Runner Up 4 20403.14

© 2004 by Federation Space and the author pen named Arthur Flynn

Somewhere in the middle of the Beta quadrant a cloud formed. An observer would think that they were watching a nebula form before their very eyes. If only they were right. If one continued to watch it they would see a light cruiser appear to tumble out of the cloud. The call number could just barely be made out through the scorches on the hull, CLX-2007.

“Helm, what’s our location?” bellowed the Brikar. He was the only person on the bridge that hadn’t been thrown from his seat. Lt Flynn pulled himself up to his seat, making sure his phaser was still on his belt. “I’m not sure sir. Sensors say somewhere in the Beta quadrant, but nothing is lining up on our star charts. Of course our records could be wrong, it’s been so long since we’ve been here.”

The Brikar slammed his fist into the arm of the command chair, almost breaking it. First the Borg, now they were in the middle of another enemy’s territory. Commodore Thrawn had pulled himself up from where he had landed and was back in the seat next to the Captain.

“Perhaps you should engage the cloak Mr. Otlan. That way we could make our way back to a Starbase to make this vessel battle worthy again.”

For Commodore Thrawn to make just a suggestion was very odd. Captain Otlan was in command of the Titan, but Thrawn was the ranking officer. Some had to wonder how a calm man could make it past the rank of Ensign, but those were the people who didn’t know this man.

The haze on the bridge was slowly dissipating and people were getting back to their stations, making sure everything was working and if it wasn’t, fixing it. Security was scanning internal sensors to make sure nobody beamed aboard, a couple of engineers were bringing the broken consoles back online and Tactical was making sure they were the only ship in the surrounding sectors. Tam wasn’t in a good mood and the Commodore wasn’t helping it either.

“Either give me an order or get off my bridge…sir.” Even for a Brikar he sounded angry, which is not something that happened a lot. Matthew, hands clasped behind his back, just nodded to the Captain and made his way to the turbolift, stepping over some debris on the way.

Arthur didn’t dare turn around and look at the Commodore and Captain, that would be grounds for being put in the torture chamber. As far as they knew, they were the last of Star Fleet and perhaps the Empire. He was sitting at the Ops/Helm position on the bridge of the Titan as the temporary Chief Tactical Officer. When the Borg attacked Starbase 1 they didn’t just attack there, they destroyed every Star Fleet vessel in the galaxy. The Philadelphia was destroyed with most of her crew, as well as many other ships. Captain Otlan had at least had the decency to beam some of the survivors off the Starbase before he made a run for it. Since Arthur had been CTO of the Philly and was the highest ranking Tactical officer there, he got to sit on the bridge. His Commanding Officer, Captain Ysiadina Lanael, was in sickbay since she was doctor originally, not to mention most felt that doctors shouldn’t leave sickbay in the first place.

“Mr. Flynn, try to figure out why our star charts aren’t lining up we need…”

[Engineering to Otlan, almost everything went offline when we tripped through that anomaly. We aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.]

The Brikar just shook his head more and tapped his comm. badge, “Acknowledged Commander Godard, get to work on fixing things. I want cloak first then engines. After that just keep yourself busy.”

[Aye sir. Godard out.]

As soon as that was done the temporary Chief of Security walked onto the Bridge. He was human, but with slightly blue-ish/purple-ish hair and red eyes. Arthur didn’t know what to make of him, other than the fact that he was all they had. Rather than listening to what he had to say he just went on with he had been ordered to do.

If only I had Colso with me. He could practically navigate the galaxy by the stars. He was the only friend I had. Wait, perhaps they got him too.

Arthur quickly started a scan of the manifest hoping to see his friend’s name. Aitrus Colso had been a pilot, but preferred the sciences. The only reason he was in Star Fleet was the fact that they had been drafting when he reached 18.

Though there were people from other ships onboard the Titan was pretty much running on skeleton crew. He found Colso’s name near the bottom, luckily he was off shift at the moment. Arthur quickly typed a text message explaining what was going on and asked if he would be willing to come help him on the bridge. Seconds later he had his reply.

[Duh.]

Aitrus walked onto the Bridge just moments later and sat down in the back and got to work. As he and Arthur went about trying to figure out what was going on, the Captain started to speak.

“This is the Captain speaking. All hands remain where you are located. Commander Synatros will and some security personnel will be making sure there are no intruders aboard. Otlan out.”

Aitrus had just sent Arthur some info saying that they were near Nausicaa when a beep went off on is console.

“Captain.”

“Yes Lt Flynn?”

“We are being hailed. It’s…a… Star Fleet signal. It’s labeled as Deep Space K-7”

Silence took over the Bridge, even for the computers it seemed. Deep Space K-7 had been lost when the Breen overran all of the Klingons. Before leaving Starbase Alpha the Fleet Admiral had issued orders for each starship to act without contact to anybody else, an Armageddon Directive.

“You know our orders Lt. Do not respond. Let’s also try to figure out why a Station that was destroyed years ago is trying to contact us.”

Things continued on the bridge of the Titan. Consoles beeped, people thought, and the command chair seemed to have developed a creak. No matter Arthur or Aitrus did, the stars just didn’t line up. They’d try to use one star as a reference point and it’d throw others way off. Then there were stars showing up on sensors that weren’t supposed to be there according to their charts, which they thought had been up-to-date. After an hour of working on it they were interrupted once again.

“Sir, it appears that a ship has been dispatched from DSK7 to come to our coordinates. They too are sending out hails. According to hull size and shape it is a Light Cruiser, but everything else is different.”

The Brikar in the center chair seemed to find this last bit of information interesting.

“What’s different about it Mr. Flynn?”

“Well sir, there less weapons to start with. Their sensors seem to be much more advanced than ours, but shields are weaker. Overall it wasn’t built for battle, which doesn’t make sense.”

Everybody on the bridge was silent for a moment then in the back Aitrus jumped up.

“Yes it does. It makes perfect sense.” Receiving nothing but blank stares he figured he’d explain himself.

“We are in a parallel universe from ours. Apparently in this universe they aren’t at war with the Breen, the Borg didn’t triumph, and overall a peaceful place.”

Before anybody could say something Captain Otlan’s comm badge beeped.

[Engineering to the Bridge, we have fixed the cloaking device but we’re still trying to get warp back up.]

The Captain just nodded to Arthur who immediately activated the cloak. If they were in a parallel universe, they were better off to not interact. They sat in silence, still trying to come to terms with their predicament. The other ship got closer; with some magnification they were able to read her hull, CL-2512 USS Phoenix.

The silence was broken once again by the computer. This time it was telling them they had 30 seconds before the warp core breached. All they could do was sit back and let death come to them.

“Sir, it appears to be temporal anomaly. It is slowly shrinking in size after the large flash.”

The man in the center chair just shook his head.

“Open a channel to DSK7.

This is Captain Arthur Flynn of the USS Phoenix. Check your sensors guys, there’s nothing but shadows out here.”