Universe Gamma
2371
Sector 20
Sparks rained down onto the bridge, singing the carpet and consoles, as well as the uniforms, hair and skin of the officers who were at their posts. It wasn’t the first time Nadia Larkin had felt the droplets of fire sear her skin, and she would make damn sure it wasn’t the last time either. The ships jolted again and she clung onto the freestanding console for support. She looked up and opposite her Lieutenant Burke was doing the same, whilst those that were seated had an easier ride—all excepted Petty Officer Fredericks at the Conn, flames leapt up from the console and consumed the young non-coms prone torso.
Yet another dead to add to the list, she mused. The Repulse had long since stopped using torpedo casings to give the dead a burial in space, they couldn’t spare any. Not that the photon torpedoes had much effect against the Borg.
“Status!” Captain Taggart croaked from his chair. Somehow, god only knew how, he was managing to stay at his post, despite the three broken ribs and punctured lung he’d sustained during their last battle.
Larkin was busy trying to compile damage reports and casualty assessments, but kept her ears open as Burke called out, “Both assimilated Sabre’s are coming about for another pass. Scans show we’ve damaged the port ships warp drive, but the starboard is still fully operational. Our shields are down to sixty-one percent, phaser power is down to half, and our aft launchers are still down.”
A new panel flashed on Larkin’s board and after a second’s scrutiny, she didn’t like what she saw. “Captain, engineering reports that the dilithium chamber is on the verge of collapse. Once it does the core will breach!”
“How long have we got?” Taggart asked, looking up at her, the exhaustion evident on his lined face, his hair far whiter than it had been five years earlier when Larkin had first come aboard the Repulse.
“Kwan says the more damage we take the closer the chamber comes to collapse. He says we’ll have less than four minutes to evacuate when it does finally break down.”
“Sir, Sabre’s will be back in weapons range in less than twelve seconds,” Ensign Rilko stated from Ops, as she did her best to patch helm functions into her console.
Larkin saw a look of hopelessness cross Taggart’s face. For almost four years solid, the crew of the Repulse had been fighting an unending battle against the Borg. Ever since the first Cube abducted Captain Picard, the men and women of Starfleet had been fighting a losing battle. Thirty-nine ships at Wolf 359 were destroyed. Then when the Cube reached Earth, the U.S.S. Enterprise-D rammed the enemy ship, destroying itself and over eighty percent of the Borg vessel. But the Borg only needed the remaining twenty percent; they still have enough drones to begin the assimilation of Earth. Once they were done, they called in reinforcements. It took only a few weeks for hundreds of Cubes, Spheres and Wedges to arrive. Every Federation member planet, colony, outpost and station was targeted. Starfleet posed no threat against the advancing horde. Then, even before they had finished destroying the Federation, the Borg turned on the other races in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants. The Cardassians were the first to fall, followed by the Ferengi, the Tzenkethi, and the Gorn. The Tholians proved to be trouble to the Collective, and were still managing to resist. The Klingons and Romulans had allied themselves together to fight against the Borg, but even the combined might of their fleets wasn’t enough to stop them.
The Repulse, a single eighty-year old Excelsior-Class ship, had held out far longer than most. But the constant hiding, running, and the guerrilla fighting that gave them a scarce win only when the odds were stacked in their favour, was warring down the crew. Out of the original complement of 550, there were only 279. But in place of the dead they had taken on refugees, survivors from other Starfleet ships and Federation planets, hell they even had forty Cardassians they saved from a half-assimilated Galor-Class cruiser they found drifting in the Badlands. The Repulse carried 602 men, women and children, most of who did their bit any way they could to help the ship survive.
“XO,” Taggart said, looking back up at her, as he tried to fight the fear and loss from his eyes, “have all non-essential personnel begin evacuations. They take priority for the escape pods. Only once the civvies are packed in can any Starfleeter evacuate.”
“Aye sir,” she replied coolly, then hit the evacuation alert. She looked to the viewscreen as the two Borg scouts moved closer, whilst throughout the ship, klaxons and tannoys announced for all non-combatants to report to their designated evacuation sites. It was a situation they faced every time the Repulse went into battle, and everyone knew where they had to go and what they needed to do. When running drills, it worried Larkin just how efficient and detached the civilians were, how the fear they had once faced was replaced by a sense of inevitability. They all knew that their time aboard the Repulse would come to an end, either by way of a fireball that filled every corridor and room seconds before the ship exploded, or at the points of assimilation tubules.
“Here they come,” Burke announced seconds before the two former Starfleet ships opened fire.
***
Universe Beta
2375
Beta Rigel System, Sector 20
“So what’s the job this time?” Ensign Jetal asked, as she leaned against her console in the cockpit of the runabout Mekong.
Lieutenant JG Hoya smiled at her friend and held up a PADD. “A passenger run to Starbase 170 and back again.” Jetal groaned and her head drooped. Michael chuckled softly from the engineering console. “They are loading up the new modules as we speak; as soon as they are installed and check out the passengers will be arriving.”
“Passenger runs? Couldn’t we get something a little more exciting?”
“Such as?” Hoya asked, crossing her arms across her chest.
“I don’t know, anything else!”
“Ahni, we are a three-man runabout operating out of the Beta Rigel System, most of our jobs are either cargo or passengers. They don’t call this system the 'transit hub of the Federation' for nothing.”
“Hoya, I’m shocked at you! Making suck a racially stereotypical statement in front of a Rigellian!”
From engineering, Michael Pechetti laughed loudly, before turning to face them. Hoya and Jetal both smiled. “Firstly, you’re only half-Rigellian Ms Jetal, or are you forgetting your human mother—her genes are the dominating ones after all. Secondly, there was nothing racially abusive in what I said; Beta Rigel has nine habitable planets, as well as twenty moons and dozens of asteroid colonies. It’s the most densely populated systems in the Federation, and as such has the highest level of both interplanetary and interstellar traffic than anywhere else in the UFP, including Earth. And thirdly, I’m the one in charge, so if you don’t like it you know where the exit is!”
They laughed again. Despite the lack of excitement and the usually mundane missions they went on time and again, Hoya loved her posting to the Mekong. It was her own ship (though granted a little small), and she had a crew who worked well together and with whom she was comfortable and confident in.
“How many passengers are we expecting ‘Boss’?” Pechetti asked.
“Quite a full load this time, thirty-two heading out to SB170 and thirty-nine on the way back,” she told them. “Our first run includes an Ambassador and five Captains.”
“Five?” Jetal asked, her brow furled.
“Apparently for the last three days there’s been a big Command Conference on Rigel 7, about the Bajoran isolationism, as well as the continuing tensions between the Cardassians and the Maquis or the Colonial Alliance or whatever they call themselves now. Several captains came in from 170 by way of passenger shuttle and now need a ride home.”
“Where was you’re invite?” Jetal asked, a wide grin now spreading across her face.
Hoya shook her head and sighed in an overdramatic way. “First she complains about the job and now she’s being insubordinate,” she said to Pechetti. “Think you and I could manage this trip and we could leave her behind?”
“Hey, you’re the one with the lieutenant pips on their collar, it’s your call,” he said simply.
Jetal held up her hands in mock surrender. “Okay, okay. I give. I won’t complain about the job anymore.”
“And the insubordination?”
“That’s just my half-Rigellian wit that you don’t get.”
Hoya chuckled and moved towards her console. “We’d better get ready for the module switch and then be ready to run all pre-flight checks. Flight Ops wanted us in the black in two hours.”
Jetal and Pechetti nodded and took their stations, getting ready for their new job. She was always amazed at just how easy they could go from joviality to hard work in the blink of an eye. It was all the proof Hoya needed, that she had a good crew under her.
***
Universe Alpha
2378
Sector 20
Despite the fact that Alpha Shift was due on in less than an hour, the mess hall was quiet. Commander Martin Madden, temporary CO of the U.S.S. Yosemite sat at one of the smaller tables, his oatmeal, honeydew melon and toast with marmalade finished, he was nursing the mug of real Jamaican-blend coffee he had every morning (just one cup, as he didn’t have enough beans for any more, and he would need at least one cup a day on the three-month tour he had pulled). He was reading up on the latest Federation News Service’s report on the Cardassian relief effort, written by Jake Sisko. He enjoyed the young man’s style of writing, almost like prose, Madden often found himself getting lost in the narrative of the report.
As he was reaching for his mug, for the last sip of coffee, he heard the doors open and looked up. Doctor Irina Kalandra stepped into the mess hall and looked around; she paused for a second and scrutinised the nearly deserted room, which aside from Madden had only a table of three others on the far side. When she looked at him, he gave her a faint smile.
“Good morning Doctor.”
“Morning Commander,” she replied, stepping over to a replicator and placing her order. When she had her tray, Madden gestured to the empty seat opposite him and she took it. After she sat down, she looked around the room again. “Is there something going on that we don’t know about?”
“Beats me doc. Was like this when I got here. Maybe the kids just don’t like the idea of eating in the same room as us,” he said, referring to the cadet crew that was aboard the Yosemite. The fifty-year old Oberth-Class ship had been retired from active duty in 2369, after being damaged by a plasma streamer. She had then been taken on by the Academy to be used as a training ship for three-month tours, so the cadets could get a better feel for what their more standard and routine duties would be like—after all it wasn’t every day they encountered a new species or anomaly, and since the end of the Dominion War almost two years earlier, they wouldn’t constantly be going into battle.
Kalandra smiled, but like every other time she made the expression, it never reached her soft blue eyes. Madden had read in her service record that her husband had been killed in action when the U.S.S. Tecumseh had been lost at the Battle of Tyra, and he suspected that she was still mourning his loss. Having never been married, he had to wonder how hard it must have been to loss a spouse he’d only be able to see infrequently.
“So what’s on the cards today?” he asked, feeling the need to fill the lull in conversation.
She looked up from her mixed fruit platter. “I was planning on putting all of the trainees through a QPS, which would leave only the regular medical officers on duty. Would that be alright with you Commander?” she asked. A QPS was a Quarantine Protocol Scenario, a training simulation for medical personnel to diagnose and treat a pathogen that infiltrated the ship before it affected the entire crew, depending on which QPS was run some of them included system malfunctions that would hamper the trainees’ efforts.
Madden nodded. “Sounds like a good idea to me,” he said with a faint smile. “Just don’t make it too difficult, they are just trainees remember.”
“I had an instructor in my final year at Starfleet Medical, who put us through every training programme in the computers medical database—including one that had no solution to it—just to see who would crack under the pressure. I swore to myself then and there, that if I was ever in the same position I would never be that tough on my students.”
“Good to know doctor. I’d hate to return to the Academy with six piles of quivering jell-o, who used to be medical students.” She gave another of her sad smiles and then continued eating.
Just then the doors opened and a group of six cadets entered, they were chatting and laughing as they came in, but on seeing Madden and Kalandra, they quietened down. He could barely hide an amused smile. Madden had never been an officer to lead through fear or intimidation, he’d always seen that way as being counter productive, preferring instead a calmer and more open approach. But to see a group of cadets hushed merely by his being in the same room, he had to wonder if he was giving off the wrong vibes.
As the cadets, among them some of the Alpha Shift bridge staff, approached the replicators to order breakfast, he gave them a smile. “Morning cadets.”
“Morning sir,” they replied, standing at attention, and looking more uncomfortable than they had been when first seeing him.
He managed to stifle a groan. They had been aboard for three weeks already, and he still wasn’t used to the strict formality they showed him. It was to be expected, seeing as they were cadets, trained to respect the chain of command, follow orders, adhere to the codes of conduct and the rules and regulations of Starfleet. But Madden still found it to be very annoying that he could barely have a conversation with any of them.
“Carry on cadets, your breakfast will be getting cold.”
“Yes sir,” they replied in unison once again, before getting themselves organised for the morning meal.
He picked up his mug and sighed when he found it empty. Setting it back on his tray, he looked at Kalandra. “I’ll make sure holodeck one is all yours doctor. If you need any help with the QPS let me know.”
“Thank you Commander.”
Tucking the PADD under his arm, he returned his tray to the replicator where it vanished just as quickly as it had appeared, and headed for his quarters. He had a few reports to file before going on shift, and as he left the mess hall, he started to wonder if he could get more real coffee beans, as there were times when it felt like the posting would be a minimum of two mugs a day.
***
Universe Delta
2274
Sector 20
Sitting at the controls of the shuttle Alexander Graham Bell, Willard Decker was more focused on his co-pilot than the various buttons and readouts. Everything about her was mesmerising, from the statuesque way in which she sat, the way her slender fingers danced across he instrument panel, the subtle playful smile that tugged just the corners of her lips, and the perfect curve of her bald head, from the bridge of her nose to the top of her long neck. Was it any wonder that he was madly in love with her?
“It’s rude to stare,” she said, her Deltan accent making the words sound sensual without any effort. Even as she spoke, Ilia never took her eyes away from the viewport or the control panel in front of her.
“I can’t help it, when I see a breathtaking work of art, I just have to stare.”
Ilia looked at him, the subtleness of her smile vanished as it grew across her beautiful face. “You said that the first time we met.” They had met in an art gallery on Delta IV, during his third week assigned to the Embassy, and he had been awe struck from the first second he has seen her. On a planet filled with beautiful and exotic women, Ilia was a goddess.
“And look where it got me,” he replied, holding up his left hand and showing off the simple gold band around his ring finger. Ilia looked down at an identical ring on her left hand. He pulled the seat closer to his wife. “And to think, I almost passed up this opportunity.”
“If it wasn’t for Doctor Chapel threatening to relieve you of duty, I doubt you would be here.”
Decker looked down for a second and then back into her wide dark eyes. “It’s not that I didn’t want to come when you suggested it Ilia. I just don’t want people to think I’m not taking my position seriously.”
“Will,” she said softly, placing her left hand on top of his, “you may be CO of the Enterprise, but you are entitled to a little rest and relaxation once in a while.”
A wicked smile crossed his face. “I’d hardly say that what we did was restful,” he whispered, moving in closer to kiss her.
Just then the access hatch opened and they found themselves with an audience. Decker looked over at Commander Akanrathelin ch’Tharn (or simply Thelin to his shipmates, friends and passing acquaintances), who had stepped into the cockpit.
“Oh, excuse me Captain, Lieutenant. I didn’t realise you were…occupied.”
Moving back into his seat, as Ilia returned her attention to the controls, Decker looked at the starship Hood’s Executive and Science Officer. “What can I do for you Commander?”
“Well I was coming to see if the two of you needed anything, but on second thoughts, I’ll offer to take over up here if you want to continue in your cabin,” said Thelin, with a sly grin.
“That won’t be necessary Thelin, we’ll cover this watch. As for if we need anything; I’m fine. Ilia?”
“No thank you Commander.”
“So if there’s nothing else?”
“Branch was asking how long until we get back to Epsilon-9,” he looked around the small cockpit of the shuttle, and then dropped his voice to a whisper, as though someone unseen might be listening in. “I don’t think he likes space travel much.”
Decker looked at Ilia, and without needing to be asked, she stated, “Another sixteen hours and four minutes. V’Lar-Class shuttles are limited to warp four, and I cannot change the laws of warp physics to get us there any faster.”
“I’ll let him know that Lieutenant. Well I’ll be getting back, if you need anything just let me know, and in the future, if you want some privacy, try locking the door,” Thelin said before he stepped back through the hatch and it slid shut behind him.
Decker chuckled and shook his head. He had only met the Andorian just before they had boarded the Bell, but he had immediately liked the man. There was something about him that made him likeable, which was probably a good thing given the close confines of the V’Lar-Class shuttle. Though predominately for civilian use, Starfleet had requisitioned several of the shuttles and after a paint job they had been assigned to remote stations and bases. The passenger module could hold eight people comfortably, and the detachable warp sled made the V’Lar-Class adaptable and versatile.
Turning back to the controls, Decker sighed to himself. The romantic getaway he and Ilia had had was well and truly over, soon they would be back aboard the Enterprise and helping out with the Epsilon-9’s refit, and then on to their next assignment. But at least they were together for the foreseeable future, and Decker would make sure that whatever happened after the end of their current five-year mission, he and Ilia would stay together—after all being a Starfleet Captain did come with some perks.
***
I love how you've littered your story with countless Trek characters in all three realities, many of whom never survived in the 'alpha' Trek universe.
)
