"Commencing final countdown. 10...9...8...7..."
Prateor Arthurius listened to the countdown with his heart in his throat. This was it, the ascendancy of his people. Even the Borg would bow before the might of the Romulans in but a few more seconds.
"6...5...4...3..."
The Dimensional Matrix Inverter would tap into another dimension and literally reshape reality to Arthurius' desires. The Romulans would become gods, and the other races could cower in their shadow. Decades of work had gone into this one moment, and Arthurius was glad he lived to see it.
"2...1... Commence primary ignition."
The technological pyramid shot a bright white beam into space and tore open a brilliant dimensional wormhole. Arthurius' pure, euphoric joy quickly turned to confusion as the ground shook beneath him. Cries of chaos and panic filled his ears, and all was darkness.
* * *
The Praetor awoke with the momentary bliss of total ignorance that comes with waking from a state of complete unconsciousness. As he woozily took his feet, he looked around his cavernous office, and it all came back. The live holographic footage from the DMI was gone, and the lights were out. Other than that, nothing really seemed out of place. Arthurius looked out his window to see hovercars sitting on the ground, simply having stopped in their tracks. While he may not have known what was going on, this was not the ascendancy he had been promised.
* * *
"What the hell do you mean it doesn't work? It worked yesterday!"
"But yesterday we were home, and now we're... well... here," offered Hatham, the science advisor.
Arthurius briefly considered having the man shot, but killing scientists was hardly the prudent course of action when one finds himself and his empire's three most populous planets suddenly transported to an unfamiliar galaxy where most of its wonderful technological devices do not function.
"Wherever 'here' is, this place works on different physical principles. Our disruptors, cloaks, and even warp travel doesn't work here. We're basically back to the Terran-Romulan war. But there's good news," Hatham hastily added, seeing Arthurius' look of dismay, "there are large, stable wormholes connecting distant systems to one another. It would be impossible to scan the millions of systems in this galaxy to determine which have warp points, so we'll have to scout them out, but this could be even better than warp travel once we get our bearings."
"And what if we meet other sentient beings with no shields, no cloaks, and no disruptors? Do you seriously think these mass drivers your team has submitted is going to threaten a real adversary?" Arthurius demanded.
"Based on our early research, it looks like we can recover most of our technology in this new universe, they will just operate on different principles. It will take time, of course, but in a few years, we'll be better than ever!"
Not as good as we would have been if your blasted machine had worked, Arthurius thought, but chose not to berate the man. After all, with their old adversaries suddenly absent, maybe the Romulans could become a supreme species after all. Perhaps this unfortunate event will be a blessing in disguise.
