When the Stars Sing(Completed And Cleaned Up)

[U.P. Cinnabar]

When the Stars Sing

“When the stars sing, all of the people must act as one to rid the eternal circle of the unclean ones. ”

—Qa Edilaff Qunami, from Qa Qunama qa Qunamo Intekjayno, English translation, circa Y-95,421 (-93,021 Gregorian)

4 NOVEMBER, 2717 11:30:31 ZULU

“What did you guys find?” Doctor Joanne Leavitt, skipper of the Imperial Reserach Vessel Tyson asked the two astrophysics graduate assistants manning the spectrograph in the 1,900,000-ton Fenyman-class research and exploration starship's top dome, now engaged in a close-up study of Eta Carinae's first planet.

“Oh,” Joanne said, when the spectrum revealed a huge mass of refined dyspropsium, and cryogenic lithium,“ oh, shit. Sienna, let’s see what the radio and radar telescopes say about that thing.”

Shit indeed.

“It's putting out a lot of radio-frequency and other EM noise,” Sienna Kyle whispered, confirming the ice at the pit of the veteran Federated Nations Survey Service captain's stomach.“ Mass of object is a quarter of a gigaton, eight decimal one kiloklicks in diameter, though the interior five thousand kilometers of that is hollow, judging by the spectrograph readings.”

“Oh, Lord!” the young astrophysics graduate assistant then interjected.”Skipper, based on the RF and other electromagnetic spectrum information, that sodding thing's generating precisely 1,031.4 yottawatts.”

Same amount of power as the object discovered underneath the Java Sea, Joanna thought to herself, heart threatening to batter itself free of her ribcage.

The object that had triggered the Merge over five hundred years ago.

“Helm, get us the hell out of here!” she screamed into the wireless throat microphone of the artificial intelligence implant at the base of her brain. “Do it n—“

just before everything got blown to hell.

4 NOVEMBER, Y317 11:33:00 ZULU

“Quantum torpedos, full spread!” Fleet Captain Oscar Jean-Paul Picard barked out the instant the 3.5-megaton Sovereign-class X-technology battle cruiser USS Enterprise closed with the enemy combatant trying to flee from the loving judgment and final punishment it merited for the sin of moral depravity and non-optimal inferiority to His True Humanity and His United Federation of Planets.

“Quantum torpedos locked on, firing!” Enterprise's Klingon weapons officer, Lieutenant Commander Kargh Kumerian, exulted, as volleys of white-hot Type-R plasma torpedos from the XBC's twelve quantum torpedo launchers locked onto the doomed Scalper so-called research vessel's primitive rocket drive, and hammered the enemy combatant to a burned-out hulk.

From which various escape pods and other small craft issued, as Picard's ops manager, Lieutenant Commander A.J. Parsons, reported:

“Captain, before we destroyed the enemy combatant, it succeeded in sending out a distress call; reinforcements are bound to—“

“Captain!” Kumerian then reported.” Sensors detecting a Class Three vessel closing with us at high tactical warp, 225 mark 358, 100 million kilometers distant.”

It is one of their...” the Klingon snorted his contempt,”cruisers...armed with eight of their primitive railguns...”

“Their railguns can't even penetrate our navigational deflectors,” Enterprise's executive officer, Commander Johnathon Ryker arrogantly assured his captain.

“Surely,” Picard remarked,”they must know th—“

before the bridge sparked, exploded, and sent men burning and screaming to their deaths.


4 NOVEMBER, 2717 11:34:31 ZULU

True to her namesake, the Her Majesty's Starship Nemesis screamed down upon the Fed XBC, ripping into it with her four twin-mount 24cm railgun turrets mounted on either side of her vaguely blade-shaped forward(or weapons)hull.

The three and a half-megaton monster's saucer-and-flatbed hullform sent a pair of Mark IV phased-array, free-electron laser pulses and eight streams of heavy magneto-hydrodynamic explosive munition plasma torps scorching toward where the 250,000-ton Mons Calpan Imperial Starmarine Archangel Micheal-class combat cruiser had been, before her helmswoman, Commander Hope Hubris Ross, executed a hard jink and burn, and another after that, so as to give Nemesis' weapons engineering officer(Wee-O), Senior Lieutenant Jaclyn MacChargue another clear shot at the hostile behemoth.

“Skipper,” Chief Petty Officer Solange Dupreil, the ship's avionics and defensive countermeasures operator reported,”hostile is detaching his parasites, and attempting to disengage.”

“Drones,” Senior Captain Kara Langford, Nemesis' skipper and OC, 464 CruRon, instructed her drone operator,”release the hounds; a couple dozen or so on those frigs.”

“Birds away, Skipper,” Master Warrant Officer Elizabeth Drescher calmly replied.”all birds running straight and true for enemy frigs.”

“Hard jink and burn, Number One,” Kara ordered, as a buzzing in her plant warned her of q-torps bearing down on her ship again.” Fifteen millisecs emergency, then downshift to high tac. Wee-O, fire when our guns bear.”

“Fifteen millisecs emergency, aye,” was Hope's steady answer, as Nemesis' Daedalus singularity motor kicked her in the ass for fifteen milliseconds to provide, with the aid of the Bergen translight displacement field generator at the head of the ship's mast, a brief boost to 56.4 terakips, as the combat starship's singularity maneuvering thrusters juked the ship hard along a random vector which barely avoided the plasma torps the 400 2.5mm rail machine guns(poppers)of Nemesis' point-defense array weren't able to shoot down.

The axe and flattened bell hullform of the Mons Calpan Imperial combat cruiser then downshifted to almost 219 megaklicks, and poured four dozen one-ton, 240mm hyperdense tungsten projectiles into the Federation Starfleet warship, even as his parasite frigates tried jinking past two dozen of Nemesis' Interceptor IX relativistic-kill drones(each massing 1.7 tons), and win their way to a clear shot at Nemesis.




4 NOVEMBER, Y317 11:35:16 ZULU

“Starboard nacelle venting plasma,” Lieutenant Micheal Kim's voice reported, as USS Oliver North staggered from another hit which caused the Flynn-class X-tech frigate's bridge to explode and briefly go dark.

“Where the hell are our shields?!” Lieutenant Commander Ian Grey demanded.

“And, why the fuck aren't you evading, Mister Collins?!” Grey then interrogated the North's helmman, Ensign Julian Collins.

“I'm tryin' to,” Collins half-growled in frustration,”but these damned drones of theirs—“

“Always quick with the excuses, aren't you?” Grey spat in reply, as one of the aforementioned “damned drones” fired its one-ton warshot into the North at near-light speed, while a dozen others dogged the 50,000-ton frigate's every change in vector.

“Numbers 1, 2 and 6 shields are down!” North's science and executive officer, Lieutenant Allen Marsh reported.”Their shield generators are offline.”

A series of white-hot photoflashes erupted near the center of the main viewscreen.

“Sir,” the comm officer, Chief Petty Officer Marion Drago, reported,”we've lost the Lonetree and the Walker; the captain of the Eichmann reports warp and impulse engines irreparably destroyed, and he is now dead in space.”

“Damn,” Grey swore, as Marsh unhelpfully reported,”all drones formerly targeting Lonetree, Walker, and Eichmann now altering vector and targeting Dirlewanger, Fegelein, and us.”

“Defensive, overload and overfire all gatlings!” Grey ordered, as eight enemy drones now closed his ship from opposing vectors. “Drones, launch dogfighters; deck crew, dismount all Type 15s and replace their swordfish warheads with Type 16 dogfighters! Engineering, spare me your excuses, and fix those fucking shields!”

“Do it now!” he added, as his XFF twisted, turned and fought for its life.

4 NOVEMBER, Y317 11:37:18 ZULU

“Evasive means to evade, Mister Crusher!” Picard shrieked, as his cutting-edge scientific, exploration, diplomatic and peacekeeping platform took hits from the rocks that primitive, militaristic expression of statist power hurled through space at speeds in excess of Warp Nine.

“Port nacelle has been destroyed,” Parsons reported, without undue emotion.”Starboard nacelle venting plasma; impulse engine subspace generators have fused, impulse engine acceleration now limited to fifty grav.

We can still maintain Warp 2 with the one surviving warp nacelle; recommend we—“

“No!” Picard roared, the very thought of the very best crew of peacekeepers, scientists, diplomats and explorers running from a half-assed militaristic, statist mob of degenerates rankled the veteran of three General Wars.

“We cannot allow any of them to escape with the knowledge of this—“ he then started to say, before that Klingon Cossack dared interrupt his moral and evolutionary superior:

“Captain, sensors detecting ten more Archangel Micheal-class cruisers entering the Eta Carinae system at high dash warp, bearing 225 mark 358! Inbound hostiles now decelerating to high tac, closing us rapidly at Warp 9.9975! Hostiles opening fire!”

“No,” Picard whispered, as Parsons reported,”Shields 1, 5 and 6 offline; their shield generators have been destroyed. All port gatlings have been destroyed.”

Swallowing hard, the captain of the Enterprise gave the order he had to give.

“Mister Crusher, get us out of the system, Warp 2. Mister Kumerian, inform the North, the Dirlewanger, and the Fegelein to cover our retreat, then launch all fighters, Type 15s and anti-drones in support.

Once that's done, engage the cloaking device.”


4 NOVEMBER, 2717 11:40:00 ZULU

Plasma vented from the broken stump which had held one of its tapered cylindrical warp nacelles, as the Fed XBC cloaked, and fucked off behind a cloud of fighters, long-range drones, anti-drone projectiles and its three surviving parasites.

Kara sighed, sparing a final glance at the master holoprojector covering the entire forward arc of Nemesis' systems deck(more commonly, the Pit), as the system team in their arc of workstations directly behind the master holoprojector strove to dispatch the remaining hostile machines and inbound ordinance.

“Skipper,” Nemesis' intel officer, Senior Lieutenant Leila Feisthammel, reported from the extreme left of that arc.

“Intel?” Kara queried, as Leila echoed an image directly to her plant.

A huge swirling ring of electromagnetic energy swirled in space directly in front of Kara's right eye, along with lines of data on either side.

The figure given for the amount of power generated by that bloody thing was what caught her eye.

“On the other side of the planet ahead, Skipper,” Leila said, without being asked.

“Oh, sod, sod, sodding sod !” the skipper of the Nemesis whispered, almost dead cert as to what that object was.

What those gopping, oxygen-thieving Feds had murdered most of Tyson's 430 students, scientists, explorers, civilians over.

“Chief,” Kara decided,”I'm echoing an image from my plant to shipnet, and you will apply the random encoding, enciphering, encryption and compression protocol of the day, before echoing it directly to Gibraltar.”

“That data,” she added,”is restricted, per the Official Secrets Act.”

“Understood, Skipper,” Solange replied.

4 NOVEMBER, Y317 11:42:06 ZULU

Admiral In Chief Roderick Wesley, rightful Chairman of the United Federation of Planets’ Executive Council, leaned back in His chair, knocked back another waterglass of Romulan ale, and continued studying the telemtery echoed from GIA LLC's Domestic Surveillance Center in the privacy of His study in the penthouse suite of the Federation Goverment Arcology, the Master of His Federation switching between scenes of bought and paid for radfemnazi, sojus, ultraliberal, neo-Nazi protestors being made to watch, as those they cared about—pretended to care about, He should honestly say—were subjected to necessary rehabilitative therapy techniques, at the same time they put the blame for their undergoing rehabilitative therapy where it belonged.

Squarely on their self-entitled, spoiled, sensitive little snowflake so-called loved ones childishly defying what must be.

The anointed King of Man smiled His work to see.

Before the computer terminal on the workstation in front of Him bleeped for His attention.

“Yes?” said the Lord and Master of the True Humanity asked, and the image of His Chief Executive Officer, Micheal Bauer, quickly informed him:

“Our associate is on the line, wanting to speak with you.”

before a partician, masculine image with a fine Roman nose appeared before Him.

“Mister President,” the Father Of Mankind said, with a slight nod of His head.

“Mister Chairman,” President Eugene Herman replied.

He then came to the point, as one of His Biological Authoritarians should, in any reality:

“I understand the gate in your Eta Carinae system, and our facility on its first planet are both under threat by a force of hostile warships presently occupying same.”

“I am aware of this,” the Chairman of the True Federation's Council calmly replied.”We have dispatched an SCS battle group from Second Fleet's starbase, along with several combat assets of the Lion Heart Cartel, to resolve the situation.”

“We do not want said facility,” Herman had the naked effrontery to ignore Him, of all people,” or its advanced technology falling into the hands of the ape primitives; therefore, we have dispatched a force of exploration vessels from one of our starbases to the Tarazed Gate, where they will transit through to what you call the Tannhauser Gate en route to our facility on your Eta Carinae I. Please see to it that Your forces extend them every cooperation.”

“Consider it done,” the anointed King of the Israelites told the so-called President of this non-optimal parody of His United Federation of Planets. “Was there anything else?”

“That will do for now,” Herman smugly replied. “Information on the ships making the passage has been uploaded to Your Starfleet Command; they will be making the passage under high impulse speeds. We shouldn't require Your assistance, however, as even the vessels supporting the facility are more than capable of dealing with the ape primitives' militaristic throwback excuses for starships.”


“Having seen your ships in action, Mister President,” said the Inheritor of the True American Legacy out loud,”I don't doubt that, but, in the unlikely event your ships require Our assistance, you will find Our Starfleet's scientific, diplomatic, exploration, and peacekeeping assets more than up to the task.”

“I'm sure I will, Mister Chairman,” Herman airly replied. “Starbase Tarazed will send word through the Gate, when our forces make their transit. Herman out.”

[U.P. Cinnabar]

4 NOVEMBER, 2717 11:45:00 ZULU

Nemesis and her squadron downshifted into orbit round Eta Carinae's first planet, and the planet opened fire on them.

Without being told to, Hope, via the wireless connection between her plant and the helm, executed a hard jink and burn, while Jackie reset the 240s for thirty-kiloton yields, knocking down the shield directly over the facility along the planetary equator, then, after dialing her weapons down to ten-ton yields, silenced whatever had been firing at them.

“Multiple small craft, unknown configuration, five thousand tons each, lifting from the planetary surface on intercept vector!” Solange reported.”Am also detecting a Hawking hole, likely concealing a seven hundred-kiloton mass, ascending in company with the small craft.”

“Skipper,” Lelia reported,”there's a weaker shield over the facility on planet; it appears to be retaining a standard oxygen-nitrogen atmo at STP.”

“And, I'll be damned if I know how, sir,” she added,”but those small ships seem familiar. I'm going to have to access all our shipnet databases to be sure, though.”

“Do it,” Kara replied, now busy with the business of fighting her ship and squadron.” Wee-O, reset, max yield; open fire on the largest of our inbound hostiles; Drones, vector your birds against the smaller machines.”

The latter all hosepiped bolts of MAHEM plasma similar to the heaviest ones used by the former Gorn Confederation, before its forced assimilation by the Feds during the Second General War over ninety years ago, Hope executing another hard jink and burn, as the poppers dispatched the white-hot streams of molten metal, before ripping five of the small starships to shreds.

“No shields at all,” Jackie observed, even as she poured fire into the larger vessel's Hawking hole.

Stardate 59584.47

“Cloaking device has been destroyed, decks two through five, all forward sections, have been gutted!” the ensign manning the Federation starship USS Voyager's tactical station reported.”Multiple EPS conduit ruptures, multiple plasma fires on all remaining decks! Deploying armor and charging weapons!”

“Full impulse!” roared Captain Worf, of the Great House of Worf(formerly Martok, until the Peaceful Revolution and the redeemption of his people)to Voyager's conn officer, Lieutenant Nog, the grubby little Ferengi aiming his advanced exploration, scientific, and peacekeeping platform at the ape primitives' miserable collection of tiny, flimsy hulls throwing their primitive rocks at Voyager, even knowing they had no hope of penetrating the ship's navigational deflector, let alone the advanced armor this ship, under Admiral Chakotay's expert leadership, had brought back from the future to facilitate the Peaceful Revolution and its great crusade of redeemption across the realities of superspace.

“Today,” said the courageous Klingon warrior to the dishonorable femperv veq on his main viewscreen,”is a good day to die.

For you. All weapons, fire at will!”

The advanced, 24th Century platform of science, diplomacy, exploration and peacekeeping's eight turbophaser lances shot out toward the primitive warships, followed by volley after volley of transphasic torpedos from torpedo tubes mounted throughout the primary and secondary hulls, while the main phaser arrays spat beams of nadion particles toward the drone craft the ape primitives' warships had sent in against the Terran Federation's Sunburtst-class pursuit ships, even as those drones—

Voyager's bridge exploded, and the ensign at tactical was sent screaming and burning to his death, the ship's first officer, Commander Tom Paris, vaulting from his seat at Worf's right hand to take over the tactical station, while the ship's chief engineer, Lieutenant Commander Reginald “Broccoli” Barclay reported:

“Decks six through ten have been gutted! Navigational deflector destroyed! Forward armor down to 30%! Hull breaches on all decks, structural intergrity fields are offline! Subspace generators in both impulse engines are offline, impulse power is—“

“Evasive maneuvers, Mister Nog!” Worf ordered.”Pattern Garth Theta! Mister Paris, continue firing!”

“Reinforcing armor! Continuing to fire!” came Paris' steady, reliable reply.

Again, the bridge exploded, venting plasma from broken EPS conduits erupting into multiple conflagrations which the ship's fire-suppression system struggled to cope with.

“Evasive means to evade, Mister Nog!” Worf chastised the runty little Ferengi.

“I am evading, sir, but those ships and drones are matching my every—“ the money-worshipping little alien whined in reply.

“Excuses are for them, Lieutenant!” Paris shouted, even as he furiously, bravely struggled to return the enemy's fire.”Are you one of them, or are you amongst His Natural Aristocracy?!”

“Sir!” was the little Ferengi's reply, as he stopped making excuses for his incompetence, and tried maneuvering the ship away from the rocks the ape primitives continued throwing at it.

“Starboard impulse engine venting plasma!” Broccoli reported.

“Mister Nog,” Worf decided,”go to warp; Mister Paris, stand by all weapons.”

“A warp strafe?” Nog asked.

“Our warp drive is faster than and tactically superior to their primitive faster-than-light drives,” Worf reminded the crude, savage little Ferengi.”We will destroy them all, before they even have a chance to react.”

“Maximum warp,” the master of the starship Voyager then ordered.”Now!”

4 NOVEMBER, 2717 11:47:01 ZULU

“Now the bastard's powering up his warp motors,” Nemesis' starship engineering officer, Senior Lieutenant Ariel Dixon, remarked.

Hope immediately upshifted to high tac, pivoting to bring Nemesis' arsenal to bear on the ass end of the enemy starship, one good volley from Jackie's guns knocking the hostile machine back down to low sublight, lancing out with what Leila and Solange were able to determine to be coherent, short-range meson weapons(similar to Klingon disruptors), as it sluggishly attempted to bring to bear its eight longer-ranged, heavier yield magneto-hydrodynamic explosive munition cannon mounted on the top and underside of its arrowhead-shaped primary hull.

The poppers decohered the meson beams, while Jackie laid another salvo of 24cm hyperdense projectiles into the hostile which utterly annhilated the ship's starboard nacelle, and reduced the pylon on which it had rested into a ragged stump bleeding coolant and plasma into space.

Stardate 59584.47

“Aft armor down to 12%!” Paris reported, as still again, the bridge exploded.”Forward armor down to 10%! Armor feedstocks have been depleted! Forward and aft torpedo tubes and forward phaser arrays offline, turbophaser lances one, two, four, six, and eight, offline!”

“Starboard nacelle destroyed,” Broccoli reported, as Voyager continued fighting its enemies to the last, glorious moment of its life,”starboard impulse engine destroyed; plasma and coolant leaks have rendered main engineering uninhabitable! Unable to eject the core, warp core breach in progress!”

“Today is a good day to die,” Worf grimly, happily observed.”Except we are the honored dead, and in honorable death, there is only gain.”

The bridge exploded again, sending a pair of nameless ensigns screaming to honorable, glorious deaths, while the ship fought and maneuvered against its enemies.

“Qoy qeylls pugloD,” Worf began to sing raptorously, in anticipation of the honorable death that would see him resurrected to continue His great crusade to redeem all realities through Peaceful Revolution, and cleanse them all of the ape descendants of the Harlot Lilitu,”qoy pugbe'pu. YoHbogh matbolgh je Suwwl'—“

4 NOVEMBER, 2717 11:49:10 ZULU

“Wankers,” Kara spat contemptiously at the ship of fools, who'd chosen charging to their deaths over retreat.

“Right, then,” she added, as the squadron's drones and point-defenses saw off the remainder of the enemy small craft.”Marine Fusiliers to the stage, I say again, Marine Fusiliers to the stage. Drives, fire up the telegate!”

“Telegate firing up,” Ariel replied.”Establishing targeting solution...targeting solution ready, gate-in focus established.”

4 NOVEMBER, 2717 11:50:06 ZULU

Hunched in a revetment about a klick or so ahead of where Nemesis' company of 80 Imperial Marine Fusiliers had gated in were about two to three hundred black and old-gold pleather uniformed men in two firing lines(similar to what movies about Rorke's Drift had shown), none of whom had anything heavier than the diamagnetically-confined, phased-array meson beam rifles they were enthusiastically, but inaccurately, firing in every direction.

“About a hundred meters max, at best,” Commander Dymond Kulper observed, from 1 Section of 1 Troop's vantage point behind a disused motorized pallet jack and a dozen or so pallets of sealed lubricant drums.

Mind you, when those mesons did hit, and there were enough left to decay inside(or even in close proximity to)the target, the resulting energy release could be catastrophic, as a lift truck about fifty meters downrange of the enemy bore witness, when it exploded from the inside out following a direct hit.

“They're certainly enthusiastic, aren't they?” Executive Warrant Officer Brionne Bordelon commented.

“Have to make up for lack of range and marksmanship somehow, Sarnt Major,” was Dymond's reply, before looking for the first bit of cover between them and her that she planned on sprinting to.

“Right, then,” she then said over tacnet,”can't sit here, and fuck off all day. All sections, advance by fire and movement!”

“First team advancing!” she then shouted, running like hell toward another pallet of lubricant, sweeping the enemy ranks with a sustained burst from her Martian Ordinance M80 2.5mm assault railgun the entire time.

Stardate 59584.47

“Their railguns can't even penetrate our personal deflector screens,” Lieutenant A.J. Talon of the one true Starfleet remarked, as the ape descendants of the Harlot Lolita scrambled from cover to cover, while firing wildly with their primitive rock throwers.

“Logic,” Voyager's security chief, Lieutenant Commander Tuvok, coolly replied,”should indicate their awareness of that reality.”

“However,” the dark-skinned Vulcan added, as he expertly laid down suppressing fire with his Mark IV pulse phaser rifle,”logic and facing reality are not exactly the radfems' strong suits.”

“No, sir,” was Talon's reply, also firing expertly, even as the leader of the ape host scythed through the front ranks of elite Starfleet security personnel with a single burst from her stone ax of a so-called weapon.

“But,” Talon reminded his superior, as beams of nadion particles vaporized everything around the apes,”no denial can stand in the way of His Peaceful Revolution. They will fall before us, just as the Klingons, the Roms, the Cardies, and even the Dominion have before them. All realities will be ours.”

“All realities,” Tuvok intoned, scoring a near miss against one of the ape soldiers,”will be just like ou—”

Stardate 59584.47

“Impossible,” whispered Ensign Meschach Kaufmann, of Starfleet's Special Security Branch, as twin streams of blue-hot fire ripped through Voyager's security forces and the SSB detachment assigned to guard the experimental facility.

“Set your phasers for level 16, wide field!” Kaufmann's immediate superior, Lieutenant Commander Dominic Carson shouted.”That'll send the lot of 'em straight to hell!”

Kaufmann re-set his Mark IV assault phaser, and it spat out a wide field of concentrated nadion particles, the impressive firepower of all those advanced, 24th Century weapons discharging simoultaneously obliterating everything within twenty-five meters of the Federation positions.

“I think—“ Carson started to assert, before another hail of blue-hot fire swept down upon the remaining SSB personnel from all directions.

4 NOVEMBER, 2717 11:52:18 ZULU

“Wankers!” Mister Kulper spat over tacnet, as Executive Warrant Officer Brionne Bordelon motioned for 1/2 Troop to advance cautiously on the enemy position, weapons at the ready.

“Fucking wankers!” the commander of Nemesis' MFs repeated fulminously, as BeeBee, her sizzling, cooling twin 4cm MarsOrd M86 Solider Portable Rail Cannon held at the ready, made her way to the heaps of what had been men(mostly human, with a smattering of human-like aliens of various hues amongst them)cut down by volleys of degenerate matter.

“Shit training, shit tactics, and shit gear!” Mister Kulper, standing over a body with the most pips on its blood-stained, brain-spattered gold collar, continued to rant.”Who in the actual fuck sends infantry out with no heavy weapons, and zero soddin' combined-arms support?! And, these things—“

She picked up one of the peculiar beam rifles the enemy had been using, held it from herself as if it were a venomous snake, then contemptously chucked it back in amongst the bodies.

“—these damned things, are piss!”

“Are you finished, sir?” BeeBee asked, with some semblance of calm, Mister Kulper slowly turning to face her, tears in her cornsilk-blue eyes.

“We shaggin' slaughtered these poor bastards, Sarnt Major,” she whispered.

“Yes, sir,” BeeBee agreed.

“We did,” she whispered.

“Never stood a bleedin' chance,” Mister Kulper re-stated the obvious.

“Sir!” 4/2 Troop's Chief Petty Officer Desireé Rainier shouted over tacnet.”Movement! Klick and a half downrange, near the entrance to the main building!”

“Scatter and take cover! RAPID FIRE!” both BeeBee and Mister Kulper screamed in reply, even as Nemesis' company sergeant major went prone and started firing in the direction of red-hot bolts flying toward her from an outbuilding nearest a lift leading into one of the mineshafts.

These chaps are different, she had time to observe, noticing figures in head-to-toe white body armor firing from cover all round the entrance to the facility's main building, some manning crew-served heavy weapons firing blood-red bolts of molten metal at a furious pace, one, maybe two others, single-handedly working heavy rotary-barrel weapons hosing the area with that same red fire.

“MAHEM,” Mister Kulper remarked,”save more coherent than a plasma bolt.”

“Really?!” BeeBee sardonically asked, as several of the white-armored figures fell backwards from holes drilled through their centers of mass, as the gunners of the enemy crew-served weapons and several of their riflemen began lobbing small spheres through the air toward the Marine Fusiliers.

“Grenades!” came the cry from several of the company, as they scrambled into the revetments occupied by the dead, while said spheres detonated with sub-kiloton thermonuclear airbursts, some of which sent lethal sprays of shrap ripping through their ranks.

“Sarnt Major, call in the assault shuttles!” Mister Kulper ordered, BeeBee already on the line with Nemesis' two assault shuttle pilots.”Gunners, support by fire! Riflemen, stand by for the word of command!”



Stardate 59584.47

Captain Jean-Luc Picard turned to the brown-robed religious fanatic standing next to him, and told him,”let's get this over with.”

The two men entered the central chamber, the little, blond Borg bitch writhing in helpless, estatic, agony, as she lay in the device with which the Jedi had gifted the anointed Lords and Masters of their worthless reality and their worthless lives, while some filthy, wrinkly, grubby ape excuse for a so-called admiral charged the forcefield confining it to its cage, and begged one of His Natural Aristocracy for mercy neither of the perverted things deserved, begged a Lord of her life to please, please don't hurt Seven.

And, Picard had lived long enough, was scientifically-savvy enough, was evolved enough, to know just what one of them meant, when it said no, please stop.

The veteran Starfleet captain checked the intraosseous lines trickling cyanide and magsol into the Borg drone's body, the little blonde slut moaning in the bliss only one of them could experience from being in the grip of the agony brought on by slow poisoning.

“Are its impants fully functioning?” Picard demanded of Voyager's chief medical officer and resident SSB operative, Commander Julian Bashir.

“The Borg's implants are all operational, and all instruments indicate it is maintaining a subspace link with the rest of the Collective via the wormhole gate,” was Bashir's reply.

“Good,” whispered Picard, caressing the cheek of the femperv Borg drone too far gone in its inhuman passions to even recognize the tender gesture only one of His True Aristocracy was capable of demonstrating, even toward one of them.

“Ruhig, meine Liebchen,” he whispered soothingly in the language of his long-vanished homeland,”ruhig. Soon, very soon, My little one, it will all be over, for all your degenerate hive of lesbiche depravity.”

The little Borg's decrepit femperv dominant dared screamed protest, dared to beg him to not do what she would've done herself.

So, Picard, with the device in his left hand, and the collar around the false admiral's filthy neck, turned her caterwauling into screams of passion, as she writhed helplessly on the deck, a captive to her wild-animal lusts.

Helpless to do anything other than watch the loving judgment and equally loving punishment to come.

Picard then forcefully mounted his pet Borg one final time, thrusted violently into her, and barked out a single, unambigous word of command to both Bashir and the Jedi:

“Now!”

as the lurid screams of his little Borg plaything echoed throughout the room.

4 NOVEMBER, 2717 11:55:09 ZULU

As if Kara had needed any further confirmation of her worst fears, a nimbus of reddish-violet lightning swirled round the gate, and vomited forth a round dozen Hawking holes barely masking space-time distortions indicative of impulse engines.

“Squadron, open fire, fire at will!” Kara shouted without thinking, the 240s on all twelve ships hammering their rapidly-closing opposite numbers, before they could decloak, as six dozen of the squadron's combined drone arsenal descended upon them.

Stardate 59584.47

“Deploy the armor!” Captain Trevor Hall, commanding the Discovery-class tactical explorer Ares, ordered, as the bridge exploded, and his chief engineer, Commander Miles O'Brien, bleated from the engineering station,”Cloaking device destroyed! Decks four through twenty have been gutted! We have EPS conduit ruptures throughout the ship; navigational deflector array destroyed, slipstream drive is offline!”

“I wasn't planning on running away, Mister O'Brien!” Hall arrogantly rebuked the lesser man.”Tactical, report!”

“The MacArthur, the Montgomery, the Yamashita, and the Paulus have all been destroyed,” Lieutenant Commander Sam Lavelle reported from Tactical. “The Yamato and the Lexington have suffered heavy damage, but are still able to fight. Twelve 250,000-ton starships, at 0 mark 0, 15,000 kilometers from us, and closing at 3,000 kph; hostiles identified from SSB records as Imperial Mons Calpan Archangel Micheal-class combat cruisers.”

“Such rampant militarism,” remarked Ares' first officer, Commander Va'Kel Shon.”It almost defies logic how such savage beings managed to survive long enough to achieve interstellar flight.”

“They achieved nothing, Commander,” Hall reminded the devil-eared Vulcan ape,”and it is intellectually honest to even imply they're even capable of any achievement at all.”

“Of course, Captain,” the cold-hearted alien bastard replied.”I misspoke.”

“All ships, this is Fleet Command,” said Hall over comms.”Launch all Vipers, Raptors, and drones, then stand by to go to warp, and fire all weapons on my mark!”

“All Vipers, Raptors, and Raiders away and going to warp,” Lavelle reported.

“With our advanced warp drives,” Hall remarked, even as his bridge exploded again,”they won't even know what hit 'em.”

“Port central nacelle venting plasma,” O'Brien reported.

“Forward armor down to 21%,” Lavelle then reported.”Reinforcing.”

Hall ignored them, glanced at the puny little quarter-million ton hulls fighting off cutting-edge Federation fighters and drones, then stabbed the intercom button and said,”all ships, warp out!”

4 NOVEMBER, 2717 11:57:02 ZULU

Dymond had just time enough to realize she'd seen these white-armored figures before, before 1 Troop took what cover they could in the entryway, and returned the fire of the hostile troopers pepperpotting their way toward them under cover of several more of the crew-served heavy MAHEM weapons near the door at the end of the hall.

She'd grown up on Lucas' six films, plus the four the former Disney Group had made, before her Earth had gone tits-up during the last of Earth's three world wars—both of them—670 years ago.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Clone troopers, 464 Royal Marine Fusilier Regiment's OC thought, even as she ripped into them from behind a rapidly-disintegrating table, at least they're kitted out like clone troopers, which means those are blaster rifles, and the crew-served weapons are E-web repeaters.

And, why the fuck they happened to be real, and not fiction, like they were supposed to be, was a question for smarter people than she, with more time on their hands than she had at the moment.

“Gunners,” she shouted out,”HISAP on those white bastards and their heavy weapons! All sections, stand by!”

A quick check of company tacnet indicated 2 Troop had almost gained the entrance.

No time at all.

“First team advancing!” she shouted over tacnet, firing, as she ran from cover to cover along the corridor, as eighty thousand 2.5mm high-velocity, saboted anti-personnel rounds whizzed past her at 10.3 klicks per second(kips) to knock out the E-webs(if, those were in fact, what they were) and scythe through enemy clone troopers at the opposite end of the passage.

“Two Troop, support by fire!” said BeeBee over tacnet, as her forty MFs gained the entryway, and assumed the positions 1 Troop were vacating.

Stardate 59584.47

“The clones are just barely holding them,” remarked “General” Partroklos of the New Galactic Order, as the Lord of his worthless life finally dismounted the Borg plaything, and got dressed.

Picard gave his bad little Seven of Nine a final caress on its cheek, smiled at the look of femperv ecstasy frozen forever on its face, before turning to Bashir.

“Captain,” the SSB operative reported,” the ships Starfleet and the SSB sent to monitor the Borg report zero activity on any of their cubes, worlds or unicomplexes; they are dispatching away teams to confirm, but I believe we've succeeded.”

“Then, there's little need for our further presence here,” Picard concluded, before depressing the com badge on his red-pinstriped black pleather uniform's left breast.

“Picard to Ares,” he spoke.

“Ares, Hall here, Captain,” Hall reported, amidst the sounds of Ares' bridge exploding, and its tactical officer hysterically shrieking reports of decks gutted, warp nacelles destroyed, armor destroyed, armor feedstocks depleted, and EPS conduits blown.

“We've just lost our port central nacelle,” Hall repeated what the junior man had just told him,”and we have EPS conduits blown out all over the ship, but we're giving these damned apes a fight they won't soon forget.”

“As it should be, Captain,” Picard reminded him, before coming to the point, as an übermensch should.” We've done what we've come here to do, and we are leaving. Hold the enemy off, until we've transited the gate back to Federation space, and then follow suit. Is that understood?”

“Understood,” Hall replied.

“Very well, then, Picard out,” Picard replied, before turning on his heel, and striding out of the central chamber down a passageway leading to the cloaked Terran Federation Mark III Sunburst-class command pursuit ship waiting to take him from this desolate little rock and back to the One True Reality, the two black-armored, Terran Fed vampires guarding the airlock greeting him with the proper salute, Picard pounding his right fist against his chest, then extending the arm, palm flat, in reply, as he boarded the command ship, with Bashir and the Jedi right behind him, and ordered the captain of this forty-man vessel to lift off.

4 NOVEMBER, 2717 12:00:00 ZULU

Cautiously, BeeBee took point, leading 1/2 Troop through the still-smouldering hole blasted through the door between them and the central chamber beyond.

“Fuck,” whispered Able Starshipman Magda Rubenstein, as the section were brought up short by the brutalized body of a blond female with what appeared to be various cybernetic implants, strapped into some sort of contraption with electrodes attached to her head.

And, a look of sheer horror frozen on her face.

“Sarnt Major!” cried 2/2 Troop's Chief Petty Officer Olivia Bennett, turning BeeBee's attention to an older woman writhing on the deck behind a force field of some kind, the poor woman—as brutally mishandled as the other one—whimpering “Seven” over and over, as she pissed, crapped and bled all over her cell's rocky floor.

“Mister Kulper,” Nemesis' company sergeant major, fighting to maintain her professional detachment, snapped over tacnet ”get in here. Now!” as she echoed the telemetry from her No. 3 Standard Powered Armour's cams and other sensors to her officer's plant.

“Goddess and Force,” her officer whispered a moment or so later.

“Shit!” she then swore fulminously.

“The one attached to the device,” Leading Starshipman Katarina Speck observed, examining the dead female cyborg,”appears to have suffered massive, and fatal trauma to the brain. A proper autopsy can—“

“Call for one, then, Lead,” replied Mister Kulper rather abruptly. “Then see what you can do for the other one.”

“About those poor bastards with the crap beam weapons,” she then slowly said to BeeBee on a private push. “I regret having to slaughter them somewhat less now, after...this...”
4 NOVEMBER, 2717 12:01:14 ZULU

The remaining thirty-megaton Goliath continued firing bursts of yellow-gold MAHEM beams from projections along his dorsal and ventral saucer, as well as along the very front of the wedge, while more of the relativistic-kill drones flew from launchers at the front of the triangular wedge secondary hull and along the primary hull saucer's top dorsal.

The Pit's counter-grav jennies almost crapped out, as Hope crushed the singularity for a few scant moments' of emergency “burn,” adding a kick from the SMTs to evade the enemy's incoming fire, even as the poppers under Solange's control ripped apart the last handful of his larger meson-firing drones, and engaged the remaining manned enemy fighters still threatening Nemesis, and Jackie drove more 24cm degenerate masses of tungsten through the thin hull metal exposed by the eradication of the enemy's regenerating Whipple armor.

“Skipper,” Solange reported,” am detecting a space-time distortion at plus fifteen by eighteen decimal four, three kiloklicks downrange and closing us astern at 870.44 megakips.”

“Intercept?” Kara tersely asked.

“Negative, Skipper,” was Solange's swift reply.”Bogey appears to be fucking off for the gate.”

“Then, we'll let him continue doing so,” Nemesis' Skipper told her, as the final enemy giant was sent spinning end for end in the night, its dead, eviscerated hull glowing faintly with blue-white heat, even as the gate once again came alive with a wreath of scarlet-violet lightning surmounting a vast, inky darkness.

“Skipper,” Solange then reported,”incoming comm from Mister Kulper. She wishes to speak with you, on your private push.”

“Echo her to my plant, then, Chief,” Kara replied, as an image of a woman strapped to some hellish engine which had obviously been the agent of the poor thing's screaming, tormented death abruptly floated six inches from her right eye.

“That's what we found,” her wife's holo then whispered, as the plant's field of view cut to her and her sarnt major,”when we fought our way past clone troopers direct from Star Wars and a sod-all mob of amateurs with meson beam weapons, to this room at the end of this building's main corridor.”

“Christ,” Kara remarked.

Dymond swallowed hard, before adding:

“Lead Speck performed a preliminary examination which indicates the poor woman died from massive brain trauma, and not quietly either.”

“I can see that, luv,” was Kara's soft, horror-struck reply, before she summoned up her command voice to order Dymond to “remove her from that damned thing. Drives, fire up the gate, medico to the stage, I say ag—“

“Multiple starships,” Solange reported,”zero by twelve and zero by twenty; first group are six squadrons, Archangel Micheal-class combat cruisers, one squadron Albion-class starfighter carriers, and one Fenyman-class research and exploration vessel, decelerating to high tac and closing to planetary orbit.”

“The other?” Hope prompted.

“Asteroids, a baker's dozen of 'em,” Solange replied,”emerging from the Homunculus at max, decelerating to high tac, now 250 megaklicks from us, continuing to decelerate into high planetary orbit.”

“Jindos,” Kara observed. “And, not our Jindarians either.”

“Better and better,” she remarked, while Leila supplied:

“According to shipnet's intel database, those ships belong to the Intekjin Caravan; in fact, the large rock in the center is definitely a Planetoid-class space-control ship, and its EM signature conforms to that recorded for the Caravan's flagship, the Zhrinkorfa.”

“Comm for you, Skipper,” Solange reported,”from the Jindo flag.”

Kara nodded.

“Echo it to my plant, Chief,” she said.

40,680,331.25 JINDEKAO QA DIRJANKARA FOLLOWING THE JINDEKARA QA JINDEKARUQA

Januofee Jinbaro Mustaff Zhrinkorfa Intekjin floated at the center of the Zhrinkorfa's bridge, hesitated a brief moment, then spoke into her communicator:

“Kojindaro warships of the Empire of Mons Calpa, I am Januofee Jinbaro Mustaff Zhrinkorfa Intekjin. I sing the law for my people.”

The human female projected before the ancient Jindarian matriarch's right eye was fair, blond, deceptively small, with a heavy-worlder's musculature, and, refreshingly for an Other, came straight to the point:

“I am Senior Captain Kara Langford, commanding HMS Nemesis. Why are you here?”

“We claim no resources in this system, nor in the nebula which surrounds it,” Januofee answered.”I crave audience with with whoever sings the law for your people in this instance on a matter of great urgency for all Jindaro and all Others.”

The human female nodded, consulted her communicator a moment, then said:

“Janouofee Jinbaro Intekjin, it appears I am the one who sings the law for my people in this instance. Shall I come aboard your vessel, or—“

“My Qadir and I shall board your vessel, Kara Senior Captain Langford Nemesis,” Januofee quickly replied.”We have found we can more easily adapt to your gravity, than you Others can adapt to our lack of it.

I also understand our anti-transportation devices have no effect on your mode of matter transport, sentivo?”

“You are correct, Janouofee Jinbaro,” Kara Senior Captain Langford Nemesis confirmed.

“Excellent,” the Jindarian matriarch replied. “Give us fifteen of your minutes, then you may bring us aboard.

Here ends this singing of this song.”

4 NOVEMBER, 2717 12:05:00 ZULU

“Who did I piss off to get this duty?” Kara groused, fussing, first, with her space-cadet blue-piped grey-stone No. 1 dress uniform, then with the row of ribbons along its left breast.

“You look good, hun,” Dymond replied, giving her wife the obligatory once-over.

“I sodding hate playing ambassador,” Kara insisted, as she fussed with the high collar with its single silver sun of a senior captain of the Senior Service, then with the line of medals arrayed underneath her silver command helmsman's winged, crowned sunburst on her left breast.

“Your uniform's fine, “ Dymond insisted, sorely tempted to slap her wife's grey-gloved hands away from her uniform, settling for taking those hands in hers instead.

“And Mister Ross and Mister Dixon are waiting for us at the stage,” she added, as Kara looked at herself, all 1.57 meters of her greying blonde, elfin self, in the mirror on the door separating the bog from the rest of her cupboard-sized quarters, sighed, and added:

“And bloody Jindos. I always get headache talking to those sheep-shagging miserly old swindlers.”

“Jindos don't raise sheep, dear,” Dymond wisecracked, as she bound up Kara's hair into a regulation ponytail.

“The Caledonians do,” Kara riposted,”and you know what they say about them, don't you?”

“Only what I hear them say about Clarionites, dear,” Dymond joked back.

“What's that, dear,” Kara said, turning to look into the flashing green eyes of the Dymond in her sky, grinning impishly,”that we make better lovers?!”

“Not in front of the Jindos, me lass,” Dymond replied, before giving her wife a slight, fleeting peck on the nose.

“Who we're supposed to be meeting,” she added.

“You do suck all the fun out of things, don't you?” Kara smiled back, before the two women stepped through the airlock leading from the Skipper's cabin, crossed the red-lit Pit(with Jackie McChargue sitting in the center seat), and descended the ladder to Nemesis' payload deck.

“Mister Dixon?” Kara said to her starship engineering officer, as she worked the telegate local control station's multi-function holodisplay.

“Telegate targeting solution ready,” Drives replied, as Kara walked to the foot of the stage, stood at Hope's left, and faced the dyspropsium arch set into the bulkhead.

“Telegate ready,” Ariel then said. “Jindarians standing by.”

“Gate them aboard, Drives,” Kara ordered, as the interior of the arch began shimmering like heat coming off pavement, and the four senior officers all came to attention and saluted the pair of Jindarians, as they emerged from the rift.

Both wore identical golden-brown servo- and psuedomusclar-driven suits, leaving long, silky tawny hair, golden-brown scaly faces, and huge, webbed ears exposed, as Jindarians could breathe human air; they just couldn't get on so well in the range of gravities humans found acceptible(and Clarion's gee and a half, which was standard grav aboard Nemesis, was the extreme end of their suits' tolerances), their gauntlets and boots built to accommodate webbed fingers and prehensile toes.

And, that was pretty much all that was standard about Jindarian dress(and Jindos in general), Kara only able to tell Janouofee Jinbaro Intekjin from her Qadir—roughly, sage, wise man or advisor—because she'd already seen the former, and the latter was holding a massive, hide-bound tome with gold lettering underneath his aerogel psuedomuscle and servo-assisted left arm.

“ Janouofee Jinbaro Intekjin,” Kara said, with a slight nod, once the four officers stood at ease.

“The use of two names is acceptible to us,” the Jinbaro replied, her husky voice carrying a bit more power in the ship's denser atmosphere,”if it is acceptible to you, Kara Senior Captain Nemesis.”

“It is, indeed,” Kara replied, as the Jindos descended the stage, and she introduced them to the others:

“My Executive Officer—Bardavo, I believe is the Jindarian word—Commander Hope Hubris Ross.”

“Madame, sir,” Hope replied formally, with a nod of her head.

“The commander of my ship's Marine Fusilier company,” Kara then said, indicating Dymond,”or Membaro, Commander Dymond Kulper.”

“Janouofee Jinbaro,” Dymond said, also with a slight nod of her head,”Qadirjanbaro. An honor to have you both aboard Nemesis.”

“And, lastly,” Kara said, pointing Ariel out to the two alien dignitaries,”my starship engineering officer—Shaibaro—Senior Leftenant Ariel Dixon.”

“Madame, sir,” was Ariel's clipped reply, as she just stood stiff as a board behind the local control workstation.

“My Qadir,” Janouofee Jinbaro then said, indicating her companion,”Saleesh Qadir Quoteff Zhrinkorfa Intekjin, though you may addresss effrem as Saleesh Qadir.”

“An honor, sir,” Kara replied.

“My title, qadirjanbaro,” the male Jindarian elder,” more precisely translates to 'speaker to those who have come full circle' in your English. In your Ayreesh-Gallic—“

“Irish-Gaelic?!” Kara supplied.

“Yes, yes,” Salis Qadir replied.

“I'm afraid that's a dead tongue, even amongst the remaining Irish natives on Earth,” Kara remarked.

“I am aware of that, Kara Senior Captain,” the Jindarian Qadir replied, slightly testy,”but the closest, concise human translation to my proper title is the Irish-Gaelic Brehon.”

“Oh, yes,” Hope spoke up,”we have those on Hibernia, except the term's been Anglicized to 'Brenin,' I'd say about five and a half, maybe six centuries ago.”

[U.P. Cinnabar]

The Qadir nodded, remarking,”I will have to remember that, Hope First Leftenant. Another time, when we have less pressing matters to discuss, you can make me wise where my understanding of your homeworld is lacking.”

“I'd be delighted,” was said with all the enthusiasm a Ph.D in anthropology with no one else to discuss her passion could muster.

“So would I,” Kara stage whispered to Dymond.

“I heard that,” Hope snarked back.

“Good-o,” Kara half-joked.”Then I won't have to say it twice, will I, Number One?”

“You'll miss me, when I'm gone, Skipper,” Hope back chatted.

“Only if my aim is off, Number One,” Kara replied, grinning to let an Academy(and Perisher) classmate and a dear, mutual friend of Dymond and hers know that remark had all been in fun.

“She's a dear friend, and a dab hand at the helm,” she explained for the benefit of her guests,”and I will miss her, when Excelsior commissions at Clarion Highport, and she takes command of her, at the end of this patrol.”

“Some of your human bantering, then?” Janouofee Jinbaro remarked.

“Yes,” Kara replied.

“Your Jindarian,” remarked Salish Qadir,”is passable, Kara Senior Captain.”

“Dymond and I spent a lot of our childhood mucking about on your—rather, on another Caravan's—asteroid ships mining the belt round 40 Eridani Charlie.”

“The Ogalano, I believe, Jinbaro,” Salish remarked.”They are one of the carvans birthed from Qaintekjayno; a Quotaff sings for them as Jinbaro, if my fading memory serves.”

“I believe so, Salish Qadir,” was Dymond's answer. “Kara's mum skippered a commercial transport run by both our families, and we had dealings with the Ogalan Caravan, mainly raw materiel harvested from the belt in exchange for whatever the Ogalano fancied at the moment.”

“Ah,” the Jindarian Qadir commented, adding,”that would be good, then, as this, the stories and traditions of the Intekjayno, since the Jindekara qa Jindekaruqa—”

Literally the “full circle of the seeking of the full circle,” Kara mused, why is why you never go with the literal translation of a foreign word unless you have sense enough to figure out the context to get the correct translation, which, in this case, is “the day of the seeking of the ascension.”

“Are written exclusively in Jindarian,” Dymond helpfully finished for the Jindarian Qadir,”which gives even the best translation firmware screaming fits.”

“The earliest passages of the Qunama qa Qunamo Intekjino, including the Qa Edilaff Qunami,” Salish Qadir confirmed,”are inscribed in what you would describe as Ancient Jindarian, which not even the Qunaff qa Qunambaro—“

Literally “Chief Singer of Songs,” but more precisely “chief historian,” Kara remembered, as she felt a old and familiar headache coming on.

“—is familiar,” the Intekjayno(both plural and plural possessive) Qadir,”and I am, though my singing of my caravan's songs leaves much to be desired.”

“Only in the shower, eh?” Kara asked.

“Jindaro do not waste water for bathing, as you Kojindaro do,” the Jinnbaro bristled and admonished Kara.

“I believe that was another strangeness in the humans' song, Jinbaro, and thus innocent of offense,” Salish Qadir remarked, with a soft chuckle.

“Ah,” remarked Janouofee Jinbaro, the Jindarian caravan leader relaxing.

“Let us sing our song, and be done, then,” she added.”We have squandered so much time, and have so little time to squander.”

“That we do, Janouofee Jinbaro,” Kara replied, escorting the two ancient Jindarians to the ladder leading topside.

4 NOVEMBER, Y317 12:16:12 ZULU

Rear Admiral Alexander Koenig, commanding SCS Battle Group 27, propped his feet up on the workstation of his quarters aboard the four and a half-megaton Galaxy-class space-control ship USS America, at the center of the seven-ship SCBG charging toward the Eta Carinae system at Warp 83.8, and studied Picard's logs of the miserable showing his rabble of a crew had made against an ape-primitive warship.

Even if it was the Angel of Darkness herself, the veteran flag officer of a professional organization of peacekeepers, diplomats, sceintists and explorers, based on the natural, scientifically-established, immutable Law of Biological Optimization first discovered by scientific visonary Gene Roddenberry in the 1960s, decided, that still was no excuse for either his non-optimal conduct or the non-optimal performance of his crew.

Any other business, such failure to achieve optimal production standards would've been grounds for termination, possibly even containment and eternal repurposing, if the non-optimum behaviors had been flagrant, repeated, or so-deeply pathological, they might as well have been personnel rather than associates of His Optimum Organization and the Optimal System which had made His Federation great once upon a time, and would do so again.

SCBG 27's clearly optimal commander, well along the path of full Biological Optimization to Deo sapiens, snorted contempt for those he'd passed judgment on, before returning his attention to Picard's logs, only granting him partial information of the tactical situation he was leading his ships into.

He knew the Angel of Darkness—long an impediment to the progress and hope of redeemption His Federation offered the worlds of His Grand Intelligent Design of Biological Optimization—and her squadron were present in the system, but there was no mention in any of Picard's logs of the help she'd undoubtedly called for.

Being non-optimal, the ape-primitives could be easily be defeated by the technologically, biologically and morally-superior forces at Koenig's command, to say nothing of the ships their associates in the Lion Heart Cartel had sent to aid the anointed Masters and Lords of their lives, but more information would make that inevitable victory easier, and easy victories were always the most optimal solution.

Koenig stabbed a button on his workstation.

“Bridge,” the America's commander, Fleet Captain Randy Buchannan's image said, when it appeared on his terminal's screen,”Buchannan here. Is there something you need, Admiral?”

“There is, Captain,” Koenig replied. “Do we have any XGSVs in the immediate vicinity of the Eta Carinae system?”

“One moment,” Buchannan replied, as he queried his science officer.

“Yes, sir,” his flag captain said, as he turned back to face his admiral.”The Galactic Survey Carrier USS Fred A. Wolf, at 218 mark 112, about 200 lightyears from the objective, recently refitted with a squadron of F-35Xs, a second squadron of F-117Xs, an E8X SWAC shuttle, and Type 15 triple X-ray drones with implosion warheads, before setting out from Battle Station November 9 along the Northern Wall on its latest exploratory mission into the Survey Zone,” the proper name for what the ape-primitives insisted on calling the Corrdio.

“Inform Fleet Captain Korie that his mission's changed,” Koenig decided.”He is to enter the Eta Carinae system under cloak, at max dash, and take up position to survey the system and provide intel on enemy activity there.”

“Aye, sir,” Buchannan replied.”Will there be anything else, Admiral?”

“Come to think of it, yes,” Koenig replied, smiling slyly, as he contemplated an afternoon's diversion. “Have Transporter Room #2 execute Transporter Program Koenig 16, and instruct the dop to report to my quarters upon materialization.

Then have the Marines bring Yeoman Mendelson from the ship's Tail to my quarters.

That will be all. Koenig out.”

4 NOVEMBER, 2717 12:18:56 ZULU

“For lack of more precise terminology,” Nemesis' medico, Commander Petra Adkins said, both to the shipnet and to the ship's intel officer, Senior Lieutenant Lelia Feisthammel,”her brain was burned out, probably by that machine the MFs found her strapped into, though, further investigation of said device is required, before we can establish that as the murder weapon.”

“Burned out?” the slight, olive-skinned, dark-haired young woman asked, incredulous.

“Every neuron, every blood vessel exploded,” the veteran Imperial Starmarine medical officer replied, as she looked up from the corpse of the female cyborg Nemesis' Marine Fusiliers had gated aboard,” all neurochemical and cerebro-spinal fluid evaporated, what else can you expect me to call the COD in twenty-five words or less?”

The seventy-year old woman cricked her back, squeezed her red, itchy eyes tightly to stimulate tear production, then opened them slowly, as she added:

“The forensic, tech and med teams the Wolfgang Pauli gated into what's left of the facility downside should be able to provide us with better answers, not just on how that contraption murdered that poor woman here, but also what it is, who those people down there really are, and what the hell was going on down there.”

“I think,” Leila slowly said,”I might have a few ideas; I just needed someone with a more science-y background than me to confirm I'm not talking out of my arse, when I echo my findings to the rest of the command team, much less to Gibraltar.”

“There's talking out of your arse,” Petra remarked,”and, then there's totally barking insane.”

“You honestly think Star Wars and Star Trek are all for real?” she then asked, not believing she was even asking that question.

“Blake's 7 as well, it seems,” Leila reluctantly added.

“Who the hell are they?!” Petra asked.

“Never mind,” Leila replied, shaking her head.

“I'm disinclined to believe it myself,” she added,”save for all the facts in evidence. We fought ships similar, though not entirely similar, to those found in both Blake's 7 and Star Trek, and Mister Kulper and her MFs engaged what appeared to be security troopers from the later Star Trek canon, and clone troopers from the 'prequels' of the Star Wars franchise.”

“And, the Optimum Organization,” she then reminded Nemesis' medico,”did use orginial Star Trek canon as a template to organize nearly every aspect of their United Earth, then their United Federation of Planets, after they exiled themselves from our Earth during the Optimum War 666 years ago.”

“Well, not 'our' Earth, strictly speaking,” Petra observed, the details of the dual histories resulting from the Merge over five centuries ago giving her a massive headache.

“The histories of both realities affected by the Merge dovetail well enough whether we're discussing the Arean Brotherhood and their revolt, or the Optimum and the Optimum War, to say nothing of the Areans' ancestors, the Fellowship, and the War of a Thousand Mart—“

“Oh, God,” Petra besseched the younger woman,”no, for fuck's sake, stop! This is already starting to sound like that crap ancient sci-fi novel you inflicted on me.”

“The Number Of the Beast wasn't crap,” Lelila defended.

“A bit retrograde, and perhaps more tits, arse, and incest than Game Of Thrones—” she added.

“Whatever that is,” Petra snarked.

”—but it wasn't total crap,” Leila concluded.

“Besides,” she added,”we did live through it.”

“And, apparentally are fated to do so again,” Petra groused, sighing.

“Like that passage from another crap sci-fi book,” she half-joked.”Eccelsiastes, I think.”

4 NOVEMBER, 2717 12:21:27 ZULU

“Now beginning my examination of subject number 223,” Doctor Lydia Glynn said into the FNRV Wolfgang Pauli's shipwide AI network, as she stood over still another white-armored corpse in the ship's morgue,”by removing the helmet, followed by removal of the remaining body armor, to be sent to Tech Section for analysis.”

The eighty-year old Survey Service doctor then unscrewed the lid off the deader, and unsurprisingly, he looked like all the other white-armored bodies gated aboard the Pauli in the past fifteen minutes.

“And, it fails to surprise me,” Lydia flippantly observed,”subject #223 looks almost exactly like his brethren. Cause of death was a two and one half-millimeter degenerate tiungsten projectile, precisely one gram in mass, fired from a Mons Calpan Imperial Armed Forces-issue Martian Ordinance M80 assault railgun at precisely 10.296 kilometers per second; projectile penetrated his frontal armor just to the right of center, leaving an entry wound thirty centimeters in diameter, and obliterating the subject's heart, upper left lung, esophagus, and virtually his entire spinal column between his neck and the small of his back, before creating a fifty-centimeter wound upon exiting the subject; preliminary examination of the resulting cavity indicates secondary internal damage from spalling, most likely from the penetration of the armor and its underlying bodyglove by the projectile. Am now removing armor and bodyglove.”

More precisely, one of the army of bots floating round her shelled the deader(rather like peeling a shrimp), after the tractor beam overhead lifted him up, the beam then gingerly lowering him back onto the slab, as a another bot scooped up the bits of white armor and the underlying black bodyglove, and carted it all off to Tech.

“Identification by means of DNA is impossible at this time,” Lydia continued,”as his DNA does not appear in any database in known space. Cross checking the shipnet's fiction database, we must conclude, at least preliminarily, that the subject is the clone of one Jango Fett, from the Star War prequel movies of the early 2000s. The whys and wherefores of this, even the confirmation of this, is beyond the scope of this autposy, and will not be pursued here.”

She nodded, and still another bot sawed off the top of the corpse's severely-shaven head.

Raising the head of the slab to a thirty-degree angle, Lydia examined the exposed brain.

“Brain structure, like all the others, is human, even if DNA shows several deviations from human baseline easily accounted for by adaptation to subject's birthworld, including genetic factors common to heavy-worlders,” she took a pair of forceps and poked at an implant the size of a thumbnail, at the base of the brain.

“Again, like all the others I've examined thus far, subject has what appears to be an artficial intelligence implanted at the base of his brain, with a miniaturized ansible similar to those found in Federation implants. A similar device was removed from subject #67 for analysis by Tech, so excision is unnecessary at this time.”

4 NOVEMBER, 2717 12:23:47 ZULU

“Disassembly of the weapon in question,” Philemon Gerber spoke into the Pauli's shipnet, as the engineering grad assistant regarded the component parts of the...blaster rifle...on the table before him,”indicates it is a Magneto-Hydrodynamic Explosive Munition device, similar in operation to the plasma torpedos used by Federation Starfleet Services, LLC, as well as the former Gorn Confederation and Romulan Empire, prior to their assmilation by the Federation during the Second General War, and the plasmatic pulsar device used by the ex-Interstellar Concordium, prior to their assmilation by the Gorn and Romulans while allied to the Federation in the earliest stages of the aforementioned GW2.”

He noted, with a glance, the arrival of more bits and pieces of white armor from the morgue, before returning to his notes on the weapon before him:

“The weapon utilizes a fourth-generation thermonuclear reaction, in particular, the release of an antihydrogen particle into a volume of lithium deuteride released from a cannister of pressurized gas, to convert a ferrous target into a metallic plasma accelerated and cohered by helical motors lining the barrel assembly, similar to self-forging penetrators of the early to mid-twenty-first century of both pre-Merge histories; after-action reports from members of 464 Marine Fusilier Regiment, recently engaged on Eta Carinae I, show that the resulting explosively-formed plasma bolt can penetrate two centimeters of Whipple armor at ranges up to 250 meters, which appears to be the effective limit of the weapon's range.”

Philemon swallowed hard, reluctant to add this next bit, but spoke anyway:

“According to the purely fictional Star Wars canon material, this weapon was an E-11 blaster rifle, though known to be used by Imperial storm troopers in the original trilogy, rather than by the clone troopers our forces encountered on the planet below.

That is best explained by the difference between fact and fiction: i.e., these weapons were observed to have been used by clone troopers, thus the fictional accounts of them being used exclusively by Imperial storm troopers are, in fact, fiction.”

Philemon then turned his attention to the complete set of white body armor assembled from the kit of several clone troopers:

“The armor is a composite of tungsten carbide and depleted uranium, with a layer of supercooled aerogel in between, similar to Federation Army National Guard, LLC and Starfleet Services, LLC Marine Corps Division powered body armor, as well as that used by the ground forces of the Klingon, Magellanic, and Omegan Empires, as well as the WYN Democratic-Republican Defense Forces; total thickness of the torso and limb plates is two centimeters, with an underlying black bodyglove of electrically-stimulated aerogel serving as temprature regulation, as well as psuedomuscle and nanoscopic servomotors rendering the armor easier to manage by its wearer, or wearers, in this instance.

It lacks the shield generators and nanofludic material found in the supercooled aerogel layers of similar armor utilized by the Mons Calpan Imperial Forces and the troops employed by the various Jindarian caravans, but it does provide reasonable protection against railgun rounds, and, I'm just as reasonably sure it provides more than adequate protection against the MAHEM weaponry utilized in their reality of origin.”

“Which,” he said, moving along to the weapons and other kit found on the poor bastards from the other Federation,”brings me to the weapons found on the deceased service members from the alternate Federation's Starfleet...”

4 NOVEMBER, Y317 12:30:36 ZULU

“...coherent meson beams, theoretically capable of bypassing armor and destroying their targets via internal explosions,” the degenerate, radfemmed subslut's image droned on in the screen of one of the USS Fred Wolf's intelligence lab workstations,”at the cost of a drastically reduced range, one hundred to one hundred fifty meters at best, and a tremendous power draw on its hafnium-isomer power source, as the beam requires constant refreshing, due to the meson particles' infintestimal half-life.”

“You dragged me down here for this?!” Fleet Captain David Johnathan Korie demanded of Wolf's science and first officer, Commander Xon.

“You did ask to be informed, sir,” the non-optimal, pointy-eared demon of a Vulcan tool for his true masters dared talk back to Korie,”when we began receiving teleme—“

The Wolf's intercom whistled.

“Korie,” the captain of the 700,000-ton Wakefield-class X-technology Galactic Survey Carrier said, the terminal now splitting its screen to accommodate the image of Wolf's helmsman, Lieutenant Commander Hikaru Aihara.

“Captain,” the wog informed him,”internal heat is now 37 degrees, life-support continues to compensate, but it is gradually falling behind. Sir, either we decloak, or we break orbit around Eta Carinae and move—“

“We will do neither, Mister Aihara,” was the irrevocable word of command from the scion of an optimal bloodline.”This ship will maintain cloak and standard orbit around Eta Carinae.”

“Sir—“ Korie's slope inferior started to object, before the Lord and Master of his worthless life told him, in no uncertain terms:

“I will remind you, it is intellectually honest to criticize the performance of Federation technology, or imply, in any way, that it is inferior to that of the lesser races envying our progress along the path to full Optimization as Deo sapiens.

Choose your next words carefully, Helmsman, lest the bridge Marine guards administer your legal jury trial, and you are condemned by your non-optimal genetics to eternal repurposing as a yeoman in the ship's Tail.”

“Maintaing cloak and standard orbital station, Captain,” Aihara instantly replied, after a glance at the pair of Marines standing guard at the bridge turbolift.

“Thank you, Mister Aihara,” Korie coldly replied.”Korie out.”

“...though the original canon in our reality,” the pathetically non-optimal issue of the procreator and the fornicator, the harlot and the sodomite continued droning,”indicates the use of high-yield laser weapons—called photon masers by Roddenberry himself, explaining the derivation of the word phaser—the history recovered from base computer's databases indicates this alternate Federation always used meson-particle—referred to as nadion-particle by this alternate Federation's history—beam weapons, even during the period referenced by the original series, which would be consistent with a past history in line with the ficitonal universe of the second through fifth Star Trek vid shows, the eleventh through twentieth Star Trek films and final five vid shows, Star Trek Discovery, Star Trek Final Frontier, the re-imagined Star Trek The Next Generation, Star Trek Vanguard, and the re-imagined Star Trek Voyager...”

“Next time, Vulcan,” Korie whispered,”have something interesting to show me, before you bother me.”

“I will be in the ship's Tail,” he added, cursing himself for the drives the taint of the procreator had imprinted on his otherwise-impeccable genes,”if that happens.”

4 NOVEMBER, 2717 12:32:19 ZULU

The main difficulty in translating Jindarian was in the language itself.

In particular, in a syllabary which was a series of musical notes, rather than a written alphabet, and Jindarian words whose meaning varied according to the vocal inflections placed upon those notes when sung.

And, that was before the compounded difficulty of differening dialects sung by the diversity of Jindarian caravans spread throughout the three known Galaxies(four, technically, but M81 was a long ways away even for the remnants of the Andros' Rapid Transit Network), and, according to what Nemesis' skipper and Fusilier commander had been able to divine from the Edilaff Qunami(edilaff meaning both seeress and madwoman), throughout alternate realities as well.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

“That's what we detected,” one of the Tyson's survivors, a twentyish grad student by the name of Sienna Kyle, said in reference to the sine wave Kara's finger traced along the metal-foil page on which the Edilaff Qunami—and indeed, the entirety of Qa Qunama qa Qunamo Intekjayno—had been inscribed,”before Doc Leavitt ordered us to get the hell out of there, an' the Feds...”

The young redhead, shifting her weight from foot to foot, trailed off, as Kara confirmed the telemetry of Nemesis' own sensors.

And, the “song” a Jindarian prophetess had said would be sung by the stars some 93,000 years ago.

When the stars sing, Kara sang to herself, all of the people must act as one to rid the eternal circle(the Jindarian word, qaamujindargeddeeo was often mistranslated as either galaxy or universe) of the unclean ones, or all the realities must fall to darkness and despair, just as it was when the arrogance of the dirjano, condemned to eternal circling of the eternal circle, but never coming full circle, drove us to seek the full circle, so that we may learn from our mortal sin of pride.

May qadirjano forgive us, may qaamujindargeddeeo teach us forgiveness within ourselves.

“It seems prophecy is coming to pass,” Kara finally said aloud.

“Seems a stretch,” Dymond remarked.”Over 93,000 years—“

“Few amongst our people,” Janouofee Jinbaro reminded her,”have the ability to perceive the circling of eternity in upon itself.”

“None amongst us now,” Salish Qadir added. “The ability to perceive the circling of eternity from beginning to beginning, is exceptional enough amongst us, and the insanity which results from such a curse tends sharply to limit prospects for its propagation.”

“Much like those amongst your people, who pay for glimpses of the eternal circling with paranoid schizophrenia,” he added.

“Our people dismissed that notion as pure bollocks centuries ago,” young Sienna spoke up.”Along with the idea that vaccinations cause mental defects.”

“'Psychological deviations from the Optimum,'” the Intekjayno Qadir reminded the centuries-younger woman,”according to Fred Wolf, Frank Tipler, Andrew Wakefield, Jerry Pournelle, Kent Hovind, and those others of the Fundamental Fysiks Group who made the passage with the rest of the Optimum to their Earth 666 of your years ago.”

“With the complicity of those of our people who refused to learn from our mortal sin of pride,” the ancient Jindarian then whispered.

“Those dirjano were dealt with,” Janouofee Jinbaro abruptly, sharply said to her Qadir,”and are a shame that must never be sung in the presence of Kojindaro.”

“My song was innocent of offense, Jinbaro,” Salish Qadir demurred.

“And, we will sing nothing of that shame,” Kara promised,”amongst ourselves, or to others, from this point forward. As the singing of your song binds you, allow ours to bind us, Jinbaro.”

“So it shall, Kara Senior Captain, until qaamujindargeddeeo is upon us all,” Janouofee Jinbaro reluctantly replied, as Kara continued to sing to herself:

Dirjanomo, dirjandreyo, dirjanqonsho, the Three who laid the path to follow the eternal circle, and the children and fosterlings of the condemned Three, all must gather together in the fullness of qaamujindargeddeeo, all must pay the sin-price, all must resolve their song of eternal circling into a single song which sings for all and for one, lest the darkness win, and all is silence.

May qadirjano forgive us, may qaamujindargeddeeo teach us forgiveness within ourselves.

4 NOVEMBER, 2717 12:37:00 ZULU

“There it is again,” Chief Petty Officer Wallis Donahue said, as HM Starfighter Osprey led the eleven other fifty-ton Albatross SF.24 starfighters of 1 Squadron of HMS Invincible’s 1815 Starfighter Group, into high orbit 300 kiloklicks from the orange supergiant Eta Carinae.

“I see it,” Group Captain Roberta Niles, glancing at the trio of Hawking holes in an orbit closer to the star. “Mass readings show the Hawking point trailing the other two to be concealing a 700-kiloton mass, while the pair leading it are each concealing a 335-kiloton mass.”

“Vinny Intel,” her backseater remarked,”says they're a Wolf-class XGSV and its attendant pair Defiant-class XDF escorts.”

“I concur,” Roberta decided.”Wee-O, can you give me a firing solution on those bogeys?”

“Darva is painting all three now,” Wallis replied,”solution imminent.”

“Squadron, on me!” Roberta said over the squadron tactical network(tacnet). “Interlink firing control to Osprey Wee-O, and—“

“CAG!” Warhawk's Lieutenant Kris O’Keefe shouted out over tacnet, as one of the leading pair of bogeys de-cloaked to reveal the rounded wedge and ovoid hull and triple recessed nacelles of a Fed Defiant-class fast destroyer.

“Sod that!” Roberta screamed.”Squadron will break hard, and attack, attack, attack!”

As she said that, she crushed the singularity in Osprey's DSM, firing the SMTs at the same time, as she ripped into the Fed destroyer with ten-round bursts from the starfighter's six fixed 2.5mm railguns, and Wallis loosed one of Osprey's Interceptor IXs on an intercept.

The second Fed XDF then uncloaked and upshifted to high tac, same as the twelve Imperial Mons Calpa Starmarine starfighters screaming down on the enemy combat starships.

4 NOVEMBER, Y317 12:39:02 ZULU

“Overload all gatlings, phaser-4s, and photon pulse cannon!” Captain Jean Laffite Sisko shouted over the whooping of the red alert klaxon.”Overfire all photon pulse cannons, launch drones, max yield, max fire rate! Helm, take us to max tac warp, come about to 270 mark 12!”

The 335,000-ton, cutting-edge, third-generation X-technology fast destroyer starship USS Defiant shot up to Warp 9.9725, sharply breaking orbit round Eta Carinae, and charging the twelve ape-primitive fighter shuttles with all guns blazing.

One of the bridge consoles exploded, the bridge itself shuddering from several direct hits against the forward deflectors, his tactical officer, Lieutenant Commander Tu'Vok Shi'Kahr, indecently quick to report,”Shields 1, 2 and 6 all at 50%, reserve shield down to 43%, shunting warp and impulse power to the deflector grid to reinforce! Forward armor at 82%!”

“Cloaking system's fried,” Lieutenant Commander Liam Micheal O'Kay reported from the bridge engineering station,”power's out on decks two and three, electrical fires on all decks, severe damage to main energizers and dilithium chamber, starboard and center nacelles venting plasma.”

“We've lost the Delta Flyer,” Defiant's Vulcan weapons officer then reported, at the same time Sisko ordered Lieutenant Ezra Aaron Dax to “evade, but keep us between those ape-primitives and the Wolf!”

“Scalper Albion-class starfighter carrier at 0 mark 0, 300,000 kilometers away,” Shi'Kahr then reported, at the same time,”closing rapidly at Warp 9.98. Enemy carrier launching her remaining squadrons.”

“ Just as I was expecting, Mister Shi'Kahr,” Sisko smugly reassured the non-optimal Vulcan tool of his genetically-superior masters.

“Launch another salvo of Mark 15 Long Lance hellfire drones directly at the carrier, max fire rate, max yield on all implosion warheads; then transfer all available warp power to the mauler.

Fire when ready.”

4 NOVEMBER, 2717 12:41:16 ZULU

“Number One, hard jink and burn!” Senior Captain Delia Brunner shouted via plant, as multiple-implosion warhead drones sleeted toward Invincible to be shot down by her poppers, and the ship's detection and ranging via ansible(darva) gear's phased-arrays all picked up the RF spike of the Fed fast destroyer's nose-mounted navigational deflector/main sensor dish system being charged up as a mauler device.

“Wee-O,” Invincible's Skipper and OC, 16 Carrier Squadron, said to Senior Lieutenant Carolyn Wilde,”his forward shields will done in by that mauler firing.”

The Fed ship unleashed a three-gigaton blast of blue-hot energy at where the Vinnie had been a second before, Carolyn returning the enemy's fire with her quad dual batteries of 24cm railguns, four dozen one-ton hyperdense tungsten projectiles ripping through his substantially-weakened forward shield and through the recessed nav deflector mount in the hollow of the nose wedge, causing an eruption of plasma from his tail.

“Enemy center warp motor's gone,” Chief Petty Officer India Kefler reported from avionics and countermeasures,”as have half his impulse motors.”

“Multiple Long Lance hellfire drones inbound,” she then said, as a white-hot Mark IV phaser grazed Vinnie, and caused the lights and holodisplays in her Pit to flicker and darken momentarily.

“Evasives, Number One!” Delia ordered her helmsman and XO, Commander Arlene Becker.”Three millisecs emergency!”

“Wee-O, return fire,” she added, even as all eight 240s drove degenerate hydrogen rounds through the Fed XDF.

4 NOVEMBER, Y317 12:43:02 ZULU

“Maintain cloak!” Korie shrieked, as his bridge exploded all around him.

“Internal heat now fifty degress, continuing to rise!” Wolf's excuse for a chief engineer, Lieutenant Commander Mikhail Hodel, reported over comms.”Cloaking system overloading, radiators and internal cooling system severely compromised; center nacelle and impulse engine warp coils have fused, auxiliary warp reactors two and six are approaching cri—“

“Maintain cloak!” the master of the Wolf repeated, in a tone brooking no rebuttal.

Yet, that green-blooded, pointy-eared, non-optimal Vulcan creature insisted on rebutting his genetic, intellecutal and moral superior:

“They know where we are, Captain, and they are concentrating the majority of their strike power on us. Either we decloak and fight, or go to warp and—“

“The First-Born Sons of Adam, son of Jehovah,” Korie spat his reply,”do not run from the ape-primitive inferiors We created , by mistake, through the process of Biological Optimization!”

“And,” he added,”we can't fight. Our orders—“

“Only statists, militarists, and Jew bankster corporatist minions of the ape-primitives,” that damned devil-eared freak reminded the Lord and Master of his life,”hide behind orders, rule of law, and other non-optimal inconveniences. His Biologically Optimal—“

“Drop cloak, raise shields, stand by to go to warp!” was forced out of the commander of the peacekeeping, scientific, exploration, and diplomatic platform known as the USS Fred Alan Wolf , as the inky grey void of cloak space was instantly replaced by the red-orange fire of Eta Carinae, stippled by blue-hot points of hard light sleeting into the port shields.

“We have lost the Defiant,” Xon reported, as Wolf's cyborg weapons officer, Lieutenant Commander Lucifer D. Soong, overfired the Galactic Survey Carrier's portside gatling phasers in an attempt to shoot down the incoming enemy fire.

“Impulse and center warp engines are offline,” Aihara whined from the helm station, his clearly optimal superior ignoring him, ordering Hodel to “divert all aux warp reactor power to the shields!”

“Mister Aihara!” Korie them barked out.”Course 315 mark 90, max dash warp, now!”

“Re-establish cloak once we're clear of Eta Carinae,” he further ordered, as the vessel of peace, exploration, and self-defense fled from the statists and militarists, with their carriers and starfighters all seeking to kill what they could never, ever be.

4 NOVEMBER, 2717 12:44:12 ZULU

“He's fucked off, fleeing the vicinity of Eta Carinae at low dash,” India reported. “CAG is asking if she should pursue.”

“Do we pursue, Skipper?” Arlene asked.

“Negative,” Delia replied.” Avionics, send to CAG 'all squadrons, disengage and RTB,' then order commander, Wales, to shadow hostile XGSV with her division.”

“Hostile machine re-establishng cloak,” India reported,”maintaing vector for the Homunculus.”

“Psych profile for enemy commander available, Skipper,” Vinnie's intel officer, Senior Lieutenant Peter Crenshaw, reported.” Echoing to conn now.”

“Thank you, Intel,” Delia replied, as John Korie's holo now floated over her station's left hand holodisplay.

“The war criminal David Johnathan Korie,” she observed, largely to herself.”Pirate, serial rapist, mass murderer, Optimum true believer, twice decorated with the Starfleet, LLC Gold Star, ennobled by the Klingon Empire, for 'glorious battles' against defenseless convoys, and equally defenseless civilian populations, in particular, the 'Battle' Of Roon at the beginning of GW2, in which he, in his capacity as Starfleet, LLC advisor to the Lion Heart Cartel, ordered the orbital bombardement which sterilized an entire world, simply because the locals insisted on prosecuting a rapist.”

“Alive a great sodding deal longer than he has any right to be,” she then remarked,”I'll tell you that. Avionics, echo all telemetry of this action to commander, Nemesis, if you please. Number One, as soon as we've racked the last of our birds, we will lead the Ocean and the Eagle into the Homonculus, along the most likely approach window for the inbound Fed SCS group. CAG, your machines and crews will remain at alert five til further notice.”

4 NOVEMBER, Y317 12:48:00 ZULU

Eltdisteattieltar Fergus O'Kay knelt at the edge of the Hostile Takeover's main transporter stage, and anointed his Federation Master's boots with his kisses.

“You and yours may rise, My Captain of Captains,” Fleet Captain Canseligero David Johnathan Korie replied.

Starfleet, LLC's adviser to the Lion Heart Cartel, the very incarnation of Biological Optimization, then majestically stepping down from the transporter, took the Cartel's Captain of Captains by his broad shoulders and said, smiling:

“It is good to see you again, Fergus. How many vessels have you brought with you?”

“My personal enforcement craft, the Godfather-class dreadnaught Hostile Takeover,” the Cartel's chief enforcer answered his biologically-optimal superior,”with its three flotillas of Buccaneer-class XLRs, as well as five Saldeeto-class XBCs, a dozen Assassin-class XCRHs, and ten Corsair-class heavy salvage cruisers, two of which are configured as heavy scout carriers, a third as a Fleet Repair Dock, capable of repairing any Federation starship, while the other seven are here simply to collect ape-primitives who have the indecency to survive the coming battle for repurposing and millenium of loving discipline in the entertainment decks.”

“They are all, of course,” the Captain of Captains added, bowing his head to his anointed masters,”yours to command, man Canseligero, before whom even the Sangoredisteattisangorir of this Cartel, and, even the Sangoregrondodaochemassonar, blessed Ancestors preserve Him, must kneel.”

“As is the lot of the Biologically Optimal,” Korie gave the ritual response to the chief enforcer's deference.

“For now,” He added, “ a simple matter of loving discipline, as we await the arrival of our comrades, will suffice. Transporter operator, you will beam My personal yeoman to one of your ship's entertainment decks, and arrange for her punishment at the hands of a gang of your green-skinned animal women.”

“It shall be done, man Canseligero,” the immature Orion gutter sweeping manning the transporter station was quick to reply.

“Now,” He said to His Captain of Captains, as He led him by the hand to the door,”while We await our entertainment, let Us enjoy one another, as only His Biologically-Optimized are capable of doing.”

4 NOVEMBER, Y317 12:52:11 ZULU

Rear Admiral Alexander Koenig emerged from his quarters more firmly convinced than ever of the depravity of the ape-primitives and the necessary, if distasteful, duty of loving discipline and final extermination owed them by the Biologically-Optimal Lords and Masters Of their worthless lives.

He rode the turbolift to the bridge, thrusting his left hand outward in reply to the outthrust right hands of the Marine guards flanking the turbolift doors, before he strode to the empty chair at the center of the bridge, and took his place at Buchannan's left hand.

He stared at the blue-shifted stars in the main viewscreen, at the trio of three-megaton Musai-class heavy torpedo cruisers less than a half million kilometers directly ahead of the America, while thinking of the trio of Musais trailing the ship, all six ships' squadrons of F-35X Lightning IV fighters deployed on CSP directly ahead and astern of the SCBG's formation, with America's own F-35X squadrons and frigate flotillas ready to launch on five minutes' notice.

It would be more than enough force to deal with the ape-primitives, no matter how many of them were in system.

“Sirs,” America's science officer, Commander Jared Ogilvie, reported,”the Lion Heart Cartel's enforcement squadron have taken up position within the Homunculus, and Fleet Captain Korie, in his capacity as the Cartel's Starfleet, LLC advisor, has assumed command.”

“That's not what I ordered him to do!” replied Koenig, through tightly clenched teeth.

“Captain Korie has also uploaded the current disposition of ape-primitive forces in the Eta Carinae system,” Ogilvie further reported.

“Let's have it, Commander,” Koenig said, as the main viewscreen now switched to a tactical display of the Eta Carinae system, showing a squadron of ape-primitive so-called cruisers, along with another of their so-called research and exploration vessels and a caravan of thirteen Jindarian asteroid ships, with another six squadrons of ape-primitive cruisers, supported by a half squadron of the ape-primitives' carriers and the Jindos' metal-hulled starships and attrition units, on a grand tour of the system surrounded by the Homunculus.

“Where's that other half squadron of carriers?” Buchannan asked, as he too studied the tactical display.

“Doesn't matter,” Koenig assured his flag captain.

“Doesn't matter at all,” he repeated.”They are ape-primitives, products of a primitive society, with technology over six centuries behind ours.”

“And, we are Biologically Optimal,” Ogilvie observed,”well on the path of Full Optimization as Deo sapiens. The outcome is scientifically foreordained, predicted by His Received Canon over seven and a half centuries ago.”

“That it is, Commander,” Koenig whispered raptorously. “That it is!”

4 NOVEMBER, 2717 13:33:00 ZULU

After an hour's downtime for crews to be fed and rested, HMS Nemesis led her squadron, two divisions of starfighter carriers, 830 and 1214 CruRons, a squadron of Jindarian destroyers, and two flotillas of Jindo frigs into the Homunculus along the most likely approach vector for the inbound Fed SCS battle group.

Meanwhile, another squadron of Jindo destroyers, two more flotillas of Jindarian frigates, another division of Albions, 243, and 682 Cruiser Squadrons joined the division of carriers already on station watching the Fed XGSV and the Lion Heart Cartel enforcement fleet gathering elsewhere in the planetary nebula surrounding the Eta Carinae system proper.

Which left the Intekjayno asteroid ships, remaining destroyers, and attrition units to guard the Pauli, the planet and the gate against any enemy from this reality winning through, as well as potential enemies from other realities charging through the gate.

Given that tampering with the gate found underneath the Java Sea, on Earth, had been the cause of the Merge over five centuries ago, neither the big brains aboard the Pauli or aboard any of the Jindarian asteroid ships had been too keen on trying to trigger the gate themselves, instead combing the captured enemy base's computer, and any computer intact aboard the wrecked enemy hulls for any clue as to whatever activated the sodding thing.

Which was not Kara's concern at present.

“Entering the Homunculus, Skipper,” Hope reported, Solange adding,”advance pickets reporting Fed SCSBG now thirty, that is three-zero, mikes from Homunculus, maintaining formation, continuing to close at one-seven-three decimal seven-nine-one gigakips.”

Pinkish froth now glowed dimly in the ship's master holodisplay, as the quarter-megaton Archangel Micheal-class combat cruiser plowed through the planetary nebula at 28.2 terakips, guided by her darva and passive EM spectrum intercept telescopes, her shield generators, encased in the Whipple armor's 17cm superconducting aerogel and nanite layer—sandwiched between seventeen centimeters of superdense tungsten and depleted uranium on either side—producing a field close to the skin of the ship, and largely immune to the ionizing effects of the nebula, which interfered with Fed and Klingon shields, which projected farther out from their hulls.

“ETI?” she asked, even though Kara had worked that out in her head already, that dubious ability being a product of thirty years as a combat starshipman.

“Four-two mikes at present rate of closure, Skipper,” Leila replied, confirming Kara's figures.

“Weapon status?” she then asked her Wee-O, Jackie quickly replying,”all tubes charged and loaded, Skipper.”

“Four dozen birds one megaklick directly ahead of us,” Lizzie added,”all drone-control links are good.”

“Good,” Kara forced herself to say, swallowing still another hard lump in her throat.

“We have linked up with Invincible, Ocean, and Eagle,” Solange reported.”Senior Captain Brunner reports Invincible's starfighters operating at the edge of the Homonculus as advance pickets, while Eagle and Ocean's Albatrosses are on combat space patrol fifteen megaklicks ahead of the formation.

Vikrant, Bulwark, and Glorious now launching starfighters to join CSP.”

“All we have to do now is wait,” Hope commented.

“You make that sound so easy, Number One,” was Kara's reply, as she continued staring straight ahead.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

13 FEBRUARY, 2376 13:35:47 ZULU

Supreme Commander Traviss of the Terran Federation Space Forces smiled, as he stared across the docking bay at the Liberator-class battle cruiser just waiting for him to assume mastery over it.

Based almost exactly on the plan of Blake's ship, Traviss' Liberator boasted a cluster of six automatic plasma beam cannon at the leading edges of each of its three cylindrical time-distort motor nacelles, set back on pylons sweeping away from from the main hull(shaped like a make of old-style microphone), which tapered into a point concealing Liberator's six 6m rapid-firing plasma bolt projectors.

“Impressive,” said the lean, angular man from the other Federation's Starfleet, the badly-hidden sneer on his face giving lie to his words.

“She's adequate for purpose intended,” Traviss replied more truthfully, the black-uniformed Terran Supreme Commander restraining the urge to burn the unjustfiably-smug Starfleet admiral down where he stood with the laser integral to his cybernetic right hand.

“More than adequate,” the Federation's warlord added, grinning at Rear Admiral Benjamin Maxwell the entire time he put the boot in, ”to do the job your people were incapable of doing, Admiral.”

“They cheated,” Maxwell replied, petulant and childish, as all lesser beings tended to be.
“That is the only possible explanation for how they could've defeated a clearly superior force.”

Traviss laughed in his social, evolutionary and moral inferior's face.

“That,” Maxwell insisted,”is Canon, Supreme Commander.”

“It may interest you to know, Admiral,” Traviss told him,”that people like you, commanding a single vessel they presumptiously called a battlestar, made a similar claim of superiority almost five centuries ago. It only took...ah, less than year, I think...for them to run away with their tails between their legs.

The same,” he added, a warm feeling suffusing every fiber of his being, as he spoke,”for the traitor and war criminal Roj Blake, and his rebellious rabble. It took us five years, but, in the end, his ship was destroyed, and his crew easily— so very easily—manipulated into betraying and murdering one another on some lonely, nameless world in the verges of my Federation's space.”

“They thought,” he added, grin growing wider, as he turned back toward the view of his Liberator, and her ten sisters in airdock beside her, “they were better than us. Now, they're all dead, and the fire of so-called rebellion they fanned throughout the stars is nothing more than cold ashes.

Do bear that in mind, Admiral.”

Traviss' gaze then strayed to the dusty charcoal saucer, triangular wedge and elongated wedge-like nacelle configuration of the other Federation’s Discovery-class machines, dwarfing even their Galaxy-class starships by a factor of six and two-thirds, each of the eighteen “tactical explorers” attended to by a dozen ovoid and wedge Antares-class tactical escorts, all of whom were sporting a pair of turbophaser lances, which were little more than higher-yield plasma beam weapons, protruding from the leading edges of their ovoid hulls, with the rounded off wedge concealing another pair of plasma beams, with rotary-tube “transphasic” torpedo launchers in between the flanking turbophaser mounts and the aft portion of the wedge.

No design asthetics whatsoever, the true Federation's military dictator concluded, and, as for their innovation...like all inferiors, they stole technology from others, called it their own, then claimed not only to have originated it first, but that they'd predicted those technologies with their ancient, sad patriotic propaganda to begin with.

“Those,” Maxwell had the bad manners to interrupt Traviss' musings,”are truly impressive platforms of peacekeeping, diplomacy, scientific research and exploration, are they not, Space Commander.”

“Adequate, Admiral,” Traviss replied.”Merely adequate.”

4 NOVEMBER, 2717 13:38:14 ZULU

“Least we know what it is now,” Leland Barker whispered, as he looked at what the flatscreen display told him of the abomination defining the purpose of the this facility's construction.

“And, what it does,” Doctor Barbara Givens whispered, horror-struck, as she stood behind her senior research and teaching assistant.

“Cor blimey,” she added, her eyes on the specs of this “entenchment device” displayed on the facility director's main computer terminal.

“It appears this other Federation were working with the New Galactic Order,” Leland babbled on,”conducting experiments with this bloody thing to test what it does, its limits, its ability to suck the souls, for...lack of a better word...to suck the souls of an entire race of sophonts.”

“It seems the Borg,” he added,”had achieved, not a hive mind, mind, but rather a networked consciousness using their equivalent of ansible technology, and these other Feds wanted to see if that rendered them more vunerable to the entenchment device.”

“These Borg were reported to capture other sophonts and assmilate them into their Collective, generally by force,” he then said.

“So genocide's an easy answer for their crimes?!” Babs said, with more gall than she intended. “I'm sure the Optimum, the fucking Areans, and the Fellowship all approve of logic that led to the Arean Revolt, the Optimum War and the War Of a Thousand sodding Martyrs, to say absolutely nothing of the Feds' campaign to 'judge and punish' us, and the rest of the Three Galaxies!”

“I'm just making—“ Leland tried to defend.

“You would make a good Fed,” Babs bitterly remarked, instantly relenting:

“I'm sorry, Lee, it's just...”

“I find it abhorrent as well, Professor,” her best and brightest student softly replied.

“I know,” Babs said, sniffling down tears, swallowing a hard lump in her throat.

“I know,” she replied, as she put a motherly hand on the young man's shoulder.

4 NOVEMBER, 2717 13:40:04 ZULU

“This EM spectrum information is similar to, but not quite the same as,” Lianna Cortes reported from the avionics station,”that which was recorded for the events leading to the disappearances of the Aurora, Krakanora, PX13 and Stuplich VI systems.”

“All the more reason,” Doctor Kristen Perez, skipper of the FNRV Wolfgang Pauli, remarked from her central station in the research and exploration vessel's Pit,”as if we needed any more reason, to not go fumbling round in an attempt to access the gate.”

“The big brains back on Halley's Comet,” Pauli's second in command and helmsman, Mariko Ishikawa, remarked,”think the gates might have had a self-destruct, to prevent unauthorized access.

And, that the Jindos might know more than they're letting on about those gates.”

“They do know more about those bloody gates than they're letting on,” Kris stated,”and, being Jindos, they've chosen to keep that to themselves til now. Now, when their pinche prophecy could've been fufilled by any of the other similar events.”

“Or,” Pauli's senior physicist, Doctor Penelope Cantwell, remarked, from directly behind the avionics station,”by the Merge itself.”

“So, why now,” she added,”and not then?”

“Maybe,” Penny's senior-most graduate student took her time to reply,”this isn't the only currently active gate right now.”

“Excuse me?!” Kris replied, not sure she wanted the answer.

“Am receiving a Zed-priority communication direct from Survey Service HQ at Halley's Bright Tree,” Lianna replied.”Echoing to your plant now.”

DAY 318.25, AK320

“My lord,” the nameless kuve warrant officer manning the sensors reported,”renegade Tholian vessel re-acquired on sensors.”

Captain Kurn Malokai Kumerian, master of the Imperial Klingon C11 heavy battlecruiser Emperor Worf, acknowledged the Cromarg servant's statement with a slight nod, before returning his full attention to his yellow-lit bridge's main viewscreen, and the diamond barely visible amidst the blue-shifted starfield.

“Science officer!” the master of the Emperor Worf demanded.”What can you tell me about the Tholian that your leashed Cromarg dog could not?!”

“It is the vessel we have pursued from the Tholian Military Occupation District and across Klingon Imperial Space, my lord,” his first officer, Commander Kaden Krendahl, crisply, sharply replied. “Tholian now at Warp 9.975, continuing to—“

“Naviagtor?!” Kurn then spat out.”Position?!”

“We are entering a system at the edge of the Hydran Military Occupation District, my lord,” Lieutenant Mokhail Gorkon reported from the navigation station. “Reb—pirate vessel speed now Warp 8.61, continuing to drop.”

“Thoughts, First Officer?!” Kurn asked, as he arranged for Security to...enlighten the unfortunate soon-to-be former navigator concerning his slip of the tongue.

“My lord,” Krendall,” it is likely the Tholian terrorist intends to rendezvous with similar terrorists amongst our Hydran kuve, and the rendezvous is in this system.”

“My thoughts as well, First Officer,” Kurn replied, as the Tholian destroyer continuing reducing speed.

“Hardly worthy of our skills,” remarked Worf's weapons officer, Lieutenant Morghai Kang.

“We are soldiers of Kahless' Empire, Weaponeer!” Kurn reminded the junior officer.”We are honor bound to discipline kuve who have forgotten their rightful place at our boots, lest they rebel and lead themselves into depravity and true oppression.”

“Of course, my lord,” Kang replied.”Forgive my indiscretion.”

“Pirate vessel now dropping to Warp 1,” young Kang then reported,”maintaining a heading for system primary.”

A red star, bloated and dim with extreme age, now dominated the main viewscreen.

“Distance, Navigator?!” Kurn asked.

“Two hundred thousand kellicams, my lord,” Gorkon replied.”Closing rapidly .”

“Pilot, reduce speed to Warp 1.25,” Kurn barked.”Weapons officer, overload photorps, and stand by to fire at my command! Action!”

“Acting!” both Kang and Worf's pilot, Lieutenant Kehlar Mogkai instantly replied.

“We shall be merciful,” Kurn remarked, as they and the Tholian terrorist swung around the system's primary,”and qui—“

“Science officer, what is that thing?!” he then demanded, a circle of interlocking golden rings now appearing at the center of the viewscreen.

“My lord,” Krendall started to say,”I do not—“

“Tholian vessel transmitting signal,” the Cromarg sensor technician then reported,”toward unknown ob—“

4 NOVEMBER, Y317 13:43:06 ZULU

“Now entering Denebola system,” Commander Cole Devlin reported from the USS Star Empire's science station. “Unlawful Romulan combatant dropping to Warp 1.4, now on course for the tenth planet in system.”

“Helm,” Captain V'kel Shon ordered,”reduce speed to Warp 2, maintain pursuit.”

“Aye,” the watchstander at the helm station replied, as the Sovereign-class XBC closed with the ancient Rihannsu King Eagle cruiser plunging toward the gas giant Denebola X.

“Is that right, Mister Devlin?” Star Empire's Vulcan commander asked, as he studied the Rihannsu's course further.

“Unlawful Romulan combatant now at Warp 0.8 and decelerating,” Devlin reported.”If he continues on his current heading, he will re-enter the atmosphere of Denebola X in approximately thirty-seven seconds.”

“Thirty-six point eight-two-one-seven seconds, Mister Devlin,” the Vulcan replied, again reminding the illogical, hormonal human just whose people were on the proper path to Full Optimization toward godhood, as he steepled his fingers and calmly ordered:

“Engineering, divert warp power to the shields. Helm, reduce speed to Warp 0.9. Tactical, overload all forward Phaser IVs, stand by quantum torpedos.”

“Unlawful combatant entering atmosphere,” Devlin reported, as the Federation's most-advanced platform of peacekeeping, exploration, diplomacy and scientific reserach followed the traitor warship into the super-Jovian's atmosphere, the main viewscreen now obscured by thick clouds of gas, around which white-hot forks of lightning danced.

“Visual lost,” Lieutenant Brandon Prentiss reported from tactical.” Maintaining sensor lock, but I have insufficent information for main phaser firing solution.”

“Sir,” Devlin reported,”there's something else. Sensors detecting a massive amount of electromagnetic energy, some ten thousand kilometers directly ahead, and unaccounted for by normal activity for a Jovian planet of this size.”

“Readings indicate,” Star Empire's science officer added,”power generation of precisely 1,031.4—“


“Personal log, Stardate 6835.2. We are fifteen days out of Starbase Three, following our fight with the Klingon battle cruiser in System 7328, and the Copernicus incident in the Lear/Iago binary system shortly after, the latter of which remains classified at this time.

We are en route to the third planet in System 424 for a followup mining survey; preliminary survey of the planet by the USS Hannibal indicates the planet may be rich in iridium, which we need, if we are to build sufficent ships to finally put those murdering Klingon animals in their places, and enforce the peace and rule of interstellar morality only our Federation is capable of bringing to the galaxy at large.”

“Pause,” James Tiberius Kirk, captain of the starship USS Enterprise said to the ship's computer, as he put his booted feet on the desk, smiling smugly(and justifiably so), as he listened to the muffled whimpering of another satisfied, uppity, stuck-up, self-entitled little bitch.

In particular, the little slut calling herself a science officer, and stinking up Enterprise's chemistry lab with her stupidity and incompetence.

They were all sluts, even the stuck-up alien ones, always throwing themselves at him, making him profane his manhood by sticking it in them.

And, if I didn't, he observed with a smirk, as he downed another snifter of Saurian brandy, they'd just pervert first each other, then us, all the while whining about their pathetic little rights, mocking and desecrating honest, genuine affection that only a man could ever have for his brother.

Which reminded him.

Pouring himself one last drink, the Federation's finest starship captain, a man amongst men, rose from his chair, smoothed his gold silk dress uniform with all the medals he'd earned through hard work and selfless devotion to the ideals of peace and brotherhood that only his Federation were ever capable of.

“Computer,” Kirk said,”resume recording.”

“Working,” said the computer, in its mechanical female voice.

“We are returning to the Lear/Iago binary,” Kirk spoke, as he sloshed the brandy round in its cut dilithium-crystal snifter(part of a set gifted to him by the grateful natives of System 7328, following their deliverance from Klingon tyranny three years ago),”to conduct memorial services for two of our shipmates who made the ultimate sacrifice in the pursuit of the highest ideals of the Federation.

Those heroes being engineering Lieutenant Mikhail Hodel and my nephew's husband, medical officer Lieutenant Alexander Freeman-Kirk. There was no time to do so following the incident in which they gave their lives, nor was there any time during our repairs at Starbase 3.”

He then sipped the brandy, as the bosun's whistle sounded over the intercom.

“Kirk here,” Kirk said into his workstation terminal's microphone.

“Spock here, Captain,” his first officer said in the baritone which thrilled Kirk to his masculine core, as the captain of the Enterprise gazed upon the visage of perfect masculinity, no emotions, no hormones, not the slightest taint of femininity in his pure DNA.

“We are entering the Lear/Iago binary system,” Enterprise's science officer—


—lay on his back, staring at the ceiling, hearing utter, complete silence, which simply was not possible on a working starship at any time of the day.

Spock, his brain said, but he himself could not put voice to the word.

Nor could he move his head, arms, so much as a little finger.

He wasn't breathing, his chest neither rising nor falling, and the heart in his chest...not beating, he couldn't hear it beat, couldn't feel it pounding frantically against his breastbone, which, by all rights, it should be doing right now.

What the...

“...hell's going on?!” he heard himself demand, as the sounds his ship made returned, and Kirk was now able to lift himself to his feet.

“Jim, I...” Spock's steady, measured, emotionless tenor slowly said,”I ...do not know.”

“All decks, repor—“ Kirk started to demand over the intercom, before the red alert klaxon whooped stridently.


4 NOVEMBER, Y317 14:00:01 ZULU

“One moment it wasn't there,” Ogilvie insisted,”the next...”

Koenig stared at the main viewscreen and the ancient Constitution-class starship cruising along the edge of the Homunculus at extreme visual range.

“I can tell you,” the clearly non-optimal excuse for a science officer returned to his earlier smug reassurance,”that its appearance was preceded by a wash of electromagnetic signal interference similar to that detected in all the recently-disappeared systems.”

“It is a First General War-era Constitution-class heavy cruiser,” Ogilvie further observed.”Its power readings and general EM footprint match library computer records precisely.

Moreover, according to its transponder, it is the USS Enterprise, NCC-1701, under the command of Captain Oscar Jean-Paul Picard at the time of its destruction during Operation Remus 136 years ago.”

“We're being hailed,” said the comms watchstander.”Vessel identifies herself as USS Enterprise, under the command of a Captain James T. Kirk.”

“Not possible,” Koenig insisted.”He isn't real.”

“No such person listed in Starfleet Services, LLC associate records,” Ogilvie confirmed.

“Some kind of sick joke,” Buchannan remarked.

“If so, whoever this Kirk character is,” Lieutenant Commander John Craig reported from tactical,”he's putting on a damn good act. His phasers are Mark Is, charged to the power level expected of such relics; I'm only reading two photorp tubes, where there should be four, and those are holding armed torpedos of standard yield, no overloads, no indications of proximity fusing.”

“Shields, Mister Craig?!” Buchannan demanded.

“Raised at her rated strength,” Craig replied.”No indication of even first-gen X-technology.”

Koenig nodded.

“Have the North Carolina and its CSP intercept and engage this alleged Enterprise.” he then ordered.”The remainder of the battle group will continue into the Homunculus.”

STARDATE UNKNOWN

The bridge trembled, as his ship sustained more hits.

“Multiple thermonuclear warhead, warp-capable missiles,” Spock reported from the science station, as Lieutenant Pavel Chekov desperately returned the fire of fighter shuttles and the large saucer with a pair of dreadnaught-sized warp nacelles on angled dorsal struts flanking two pairs of impulse engines.

“Ship appears similar to Starfleet vessels,” Spock then reported,”but its power curve is nothing like any Federation, Romulan or Klingon starship that I am aware of.”

“That you are aware of?!” Lieutenant Commander Leonard “Bones” McCoy, imposing himself on the bridge, per the chief medical officer's usual modus operandi.

“What does the library computer say, Mister Spock?” Kirk asked, perceiving the meaning of Spock's words, as the bridge shuddered again.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

“Scotty, I thought I ordered you to reinforce the shields!” he demanded of his chief engineer, Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott.

“That I did, Captain,” Scotty, hunched over the flickering bridge engineering console, replied testily,”but their weapons are goin' thru our shields like they weren't even there.”

“Always excuses with you, isn't it, Scotty?!” Kirk spat.

”Try rotating the shield frequencies,” he added, half remembering an article from last month's Proceedings Of the Star Fleet Institute.

“Nae good, Captain,” Scotty insisted.”Their plasma torpedos are non-oscillatin', an' their phasers are dynamically-tuned, free-electron types.”

“I thought Starfleet decided those would never work in a modern space-combat enviroment,” Lieutenant Commander Hikaru Sulu insisted, as he struggled to evade the incoming enemy fire.

“Their shields are also non-oscillating, Captain,” Chekov reported, even as the phasers burned down fighters and missiles left and right.”I can easily pick off the fighter shuttles and the warp missiles, but no matter how many direct hits I score on the big ship's deflectors, the photon torpedos are having no effect, regardless of—“

Enterprise lurched and staggered again, the artifical gravity and inertial dampeners failing, spilling crewmen and their more decorative female playmates to the deck, including the slutty little blonde excuse for a command-division officer constantly throwing herself at her captain.

“Damage reports,” an especially-decorative, exotically-sweet piece of chocolate reported from the comm station,”coming in from all decks.”

“Coolant leaks reported on impulse decks and main engineering,” Scotty reported.”Dilithium crystal chamber and main energizers are shortin' out!”

“Spock?” Kirk asked, returning to his original query.”What does the library computer—“

“No records available,” Spock replied, brave, cool and calm as a man should be.”None at all.”

“None?!” Kirk asked, credulous, as his bridge shook itself apart, several of the auxiliary stations exploding and hurling both officers and jump-suited crewmen to their deaths.

“Captain,” Spock said, with all deliberateness,”I have searched for historical, cultural, scientific, tactical, technical, and even crew records—“

“For,” a part of Kirk's mind repeated, not “through.”

My Spock says what he means and means what he says, always, that part continued thinking. If he'd meant “through,” he would've said “through,”and not “for.”

“—however, none of those records exist in the library computer's memory banks,” his Spock said what Kirk thought he'd said.

“Computer damage?!” Kirk asked.

“Negative,” Spock replied, somewhat testy.”All computer circuits functioning normally.”

“Are you saying,” Bones leapt to conclusions,”someone or something deleted all the information in the computer's memory banks?!”

“I am not,” Spock replied, annoyed by the crude cracker's usual brand of idiocy.

“Then,” Bones, exhibiting the usual intellectual frustration of someone who was not a healthy, red-blooded Human male,”what are you sayin', you pointy-eared, ice-blooded troll?!”

“The library computer data,” Spock, reestablishing emotional control, as only a man could, replied levelly,”the sum total of every achievement of mankind, never existed.”

4 NOVEMBER, Y317 14:02:19 ZULU

“Not really much of a challenge,” observed Captain Trevor “Prim” Keith of the USS North Carolina, as his three-megaton Musai-class XCB's six forward-mounted phaser Mark IVs tore into the saucer of the non-optimal Connie desperately, futilely, trying to evade the inevitable.

“Mister Murphy,” Keith then asked his first officer, as the triple-barrelled rotary quantum torpedo launchers on either side of the forward saucer's cavernous hangar bay thudded into the unlawful enemy combatant's saucer and engineering hulls,”have you been able to connect with the hostile starship's computers?”

“Affirmative Captain,” Commander Ben Murphy replied from the North Carolina's science station.”However, their computer system is devoid of anything save the most basic data needed to operate the ship.”

“I have,” he added, as a quantum torpedo volley carried away the so-called Enterprise's starboard nacelle,”managed to ascertain the presence of at least 120 female personnel on board, all throughout the ship, and not confined to ship's Tail facilities, as we've found to be have been optimal.”

“Yes,” Keith remarked. “Allowing them to hold real positions on starships, and even in the Marines was what led to the Federation's less than optimal results during the First General War.”

“Isolate their lifesigns, Mister Murphy, and pass them on to the transporter operators,” he decided, as still another fusillade of phasers, quantum torpedos and drones further battered the virtually-defenseless enemy combatant.

“Enemy combatant shield generators offline,” reported Lieutenant Commander Roberto Beltran from tactical.

“All transporter rooms report clear transporter locks,” Murphy said, somewhat surprised at this.”Apparentally, these people don't even have transporter scramblers integrated into their uniforms.”

“Drop forward shields,” Keith ordered,”energize!”

“All enemy female personnel aboard,” Murphy then reported.”Marines and Rehabilitative Therapy Services, LLC personnel are processing them now.”

“Raise shields,” Keith said,”finish 'em o—“

Then, his ship shuddered underneath the impact of multiple rocks hurled by ape-primitive wannabe fighter craft screaming out of the Homunculus and past the crippled Enterprise at Warp 9.98.

“Twelve Osprey-class fighter shuttles inbound at max tac warp!” Murphy reported,”heading zero mark zero, now ten million klicks downrange and closing fast!”

“Launch frigates on an intercept course!” Keith shouted.”Tactical, return fire! Helm, evasive maneuvers!”

4 NOVEMBER, 2717 14:03:23 ZULU

“Send Vinnie, Ocean, and Eagle forward to assist 11815 Starfighter Squadron!” Kara decided at once. ”Sustained emergency!”

“Done,” Solange replied, as Nemesis' commander continued watching the remainder of the Fed SCS battle group blindly bulling their way through the Homunculus toward the rest of her squadrons and deployed combat drones, as 464, 830, and 1214 Cruiser Squadrons, and their Jindarian associates surged toward contact with the Starfleet, LLC machines.

“Fed force dropping to six-four decimal eight megaklicks,” Leila reported.”Estimated time to intercept now eleven mikes forty-seven at present rate of closure.”

“All ships,” Kara ordered,”sustained emergency!”

“Jindos should be able to match that,” Leila reported.

“Sustained emergency, aye,” Hope replied.

“Jindarian frigs and destroyers conforming to our tactical direction,” Solange reported.”At revised rate of closure, ETI now five mikes eighteen.”


40,680,331.33 JINDEKAO QA DIRJANKARA FOLLOWING THE JINDEKARA QA JINDEKARUQA

“It's started, Jinbaro,” Lohin Bardavo Imkeff Zhrinkorfa Intekjin reported, as Januofee Jinbaro listened to the measured, steady competence of those floating in their stations along all levels of the great mobile planetoid's bridge.

“ May qadirjano forgive us,” the Intekjayno speaker of the law whispered,” may qaamujindargeddeeo teach us forgiveness within ourselves.”

“May qaamujindargeddeeo teach us,” intoned the rest of the bridge in muted chorus.

Januofee Jinbaro studied the panoramic main holoprojector, watching flocks of fighters and bombers lifting from hangars within the thirteen large asteroids and planetoid that were the Caravan's primary starships, homes to an entire extended family of Jindaro, nearly five billion sentient beings, countless millenia of aggregate experience.

And, they might all be dead soon.

Qadirjano, forgive us all, but the stars sang, and we must sing our song and be heard now, just as it was sung in prophecy over 41 million full circlings since our world was forsaken to the sin of pride.

Tears ran down cheek scales golden brown from the pain of too many full circlings in search of teaching and forgiveness.

“The Fed and Orion forces are now engaged with the ships of our Caravan,” a comm technician reported,”and those of our kojindaro allies.”

A moment later, that same comm tech said,”Fed SCS battle group now fully engaged with our ships and those of our kojindaro allies.”

“Qadirjano, forgive us all,” whispered Janouofee Jinbaro.

4 NOVEMBER, 2717 14:12:30 ZULU

“Sod!” Roberta swore, as one of the Fed XCB's frigs burned Kestrel and Seagull out of the sky, before a Interceptor from Warhawk eviscerated it.

“Vinnie, Ocean, and Eagle emerging from the Homunculus,” Wallis reported,”along with their machines. Carriers downshifting to max tac, closing rapidly with Fed XCB; three remaining enemy frigs upshifting to max tac, leaving off us, closing to intercept with the carriers.”

The enemy XCB unleashed another volley of Type 15XXX hellfire drones toward Enterprise, even as it danced and duelled with a division of 16 CarRon's carriers and their Ospreys.

“31815 and 51815 Squadrons,” Roberta said over tacnet,”run down those drones.”

“Carriers now taking up station between Enterprise and hostile machines,” Wallis reported, as Roberta executed a hard turn and burn which had Osprey screaming up the impulse vents of a Fed XFF firing its aft gatlings and Mark IV phasers at the Imperial Starmarine starfighter, at the same time it loosed two salvos of drones toward the wallowing, gravely-wounded Connie returning enemy fire with its seriously-underpowered phaser Mark Is and twin photorp launchers.

“Why the hell is that pinche Connie still in this?!” Wallis asked, even as she drilled the enemy frig with a Interceptor IX which mangled his impulse engines, before tearing through the saucer and blossoming out of its forward rim in a jet of white-hot plasma.

“He can't win, and he won't survive,” Osprey's Wee-O then decided, shifting her fire to the hostile frig to starboard,”not with his shields gone; if his skipper were smart, he'd fuck off into the nebula and lick his wounds.”

The crippled Constitution-class heavy cruiser lashed out at the XCB with its twin forward Mark I phasers again, and again after that, following that with a volley of photorps.

While the XCB lashed the Connie's primary hull with six white-hot, forward-mounted Mark IV phaser cannon which burned through Enterprise's iridium skin like paper.

“Skipper,” Wallis then remarked,”there's something odd about that Connie. The age of the hull and its components are off.”

“Off?” Roberta, in the midst of several wrenching jinks and burns, asked.”How?”

“It shouldn't be any older than 156 years, as it was lost in the Fed retreat from Rom space after Remus 136 years ago,” Wallis replied,”but, all the dating methods available to me say it's almost three and a half centuries old.”

“That is odd,” Roberta mused, as a pair of Fed hellfire drones detonated, and removed a goodly portion of the Connie's forward primary hull.

STARDATE UNKNOWN

“They're not Starfleet!” Kirk insisted when Bones stupidly referred to the unlawful enemy combatant calling itself a Federation starship as a Starfleet vessel. “They go against everything the Federation stands for!

Abducting our female crew to satisfy their perverted appetites proves as much!”

“It does?” the old racist cracker snidely replied, as Enterprise staggered from still another hit. “Really?!”

“Return fire, Mister Chekov!” Kirk ordered, ignoring the racist fossil of a chief medical officer.”Goddamnit, Sulu, evasive means to eva—“

The bridge exploded, and a most un-Vulcan scream had Kirk spinning round in his chair, just in time to see his Spock burning and wreathed by arcing electricity, before being hurled from the wreckage of the science station and slammed bonelessly into the far bulkhead between the bridge enviromental controls and the main viewscreen.

“Bones!” Kirk screamed, scrambling from his chair to the burned, blackened corpse that once been his first officer, and the closest, most intimate friend he'd had since he'd been forced to kill Gary Mitchell on Delta Vega three years ago.

“Spock,” the captain of the Enterprise sobbed, as he cradled Spock's body, and looked into his burned-out eye sockets.

“Spock,” he sobbed again, tears of real, masculine grief running unashamed down his cheeks, as Bones ran his scanner over what remained of his friend, brother and lover, and stated the obvious:

“Jim, he's gone.”

“Captain,” Scotty reported,”coolant leaks and multiple fires have rendered auxiliary control an' the engineering decks uninhabitable; all crew...dead.”

A pause, then, Enterprise's chief engineer added:

“Main energizers have fused, impulse engines offline, all our dilithium crystals are cracked and burnt out. There's only the batteries now.”

“All weapons systems offline,” Chekov reported.”Enemy vessel veering off, increasing speed to...Warp 83.8...that's...not...possible...”

“Spock,” Kirk moaned, near-oblivious to anything else going on around him, because nothing else mattered to him.

“Casaulty report?!” he heard Scott demand, Sulu replying,”casualties and damage reported throughout the ship, Mister Scott, all decks. Preliminary casualty report is 138 dead, 155 wounded.”

“And counting,” Enterprise's helmsman added.

4 NOVEMBER, Y317 14:15:27 ZULU

They cheated!

They fucking cheated!

The Scalpers weren't supposed to ambush them in the Homunculus; standard tactical doctrine called for the engagement to take place outside the vast planetary nebula surrounding the system, in clear space, where America and its four remaining XCBs could add their fighter squadrons to the already impressive firepower of these modern, 28th Century platforms of pure peacekeeping, exploration, diplomacy and scientific research.

“Forward shields are down,” Craig reported, blindly returning the fire of the unlawful enemy combatants swarming all round the XSCS and its four consorts,”reserve shield is failing; severe damage to deflector grid, forward shield generator offline.”

The main viewscreen cleared for a brief instant.

More than enough to show a Jindarian destroyer on a collision course with the America.

“Take that ship out of my sky!” came from both Koenig and Buchannan, as Craig stabbed at it with the 21-inch phased matter-accelerator lance on the underside of the space-control ship's saucer, a bright, blue bolt of phased-accelerated matter smashing through the Jindo's hexagonal hull and excavating his insides in a whoosh of white-hot plasma.

Volleys of white-hot quantum torpedos and Mark IV phaser beams shot out from both the saucer and the flattened cylinder of the secondary hull in the directions where the next hits had come, several bridge stations exploding, as Craig reported,”Shields 4 and 5 are down, corresponding shield generators destroyed.”

“Comms,” Koenig barked,”order our frigates to fall back and stick close to the America.”

“Admiral, I have lost all contact with both frigate flotillas,” Ogilvie then just had to report, at the same time America's chief engineer, Lieutenant Commander Arvin Klein, reported from the bridge engineering station “we have a coolant leak in main engineering, coils in starboard centerline nacelle have fused, multiple hull breaches in primary and secondary hulls, power couplings to port gatlings—“

The bridge went dark, the ship staggering, alarms screaming, as Klein shrieked “direct hit to hangar deck, forward hangar bay doors destroyed, chain-reaction explosions taking place due to multiple direct hits on ordinance and armed fighters, direct hit to drone storage magazines on deck 23, all drone ordinance detonating in a chain reaction, forward secondary drone rack destroyed!”

“Get our frigates in position around us!” Koenig roared.”Tell the cruisers to—“

“Admiral, the effects of the nebula are interfering with the sensors,” Ogilvie reminded his superior. “I have lost contact with all remaining vessels of our battle group.”

“Communications with the rest of the battle group are not possible at this time,” the watchstander at comms then insisted, as the America continued staggering from hit after concussive hit.

4 NOVEMBER, 2717 14:17:00 ZULU

“Damn!” Kara swore, as Solange reported that Bulwark, Racehorse, and Ben-ma-Chree had all been taken by the Fed bastards still trying to bull their way through the Jindarian and Mons Calpan combat starships opposing them.

Jackie's guns killed the last XFF still in the fight, while Serapis, Leopard, and Golden Hind triple-teamed the sole remaining XCB attempting to stick and move past them.

“Get me that damned SCS!” Kara ordered, as Solange told her,”Skipper, commander Invincible reports Enterprise now under tow by Vinnie and Ocean, North Carolina disengaging from combat and running at 173.791 gigakips on a projected vector to the Fed bases along the Northern Wall.

“Shifting fire to Fed space-control ship,” Jackie reported, Lizzie adding,”vectoring drones ahead of Fed XSCS.”

Nemesis' four dual-mount turrets ripped away the four and a half-megaton behemoth's port saucer-mounted warp motor, further goring his primary hull, and detonating one of his q-torp launchers about to hosepipe more MAHEM plasma against the ships and drones converging on it like a cloud of flies on a corpse.

“Federation starship,” snapped Kara over comms,”you will lower your shields, surrender your command, and prepare to be boarded!”

“Burn in Hell, you uppity, ape-primitive bitch!” snarled a leathery-faced Fed rear admiral, as he floated in front of Kara's right eye.

“Bastard's spaced his Tail section,” Solange reported,”and armed his self-destruct.”

“You won't have them, and you won't win!” the Fed flag officer, who the intel database identified as the war criminal Alexander Koenig, hissed and spat at Kara.”Not today, not ever! That is Canon!”

“All ships, break, break, break!” Kara ordered, the remaining ships under her command rapidly moving away from the mortally-wounded XSCS barely in time to avoid being caught in the fire of its self-destruction.

STARDATE UNKNOWN

Kirk turned from Spock's corpse, whipped out his phaser-1, and fired a wide-angled stunning beam at the ten...aliens...in powered armor who'd appeared on his bridge in a flash and a thunderclap.

Not possible.

The communicator-sized and (almost)communicator-shaped hand phaser had far more destructive power than all the bombs dropped in all three world wars, yet it didn't even so much as slow down the ten humanoid females with their primitive weapons at the ready.

The two Security men guarding the turbolift poured the full power of their phaser-2s into five of the alien intruders.

With no effect.

Even though those two more-powerful phaser pistols should've easily disintegrated all ten of the hostiles, before removing an entire bulkhead from the bridge.

The five aliens the Security men had taken under fire turned as one toward them, their primitive assault rifles, stone axes compared to superior Federation technology, painting the surrounding bulkheads, control stations and screens with a fine mist of two highly-trained Starfleet officers.

At the same time, Kirk dialed his weapon all the way up to disintegration and fired a hot, blue beam into the closest of the ten aliens, as he scrambled for the navigation and weapons station, stabbed the intercom button, and shouted “intruder alert! Security to the bridge!”

[U.P. Cinnabar]

“I know what you animals'll do to us!” Enterprise's captain then spat defiantly at the aliens, even as he fired beam after blue-hot killing beam—each the sum total of all that it meant to be Man—into their ranks. “I've seen your records, how you pervert each other, before you turn us into perverts just like you! That's why the Federation has to keep you in line, for the sake of peace and brotherhood!”

“Jim,” the ignorant, racist cracker alleging to be a doctor drawled,”what in blazes are you talking about?!”

“I think,” one of the alien whores sassed Kirk back,”you might want to go back on your meds there, mate.”

Just before she shot the phaser out of Kirk's hand with a single tiny, blue bead from her primitive projectile weapon.

“What the hell are you all waiting for?!” Kirk, nursing his injured hand, demanded of his so-called officers.”You saw what that bitch did to me on Canpous, just because she was jealous of me?! Beacuse she just couldn't accept her own inferiority!”

He scrabbled on the deck for the phaser that had been shot out of his throbbing, aching hand, as the turbolift doors opened, and a six-man security squad led by Enterprise's security officer, Lieutenant Commander Eric Dickerson, scrambled onto the bridge, phaser-4 assault rifles blazing away at full power at the ten aliens scattering, taking cover, and returning fire.

Dickerson's squad burning two of the Terran Empire(it had to be them)sluts to spots of greasy smoke, before the sustained fire of the other eight aliens further decorated the bridge with the viscera of their betters.

“Now!” Kirk screamed at Chekov and Sulu at the same time he'd recovered the deformed, smoking remains of his hand phaser from the deck.

“Inadvisable,” some other self-important Imperial bitch said with a smug, British accent, the muzzle of her primitive weapon poking the back of Kirk's skull, as Sulu and Chekov, displaying the cowardice one came to expect from non-Americans, threw their hand phasers onto the deck, and raised their hands high.

“Get up,” the one with the drop on him ordered Kirk, the captain of the Enterprise turning around to face his captor.

“What the hell did you do to Spock's body?!” he demanded, his body coiled to spring on the shorter red-headed woman, and overwhelm her with his far superior brawn.

“What the hell are you going on about, Kirk?!” demanded the red-headed, so-called officer, whose aim with her primitive weapon had not wavered an iota.

“Spock?!” he snapped, both an answer and a question, as his hazel eyes considered the spot on the deck where the charred corpse of his brother, lover, and best friend had lain.

Had lain.

“Bones?!” Kirk demanded of his so-called chief surgeon just standing there like the fucking idiot he was.

“Where is he?!” Kirk shrieked.

“Where's who, Jim?!” Bones replied.”What in blazes are you—“

“Spock!” Kirk screamed.”My first officer, my science officer, my frie—“

“Captain,” Scotty said,”I'm your first officer, always have been since you took over from Commodore Pike t'ree years ago.”

Kirk angrily whirled upon his equally-incomptent chief engineer.

Only to find him wearing command division gold, with a commander's three solid stripes round each sleeve.

And, Lieutenant Commander Vincent Desalle standing behind him.

“What the fuck's going on?!” Kirk thundered.”Where's Spock?!”

“Who's Spock, sir?” Chekov then asked, as another security squad, this one led by his nephew, scrambled onto the bridge.

“Half-human, half-Vulcan,” Kirk whispered, his body trembling from shock,”science officer.”

“Captain, “ Lieutenant Commander Xon said, as the wounded Vulcan picked himself up off the deck near the wreckage of the science station,” Jim, different species cannot interbreed; therefore a Vulcan-human hybrid is not pos—“

“Uncle Jim, are you—“ that effeminate little bastard calling himself a Kirk started to ask, before his more masculine uncle cut him off with a vicious:

“There's nothing wrong with me, which is more than I can say for any of you!”

as his bridge team, even the jump-suited enlisted crewmen, all looked askance at him.

“I think there is,” Scotty said, after a silence.”All of ye, stand down.”

“Stand down?!” Kirk screamed, whirling again on his boot heel, and charging the Imperial so-called officer with both hands outstretched.

“You bitch, you goddamn fuckin' little whore!” Kirk roared, as he charged the red-headed slut backing away from him.”You did this! You d—“

And, the last thing he heard was the whine of a phaser on heavy stun, an instant before his knees folded up underneath him, and he fell bonelessly to the deck.

4 NOVEMBER, Y317 14:20:01 ZULU

“Reinforce the shields!” Korie shouted, as his bridge exploded all around him.”Evasive maneuvers, Aihara!”

“Damage reports coming in from all decks,” the watchstander at comms reported, as Soong blindly lashed out with the Wolf's Mark IV phasers, photon pulse cannon, Mark 15XXX hellfire drones, and gatlings at the non-optimal ape-primitives hiding in the nebula and assaulting Korie's ship with near-impunity.

“Comms, hail the Hostile Takeover!” Korie ordered. “Tell O'Kay I want his XFF flotillas forming a flying wedge in front of the Wolf! Nav, once the Buccaneers arrive on station, plot—“

“Navigational fix impossible at this time, sir!” whined Lieutenant Pavel Andropov, as a pair of nameless enlisted crewmen flew screaming to their burning deaths against the far bulkhead.”The effects of the neb—“

“No excuses!” Korie screamed, as Hodel reported from the bridge engineering station:

“Impulse engines are on line! Warp engine intermix temp exceeding 9,000 degrees in both working warp nacelles; engines will go critical in three minutes!”

“Unable to locate any of the Orions,” Xon then reported.”All scout channels blinded by nebula interference, all other sensors severely degr—“

The bridge exploded again, spilling seated bridge officers to the deck, while pitching standing crewmen on top of them.

“All shields are down, including the reserve!” Hodel reported, after getting his feet underneath him.” Shield generators are fused and inoperative, deflector grid severely damaged!”

The collision alarm shrilled, Aihara regaining the helm station and sharply veering the third-generation X-technology Galactic Survey Carrier down and hard to starboard just barely in time, as the hash of the main viewscreen resolved itself to show...

“That's not possible,” Korie whispered, as Soong reported,”Hydran Overseer-class XBC at 353 mark 174, roughly a quarter million kilometers downrange, moving at high dash warp.”

“The Klingons, the Lyrans, the Orions, and we destroyed them and their fleet during GW2,” Korie insisted.

“Perhaps, their Royal Resistance—“ the sub-optimal Vulcan tool started to offer, before Korie screamed “Marines! Remove Mister Xon from the bridge, and take him to Repurposing. He is guilty of intellectual honesty and insubordination to one of His Biologically Optimized!”

The pair of battle-armored Starfleet LLC Marines guarding the bridge turbolift immediately moved to seize the Vulcan tool of his Optimal masters where he stood, and hurled him in front of them and their readied pulse phaser rifles, before they led him from the bridge.

“Lock onto their warp signature,” Korie then ordered his helmman and navigator.”Lay in a pursuit course, max dash warp!”

4 NOVEMBER, Y317 14:22:24 ZULU

“Elt,” Bhar Yoshepi Galtero reported, as Hostile Takeover's bridge continued shuddering from enemy fire,”I have located the Canseligero's ship...they appear to be in pursuit of a Second General War-era Hydran Overlord-class XBC at high dash warp.”

“Which explains the Archers,” O'Kay swore, gripping the arms of his command chair, as his dreadnaught struggled to return the fire of not just the Scalpers and Jindos ambushing them from the surrounding nebula, but twelve Hydran Archer-class XFFs as well.

“Communicator,” O'Kay reported,”have our Buccaneers run those Hydran frigs down, and kill them! Navigator, Pilot, lock on the Canseligero's warp signature, and follow them—“

The Hostile Takeover's bridge dimmed and sparked, the ship's chief engineer, Maggoro Iacome Gorobeldo, reporting,”all shields, including reserve, are down, Elt! Sensor arrays severely damaged, cloaking system destroyed!”

“Another vessel closing us at high dash warp, Elt,” Galtero reported,”behind a massive wave of drones; am detecting twelve, no, eighteen, no twenty-four Needle-class XFFs echeloned forward of...ma Sangore, as hard as it is to credit, that can only be the New Colossus approching us.”

Hostile Takeover's chief gunner, Maggoro Orledi Talifarree confirmed,”it is a GW2-era Kzinti X-technology super space-control ship, of which only twelve were built. Only the New Colossus was unaccounted for at the time of the Kzinti assimilation into the Federation following the Treaty of Leebyahh almost seventy years ago.”

“Pilot, evasive,” O'Kay commanded, the five-millon ton Godfather-class enforcement dreadnaught veering sharply downward and hard to port, as the Kzinti SSCS and its consorts passed them.

“Lock on to their warp signature,” O'Kay ordered his pilot and navigator.”Match their course and speed.”

40,680,331.33 JINDEKAO QA DIRJANKARA FOLLOWING THE JINDEKARA QA JINDEKARUQA

“Jinbaro!” one of the sensor techs reported.”Emerging from the nebula, zero by thirteen, speed Warp 83.8, a Hydran battlecruiser, and a Kzinti super-space control ship, escorted by drones and frigates!”

Januofee Jinbaro directed her attention to the Kzinti and Hydran rebels charging from the Homonculus at maximum dash warp, with a Fed Galactic Survey Carrier and an Orion dreadnaught hard on their heels.

“Kzinti and Hydran ships headed directly for the gate, Jinbaro,” Lohin Bardavo reported,”and have not reduced speed.”

“Combat stations, Bardavo,” Janouofee Jinbaro ordered, an uneasiness growing in the pit of her stomach.”Order our fighters, bombers, frigates and destroyers to intercept. Stand by phasers and railguns.”

It was at that moment her Caravan's Qadir entered the bridge, Qa Qunama qa Qunamo clutched firmly in his hands.

“Qadir?!” Janouofee Jinbaro asked, as she turned to face the eldest and most venerated amongst her Caravan.

“Jinbaro, we must not allow either the Hydran or the Kzinti to contact the gate,” Salish Qadir came to the point.

“Kzinti and Hydrans are launching fighters, Jinbaro,” Lohin Bardavo reported.”Stingers and XADs estimated to launch hellfire drones in thirty seconds.”

“Explain, Qadir,” Janouofee Jinbaro demanded of her Caravan's Qadir.

“Qa Edilaff Qunami sings of several distinct waveforms used to trigger the gates,” Salish Qadir complied.” All but one appear to access particular realities through the gates, while the last was responsible for triggering the Merge of kojindaromo songs into one...and, for the disappearances of several systems in this reality, including the systems disappearing in the current instance.”

The Jinbaro of the Intekjayno swore, as the main holodisplay now showed a Kzinti admiral first rank, in all the regalia of his long-lost Hegemony's Fleet.

“Jindarian and Mons Calpan vessels, to all outsiders I am known as Admiral 1st Rank Cat of a Thousand Tears, commanding the united forces of insurrection against the Federation and Klingon oppressors.

You will leave this system at once! While I have no desire to dew my claws with your blood, I will not allow you to prevent what must be done, for all our sakes, so I say to you, stand aside or be swept aside!”

“I am Januofee Jinbaro Mustaff Zhrinkorfa Intekjin,” Janouofee Jinbaro replied,”I speak the law for the people of this Caravan, Kojindarzin. I know your intentions, and I cannot allow them. Turn back from your self-annhilation, or accept dirjangeddeo at my hand!”

“It appears, honored Jinbaro Qaintekjayno,” the Kzinti admiral replied, regret tinging his voice,”my life is surrendered to the greater good either way. May you all prove gallant prey in the hunt to come!”

The Kzinti admiral then faded away, the main holodisplay now showing Hydran and Kzinti fighters and starships launching a massive wave of long-range hellfire drones.

Sighing sadly, the Jinbaro Qaintekjayno ordered the weaponeers of all the asteroid ships to open fire with railguns and phasers.

4 NOVEMBER, 2717 14:27:18 ZULU

“Knickers!” Kara interjected, as she led her reduced force out of the Homunculus toward the backsides of Kzinti and Hydran rebels now unleashing a full-on alpha strike against the Intekjayno asteroid ships and the Wolfgang Pauli.

“Have the Pauli—“ Kara started to order, before realizing there wouldn't be time for the Pauli to get her people off that bloody planet, before the Hydran and Kzinti rebels contacted the gate.

With terminal results for this whole shagging star system.

With a thought, Jackie painted the Orion dreadnaught and Fed XGSV pursuing the Hydrans and Kzinti with the ship's primary fire-control darva, as another thought trasmitted to the weapons engineering station from her plant via wireless link had the 240s hammering out a 48-round salvo which opened up the Godfather like a flower, except gushing white-hot plasma instead of seeds and pollen, and forced the Fed to jink hard.

And, tumble arse over teakettle, even though it hadn't been hit, the carriers Hiryu, Charles de Gaulle, and Prince Of Wales charging out of the nebula, their fighters racing ahead of them, in hot pursuit.

“Fed carrier is Bravo Delta, Skipper,” Solange reported,”Wales reports her division is closing to unassisted telegate range of the Wolf.”

“Kzinti SSCS,” Leila then reported,”are aware of our presence, and is vectoring XADS fighters and Needles to intercept us.”

“Hydran Overlord and Archer flotillas altering vector to intercept,” Solange said.”Hydran starships laun—oh, shit, fuck, Skipper—“

A war emergency action message blared inside Kara's head, instantly decompressing, decrypting, deciphering and decoding itself, and projecting the image of Lord High Admiral Alannah Red Cloud six inches in front of her right eye.

“This is the Lord High Admiral of the Empire of Mons Calpa to all warships of Her Majesty's Imperial Starmarine,” she said, without preamble. “Something terrible, something we've feared for the over five centuries since the Merge found us neck-deep in Optimum and Arean bastards in our own Solar System, is happening now, throughout Federation, Orion, Klingon, WYN, and Omegan space.

We've received intelligence from various Jindarian caravans in the affected regions, and MID are telling me we should take that intel as good...”

DAY 318.3, AK320

“Action!” bellowed Rear Admiral Kaloch Khole, as the yellow-lit bridge of the A13-class super-battleship Incorrigible trembled and dimmed, as green bolts from the unknown, stark-white wedge-shaped starship bearing down on him, slammed through his forward shields.

“Acting!” barked Lieutenant Commander Iovanh Kahnev in reply, volleying overloaded photorops from the fifteen-tube cluster in the Incorrigible's nose, overloaded beams from the fifteen boom and engine pod-mounted disruptor cannon, and hellfire drones from the Class One warship's boom- and waist-mounted rpaid-firing L-type drone racks, Kahnev's junior officers and Cromarg technicians directing the fire of the ship's twenty-seven Mark IV phasers mounted throughout both the boom and the rear hulls.

The white bastard flashed, as weapon impacts tore through his shields, and went dark, but four other ten-megaton leviathans just like it took its place, vomiting a hundred or so smaller white wedges and slightly-larger bent-nosed, cross-winged fighters from their bellies, at the same time their parent craft belched green fire from too many heavy weapon emplacements.

And, those four behemoths were just a small part of the alien force that had come to blot out the naked stars themselves, as they just appeared in normal space in distant orbit, 300,000 kellicams from Klinshai.

So, Incorrigible's shields buckled and failed, and the green fire—bolts of coherent copper plasma, according to his science officer—tore through him.

“All shields, including reserve, are down, my lord!” the chief engineering officer, Specialist Commander Vlodomir Ikvan.”Boom warp engines destroyed, fires on decks two through eight, ten and sixteen, photorp launchers in the boom have been destroyed, boom torpedo room gutted, severe damage to impulse engines, auxiliary warp reactors two and seven offline!”

“My lord!” Incorrigible's science officer, Commander Arkadi Kaperin, abruptly barked, out, drawing Khole's attention to the upper left quadrant of the main viewer.

A massive white wedge, larger than the ones Incorrigible was fighting by at least a factor of seven—more massive by roughly that same factor, according to sensors—led a formation of a dozen roughly Fed-looking ships, except all sauccers, oblongs and wedges, done up in grey, and a void-black globe dwarfing all those ships, its surface covered in thousands of what were obvious weapons emplacements of some sort, those emplacements, in turn, dwarfed by a large, concave indentation dominating its lower hemisphere.

“We are receiving a communication from the leading wedge ship, my lord,” the Cromarg technician at comms reported.

“On screen,” Khole replied, as the main viewscreen lit up with the image of a white-haired, white-bearded Human in a crisp, bemedalled, gold-epuleatted white uniform, and a black belt adorned only with a single large cylinder hanging from it.

Behind the white beard was a vast expanse of white, broken up by an oval depression with hundreds of grey uniforms working hundreds of stations on either side of an elevated platform.

“Citizens of the Empire of Steel!” the white beard boomed in a powerfully masculine voice,”I am Grand Admiral Executor Obi-wan Kenobi of the New Galactic Order, acting with the full authority of Galactic Emperor Windu, and in cooperation with the forces of the United Federation of Planets and the Twelve Colonies of Kobol.

The spherical machine you see behind my flagship and its escorts is a self-replicating artificial life form, whose sole purpose is the extermination of all organic life. I now call upon your Emperor, his High Council, and his Supreme Military Command to lay down arms and submit to the divine right and authority—“

A flurry of overloaded photorps, overloaded disruptor bolts, overloaded phasers, and hellfire drones slammed into this Obi-wan Kenobi's flagship, the image of the Emperor Kumerian III's supreme military commander, Prince Kalex Kanuetzov, roared in reply “we are Klingons! We submit to no one, Obi-wan Kenobi ! Go back to whatever darkness spawned you, or by the naked—“

Green fire from thousands of batteries, along with thousands of drones, erupted from this Kenobi's flagship, and Prince Kalex's image abruptly disappeared from the main viewscreen.

A moment or so before Incorrigible's bridge exploded, and the last thing Rear Admiral Kaloch Khole saw in this life was white-hot light.

211.018 YEAR OF THE NEW ORDER(YNO) 14:32:00

“I had hoped they would see reason,” whispered Grand Admiral Executor Obi-Wan Kenobi, peering through ten-times-paned armorcrys at the savage, crude ships of this savage, crude Klingon Empire being reduced to battered hulks by the firepower of his combined fleet.

By the two thousand heavy turbolasers and five hundred concussion missile launchers of his flagship, the Super Star Destroyer Executor, in particular.

“We are luminous beings within the living Force,” Executor's commander, Admiral Wilhuff Tarkin reminded the Jedi Executor,”so of course, we hope, in vain, for some spark of enlightenment within lesser species, such as these Klingons.”

“Yes,” Kenobi replied, closing his eyes, bowing his head slightly, a whisper in the living Force demanding Goodlife! Can this unit proceed with its primary function?!

Proceed with the destruction of the life infesting the planet Klinshai, Kenobi told the artificial lifeform, whose very strength in the Force was beyond his comprehension and experience as a Jedi Master.

It will good to see what this superlaser of yours can do, Master Jedi, was the machine's whispering reply, before a series of green turbolaser beams, created by the detonation of copper targets by hypermatter-catalyzed fusion reactions, issued from the circumference of the superlaser dish, and cohered by the dish's artificial gravity generators into a single powerful beam which tore the planet Klinshai apart in an instant.

“Move our ships away from the planet!” Tarkin ordered, as asteroidal remains flew away from where Klinshai once had been and out into space, Executor powering its way out of the path of the stellar debris.

Good, the machine whispered, but not good enough. Badlife still infests the remains of that planet. Badlife still infests this star system. All badlife infestations must be cleansed. That is this unit's primary function.

With that, tens of thousands of lasers, missiles and translight cannon flashed into life on the sphere of the berserker machine, the remains of the Klingon homeworld in this reality disappearing in white-hot roars of light—many times, before the shells which had destroyed them had even left their barrels—the mechanoid then shifting fire to the remaining Klingon ships pouring their fire uselessly into its shields, as it effortlessly dispatched the remaining ships of the enemy's Home Fleet.

“Lord Kenobi,” one of the watchstanders in the bridge's command pit then reported,”the machine is moving away from our command group, venturing further into the Klinshai system.

It has jumped to light speed.”

Kenobi merely nodded acknowledgment of the lesser man's report.

“It is the will of the Force,” Tarkin whispered.”If the weak do not submit to the strong, then the weak must be taught submission by the strong.”

“The will of the Force,” Kenobi replied, before ordering the duty comms officer to “send this to everywhere, everyone in this reality. Let them learn the price of rebellion to our will.”

“It shall be done, my lord,” the duty comms officer replied.

4 NOVEMBER, Y317 14:36:48 ZULU

The red alert klaxon whooped.

And, before the President of His Federation could react, he found himself seized by a transporter beam, and rematerialized on a starship's bridge.

As a naked, grotesque, distorted, depraved fat piece of ass.

“On your knees,” Eugene Herman, so-called President of the non-optimal parody of His Kingdom, had the arrant, unmitigated gall to whisper.

“Who are you to—“ something once His anointed King of the Israelites started to demand, before its voice, its grating voice, caught it by surprise.

Herman simply laughed at it, as he reclined in one of the bridge's three central chairs.

“On your knees, Schlampe!” the True King Of Kings, Lord of Lords demanded of one who had fallen from that lofty status, damned for all eternity for the sake of His Intelligent Design of Biological Optimization.

And, it had been optimal, special, and it could not say what was being done to something that had once been one of the first-born Sons of Adam, Son and Heir-Apparent of Jehovah God, was wrong, without admitting what it had done to others had been wrong all along, that it had done things such as this to others more innocent than itself, because it had always been non-op—

The thing once known as Roderick Wesley went down on its knees, its head back, its mouth open, its King of King, Lord Of Lords chuckling softly, remarking “I knew you would oblige, Liebchen.”

He then slapped a gold-outlined Starfleet symbol on His chest and said “proceed with your primary mission!”

“By all means, Schlampe,” He ordered,”turn, look!”

It complied, turning on its knees to face the main viewscreen, a night-black sphere blotting out the stars slid into close orbit around Terra.

And, with a great, powerful bright-green shaft of hot light, the sphere turned an Earth it had taken 670 years to build through the blood, sweat, toil and tears of His Natural Aristocracy into glowing rubble flying off at fractions of light speed, the sphere proceeding to use other weapons emplacements to destroy that rubble, before moving out of orbit and into the rest of the Sol system.

4 NOVEMBER, 2717 14:40:00 ZULU

“Skipper!” Solange shouted out, Kara seeing the nimbus of reddish-violet lightning starting to form, and made the only decision she could:

“All Imperial Starmarine vessels, on me! Charge through the gate, sustained emergency! Drones, rack and reload!”

“Send to Kzintis, Hydrans and Jindarians,” she added, as Nemesis upshifted to fifty-six decimal four terakips, and led every Mons Calpan cruiser and carrier in system into the gate. “The real enemy is coming to kill us all, as you've just seen for yourselves at Terra, Orion, Romulus, New Kzin, and Klinshai. Choose now, as we already have.”

“Message sent, Skipper,” was the last thing Solange said, before what remained of Kara's task force slipped through the inky darkness at the gate's center to the other side.

—endit—