Endeavour 02: No Good Deed

Chapter One

        Captain’s Log, Stardate: 9702.6

        Endeavour is nearing the end of her second week mapping and cataloguing
	the outer membrane of the plasma string region of Sector KL-115. I 
	wasn’t too impressed with Command’s orders to remain in this area for 
	exploratory and mapping duties…not originally. But I’ve never had
	a happier science officer than Lieutenant Surall has been these last 
	few days. Her analysis of the stellar gasses in the region alone is 
	worth some merit in itself. She’s localized at least one new element 
	and possibly an undiscovered compound. She’s taken direct command of 
	astrometrics and has the engineering staff working over time enhancing
	sensor clarity.

        On the tactical front, we’ve detected no trace of Ya’wenn vessels in the
	last two days. If they’re still looking for us over the Kovarn prison 
	thing, then they must be off on the wrong scent. The last ship sighted 
	was little more than a cutter in size and we were well outside her 
	sensor range.

        We’ll continue our mapping detail for another three days, providing the 
	Ya’wenn stay gone, and afterward will probe further into the gravimetric 
	phenomena near the denser center of the region.

        End of Log.

Captain Chevis D. Ford handed the log recorder over to his yeoman and nodded at the muscular, black skinned man. The yeoman, Petty Officer Devon Gossport, was a giant. He practically bulged out of the white-shouldered enlisted uniform and had hands so wide he could probably pick his bald captain up by the top of his head.

“Hold up there, Mister Gossport. You ever wrestle in college?”

Devon returned his captain’s smile. He’d been wondering over the scrutiny.

“No, Captain. My sports were rugby and American football.” Understanding flooded into his angular face. “Are you still looking for try-outs for the ship’s wrestling team?”

“Yup. Mister Thomas says he’s too old and fat to rassle anymore, so I need a new star team member.” Ford glanced humorously over to his executive officer who lounged of the ready room’s sofa. Ben flipped his commanding officer the bird, out of the eyesight of the noncom. Ford ignored him and looked back up at the hulking form before his desk.

Devon shrugged. “I’ve never wrestled in any kind of match.”

“We’ll have plenty of time for training before we ever get back to the command bases. Mister Thomas is a hellova teacher. He won Fleet Championship once in ’79. Against a Vulcan!”

Devon looked back with admiration at the XO.

“I know the XO’s record on the mat. Forty-two wins, seven defeats, two draws,” there was a toothy smile, “and one knock-out.”

That last got a wry expression for Thomas.

“The ref had it coming. If it wasn’t for the fast three count, my record would read 43-6 and 2.”

Devon laughed a bit and looked back to his captain. “Sure thing, Skipper. I’ll shoot for the team.”

“Excellent. We’ll try and set aside time for next week. That’ll be all.”

Gossport exited the captain’s office, recorder in hand. Meanwhile, Thomas grunted his way out of his seat and joined Ford at the desk. He handed over a data PADD. “Final repair report on that hit we took from the defense satellite. The final inner hull member has been welded and replaced. We’re back up to a hundred percent integrity in that area.”

Ford reviewed the report from engineering and pressed a thumb to its scanner.

“Didn’t take ‘em very long. That hit went pretty deep into the impulse deck. We’re lucky their targeting scanners aren’t more advanced.” He commented. Ben nodded agreement.

“They could’ve took out the auxiliary reactors or even destroyed a nacelle rather than synthesizer equipment. So, how long are we gonna be here haunting this burning cloud?”

Ford grinned back at his friend.

“Don’t like exploration?”

A shrug. “Like it just fine. Just don’t like scanning floating gas when we can be wandering around on brand new planets, meeting strange new people and getting in trouble with them.”

“All in due time, Ben. Join me in a drink?”

“Whatcha got?”

Ford produced a long, goose-necked bottle from beneath. “Aldebran whisky?”

Ben eyed it circumspectly. “It’s green, Cap.”

“Well, yeah. But I’ve heard its—”

The bosun’s whistled ended any ideas of trying the new drink out. “Captain to the bridge.” Said Lieutenant Commander Davenport’s voice from the desk intercom. The two key officers exchanged glances as they arose.

“On my way.”

Lieutenant Smith turned expectantly from the comm station as Ford and Commander Thomas stepped back onto the bridge. “Report,” called the bald headed CO. Noah glanced to the chief of ops, Lieutenant Commander Ronald Davenport. Ron nodded back his way, which led the captain’s eyes to the communications officer. Smith swallowed, clearing his throat.

“Captain, I’m picking up what I think is a distress call.”

Ford seemed a bit surprised, though suddenly wary also. “Source?”

Smith almost stammered. Dammit, he thought, I’m better than this. Why am I feeling so damn inadequate? The captain and XO just seemed to rattle him most of the time. “Unsure at this time, sir. Source relatively close to us, within the plasma string bearing 345 mark 025. Distance unknown.”

“Language?”

“Nothing discernable, Captain. Automated computer signal. Repeating every ten seconds. Very faint. I doubt anyone would pick it up outside a half lightyear.”

Ford glanced away from the comm officer. Smith was very glad for the temporary reprieve. Now the captain’s gaze centered on the helm. “Mister Bronstien, what’s up that way? The string particularly dense in there?”

Noah looked left to the forward main screen. The viewer showed a long, glowing trail of pink, ionized matter. Except for the roiling, rotating nature of it, the formation might look like a terrestrial cloud at sunset. It took up most of the screen, leaving very little area for it to show the natural blank of space beyond.

“Not too bad, Cap.” Lieutenant Johnathan Bronstien reported, studying his thermal imaging scanners. “There’s some maneuvering room in there, but some pretty wild gravity shifts. I’d recommend taking it slow.”

“Slow and easy then. Ahead one quarter impulse power.” Ford looked aside to the Russian weapons officer. “Yellow Alert, Mister Nechayev. Full shields.”

“Aye, Keptin,” the tall blonde replied. The repetitive call of Condition Two sounded as the lighting dimmed. Behind Smith’s bulkhead could be heard the noise of the deflector generators spinning up. Ford was eyeing Noah again.

“Think you can guide us in to that signal, son?”

Smith nodded back. “Aye, aye, Captain!”

Ford only nodded back as he turned to take his seat in the depressed command section. Smith was turning back to his own console to begin tracing the energy pattern of the distress call when he heard the captain call off: “Steady as she goes.”

Chapter Two

Lieutenant Commander Davenport eyed the forward isothermal imaging monitor in the center of his control panel. Lieutenant Bronstien, who sat to the right of him, was guiding the massive Excelsior-class starship through a dense terrain of moving clouds of destructive plasma with all the care and precision of a surgeon performing an open-heart procedure. The kid had already, two weeks prior, piloted this ship through a similar field of string phenomena, but this was much more densely packed than that one. There was no flying through here at warp speed. Edging the velocity gauge up to just half-impulse power would likely get them fried.

The string Ron currently monitored was at least seven A.U.’s long and nearly forty million kilometers in width. It was passing at a tenth the speed of light beneath a smaller, but equally dangerous formation, which criss-crossed its path. Arcs of ionized energy passed back and forth between the differently charged banks. The space behind the ship, after ten minutes of traveling through this storm, was crowded with many such energy strings, each of them moving and obscuring their exit. This was a dangerous place to traverse. And the space separating the two strings they had to pass between was becoming tighter. These phenomena should have been repelling one another. But the gravimetric fields of this sector kept hurling them and many other plasma clouds together in riotous ballet.

“Widest point of separation now ten thousand kilometers, helm.” The ops chief called to the pilot. Johnathan nodded his understanding without reply. His eyes danced from his own Nav controls and to the forward viewer.

Endeavour shook with a thunderous clamor. Warning lights ignited in a small corner of the operations console. The shields had taken an energy discharge from a string passing to port. It wouldn’t be the last they took. “Shields holding at eighty percent, Cap’n.” He reported to the conn.

The ship then began to tremble, then vibrate like a joy-buzzer from the gravitonic shear she encountered. The oscillations came through the hull and the deck plating in waves, fore to aft. The image of the clouds ahead began to rotate as Endeavour rolled on her port beam.

“Attitude control becoming treacherous, Cap’n.” Ron called off further. He looked back at his range values. Those clouds were beginning to merge at their farthest end. “Widest point of separation now eight thousand. Twenty-five seconds to contact.”

“Reading increased energy discharges ahead.” Said Lieutenant Surall, freshly back to the bridge from the lower decks. Her favorite sensor scope was distended before her eyes. “Magnitude increasing to ten to the third power Cochranes. A direct hit from any one will obliterate our deflector shields.”

“Understood,” came the captain’s voice. “Helm, increase speed as you see fit. Get us through there as quick as you can.”

“Aye, Cap.” Bronstien’s hand fell to the throttle controls governing the sublight engines. The moan of the impulse drive increased dramatically. Ron eyeballed his indicators.

“Speed increasing to one-half impulse power. Helm is correcting our yaw, but the gravimetric forces are increasing as we near the strings. Separation now five thousand kilometers, still decreasing.”

Mister Nechayev spoke up from the tactical board. His hands gripped either side of the board in front of him to brace himself against the growing tremor. “I would not suggest going through there, Keptin. We’re bound to get hit!”

“Our path astern is closed, Captain.” Surall informed from science. She looked Daniel’s way, her face as even as if she were reading him a textbook. “There is no where to return to.”

Ford tapped the control for the intercom. “Engineering, divert all reserve and auxiliary power to the deflectors. We’re gonna need it.”

“Yes, Captain.” Came the Andorian chief engineer’s reply.

A moment passed as the clouds grew on the view screen to an all-encompassing size. The arcs of electricity shooting back and forth were as wide as starships. Davenport found himself gaping. He glanced at Bronstien. The lieutenant wasn’t looking at the viewer anymore. He stared coldly at his readings, fingers poised over his controls. He boosted speed once again and the rattle of the hull became like to an earthquake. The deck plating was literally banging up and down in their mounts.

“Shields now register at one hundred and twenty percent, Keptin,” Nechayev was reporting.

“Speed increasing to full impulse, Captain.” Davenport said, recovering from his awe. “Distance to gap now six thousand kilometers, contact in three seconds. Separation now two thousand kilometers.”

“Hold on!” The XO called out unnecessarily.

All that could be seen now on the main screen were the bursts of ions as they arced in front of the Starfleet ship. Several altered their courses to intersect Endeavour as she darted by them. The reverberation of their near impacts smashed into the ship from all sides. The impacts were innumerable. Light and shadow danced across the bulkheads from the illumination provided by the depicted entertainment.

“Shields falling to forty percent!” Called Nechayev from the weapons station. The inertial micro-dampeners in the deck beneath him were barely helping him remain afoot. The ship heaved from another thundercrack. Lighting flickered and extinguished in areas of the main deck, and likely across the entire ship. The hair on Ron’s head began to feel as if it were standing on end.

And just as soon as it had begun, the tumult was passed. Swirling masses of further strings danced before the ship on the other side of the two they’d bisected. The tremor of the deck lessened to a background vibration. The ops panel showed no real damage. Ron glanced back at his pale skinned captain.

“We’re through the worse of it.”

“Sensors reading a clear area six A.U.’s in diameter with a ceiling height of forty-two thousand kilometers. Gravimetric patterns suggest this area shall remain stable for the next hour.” Surall reported. She stood and came down into the command center to stand by the captain. Her subordinates retained control of the science station in her absence. “Signal strength to the distress call has yet to grow in any discernable fashion since our entry into the zone. I am uncertain as to whether we are getting any closer to it.”

This comment drew a look from their comm officer. His command microphone was still plugged into his ear and the look of consternation on his face showed he remained steadfast as to the bearing that he’d supplied. “The scanners may not be reading clearly in this storm region. But I can hear a steady increase in signal strength as I listen to it on my link. We’re closing in.”

Ford played with his short beard as he looked noncommittally back to the Lieutenant. “Any idea how much further to go?”

“Not yet, Captain. We’ll probably know within the hour.”

Surall altered her stance on the conn podium uncomfortably. “Within an hour, this empty field amid the plasma may draw closed. I cannot predict how the fields will begin to move when the next gravity front moves through. I do not suggest remaining inside this phenomena very long.” And with that, the young scientist clasped her hands behind her and returned to the science deck. Ford watched her go, then glanced back to Smith.

“Tie in with science and see if you can’t get a better idea of where our phantom signal is coming from.”

An idea popped into Ronald’s mind as he stared at the thermographic sensors and the white-hot blobs of plasma drawn there. He turned to face the conn. “Cap’n, we could try triangulating the signal’s true direction using comm probes set to different courses away from the ship. That might give us a better idea on range too.”

Ford seemed a bit skeptical. “Would unshielded comm probes be able to function in this region with all the EM and ionic interference?”

Ron shrugged back. “They could be modified to filter out the interference from their readings and engineering might be able to shield their operating systems with modified tactical shield units.”

Ford’s brows raised, figuring the plan had some merit. He nodded his assent to the ops officer. “Get down to the photon bay and ready your probes. Mister Smith, you know exactly what interference will degrade their readings the most, so you’re going to assist. Go with Ron.”

“Aye, Captain,” the both of them said.

Commander Davenport left the ops station to a noncom from the engineering section and stepped in behind the young officer. Smith was walking a bit stiffly, and somewhat wobbly along the vibrating deck. The kid was good, Ron thought, but had yet to fully earn his space legs. He’d adapt.

Following Smith into the port turbolift, they left the coziness of the bridge behind.

Chapter Three

Lieutenant (senior grade) Noah Smith could not believe what he was helping to do. He was a trained communications officer. This was true. Working with comm probes and beacons was certainly within his training and job description. And yes, he was expected to find ways to improve the efficiency of his equipment to aid in cutting through interference.

Not once, however, had he ever considered the idea of being down in the photon torpedo bay of a starship, installing planetary-based defensive shielding on a comm probe, in order to track down a distress beacon in the midst of a plasma storm. There was nothing about this duty that was outside his training. He knew the basics of all the equipment at hand. He could probably have cobbled together the thing by himself if given enough time. But the simple idea of all these factors thrown into a single situation had the boy smiling. This was what it was to be in Starfleet!

“Pass me the mag spanner.” Davenport was asking of him from his side of the opened probe body. Each of the module’s maintenance and access hatches stood open for inspection as they did their work. The main body of the field generator was already in place. Now they were just tying it in to the probe’s mini-fusion reactor. Noah looked over to the blue duffel containing all of their tools and selected the required spanner and handed it over. Ron bent in low over the machine and put his arm deep into its inner workings.

Behind them, Lieutenant Commander Xia Tolin, the ship’s engineer, was reviewing the schematics as they were coming together on her PADD. The blue-skinned Andorian tilted her head as she read over something that drew her attention. “We are not shielding the EPS leads to prevent radiation?”

Ron shrugged as much as he could with his arm in such an uncomfortable position. “Not much time on our hands to get this done. We have another half-hour in our window before this cloud formation starts really moving. We might have to abandon the mission at that point. We’ll scrub the photon bay down for rads after we launch.”

Xia raised an eyebrow. Funny, thought Noah, her antennae mimicked the motion.

“We’re not planning to recover these drones, then?”

Ron shook his head. “That would be a ‘no’.”

Smith glanced up at the superior officer. “They’ll likely be fried anyway.”

Tolin placed hands upon her slim hips. “I thought that was what the shields were for in the first place, Lieutenant.”

“Well, the operating systems might be okay, but the sensors and telemetry equipment will likely be overloaded after about ten minutes in all the interference. The shielding is mostly just to ensure we get that ten minutes.”

“We’ll perfect the design the next time…” Davenport withdrew his arm from the aperture and closed down the maintenance hatches. “Add stuff like radiation baffles and insulated relays.”

Noah stepped clear of the drone and picked up a remote control and access PADD. He checked over his final rewrite of the operating code and programming for the sensors. He was pretty sure his design could beat the ionic interference that was blasting through space out there. But it was always good to double check.

Ron was cleaning grease off his hands with a red towel. He came around the butt of the drone they’d just finished, eyeing the youth speculatively. “You sure these things will be able to scan out there?”

Noah nodded back. Now all they had to do was duplicate their work on the second probe and deploy them. Endeavour bucked as a small gravity wave passed over her position. Xia had turned her attention to the team of engineers she had brought down here to set up the second probe, ignoring the two bridge officers for the time being. Smith stepped closer to his friend.

“Was she questioning my idea, sir?”

“Not really, son,” Davenport replied in a slow drawl. “Andorians are slow to give anyone or anything all their trust all at once. She’ll let these things prove themselves before she gives it her endorsement. Don’t worry about it.”

“Okay.”

Noah watched as the techs pulled the factory installed components and began to move and replace them. The job took twenty-one minutes the first time. Now that the trial and error phase was over, maybe they could knock that down to about fifteen or so. Ron nudged the lieutenant.

“Wanna call the bridge and report our good news?”

Smith smiled. “Sure.”

It had been twelve minutes since Mister Smith’s first report from the starboard torpedo bay. Now the smiling boy was emerging from the turbolift and resuming his station with all the pride that a good plan can achieve. Ford believed that Mister Davenport brought out the good in the young officer. And by the smile on Ron’s face, that was his opinion also.

“Probes ready and loading, Captain.” Smith reported.

Ford gave as warm a smile as he could smear on his face and nodded back. “Good work, y’all. Mister Nechayev, clear bay two and prepare for launch.”

“Bay cleared, Keptin.” The Russian had probably ordered the bay devoid of its crewmen as soon as he’d received word the drones were in position. “Systems activated and standing by.”

“Set their exit vectors for twenty degrees down either beam of our flight vector.” Ford sat upright in his blue seat. “Launch drones.”

Mister Smith turned fully to his seat and began to monitor the action of his children. Both modules were operating as expected, and their scans were remarkably clean. He pushed his command link into his ear and began to listen to the squall of noise that was coming through on subspace.

“I think we’ve got it, Captain.” Noah called out. “Coming in at a faint 300 hertz… On bandwidth C… Definite triangulation. Bearing 051 mark 014…distance fourteen million km.”

“Any idea on identity of the sender?”

“No, sir. Still too badly distorted. The computer cannot put ID on it. It doesn’t sound familiar to me, either.”

Ford nodded. “Helm, how busy is that flight vector?”

Bronstien shrugged as he bobbed his black haired head. “A bit tight out there, but I think our shields can take what’s ahead this time. But if you have a hankerin’ for a hot cup of coffee, get it out of the way now, ‘cause its gonna be bumpy.”

Chevy found himself grinning at the reply. “Now there’s a professional report if I ever heard one. Take us ahead, helm. Best speed.”

Commander Thomas stood from his executive station and closed on the bridge railing near to comm. “Can we get a hail through to whatever ship’s out there?”

Smith turned to face the exec. “I replied with a standard hail upon confirming it was a distress beacon, sir. No response.”

“Was our signal even strong enough to make it in here?”

Noah looked over the graphics on interference strength that glowed back at him on his monitors. “I don’t think so, sir. Not unless they were keyed to just our frequency and had a fully operational comm suite.”

Ben Thomas looked back to his friend at the conn. Ford pointed a ‘go-ahead’ finger back Smith’s direction. “Put me on general frequencies.”

“You’re on, Captain.”

“Ship in distress, this is Captain Ford of the Federation ship Endeavour, do you read?”

Nothing but computer muted static came in answer. They all watched the glowing plasma clouds linger closer as Bronstien jockeyed the ship for a way through.

“I say again: This is the USS Endeavour, Captain Ford commanding. We have come in answer to your distress signal. If you can hear me, please respond.”

Smith looked back that way with doubtful dismay. “No response, Captain.”

The captain made a gruff face as he looked to the junior officer.

“Alright. Repeat message in all standard frequencies and languages. Let me know if there’s a response.”

Endeavour rattled like an old pickup truck on a dirt road as she passed through a final eddy of plasma and entered a channel of calm, ion-free space between strings. Beyond a few rumblings from the shields and the occasional jolt, this fresh area was as smooth as canoeing down a gentle river. Three strings moved along the same direction here, all of them heading the direction Endeavour had just come. The space between the clouds was tight, no more than a few thousand kilometers, but it seemed stable.

Bronstien slowly keyed back the throttle controls and looked back at the conn. “Slowing to one-half impulse, Cap’n. Steady on course 171 mark 337.”

Ford looked back to the science station. Surall and two of her support techs were bent over the console, gleaning every bit of information they could out of everything they’d passed. “Are we still closing on the signal, Lieutenant?”

“Aye, sir,” Surall answered, not taking her eyes off the scanners before her. “Estimate approximately ten thousand kilometers more. I am attempting to establish a visual.”

Ford waited with idle anticipation as the main screen remained fixed on the jetting masses of gas outside. He could make out very little else in the pink and blue haze. Finally, the viewer seemed to shift and a small, angular mass occupied the center of the feed.

“Magnification twenty.” He ordered.

The object in the middle of the screen resolved instantly into a small, pointed-nosed warship built of brown and green alloys. It bore two darkened, half-globe warp drive pods on either side of its aft hull, and a doubled play of armor which turned the needle like craft into a bulky looking construction. The ship’s bow was a duel-forked design, one point held above the other. And it was quite familiar to Starfleet’s intelligence bureaus.

“A Gorn ship.” Ford murmured. Despite their relative close proximity to Gorn space, he was still surprised. They almost never ventured beyond their own borders. Yet, they were here…

“Indeed, Captain.” Surall’s voice said evenly. She pressed her eyes into her scope and keyed a series of controls without looking. “A small escort and scouting vessel, equivalent of our frigate designs. It is unpowered, having only minimal systems operating on battery power. It has sustained hull and system damage, likely from contact with a strong plasma string or ionic discharge. I believe its course is being dictated on automatic, though its impulse drive has been damaged severely.”

“Lifesigns?” Asked Thomas.

“Scanning…” Surall seemed to hesitate. “I am uncertain as to the prospect of survivors aboard that ship, sir.” Her hands adjusted the intensive bio-scanners. She stood to make some of the finer adjustments. She then returned to the protruding monitor.

“I am receiving a bio signature, Captain. However, I am unable to locate an exact source.”

Ben looked back Ford’s way with a shrug. “Could be storm interference, Cap’n.”

“Negative, sirs.” Surall’s voice sounded definite. “My system is altered to filter out ionic and EM variants. I am unable to ascertain the location of the lifeform reading I am encountering.”

Ford stood and approached the science console. The deck beneath him was more or less stable. “Are the readings you’re picking up indicative of a healthy Gorn or group of Gorn?”

Surall straightened and considered the idea. Her brown eyes found those of her CO. “Not likely, Captain.”

“And if this ship continues as it is?”

It wasn’t often Vulcans shrugged. “They will be destroyed in the next plasmic shift in this area.”

Chevy pursed his lips and nodded to himself. He tended to be a man of straightforward action. And this was the time for such. He turned to the comm station. “Mister Smith, put me on general hail once again.”

“You’re on, Captain.”

“Gorn vessel, this is the USS Endeavour. If you can hear us, we are about to render assistance. We will stabilize your course using tractor beams to clear you of the plasma strings near by. This is not an attack. Stand by.”

Now the captain looked to his weapons officer.

“Mister Nechayev, lock tractors on the Gorn and draw them into transporter range,” he then looked forward. “Helm, once we have the ship securely, set us a course out of the plasma field at whatever speed it can handle.”

“Aye, Cap.” Replied Bronstien. He began to lay in gentle directional corrections to edge them in above the alien vessel. The pointed craft began to loom larger on the center screen.

“What are the on-board conditions over there?” Ford asked his science officer. He knew the lizard-like Gorn evolved on worlds with much higher gravity than most. Their observed strength was astounding. He didn’t fancy getting on board that ship and being crushed flat to the deck by the regular gravity.

Surall faced her console and read over several monitors. “Very little heat, temperatures below zero Celsius and decreasing. Gravity off-line. Oxygen within human limits in all intact areas. There are several areas containing intense neutron radiation where their warp core has vented.”

“Alright, Davenport, Smith, Surall and Doctor Keller will suit up in EVA suits and prepare to beam over. XO, you have the conn—”

“Bullshit!”

Thomas stood up from his seat and stared down the Captain. The uniformed mountain looked ready to squash his friend, though oddly enough, the look possessed no hint of anger. He was a man who’d smack Ford in the face and laugh at him, but do it as a friendly gesture. “You’re not goin’ over there, Cap’n. I overlooked all your gallivanting over the years because I wasn’t your XO. Now I am. You condemned me to the second seat, so now I’m gonna make you pay for the promotion. Regulations say you’re staying here.”

Ford felt a bit betrayed and more than a little let down. He was jumping at the chance to go see a Gorn ship first hand, but now Ben was stopping him. “Et Tu, Brute?” He had to smirk over it, though. This was what a good executive officer was supposed to do, though not so forcefully on the bridge…

“Alright, you go have all the fun. But the next time I find a way to have some hair-brained fun, I’m goin’!”

Ben returned the smile.

“Deal…if it isn’t too dangerous.” The hulk began to wave his people toward the starboard side turbo elevator. “We’ll take level three security equipment. If we find the source of those readings, we’ll call in and render assist. If we meet resistance, we’ll beam the hell back out.”

Chapter Four

Commander Benjamin Thomas checked the power level on the phaser rifle in his hands and set it for maximum stun. There was no intel on how much stun force was actually required to bring down a Gorn, but he was quite sure light stun wasn’t going to do the job. He looked across the transporter room at the other members of the away party who were busy getting into their own EVA suits. None of them had yet picked up their weapons, let alone checked them out. Ben was very proficient, after three decades of service, at getting into a space suit.

“When you claim your Type Threes, check ‘em out and set for level two.” He glanced at the redhead who was just strapping down the last bit of her shiny white suit. “You got any experience with reptilian lifeforms, Doctor Keller?”

Keller looked back at the huge XO with little emotion showing on her pale face. She had dark brown eyes, almost black, and seemed to prefer darker lipsticks. “Only more common terrestrial animals, Exec.” Her British accent told him. “Few scientists in the Federation have had opportunity to examine the Gorn species.”

“Well, you’re gonna be one of the first. How good are you with a phaser?”

“I don’t prefer rifles. Too ungainly.” She picked out a Type Two from the open arms locker and strapped its holster to her belt. “But I practice at level eight with the pistol unit.”

Level Eight was better than most marines could best on the range. Vulcans and Andorians were the only species that possessed the hand-eye coordination to consistently score better than seven. Thomas decided that he’d check out here marksmanship file before becoming too impressed. He didn’t begrudge the doctor a pistol, though.

“That’s just fine, Doc. I don’t intend to have a running firefight with these guys anyway. We’re a rescue op.”

The XO looked his team over, watching as they turned to double check the suits of their neighbors. When all were ready and armed, he led them out into the main section of the transporter room. PO Goodwin was manning the main controls within the booth, supported by a gold-collared engineer. Ben’s team assembled upon five of the six pads in the alcove. Goodwin looked back at them all.

“Commander, the site I’ve picked is deep within the interior of the ship. I’m not reading any active transport beacons, if they even use them… The temp in the chamber you’ll beam into is twenty below freezing. There shows to be plenty of O2 on site, but our scanners could be wrong in all of the interference. Be careful.”

Ben nodded back at the NCO. Goodwin was a good hand with plenty of experience under his own belt. Thomas had picked him personally for security four years back. He felt a bit more secure with him on the controls.

“Sounds good, Dawayne. Keep a sharp eye on the sensors and pick us up if you hear a peep out of us.” Thomas turned in his bulky white suit to face his men. “Helmets on and visors down till I order otherwise.”

Each of them slid their round helmets over their heads, obscuring any hint of who they’d once been. Only the patched attached to the shoulders of their suits held any clue to the identity of the person within. Ben looked back to the control booth.

“Energize.”

Within a darkened and frigid compartment of the stricken vessel, five shafts of azure light formed and split into glowing humanoid forms. As the energy of the transporter beam faded from around the group of rescuers, they each activated their shoulder and rifle mounted lamps and flooded the room with garish light.

Thomas took a few trial steps forward from the beam-in point and panned the channel of his lights about the interior of the space they’d found themselves in. The room was large and spacious for such a small space-going ship. Modules that might have been computer banks lined one of the walls facing the away party, its screens dead. There were no chairs to be had, nor any other furnishings. A single lighting device occupied the center of the compartment’s ceiling. It too was dead. Various items like to data pads floated in the weightless environment, bouncing from obstacle to obstacle.

Eerie sounded filtered through the dampening of their thick helmets, and their lights played grotesque shadows upon every surface. The gravity felt squishy, but it was nothing their magnetic boots couldn’t solve for them.

“Alright, tight formation, we don’t know how stable this thing is after all the damage it took. Keller, how’s the air?”

The lady doctor had her tricorder up and taking readings. Through her tinted visor, her eyes scanned the information displayed. “Atmosphere is filled with bio-toxins. Something on this ship has decomposed and flooded the air with microbes.”

“Deadly?”

“Not while the temp remains below freezing, but the moment these buggers meet body temp, they’ll cause rampant infection. Our helmets stay on.”

“You heard the lady! Helmets stay on.” Ben told the rest of them. He pointed to the chamber’s only door. “Let’s prize this hatch and have a look at the rest of the ship.”

Commander Davenport slowly trudged his way to the hatch and began to run a thorough scan over its mechanism. “No power to the system, but there is a manual release.” He handed his tricorder over to Lieutenant Surall.

With a quick flick from a small pry bar from his belt kit, Ronald detached a foot long wall panel from beside the door. After a brief examination, he tried the lever within. It wouldn’t budge. After a few more grunts, the former engineer shrugged and stepped back. “Too tough for me. Gotta be at least an eighty pound pull on that thing.”

Surall stepped in closely to Davenport and slid her hand into the crevasse. After a swift jerk, the lever came down and the door opened. Surall turned and might have nodded to the XO, though it was hard to say due to her suit’s bulk. Both she and Mister Smith stepped out into the corridor beyond, rifles raised and scanning the way. Ben chucked Ron on the shoulder.

“Gotta let the girls open your doors for ya?”

Davenport shrugged again. “Turnabout’s fair play, XO.”

The corridors they passed through were littered with debris and the wall panels and overhead conduits showed remarkable signs of damage. This ship had taken a beating. Smoke hung thick in the chill air in several places. Thomas led his men on, hoping to lead them toward what science had decided was the bridge.

“Reading a biomass ahead, Number One.” Came Keller’s voice over the helmet comms. It took Ben a second to realize she was referring to him.

“I go by XO ‘round here, Doc. What kind of biomass?”

“Reptilian. Inert.”

Around a thirty-degree bend in the debris-filled, grey-brown walled hallway they came upon a crumpled form laying face down on the deck. It was obviously a Gorn male, well over two meters tall. Its green scales were dull and without luster, and many of them were cracked. The alien was wearing a military uniform and possessing no weaponry beyond what nature had equipped him with. Its great green muscles sagged in dead weight and its slender tongue hung stiffly between a row of needle thin carnivore’s teeth. The creature’s normally reflective eyes were without shine.

Keller’s suit bent low as she ran a palm scanner over the corpse.

“This body has been through partial decompression at some point, but that wasn’t the cause of death.”

“What was?” Asked Smith. Ben stood just behind the doctor, rifle held at the ready.

“I believe he froze to death. There’s evidence of tissue laceration at the cellular level, as though ice had formed in its body. It’s widespread, so I’d say this corridor got a lot colder than it is presently. There is also evidence that after it froze, the body was then subjected to intense heat.”

Thomas found himself nodding, though there was no one able to catch the gesture.

“This ship’s been on a roller coaster ride since it got disabled. Let’s get to the bridge and see what we can salvage. Hopefully there’s a compartment somewhere aboard with survivors.” He remembered Surall’s phantom bio signature. It seemed more and more likely that whatever had caused the reading was not a lifeform.

Captain Ford sat uncomfortably in his totally comfortable chair and resisted yet again the urge to stroll around the bridge. The small warship held aloft by his ship’s tractor beam still dominated the main viewer. It was a constant reminder that his comrades were out there, without him, sharing all the risks and the adventure. Hoarding it, one might say…

“Keptin,” Nechayev’s uninvited voice broke off Ford’s melancholy reverie and called him back to reality. “Long range sensors now detecting traces of an active varp field.”

“Where away?”

“Approaching from directly ahead, Keptin. And growing in strength.”

“ID?”

“None as yet, Keptin. Too much subspace interference.”

“Keep an eye on it. Mister Bates, hail the XO.”

Commander Thomas’s communicator beeped within the confines of his helmet; a message from Endeavour. With a tap to the key on his suit’s chest panel, he opened the line. “Go ahead Endeavour.”

“Ford here, XO. Be advised possible incoming vessel. Maybe even a Gorn rescue ship.”

Ben stopped in his progress toward the bridge hatch they’d found.

“What are our orders if it is the Gorn?”

“We’ll beam you the hell off of there and back off. It’s their ship.”

Thomas had to agree with the idea. The Gorn were territorial and protective of their property. Snooping around on their ship was a good way to get shot at. But till they got here, this ship was open to inspection. “We’ve reached what is likely the bridge, Cap’n. Mister Davenport is making entry.”

Ahead of him, both Ron and Surall were peering into an open control panel and figuring out its workings. There came a flurry of lit indicators and the door reeled up into the ceiling. “We’re in,” he told Ford.

“Understood. Keep me upraised.” Said Ford as he killed the connection.

The bridge of this craft was akin to many of the other compartments they’d looked in on. It was spacious, with a lot of overhead. There was still not an overabundant amount of lighting within, but the fixtures were at least functional here. Each of the team in turn killed their own lamps and spread out to examine the interior of the room.

Ben stepped up to a central control station, which was ringed with panels and displays. The monitors were dead or showing red default messages. Static showed on several screens. Very little was online aboard this escort. The keyboards of the alien-designed station came up to the XO’s chest area.

Some of the differences in this bridge stood out from other races’ designs. The first was the lack of chairs. No space built on this craft showed any evidence of a place to sit down. Not even the few cabins they’d examined along the way had any sort of seat. Only giant cushions placed on the decks that might have been meant for sleeping. Their mentality seemed to be either to stand or lay down.

Another difference was the apparent lack of a main view screen here on the bridge. There were plenty of visual displays on the console spread out within the compartment, but no central viewer. Ben found that an oddity. He looked over to Surall, who scanned every millimeter of the room with her tricorder. Davenport was near to her, doing likewise and also poking at various consoles and interfaces.

“You two get all the intel you can from this bird. Fleet intelligence would give its left nut to be in here with us.”

“Ouch…” Came from Ron, whose suited figure faced Thomas. “We’ll get every thing possible. We need to get Mister Smith working on translating these panels for us. I need to find an engineering station.”

Thomas looked for the tallest among them. Finding him, he waved the kid into action. Lieutenant Smith lumbered over to Davenport and eyed his tricorder while referring to his Universal Translator PADD. They went from station to station till halting at an aft console.

“This one mentions antimatter relays, XO.” Smith called. He had halted at the only console that actually had an occupant. The dead Gorn officer lay in a heap before the station, still crumpled where he’d fallen. The two Starfleet officers dispassionately stepped over the corpse.

Ronald began to confer with the Smith in quiet tones as they began to decipher the meanings of the readings listed there. Surall stepped nearer to Thomas. “XO, I have examined the readings taken of this vessel’s available battery power.”

“And?”

“The system is depleted to within two hundred terawatts of its capacity. The rate of drain also suggests it has been this way for some time. I do not believe we will find any survivors aboard.”

Ben looked more fully at the white clad science officer. “It was your sensor scan that led us over here.”

“Agreed. However, having been unable to localize further readings of the bio signature since our arrival, I must conclude that the reading was erroneous. Possibly due to interference.”

Ben decided not to mention that she had vehemently ruled out the idea of interference being a problem while aboard Endeavour. “Well, we’re here and it won’t hurt to look around some more. Key your sensors for life readings only and see what you can find.”

“Aye, sir.”

Surall stepped away, joining the form of Doctor Keller. Both began to scan for life signs. Ben remained silent and let his team work. He wondered why there weren’t more bodies on the bridge. What had been more important than remaining here? Davenport was the next to call out to him.

“Hey, Commander! We got something.”

Thomas stomped their way, halting behind Davenport and Smith. “What is it?”

“The computer lists the reason for main power failure,” the chief of ops told him, pointing at the lit graphic in the center of the monitor in front of him. The schematic was definitely that of an EPS type power grid. “An ionic surge overloaded their entire EPS relay and blew the sucker out. Every thing from life support to main armament. It destroyed the power conversion system in their warp core and destroyed nearly all their reserve systems. All they’ve got is a few backup battery modules built into their secondary equipment.”

“I assume they tried to repair it?”

“Yeah, but they weren’t able to finish their repairs before the ship encountered another series of plasma discharges. They were able to tap what little battery power they had and direct it to the maneuvering systems to correct their flight, but that just drained even more power.” Ron tapped at the image on the screen, “Odd thing is, they could have routed the power they had left to life support and kept several compartments safe for at least a week… but they didn’t.”

“Ran out of time?” Ben offered.

“No, they seem to have chosen not to. The time index on the modifications is well in advance of life support failure. They chose some other system over keeping themselves alive…”

Ben could think of very little that he would have opted to keep running over life support. But then, he was thinking as a human. Who knew what a Gorn thought of as being more important? Maybe they’d been on an important intel mission, or some kind of defensive deployment.

“Could the system they chose be related to life support?”

“Can’t tell. The UT doesn’t make the translation. There’s some kind of symbol that isn’t repeated in any other context.” Smith explained.

Ben leaned into the console, examining the image before him to see if it might jar some memory. Nothing came to mind. “Can you locate this system?”

Ronald began to slowly tap at the controls. The image on the monitors began to change, resolving outward into a side view of the forked ship, then zooming in again. The symbol Noah had mention blinked in blue above a compartment highlighted. “Three decks down, three sections aft. A heavily armored area in the belly of the ship.”

Ben grasped the two officers on the shoulder.

“That’s where we’re headed folks.”

Chapter Five

Ford bent close to the primary sensor display on the science console and tried not to breathe too hard on the secondary specialist sitting there. This was one of Surall’s junior officers whom occupied a prize placement in her astrometrics division. His capacity on space borne phenomena was unequalled amongst the remainder of the ship’s compliment. But Ford could not help but remain circumspect when anyone other than his primary science officer manned the scopes.

“Identified?”

Ensign Edmonson glanced back at his skipper, trying not to look like an irritated horse squatting at a barn fly. “Not yet, sir. The subspace band is within the E region, but that just proves their using a non-linear coil assembly. It could be Gorn, or it could be Vulcan, Orion, Breen or Ferengi.”

Ford scoffed. “I doubt the Ferengi even exist.”

“Maybe some day we’ll find out.” The ensign replied, once again applying his eyes to the main scope. Ford raised back to his full height, intent on disturbing him no further. He glanced at the green ship on his viewer and then to operations. Another junior officer manned that post.

“How’s the plasma field looking, Ops?”

“Closing tighter, Captain. We have a clearance of just over one thousand meters port and starboard.”

This drew the captain’s gaze to Lieutenant Bronstien. “Steady as she goes helm. Try to find us a nice stable exit from all this.”

Johnathan nodded half-consciously. All of his concentration was again piled upon his instruments. Even his reply sounded as though only a tenth of his brain were dedicated to it. “Aye, Cap’n. Speed steady at one-quarter impulse.”

“We’re continuing to close in on the warp field, sir.” The science spec intoned as well. Chevis returned to his seat at the conn and made himself relax. He hoped that Thomas would find the reason for their supposed lifeform reading, and soon. He did not fancy a conflict with some Gorn warship that might have been looking for their lost escort.

Ford considered hailing the unidentified contact. But if it were the Gorn, their signal would be ignored and it might actually boost their paranoia. He needed to provide Thomas with as much time as possible to come up with an answer about the lifeform reading without actually turning both ships around and heading in the opposite direction. He could also beam his men home till identity of the new craft was ascertained, but he had no guarantee that this was the Gorn coming in on them, nor that the supposed lifeform would last till their compatriots arrived.

Humanitarianism had its drawbacks, he decided.

“I don’t suppose the reading could have been coming from the ship’s shuttles or life pods, could they?” Smith asked Lieutenant Surall as Davenport finished coaxing the final hatch open. Each of the away party slowly entered this new, ill-lit chamber and began to look about.

“I mean,” the officer continued, “They’re self-contained and would last a long time.”

Surall gave a noncommittal shrug. “If that were true, would they not have also launched from this vessel rather than remained locked inside a hulk with little or no motive power?”

Ronald solved the riddle for them. “The shuttle bay was damaged in a hull breach in the initial blast, and both shuttles were blown into space before they really knew what was going on. And the life pods are too close to the outer hull to endure the heat, ionic bursts and hard radiation of the zone for very long. If they went there, they got cooked days ago. Besides,” he pointed to yet another huge, scaled body lying on the deck before them. “We’ve accounted for nearly all of the crew between here and engineering. I’d say the crew complement is dead.”

Mister Thomas panned around with his shoulder and rifle lights. This room was much smaller than any of the others they’d thus far been within. It was lined with pod-like machines laden with hoses and wiring harnesses. Each of the devices within this room was alight with glowing status indicators and was humming silently or making a wet pumping sound. Ben’s rifle-lamp’s beam fell across a large canister with transparent sides. He panned it back, to better examine what he’d seen.

“What the hell is this?” He called, voice an octave higher.

“Hold up…” Said Ron’s voice over the helmet comm, “This panel has power. Let me bring up the lights.”

The room’s own light sources took over, and the Starfleet team killed their own lamps. The tank Thomas had seen was only the outermost of three such pods, all made from clear glass-like alloy and perched atop a group of tall, boxy mechanical apertures that hummed and produced a sanguine field of heat that could just be felt through the material of their EVA suits. Within each transparent pod stood suspended ten or more brown, round objects that looked to be made of tanned leather. The fluid they floated in looked to be thick and gelatinous from its opacity. Ben’s jaw sagged as he realized what he must have been looking at.

Ford hunkered down close to his chair’s comm pickup and made a clearly confused face. “Repeat that, XO. They’re what?”

“Eggs, Cap’n!” Ben’s voice exclaimed. “They rerouted their remaining power to provide life support for their incubators! They were carrying eggs! KIDS!”

Thomas was hardly an excitable fellow after decades in space. To rouse his gander so much meant that what he was seeing was something he found absolutely fantastic. Ford felt his back slacken as he sagged back into his chair. Eggs…

“Understood, XO. What is their condition?”

“Hold…” There was some barely made-out conversation on their end as Ben conferred with Keller. Finally: “Doctor Keller says they’re barely stable, and their temperature is droppin’. Davenport’s looking for the reason.”

“But they’re alive?”

“Aye, Cap’n. Definitely alive.”

“Can you stabilize the temp?”

“I’m gonna try.” Came Davenport’s country drawl. “But I’ve never worked with alien incubation technology before.”

Ford smirked. If anyone could rig up a fix for this situation, it was Ron.

“You go ahead, Ron. Just don’t scramble ‘em.”

“I like mine over easy, anyway, Cap’n,” The chief of ops said back. “We’ll get back to ya.”

Ford sat in silence, looking at the tiny ship on his screen. He felt at once relieved and amazed. He was glad they found the frigate in time. To think… they’d come through all this space and hazard, and rescued children who weren’t even born yet. Alien children.

“Coming up on a break in the plasma string cluster, Cap.” Bronstien’s tired resonance reported from helm. The kid sounded like he could use a break. “I read clearing space on the other end.”

“Confirmed, Captain.” Ops supplied.

“Keptin,” There was ice in Nechayev’s own tone. It caused the captain to swing his chair to face the weapons chief. The bearded Russian looked down at him. “I am also reading a large wessel within the clearing. Definitely of Gorn design. She’s detected us. Both of us…”

Commander Thomas made a face of pure aggravation that no one in the galaxy could see. The Gorn could not have shown up at a worse time. He turned away from the spot on the deck where Surall and Davenport had opened a machinery hatch and were diving into the alien workings beneath.

“Cap’n, we’re gonna have a problem then.”

“Why? Something gonna delay beam-out?”

“Yeah. The incubator system is nearly at shutdown level. The power system directed to it has almost been depleted and Ron’s already started patching the supply from his rifle to it. If we hadn’t caught this just now, I doubt the eggs would’ve made it for another hour or two. How far out is the Gorn ship?”

“At impulse power, another seventeen minutes. They’ve detected us, and I believe they know you’re aboard their ship.” The captain told him. Ben could hear the building tension in his CO’s voice. As always, he felt a slight twinge of concern for his friend’s cardio health.

Ben looked back to his officers, who were hooking leads from the phaser power pack to the EPS cables of the alien system. This was going to take some time. The wisest option, for their sakes, was probably to get the hell off this ship. Doing so was a death sentence for the kids in those eggs.

“Ron and Surall are switching the incubator to our supply now. I figure this will take them the better part of a half an hour to finish. We’ll still be here working when the Gorn are knocking on our door.”

“I’ll stall ‘em if I can. Ford out.”

Thomas stepped closer to his men. Both Smith and Keller’s suits twisted as the people within looked at him. “How much trouble are we in, Commander?” Asked the British voice.

“Could be a lot if the Captain can’t get them to understand why we’re here.”

“What’ll we do if they board us?”

Ben had only one answer for such a thing. “We’ll defend ourselves. Get your weapons ready and make sure they’re set for max stun. Smith, you and me will man the door. Keller, you’ll cover the other officers and remain behind the incubator for cover. Hopefully they won’t be too keen on firing with their kids so close by.”

As he and his men moved to their positions, Thomas considered the irony of fighting a battle he didn’t want in the middle of a nursery.

Ford looked at the hazy image of the boxy warship that was gliding their way. This vessel was many times the escort’s mass, and had six times the firepower. Endeavour would be hard pressed in a confrontation with such a beast. But he did not intend to let it come to that. Ford glanced at the relief comm officer.

“Bates, hail the Gorn warship.”

“On speakers, Captain.” The Southerner replied.

“Gorn vessel,” Ford began, trying to sound calm and nonplussed. “This is Captain Ford of the USS Endeavour. We mean no harm to your escort craft and are rendering assistance to the children it carries.”

The viewer snapped to show the growling image of a huge, huffed up Gorn with nearly black eyes. The alien had a short, broad snout denoting its feminine nature. Her teeth were bared and the snarling yowl of language coming from the overheads did not sound friendly. Ford instantly looked to comm for explanation.

Mister Bates looked back with even more confusion. “The UT didn’t catch a lick of it, sir. I think she’d using a different language than what we’ve encountered. Or maybe her vernacular is different.”

Ford looked back to the viewer. The Gorn captain gesticulated with a thick, clawed finger. Her growling rant hadn’t slowed yet and had only grown louder. She advanced menacingly toward her visual pickup.

“Work faster, Comm!” Ford shot at the short officer.

The Gorn on screen punched a key. A gravelly reproduction of Ford’s own voice came back over the speakers. “I’ll stall ‘em if I can. Ford out.”

“Oh-sh*t.” Ford breathed out. He’d been taken out of context. The alien captain may not have even heard or understood the rest of what they’d intercepted between himself and Thomas. They did, however, know that he’d been planning to buy his men time.

“You have to understand, Captain,” he reasoned with her. “My people are trying to get your incubator system back online. If they hadn’t been there, it’s likely your children would have died already. If you’ll just accelerate your approach, we’ll gladly hand the job over to you.”

Finally, English began to spill from above, high pitched and grating though it was. “—Your people will vacate our ssship immediately, Captain! Your attemptsss at essspionage will go no further! It is no coincidence yoursss isss the only ssship in the area of our injured craft.”

Ford was further stunned. This situation was sinking into an abyss that it shouldn’t ever have gone into. He was on a rescue mission. Now they thought he was responsible for the destruction of their craft?

“We’ve done nothing to your ship.”

“Yet you are aboard it!”

“My people are in the nursery section with the surviving eggs—“

There were times when one knew things had gotten out of hand. The moment the Gorn captain screeched and killed the comm link was among those times. The warship on the screen accelerated, growing larger much more swiftly.

“They have gone to varp!”

“Red alert!” The Captain settled himself securely into the conn and strapped a safety belt over his lap. The bridge lighting dimmed and became highlighted in bloody tracers. The bark of the alarm had officers racing to their posts and guards taking position near each entrance. Ford figured he had about a minute till the Gorn battleship was within weapons range. “Tactical, tractor the frigate to within one hundred meters of the fantail and deploy our aft shields around it. Standby forward weapons. Comm, keep trying to hail the Gorn back and get me Mister Thomas.”

Chapter Six

“It just hit the fan, XO!” Ford’s voice rang within the executive officer’s helmet. “I don’t know what’s up the Gorn captain’s tail, but she’s incoming, weapons hot. We’re gonna do what we can to shield you, but I need y’all to get off that ship now!”

Ben looked down to where Ronald was still working with the EPS interface whose guts were spilled across the deck. “I’m all for it, Cap. But Davenport has this thing's innards everywhere. If he doesn’t finish the repair, the incubator will crash.”

“I should’ve ordered y’all not to tamper with the thing.” Ford groused at himself. Ben scoffed.

“You’d have done it too if you’d led the party. We don’t let kids die, even when they ain’t hatched yet.”

“Do what you can, but if you are boarded, we’ll beam you back. I don’t want a gunfight over there. They can finish the repair on their own if they want to fight us.”

“Understood, Endeavour. Thomas out.”

Davenport glanced back over to the rest of the party. “You guys can go ahead. I’ll stay behind and get this thing goin’. No need in risking everybody.”

“Negative,” was Surall’s immediate come back. “You will require my assistance in patching the ODN output to the induction assembly.”

Thomas stopped further loyal outpourings before they could be uttered. “We’re all stayin’ put. If something goes wrong out there, we’re gonna need as many people as we can get to bail our asses out. The Cap’n will figure out the other details. If he can get ‘em talking, we’ll be a step closer to fixing all this.”

“They are dropping out of varp and approaching at high impulse.” Lieutenant Nechayev called off. The Gorn warship was bearing down on them, nearly within firing range. “Their main veapons have locked on.”

Ford nodded, watching the screen and accepting a phaser pistol from a security spec that was distributing them to all hands. “Understood. Return active lock. Target shields only.”

“Aye, Keptin. But I don’t think they vill be so kind.”

“Me neither.”

Blue energy coils came alight upon the prow of the alien battleship, and coursing arcs of electroplasma focussed onto a sharp weapon plane just under the ship’s upper chin formation. Ford keyed the intercom. “All decks, brace for impact.”

“Veapons range… now.” Reported Tactical.

A brilliant blue bolt of rippling energy leapt away from the Gorn’s plasma weapon and rushed toward Endeavour. The captain grabbed a tight hold on the grips of the conn and lurched forward painfully as the bolt struck the forward shield. The effect was like to a sledgehammer slamming into a windshield. The forward screens came alive with torrents of expended energy and seemed to crackle under the strain. Endeavour heeled backward, throwing her people forward as her maneuvering systems tried to compensate.

Behind the conn, Nechayev held stubbornly to his weapons console, thanking providence for the inertial dampeners in the deck beneath him. The specialist manning the after sensor console behind him was not so solid and fell on his rear beside the security chief. The shields thundered and moaned as they drew more power. Warning lights and sirens wailed across the bridge.

The gravity righted as the assault of the powerful weapon ended.

“Forward shields down to six percent, Keptin. I am routing auxiliary power to main generators.” Daniel worked swiftly, fearing another strike before they were ready.

“Helm, take us to full impulse!” Ford called out. “Evasive maneuvers to starboard. Bring our port deflectors to bear.”

“Aye!” Bronstien shouted back.

The captain could see more plasma gathering at the tips of smaller weapons planes. Various gunnery ports were wheeling open and aiming home on the Federation starship. Relations with these people were never more than mediocre, but Ford did not want to worsen them by starting an open shooting match. He could see no other recourse, however. He would not allow them to destroy his ship.

“Open fire, all weapons!”

The full might of the Excelsior-class starship opened up on the alien war vessel. Pulsating lances of phaser fire and rushing onslaughts of torpedoes pummeled the Gorn in return for their hostility. The Gorn’s secondary armament added vehemence to their earlier imprudence. Smaller plasma projectiles and long streams of rail cannon fire raked the portside shields of the streamlined Endeavour. The human ship’s deflectors flared under the strain, fluttering and allowing the bursts of ionized energy to leave black char marks on the pristine hull. Endeavour staggered in her course and bobbled to the right.

The Gorn, however, under the hammering force of Endeavour’s guns, lost much of its own protection. The Excelsior’s photon warheads blasted apart its defensive shields and blackened an already dark hull. The massive warship was forced to present another side to her foe lest she take real damage.

“Gorn forward shields down to ten percent. Damage to her forward life support. No breaches.” Called out the spec at science. Ford was becoming less and less concerned about damaging the Gorn’s hull.

“Our port deflectors have fallen to twenty percent. Several rail cannon projectiles have impacted on the hull.” Called out an engineer. “Damage is minimal.”

Gorn rail cannon hurled seven foot long spikes of tritium, propelled by tremendous electromagnetic force. At nearly the speed of light, the cannon rounds quite often found their way through a target’s fully functional shielding. They could be as dangerous as many much more advanced weapons.

“Helm, down ninety degrees starboard yaw. Roll the ship!” Ford ordered Bronstien. This would take the two damaged shield arcs out of the enemy’s sights, and it would also bring their own escort between them and Endeavour. Hopefully they would not risk shooting at it. “Lock aft photons on her power grid. We have to take down her weapons.”

“Aye, Keptin!”

The battleship’s portside guns opened up on Endeavour as the Federation ship gained distance. The ship rumbled under this new assault even as Nechayev opened up with the aft weapons.

“Enemy firing now with rail cannon only,” said the science tech. “Ventral shielding weakening to sixty percent…” Another blast rocked them. Sparks twinkled down from an overhead conduit above the conn. “Fifty-two percent now.”

Nechayev paused in his bashing of the enemy to glance up at Ford.

“Enemy is turning to follow us, Keptin. Torpedoes have dropped her portside shields. I have scored one direct hit on her portside engineering hull. Negative results.”

The science tech chimed back in. “Their engineering hull is heavily armored in belted layers of tritanium and duranium. We’ll need concentrated fire to weaken it.”

“Gorn bearing on our aft vector!” Nechayev again. “Aft torpedoes cycling, switching to phasers!”

On the viewer, streams of agitated plasma intersected the image of the bulky vessel coming in on their tail as the three primary aft phasers fired in two second long bursts. The now rebuilt forward screens of the Gorn ship glowed an emerald color and faltered as they again were penetrated. A final shot from the aft beams sliced a glowing white scar across a lesser-armored section of the alien’s forward hull. Atmosphere belched out of the burning slash and carried flotsam into space.

The Gorn then fired their primary plasma cannon. This time, though, they supplemented its destructive capacity with all of their secondaries. The main, sapphire shot was flanked by smaller bursts of white energy and jagged lighting bolts of the rail guns. All of this fell on Endeavour’s aft shield. It crumpled with barely a gasp and the ship went reeling around on her axis. Rail cannon tracers slued aside, tracking down the length of the starboard warp nacelle that was suddenly in the line of fire. The engine module virtually imploded from the repetitive force of the tritanium slugs. Sparks of energy and billowing puffs of turquoise plasma coughed out from breached conduits as the starship spun through free space.

The Gorn frigate was flung free, Endeavour’s tractor beam having lost its grip.

“Damage to the starboard nacelle!” Screamed the noncom engineer at the left consoles. “We’re venting drive plasma! Warp drive offline!”

“Aft shields have failed, Keptin!” Nechayev added, clinging to his own board against the whirlpool of conflicting forces on the bridge. “Aft phasers offline!”

“Gorn are closing in!” Came from science. “Sixty thousand kilometers, closing!”

Ford expected what was coming. He was already unstrapping his belt to free himself of the conn even as his hand found his phaser. He was not surprised when the intruder alert siren began to wail.

Thomas was finding it harder and harder to remain balanced as the frigate they were aboard continued to slew from side to side. Endeavour was certainly deep in battle with the Gorn, and their evasive maneuvers were making life impossible. The warbling oscillation of his ship’s tractor beam changed pitch and volume over and over as it emanated from the outer hull.

Thomas held tightly to a handrail near the door he and Smith guarded and shouted at Davenport.

“How much longer?”

“Nearly done, XO!” Ronald hollered back through the comm. Ben blinked.

“I thought you said it’d take nearly a half hour!”

“When have you ever known a repair man to be honest about how long it takes to fix things? Remember, I’m an engineer at heart!” The ops chief said. He made some final attachment to the power grid he’d rigged up and clambered to unsteady feet. “It’s done!”

A final lurch sent them all rolling to their backs, no matter what they’d been holding onto. Commander Thomas resisted for one of the few times in his life the urge to curse vehemently. He used the butt of his weapon to help bring him back to his mag-booted feet. Something was wrong.

“The vibrations from the hull.” Surall shouted. She too was climbing to her feet. “Endeavour’s tractor beam has been cut off.”

Ben felt the change as well. The deck was still for the first time since their arrival. He leveled his rifle on the hatch. “Weapons up! Set to wide beam and prepare for—”

The sparkling yellow fields of Gorn transporters deposited amid them a full squad of angry, vac-suited Gorn soldiers. The immediate flash of gauss rifle fire staggered the XO from his footing and caused him to fall backward. He managed to catch the reptile nearest him with a wash of blue phaser energy that caused it to stumble drunkenly. Ben thudded to the deck and rolled away. Already he could see Surall lying on her side, suit holed and green blood pooling on the deck and floating upward. Keller was blasting away from behind the incubator, her pistol firing concentrated shots and dropping the alien behemoths one man at a time.

Smith took a hit, a burst of tritanium bullets to the thigh as he ran for better cover. The kid screamed so loud it deafened Ben inside his own helmet. Ben shot the Gorn that had got the boy, nailing him with a wide burst before he could finish the kid off. The exec was scrambling back on his rump as he fired. Once he reached the far bulkhead, he used its solid barrier to wriggle his way back to a full stance. His rifle found another victim, who sagged to his knees before he could fire on the now retreating doctor.

A very large Gorn, the officer of the group, snapped his head in Thomas’s direction and yowled to his nearest soldier. That Gorn strode across the bay in three steps as Ben drew a bead on him. Thomas was too slow. The huge alien batted the human’s weapon away with a stroke of his own rifle butt and then slammed the rear of his weapon into his enemy’s stomach. Ben coughed out bile and probably blood and he bounced off the bulkhead and sagged forward. He balled up his meaty fists, however, and slugged the armored being in his solar plexus. The Gorn coughed himself and backpedaled. Ben followed up his punch with a roundhouse right, catching the lizard’s helmet and cracking its visor. Ben was too close in for the Gorn to use his rifle.

All other weapons fire had stopped by this point. Thomas was the only Starfleet officer still on his feet.

The Gorn abandoned his weapon and resorted to brute strength. Ignoring Mister Thomas’s repeated punches, the alien planted its grav-boots to either side and grabbed a good hold on his attacker’s helmet. He then began to squeeze.

Ben grabbed the Gorn’s hands and tried to prize them off, but to no avail. His visor splintered even as the bowl shaped alloy of the helmet began to crush painfully down about his head. The last thing Ben heard was a sickening wet crunch before everything fell to darkness.

Captain Ford pushed up from the conn and let the centrifugal force of Endeavour’s spin take him where it may as the Gorn before him opened fire. Rounds chattered from within the short barrel of the huge rifle and shredded the command chair and its metal frame. Screams echoed throughout the bridge as officers found themselves in equal predicaments. Not all of them had had escape plans.

Two Gorn had materialized in front of the viewer and opened up on their preselected targets. Bronstien shouted an unintelligible grunt and dove to the right. The poor kid at ops was sawn in half.

Ford rolled to a crouched stance beside the rail and returned fire on his attacker. The huge lizard rasped out a yell and toppled over. But he was not unconscious. Ford could still see his hand grasping at the far rail as he arrested his fall. The captain fired another, longer blast into the alien’s back for good measure.

More phaser fire blinded the hunkering CO as the lift guards opened up with short bursts from their rifles. More Gorn fell, but still more transported aboard. Ford could hear the chatter from forgotten comm units as other decks befell a similar fate. The Gorn were beaming in all over.

“Keptin, ve must abandon the bridge and get you to safety!” Yelled Nechayev, who despite a bloody wound to his right shoulder was making his way to the captain. Daniel dropped two Gorn charging him with a single, long phaser shot that also scorched the ops console. Ford shot another off his weapons officer’s back. The lieutenant skidded to a halt beside Chevy.

“The escape hatch to deck two, Keptin. I’ll cover you!”

“I don’t think so, Lieutenant!” Ford said, still firing. God these bastards were hard to put down! “They’re not getting my bridge!”

Chapter Seven

Doctor Andrea Keller huddled close to the thrumming machinery as she watched the calmer, but still highly dangerous Gorn. Two were picking their way through the incubator’s low wiring to get her. Both covered her with their deadly looking gauss weapons. One gestured with a flat palm facing down. Keller took the hint and placed her pistol on the deck.

The other alien gestured with his short rifle barrel. She stood, taking in the carnage from the short battle. All of her party lay in heaps on the floor. Blood flowed freely from most of them. Davenport seemed to still be alive; he lay against the port wall, head still lolling side to side. Smith was holding his torn leg. Surall was as inert as a stump.

Worse was Commander Thomas. His body was in a sprawling mess; his chest plate dented and his white helmet caved in. Blood puddled on the near gravity-less deck and globbed up into the air in droplets.

Keller’s throat caught as she realized Ben’s life support indicators were reading green. He was alive, and breathing in fouled air. The doctor’s instinct to preserve life flared into a raging inferno. She shouted futilely at her captors. She rushed to get past the incubators and the nearest Gorn, but the two of them grabbed her. They held her roughly, but not so tight as to injure her. One propelled her to the far end of the compartment.

One of the soldiers bent near the long-dead corpse of the escort’s crewer. He scanned it with a hand sensor and mentioned something to his CO. That alien looked about the room. He focussed his barely visible eyes on the incubator power regulator.

“Ashaaaaw!” The Gorn exclaimed, pointing at the mess of wiring and rigged EPS tubing. The one with the scanner went to investigate it. Then he checked the incubator’s control panel. Puzzled by what he found there, he turned to the officer.

The two conferred. Keller could fathom none of it. At length, he looked at Keller and keyed a device at his golden belt. His clawed finger pointed to the egg chamber.

“Rrrepairrred?”

Keller stammered, but remembered to key her external microphone. “Yes, we repaired it.”

The Gorn, within his skin-tight EVA suit, cocked his head in wonder, then turned away. He drew a communicator and began to speak in hushed tones. What he got sounded like an argument. Keller wondered what she was in for next as she wish she could make it over to tend to her people.

“Kaay-yaaaw!” Yowled one of the massive Gorn at the port section of the embattled bridge. This officer held up a staying hand and repeated his message once again. Finally, attacker and defender’s weapon fell silent. Ford raised up from behind the lizard body he was hid behind to peer at the enemy commander. Beside him, his security chief fanned the room for his next target.

“Should ve take them now, Keptin?”

Ford saw no victory in that option. The Gorn would merely beam in more troops before backup could make it to the bridge. The captain held aloft a staying hand to his bitter-faced men.

The bridge was a bullet-riddled mess. Consoles were trashed, displays shattered and seats blown to pieces. Many of the bridge officers lay dead or wounded. Ford glowered at the Gorn commander. The lizard held a comm device up to the stumpy protrusion he guessed was an ear. The razor toothed fiend listened to what he heard there, licking his chops in thought. Finally, he lowered his comm and tentatively stood. He keyed a device on his belt.

“Captain Ford?”

“Yeah…” Ford slowly stood. It was an understatement to say he felt uncertain about what was happening. What kind of ploy was being run here?

The Gorn centered a revolting look upon him. The captain’s skin crawled. It was like having an alligator suddenly look over at you and speak. “Captain,” he growled, “I am ordered to ceassse hosstilitiesss.”

Chevis was relieved by the thought, despite his urge to keep fighting his attackers, but also suspicious. He swallowed away the fear of being out in the open amongst so many aimed Gorn rifles. The enemy soldiers, for their part, remained still and steady. Some exchanged confused glances. They continued to cover the Starfleet survivors, just as they themselves were being covered by phasers.

“Reason?”

“It wass disscovered that your party wass in the middle of repairsss to our egg nurturer. They have saved the only sssurvivorsss of the Raalssaa.”

Ford became a barely contained volcano of rage. His face flushed a bright red as he lurched over the unconscious Gorn he’d been beside. “A point I tried to make ten fucking minutes ago! Your captain cut me off and attacked! Now we both have dead people laying every fuckin’ where!”

The Gorn’s head cocked to the side slightly. If he felt anything such as remorse for his captain’s actions and the death his men had caused, he showed no real sign. The captain now stood close by him, though the human still had to look up at the officer. “Yesss, we regret—”

“You regret! You come over here and attack my ship and now you apologize for your little oopsy! Get the hell off my bridge!”

“My captain offersss her assssistance—”

“I’ve had enough of her help today.” Now Ford’s voice and countenance was as ice. He turned away from the huge alien and picked his way toward his ruined conn. “You just might want to mention to her that the next time I see a Gorn ship in distress, I’m gonna forget I saw it.”

He pointed to the mass of bodies on his deck.

“Now get your friends and get the fuck off my ship!”

If the alien attackers had not been ready to do just as the captain had said, they were each prepared to force them off. Ford felt pride in their strength of resolve in spite of the ass-whipping they just suffered.

The aliens began to stow their rifles and haul their fallen compatriots over to the aft of the bridge. As the Gorn began to slowly beam out, Ford went to the engineering console. The kid there was shaken and bloody, but not badly wounded.

“Do we have transporters?”

The noncom stood and looked the beaten console over.

“Aye, sir.”

Ford keyed the intercom.

“Transporter Room. Beam our away party home.”

“Energizing.” Came a haggard response. Then: “Captain, we’ve got wounded!”

Doctor Keller’s voice shot through next as the last of the Gorn soldiers beamed off the bridge. “Sickbay, emergency team to Transporter Room One!”

Ford tapped the button again. “Keller, what’s going on?”

“We have multiple injuries down here,” her English accent was thick as honey as her blood rose to boiling. “Multiple ballistic wounds! Number One has cranial fractures and a severed spinal column! I’m rushing him to emergency surgery!”

Ford found himself, without control, slamming his bleeding fists into the engineering terminals before him. He cursed with conviction, hurling rage at the Gorn giant on the viewer, who was turning to lumber away. He watched the ship recede into the cloudy distance and fell to a sullen silence. At last, he walked over to the remnants of the conn. Emergency medical teams were exiting from the aft elevators, carrying gurneys in and the casualties back out.

“Damage report?” His voice was cracked and tired.

The report was not immediate. Only the grace of the ship’s newer multifunction consoles even made it possible to get the ship back into functional status. Lieutenant Nechayev compiled the worse reports and rendered them.

“Ve have sustained critical damage to our starboard varp engine. Plasma flow is constricted and main power remains operable. Ve have multiple small hull breaches along the fantail, decks nineteen through thirty. Forcefields are maintaining integrity. Aft phaser grid has been severed on deck twenty, section twelve. Aft shield generators are nonoperational.”

Ford considered the report. They’d really gotten off lucky. Had the Gorn been aiming for destruction, the grocery list would be much longer. The damaged nacelle was the worst, though. Without it, they were stranded. They were deep inside the plasma phenomena, and unable to communicate with Command. They were also easy pickings for anyone with a grudge. Such as the Ya’wenn.

“Bronstien,” The young lieutenant was still able bodied. He’d taken down more than his share of the Gorn. Now he stood beside his console, a blank expression on his thin face. He blinked and looked Chevy’s way.

“Take us ahead, helmsman. Best impulse speed. Follow the Gorn’s exit vector. They’ll know what’s clear.”

Johnathan just nodded back in response. The glare he leveled on the ship in the center screen conveyed his wish to open fire on the Gorn’s exposed backs. He sat in his blood-wetted chair and began laying in commands. The great battered ship‘s engines hummed to life once again. Ford leaned against the weapons console. “Nechayev, begin implementing repair orders. Have Commander Tolin report to me when she has a complete estimate on the nacelle. And get me a casualty list.”

Ford continued to lean there. He was tired, much as each of his men were. The Gorn were a frightful presence. Just the sight of them had made the captain faint of heart. Now that it was over, the pressure in his chest was clenching. He would have to get to his ready room soon to take his meds, but not till some of the repairs were underway. Then…then he would go to sickbay…

Epilogue

Commander Benjamin Thomas awoke in a groggy haze. The room about him was alight and fuzzy. Nothing was in focus. A warm buzz filled his senses. He looked about.

Close by, more felt than seen, was his closest friend. The captain dozed in a seat he’d pulled close to the XO’s recovery bed, book in his lap and a glass of rum at his elbow. Ben could now recognize the shape and contents of the sickbay. So, he’d been injured. Accident… or…

No, the memory of the fight on the Gorn ship was much too vivid. He jerked at the unbidden memory of his helmet crushing down on him. The putrid stink of the air pouring in through his breached mask…

Ford roused at his friend’s groan. Ben looked much the worse for wear, but he was alive. The big man’s head was wrapped in old-fashioned gauze cloth and held a lightweight neural stimulator on it. Ben’s neck was braced with a hard restraint. He wouldn’t be going anywhere for some time. If he ever fully recovered…

“Hey, Ben.” Chevy said softly, grasping his XO’s hand. His hands were so huge and strong. But now, they quaked just to return any pressure. Ben’s eyes watered.

“How many did we lose, Chevy?”

Ford pursed his lips a bit fighting his anger and resentment.

“Forty-seven dead. Over two hundred wounded, twenty-seven of those still in triage. Two with injuries that’ll cash them out of the Fleet.” Ford’s voice broke and he squeezed a little harder. “Maybe a third…”

Ben forced a swollen smile.

“Aw, fuck that, Cap’n. I’ll get over this shit.” He noted for the first time that his head was immobile. His left hand reached up and probed the metal apparatus holding his head still. “What’d I wind up with, Chev?”

Chevis shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He leaned close, and though it killed him, he looked his friend in the eye. “You suffered a broken neck and severed spinal chord. Keller repaired all that she could, and the nerve tissue is whole again. But swelling and infection could hamper the nerve from finding the correct pathways again. She says there’s possibility of motor function impairment.”

Ben looked away. He was under too many drugs for the weight of it to hurt too much. A tear welled up in spite of that. “Will I walk?”

Ford chewed at the skin of his lip. He nodded.

“One way or the other, Mister Thomas. We’ll get you back on the horse.”

Ben drew a jagged breath, refusing to cry openly, even in front of Ford.

“How bad is the ship?”

Ford glanced away.

“We’re stranded. Starboard nacelle took direct hits. Ten of the coils are shattered beyond repair. We’re workin’ on everything else, but engineering has yet to render me a viable plan to get us out of this area and back to a repair dock.”

It was a moment filled with silence before Thomas spoke again. His eyes found Ford’s, filled with anger and loathing. There was a new, building darkness there.

“No good deed goes unpunished, huh?”

Ford coughed out a bitter laugh. Karma could be a cruel thing.

“Yeah… No good deed goes unpunished.”

The End