What waits beyond...

Posted on Wed Sep 21st, 2011 @ 6:10pm by Captain Nathan Cowell MD & Lieutenant JG Paul Akron & Lieutenant Colonel Anastasia DeVries & Lieutenant Commander Aral Aix & Lieutenant Xylia Lischka & Lieutenant Jasad Broca

Mission: Tomorrow's Arizona
Location: Bridge, USS Arizona
Timeline: Following 'Bullets of Pure Love'

Commodore Nathan Cowell, upon getting word from Lieutenant Broca that the ship was ready for the transition through the Solaris Gateway. Above all, that meant that Nathan would have to leave the comfort and relative peace of his Ready Room in order to oversee things. Was it absolutely necessary for him to be on the bridge? Probably not, however it did give him a chance to see what had become of the Union star system in the last 300 years, as well as give him the ability to coordinate efforts should things suddenly take a turn for the weird again. Given the track record the 27th century already had, it was highly likely that things would decay at the worst possible moment... which was usually also right after something else had gone wrong.

Commodore Cowell walked out onto the bridge to find the majority of his senior staff, to include his First Officer, at their stations. The air was ripe with anticipation, many of the people manning the auxiliary stations were performing checks and chatting anxiously with others around them about what they were about to see. Had they been back in the trenches of the Second World War, the conversation would have likely been one that centered around how bombed out the next village was going to be, and how many krauts were going to waiting for them. In the 24th century, most crews anticipated Romulans, Borg, Breen, and other species rather than splinter races of the same species. Though it wasn't so gravely different from the 20th, the differences were large enough to make the old man just slightly nostalgic.

"Helm, status of the propulsion and navigation systems," Nathan barked on his way to the center chair.

"All systems report ready," Ens. Akron replied.

"Ms. Lischka, stand by shields and weapons just in case things aren't friendly on the other side," the Commodore said, glancing in the Security Chief's direction before sitting down.

"Yes, Commodore." Xylia stated, tapping away at the console before her. She was just a little nervous, and if anyone else said that they weren't, she would call them a liar. Perhaps it was the unexpected... perhaps it was because the Borg were involved... but either way, this was a pretty nerve wracking situation. "Shields and weapons standing by."

Nathan turned his attention toward OPS, "Bronco, start the portal formation protocols."

"Aye Captain," Jasad replied, using the position honorific rather than the Commodore's rank title. His hands played across the controls. "Transmitting modulated chroniton burst from main deflector according to established procedure. Anticipated response in 10 seconds..." They had encountered polite Borg on this side of the gateway. Who knew what might lie beyond? He leaned forward in anticipation.

The Commodore turned to his right to regard his First Officer, "How much you want to bet the grass is greener on that side of the portal?" The old man didn't actually believe that it was, but showing a slim bit of optimism never hurt anyone.

"You are joking I hope," the woman retorted with a slight scoff. "It's going to be hell in a hand basket full speed ahead... however... I'm sure things will be just peachy!" Yep. She could play optimistic too.

"Just a hand basket? That's not even worth getting excited about," Nathan said offhandedly before turning his attention toward the main viewer. As promised, the gateway flared to life with the vibrant blue-green swirling pattern indicative of the connection between the Delta and Beta Quadrant being formed. Several seconds eclipsed before the portal stabilized and the image of the Union system could be seen. Outward appearances indicated that the Union system was still there, which was good. Nathan couldn't begin to guess at whether the surface of the planet they could see was still hospitable, inhabited or the like, but at least it was there.

"Take us through Mr. Akron," Nathan ordered from the center seat. Paul nodded and began inputting the proper commands. When he was finished, the ship began gliding effortlessly into the center of the large aperture hanging in the void of space. Behind the Arizona, three spheres that had been promised to them as their escorts by the Borg Queen, followed shortly behind them. One by one the ships passed into the portal, coming out the other side into the space that sat just above the where the colony of Union had been in their timeline. THe first clue that they were certainly not in their own timeline was the absence of the sister starbase to Starbase 900, which would have dominated the scene.

The Chief Science Officer had abandoned the science station and all of its utility in favour of the Second Officer chair to the Commodore's left. The command centre offered a better view of proceedings, even if it put the Trill's neck within strangling distance of Nathan. Whatever use Aral could be from the science console he was redundant as the deeply efficacious, and far more practical, Lieutenant Broca was at OPS. What contribution could Aral make to their understanding of this emerging predicament? The Arizona had passed through the looking glass.

"Bronco, scan the surface, is there a colony down there?" Nathan asked. Rather than a colony, if the inhabitants had survived, there should have been a huge population on the surface, numbering millions three hundred years after it had been founded.

Jasad pulled his attention from the viewscreen to his console. His hands played across the controls. Using the interface was second nature, but the scans he was performing were well outside his routine. The academy had been a long time ago, and his Cardassian military training was even more distant. He felt like an old man who was trying to remember how to ride a twin-wheel. It took him a few seconds to complete the scans and make sense of the data. When the truth did coalesce, he felt compelled to re-run the scans a second time... just to be sure.

"Sir... there's no life on the surface... not humanoid, not animal. Not even insects. No structures are apparent, either. Someone seems to have made a deliberate effort to completely annihilate any trace of the colony. The only suggestion that anything might ever have existed on this world is the residue of destruction - the scars on the landscape marking where something might once have been."

Nathan frowned at hearing it, but it wasn't as if he hadn't expected it. Anything that could have ravaged the Borg as it apparently had could most certainly make short work of the rest of the galaxy should it so choose. The Commodore drummed his fingers against the armrest of his chair for a moment before turning to his right.

"Well, where do you think we ought to head? Straight to Earth or make a detour somewhere closer to see if anyone's survived?" the old man inquired of his First Officer.

Stace scrunched her nose up at the thought of the decimated planet. She wasn't surprised either considering everything going on. "Qo'noS is far closer than Earth... and as resilient as the Klingons are... if nothing there has survived either then that oughta tell us something."

The Commodore mulled over the idea for a moment before accepting that it was probably the best choice given the circumstances, "Mister Akron, set a course for Qo'noS, maximum sustainable warp. Relay our course and heading to our Borg friends and have them standby for our departure order."

"Aye, sir," the young Ensign replied, making the required preparations. A chime from a panel behind him caught Nathan's attention, spurring him to turn around in his chair to regard the tactical console.

"Sir, I'm picking up six inbound vessels, roughly three minutes away from our current position." Thankfully Xylia had put their shield and weapons systems on standby, so she was ready to go in the event their incoming company weren't friendly. It would only take a second for her to get each system online should her Commanding Officer give the word.

Nathan glanced toward the Colonel, "You thinking this is the welcome wagon or what?"

"What the biscuit and gravy..." the woman muttered as she suddenly took to her feet, her eyes widening a bit at the small blips. "All hands, red alert!" she finally interjected after several seconds of scrutiny. "Lieutenant, raise shields and ready phasers!" She paused just long enough to take a breath and turn back to face the old man. "Bioships."

Nathan frowned at the sound of that name. The Borg Queen had hinted of an evil beyond even the Borg and there name had been 8472. Had he been thinking clearly in their meeting, he might have figured that out much sooner... and he might not have opened the damn gateway. The time for berating himself for his lack of clarity could come after they lived through the ordeal.


"Belay that order for Qo'noS, Mr. Akron," Nathan barked, "Start calculating defensive maneuver tactics we can initialize with the spheres. Mr. Broca, contact the Borg and relay our telemetry to them. Have them synchronize their flight patterns and offensive maneuvers with our own. Ms. Lischka, once the Borg have confirmed they are following our lead, start feeding them attack patterns to maximize our fighting ability."

Jasad tapped the commands into his console that would offer a datalink to the Borg. Meanwhile, he wondered if they would readily adopt the Commodore as head of their collective. It seemed rather like a Romulan barking orders to a group of Klingon ships and expecting them to obey. Would the Borg be more accommodating? Or would they favor their own collective structure and act unilaterally?

With the arrival of the ships Aix had departed the command centre in favour of his console and set about taking as detailed scans of the bio ships as possible. In a combat situation it was his role to be present, resourceful and informed; a resource to be called upon not an active participant. If the Arizona survived this encounter, hopefully she would emerge with some useful data.

A response came back across subspace channels, and Jasad began relaying the telemetry. He also inserted a request that the Borg take formation instruction from the Arizona. There was no acknowledgement beyond a 'message received' signal. "Relaying telemetry and formation instructions," Jasad said, "though... I don't know if they'll play along. I'm getting a confirmation that they have received our data, but no confirmation that they'll follow our instructions."

Xylia hoped like hell that Broca was wrong and the Borg would follow the instructions laid out for them. If there was something out there then even the Borg, they were definitely going to need all the help they could get. She tapped the console, enabling their shields, her hands moving to ready the phasers. The Lieutenant looked at the view screen for a moment before turning her attention back to the console in front of her, namely the six objects moving closer toward them. "Ready on your command."

Nathan waited for several long seconds before the bioships came into view. Six of them in their timeline could easily cut through the Borg defenses and obliterate them. Given the three hundred years they'd had to adapt, Nathan sincerely hoped they would be better suited to fight now that there was a fight to be had. The Commodore watched as the ships slid out of warp to come just outside firing range. It provoked a thought in him that was soon stifled when they opened fire on the closest sphere to them.

"Attack pattern Omega One, Mister Akron," Nathan ordered. The Ensign parroted the order and engaged the proper protocols to transmit the attack pattern to the Borg vessels as well as launch the Arizona into an assault. Without receiving an acknowledgement from the spheres, the Borg that were the Arizona's allies moved to the designated positions dictated by the attack pattern and began to bombard the closest craft. The bioship returned fire, but the blasts of energy did not simply slice through the shields and metal beneath it, a good sign if ever Nathan saw one. The downside to it all was the weapons both the Arizona and the Borg employed made very little impact on the bioship's shields. For every blast the ship took, the Borg and soon the Arizona took far harder hits. It was obvious they weren't going to simply breeze through this part of space.

"Suggestions, Colonel?" Nathan asked as he watched the battle play out on the screen.

Stace felt her blood beginning to surge as the adrenaline started to take over. "We have to get the hell out of here! Even with our advancements, we don't have a snowball's chance in making it out alive if we continue to pursue this fight. I suggest we have our Borg friends attempt to contact any nearby reinforcements... perhaps we can intimidate 8472 long enough to give us room for a clear break away."

Nathan thought about it for about a heart beat before turning turning to Cmdr. Aix sitting to his left, "Spots, get on the horn and see if we can rustle up some help with that transponder."

"Yes sir." Replied Aral as he attended to his console with renewed intensity. After tapping furiously for several seconds he looked towards the Commodore. "Transponder is online and I have sent what looks like a standard Borg distress signal on all of their standard frequencies." He paused. "We should ... at this distance ... look like one of their own." Aral's lack of certainty was clear in his voice.

Nathan nodded and watched as the Borg continued the ultimately futile assault. The Arizona herself was taking a fair share of the punishment from the bioships, however it appeared as it the ships were more concerned with obliterating the spheres first. Allies or not, Nathan was glad to see the Borg getting a piece of the action, and on the losing side of it. A chirp from the forward console pulled the Commodore from his musings.

"Sir," Ens. Akron reported suddenly, "Two Tactical Cubes have just dropped out of warp. We've already received an uplink from them and they are sending us battle telemetry."

Commodore Cowell chuckled a bit at the notion that just one little piece of electronics was so damn powerful. He wondered if having such a device in their original time would help them pacify the unruly and indomitable pests. Again the silent musings of the old man had to be pushed aside in favor of reality.

"Commodore!" the voice of Lieutenant Lischka called out, "We've lost one of the cubes, the other two are badly damaged."

"Helm, can we plot an escape course?" Nathan asked.

"Aye sir, the cubes have been sending us possible exit vectors that change as we move about. Shall I execute the next available escape route?"

"You're damn right, son. Maximum warp at your convenience, Mister Akron," the Commodore replied.

Paul took a full minute to get the coordinates properly mapped out and relayed to their remaining allies. Out of sheer training he waiting until each of the Borg vessels had sent back ready status indications before executing the sudden jump from impulse evasive flight patterns to warp flight. As the screen shifted with their transition from normal flight to warp travel, Nathan stood up and looked around him. Nothing had exploded this time, no one had been injured... at least on the bridge...

"Damage report!" Nathan demanded.

With the exception of Aral Aix, the entire bridge appeared to be beyond busy and the Commodore seemed to be looking in his direction so Aral took it upon himself to make the damage report and called up the reports which began to flood across his console. "Sir. Reports are still coming in. Sickbay reports casualties coming in, including Dr Torrna, she was hit by an exploding EPS relay," Aral's heart sank as he stumbled over the words on the screen before him, it had been barely twenty four hours since the two had shared a kiss and now the formidable doctor had been reduced to an impersonal statistic, "Four known fatalities, hull damage all decks, minor breaches decks three and four, damage to ancillary impulse engines, lateral sensor array and the swimming pool is now in the library." He paused. "Engineering reports engines are functional, structural integrity is holding."

The Commodore balled his fists a few time before easing himself back in his chair, "Very well... let's put as much distance as we can between us and those ships while we look for a place to stop to make the big repairs. Until then, just have Engineering do what they can."

Nathan wasn't entirely sure if they had gotten off easy in their first encounter or not. Even with their sudden reinforcements, they'd been forced to pull out of the area. Their weapons had been, at best, sub-par. Their shields had afforded them an unprecedented level or protection and yet it still hadn't bought them all the time they needed given that one sphere found itself wiped out. As the old man sat silently in his chair, he wondered just how his crew would fare if they couldn't find a way to fight back on even terms...