When Empires Collide

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watchdog
Jedi Knight
Posts: 342
Joined: Sun Dec 31, 2006 12:26 am
Location: Not at home

When Empires Collide

Post by watchdog » Fri Feb 09, 2007 2:34 am

Well here is my fan-fic of Star Trek vs Star wars. It is not finished, I only have about 15 chapters and I have kind of stalled out on what to do next (any suggestions will be greatly appreciated). I am currently trying to logic my way through the next couple of chapters trying to figure out what to do next, but I think you all might enjoy what I have;


When Empires Collide



5.5 years ABY

Stardate 6001.1



1

The deep core, a dense super-cluster of stars and gas hundreds of light-years in diameter. An area of overlapping gravity-wells and magnetic storms so strong that no ship can ever hope to penetrate its dense heart, and yet the Millennium Falcon raced towards it at high speed. The Falcon was not there randomly however, a number of Imperial ships had been observed entering hyperspace in this general area on a vector that cuts uncomfortably close to the overlapping gravity wells of a local black hole and a near-by pulsar.

Han Solo rechecks their course and shakes his head, "this is silly, these co-ordinates pass straight through a massive gravity well. No ship in the galaxy could jump through that." Princess Leia was in the seat directly behind him, "and yet we have sensor data of whole convoys of Imperial ships jumping to lightspeed along this very route," she states. "Furthermore we've seen several Imperial vessels returning along this route as well."

"I wouldn't doubt it," Han said, "as soon as they hit those gravity wells they'd be forced out of hyperspace and have to turn back."

Chewie howled his agreement from the co-pilot's seat next to him. Leia only shook her head, "maybe, but the alliance still wants to know why the Empire continues to send convoys along this route on a regular basis, Admiral Akbar thinks that the Empire has found a way into the deep core."

Han scowled, "not along this route sweetheart, those gravity wells are overlapping there's not a single route through, trust me."

Luke Skywalker sat in the seat behind Chewbacca and allowed himself a small grin at the banter between Han and Leia, but his attention was focused on the area of space directly ahead. He stretched out with the force, he could sense the presence of all his friends on board; Han, Leia and Chewie next to him in the cockpit, and Lando monitoring the Falcons computer in the back. He could even detect R2-D2 and C3-P0. Artoo was hooked up to the computer supplying the navigation data for the route they were now following. Threepio was monitoring him complaining all the way. He stretched out with his feelings along the route they were following, there was something out there, he couldn't sense an immediate threat however.

Leia looked over at him, her latent force abilities picking up on Luke's focus. "Are you picking up something Luke?" she asks. Luke shrugs, "There's something about that area ahead of us but..." he shakes his head. Lando calls to them from his station, "we're all set back here Han, you can engage the hyperdrive whenever you're ready." Han gives a resigned sigh and tells everyone to strap themselves in, he watches his monitors as the Falcon approaches the zero point, where all the Imperial ships activated their hyperdrive's. He gripped the toggle levers to the hyperdrive as the countdown reached zero. "Hang on," he says as he pulls the levers down. As the star-field stretched into infinity and the Falcon transitioned into hyperspace, Luke felt a very real disturbance in the force; he felt it rushing towards them at the speed of thought. Before Luke can say anything the Falcon seems to punch through an invisible barrier. He sees, they all see, the hyperspace corridor they are traveling through appear to narrow, and then the shaking starts.

The Falcon seems about to fly apart as they seem to shoot through hyperspace at an incredible speed. Both Han and Chewie are manipulating every cut-off control on the Falcon trying to slow their speed or even stop, but none of it is having an effect. "Han do something!" Leia shouts,

"I'm trying!" Han responds as he continued to flip switches. A navigation panel explodes in a shower of sparks over Leia's head; Luke hears Lando and Threepio both shout out as several other small explosions sound off in the back. There is a loud cracking sound directly overhead and for one brief horrifying moment they think the hull has been compromised. With a brilliant flash of light the Millennium Falcon shoots back into real-space, Han and Lando hastily begin checking all systems. The computer systems are damaged and the sensors are down, the hyperdrive cut-off system did exactly that, it cut off from a strong magnetic burst just before they hit the overlapping gravity wells. Han is thankful that the magnetic storm did not fry the hyperdrive completely. As Chewie and Lando try to get the Falcon's systems back on-line, Han tries to figure out where in the galaxy they are. After a moment he mutters "this can't be right." to himself and rechecks his data.

"What is it?" Asks Leia. Han shakes his head and says, "The navi-computer can't make out where we are."

He checks the computer again as both Luke and Leia peer over his shoulder. "Could we be in the unknown regions?" Asks Leia. "That's just it," says Han, "the computer doesn't recognize anything not even the galactic bulge of the core." Leia was stunned, "...but...that could only mean that..."

"That we're in another galaxy." Finished Han, Leia looked out the canopy at the alien stars, "do we even know which galaxy?" Han shakes his head, "the Falcon has navigational data for almost the entire galaxy, but I've never had any need to catalog any other galaxies. We'd need access to an Imperial archive for that." He ran his fingers through his hair in frustration, "we're as lost as we could possibly be." He said finally. Leia sat back in her seat in stunned silence; then Luke spoke up, "there might be a way to get back." He said, both Han and Leia looked over at him, Han said "if you know something I don't kid feel free to share." Luke only grinned before he responded, "think about it Han, the Empire has obviously been traveling between these two galaxies for a while now; it stands to reason that they must have a way back, all we have to do is retrace our steps." Han's mood instantly brightened as he realizes that Luke was right, he goes back into the main hold to fill Lando and Chewbacca in on the situation and to make sure that the main computer is back up, he will need Artoo's help in order to return, there was much to report back to Admiral Akbar. Luke however was focused on something else; the force was not as strong in this galaxy. Does that mean that this galaxy is mostly devoid of life he wonders, or does it have some other significance? He is just starting to lose himself in this line of thought when suddenly he senses something. He looks out the canopy window scanning the surrounding space with his eyes, something is about to happen!

"Han!" He calls out, "Han get up here!" Han comes running up, "yeah what is it? What's going on?" He asks as he reenters the cockpit. "We have to get out of here right now" Luke states. Han was about to protest but then thought better of it and took his seat, Leia looks over at Luke, "what is it? What do you sense?" She asks, Luke shakes his head, "I'm not sure, I just have a feeling of danger," he says. Suddenly a large vessel materialized off to the starboard side of the Falcon and opens fire, Han just barely managed to swing the Falcon away from the rolling ball of translucent plasma the strange ship fired at them.

"Who are they?!" Leia screams.

"How should I know?!" Han retorts the slim alien vessel gives chase as they open fire again, this time with a bright green bolt weapon. Han is trying every move he knows in an attempt to stay ahead of the alien vessel, he throws the Falcon in a steep dive and cork-screws away from the pursuing ships fire. To his surprise the alien vessel smoothly follows his dive and is gaining when all of a sudden, the vessel vanishes off of his scope. "Where'd they go?" Han exclaimed, "Are they gone?"

"No-" Luke says "-they're still out there. They must have a cloaking device." Han curses at the thought of that and begins making calculations for lightspeed. The alien vessel suddenly reappears on their starboard flank and fires the ball of plasma again, every move Han makes the ball follows and it is accelerating. Just before the plasma ball envelopes the Falcon, Han triggers the hyperdrive and shoots off into hyperspace. Leia wants to know how long he intends to fly blind; Han tells her "just long enough to make sure we aren't being followed."

The danger is real enough he knows, they don't have navigational data for this region of space and there was not enough time to calculate even a safe short jump. He knows that he's running a real risk of collision with an unknown stellar mass, but he had no choice. Han keys the hyperdrive cut-off after a few seconds and hopes the alien ship isn't able to track them. No sooner do they drop back into real-space when the Falcon is nearly hit by an object that flashes past them at superluminal speeds. The Millennium Falcons sensors barely register it and the computer doesn't recognize it, they come so close to a collision that they literally fly through its sub-space wake.

The shockwave knocks out several systems again, including propulsion this time. The Falcon is adrift as Han tries to restart the ship. Both Lando and Chewie come running into the cockpit to see what happened, "We almost hit something that's what happened." Han says as Chewie takes his co-pilot's seat.

"Han," Lando begins "whatever it was it knocked out our life support system and neutralized our power core, it's going to take a few minutes to restart the ship."

Han turned to Lando in shock, "What! How could that be? What happened?"

Lando had a pained expression on his face, "Artoo and Threepio just told me, we passed through a massive sub-space distortion of some kind, it had an ionizing effect on all our major systems. They're trying to get them back up and running but..." Lando broke off as he caught sight of a very large vessel speeding towards them at a high sub-light speed, Han watches the ship moving towards them transfixed. "Lando old buddy why don't you go and give the droids a hand," he says. "Because I really think we ought to get out of here." Lando can only nod in reply, but before he can turn to leave a beeping noise catches his attention. The beeping also startles Han as he is momentarily confused and is wondering what has broken on his ship now, Luke however is the first to recognize the sound, "Han it's the sub-space communicator." Leia recovers first, "he's right Han, whoever they are they appear to be willing to talk first." Without a word Han opens a channel on the comm., an authoritative voice says, "This is Captain James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise, please identify yourself."

Leia quickly responds before Han has a chance to collect himself, "Starship Enterprise, I am Councilor Organa on board the Millennium Falcon, please hold your fire and allow me to explain." Han looked perplexed; Leia simply tells him that because they are willing to talk first, maybe she can buy them some time through negotiations. “Captain Kirk's voice comes over the comm. once more, "Councilor Organa, I have no intention to open fire; however your appearance is highly irregular," he states.” Your vessel is unknown to us, utilizes a drive system equally unknown, and appears to be coming out of Romulan space!" As Kirk and Leia talk, Han has Lando and Chewie go back and check the Falcon's systems and try to get them back on line, he himself stayed in the cockpit to be ready when and if they get the ship back online. He listens carefully to Leia's exchange with the alien captain, "Captain...um...we're not from around here, if we have violated your territory we're sorry. If you will give us a chance to explain I'm sure we can clear this whole thing up." There is a long pause Leia watched as the strange ship drew closer and closer before Kirk responds again, "Very well Councilor Organa, I will make arrangements to have your party beamed aboard the Enterprise, our sensors show that your vessel has suffered moderate damage. It will be a tight fit but I believe we should be able to squeeze your ship into our shuttle bay."

Leia pauses in thought for a moment and then says, "very well captain, we'll prepare to-come on board."

"That's fine," Kirk replies, "I'm looking forward to meeting you, Enterprise out." And the channel clicks off, Han, Luke and Leia all look at one another. "Beamed?" They all ask.

watchdog
Jedi Knight
Posts: 342
Joined: Sun Dec 31, 2006 12:26 am
Location: Not at home

Chapter 2

Post by watchdog » Fri Feb 09, 2007 2:36 am

2

'Captains log, STARDATE 6001.1. The Constitution is on patrol assignment around the edge of known space; our proximity to the Romulan neutral zone has brought many sightings of unidentified vessels just at the edge of our sensor range. It would appear that one or more curious Romulan ships are shadowing us, I have ordered the ship to yellow alert and all defensive systems on stand-by as we attempt to shake our tail.'



Captain Lawrence Stevenson watched the distant point of light on the view screen; he turns to Nona Ozawa his science officer and XO. "Report" he says, Commander Ozawa turns from her computer console in order to face her captain, "Still no I.D. on the alien vessel captain, they are maintaining their distance at the edge of our sensor range." Lawrence continued to eye the bright point on the main viewscreen "Have you come up with any way to shake them off our tail yet?" he asked. "Negative captain, ever since the Romulans acquired true warp drive from the Klingons there has been numerous reports of Romulan ships shadowing Federation ships. Command thinks they may be testing us." The captain smiled, “I am well aware of those reports commander,” he says. “That and the fact that the Romulans have developed cloaking technology, which they are probably sharing with the Klingons, has all the old admirals back home worrying themselves sick.” Lawrence sat down in his command chair and began to run a finger across his neatly clipped black moustache as he continued to regard the vessel on the screen. “Besides,” he continued, “we don't even know if that is a Romulan ship.”

“What else could it be,” said the Andorian at the helm position. Lieutenant commander Talar was suspicious of everything and seemed to see Romulans hiding behind every nebula. Lawrence knew that the Andorians and the Vulcans had been hostile neighbors once long ago, and even today the Andorians carried on a friendly rivalry with their old adversaries. Talar tended to project this old hostility onto the Romulans; this was also evident in Talar's treatment of Ensign Seylok, the Constitution's most junior, senior bridge officer and chief of communications. Talar delighted in taunting the young Vulcan during their off hours, he had a secret bet with chief engineer Kholer that he could drive the Vulcan to an emotional outburst before the end of their five year mission.

“Regardless lieutenant,” started the captain. “We're not going to make snap decisions based on little or no evidence. That ship is too far away to make a positive ID.” The captain half turned in his chair towards the comm. Station where the Vulcan Seylok sat. Seylok was the newest member of the crew having been assigned to the Constitution fresh out of the academy about a year-and-a-half ago. “Report ensign,” Lawrence said. Seylok turned to his captain, “no comm. Traffic yet captain, they appear to be observing a strict communications blackout.” Lawrence rubbed his eyes and wondered briefly where his yeoman was with his coffee. “Has anyone thought up a way to shake them yet?”

Nona turned towards him then, “The simplest way may be to simply outrun them captain.” Lawrence turned to look at her, “explain XO,” he said. “We know that Romulan ships until recently only possessed rudimentary faster-than-light drive and that even now the Klingon-made D-7 vessels are only capable of warp 7. We should, technically, be able to outrun them.” The captain regarded her for a moment “How can you be sure that's a Romulan ship out there?” He asked. Nona gave him a level gaze and said “with all due respect captain, who else could it be. And if they are able to keep up with us at high warp, we can drop out of warp suddenly and, hopefully, bring them in for a closer scan.” Lawrence grinned slightly, he had been thinking the same thing himself and it was good to know that his XO thought along the same lines as himself. He turned back to the helm, “Mr. Talar what is our current warp factor?” the helmsman checked his screen and said “warp factor 5.4.” Lawrence nodded “Increase to warp 6.4 steady as she goes.”

“Aye, aye captain.” Talar said as he worked his controls. Lawrence leaned forwards in his chair, now things were getting interesting.

watchdog
Jedi Knight
Posts: 342
Joined: Sun Dec 31, 2006 12:26 am
Location: Not at home

Chapter 3

Post by watchdog » Fri Feb 09, 2007 2:37 am

3

Luke cleared his mind of all emotion and readied himself; they had just received the last transmission from the Enterprise by a lady with a very melodious voice telling them to stand by for beaming. When Leia asked exactly what that entailed the woman, Lt. Uhura she said her name was, told them. "Well to put it simply, the transporter disassembles you molecularly, on the quantum level, beams your atoms to another location and then reassembles you molecule by molecule."

There was a long pause on the Falcon as this info sunk in. "What!" Han said. Uhura simply laughed lightly and said "I know what you're thinking and most people feel the same way when they learn about what it does. But trust me it's perfectly safe, we use it all the time." Lando was the first to comment after they were done talking. "I'm not sure I want my molecules disassembled and beamed anywhere." Chewbacca howled in agreement. "I don't think we have much choice," Leia said. "Most of our systems are still off-line including life support, and that ship out there easily out-guns us." Han however disagreed, "We've been out-gunned before, I don't see why this would be any different." Luke spoke up then. "I don't sense any malice from them, I agree with Leia on this, besides if they say it's perfectly safe, then we should trust them."

And so they were waiting for the crew of the Enterprise to 'beam' them up.

************************************

Captain James T. Kirk strode into transporter room 4 and activated the comm. Channel to the Millennium Falcon.

"Kirk to Millennium Falcon, stand by for transport," he said. A deep male voice replied, "This is the Millennium Falcon standing by-um-do we have to sit or stand to be transported?" Kirk smirked at the question. "Go ahead and stand up," he said, "Kirk out." He clicked off the comm. Channel and turned towards the transporter crewman on duty. "Energize Mr. Kyle," he said. The crewman initiated the transporter sequence and the familiar hum of the transporter effect began. On the transporter pad, five figures began to materialize and take shape. Four humanoid figures and one extremely large-hairy being, Kirk stood there and regarded them all for a brief second; two of them were tall and had a roguish look about them, the other man was Kirk's size, fair-haired and looked fairly young but had a confident look in his eyes as well as a weariness. The woman also had a confident look to her as well as a take-charge air about her, the alien with them was like no other Kirk had ever seen before. It was over seven feet tall, looked a little like some sort of canine and was covered from head to toe with thick shaggy hair. Kirk also noticed that they were all armed.

***********************************

Han had felt a strange tingling sensation in the pit of his belly, the tingling quickly spread throughout his body and he began seeing strange sparkles of energy dancing before his eyes as everything around him faded into a bright shimmer. Before Han knew what was happening, the sparkles and the shimmering were fading and he was standing in a room on some sort of platform. He looked around, aside from his friends there were four other people in this room with them; two men in red shirts and black pants with some sort of blasters at their side, another man in a red jumpsuit behind a computer console of some kind, and a man in a yellow shirt that was now approaching them.

He was about Luke's height and carried himself with an air of authority and confidence that Han had only experienced with high ranking Imperial and a few rebel officers, except this man didn't display any of the haughty arrogance that Imperial officers often showed. He smiled at them, not one of the false smiles you usually got from the Imperials, this was genuinely warm, although Han noticed that it was directed at Leia. At that point he recognized that familiar look in the mans eyes, he had sees a similar look in Lando's eyes as well as his own whenever he looked in a mirror, that's when Han began to worry.

"Councilor Organa," the man said. "I'm Captain James Kirk, welcome aboard the Enterprise." Leia stepped forward and extended her hand which Kirk took. "Captain Kirk," Leia began. "May I introduce Han Solo, Captain of the Millennium Falcon," Han slid forward to get Kirk's attention off of Leia. "Hi, how are ya," he said as he extended his hand. "Captain Solo," Kirk said as he shook the mans hand, Leia continued with her introductions. "Chewbacca the Wookie and co-pilot, General Lando Calrissian, and my brother Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight." They each stepped forward as Leia called their names, Kirk greeted them all courteously and then said. "Gentlemen I'm afraid that I'm going to have to ask you to relinquish your weapons while you are on board." Han became immediately suspicious.

"Why?"

Kirk turned to him. "Starfleet regulations require no unauthorized weapons on board without the captain's consent." Han was becoming indignant. "Aren't you the captain?" He charged, Kirk rose to the challenge. "That's right, I am the captain of this ship," Luke saw an argument about to take place, he also saw the two men in red shirts ease their hands towards their own weapons and so he acted.

"Here," he said stepping forward between Kirk and Han. "Here's my weapon." He pulled off his lightsaber and handed it over to Kirk before turning to Han. "Han, Lando, Chewie-give up your weapons," Han still had a defiant look in his eyes, Luke met his gaze and said, "trust me."

Reservedly Han undid his holster and handed it over to one of the red shirts, he smiled and simply shrugged. "I wasn't planning on any target practice today anyhow," he joked as Lando and Chewie handed over their weapons as well. "Don't worry," Kirk said. "We'll take good care of them and return them before you leave." At that point Kirk began to take a close look at the weapon Luke had handed him, turning it in his hand attempting to figure out what sort of weapon it was. Luke noticed the captain's curiosity and stepped forward. It's called a lightsaber captain, it's the weapon of a Jedi Knight. Go ahead and press the button, but hold it away from the wall." Kirk looked into the earnest young mans face and then, holding the device away from himself and the bulkhead, pressed the button. To his surprise a bright neon-green beam shot out to over a meter and stopped, it took Kirk a couple of seconds to realize that it was some sort of energy sword. It hummed at even the slightest movement, Kirk's fascination was interrupted by Han approaching him from the side, he clearly had something on his mind and Kirk thought he knew exactly what. Kirk hit the button on the lightsaber again and was pleased to see the blade vanish back into the hilt, then he turned to Han. "Yes Captain Solo, can I help you?"

"Yeah how's my ship?"

Kirk smiled, exactly what he was expecting. "I can have someone escort you down to our hanger deck if you like." Han grinned then. "Great I want to get busy repairing the Falcon's systems." Kirk led them out the transporter room door into the corridor beyond, he turned to one of the red shirts and said, "Mr. Leslie please escort Captain Solo to the shuttle bay," he turned back to Han. "I'll have my chief engineer come down to assist you if it's not too much trouble." Han nodded indifferently. "Alright that could be helpful-um-say captain, what exactly prevented us from riding the Falcon in?" Kirk looked at him with amusement. "Nothing, you could have stayed on your ship all the way." Han cast a baleful look at Leia as Luke, Lando and Chewie suppressed a laugh.

************************************

As Han and Chewbacca were escorted to the hanger bay, Kirk led the rest of the group to the nearest turbo lift. Leia turned to Kirk on the turbo lift and said. "Captain I-I'm not exactly sure how to begin." Kirk smiled and said "'Well for starters I don't think we need to be so formal, you can call me Jim and you are---" To both Luke and Lando's surprise, Leia actually blushed and looked down at her feet. "Leia," she said finally. "Princess Leia Organa, formerly of the planet Alderaan." Kirk bowed slightly, "princess ," he said. Then turning to look at Luke and Lando he says, "I would assume your brother is a prince as well as a knight."

"Oh no!" Both Luke and Leia exclaimed as one, they paused a moment before Leia continued. "It's a long story captain---Jim," she said and again blushed and looked at her feet, Luke and Lando simply looked at each other.

************************************

When Han and Chewie reached the hanger bay, another man in a red uniform shirt was there waiting for them, he spotted Han and Chewbacca and strode over. "You must be Capn' Solo," he said in an unfamiliar accent. "I'm Montgomery Scott, chief engineer on board the Enterprise," he said and offered his hand. Han shook it and introduced Chewie who roared out a greeting. Scotty dismissed Lieutenant Leslie and led them to a large set of closed double doors as he spoke. "The capn' tells me ye've got some problems with yer ship," it only took Han a second to grasp the mans unusual accent. "Yeah, the Falcon's an old girl but she usually holds together nicely," Chewie howled out a reply and Han gave him a dirty look and said; "That time doesn't count." Scotty only nodded sympathetically as he led them down the corridor. "Well ye passed through the Enterprise's down-warping wake, ye're lucky your ship was'nae torn apart," Han smiled with pride. "Luck had nothing to do with it," he said. Chewie said something else to that and Han shot him the same baleful look he had just given Leia. They reached the large doors leading into the hanger, an indicator next to the doors showed the level of pressurization in the bay, it showed the hanger had just re-pressurized and Scotty opened the doors. The Millennium Falcon sat inside taking up just about the entire shuttle bay, it had indeed been a tight fit. Scotty's bright eyes lit up as he gazed up at the Falcon, he smiled brightly as they entered the hanger. "Would ye look at that," he exclaimed. "I've never seen the likes." Han swelled with pride and beamed at Scotty. "Yep she's one of a kind alright," he said, he was beginning to like this engineer, he seemed to be a man who could appreciate the time spent maintaining and caring for a quality machine. "Come on," said Han. "I'll show you around." He hit a switch and the gangplank came down, before it had fully extended the golden droid C-3PO came hurrying down the gangplank towards them, chattering all the way. "Thank the maker, I didn't know what became of you all disappearing the way you did, and then this strange ship---"

Han cut him off. "Pipe down goldenrod. Have you assessed the damage to the Falcon yet?" Threepio paused, caught off-guard ,as always, by Han's abrupt ways. "Artoo has assessed a damage list for you Captain Solo, but I don't---"

Han cut him off again. "Good, Threepio, meet chief engineer Montgomery Scott of the starship Enterprise. Engineer Scott meet C3PO the babbling protocol droid." Han and Chewie stamped up the gangplank , Scotty who had been staring with vivid interest since Threepio first appeared on the gangplank, absent-mindedly replied to Han, "call me Scotty lad--- Aren't you a bonnie fine piece o' technology," he said to Threepio.

Threepio recovered quickly from this strange new human's appearance and realized that he was being complimented. "Thank-you sir, I am C3PO, human/cyborg relations. I am programmed for protocol and etiquette. I am also fluent in over six million forms of communications."

"Six million!" Scotty exclaimed. "Ye've something of a universal translator in you then?" This confused Threepio somewhat and he was not certain what to say, Han's call from inside the Falcon saved him from having to respond. Scotty strode inside the Falcon taking note every exposed computer junction and circuit board as he went. Deeper inside, he came across Han and Chewie examining yet another robot, a small silver, white and blue one. "Och ye've got another one do ye?" He asked, Han looked up at him and said, "Yep, this little guy is R2-D2 an astromech droid. Unlike the other one, this one's actually useful." Threepio who had followed Scotty on board heard this and said in a shocked voice, "I beg your pardon!" Han ignored him and continued, "aside from Chewie, Lando and myself this little fella has repaired the Falcon and saved the day more times than I can count." Artoo greeted Scotty with a series of whistles, Threepio approached closer. "That's fine for you Artoo, you didn't just get insulted." Scotty laughed heartily at the banter between the two, he was wondering if maybe he'd get a chance to take one apart when Han caught his attention. "I thought we'd start with the power core, it's still down since we passed through your ships wake." Scotty turned his attention back to Han and Chewie and said, "Ye're lucky yer ship was'nae torn apart, the down-warping stress of the Enterprise's sub-space field should have atomized yer ship." Han stood with a big grin and said, "What can I say, the Falcon's a tough little ship." Chewie howled his agreement. "Come on," Han started. "Let me show you around the fastest hunk o' junk in the galaxy." He threw his arm around Scotty and led him back to the engines while Chewie stayed behind with the two droids, as they wandered off he heard Han bragging. "She'll make point five past lightspeed, I've even pulled off the Kessle run in less than twelve parsecs." What Chewie did not see was Mr. Scott's perplexed look at Han after these strange statements.

************************************

"That's it," Leia said as the next image appeared on the tri-directional computer screen. "Are you certain?" Kirk asked, both Luke and Leia nodded their confirmation. "I saw it very clearly captain and that was the ship," Leia said pointing towards the screen, Luke spoke up next; "That's the ship I saw as well captain, it even had the image of a large bird on it's underside. I saw that clearly just before it vanished." Spock who was working the computer controls chimed in. "That would be a Romulan bird-of-prey, complete with cloaking screen ."

Kirk turned to Lando and asked him; "What about you, is this the ship that you saw as well?"

"I wasn't in the cockpit captain, I didn't see it. But I trust Luke and Leia's assessment," Lando simply stated. "You might want to ask Han though. “Kirk was satisfied with their account however, "And you say that you followed these...Imperial ships here as well?" he asked. "That's right captain," Luke began. "The Alliance has ample sensor scans of Imperial vessels jumping to light-speed along the route we followed." he said, Spock spoke up then. "The route that brought you here?" He asked.

"Yes!" Leia exclaimed, "we made the jump to hyperspace along a route that passed through several overlapping gravity wells," she began. "Then something strange happened and we wound up here."

"And now you need our help in finding out which galaxy is yours now?" Kirk stated.

"Not necessarily captain," Luke said. Kirk turned to look at him. “The Empire has been using this rift in space for quite some time now, which most likely means there is a way back on a reverse of our exit course." Spock nodded his head at that. "Logical conclusion." Kirk however shook his head. "Sorry, that would mean violating the neutral zone. I don't plan on starting a war with the Romulans at this time." Leia had a look of complete shock on her face. "But what about the Empire?!" She cried out, "they're here in your galaxy now Captain Kirk, what are you going to do about them?"

Kirk's expression never changed. "Nothing princess." Leia was beyond words as Kirk continued, "Starfleet has seen no evidence of these Imperials of yours anywhere in the area that you appeared in. I can alert Starfleet command but I doubt they'll see it any differently and I cannot authorize any breach of the neutral zone without better proof of a real threat."

Lando chimed in with, "the proof might just be a Death Star knocking out some of your planets captain."

Both Kirk and Spock looked over at him then. A tense silence ensued for a brief moment, then Luke chimed in to prevent further argument. "I can understand your position captain, we all can. You don't want to start a war if you can avoid it.” Kirk looked back at him then, “that's right Mr. Skywalker. Starfleet has kept the peace for over a hundred years, I cannot and will not put all of that in jeopardy without better evidence.” But Leia was adamant. “That's not good enough captain, the Empire is here already and if you don't do something to stop them now you may never get another chance. You don't know them like we do, they wont care about your neutral zone…” She stopped short when she saw that Kirk wasn't being swayed by her ranting. She calmed herself down, already kicking herself mentally for having such an outburst. She was a diplomat after all, so she would try diplomacy. “What about when the Falcon is repaired? Are we allowed to go?”

Kirk nodded, “when the repairs to your ship are finished then you're free to go wherever you wish. But if you plan on returning to the neutral zone, just be aware that Starfleet can offer you no protection or assistance. You'd be completely on your own.”

“Wouldn't be the first time.” Lando muttered under his breath.

“Understood Captain Kirk,” said Leia.

As they all got up to leave Lando turned to Kirk and Spock, he had one last question on his mind. ”All this talk about Romulans captain I just have to ask, what exactly are Romulans?” Spock spoke up then. “The Romulans are a possible off-shoot of the Vulcan people who, we believe, left the planet Vulcan roughly two-thousand years ago.” Lando simply looked at Spock bewildered, “alright, so what exactly are Vulcans?” Spock looked at him in that cool way of his and replied, “I am a Vulcan.”

************************************

As Luke, Leia and Lando moved down the Enterprise corridors towards the turbo lift they were all silent with their thoughts. Leia was the first to speak up. “I don't think we impressed upon the captain exactly how much trouble an Imperial presence will mean.” Lando nodded, “yeah, or on his cold-blooded friend Spock, I don't think I've ever met anyone quite as cold as that guy.” Luke smiled. “Well you have to remember that this is a whole new galaxy and we don't know who the major powers are,” he said as they reached the turbo lift, Leia disagreed. “But still you'd think that he'd be more interested in any force that was invading his galaxy,” Luke continued. “Maybe, but Captain Kirk has to do what's right for his government, you cant expect him to toss all that away because a bunch of strangers tell him to, we don't exactly have a whole lot of evidence that the Empire is a clear and present danger yet.” Leia and Lando reluctantly agreed as the turbo doors parted and Luke stepped inside, took hold of the handle and gave the command for the crew quarters. “We can still try to convince him, I sense that he's still open to our arguments and he did ultimately understand that we had a mission of our own seeing as how he did not forbid us from returning to this 'neutral zone'. As for Mr. Spock, he is in complete and total control of his emotions, even better than Master Yoda. He's not cold, he's just in control.”

************************************

After their remarkable visitors had left, Kirk turned to Spock and asked him, “what do you think Spock? About their story I mean.” Spock steeple's his fingers and regarded his captain. “It is possible that they are who they say captain, but I would need to study their method of transport more closely in order to tell how feasible it really is.” Kirk sighed a bit. “Alright Spock, go down and assist Mr. Scott and Captain Solo with their repairs. Try to find out all you can about our visitors.” Kirk paused for a moment in thought. “As for our own mission, how long before we reach Gideon?”

“At our present warp factor captain, another 3 hours, 43 minutes and 57 seconds,” Kirk nodded. “Very well Spock, make sure the medical supplies are ready to beam down upon arrival,” Kirk said. Spock nodded and got up to leave. Kirk stopped him. “Spock, what is the likelihood of the Romulans allying themselves with these Imperials?” Spock thought for a moment before he said. “If these Imperials have the technology the princess and her friends say they do, I would imagine the Romulans would be quite interested in obtaining it. What the Romulans could offer the Imperials however is unknown at this time.”

“That's what scares me,” Kirk said.

“I may have better answers after I examine the technology of Captain Solo's ship, logically it should be a perfect example of the type of technology common within their home galaxy.” Kirk only nodded his approval.

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Chapter 4

Post by watchdog » Fri Feb 09, 2007 2:39 am

4

The Constitution glided along at a smooth warp 6.4, Captain Stevenson stood by commander Ozawa's science station watching the main view screen. “Is our shadow still with us?” He asked.

"Yes captain, it's still at the edge of sensor range and holding at warp 6.4," reported his science officer. Lawrence smiled, it was time to test these people at a real race. "Helm warp sev-"

"New contact bearing two, seven-zero mark one, one, five!" Commander Ozawa called out suddenly.

"On screen," the captain said. The main viewer shifted to another distant point of light just to port. Lawrence turned towards commander Ozawa looking for answers. "Report XO," She was peering into the black sensor hood at her science station. "New contact is following a parallel course to us, stationed just over 3 parsecs away just at the edge of our sensors." Lawrence was starting to get angry now. "All stop," he called out. "Bring us about on a warp pivot and go to yellow alert." Lawrence went over to his chair and sat down. "I want a full sensor sweep on long-range sensors and..." Commander Ozawa interrupted him once more as she called out the latest development once again. "Captain there is a ship decloaking directly behind us!" She put the vessel up on the main viewer, it completely filled the screen. "Red alert!" Ordered the captain, "raise the deflector shields!" He turned to his XO and asked, "what kind of ship is that commander?" Nona's hands were flying over her console. "Unknown captain, the vessels not listed in the computer, I can't even detect a warp drive." There was a sharp jolt all throughout the Ship, Commander Ozawa checks her instruments before she reports. "Tractor beam, they have us in a tractor beam."

"Can we break free?" Yelled the captain.

"Negative sir they have us in a total of ten separate beams at once." Lawrence cursed lightly as he sat back down, it had been a trap, a crude one at that, and he had fallen for it.

"Helm bring us about," he yelled. "I'll try sir," Talar said as he began working his controls. Lawrence turned to look behind him. "Ensign Seylok prepare several message buoys, each with a copy of the flight recorder logs up to the appearance of the alien vessel." Seylok said nothing, he simply carried out his orders. Commander Ozawa called out, "alien vessel is over one point six kilos long, armaments..." she gasped in surprise. "There are over sixty plasma-like weapons, four banks of disrupters and an indeterminate number of unknown weapons with an ion trace."

"Seylok," said the captain. Seylok turned to him, "yes captain?"

"How many buoys did you prepare?"

"Thirteen captain." Lawrence shook his head and said under his breath, "lucky thirteen--Launch them all, scattering in every direction but have them all programmed to head for the nearest Federation outpost behind us." Seylok continued to input commands as his captain had been talking. "Done captain, all buoys ready for launch. Lawrence had already turned back towards the helm. "Stand-by on phasers and photon torpedoes." Commander Ozawa called out yet again, "shadowing ships within

Sensor range captain, they're both Romulan birds-of-prey."

Lawrence swallowed hard as he watched the screen. He could see a large number of smaller vessels launch from the underside of the massive ship before them, and as he gave the order to launch the message buoys, the alien ship opened fire.

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Chapter 5

Post by watchdog » Fri Feb 09, 2007 2:40 am

5

'Captains log, Stardate 6001.2. We are only an hour away from the planet Gideon where we are due to deliver much needed medical supplies to the formerly over-populated world, I have also been informed by my chief engineer that the repairs to our extra-galactic friends ship should also be complete within that time frame.'

Spock, Scotty and Doctor McCoy were all gathered in Kirk's quarters with their reports, Kirk was looking over the engineering report supplied by Scotty and Spock.

"So this hyperdrive system is actually faster than warp drive?" He looks up at Mr. Scott as he asked the question. "Aye captain, but it's limited by needin' vast amounts of navigational data, and ye cannae be jumpin to close to stellar objects wi a large amount o' gravity. As near as I can figure it their vessel actually drops into subspace." Spock chimed in then. "It's similar, captain, to the transwarp theory the Vulcan science academy has been working on for over a decade now." McCoy interrupted at that moment, "how can you be sure that it is similar Spock if the Vulcan ideas are still only theory?"

Spock was non pulsed. "The theory is sound doctor, and much like the existence of faster-than-light tachyon particles, we as of late have yet to find a mechanical way of testing and measuring the transwarp medium." Kirk looked up at Dr. McCoy. "What about you Bones, what have you got? McCoy straightened a bit. "Well Jim your friend Captain Solo brought in that big shaggy dog he walks around with, he apparently had taken an electric shock of some sort." Spock interrupted him. "That dog as you call him has a name doctor." McCoy only shrugged and said, "Solo called it Chewie, now I don't know about you Jim but he didn't look very chewy to me." Both Kirk and Scotty tried to suppress their laughter while Spock merely arched his eyebrows, and McCoy stood there looking pleased with himself and his joke. Kirk composed himself first and said. "Mr. Solo's companion is a Wookie Bones, and his name is Chewbacca. I expect you'll remember that from now on." McCoy simply shrugged.

"Is there anything else doctor?" McCoy got serious . "I did manage to call them all into sickbay for routine medical scans Jim, Mr. Skywalker has highly developed brain waves and they all appear perfectly human in every way except..." McCoy paused as he gathered his thoughts. "Go on doctor," Kirk prodded and McCoy continued. "Their mitochondria is-well-different," he said.

"How so Bones?" Kirk asked, McCoy looked embarrassed by not having a better answer. "Well the full details are in my report Jim but, it matches up with regular mitochondria in almost every way but whatever's inside the cells of these people appear to be producing a tremendous amount of energy." He saw his captain shaking his head not comprehending McCoy's words so the doctor tried again. "Y'see Jim regular mitochondria converts oxygen into energy for use of the nucleus in our cells, they provide most of the energy our bodies require to function. It's one of the things that eventually causes our cells to burn up causing us to age."

Kirk looked at him slightly amused. "What are you telling me Bones, that these people don't age?" McCoy shook his head. "No, no Jim, what I'm saying is that the mitochondria in their cells is producing more energy than normal, almost as if it were tapping into an unseen force, and instead of one organelle per cell, some of their cells are literally packed with these things. Skywalker and his sister had the highest count, but all of them have the same kind of strange organelles to some degree within them." Kirk simply shrugged. "Why is that important Bones?" Kirk noticed that McCoy looked very uncomfortable now. "I checked our medical files to see if there were any similar examples and I came across one, in the files of my predecessor Dr. Piper." Kirk felt his insides grow cold. He suddenly knew what McCoy was going to say. "Gary Bones?"

McCoy looked extra uncomfortable now. "Sorry Jim, yes Gary Mitchell's mitochondria had gone through an extreme mutation and worked in a manner similar to this case." Kirk swallowed hard. "How similar Bones?"

"Well Jim it's more like comparing an old gas generator to a fusion reactor really." McCoy said, Kirk never took his eyes off his CMO. "But you are saying that these people have powers right?" McCoy Simply looked down shaking his head. "I don't know Jim, maybe, maybe not. I'd have to give them all a thorough checkup."

Kirk sat back in his chair behind his desk. "Alright gentlemen I have your reports and I will go over each as time allows," he then turned to Spock. "Mr. Spock if you would be so kind as to see to the transfer of the medical supplies when we reach Gideon." Spock stood. "I will see to it immediately captain." Kirk nodded. "Very well gentlemen, dismissed." The three of them filed out of Kirks quarters. Kirk began to go over each report paying special attention to the medical report, but he found himself thinking about the friend he had left behind on Delta Vega. He was still lost in memory when he heard his door chime. "Come in," he said. The door opened and Princess Leia walked in, she had a data pad in her hand. "I hope I'm not disturbing you captain," she said. "Not at all," Kirk replied as he clicked off his computer screen. "How can I help you princess?" Kirk asked.

Leia handed him the PADD. "That's just about all the information in Artoo's memory and the Falcon's computer that we have on the Empire," she said. Kirk took the PADD and began to glance over it. "Thank-you princess, I'll put it to good use," Leia did not move. "Is there something else?" Kirk asked.

"Capt--" Leia began before amending herself. "Jim...I don't think we've really impressed upon you how serious an Imperial incursion is." Kirk started to interrupt but she shook her head. "Please let me finish." Leia took a deep breath and continued. "The Empire destroyed my home world of Alderaan. I--I was in Imperial custody and they wanted to know the location of the main Alliance base and so they--they destroyed my home world--just to get me to talk." Leia turned away from him then awash in her memories and said,"--and they forced me to watch." She felt Kirk's strong hands on her shoulders as he moved closer. "Princess--I--" Leia turned back to him, her vulnerable side gone, replaced by her strong-willed nature. "I've come to terms with it Jim," she said. "The Empire built a weapon, a mobile battle station called the Death Star. It was the size of a small moon and was what the Empire used to destroy Alderaan Jim, with one shot." She was looking Kirk in the eyes attempting to judge his reaction, she could tell that he did not like what he was hearing, just what she was hoping for. "We found a way to destroy the first Death Star before the Empire could do any more harm with it, but four years later we learned that they were constructing a second Death Star." She watched him carefully, "I'm telling you this Jim because whether you want to accept it or not, you will be meeting the Empire. As I told you earlier we thought the Empire had found a way into deep core, but discovering a route to a new galaxy means that the Empire will have new resources to exploit." She took a deep breath then before continuing on. "Look at the information that I've given you, the type of starships in the Empire's fleet, the types of weapons and the size of the Imperial fleet and think about all of that allied with your enemies the Romulans and ask yourself if you think your 'Starfleet' can handle that." she allowed her words to sink in for a moment before she hit him with her last card. "I have an Alliance fleet standing by on the other side of the rift, and if we can make it back, we will be bringing them through to put a stop to whatever the Empire is doing here." She finished and continued to look Kirk in the eyes, he could see how serious she was now. He looked down at the data pad displaying an image of a triangular-shaped ship. He looked back at Leia and nodded. "I understand Leia, and thank-you for this data. I'll see to it that Starfleet takes you very serious." Leia smiled a bit then. "Thank-you Jim," she turned to leave, Kirk called out to her.

"Leia," she turned.

"Yes captain?" He took a step towards her. "You wont be fighting this battle alone," he said. She smiled fully and her face lit up.

After she had left Kirk went back to his desk and contacted the bridge, Spock responded.

"Mr. Spock get me Starfleet Command, priority one," he said. He then sat down and began reading the info on the data pad Leia had given him.

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Chapter 6

Post by watchdog » Fri Feb 09, 2007 2:41 am

6

Imperial Admiral Phelip Tarrkis climbed the steps leading to the private quarters of Lord Obereth, the doors automatically opened for him, not he knew, because the door sensor picked up his presence. The room was wide and dark, the only illumination came from two burning biers in the center of the room. Between both biers floating three feet off the ground was the Dark Lord Obereth. Tarrkis stood at parade rest and awaited acknowledgement from the dark lord, after several minutes, Obereth finally addressed him. "You have captured a Federation ship admiral." It was not a question. "Yes M'lord," Tarrkis replied.

"And our guests?" came the low baritone voice. "The senior officers are all sequestered in our holding cells, the rest of the crew we filled our holding cells with as many of them as would fit, two-hundred or so. The rest are being held in a cargo hold." Obereth simply hovered there for a full minute before responding. "The ones not in holding cells, dispose of them."

Tarrkis bowed low. "As you wish M'lord, is there anything more?" Obereth never moved once. "Prepare my shuttle, I will be departing for the Romulan space station before you return to the rift."

"Yes M'lord, I should tell you, our Romulan allies will not be happy with us taking the Federation ship back to Coruscant without letting them take a look at it." Obereth's stony demeanor slipped ever so slightly. "Tell our pointy-eared 'allies' that they will get what's left of the Federation ship when I am finished with it!" Tarrkis smiled . "Yes M'lord," and he turned to leave. On his way back to the bridge, he found himself thinking again about how they came to be in this new galaxy. Lord Obereth had grown disgusted at all the Imperial in-fighting between the various, so-called, warlords, former governors and Moff's all jockeying for position after the death of the Emperor. Obereth had taken his battle group; the Stardestroyer 'Sith Warrior, and four modified strike cruisers, off near the deep-core where he sat in meditation on the darkside of the force for many long days. When he finally emerged he had proclaimed himself the next Dark Lord of the Sith and gave orders for what seemed like a suicidal hyperspace jump. In a panic, half the crew tried to mutiny, but a successful mutiny against a Sith lord (or even one who thinks he's a Sith lord) is not easy to pull off.

The jump was made and the hyperspace rift encountered. It did not take long for them to realize that they had jumped to another galaxy entirely, the Imperial database had a few probable matches on galaxies but they were all too far away and remote to be one-hundred percent positive. They launched a hyperspace probe back through the rift both as a test to see if return was possible and to inform the four strike-cruisers of the situation.

That's when the first Romulan ship had appeared. Their puny ship was clearly no match for the Sith Warrior, but their speed, maneuverability, powerful plasma weapon and cloaking device made them more formidable than would be expected. If it had not been for Lord Obereths Force abilities, the Sith Warrior could have been severely crippled by the tiny little ship. Much to everyone's surprise, Lord Obereth did not order the ship destroyed. Instead Obereth made contact with the alien ship (what a laugh, Tarrkis always found the notion of the tiny little vessels of this galaxy being considered starships to be a huge joke.) Lord Obereth recognized the potential in an alliance (albeit a temporary one,) so that the Empire could exploit this new galaxy and all of its resources more efficiently. The major powers here were laughable; the Klingons were blustery barbarians but Obereth considered them nothing more than a pack of stupid savages much as the Romulans did. As for this (human?) Federation, it apparently was more concerned with perpetuating the status quo and exploration rather than conquering the weak and stupid alien races around them. The whole organization reminded Obereth of the rebels back in their own galaxy. The Romulans, as it tuned out, were the best bet for gaining a foothold here, they respected strength and order and their technology was sophisticated enough to be of major interest. Best of all they were vain and arrogant, something Lord Obereth could work with.

A deal was made and construction began on a battle fleet, based on plans for a modified strike cruiser that was never built, the 'Eidolon.' Strike cruisers with slave circuits installed so that they could be run by a minimal crew, strike cruisers amalgamated with the power of the Empire and the technical finesse of this new galaxy; The Romulan plasma torpedo, a cloak that allowed you to still use sensors, expanded sensor range, disruptors and even a transporter. Tarrkis had been reluctant to try the transporter out at first, but felt no ill effects afterwards, he took note however, that Lord Obereth completely refused to use the device period. Warp drive was not yet available, neither the Imperial science officers, engineering staff nor their Romulan counterparts had figured out how to meld warp in with the hyperdrive in a way that was efficient and worked. All attempts thus far had ended in utter failure; hypermatter did not mix well with the Romulan singularity-drive matrix, and the energy output by the singularity drive was incompatible with most Imperial systems. It was decided that they needed a fresh perspective, they needed a look at a Federation warp drive. Not from any old ship though, since the Romulans had ended their century long isolation two years earlier, they had confidentially captured or confiscated a number of small, underpowered Federation vessels, but nothing from Starfleet. Lord Obereth insisted quite strongly to his Romulan allies that he would accept nothing less than one of Starfleet's top-line warships. After the Romulan emissaries regained their breath, they had agreed to work out the details of the capture of a Constitution-Class vessel. The damage was done however and the alliance began to sour, Obereth made sure that the Romulans never became too familiar with any significant piece of Imperial technology and the Romulans were beginning to notice. All the information on the various technologies involved and how they interacted was stored within the central computer core of a heavily modified Romulan space station near the edge of, for them at least, known space. Lord Obereth had seen to it that much of that information had been duplicated and was now on board the Sith Warrior to be brought to Imperial director Ysane Isard on Coruscant along with the Federation ship.

The admiral arrived at the cargo bay where some one hundred-seventy members of the U.S.S. Constitutions crew were being held. He keyed in his personal ID into a wall unit and then flipped a switch, he could hear the cargo bay being explosively decompressed as well as muffled screams cut off in an instant. He waited a little while before re-sealing the bay and repressurizing it, he made a mental note to assign a clean-up crew to this bay as he returned to his duties.

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Chapter 7

Post by watchdog » Fri Feb 09, 2007 2:42 am

7

Kirk watched the planet Gideon slowly gliding by on the main viewer. For the past hour they had been steadily transporting medical supplies to the planets surface. Kirk pondered the strange fate of this world, so overpopulated that there was barely enough room to stand. The planets leaders had gone to extraordinary lengths to convince Kirk that he was on an empty Enterprise alone with Odona, the daughter of Gideon's prime minister Hodin, just so she could hope to contract vegan choriomeningitis Disease from Kirk, which he had himself caught several years earlier and had almost died from. The plan was to spread the disease to the planets population in a last ditch effort to better control the overpopulation problem, Kirk had declined to participate, but Odona had become infected with the disease organisms by simply being in contact with Kirk for a few hours.

And now the Enterprise was back bringing medical supplies to help stem the course of the disease on this beleaguered world. Gideon's population had wanted this, he thought to himself, the people here lived for such a long amount of time and the population grew so quickly that only the revelation of death was a cure for them. Still Kirk couldn't help but feel some level of guilt at his role in the whole affair. True Bones had worked his usual medical miracle on Odona thus saving her life, but she was now a carrier of vegan choriomeningitis and had spread the disease to over half the planet. The results were sickening billions dead and dying still, the entire system quarantined. The planetary elders had requested Starfleet send them medical supplies to better control the diseases progress, Kirk readily volunteered for the mission when he'd heard.

"The last medical supplies are beamink down now keptin," Chekov said from the science station.

"Very good Mr. Chekov. Lieutenant Uhura, please convey to the planetary elders that the Enterprise has accomplished its mission and will be getting underway within the hour."

"Aye captain ," Uhura said from the comm. position. As Kirk stood up from his chair, the turbo lift doors opened and Princess Leia stepped onto the bridge of the Enterprise. "Princess Leia," Kirk said. "This is a pleasant surprise, what can I do for you ?" Leia was still glancing around the bridge, all the large capital ships she had been on had much wider command centers, this one seemed almost cramped in comparison yet it had an elegant simplicity to it as well as being functionally sound. It was hard to believe that such a large ship could be controlled from such a small bridge. Leia snapped herself out of this line of though to remember why she was here. "I came to personally inform you that the repairs to the Falcon are done, your engineer Scotty was a big help. It usually takes Han forever to get his ship in halfway decent shape." Kirk smiled warmly towards her and Leia again felt a hot flush to her face, normally she would be embarrassed to be acting this way around total strangers , but something about this man, Kirk, put her right at ease. "It was our pleasure I assure you Leia, I'm glad we could be of service," Leia was momentarily distracted looking up into those hazel eyes and almost missed what he had said. She was saved from further embarrassment by an urgent sounding beep from the communications console and the woman, Uhura, addressing the captain.

"Urgent message captain, from outpost seven along the neutral zone," at the mention of the word 'neutral zone', both Leia and Kirk turned their attention on Uhura. "on screen," Kirk said. The image of Gideon changed to that of a man in a yellow jumpsuit surrounded by computers. "Enterprise, do you read, come in Enterprise, this is outpost seven." Kirk stepped back over to his chair, "this is Enterprise Kirk here, what seems to be the problem ?" The man on screen was visibly relieved. "Thank God I finally found you, I haven't been able to reach any other vessels, Enterprise I'm sending you a transmission that we received not forty minutes ago from the Starship Constitution, I'm afraid she's in real trouble Enterprise." The man began fiddling with his controls and Kirk turned towards Uhura to make sure that they were receiving. The man on screening then said, "look Enterprise, just look!" On the main viewer an exert from a starships flight recorder began to play, it was heavy in distortion and it took Kirk a minute to recognize the black man in the center seat as Captain Lawrence Stevens. As the distortions in the playback lessened, they were able to follow the immediate events. Lawrence was being tailed by Romulan ships it seemed and was attempting to shake his tail, and then the image on the Constitutions viewer shimmered as a massive vessel decloaked. Leia gave a gasp when she saw it, Kirk simply stared hard at the screen. Leia had recognized the ship, and because of the files she had provided, Kirk could recognize it as well. An Imperator class star destroyer had decloaked and opened fire on the Constitution .

************************************

Two hours later the Enterprise was on its way to the Romulan neutral zone at warp factor 7.5, Kirk had called a meeting of all senior officers along with Leia and her companions. They were gathered in the Enterprise's main conference room, Kirk began the meeting.

"Gentlemen and ladies, four hours ago our sister ship the U.S.S Constitution was apparently accosted and possibly captured by hostile forces comprised of Romulan ships and forces of the First Galactic Empire," murmuring could be heard throughout the room. "Quiet down please," Kirk said, When all grew quiet he continued. " Now most of us here are familiar with the Romulans already, but this Galactic Empire is completely new to us. I have asked Princess Leia Organa to familiarize us all with this Empire, princess." Leia and Artoo came forward, Artoo plugged into a special outlet Scotty had whipped up especially for him. Once Artoo was hooked up he began to project a hologram of an Imperial Star destroyer just over the conference table, Leia began then. “This is the Empires front-line starship, an Imperator class one Stardestroyer. It is over 1600 meters long and has over one-hundred-twenty weapons batteries focused on a forward firing cone along with broadsides to both port and starboard.” The holographic ISD lit up along the areas Leia referred to representing the firing arc as the gathered officers once more began to murmur quietly. “As you can see,” Leia continued. “A stardestroyer's dorsal, ventral and rear quarters are lightly armed but not totally unprotected.” Leia continued pointing out the major features of a stardestroyer touching on range, speed and crew compliment, she had Luke come up briefly for a quick rundown on fighter strength and some technological aspects before she began with basic Imperial hierarchy and command structure. She finished up with a brief history of the rebellion against the empire and her own role in it up till then. “The death of the emperor allowed the new republic to step back and consolidate its position better and to bring numerous star systems into our fold, we were helped by the fact that many imperial warlords began to fight among themselves over some small part or all of the empire. I don't know for certain but I would not be surprised if we had another would be warlord attempting to carve out his own small empire here in this galaxy, it's happened before.” Leia said, she then nodded to Kirk that she was finished and stepped aside as Mr. Spock stood next. Artoo's holographic projectors switched from a visual of a single star destroyer to an image of the standard Romulan bird-of-prey. Spock began, “We have reason to believe that the Romulans have shared their cloaking technology with these Imperials as well as possible weapons technology,” Lando interrupted him at that moment. “Excuse me Mr. Spock but the Empire has access to cloaking technology in our own galaxy, why would they need a Romulan Cloak?” Spock never missed a beat. “Because Mr. Calrissian, from the information provided to me the Romulan cloaks will not blind the type of sensor systems used in Romulan ships which would logically indicate that they are also sharing other military grade technology.” Lando mulled this over in his mind, all the cloaking systems he was familiar with completely cloaked everything including sensor systems. Theoretically weapons could still function but you couldn't see what you were shooting at. A cloak that allowed sensors to still function however was real bad news, Spock continued. “Standard Romulan cloaks are energy prohibitive and draw so much power that shields and weapons are usually not available, however the power consumption of a standard stardestroyer appears to be different enough to negate this flaw.” Lando had no doubt about it, Spock continued to outline known Romulan abilities and how they may affect Imperial systems but the only thing that caught Lando's attention was a description of the Romulan Plasma weapon, he found himself hoping they were in time to stop whatever the Empire was doing in this new galaxy. When Spock was finished Kirk stood again, Artoo began to project an image of a region of space. “This is the target area, near the edge of Federation borders. The Enterprise will conduct long-range scans in every direction to try and determine the fate of the Constitution. If it was destroyed, I want the debris, if it was captured, I want to know where it went.” Kirk turned to Han and said, “Captain Solo, Starfleet has decided to make this ship a liaison between our two galaxies, when we arrive at the said coordinates, you and your ship are to deploy and attempt to return to your galaxy. I will be sending two of my officers with you to act as ambassadors, with your permission of course.” Han who had not been told any of this prior was caught slightly off guard but soon composed himself. “Uh, sure captain, the more the merrier.” Luke spoke up next, “Leia and I will be staying here to help with any Imperial trouble that may arise.” This also caught Han off guard, he certainly did not expect that. Kirk then turned to the two officers he was sending with Han, “Uhura, Sulu, are you both prepared for this mission?” Sulu stood up. “Yes captain, we have all our gear ready and waiting.” Kirk nodded, “very well, Mr. Spock how long before we arrive at the coordinates?” Spock clasped his hands behind his back and said, “approximately 2 hours 23 minutes captain.” Kirk nodded. “Very well people, we all have preparations to make, lets get on with it. Dismissed.” And with that the meeting broke up.

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Chapter 8

Post by watchdog » Fri Feb 09, 2007 2:43 am

8

Captain Lawrence Stephenson lay in one corner of a small, dark cell. An hour ago a very belligerent man 'calling' himself an admiral stormed in flanked by two troopers in white armor. The troopers worked him over while the admiral watched, they soon left without asking him any questions. The 'admiral' however had known Lawrence by name, rank and serial number which meant he had accessed the Constitutions computers, this little session was probably his way of gloating. As Lawrence lay there it all came back to him slowly; right after launching his probes the big alien vessel opened fire from near point-blank range. The shields held but barely. They returned fire with phasers and photon torpedoes and scored a few telling hits before their shields collapsed, caught in a tractor beam and with out any motive power at all they were the ultimate sitting ducks. Lawrence was so focused on the big ship that he failed to take notice of the numerous fighters and other small craft buzzing about his ship. He especially failed to notice the slow small vessels that began to approach the starships hull in several places as soon as the shields went down. When Commander Ozawa called out to him that several vessels had blasted into the hull and were off-loading troops onto his ship, Lawrence recognized his second mistake. He had assumed that his foe would begin beaming over a boarding party and had deployed his security forces to key areas, he did not expect them to send their troops over by boarding craft and so most of his forces were not in position to contest the intrusion. What few security forces that were in the needed place were unable to hold the intruders at bay and they quickly swarmed all over his ship. Before Lawrence could order self destruct, the alien ship hit them with another weapon, an Ion scattering weapon of some sort. It did no damage, but it caused a serious lag in the computer processing time and by the time the computer was cleared, the enemy troopers were already on the bridge firing blue bolts of energy at everyone, Lawrence was hit and that was the last thing he remembered before waking up here.



He lay there trying to understand this situation. His captors were not Romulans, heck they looked like Humans, and yet they appeared to be working with the Romulans. Their fighting style lacked any real finesse but was heavily effective in a surprise attack. Lawrence began to run tactical scenarios in his mind, things he would have, could have, or should have done differently. Very few of his ideas worked out against all the unknown variables of the alien vessel. As Lawrence sat in his cell contemplating these thoughts, he felt a familiar tingle and he realized that he was being transported. Next thing he knew he was back on board his ship in transporter room 3, a man in a black uniform similar to the admirals approached him. The man stopped short of the pad and held his hands up as a non-threatening gesture. “My name is Arice Jaxter, I am not your enemy,” Lawrence just stared at him with distrust in his eyes as the man continued. “You were on board the Imperial Star Destroyer 'Sith Warrior,' I used your trans…”

“WHO THE HELL ARE YOU PEOPLE!?” Lawrence yelled.

“Captain I will answer all of your questions but we must get to a more secure area.”

“Where's my crew!?” Lawrence yelled, the man, Jaxter, reached under his tunic and pulled out a phaser pistol. Lawrence immediately grew weary but to his surprise the man simply laid the weapon down on the steps to the platform and backed away, turning his back to Lawrence.

Lawrence wasted no time, he snatched up the phaser and checked it quickly to make sure that it was powered and not booby-trapped before turning it on Jaxter.

Jaxter calmly raised his hands and said, “I am not your enemy captain, I am a spy for the New Republic. We were trying to find out what the Empire was up to and…”

Lawrence Forcefully interrupted “I've never heard of your Republic! Where's my crew?”

“They are being held in cells similar to yours,” Jaxter replied, Lawrence moved closer. “You have the coordinates, you're going to help me beam them out.” Jaxter continued to remain calm as he stated, “be reasonable captain, I can help you bring back some of them but hundreds will not do. We don't have the time or the room I don't know how many Imperial storm troopers are on board.” Lawrence stood there for a moment thinking, he wasn't ready to trust this man yet, wasn't sure he could trust him. But there was strength in numbers and he needed his senior officers.

"Do you know where my senior officers are?" Jaxter made no move, he only replied, "They should be in the same cell block as you were."

"Good, then you can get them out." Lawrence said, he held the phaser on him as Jaxter moved behind the transporter controls and began to work them. After a bit the transporter cycle was over and six individuals were standing on the platform; Executive officer Nona Ozawa, Helm officer Telar, navigator Christine Addams, Chief Engineer Erich Kholer, CMO Wynona Alexander and Tactical officer Percy Bradford. They all stepped down off the platform asking questions all at once, but the captain quieted them all down and turned to Jaxter again.

"I still have one officer left." He said, Jaxter got busy. As Jaxter manipulated the controls Lawrence decided to probe for more information. "You seem to know a lot about using the transporter considering you people don't apparently have one of your own." Jaxter never took his eyes off the controls as he answered. "The Empire first learned of transporters after contacting the Romulans, there's even one installed on the Sith Warrior that's where I learned." He looked briefly at Lawrence. "How did you know we did not have transporters?" Lawrence had a smug smile at the confirmation of his suspicions. "None of your men used them to board my ship." Jaxter shook his head. "Not my men captain, the Empire's."

"Right, of course." Lawrence replied.

The transporter cycle was over and Ensign Seylok lay on the platform unconscious with green blood crusted on his face. Dr. Alexander came over to him and began checking him out. "He's been badly beaten," she said as she continued to check his vital signs by hand. Lawrence said, "Do what you can for him doctor until we can get him to sickbay."

Commander Ozawa came up to Lawrence. "What's the plan captain?"

"Site-to-site transport, auxiliary control except for you Mr. Kholer." Lawrence turned to Jaxter again, "you claim to be on our side, I need you to provide the coordinates of all the holding cells to my chief engineer so that we can retake the ship. How likely are the Imperial internal sensors to pick up the transporter beam?" Jaxter stood back from the transporter controls as Engineer Kholer stepped forward. "Not too likely captain besides, I sabotaged the sensor system before I came here."

Lawrence never took his eyes off of him, "And how likely are they to discover this sabotage?"

Jaxter shook his head, "that I don't know for sure captain, they could be repairing it now for all I know, but it will take them an hour to do, that I do know." Lawrence nodded and said, "Alright Mr. Jaxter you're with me. Mr. Bradford when you get a large enough tactical force secure some weapons from the armory." Jaxter interrupted, "they already cleared out your armory captain, I managed to steal that weapon from the R&D department on the Sith Warrior." Lieutenant Bradford spoke up, "There are other weapons lockers on board this ship other than the armory." He stepped over to a bright panel next to the room view screen on the wall and taped in a code, the panel popped open revealing four phaser pistols which he took. Lawrence nodded, "when you have an effective tactical force, sweep the ship and take care of any intruders you come across." Bradford smiled, "aye captain."

Lawrence looked back at Seylok and said, "clear a path to sickbay first."

He turned to Chief Kholer and said, "Once were in auxiliary control I'll re-route some internal sensor systems to the main viewer here as well as some computer controls, try to find someone from Ops, or personnel to take accountability of our people. When it's clear take a team to engineering and take control there." Kholer nodded as the captain, Jaxter, Commander Ozawa, and Lieutenants Telar and Addams stepped onto the transporter pads. Lawrence looked at Kholer and said, "Auxiliary control chief, energize." The transporter cycle began, and the captain's party disappeared.

watchdog
Jedi Knight
Posts: 342
Joined: Sun Dec 31, 2006 12:26 am
Location: Not at home

Chapter 9

Post by watchdog » Fri Feb 09, 2007 2:44 am

9

Spock approached the guest quarters where Luke Skywalker was staying, before he even pressed the door chime the doors slid open and he heard Luke from within. "Come in Mr. Spock," he entered and found Luke sitting on the floor in the middle of the room in a meditative position. "I'm sorry if I am disturbing you. I can return at a more convenient--"

Luke calmly held up a hand. "No need Mr. Spock, I'm just finishing up now." Luke opened his eyes and got to his feet, "how can I help you Mr. Spock?"

"Captain Kirk has asked me to find out all I can about this 'Empire.' I myself am equally curious about you sir," Luke turned to Spock, "me Mr. Spock?"

"Out of all the emotional humans I have ever met you are the most 'Vulcan-like.'" Luke smiled. "I assume that was a complement Mr. Spock." Spock nodded slightly, "It is indeed, you control your emotions to a degree I've rarely seen in non-Vulcans." Luke continued to smile, "My old master Yoda didn't think so when we first meet. Control of your emotions is part of being a Jedi Mr. Spock."

"Indeed," Spock said, "Captain Kirk showed me your weapon, a most unique design. I would be quite interested in learning about the physics that make it work." Luke simply nodded, "I can show you how to make one but you need the force to properly wield it."

Spock cocked his head, "the force, what is that?" Luke got a contemplative look on his face. "It is an energy field that runs through all of us, created by all living things , it links us and binds us together. To those of us who are strong in the force and have the proper training, it allows us to do fantastic things." As he says this several objects in the room began to float and circle the room in a complex pattern, Spock's eyebrow went up. "The force is the essence of a Jedi, it shows us our proper place in the universe, and because it gives us these amazing abilities a Jedi must learn to control himself; his emotions can run very strong and can lead to the dark side of the force.” Luke stopped then and one of the items spinning around the room suddenly exploded in a cloud of debris, Luke continued. “Those that give in to strong emotions, specifically emotions like anger, fear, or hatred will fall to the darkside and become corrupted.” Luke paused for a moment in thought, a far off look in his eyes and said, “Like my father did.” There was a long pause before Spock said, “Fascinating, it would appear that your Jedi philosophy is very similar to the Vulcan Kohlinar discipline where we purge ourselves of all emotions in order to attain a state of pure logic.” Luke came out of his thoughts and looked back at Spock, “It would appear that the Jedi code and the Vulcan way have much in common, I sense that your curiosity stems from more than a quest for knowledge. Captain Kirk doesn't know if he can trust someone with such unusual abilities.” Spock seemed completely unsurprised by Luke's astuteness, “In our voyages we have on occasion had run-ins with several beings with extra-normal abilities, many of which were not completely agreeable.” Luke looked thoughtful for a moment and then said,” I'll tell you what Mr. Spock, I'll tell you all I can about the Jedi code and the force if you'll tell me more about the Vulcan way and some of your techniques for controlling you emotions so well.” Spock simply looked at him with a cool level gaze and said, “That would be most agreeable.”

Han Solo rechecked the Millennium Falcons systems one last time. The old girl was nearly as good as new. As he shut her down again he heard a voice calling up to him from below, “Captain Solo, permission to come aboard?” Han yelled back down, “Yeah sure, come on up.” Sulu and Uhura came up the gangplank. They were both armed with a phaser each as well as a tricorder each that had been specially modified for this mission. They also carried Starfleet issued duranium suitcases with more equipment and a change of clothes. Han led them into the main compartment and showed them where they could leave their gear and then began to familiarize them with the Falcons systems. Sulu was visibly pleased as Han and Chewie showed him the Falcons flight controls. Lando was more than pleased to show Uhura the Falcons computer systems. In an hours time the Millennium Falcons two newest crewmembers were more than familiar with many of its systems.

As the Enterprise approached the last known coordinates of the Starship Constitution, Kirk felt ready for anything. He glanced over to his right at princess Leia sitting at the little used environmental controls, her brother Luke was keenly asking Lieutenant Hanson, Sulu's helm relief, about the flight controls of the Enterprise. McCoy was loitering around the bridge conversing with Spock. Everything was set, Kirk glanced again over at Luke. Spock had briefed him on everything he had talked about with Skywalker; the Jedi, the Sith, the force. Kirk had listened with great interest and great unrest. He thought of the many individuals he had dealt with in the past who had similar abilities, he thought of his old friend Gary Mitchell and what his abilities had done to him. He hoped that this Skywalker kid would be all that he claimed to be, Kirk was certain that he could trust him and yet his experience told him to be wary. As if he had been reading the captains moods, Skywalker looked up at Kirk for a brief moment. Kirk nodded to him and Luke went back to observing the helm operations. As Kirk started to shift in his seat, Spock called out, “Sensor contact captain, one, zero, zero mark zero, two, one.” Kirk came up out of his chair and approached the science station. Spock continued, “biological debris field scattered over a distance of 3.2 kilometers.” This caught McCoy's attention. “Biological Spock?” Spock never looked up from his sensor hood. “Bodies doctor, some human. They appear to have been victims to an explosive decompression of some sort, they also appear to be members of a starship crew.” Kirk swallowed hard, his worse fear possibly come true. He kept his voice steady though as he said, “Put it on screen Mr. Spock.” A twisted mass of frozen biological debris appeared on screen. The bridge went quiet, Princess Leia looked down briefly regretting the way these people were brought into their war, but she knew that it could have been worse, much worse. She looked over at captain Kirk, he had a hardened expression on his face. She recognized that determined look, she had seen it on the faces of every rebel in the alliance as well as on her own face. She looked around at each person on the bridge, Luke looked unsurprised but all of Kirks people had the look of utter horror or righteous anger, only Mr. Spock remained unfazed.

“Have the cargo transporters beam the remains on board Bones,” Kirk said never taking his eyes off the mass on screen. “Have a full medical team assembled to try and ID the remains.” McCoy wasted no words and immediately headed for the turbo lift. As Kirk started towards his chair, Spock called out again. “Detecting another debris field, 94 million kilometers from the first. Metallic composition.” Kirk came back to Spock, “Is it the Constitution Spock?” Kirk asked. “Negative captain, unknown metallic composition and technology.” Kirk eyed Spock's computer screens. “Is it Romulan Spock?”

Spock turned to him then, “no captain, none of the debris is familiar at all.” Luke spoke up then, “It may be Imperial captain.” Kirk turned to look at him then, his full attention on the young man. “You see captain, before an Imperial ship jumps to hyperspace, they usually dump their garbage out the back, it's a standard practice.” Kirk thought on this for a moment and then said to Spock, “Beam that debris on board as well Spock, have a forensic analyst team go over every inch of it.” When he turned he saw the questioning look in Leia's eyes. “You can learn a lot about someone through their garbage,” he said and smiled, Leia smiled back.

watchdog
Jedi Knight
Posts: 342
Joined: Sun Dec 31, 2006 12:26 am
Location: Not at home

Chapter 10

Post by watchdog » Fri Feb 09, 2007 2:45 am

10



The three stormtroopers marched down the Constitutions corridors on patrol, totally unaware of the three Starfleet security personnel carefully coming up behind them. Lieutenant Percy Bradford took careful aim at the base of the skull where the white armor ended. They had learned to their detriment that a phaser on stun did not work on the white armor as they found themselves in a quick firefight against the first team of three they went up against; The phaser fire immediately alerted the three troopers to their presence as they spun around and opened fire, Percy was just able to duck down to the deck but the other two men with him were not so lucky. The man to his right was killed immediately when one of the red energy bolts hit him in the face and the man on his left was badly wounded by a bolt smashing into his right side. Percy quickly jacked the power on his phaser up as high as he could and fired again, the trooper that he hit glowed for a brief moment and then faded from view as he was disintegrated. The other two troopers began moving back firing as they went as Percy fired again, he felt the heat of one of the red bolts as it flashed past his head his own shot just missing the trooper by inches. Just when he was sure the two troopers were about to cut him down, another blue phaser beam shot out from his left and hit one of the troopers in the neck and the man went down. This distracted the remaining stormtrooper long enough for Percy to fire again, it was a hurried shot and only hit a glancing blow, but his phaser was on high and a glancing hit was all he needed. The enemy trooper flashed and vanished, Percy breathed a sigh of relief as he carefully stood up. He looked at his two men; Mr. Radovik was breathing just as heavy and was in very obvious pain from his wounds, Ensign Carlisle—if Percy had not known who he was there would have been no way to recognize him, his face was nothing more than a smoking crater. He had walked over to the downed enemy trooper, there was a slight residue left where the other two troopers had been, he could see the small hole in the neck band where he had been hit indicating where they needed to aim from now on.



The experience of that first encounter weighed heavily on his mind as he aimed at the troopers in front of him, the next three were taken down easily after that and Percy had three of his men who could fit, don the armor and sweep the upper saucer section while he had several teams of three sweeping the lower decks. Percy’s team were all sharpshooters, some of the finest in Starfleet he thought, Percy himself was an expert marksman. He squeezed the phasers trigger stud as a blue beam shot out and dropped the armor-clad trooper instantly. The other two men with him fired nearly simultaneously as the remaining two troopers began to spin around, Percy smiled as he watched the two troopers drop as well, he and his two flank guards started forward towards the prone figures when a red bolt slammed into the chest of the man to Percy’s left searing through his red uniform shirt and sending him flying backwards. Percy and his remaining man barely got back around the corner as a fusillade of red bolts cascaded down the hall. Four of the white-clad troopers came around the next bend in the corridor, the two Starfleet officers opened fire on the same trooper felling him instantly as the remaining three took cover. Two of the troopers continued to fire down the corridor as the third pulled his comm. unit and attempted to contact his base, all he got back was static due to the fact that Commander Ozawa had scrambled all comm. Frequencies all over the ship except for one heavily encrypted Starfleet signal. After a couple of minutes a single trooper came down the corridor as his two buddies covered him, he came in close hugging the wall to his right, as he approached the corner he slowed preparing to rush around the corner and spray it with small-arms fire. Stormtroopers however have poor peripheral vision and their soldier skills are poorly developed, Percy was against the far opposite wall on his right. This position allowed him to see the left side of the approaching trooper well before the trooper could really see him, Percy took that moment to strike and brought down the trooper with a well placed shot. The two remaining troopers open fire then, carefully coming forwards from their positions. Not being familiar with the layout of a Constitution-class starship, the two troopers were unaware of the fact that many of the corridors circle back on themselves. Percy’s partner came in from behind, when Percy heard the sound of a phaser firing, he came from around the corner firing on the one remaining trooper and took him down. Percy pulled out his communicator while the other man with him attended to their fallen comrade, he contacted auxiliary control and was answered by the captain. He reports that his teams had swept down to deck 18 and had taken out over fifty enemy combatants, and was waiting to regroup in order to take engineering on deck 19. Lawrence smiled, he knew that his tac. officer was good but this went beyond expectations, “Very good Mr. Bradford contact me when your team has been assembled, Stevenson out.” He cut the line and then contacted the transporter room.

“Stevenson to Kholer,” he said. “Kholer here,” came the reply.

“What’s our status chief?” Stevenson asked.

“I’ve only been able to account for two hundred-seventeen of our personnel captain, I’ve only brought over a hundred thirty so far. We’ve stationed people throughout the secured areas for their own safety.” Lawrence took it all in stride for a moment before issuing his next orders, “Bring the rest of our personnel over chief and then secure your station, Mr. Jaxter has informed me that the ‘Admiral’ ejected the rest of our people into space some time ago.” There was a long pause before Kholer replied in a horse voice, “Aye, aye captain, I’ll bring the rest of our people home.” Lawrence closed the channel and turned to Commander Ozawa, “What’s the status on the bridge lock-down?” She looked at him through the red mesh partition separating them.

“The bridge has been completely sealed off and all computer functions locked down and re-routed. All comm. Traffic has been scrambled and jammed.” Lawrence nodded, “what about comm. Traffic from the main vessel?” He asked turning towards Lieutenant Addams who was filling in for Seylok, Jaxter was by her side at the small communication station. “Mr. Jaxtor and I have modified the universal translator to mimic the voices of the people on both the bridge and in engineering, we have been feeding them false information.” Lawrence knew what they had really done was to record as much comm. Traffic as they could before they jammed the system one way and began responding with their own mimicked messages, so far these ‘Imperials’ had not caught on, but for how much longer he did not know. He wanted his ship back now. Engineering had not been locked down yet because it would be too easy for one of the intruders to seriously damage or cripple the ship from in there, and so Lawrence had come up with a plan. “Is the neural gas ready to be deployed?” He asked, Commander Ozawa turned to him again, “yes captain, we’re only awaiting confirmation from security teams that they are in place to retake both engineering and the bridge. Breathing masks are already at hand.” Lawrence nodded again, during the confusion caused by the gas, all the armored troopers who’s helmets apparently had built-in gas filters could be picked off by the security teams, while anyone not wearing a mask would be out like a light. All Lawrence had to do now was wait for his security teams to get in place, he would soon be master of this ship again.

************************************


Admiral Tarrkis waited for Ysane Isard to see him, he had been waiting for nearly an hour and his patience was wearing thin. He did not see why he had to wait anyhow seeing as how Lord Obereth was certain to take control of the Empire sooner or later, Tarrkis should not have to wait for any man and especially not a woman. He had been instructed by Lord Obereth to report to the Imperial Director and present the technical information thus far gained to the Imperial council directly, but He hated to wait.

He stood there in the outer office and tried to think about something to keep his mind occupied, he began to think about his prisoners, he had not given them a second thought since he confronted the captain of the little ship. They were mostly useless now, a curio to science on the development of humanoid species in other galaxies. He would turn them over to Director Isard and get back to his real duties.

A door opened on the other side of the room and Imperial Director Ysane Isard walked through, Tarrkis snapped to attention and bowed low.

“Director Isard,” he began. “I have returned with a full report on the Empires discoveries through the spatial rift.”

He held out a data padd to her as he continued, taking note that she did not take the padd from him immediately. “The various alien factions on the other side are rich in raw material but relatively weak compared to us, we have discovered various human or possibly humanoid cultures on the other side which we believe may be long lost colonist from our own galaxy and therefore subject to the jurisdiction of the Empire. It is the opinion of Lord Obereth that at least two full battle groups be turned over to his command to begin conquering these powers for the good of the Empire and to return these wayward humans to the Empire where they belong.”

He finished and stood at attention as Director Isard simply stared at him with her piercing blue and red eyes. Tarrkis felt as if he was being judged, he hated it but he held his tongue out of respect for her office. At last she spoke, still staring the admiral down. “Two battle groups to try and conquer another galaxy,” she stated in a very petulant tone Tarrkis thought.

She at last took her eyes off of him and glanced down at the padd. After a moment, she looked back up at him her expression never changed. “Due to Lord Obereth’s station I saw fit to provide the men and material he asked for, but to expect me to release two whole battle groups for his folly is out of the question!” She waved the padd at him to emphasize her displeasure, Tarrkis felt himself getting angry. He was struggling to keep his temper, he took a breath and said, “Lord Obereth believes that the technological resources of this new galaxy will give the Empire the edge it needs to crush the so-called ‘New Republic.’

“We do not believe that the factions in this new galaxy pose much of a threat to our forces, subjugating them will be easy.”

“Really,” Isard said interrupting him. “And you have the fleet strength of these powers then, the location of their major industrial bases and home systems, the exact type and strength of all weapons systems they posses?”

Tarrkis was getting annoyed at this woman now, “No Madam Director, but we have captured one of the 'human’ Federations top line warships, its computers should provide all the information we require.” He said, he couldn’t understand why this woman was incapable of seeing the potential that he and Lord Obereth could see.

“If it was so easy to capture then why do you think it would be of very much use to the Empire?” She charged, Tarrkis almost lost it then. This stupid woman was questioning his very competence and that angered him to no end. “We used specialized tactics and some of the technology from this new galaxy to put them off guard and catch them by surprise, I brought the ship here per Lord Obereths orders to present to the Imperial council so that its technology may be studied and put in service of the Empire,” he held his head high as he spoke. “Due to Lord Obereths station as a Sith Lord and next Emperor, I would expect an Imperial Director to pay the proper respect and to follow orders!” Tarrkis was sure that he had played his trump card and ended the discussion, but when he looked into her eyes again he was suddenly reminded of her nickname---‘Ice Heart.’

There was a fury being contained within her as well and seeing it bubbling just under the surface did much to cool his own temper, he was suddenly very aware of how alone he was here.

“The Empire does not have the time or the resources to propagate the delusional fantasies of one of the Emperors former pawns,” she said in a low controlled tone that barely concealed her anger and distaste of Tarrkis. Tarrkis himself pursed his lips and held his tongue, he was also beginning to remember that it was a bad idea to cross ‘Ice Heart.’ She moved closer to him, so close that the individual strands of white hair stood out clearly to him.

“Lord Obereth may do whatever he wishes with the material allotted to him, but all other resources will remain in service of THIS galaxy and no other!”

As much as he hated it, Tarrkis did the smartest thing he’s ever done, he kept his mouth shut.

watchdog
Jedi Knight
Posts: 342
Joined: Sun Dec 31, 2006 12:26 am
Location: Not at home

Chapter 11

Post by watchdog » Fri Feb 09, 2007 2:46 am

11

The gas came suddenly and without warning, pouring out of every air vent throughout the ship. The Imperial scientist in engineering and on the bridge barely registered the gas before succumbing to it, even a couple of stormtroopers who were not quick enough to seal their masks fell with the scientist. The remaining troopers readied themselves for an attack and took up positions covering the main door; in engineering there was three crouching behind the dilithium intermix chamber in the center of the room, they were not paying attention to the upper level of engineering where Lieutenant Percy Bradford and three others low-crawled into a good elevated position. Percy had to be careful and he knew it, one stray shot to the intermix chamber or to the plasma manifolds could cause a disastrous chain reaction that could destroy the ship. Four carefully placed phaser shots brought the occupation of engineering to a swift and tidy end, the same could not be said for the bridge; The captain himself led the team to reclaim the bridge, when the turbolift doors slid open the three Imperial stormtroopers on the bridge instantly opened fire into the lift. Lawrence had already gotten into a crouch and the first couple of shots passed over his head, he and his three security personnel instantly returned fire as they plunged forwards. Lawrence dashed to his right as a shot caught the man directly behind him in the chest. He dropped to the deck as two more shots came his way and blasted the seat next to him into a million pieces, he returned fire catching the trooper hiding behind his center seat in the leg. As that trooper went down one of his buddies jumped up from behind navigation and fired at the security guard, Chisam was his name, who had dashed to his left out of the turbolift. He was short but powerfully built and very fast, he ran past the engineering station and threw himself to the deck as three shots slammed into the computer behind him. He was firing by the time he hit the deck and caught the trooper behind helm in the face hurling him backwards. The trooper Lawrence hit in the leg rolled towards the captains position and fired again, but Lawrence had already started to roll away, his last security officer, a woman named Whitman, had followed the captain and fired at the still standing trooper behind navigation catching him in the shoulder knocking him down and sending his weapon flying. The captain stopped rolling and found himself face to face with the last trooper behind his seat both with their weapons pointing at each others heads, for a split second they only regarded one another, and then two simultaneous shots lanced out and hit the trooper in the chest. His whole body relaxed instantly as Chisam and Whitman both came around moving their weapons onto the last wounded trooper. Lawrence got up, the entire action took thirty seconds tops, he wasted no time and immediately contacted Commander Ozawa to bring the bridge crew up, then he turned to his two remaining security officers.

“Strip him of his gear and escort him to sickbay, when the doc’s done with him take him to the brig.”

Chisam and Whitman both nodded as they led their prisoner towards the turbolift, as it opened Commander Ozawa, Helm officer Telar, Navigator Addams and assistant engineer Jackson. They all hurried to their stations as the security officers led their prisoner onto the turbolift. Lawrence turned to Ozawa and said, “Get some more people up here to fill all key positions and personnel to remove these bodies, get our remaining crew to their duty stations. We’ll all be pulling double shifts for a while.”

Ozawa simply nodded and got to work, Christine who was checking over her navigation console asked the captain over her shoulder, “Can these ships really function while missing over half of its crew?” Lawrence sat down in the center seat and felt right at home again, “Lieutenant these ships used to operate with a crew of two hundred-thirty, we should be able to manage.” He then hit a button on his chair console.

“Stevenson to engineering.”

“Kholer here captain, engineering is now back in our hands.” Lawrence smiled, these Imperials did not seem very coordinated. “That’s good news Erich, how long will it take to get warp power back on-line?” He glanced over at engineer Jackson who was just starting to bring his console on-line and was inspecting the damage from the brief fire-fight, Kholer came back with, “They’re already on-line captain, the intruders were apparently attempting to experiment with them. The impulse engines are of-line however, it will take me a few minutes to restart them.”

The turbolift doors opened then and Dr. Alexander and Jaxter stepped off with ensign Seylok, he had a few green-blotchy bruises on his face but otherwise looked to be in reasonable health. Lawrence finished talking to his chief engineer as Dr. Alexander brought her report over. “Get the impulse engines back up and give me full power to weapons and defense chief, get back to me when it’s done, Stevenson out.” He clicked off the channel and came over to his Comm. Officer. “How are you ensign?” He asked, Seylok stood up straight and looked the captain in the eye, “I am fit and ready to return to duty captain,” he said. Lawrence looked him over once and then said, “Take your seat ensign.”

Engineer Jackson at the engineering station spoke up then, “Captain the impulse engines are starting to come back on-line now, estimate ten minutes to full power.”

Lawrence was already back in his command chair, “acknowledged ensign, XO are our sensors on-line yet?” Ozawa did not look up from her station as she answered, “Affirmative captain, all sensors working at one hundred percent.” Lawrence looked up at the main viewer, it displayed a close-up of the underside of the vessel that captured them. “Passive sensors only,” he said. “I want to know where we are but I don’t want anyone on that ship out there to know we are here yet.” Commander Ozawa began working her sensors and an image of a planet came into view. Lawrence leaned forwards in his chair, it was unlike any planet he had ever seen before, its entire surface was completely covered with an urban complex. He could see that many of the buildings were several kilometers tall and that there were whole canyons of man-made structures. He could make out tiny specks moving around and realized it was heavy air traffic, he would have continued to stare and speculate but he heard Jaxter catch his breath and he turned to face him. Jaxter was still standing by ensign Seylok but his attention was focused on the image on the main viewer, recognition was in his eyes.

“Do you recognize this planet Mr. Jaxter?” Lawrence asked, Jaxter never took his eyes off of the screen as he breathlessly nodded. “Yes captain,” he croaked, “I do recognize it. The planets called Coruscant and it’s the Imperial center of power.”

Jaxter was mildly surprised to see the captain grin and he had to remind himself that these people were not as familiar with the Empire as he was. He looked at the captain with bewilderment in his eyes, Lawrence simply said, “It figures, they took us to THEIR leaders.” Lawrence had to chuckle at his little joke, he found the situation even more humorous from the confused look on Jaxters face.


Within thirty minutes many of the Constitutions damages systems were back on-line, Lawrence knew they were running out of time, their excuses over the comm. System to the Imperials were wearing thin as they grew more insistent on sending a relief force despite the insistence of Lawrence’s crew that they had a radiation leak they wanted to try and contain, and it was now or never. Jaxters knowledge of star destroyers was essential in planning their escape and Lawrence felt they were ready for anything;

“OK people this is it, give me a go/no go on our systems,” he said.

“Thrusters

‘go’

Impulse

‘go’

Phasers

‘go’

Deflector shields

‘go’

Sensors

‘go’

Navigation

‘go’

Communications

‘go’

Engineering

‘go captain’

Helm?” Telar made his final checks and said, “We’re a go on helm captain.”

“Good,” Lawrence said, “helm and shields are our most important systems right now. XO?” He half turned to his science officer and she turned to him. “Bring all our sensor systems up to full power and raise the shields, helm thrusters and impulse together, Z-minus twenty-thousand degrees.”

The Constitutions impulse and thruster system began to pull the starship down and away from the Sith Warrior, held in place only by magnetic grapples which began to strain immediately as they were further weakened by the shields.



On the bridge of the Sith Warrior, Captain Jan Arrod was awaiting orders from his commander, Admiral Tarrkis. Arrod was inexperienced, he was promoted to captain from Lieutenant Commander after the attempted mutiny against Lord Obereth failed and the former captain and first officer (not to mention a large portion of mutineers) were executed slowly by Lord Obereth. Arrod didn’t mind, Admiral Tarrkis handled most of the command decisions and left the micro-management to Arrod, a task he felt he was extremely good at, overseeing the daily maintenance of the ship as well as rotating crew rosters and drawing up duty schedules.

He felt his relatively happy existence shatter in one fell swoop when one of the sensor crewers called out to him with, “Sir, sensors are picking up movement from the captured alien vessel!”

The full weight of command descended upon him then, and he did not know what to do first.

“What?” He said weakly, the Sith Warrior lurched suddenly as if something were tugging at it from below. Arrod’s mind raced attempting to grasp what was happening, “Contact our teams on the ship, find out if they did something wrong.” There was a momentary pause followed by several more lurches before one of the communication techs reported to him. “Sir we’re getting no response from our teams on the alien ship, many of the reports we have been receiving for the last hour have been conflicted and confusing sir.” The sensor crewer reported again.

“Sir shields have just gone up on the alien vessel, it’s heavily weakening our magnetic grapples.” Arrod began to sweat, he turned to another crewman and said, “Contact the brig, see if our prisoners are still there, ah---tractor beams, get our tractor beams locked onto that ship and hold it in place!”

Arrod tried to calm himself and not think about what would happen to him if he lost the Federation ship.



The Constitution was straining the grappling arms to the breaking point, Lawrence then implemented the next phase of his plan. Several well placed phaser shots around the rim of the docking bay took out all the tractor beam emitters there and weakened the grapples enough to allow the Constitution to tear free of it.

The starship shot away from the star destroyer at high impulse. Arrod watched the ship pull free in horror, “Fire, don’t let that ship get away!” He croaked. The Constitution however was directly below the star destroyer where few weapons could touch it, a few light turbo-laser shots followed but they either missed or bounced harmlessly off of the shields.

The Constitutions break however alerted every defense system around the planet, Commander Ozawa reported three hundred-fifty separate weapons lock once they were three hundred kilometers away from the Sith Warrior. Lawrence’s response was, “Take us into the planets atmosphere, fifty-thousand meters deep, full impulse.”

Jaxter could not understand why the captain was taking them closer to the planet rather than attempting to escape. He realized quickly however that the captain was gambling that the Sith Warrior and the orbital defenses would not fire upon a target so close to the planets surface, Jaxter wasn’t so certain the imps would show such restraint and he was more worried about the planets defenses.

“Captain I have three-hundred more weapons systems tracking us now,” Ozawa said, Lawrence never took his eyes off the main viewer. The Constitution was attempting to weave around as much of the air traffic as it could, much of it was attempting to give the starship a wide berth, it was now or never.

“Helmsman, zero, zero, zero mark three, one, five engage warp 4 mark!”

No sooner were the words out of his mouth when the sky lit up with live fire.

watchdog
Jedi Knight
Posts: 342
Joined: Sun Dec 31, 2006 12:26 am
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Chapter 12

Post by watchdog » Fri Feb 09, 2007 2:47 am

12

The Millennium Falcon slid free of the Enterprises hanger deck, Han gunned the engines and smoothly glided alongside the Enterprise keeping pace with the starship as she cruised along at impulse speeds.

“This is the Millennium Falcon to the Enterprise, come in Enterprise,” Han said into his comm. Link. Captain Kirk himself answered. “Enterprise, Kirk here.” Kirk could hear the grin in Hans voice as he said, “The Falcons flying great captain, your engineer knows his stuff.”

Scotty who was monitoring the bridge engineering displays turned with a big grin on his face, “Aye, thank ye lad.” He said. Leia smiled, she could imagine Han and engineer Scott taking the Falcon apart and putting it back together again.

Kirk responded, “I’m glad we could be of service Captain Solo, I wish you good luck on your journey. The Enterprise should be here for another day or so, afterwards we will follow the Constitutions trail wherever it may lead. You have the transponder signal if you need to return for any reason right?”

Uhura came on the comm. Then, “Transponder set to pre-programmed frequency captain, aye.” Luke spoke up next, "Han remember you need to follow the exact reverse of our exit course, find the fleet, let them know what’s going on.”

“Hey,” Han said. “It’s me remember.” Luke grinned over at Leia who was trying not to smile, Kirk had the last word.

“Have a safe journey Millennium Falcon, good luck. Enterprise out.”

The Falcon made a banking turn to starboard and accelerated away from the Enterprise, she made her final alignments and prepared to jump to hyperspace when a Romulan Bird-of-prey de-cloaked and locked a tractor beam on the Falcon holding them in place. On the Enterprise as soon as the Romulan ship began to materialize Kirk went to red alert and raised shields. He turned to Spock, “Status on the Romulan vessel Spock?”

Spock was already looking through his sensor hood,

“Class B Bird-of-prey, warp drive, standard disruptors, plasma weapon already trained on us.” Kirk never blinked, “what about those disruptors?”

“Disruptors trained on the Millennium Falcon captain.” Leia felt her blood grow cold, she had seen first hand a taste of what one of those ships could do and to now see the Falcon with her closest friends on board caught in a tractor beam caused her heart to skip a beat. She looked at the people around her, Spock calmly monitoring his sensors, Scotty smoothly double-checking engine output, Luke focusing his keen mind on this new situation, and Kirk center of it all confidently surveying the situation. She found herself drawing strength from those around her and she felt much better. Kirk had his helm officer Lieutenant Hanson, bring them about to face the new threat.

“Hailing frequencies!” He barked at Lieutenant Palmer behind him at communications.

“Hailing frequencies are open captain,” the woman said. Kirk sat up straight in his chair. “Attention Romulan vessel, you are unlawfully holding a ship of neutral alliance, I highly recommend that you release it now and explain yourself.” There was a momentary pause and then the face of a Romulan Commander appeared on screen, his features were sharp. He had the look of a seasoned commander about him and he wore his lightly peppered hair slicked back, he peered directly at Kirk through the viewscreen not unlike, Leia thought many imperial officers she had met in her time.

“James Tiberius Kirk, captain U.S.S Enterprise, NCC-1701. Starfleet serial number SC 937-0176 CEC, born in Iowa in 2233 to one George Samuel Kirk Sr. Joined Starfleet in 2250 at the age of 17, made captain of said U.S.S Enterprise in 2264.” Kirk betrayed nothing at this intimate knowledge shown by the Romulan commander, Leia however was unnerved that an unknown enemy should know so much about the captain.

“Alright you know who I am,” Kirk exclaimed. “Now who are you and explain why you are holding a neutral ship in neutral space.” The Romulan never blinked, “You may call me Terok, my ship---IS the Tal Shiar, and this part of space is no longer neutral. It has been claimed on behalf of the Romulan Star Empire.” Kirk only grinned, “Such a claim must be filed through proper channels first,” he stated. Terok only stared at him through the view screen, his face almost Vulcan-like. “I assure you Captain Kirk that this sector and all that is in it now belongs to Romulus, you and your ‘neutral vessel’ are trespassing.” Kirk decided to switch tactics, “Whatever territorial disputes may exist can be settled latter, at present the fact is that a Federation starship has gone missing in this sector no less than twelve hours ago. The Enterprise has been sent to investigate the disappearance, thus far all evidence points to an attack by Romulan vessels.

“I don’t give a damn about your territorial claims, all I care about is what happened to our sister ship.” Kirk leaned forwards in his chair, “and if I find out that the Romulans are involved commander, you can rest assured that I will take appropriate steps to even the scales.” Leia noticed the slight twitch under the alien commanders left eye but could not tell if it was natural or not. She could see why the Empire would ally themselves to these Romulans, despite the Empires xenophobia against aliens, she could tell there was much about the Romulans that was similar to the Empire. Terok betrayed nothing more than an eye twitch, he seemed to be regarding Kirk. Finally he said, “If one of your ships were waylaid by one of ours then it was because they were trespassing in our territory captain.” He held his head up high with a haughty look as he continued, “I will allow you twenty-four of your hours to search for your missing ship. At the end of that time captain you’d best be on your way back to the Federation, because if you are not, you will find yourself surrounded by a whole fleet of Warbirds!”

With that Terok cut the transmission, his ship disengaged its tractor beam and slowly vanished as it came about.

“Hmph,” Scotty sniffed, “They’ll need a whole fleet ‘o’ there ships if they hope to take out one ‘o’ ours.”

Kirk immediately flew into action, “Spock try and get a fix on the Romulan vessel, see if we can follow his movement through his cloak, also I want to know what’s in this sector of space that could be of such interest to the Romulans.” Kirk turned to his communications officer, “Lieutenant Palmer have we maintained an open channel with the Millennium Falcon?”

Lieutenant Palmer turned to Kirk, “Yes captain, they should have been able to listen in on your entire confrontation with the Romulan commander.”

“Good, open a channel with them. I want to speak with Captain Solo.”

On the Falcon Han was busy checking the Falcons systems to make sure there was no damage from the tractor beam, he had attempted to pull free but did not want to strain his engines. When the comm. Started beeping he answered it quickly,

“Yeah?” He barked, Kirks voice came through the speaker. “Captain Solo this is Captain Kirk, is everything alright on your vessel?” Han quickly realized that Kirks formal tone was in case the aliens were still around and listening in, Han had no doubt they were. He figured that Kirk didn’t encrypt the call because he didn’t want the Romulans to suspect that the Falcon was anything but a neutral ship that the Enterprise aided. Han doubted that the Romulans would believe that idea for a second but he realized that it was a part of the politics of this new galaxy and he could appreciate the nuanced way this game was played.

Han spoke into the comm. “Everything’s fine here captain, your repairs are holding up just fine,” he looked over at his two newest crew members, Sulu and Uhura were strapped into their seats in the cockpit silently watching as Han continued. “My communications officer and my golden co-pilot weren’t to happy about the tractor beam, but they’ve calmed down for now.” Han saw Sulu mouth the words ‘golden co-pilot?’ Han shrugged and said, “It’s the shirt.” Kirk came back then and said. “Very well captain, I believe the Romulans will allow you to go on about your way, have a safe journey home, try to avoid anymore Romulan ships and you should be fine, Kirk out.” The channel clicked off and Han and Chewie both ran their final calculations before engaging the hyperdrive and speeding off. Kirk watched the Falcon take off before turning around in his chair. “Maintain red alert, weapons on stand-by, Spock what can you tell me?” Spock turned towards his captain, “The Romulans have greatly improved their cloak over the year’s captain, I’m not reading anything on any sensors.” Leia spoke up then, “back home captain we have a sensor system capable of detecting and measuring gravity displacement in space, they’re very rare and expensive and are hard to come by, but your ships sensors seem to be highly sophisticated. Even a cloaked ship should displace some gravity.” Spock spoke up, “true even a cloaked vessel displaces a minute amount of gravity in open space, but such a method to detect cloaked ships would be impractical.” Leia looked at Spock with a questioning look, she shook her head to show she did not understand. Spock continued, “In open space a cloaked vessel would have near infinite maneuver room making pinpointing it by a minute gravity spike near impossible, if the object were traveling along a linear path such as an orbit around a planet then it would be theoretically possible to track using the gravitic flux although pure accuracy would be lost due to the more massive gravity of the stellar object being orbited. But the technique would be highly unlikely to work in this current situation.”

Kirk spoke up then,

“But it is a possibility right Spock?” Spock nodded his head slightly, “All objects in space will displace some gravity captain, but to attempt to detect a cloaked ship that can maneuver---“ Kirk interrupted him, “but it can be done Spock, the Enterprises sensors can detect gravity fluctuations?” Spock again nodded slightly, “the Enterprise is quite capable of detecting gravity fluctuations captain, but its being able to differentiate between natural gravitic flux and an artificial flux which further complicates the process.” Kirk only grinned, “I have complete faith in your ability to make it work Spock.”

Spock knew when he had been overruled and turned back to his science station. Luke had been quiet through it all, he could still sense the presence of the Romulans. The Romulan commander was on his mind though. Obviously Terok was not telling the whole truth and was holding back a great deal. But Luke could sense something about him, a dark taint that worried Luke. He stood there staring at the main viewer as if it were a window, pushing out, searching for the alien commander.


Terok stood in the middle of his ships Spartan bridge, because this bird of prey was of a new warp-capable class, a number of new duty stations had been added to the cramped confines along the outer bulkheads. Terok heard the approach of the ships first officer, Sub-commander Selar.

Selar came up to his commander, “I do not wish to overstep my place commander but why did you let the Earth-men go?” Terok was busy monitoring the Enterprises movements did not turn around but instead spoke over his shoulder. “Our extra-galactic benefactors have been attempting to cheat us, I am gambling on Kirks reputation and unorthodox behavior to…put our allies back in line. Kirk is one of Starfleet’s best line commanders, if nothing else he alone will shake up our allies to the reality of what Starfleet truly is. Perhaps then they will be willing to share their technology with us.” Selar could find no fault with this line of reasoning, he still had questions however. “I do wonder commander, how much we can trust our allies, they can barely conceal their dislike for us.” Terok did turn to him then, “Yes they are quite xenophobic, most species are. I however am not impressed with their tactical acumen, I seriously doubt that they have ever faced a real threat. I’m counting on Kirk to be that threat.”

“Is even the Federations starships a match for theirs?” Selar asked.

“A one on one match, probably not, but as I said I’m not impressed by their tactical acumen. There’s more to warfare than who’s got the most weapons.” Spoken like a true intelligence officer thought Selar, he did have one more question however. “What of the ‘neutral ship’ commander? Its drive system was similar to the Imperials. It could be evidence that these rebels the Imperials were combating have made contact with Starfleet.” Terok turned back to the monitor, “In their lexicon it is a YT-1300 class frigate, I have a good idea of where it was headed and I already have two picket ships standing by at the crossover point waiting to destroy the vessel as soon as it appears.” Selar simply smiled, he could see now why the Tal Shiar had the reputation it did if Terok was any indication of the type of agents the organization put out.

watchdog
Jedi Knight
Posts: 342
Joined: Sun Dec 31, 2006 12:26 am
Location: Not at home

Chapter 13

Post by watchdog » Fri Feb 09, 2007 2:48 am

13

Admiral Tarrkis strode angrily onto the bridge of the Sith Warrior and walked right up to Captain Arrod and looked him in the eyes, he had to look up because Arrod was nearly a whole head taller than Tarrkis.

“I am waiting for an explanation of what happened captain!” he spat out, Arrod tried hard to keep his voice from cracking as he answered, he failed.

“A, admiral…it came to my attention that… the prisoners had escaped and… retaken their ship…” he began to stammer then, “wu, we think a ru, ru, rebel spy… utilizing their tru, transporter device and…”

“Enough captain!” Tarrkis bellowed. Arrod snapped his mouth closed and awaited his fate. Tarrkis regarded him for a full minute before saying, “Tell me captain why I should not have you executed right here right now?” Arrod was speechless, his mouth went dry as he glanced over towards the stormtroopers standing sentinel on the bridge, weapons at the ready. He could not bring himself to speak, Tarrkis looked down at the written report in his hand. “Orbital and planetary defenses targeted, fired upon and destroyed the alien vessel at three hundred kilometers above the planets surface, no debris was left.” The admiral looked back up at Arrod again, “This is the report from the north orbital defense station number 1138, do you have anything to add captain?” Arrod realized then that the admiral had not bothered to read his written report and he saw a glimmer of hope.

“Yes admiral,” he began finding his voice at last. “The orbital defense stations report is not accurate sir, the alien Federation ship was not destroyed, it engaged it’s faster than light warp drive and escaped the system.” Tarrkis never changed his expression as he looked at Arrod. “Explain captain,” he said. Arrod began to grow excited, “The orbital stations utilize standard Imperial sensor systems which are not designed to recognize this type of drive system, I doubt our old sensor systems could tell the difference between this warp drive and the background gamma burst from distant stellar objects.” Arrod could see that the admiral’s interest had been peeked so he continued. “We have installed the sub-space sensor systems from the other galaxy which are superior to our own sensor systems in many ways. When the Federation ship engaged its warp drive we were able to track their escape route to nearly a full parsec before the sensor image began to break up. Any other Imperial sensors would not have even recognized it as a ship if they even registered its presence.” The look on Tarrkis face had mellowed so subtly that Arrod nearly missed it, but he could tell that the admiral was listening intently now. “I have been working with our research scientist and have extensively studied the systems of this other galaxy, give me a second chance admiral, I can find the Federation ship for you.” Tarrkis simply stood there regarding his captain. After a long agonizing moment he said, “Lieutenant Commander Leuder front and center.” Arrod watched as Lieutenant Leuder quickly hurried up to them from his station and bowed to the admiral. Tarrkis, never taking his gaze off of Arrod, said to Leuder, “you have also studied the alien technology from the other galaxy yes?” Leuder came to attention as he answered, “Yes sir, not quite as extensively as the captain however, but I understand it pretty well.”

Tarrkis nodded, “you will learn all the systems lieutenant, the captain will have his second chance, but if he fails in the least, I fully expect you to execute him on the spot and take over his position as captain of this ship, is that clear?” Arrod did not even have to look at Leuder's face, he could hear the grin in his voice. “Perfectly clear sir, I will not fail you.” Tarrkis nodded again, “very well lieutenant, you are dismissed.” Leuder quickly moved off back to his duties as the admiral continued to look at Arrod. “We’ll just simply refer to that as motivation captain, for your sake, I hope you can deliver upon your promises.” And with that, the admiral turned and walked away.

watchdog
Jedi Knight
Posts: 342
Joined: Sun Dec 31, 2006 12:26 am
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Chapter 14

Post by watchdog » Fri Feb 09, 2007 2:49 am

14

Leia sat in her quarters reviewing sensor data provided for her by Mr. Spock, it was all she had to do at this point in time. She needed to keep busy because she hated just sitting around with nothing to do while others worked around her, so she decided to review the sensor data for anything that might indicate an Imperial presence or interest. So far there was nothing, she rubbed her eyes in semi-frustration. A sense in the back of her mind made her turn towards the door, “Come in Luke,” she said. Luke Skywalker entered and came over to where she was sitting, he took note of Threepio diligently sorting Leia’s belongings as he approached her at her desk. Leia took notice that he was sporting his lightsaber again, he noticed her look and said, “Captain Kirk is apparently comfortable enough to allow me my lightsaber, but I can tell he’s worried about my abilities with the Force.

Mr. Spock told me that Starfleet has had many encounters with beings with extraordinary powers, the Enterprise in particular has had dealings with quite a few beings of incredible power. All things considered, I can understand Kirks caution.” He leaned in close to peer at the computer screen she was reviewing.

“What’s all this?” He asked her, Leia looked back at the screen and sighed. “I asked Mr. Spock if I could review some of their sensor data for indications of Imperial activity, just to keep myself busy. This ships sensors are incredible, I’ve seen sensors capable of detecting things from a couple of light-years but the sensors on this ship have a range and level of detail unheard of back home.” Luke smiled, “I hear you, the Alliance could use some of this technology. It’s no wonder the Empire made an alliance with one of the races here. Have you found anything yet?” Leia shook her head, “nothing, despite the level of detail I haven’t seen anything that could be of interest in this sector.” Luke peered closer to the screen, “No habitable planets at all?” He asked. “Not in this sector,” Leia replied. “The only planets in this entire sector are airless rocks,” she tapped some controls on the computer and an image of a small rocky world appeared along with background data, “and several large gas giants.” Another world appeared, Luke stood up and said “Well hopefully Han, Chewie and Lando can bring an alliance fleet here to help with the search, I don’t think even these Romulans will try to mess with a large fleet.”

Leia was not listening anymore, Luke mentioning Lando’s name reminded her of something from the first time she had meet Lando on Bespin.

“Luke how common is tibanna gas on gas giants?”

“Not very,” Luke responded. “Only certain types of gas giants have pockets of tibanna, why what have you found?” Leia shook her head, “I’m not sure yet,” she turned around and called to the golden droid C-3PO in the compartment behind her. Threepio came over quickly at her call. “Yes your highness, how may I be of service?” He said, Leia turned to him. “Threepio I need you to talk to the Enterprises computer in order to compare something.” She stated.

“I’d be delighted princess, this ships computer is quite pleasant to talk to.” He said as she prepared the connection to the computer.



Several minutes later, Luke and Leia were exiting the turbolift onto the bridge of the Enterprise. Captain Kirk was over at Spock's science station drinking a cup of that beverage he liked, coffee. He Spock and the ships doctor were there looking at sensor data on the Imperial debris they had beamed on board earlier. Kirk turned around as they left the turbolift and headed straight for them. “Jim,” Leia began. “We may have found something important.” She handed him one of the brightly colored data disks and said, “I think we know where to find the Imperials now!” Kirk took the disk and handed it to Spock who slipped it into the LCARS input slot and called up the info stored on it. On the screen on the upper level an image and sensor data for a standard class J gas giant appeared, Kirk looked it over for a moment and then asked, “What exactly are we seeing here Leia?”

Leia spoke up, “That planet is rich in tibanna gas captain, Tibanna is the primary fuel used in most Imperial weapons.” Kirk looked closer at the display as Spock began to delve deeper into the disks contents. Dr. McCoy spoke up then, “How can you be sure it’s this planet? I would imagine there are plenty of gas giants out there.” Luke spoke up. “Yes but tibanna is fairly rare, you wont find it on every gas giant planet. None of the other planets within range had this concentration of tibanna.”

Leia picked up the dialogue, “Plus there’s the moons doctor, twenty-four mineral rich moons and a supply of tibanna would be to much for the Empire to resist.”

McCoy nodded then, “Alright, makes sense, but an operation that big would require some sort of large base of operations I would think.” Spock broke in then. “Quite right doctor it would require a very large base of operations, but remember these Imperials have allied themselves with the Romulans. It is within the realm of possibilities that any orbital facility is cloaked as well.”

Kirk had already made up his mind, “It’s our best lead so far, Mr. Chekov set a course for this planet, Spock will provide the coordinates. Good work princess, perhaps now we can get to the bottom of this.” As Kirk went to take his seat, McCoy came up alongside. "Aren’t you forgetting something Jim, the Romulan vessel we’ve been trying to locate?” Kirk turned to him, “not at all Bones, in fact I’m counting on them following us.”

McCoy was surprised by this admission, “Why for heaven sake, would you want the Romulans secretly trailing us to their possible hidden base?” Kirk smiled, “Don’t you think the Romulan commander let us go a bit too easily?” He asked.

“No!” McCoy said, Kirk looked back at the main viewer. “I do, Romulans are duplicitous Bones but not to that level. And to allow us twenty-four hours to search space that they have laid claim to. There’s something more going on and I don’t think the Romulans alliance with the Imperials is all that secure.” Leia moved closer, “ I wouldn’t doubt it Jim, The Empire are xenophobes, they only ally with alien races in order to use and later subjugate them.” Kirk nodded. “It’s not like the Romulans to just give a Federation ship unlimited access to their territory, Terok has an ulterior motive and I want to know what it is.” Chekov finished imputing the navigation coordinated into his console and said, “Course heading set Keptin.” Kirk smiled, “very good Mr. Chekov, lieutenant Hanson, warp factor four please.” Lieutenant Hanson acknowledged as he input the commands into his controls, the hum of the Enterprises warp engines built slowly as the great vessel accelerated up to warp speed, Leia was glad that they were finally doing something other than wait. She wondered if Han and the others had made it through yet.




The Millennium Falcon slipped smoothly out of hyperspace at the coordinates of the gateway, Han had wasted no time. He already had the next set of jump coordinates ready. He stole a quick glance at his new crew; Lando was beside him in the co-pilot position, Uhura was behind Lando monitoring subspace signals with the Falcons sensors, Sulu sat behind Han checking navigation data on some of the equipment he and Uhura had brought with them. Chewbacca was in the back monitoring Artoo who was once more hooked up to the Falcons computer. All was in readiness but Han still felt uneasy, both Sulu and Uhura felt certain that they would have to fend off a Romulan ship when they arrived. It made perfect sense that the Romulans would leave a sentry to guard the only cross-over point for their buddies in the Empire. That was the main reason Han wanted to spend as little time in real-space as possible, the new jump coordinates had been programmed into the navi-computer well before they arrived. They exited hyperspace only a few thousand kilometers off from the next jump point, all that was left was the final positioning alignment. Han brought the Falcon into a smooth arc up to the next position, he tells his crew to ‘hang on’ as he begins to toggle the hyperdrive activation switches. At that precise moment a Romulan bird-of-prey declass behind them and opens fire. The Falcon is hit just as the hyperdrive motivator kicks in. There is a brief flash and then empty space, the Millennium Falcon is no where to be seen.

watchdog
Jedi Knight
Posts: 342
Joined: Sun Dec 31, 2006 12:26 am
Location: Not at home

Chapter 15

Post by watchdog » Fri Feb 09, 2007 2:56 am

15
The Starship Constitution was cruising through space at warp 7 on their way back to the rift in space that brought them to this galaxy, it had by no means been an easy trip. After their miraculous escape from Imperial center it became quickly apparent that they were lost. They had engaged emergency warp away from the dense planet and only took superficial hits from the planets defenses only to realize after they were away that they had no idea of where they were or where they were going. Arice Jaxtor, the man who had helped them escape from Imperial custody had been trained as a New Republic operative; knowledge which included computer slicing, espionage, self-defense, and basic navigational techniques. The real-time navigation technique of standard Federation ships however was different enough from what he knew as to cause a great deal of confusion at first. With the assistance of Lieutenant Addams, he was able to crash-course basic Federation navigation within 15 minutes, but even with that new-found knowledge he was unable to pinpoint their exact position without local navigation charts of his own, all he could do was make educated guesses.
He busied himself by pouring over every new sensor image of the surrounding star systems in an effort to recognize a star, a solar system , something. Obviously they were in the core systems they could have been somewhere near Corellia for all he knew, he was shocked at how few inhabited systems they had detected thus far, it was taken for granted the idea that the core was so densely populated that it was easy to forget that some worlds were incapable of supporting life. Captain Stevenson came over to him, “Any luck yet Mr. Jaxter?” he asked, Jaxter could only shake his head in frustration. “Nothing captain, we are in the most densely populated region of the galaxy and yet their doesn't seem to be anyone out here!”
“Calm yourself Mr. Jaxter, even the densest regions of space can appear quite empty,” Lawrence said. He turned his attention to Seylok who was tasked with monitoring all subspace bandwidths for some sign of the alliance. They did not have the equipment to penetrate the hyperwave bandwidth of the Imperial holo-net nor did it seem likely that the Alliance made extensive use of Imperial communications protocol anyway.
“What about you ensign, have you found anything yet?” Seylok did not turn from his communications console as he answered, “I have been tracking a faint sub-space signal from a point directly ahead of our present course captain, but the signal vanished abruptly as if it had been cut off at the source.” Nothing unusual there, thought Lawrence, they probably moved on. And yet something was nagging at the back of his mind, almost like a voice warning him of danger. He looked at the viewer with the star field zipping by as he came back to his chair. “Deflector screens at maximum,” he barked. Telar confirmed the shields had been raised as Lawrence continued to stare at the screen as if he alone could see an invisible threat. Lawrence was about to call for evasive maneuvering when space ahead of them lit up with a fusillade of green bolts lancing out from empty space. The red alert klaxons began to wail as Lawrence struggled to stay in his seat as the ship shook violently with each hit as his crew called out damage reports. The Constitution shuddered as her warp field failed and she dropped back into real-space. “What happened?” Lawrence demanded, “why did we drop out of warp?” Engineer Kholer who was monitoring the engineering station on the bridge turned and said, “It was that ion weapon captain, they hit us with enough concentrated shots to disrupt our warp field.”
“Are the engines still functional? Do we still have impulse?” Lawrence asked.
“Aye captain, only the warp field was disrupted this time, give me a couple of minutes and I can recharge the coils and recalibrate the warp field.” Lawrence pursed his lips, he knew what to expect this time. “Hard about, I want a wide-spread field of fire coordinated on the location those shots came from, ten degrees both sides. Helm stand-by emergency warp power as soon as Chief Kholer is ready!”
The Constitution opened up with cascading phaser bursts saturating space, spreads of photon torpedoes following in their wake. When several shots impacted on a large invisible object Lawrence knew he had located his foe. He concentrated his fire with a spread of photon torpedoes. The cloaking screen failed revealing the ISD 'Sith Warrior.'
On board the Sith Warrior Admiral Tarrkis shoved Captain Arrod aside angrily, Arrod had proven himself by tracking the warp trail of the alien Federation ship and making a series of lightspeed jumps to continue to track the ship and eventually get ahead of it. The Sith warrior positioned itself directly in the path of the Constitution, Lieutenant Leuder suggested a spread of ion cannon fire to attempt to knock the ship out of warp better than the turbolasers, Tarrkis stated that both weapons system used in tandem WOULD knock them out of warp and possibly disable the ship to boot. Captain Arrod however knew it would be a stroke of luck to hit an object traveling at faster-than-light velocities directly at them, a full broadside should score some hits but Arrod held no illusions that their gunners could score enough well-aimed hits to cripple the ship, as the return fire proved.
'Alright,' thought Tarrkis, 'we'll do this classic Imperial style.'
The Sith Warrior began to move in pursuit of the Constitution and several squadrons of TIE fighters poured from it's underbelly. In response the Constitution immediately fired a photon torpedo spread into the middle of them, the explosion immediately took out thirteen fighters not quick enough to doge out of the incoming torpedoes path. The rest of the fighters all broke up into smaller groups of three and accelerated in an attempt to encircle the Constitution. Lawrence watched the movements of the enemy vessels on the tactical display of the main viewer, the Sith Warrior accelerated fast and began to gain on the Constitution. Lawrence ordered a sharp turn to port as the Constitution attempted to twist out of the way of the Stardestroyer's firing cone, swinging underneath the larger ship. Tarrkis was no fool however, the Sith Warrior began to spin its superstructure along its long axis, following as best as they could the Constitution and keep it within one of the broadside firing arcs. Tarrkis knew the tiny ship was faster at sub-light and definatly more maneuverable than his ship could ever hope to be, but he had more weapons and stronger shields by virtue of his size alone, he was willing to bet he would come out on top in a war of attrition and he had an extra surprise.
From the Stardestroyer's dorsal spine a cascade of green bolts flew fourth scoring several hits on the Constitution and causing the shields to flare.
“Disruptors!” Lawrence said in alarm. “Confirmed captain,” stated Commander Ozawa. “We were hit by a combination of Romulan disruptors and the standard plasma weapon of the Stardestroyer, it reduced our shields by nearly twenty percent.” Perfect, Lawrence thought. First plasma weapons, then disruptors. “Do we still have warp power?” Lawrence asked, Kholer turned to him. “Aye captain, full warp power at your command.”
“Good, this guys distracted us enough, helm get us out of here, warp factor six.”
The Constitution lept foreward into warp and away from the Sith Warrior, they had barely gone a third of a light year when Commander Ozawa detected something on the foreward sensor array.
"Captain, star destroyer right ahead!"
"What!" Lawrence exclaimed as the now familiar shape appeared again on the main veiwer. "It's the Sith Warrior captain." Commander Ozawa only confirmed what Lawrence already knew, Helm evasive, change course to two-seven-zero mark two-eight-nine."
The Constitution peeled off and veered away from the looming star destroyer on a new escape course, but around five minutes later Commander Ozawa reported that the Sith Warrior had vanished off the long-range sensors. The Constitution turned to yet another escape course just as the Sith Warrior exited hyperspace directly ahead of their former course and several kilometers closer. Jaxter approached the captain,"I'm afraid that their accuisistion of the Romulan sensor system has allowed them to track our every move captain," he took a deep breath and said, "I fear that our only option is to fight. I know of a few tricks that may help even the odds captain but it doesn't look good, we are seriously outgunned."
"The Sith Warrior has vanished from sensors again captain," Commander Ozawa reported solemnly. Lawrence sat in his seat watching the screen intently, "Mr. Jaxter are the Romulan sensors their only way to track us at warp?" The question threw Jaxter off guard a moment. "Most likely captain, standard Imperial sensors are not designed to detect any kind of warp signature."
"Good, I have an idea that should throw them off long enough for us to evade them but I'll need your knowledge of the Romulan sensors."
The Constitution hastily changed course once more as the Sith Warrior appeared out of hyperspace ahead of them, edging ever closer to their prey.
"Your calculations were correct admiral," Lieutenant Leuder reported, "each new hyperspace jump brings us five thousand kilometers closer to their ship. If we jump one more time then we can set them up for a cloak attack on our next jump." Good news Tarrkis thought, this little game had grown tiresome and he intended to end it. Once the Federation ship was captured again, he fully intended to execute what was left of its crew and torture the ships captain for making him (and Lord Obereth too of course) look incompetent. "Prepare our next jump, stand by on the cloaking screen, we'll employ it on our next jump. Turbolaser batteries at the ready our ion cannons don't appear to be very effective so we won't rely on them." The Constitution was nearing the limits of the sensors to identify and recognize the ship, soon it would be just a fast moving blip. The navigation officer confirmed his latest jump coordinates, Tarrkis gave the order and the helm initiated the hyperdrive. Out the bridge windows the very fabric of space stretched into a winding tunnel of light, shadows and eddies zipped by as the Sith Warrior slid through hyperspace. The transit lasted barely more than five seconds before the Sith Warrior smoothly slid back into real-space, the sensor crew went to work to pinpoint the Constitution as Tarrkis stood over them.
When the now familiar warp trail appeared on the sensor screens, the lieutenant in charge knew they were in trouble, he was also aware of Tarrkis standing impatiently over him and he turned to deliver the bad news.
Tarrkis saw the agitated look on his junior officers face and knew something unexpected had occurred again.
"What has happened lieutenant?" He asked.
"Sir, we have detected the warp trail of the Federation ship, but---we are detecting seven identical ships inbound."
To everyone's surprise Tarrkis physically lept into the crew pit and shoved the lieutenant out of his way, he stood glaring at the images on the screen each one trailing identical data proclaiming them all to be the Starship Constitution.
'It's a trick,' he thought, 'it has to be.' He watched in agitation as each separate trail split off in a different direction all of them away from the Sith Warrior. He slowly became aware of Captain Arrod attempting to get his attention, "Admiral---admiral---we should cloak the ship sir---Admiral!"
Cloak the ship? What was this idiot talking about now? Tarrkis turned towards his captain and looked at him expectedly, Arrod quickly explained;
"It's obvious now sir that whomever helped free the captives is helping them out with sensitive information on our new systems, a Rebel spy no doubt. The way these subspace sensors are designed if you have the right frequency it's possible to beam false sensor data along a carrier beam.
The quickest way to clear the sensors and cut their carrier beam without losing them in the process is to cloak the ship, that way we can continue tracking them."
Tarrkis didn't give it a second thought, he turned to a random crewman and ordered him to do it now. He then turned back to the sensors and waited as his orders quickly made the rounds to the proper technitian who was already carrying out the comand. Tarrkis sole attention was on the sensors, he ignored Arrod and several others who gathered behind him to see if the ploy would work. The bridge lights began to flicker as vast amounts of energy began to transfer to the Romulan cloak, the sensor image froze for an instant as the cloak came on line and then the data reloaded as five of the false warp trails faded but two remained. Arrod swallowed hard, "they have a number of utility shuttles admiral, some of them even have warp drive. I,I didn't know th, that they could configure them to emmit false data---If you give me a few minutes I can decipher which one..."
"Helm bring us about to grid coordinates one five-five, prepare to engage the hyperdrive, drop this damn cloak!" Tarrkis bellowed as he climed out of the crwe pit, Arrod came up to him, "Admiral I can do this, I-" Tarrkis silenced him "I will not play these little games captain,if that is their shuttle we are about to persue we will destroy it, or better yet capture it, it should have some useful technology.
We know they are trying to get back to the X-point and that's where we'll be laying in wait for it." As Arrod realized the admiral was not going to take this failure out on him, he began to calm down, he could focus on another concern. "What about the rebel spy sir? He'll no doubt take them straight to the Rebellion."
"That's a chance I'm willing to take captain, it's pretty obvious these people are lost in space. Find out what Imperial ships are assigned to the surrounding starsystems near the X-point, preferably ships without any competing admirals. Ships with captains I can bully."
*****************************
"Sith Warrior aligning, engaging hyperdrive. Trajectory heading one-one-seven mark one-five_zero." Commander Ozawa says as she looks into her sensor hood. "They're going after the shuttle," Lawrence said. "We beat the long odds on that one then. What about the shuttles self destruct system Mr. Kholer?"
"The shuttle and the two torpedos inside are rigged to explode one second after the sensors confirm that the enemy has deactivated their tractor beam sir." Lawrence smiled grimly, "a little bit of payback for the loss of half of my crew. We'll see if this 'admiral' is as dumb as he appears to be."
"Admiral Tarrkis has shown that he can track you even at warp," Jaxter said from his station. "How're you planning on evading him?" Lawrence glanced over at him. "Federation vessels have been tracked at warp before Mr. Jaxter, there are numerous evasive warp maneuvers we can try, most of which involve constant looping back over our own trail. We fortunately have the good luck of knowing what these patterns are while our enemy does not."
Jaxter only nodded in acknowledgement, Lawrence turned his mind back to the task at hand, finding a way back home. Something continued to tug at the back of his mind, almost like a buzzing whisper trying to communicate with him.
"Lieutenant Addams, display the astrogation charts we've compiled so far." said the captain. Lieutenant Addams called up the data from her navigation board and routed it to the main viewer. Lawrence sat foreward in his chair staring hard at the screen, that feeling in the back of his mind seemed almost restless now. He moved his eyes across each sector of space displayed on the screen, as if scanning them with some internal sensor. Suddenly one star in particular stood out to him, it almost seemed to highlight itself to him, he stood and went over to the navigators position.
"Lieutenant plot a looping course to this star here." he said as he highlighted the star on the main screen.
"Aye captain," Lieutenant Addams replied puzzled as to what made this one star stand out all of a sudden. Lawrence sat back in his chair never taking his eyes off of the star on the screen as the navigator input the required data. Commander Ozawa approached the captain. "Lawrence, why are you setting course for this star,do you know what's out there?"
Lawrence shook his head, "I have no idea XO, it just feels right." Commander Ozawa decided not to press the issue, the captain was already overstressed by all of this as were they all. She returned to the science station to continue her work.
Lawrence could feel eyes watching him, he turned to see Jaxter staring quizically at him, he nodded at the captain and looked away.
"Course laid in and ready captain," said Lieutenant addams. Lawrence turned his attention foreward again, "ahead warp factor seven, engadge." The Constitutions mighty engines roared into life and they sped of to parts unknown.
Last edited by watchdog on Fri Feb 09, 2007 4:03 am, edited 2 times in total.

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