modified for a heavy gravity world, for instance, would probably be significantly stronger than an unmodified human raised on Earth. It was not likely to endear the British Empire to the Federation Council or the Federation public, however.

“What about the bodies recovered from the other ships?”

“It's pretty much the same situation. Healthy except for the obvious effects of combat wounds, genetic engineering in the past, but nothing recently. One or two were still alive, but the British have insisted they be turned over as prisoners of war. I've been checking on their treatment; they're getting the same as the British wounded. That's not quite as good as we can provide, but it's not bad either. And they're certainly set up to provide that treatment for more people than us; their sickbay takes up a quarter of a deck on Intolerant.”

“Well, that's reassuring. You see, Number One? We're not dealing with barbarians,” Picard smiled at his first officer.

* * *

Captain Marie Alston leant back in her shock frame, and watched the icons of her convoy on the bridge tactical display. Twelve of them represented freighters, and only three were proper warships; HMS Swiftsure, her own command, a Fifteen Year War vintage Union class cruiser, and two equally old Olympic class destroyers. Not, she reflected, an awe inspiring display of military might.

Unfortunately, it was the most the Admiralty could provide her with. Has she been escorting a vital cargo, rather than spare uniforms, replacement buttons and dehydrated emergency ration bars, undoubtedly she would have had a proper escort group under her command. It just wasn’t worth it to try to shake loose enough light units to properly cover this convoy, however. Not with the war going the way it was.

Still, it was, technically, a squadron command. An ad hoc, temporary squadron, granted, but a squadron nonetheless. That meant that she was officially considered to be ‘on the List’, and could expect a promotion to Commodore within the next year or two. Faster, probably; the Navy had already had to resort to promoting people early to fill dead men’s shoes, starting with Admiral Lord Rock Fall, and all of the officers of 4th Fleet. A few- very few- ships had made it out of that screw up, bringing word of the defeat to the rest of the Empire, only to be caught and destroyed as the Germans followed up on their crushing initial victory, driving all the way to Maxwell’s Star, before running into Second Fleet and stopping dead. The loss of an entire mainline fleet had left the Navy with a shortage of units in theatre, especially lighter vessels. Fortunately, the Germans seemed to have underestimated how successful their assault would be, and were almost as overextended as the Royal Navy.

In any case, convoys moving towards frontline systems with vital supplies had priority for what available cover there was. Those transporting goods to rear area supply dumps, or with noncritical goods, got whatever odds and ends were available, or often, nothing at all. The situation was far from ideal. Hundreds of merchant ships had been attacked and destroyed, especially in orbit around the local trade hubs of Lorn and Basil, and even now, despite the ruthless and speedy implementation of convoys, through the simple but disruptive measure of, upon receiving the order to organize convoys, denying merchant ships permission to leave a system until sufficient ships to form a convoy were available, had not noticeably stemmed the hemorrhaging of shipping. The only thing that would stop that was heavy escort for all convoys, and that was beyond the realm of possibility at the moment.

“Ma’am, I think you might want to take a look at this.”

“What is it, Charles?”

Charles Marston, the Sub-lieutenant currently on watch at the plotting station was frowning at his display

“Looks like an ion trail, ma’am. But, well, it doesn’t seem to have a ship associated with it.”

Alston sat up, back ramrod straight.

“No ship?”

“No ma’am. I’ve got no bloody idea where it’s come from, excuse my French. It comes and goes. Midshipman Geary is the one who spotted it first.”

The plotting station was a tight fit with Alston, Marston and the two Midshipmen squeezed into it. More modern ships could route the display to repeaters mounted on the Captain’s shock frame, but Swiftsure was not, by any measure, modern.

“There! It just popped up again, ma’am. It’s not a computer glitch; I’ve run a diagnostic three times already. There could be a problem with the arrays, I suppose, but it’s too regular, too predictable, and hardware diagnostics report no problems, either. I’d expect it to be much more erratic if an array had suffered micrometeorite damage, say. It always shows up in either of three positions. I’ve checked with CIC, and they’re getting the same readings. They don’t know what it is either.”

“Three positions?” Alston gave him a sharp glance. “Those stay the same relative to each other?”

“Uh, yes, ma’am.”

“Put them on your screen”

Three icons blinked into existence on the man’s flat screen, forming a perfect triangle. Alston did not like what she saw. It was obviously a formation, and being held by mysterious, apparently shipless, ion trails. Whatever it was, that formation had to be military, but Alston had no idea who would be crazy enough to hold station so close together when there were ships with distortion bombs around.

“Have you ever seen more than one of them at once?”

“No ma’am. As I said, they come and go. I haven’t tried an active scan yet. With your permission, I’d like to send one of the tin cans to get a closer look. They were designed as picket ships, and they’ve had their sensor suites upgraded, unlike us. They’d probably get a much better reading.”

“Agreed. Comm!” She called. “Message to Parliament. Shape your course one six seven by eight one three. Investigate anomalous sensor contacts, then return to formation.”

“Message sent, ma’am. Parliament signals her receipt.”

On the tactical display, one of the icons representing a destroyer swung out of formation, bearing down on the general location of the confusing contacts.

* * *

“It would appear they have seen us. A pity. I was hoping to track them to their destination.”

“It was not unanticipated, sir. We have been shadowing them for five days now. They were bound to get lucky, sooner or later.”

“True, true. As I said, a pity. Signal to all ships; kill them. Leave no survivors.”

* * *

Alston’s eyes widened as five clear contacts suddenly materialised on the sensor display.

‘That’s two more than I thought.’ She had time to think, before the unknown contacts opened fire. Swiftsure shuddered violently, and the tactical display flickered wildly, dissolving into a hash of static before stabilizing once more, revealing that Parliament was nothing more than a drifting clout of debris. The thunderous sound of weapon impacts was clearly audible where enemy fire impacted the hull of the cruiser.

“Weapons free!” She yelled over the sudden wailing of the General Quarters claxon, and babble of combat chatter that had engulfed the bridge. “Target enemy squadron! Signal the merchies to scatter!” The fragile merchant ships had only one defense against those impossible energy weapons; running. “Helm, evasive maneuvers, pattern charlie three five! Get us out of their range!” The unknown ships fired again, wiping her second destroyer, London, from the universe.

“I have good locks on the target, ma’am!” yelled Jonathan Hernandez, her tactical officer.

“Fire! Launch all birds!”

Hernandez’s console beeped, accepting the fire order. The deck shuddered softly under Alston’s feet as powerful mass drivers flung their lethal cargo clear of the cruiser. Dropping into her shock frame, Alston saw the tiny emerald shards of friendly missiles blossoming on the main display.

“Tubes one through five, clear. Seven, clear. Six, ten and eleven, clear. All starboard tubes clear, ma’am.”

There hadn’t been time to properly clear for action. The autoloading systems had fed the waiting missile tubes with antimatter charged payloads of death as soon as Hernandez had hit the stud to bring his weapons online, but the mass drivers that hurled from their tubes hadn’t had time to reach full charge. Had Swiftsure been a more modern vessel, this wouldn’t have mattered; the top end mass drivers in service on front line ships took seconds to reach full charge. The antiquated examples on Swiftsure, nearly fifty years old, took nearly three minutes, and as well maintained as they were, their age reduced their performance. Worse, some had degraded further than others, leaving many at different charge levels when they fired. The result was, instead of a single salvo, effectively three separate launches, with the last missiles of the broadside leaving it’s tube almost a second and a half after the first.

Alston’s shock frame locked into place with a loud click as the last missile launched. It was not a moment too soon; the mysterious attackers fired again, torrents of energy pouring from their bows towards the wildly dodging British ship. Unlike her smaller consorts, however, she had had time to react. Most of the fire missed the vessel, sparing her the fate of her less powerful brethren, but what did strike was not interdicted by shields. It shook the crew, chewed through armour not up to modern standards, and wrecked components.

On the bridge, the displays flickered wildly again as the ship lurched violently under the hits, banging the officers within about and inflicting minor bruises.

“Time to reload?” Alston snapped.

“Ten seconds, ma’am,” gasped Hernandez in reply. A large bruise was already forming on the side of his head. “Our birds are entering final attack now.”

Eleven missiles, each bearing a ninety megaton antimatter warhead, screamed down on the closest attacker. Belatedly, the ship spewed a torrent of energy fire at the closing weapons; one of them, the leader of the leading group, exploded in a ball of actinic flame, but the others darted out of the ship’s field of fire. Jerking through a preprogrammed, high G turn, the ten remaining missiles lunged into their terminal attack maneuvers.

And smashed into the invisible barrier of the vessel’s shields. The first four missiles burst into eye-searing fireballs on the shield, sending rivulets of flickering energy darting over the surface of the completely unexpected defense. The sixth vanished into the explosion a fraction of a second later, adding to the star-bright cataclysm clawing at the energy barrier. With a flash, the shield failed, just as the last trio of missiles passed through the detonation. One, the trailing missile, detonated in the hellish conditions, but the last two survivors plowed through the fire and plasma, smashing into the hull of the ship and venting their fury on one of the ships that dared to harm their cruiser sized mother.

Hull plating vanished, instantly vapourised as a star’s heart blossomed in contact with the unidentified vessel. The explosion chewed its way down through the decks of the ambushing ship, searing metal and flesh into plasma, until it found something vital. Silently, and with a flash that would have blinded anyone viewing with the naked eye, the ship vanished in a tremendous ball of flames.

There were whoops and cheers on the bridge of Swiftsure as one of their enemy vanished, but those were quickly silenced. The attackers fired again, bracketing the cruiser, leaving her no place to dodge. The impacts were thunderous. The frantic, pained jerks of the ship threw people across compartments, and snapped the bones of those in shock frames. Marston started screaming when a shard of the armoured plating surrounding the bridge blew loose, rocketing across the compartment, removing both his legs at the knee and bisecting one of his midshipmen, before burying itself in a work station.

The shower of sparks erupting from the console began smoldering on Marston’s uniform; not even a vac suit, for there had been no time to don the protective garments before action. Automatic suppression systems whined to life, spraying foam over the burning station and officer, and filling the hair with a haze of foul smelling propellant.

“Sensor two, three and four are down, ma’am! Missile two through ten are gone!”

“Roll ship!” Alston gasped. She was pretty sure her right arm was broken, and blood was running into her eye from the deep slice on her forehead where it had intersected one of the struts of her shock frame. Even then, she was better off than those without the support; throughout the ship, officers and enlisted crew had been hurled into walls, causing more than one death, and littering access ways with unconscious bodies that hadn’t had time to get to their stations. “Fire all tubes as they bear! Comm! Launch the ready drone, now! Command needs to know about this!” Nobody in the comm section answered her. “Comm!” she tried again. With supreme effort, she turned her head to check the station. It was a hell of blood and shredded flesh. The shards of armour that had wounded Marston and killed one of his assistants had passed though the comms section first, like the reaping machine of a vengeful god. No one had answered because no one was left alive.

“Tube twelve, clear. Tubes thirteen and fifteen, clear. Tubes sixteen through twenty two, clear. Tube fourteen, clear. Port tubes are clear, ma’am.”

“Hernandez, the drone!” Alston grunted, clawing at the release of her frame. “The ready drone! Launch it, quickly!”

His eyes darting to the abattoir that once was Swiftsure’s comm station, Hernandez slapped the release on his shock frame, and leapt for the vacant controls. Midway through his leap, the unknown enemy fired again, and the thunder came at last for Marie Alston and her surviving bridge crew.

* * *

“How unfortunate. Their commander was… surprisingly quick.”

“Two of my ships have just been destroyed, and that’s all you can say! ‘How unfortunate’?!”

“What else would you have me do? It is not, sadly, within my ability to bring the dead back to life.”

“Might I remind you that you assured us these people would be easy prey. You might find your support drying up if they can put up too much of a fight. Somebody will notice if too many ships just disappear.”

“Perhaps, perhaps. But that’s not a decision for you to make, now is it? In any case, our remaining ships are undamaged, and this is the only target that’s given us any trouble. We will continue the mission.”

“Very well. You will take responsibility for our failure after this point. I am letting it be known that I recommend we return to base for reinforcement.”

“Oh, you worry too much. God is on our side, after all.”

***

Thanks to Tryglaw for his services as a beta reader.

[Edward Yee]

Bravo, bravo for your writing. I'm loving your take on the Federation as well as how you're handling their (particularly Picard's thoughts) reactions to a first contact situation with humans.

[Psychic_Sandwich]

Bravo, bravo for your writing. I'm loving your take on the Federation as well as how you're handling their (particularly Picard's thoughts) reactions to a first contact situation with humans.

Well, thank'ee kindly sir.

Now, as promised, another finished chapter. Only took me most of a year.


Skyfall

Chapter 3

Disclaimer: See Prologue


New Detroit was dying. The surface of the planet was pockmarked with blackened craters left by the detonations of antimatter missiles, as if it had contracted some sort of disfiguring disease. Clouds that had been a pristine white were brown and dirty with the radioactive dust kicked up by the bombardment of the orbiting fleet. Broken ships and orbital forts hung around the doomed world like a funeral shroud.

The battle was almost over now. The defenders had nothing left in space. Most of the planetary defence centres had been reduced to melted craters, and the fire directed at the orbiting hostile ships from the surface had become sporadic and ineffective. On the surface, the remaining missile crews with orbit capable weapons frantically hunted for targets, determined to take as many of those who had come to kill their world into death with them as they could. There would be no invasion, no chance to surrender. There hadn’t been for six years, not since the garrisons of Swabia, Brigadoon and Basil and used atmospheric ignition devices as giant suicide bombs, taking almost 7 million invading soldiers and over five billion civilians with them as they burned. Not since the discovery of the extermination and ‘re-education’ camps on the occupied worlds of the American Union by the liberating troops, or the burning of the worlds of the New India sector by an increasingly desperate 2nd Grand Fleet at the beginning of the Long Retreat.

The only thing that would be granted to the inhabitants of the planet was death.

From the bridge of the battleship HMS St. Elmo , the desperation, fire and dirt were not visible. The planet was represented on the main tactical display only as a wire frame model, with important targets and objectives marked. Most of those objectives glowed red, a sign that they had been neutralised by the rest of the fleet. As the bridge crew watched, two more markers, the last two PDCs in the southern hemisphere, blinked from green to red.

The lieutenant monitoring communications from the improvised equipment jury rigged at the plotting station pressed his headphones closer to his ears “Sir, message from Illustrious. Admiral Halifax reports that the planet is open. We’re clear to begin sledgehammer.”

“Very well,” Captain Chapman leaned back in his shock frame. “Helm, ahead one half. Bring us to the release point and then hold our position. Mr Epsley?”

Sub-Lieutenant Harold Epsley looked up from his position at the tactical station, very careful not paying attention to the dried blood and fragments of burnt flesh that had once belonged to his superior, Lieutenant Tomlinson. The former head of the tactical section was now occupying one of the hundreds of body bags stacked bulkhead to bulkhead on the medical deck.

“Yes sir?” he asked.

“What’s the status of our payload?”

“Tube eighteen is still down, sir, and we’ve had to down check three birds; they were in magazine four when we took that Grey Eye missile. I can give you twenty nine missiles; sledgehammer needs fifteen.”

“Very well,” Chapman’s face tightened with suppressed anger. “Helm, time to the release point?”

“Five minutes and seventeen seconds, sir.”

“Excellent. Comm, inform Admiral Halifax that we’re moving to perform sledgehammer.”

Epsley watched the digital counter in his display tick down towards zero. Time seemed to crawl as the St. Elmo crept towards the point at which it would release its deadly cargo. There was no sound on the bridge except the creaking of shock frames or vac suits, or the beeping of instrument panels. Nobody wanted to look at the clock that measured the remaining lifespan of a world populated by five billion people. Nobody except Chapman, who stared at the clock the entire time, jaw clenched. He had, Epsley recalled, lost family when Tylon died; a sister, a nephew and a three month old niece, and he hated the New Romans passionately.

That was likely the reason he’d been chosen to command St. Elmo on this mission. He wouldn’t waver, wouldn’t turn away for moral reasons, and he would make sure his crew wouldn’t either. He would make sure that New Detroit would die at the appointed hour.

“Sir, we’ve reached the launch point,” the Midshipman at the helm reported, so quietly he was almost whispering.

“All stop,” Chapman barked. “Guns; confirm target.”

“I have a good solution, sir; there is no enemy interference. Tubes one through fifteen are ready to launch.”

“Very well,” Chapman’s jaw worked twice, as if he was chewing an invisible meal. “Mr Epsley, you may fire when ready.”

“Yes sir.” Epsley stared at his console; the button authorising the missile launch was lit. He could feel Chapman’s eyes boring into his back.

“Is there a problem, Mr Epsley?”

“Ah, no sir. No problem.”

“Good. In that case, you will launch your missiles now. If you do not comply with that order, I will have you removed from your post and placed in the brig, to await court martial and execution for dereliction of duty in a war zone upon our return. I don't care who your father is, you will, by God, do your duty!”

Epsley looked at his console, then at Chapman. The icy glare the man was levelling at him left no doubt that he would make good on the threat. Gulping, he turned back to his board, and pressed the button flat.

Fifteen missiles erupted from the side of St. Elmo. Unlike standard missiles, these were large, cumbersome weapons, with relatively small drive sections; most of their length was warhead. They were so large that they could not be fired from standard launchers. St Elmo had had her weaponry gutted, replaced with oversized magazines and launchers for the specialised missiles. Her broadside had been halved, going from thirty to fifteen tubes, her energy armaments had been completely removed, and her point defences crippled by the removal of most of her countermissile magazines and the launch bays for EW drones.

They crept through space at a fraction of the speed of standard missiles, slower, even, than the largest battleships, and lacing the ECM or evasion capabilities designed to slip conventional ordinance through enemy point defence fire. Had there been any intact PDCs on the planet, the fat, slow missiles would have been swatted with contemptuous ease. But the RN and the rest of the Alliance had learned from the failures that had marred the early sections of their counter offensive; the preliminary bombardment had removed the capability of the defenders to destroy the weapons to be used for their execution.

As each device reached a predetermined point around the planet, it stopped. A message flashed between all the warheads, confirming they were in position, and then they disappeared with a flash of light, leaving behind a wave of blue-white fire. Soundlessly, the fire spread. When it hit the atmosphere, there planet was blanketed with the sound of roaring air as the envelope of gas surrounding the world was torn away and scattered, not just through nearby space, but through all the alternate spaces that fuelled the destructive power of the weapons. Women and children gasped desperately for air as their blood began to boil in the sudden vacuum, but their death by asphyxiation was prevented by the impact of the M-space shockwave. Buildings, people, rocks and seas were reduced to clouds of sub atomic particles and hurled throughout M-space by the glittering wave of death.

When the apocalypse finally ended, New Detroit was a lifeless shell. Everything less than a kilometre down in the crust had been removed; the remains of seas were in the process of boiling off, forming a thin, useless film of water vapour to replace the atmosphere, and the ugly grey-brown of the exposed rock was marred here and there with tiny red lines; the disruption had triggered earthquakes and eruption from hundreds of volcanoes. Life would never prosper there again.

Epsley felt sick just looking at it.

* * *

“I must thank you for agreeing to come, Admiral, especially on such short notice. Please, have a seat.” Picard indicated the chair immediately to the right of his seat at the head of the conference table in the Enterprise's observation lounge.

Harold Epsley, third Lord New Salisbury, looked out of the windows that took up most of one bulkhead at a sight that he had been avoiding as much as possible during his unwanted stay in the system, and felt as sick as he had sixty years before. The vulcanism caused by the use of the huge distortion bombs had not stopped. Maybe it never would, he didn't know. The massive quantities of gas and dust spewed out by the volcanoes had started to give New Detroit an atmosphere once more, but it was a far cry from the clean oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere the world had once possessed.

“Admiral? Is there a problem?”

New Salisbury realised that he had stopped just inside the door, blocking access to the room for hose behind him.

“Ah, no. My apologies, just some... bad memories I've been trying to avoid.”

Quickly, he moved to take the indicated seat, allowing the officers of the Enterprise and the sub-Lieutenant he had brought along as an aide- the same sub-Lieutenant that had welcomed Picard and his away team aboard the Intolerant- to enter the room. The two marines that formed his security contingent waited outside, watched closely by a quartet of starfleet security personnel. The two soldiers, clad in dark body armour and with faces obscured behind sealed helmets, made for a jarring contrast with the Starfleet guards.

For that matter, the whole ship was an uncomfortable mix of military and luxury. The long, gently curving corridors, pastel colours and attractive décor reminded him more of a cruise ship than a ship of war. Who put so many windows on ships that might see combat? British ships possessed viewing ports only in non critical areas, designed specifically to act as recreation points. The same was true of every power in with a serious Navy. He had been even more shocked (appalled might have been a better word) when it was explained to him that the 'windows' were in fact closed by force fields, not solid material, and suddenly wished he'd worn a vac suit, not the more formal uniform he was actually wearing. The whole vessel was clearly designed with a strong consideration of aesthetics, something that military designers in the Systems placed right at the bottom of their list of priorities, if they listed it at all.

Once everyone had taken their seats, Picard began the introductions.

“Welcome aboard the Enterprise, Admiral. This is Commander Riker, my first officer, and Lieutenant Commander Worf, my chief of security and tactical officer.” When they made no move to salute, New Salisbury extended a hand to each. His eyes drifted to the bony ridges that decorated Worf's head, but he snapped his eyes back to the aliens face before anyone noticed. Sub-Lieutenant McKenzie wasn't so lucky. She had been staring at the obviously alien Worf since he had met them in the corridor outside the observation lounge. The alien gave her a ferocious glare, and she jumped, jerking her eyes away from him and flushing a brilliant red.

“You already know Lieutenant Commander Data, Lieutenant Commander LaForge, Doctor Crusher and Councilor Troi.” New Salisbury gave each officer a nod of greeting.

“Thank you, Captain. I'm happy to be here. You already know sub-Lieutenant McKenzie, I believe. I have a good idea what this is going to be about. Really, it should have been done earlier, but regrettably I've been rather preoccupied with my squadron's woes. You have my apologies.”

“There's no need for apologies, Admiral. We are here on a mission of exploration, after all. It costs us nothing to wait to speak to the first life we've so far encountered in this area of space.”

New Salisbury gave no indication that the statement affected him, but McKenzie paled and looked away from the table.

“You've been exploring extensively, then?” New Salisbury asked. Picard nodded. “Well, I suppose you wouldn't find much out here. We call the area the Charred Worlds for a reason. I do suggest, however, that you withdraw whatever other ships you have on survey missions. There's enough danger out here at the best of times from pirates and other renegades. On top of that, you're stumbling into a war zone. It would be a shame if one of your vessels was mistaken for an enemy unit and destroyed.”

“Yes, we'll take that under advisement. As to this meeting, the Federation is always seeking peaceful diplomatic contact with other cultures; as I explained aboard Intolerant, you're not the only other human polities we've encountered, although you are the only one who has obtained warp travel,” Picard explained. “As a Federation starship, the crew of the Enterprise are trained extensively in first contact situations, so we can speak for the Federation without the need for specialist contact teams, at least in broad terms. We wish to extend the hand of friendship to you, and any other races and people you have contact with.”

New Salisbury leaned back in his chair, nodding slowly. “Unfortunately, captain, I cannot speak for the Empire on this matter,” he held up a hand to forestall any protests. “I would, of course, be delighted to do just that, but procedure, alas, prevents it, so I am limited in what I can offer.”

Riker frowned at the British officer. “That's... unfortunate. What are you allowed to do, if you don't mind my asking?”

“Not at all, Commander. Most of the restrictions are simple security measures. Giving an unknown civilisation access to nav charts or other information that could be damaging should it fall into the hands of a nefarious group would be rather foolish, I think you will agree. The others are I'm afraid, of a political nature.” He chuckled quietly to himself. “Rest assured that, if I could, I would summon a battle squadron and a dozen diplomatic teams from the nearest fleet base. That isn't possible for a number of reasons, not all of which have to do with legal restrictions. As it is, contact with you is technically a matter for the Alliance, not any individual nation.”

The Starfleet officers around the table frowned. Clearly, the situation they had stumbled into was complex. Whatever happened, they would be able to take a general report about the contact back to the Federation. Additional information, even a formal invitation to initiate diplomatic talks by the new civilisation, was encouraged, however, but it was emphasised that local protocol should be followed wherever possible.

“Where can we find this 'Alliance', then? We don't wish to break any of your laws if we can help it.” Picard asked, brow still creased in a frown.

New Salisbury grinned widely. “There's no need to worry, Captain. You won't get into diplomatic hot water for stumbling across us first. The Alliance is just that; an Alliance between the nations of the Thousand Systems. One of the situations that falls under it's purview is contact with civilisations from outside the Systems.” New Salisbury carefully didn't mention that the specific provisions for that situation involved instant activation of the mutual defence and mobilisation clauses of the Treaty of Franklin, the central document that defined the Alliance, just in case the contact turned out to be hostile.

“All that means is that you'll have to wait for a Alliance diplomatic team to be assembled before 'official' contact. Until that point, I'm limited in what I can do, as I said. I have a number of options open to me. The first is that you go back to wherever you came from, I request a contact team, and we arrange a point where they can rendezvous with you in the to open diplomatic contact. The second is that I escort you to the nearest habitable planet, and summon a contact team from there. In that situation, you would have to agree not to attempt to leave the system without our consent. The third option is we send a contact team to one of your planets or stations, which would of course require you to provide us with navigational information.”

“Do you have a preference?”

“Frankly, I would prefer to escort you to one of our worlds. We can keep an eye on you that way, make sure you aren't getting yourselves into trouble.”

It was obvious, Picard thought, that New Salisbury was not, in any sense, a diplomat. His last statement had more or less said outright that he trusted the Federation about as far as he could throw the Enterprise. Riker didn't look happy about it, and truth be told, Picard wasn't either. However, New Salisbury was clearly a military man, and Picard was willing to ignore a certain degree of bluntness that a professional diplomat might not display. He spread his hands, and smiled disarmingly.

“I assure you, we have no malicious intentions. I can understand, given that you are apparently at war, that you might not want unknown ships wandering around. I will, of course, have to report to my superiors first, and give them our location.”

New Salisbury nodded his assent, and mumbled something inaudible to his aide. McKenzie nodded and blacked the briefcase she had been carrying on the table before the Admiral. Deftly, he punched a code into the keypad on the top of the case, and waited for it to click open. Reaching inside, he extracted a manilla folder.

“This is the information you will need to reach the closest system, Kellerman, should we be unable to accompany you for some reason. It contains coordinates, safe approach vectors, and any relevant codes and frequencies you might need for access through automated defences. You should know that those codes are only applicable to Kellerman.” He didn't mention that there sere two full battle squadrons stationed at nearby Felix to guard one end of the New Havana wormhole. “That's more than two weeks travel at my squadron's current maximum supralight speed, although I daresay you could make better time. It would probably benefit you to arrive with a British military unit, however, especially one that escaped...”

He cut off the sentence abruptly, and Picard raised an eyebrow. Obviously, the events that led to the conflict in this system were something that New Salisbury didn't want them to know about. That could be for any number of reasons, but since it appeared that 34 Squadron had been running from their opponents, Picard suspected that it involved a military setback of some sort. There was little to be gained from pressing him on the issue, however, so Picard accepted the folder that New Salisbury offered him, and set it carefully on the table.

“Excellent. Now that we've dealt with the immediate issue, well, we've all got questions, as I'm sure you have as well. If you don't have any objections...?” He let the question tail off.

“No, no, I don't mind answering what I can, but I won't be able to provide all the answers, you understand. Feel free to interrupt me if you have any questions. We are currently in an area known as the Charred Worlds. You have only to look out of the window to see why. They are technically...”

“If I may, Admiral?” Data asked. “As you already know, we have been extensively surveying these 'Charred Worlds'. Many of them have planets within the liquid water zone, yet none of them possess any habitable planets. Statistically, we would have expected to find several M class worlds within the volume of space covered by Enterprise and [/I]Chickasaw[/I] alone. However, neither we, nor any of the other ships involved in this survey effort have found any. This is unlikely to be a natural phenomenon; do you know what caused this?”

New Salisbury leaned back in his chair, eyes suddenly distant, hands clasped tightly in his lap.

“There was a war,” he said, finally. “A big war. It got out of control pretty quickly. They glassed Earth, took over a lot of systems. It ended up with, well, that.” He waved a hand at the dead world outside the window. “They stated glassing planets rather than invading, so we retaliated. It didn't end well for them. We call it the Fifteen Year War.”

The Federation officers had gone pale. It wasn't a secret that Starfleet could order the surface of planets destroyed, should the need arise. However, General Order 24 had never been used, and as far as anyone knew, hadn't been considered even in the darkest days of the Dominion War. That these humans had destroyed so many inhabited worlds was almost unconscionable.

“Wasn't that a bit... extreme?” Riker asked New Salisbury.

“No.” This time, the answer came instantly. “Not when they hid AIDs, sorry, atmospheric ignition devices, on planets that were about to be liberated, and set them off once we'd destroyed all their ground forces. Basil had a population of two billion. No, it was us or them, and none of us felt like rolling over and dying.”

Troi, in an effort to divert the meeting away from the rather macabre topic it had wandered onto, cleared her throat.

“I noticed that the crew on Intolerant all seemed to be human. Don't you allow non-humans to serve on your ships?”

“Actually, Counsellor, the aliens on your ship are the first sentient life we've come into contact with.” New Salisbury looked distinctly more comfortable on this new topic. “I take it the Federation has many non-human members?”

“Yes, although Humans are the founders of the Federation, and hold a great deal of the political power. Every world has the right to govern itself, as long is it contributes towards the upkeep of Federation infrastructure and Starfleet. All citizens have the same rights, regardless of species, and are free to reside on whatever planet they want within the limitations of biology at least.”

“Presumably, some of these non-humans choose not to join the Federation, to strike out on their own?”

“Of course. The Federation is in contact with multiple non-human states. Many of them are much older than the Federation. Not all of them are benevolent, which was part of the reason the Federation was formed in the first place.”

New Salisbury took a sip of the water thoughtfully provided by his hosts. It looked like this meeting was going to take a while.

* * *

Hauptmann Helena Deregowski grunted as the drop pod blasted free of the launch tube aboard SMS Frankfurt, throwing her hard against the straps keeping her in her seat. The two other occupants of the pod, Marcus Knopf the Obergefreiter responsible for carrying the specialist communications and sensor equipment needed to effectively control her company and keep her in contact with the starships orbiting overhead, and Felix Naumann, a Gefreiter in her first platoon, did likewise as the acceleration gripped them.

Within seconds, the shriek of air passing around the outside of their plummeting pod was audible through the thick armoured casing as the pod entered Kellerman's atmosphere, and the internal temperature rose perceptibly. The three fallschirmjagers inside carefully ignored this, with the studied nonchalance of those who have gone through the same thing many times before, and are unwilling to show their nervousness.

With an ear-splitting bang, the pod decelerated sharply, before slamming into the ground hard enough to rattle the teeth of the occupants. Slamming her fist down onto the release catch for her harness, Helena activated the explosive bolts that blasted the sealed exit of the pod open, and dove out, taking cover behind what was left of the nearest wall and scuttling as far away from the landing site as she could, closely followed by her two subordinates. Despite the disorientation caused by the landing, the process had taken no more than three seconds. Exiting the pod as quickly as possible was drilled into all drop troops, even in completely uncontested landings, and for good reason. Moments after the trio had taken position behind their shelter, the pod exploded violently as the round from a heavy railgun, trailing a blue-white line of ionised air behind it, slammed into the heavy landing device. Red hot shrapnel sliced through the air, smashing the windows of nearby buildings and pattering off of the wall the three Germans had thrown themselves flat behind. Inches from Helena's head, a chunk of metal larger than a dinner plate erupted from the grey rockcrete of their cover and buried itself in the ground, showering her full face helmet with dirt, pinging and ticking as it cooled down.

The sound of other pods descending was clearly audible across the town they had dropped into, a shrill whistle followed by a 'crump', like old fashioned artillery shells. More worrying were the actinic flashes of the defence weapons that should not have been there, and the flaming wreckage that many of her pods were reduced to before they reached the ground. Cautiously, Helena approached the smashed end of the wall and peered around the corner. The drop pod had landed in the middle of a crossroads near the edge of town. The side the three German soldiers sheltered on was waste land, obviously being prepared for new development. On the other side was a wide road, edged by three story rockcrete buildings. Their unattractive grey colour indicated they were new construction, not yet old enough to have owners that would paint them with something more appealing. The wall ran parallel to the road for fifty yards, where it ended at another intersection.

Another drop pod, blazing merrily, slammed into the building directly across the road from her, casing the structure to slowly collapse outwards and showering her with broken chucks of rockcrete. It was blatantly obvious that things were not going at all to plan; the fallschirmjagers were supposed to be dropping onto a lightly defended target in order to set up a secure landing zone for transport shuttles to start ferrying heavier units down from orbit. Looking at the fire arcing up into the sky, it seemed instead that they'd dropped into the heart of and extensive air defence network, hidden from optical observation by camouflage techniques as old as the concept of orbital surveillance, and from more advanced sensors by the heavy and unexpected jamming coming from the surface.

“Shit!” she cursed to herself. “Knopf, contact Frankfurt, and get me Oberst Weiss. They've got the DZ covered in ground to air railguns, and he needs to know!” Still cursing, she switched to the short range comm included in her exoskeleton. “All units, this is One! The DZ is heavily defended with triple A. I repeat, the DZ is hot. Watch out for enemy ground troops, and rendezvous at rally point charlie. Repeat, rally point char-shit!”

Her ES's computer beeped a warning at her and she hurled herself flat. Above her, the wall seemed to disintegrate into tiny fragments and a cloud of dust. Knopf had thrown himself backwards, well clear of the torrent of fire from the other side of the wall, but Naumann wasn't fast enough. Despite their appearance, ESs were not power armour. The intimidating, full body suits added significant height bulk and weight to anybody who wore one, but most of the mass and space was taken up not by armour, but by artificial muscle fibres, a pair of high density nuclear batteries (these alone accounted for over half the weight of most ESs) and the extensive stealth systems and sensor suites needed to make a soldier competitive on modern battlefields. Only vital locations were covered by any sort of real protection, and while the artificial muscles and the polymer skin that covered the rest of the body were tough, they were only really capable of mitigating the effects of shrapnel, and not up to intercepting direct weapons fire. The outer skin itself was present mostly to prevent internal components from exposure to hostile elements and too keep the ES sealed against chemical, biological and radioactive agents, as well as to provide a surface over which to apply chameleon-like active optical camouflage.

Naumann collapsed under the hail of fire. The armour over his chest saved his life, causing the trio of rounds that hit it to shatter on impact, but the rest of his lightly protected body was vulnerable. Grabbing the handholds mounted on the back of his ES's shoulders, Helena dragged him out of the path of the stream of hypervelocity death, feet scrabbling for purchase as she tried to keep as low to the ground as possible. Naumann screamed and writhed, legs flopping about uselessly as she hauled him to a safer position, leaving a wide trail of blood behind the wounded man.

The fire from the other side of the wall dropped off, then finally stopped altogether. Helena could hear the weapons on the other side of their cover firing still, and concluded that they had shifted to another target. Her computer helpfully supplied the probable location and type of the weapons; a pair of squad support weapons in the buildings across the road on the other side of the wall Helena and her subordinates hid behind. She had more immediate concerns, however, since they were not currently under fire.

Knopf was already moving towards Naumann, a field dressing in his hand. Grabbing another from Naumann's medical kit, she turned him onto hid side to get at the railgun round's exit wound while Knopf dealt with the entry wound on his belly. The artificial muscles in Naumann's ES had already stiffened, clamping down on the wounds to provide constant pressure. Even so, blood leaked from the mess that had been Naumann's back. Helena could see the exposed bone of Naumann's spine through the hole the railgun had torn in Naumann's ES, and could clearly identify the shards of bone that had once been part of a vertebrae embedded in the bloody tissue. Slapping the dressing over the wound, she waited until the adhesive surface had bound firmly to Naumann, before letting releasing it and extracting a vial of the strong painkiller used by the military from Naumann's aid kit. It fit snugly into the receptacle provided in the left shoulder of the ES, and Naumann's pained cries quickly eased into confused mumblings.

“Fuck! Knopf, we're moving. Where's my channel to Weiss?”

“We're being jammed, sir! I can't get through.”

Each grabbing Naumann by one shoulder, the two unwounded Germans moved off along the wall. Fifty yards away, Helena could see the target of the SSW's fire; another group of featureless grey buildings with windows that were slowly being widened as their edges were eroded away by British fire. Someone inside, taking advantage of a momentary lull in the fire, tossed a grenade out of a window. Instant;y, the fire stopped completely, as the British gunners, alerted to the danger by the targeting emissions from the grenade, scrambled to escape from the danger area. The grenade spun in the air as it fell, orienting itself, then a tiny rocket motor ignited, sending the small explosive hurling down the street towards the SSWs suppressing the drop troops sheltering in the building. There was an explosion on the other side of the wall, and the trio of German soldiers were pelted with another brief rain of shrapnel.

“What do you mean, we're being jammed?”

“Just that, sir. I can't get through. All I can get is static.”

“Fuck. Keep trying.” Almost as soon as he started transmitting, Helena dived to the ground one more at the prompting of her ES, letting go of Naumann in the process. Above her, eruptions of dust from the wall marked the passage of railgun rounds through the tough construction material. She let out a yell of pain as one of the rounds passed through her right calf before slamming into the ground, trailing a spray of blood. Biting off a scream, she held still until the fire slackened.

“Fuck! Knopf, you still there?” There as no answer. “Hey, Knopf, are you still...”

“Yes, sir, I'm okay.”

“Good. Don't bother trying to comm anyone at the moment; it's giving away our position. God knows how these TA amateurs got their hands on a system that can penetrate our stealth like that. Is Naumann okay?”

Deftly, she removed a dressing from one of her many pouches, tore the packaging and extracted the bandage within, a khaki square of cloth infused with antiseptics and painkillers. Gritting her teeth as her ES squeezed down on the wound, she applied the bandage, waiting for the adhesive surface to bond.

“He's not any worse off, sir.”

Grunting an acknowledgement, Helena staggered to her feet, leaning against the wall as much as possible to keep her weight off the wounded leg. Grabbing Naumann once more the two solders made their way to the far end of the wall. Helena extended a thin, low sensor profile filament from one glove, slowly sliding it around the corner, and panning the tiny camera on the other end across the street on the other side. The inside of her helmet lit up with an image of the street from the camera's view; a crater marred the road roughly halfway along the length of the wall the were sheltering behind. In the buildings beside it, a pair of SSWs spat a stream of high velocity death towards the Germans sheltering in the buildings across the street from her, their gunners evidently having survived the grenade and taken up new positions. A flick of her thumb, and both SSW teams were set as targets. Unclipping a pair of grenades from her webbing, she activated them and waited for the double beep indicating that the weapons had accepted her targeting data.

In one motion, she rolled the grenades around the end of the wall and threw herself backwards before the gunners had a chance to react to her exposing herself, letting out a muffled scream as the action stressed her injured limb. Two rocket motors ignited with a whoosh, and a pair of explosions hurled broken fragments of rockcrete over the wall. The firing keeping the soldiers in the houses pinned stopped, and a quick check indicated that the SSWs had been destroyed.

“Church,” a voice called cautiously from inside the houses.

“Bells,” Helena responded. Apparently satisfied that she wasn't British, a helmeted head cautiously showed itself above a ruined windowsill. “Oh thank God. I thought those fucking Tommies had us for sure. It's safe now lads!” He yelled to the other people who were presumably in his drop pod with him.

Helena limped across the street, supported by Knopf who was dragging Naumann behind them. The trio were greeted by a pair of railguns pointing at their heads, but the weapons were quickly lowered as soon as the soldiers recognised Helena's insignia.

“Sorry sir. Can't be too careful.” On of the soldiers slung his railgun and moved to help Knopf with Naumann, manhandling the now unconscious soldier further into the house building.

“That's fine, soldier. Who's in charge here?”

“Leutnant von Pinn sir.”

“Where?”

“Up there, sir. Second on the right.”

As it turned out, the passengers of more than one drop pod had already reached the house. There was more than a section of troops crouched down behind the meagre cover offered by the windows. Von Pinn leapt to his feet as she entered the room.

“Report, Leutnant.”

“I have fourteen men here, sir. We have one SSW, and no casualties so far. We can't raise anyone on the comm, long range or ES, though. More importantly, sir, we killed a couple of Tommies taking these buildings, and, well, you need to see this, sir.”

“See what, Leutnant?” Helena asked as von Pinn lead her to the dark form of a British soldier that had been dumped in the corner.

“This, sir,” von Pinn replied, indicating the unit flash stencilled onto the shoulder of the man's ES.

The man was not a member of the Territorial Army, as the op plan had assumed the garrison would be. Helena stared at the crest of the Royal Marines and swore profusely.

[Edward Yee]

Whoops, looks like these Germans have bit off at least a little more than they could chew... I'm liking how this is shaping up. Could we get any more internal perspectives from the other senior Enterprise officers, such as looking at this more from Troi, Riker, Crusher, or even Worf's perspectives? And is this the Galaxy-class or Sovereign-class?

Only nitpick is "[/I]Chickasaw[/I]," but that's formatting and thus at your discretion.

[KlavoHunter]

I wonder who these "they" are that the Brits and everyone had to genocide out of existence in the Fifteen Year War? Clearly they were some faction of humans, and we can rule out the ones that still appear to exist.

They weren't the Brits.
They weren't the Germans.
They weren't the Americans.

I dunno... suppose I could guess and say that it was some Islamic government.



It's clearly the Sovereign class Enterprise, as Picard mentions the Dominion War as having happened, and the E-D was destroyed well before then.


*AND* we have Romulans preying on the Brits!

[Singular Quartet]

They said the Romans, didn't they? Then maybe the Italians? The Soviets?

Also, God isn't on the side of the Romulans. The Americans, maybe.

[KlavoHunter]

They said the Romans, didn't they? Then maybe the Italians? The Soviets?

Also, God isn't on the side of the Romulans. The Americans, maybe.

New Romans? Dear me, I missed that!


The whole "God is on our side" thing for the appears-to-be-Romulans is very odd, though. It certainly seems to be Romulans, though. Cloaking devices, shields, green energy weapons...