Star Trek: The Quadratic War

[Comrade Tortoise]

"Captain, incoming message from the Riskadh."

"Put it through to my console."

Kadon's actual instructions were a blur. Almost irrelevant, really. All that Tlorn managed to process before his brain started doing the sort of math that summoned Elder Gods was "Class 5 Plasma Gyre" and "Tricobalt Devices". No one had done this before. No one was sufficiently insane. There were no models for this. Not directly anyway. There were some that could be modified to approximate what could happen, but the uncertainties were significant, which reduced the most appropriate course of action to a game a chance. It could do nothing. It could produce a plasma promentory. It could produce something a few paltry orders of magnitude larger than what had been experienced fifteen minutes prior which with the Inverse Square Law would not be THAT bad at this range. It could produce plasma shockwaves that made Praxis look like the tiny sputtering that was humanity's first use of atomic weaponry, or it could quite the somewhat restive quantum foam of the badlands. There was no way to know. On the positive side, such a model would soon exist, provided the Humboldt survived. There was a certain urge to have a front row seat for the Event, but Tlorn Was Not Insane. That had the potential to be like setting up a deck chair on Bikini Atoll.

In practical terms however, there was no way to know if the appropriate course of action was to doggedly pursue these borg microprobes. Continue doing so with increased power to shielding and structural integrity. Break off pursuit and pour everything into the same. Or... turn away from the resulting Subspace Incident and flee the sector at Warp 9.7 disregarding all other possible dangers.

So he decided to hedge his bets. Given the distance between the Riskahd and the Plasma Storm, her speed and course, and weapons range.... there should be time.

"Helm, continue intercept course, but make it a strafing run. We dont have time to chase them down. Humboldt to Danube Runabout USS Rosenberg?"

"Yes captain?"

"Do a strafing run only. If you cannot get them all on the first pass, intercept with us and dock. Meet us back at the IRW Saehir"

"Orders received. We will comply."

"Mr. Forsythe, when our strafing run is over, we shall need to attach ourselves to the IRW Saehir and emergency transport our crew. Then pour energy into shields, structural integrity and sensors. If the worst happens, be prepared to go to maximum possible warp."

He just stared at Tlorn for a second before responding

"But... we wont be able to see what is ahead of us."

"If it happens, what is behind us will be worse."

The XO's face became ashen, and his eye twitched reflexively

"Communications. Message to USS Spector."

"Spector. We have no choice but to collect our crew, and will only be able to strafe the borg probes. Given the uncertainties, they may or may not be destroyed by the Calamity that Captain Kadon is about to unleash. You do not need to collect your crew, and have more time to devote to ensuring the destruction of aforementioned probes. I am sending what model information I have to you. I am certain you can reach a logical conclusion regarding your course of action from there."

[Josh]

"Attention all hands, task force is deploying ordinance with unknown subspace effects. All hands move to emergency stations."

Hantle looked around the corridor. "Well, that's some great advice. Wish somebody'd designated an emergency station for this area. Typical friggin' Starfleet. Officers, bah."

"Unknown subspace effects"

"sounds like the Meh'Ta?" the Bobsies asked.

"Wouldn't surprise me. Skipper's got fifteen different crazy ideas he's been dying to try out ever since they stuck that Romulan piece of shit in the aux power space. Okay, here's what we're going to do. Untie those gennys from the main grid, get me those two Fed SIFs, parallel them in together and make our own environment bubble. If this shitpile comes apart around us maybe we'll hold enough air for somebody to notice and tractor us in."

The trio quickly moved into action.

"Subspace is"

"the realm of the"

"warp gods"

"and they will protect us, chief."

"Fear not."

Hantle jammed a plug into the nearest SIF generator. "You trust your gods, I'll trust in a Mark 62 SIF generator. Never let me down yet."

[Comrade Tortoise]

A trio of vulcans witnessed crew from the Meh'Ta talking about subspace and warp gods, while another somewhat more rational individual was rigging together two SIF generators.

"Might we be of assistance?" one of them asked. She wore the yellow uniform of an engineering officer Lieutenant Commander rank. "You are from the Meh'Ta, yes? Your ship will... not be here to transport you off. Ours is en route and should be here in time. You are welcome to accompany us to our beam-out point. In fact..." she paused then tapped her comm badge. "This is Lt. Commander Vagel to all Humboldt personnel. If you find crew from the Meh'Ta, please direct them to the Humbolt beamout points. If their ship becomes one with the quantum foam it would not do to have them ripped apart at the subatomic level by subspace distortions on this unshielded mess."

Another one responded back

"Logic dictates that might slow down our own beamout. It could jeopardize everyone."

"Three points." she responded. "Point one: Categorical Imperative. Immanuel Kant. I suggest you look it up. The humans DO have something going for them in the ethics department, and utilitarianism is not the only way to skin the proverbial cat. Point Two: I have done the math. Just now. If the Rosenberg adds her transport capacity, there will be no such slowdown. Point Three: There is a reason I was promoted to Lt. Commander, and you were not. Lieutenant. That is an order, not a suggestion or an argument."

The return voice sounded crestfallen in a way that ONLY a vulcan who had been thoroughly dressed down could.

"Yes ma'am"

[Josh]

"Pack it in, we're traveling with the Points," Hantle said over his shoulder. He looked back to the officer. "We're the only detached personnel from the Meh'Ta, you don't have to look for any others. Much obliged."

He stuffed his tools back into the battered leather carrying case he'd hauled from one end of the quadrant to the other for over six decades and hoisted it over his shoulder. "Plomeek soup," he advised the Bobsies. "Lighten it up with some strawberries, love the stuff. Novas are solid ships, this'll be a good place to ride out whatever craziness they're coming up with out there. Better'n this creaker, for sure."

[Lys]

The requested data from Riskdah arrived almost immediately. On the main tactical screen, the two uncertain tracks designating the Fed destroyer and Borg frigate shifted slightly and resolved themselves into definite tracks. At the same time the screen added a new track a fair distance behind the first two: an enormous rotating mass signature heading in the same direction, which the computer tentatively designated a Borg Cube, possibly Assault variant.

Close on the heels of the tac-update came an information dump detailing Kadon's plan for dealing with the incoming cube. Years ago, such a mixture of brazen boldness and utter lunacy would have been met by audible gasps and cries questioning the Klingon's sanity, but by now the crew of Khanjar were well acquainted with madness. Their own ship was a testament to what could be done once one let go of the constrains of the reasonable and the sane. The only comment came from Operations Officer Fulla Sigrun, who dryly noted, "Clever, I expect that will work."

"Continue intercept on that frigate," ordered Charvanek. "Comms, tell that Federation destroyer to drop out of warp at these coordinates and hold course until we've shot off their tail, they're not going to outrun it otherwise. Executive, Weapons, you're running this show." The orders were acknowledged in turn, and the Enriov eased back on her command chair, there was nothing else for her to do now but watch the fireworks.

Captain Mirai guided the helm to an optimal intercept position, while erei'Riov t'Keres barked orders, "Set all batteries to pulse fire, prepare to drop cloak on my mark! As soon as cloak is down, all available power to disruptors, and all gunnery crews fire at will."

The Khanjar would time her decloaking such that the when the exterminator dropped out of warp to finish off the Gilgamesh, her first warning of the battlecruiser's presence would be a murderous barrage of point-blank disruptor fire. It would never know what hit it.

[Comrade Tortoise]

"Ah." The Humboldt's chief engineer replied. "Well that makes life somewhat easier." she tilted her head, musing. "I have never tried Plomeek soup with strawberries. Though I suppose it could be pleasant." then something struck her as they were walking, and she pulled out a pad and started tapping away at it furiously.

"Chief, it is my understanding that, given the nature of your ship, that you have a particular talent for jury-rigging all manner of modifications just to make a vessel work--given that is the only way such a ship would still be functional--and have some experience dealing with a phase cloak, yes? These two are not specialists in this area, they deal with power systems and are not subspace theorists or engineers." she said motioning toward the others. "I ask partially because while we await what may or may not be inevitable, I am going to try to use our main deflector to reduce bleedthrough of subspace shockwaves. Additionally, in the increasingly likely event that your ship is destroyed we could always use additional crew and I am trying to figure out what station to slot you into given that possibility" She paused. "That was... probably overly forward."

[Josh]

Hantle grimaced. "Let's not write the old bird off. She's been shot up so many times she's more patch than hull, but she's still kicking. That's more'n we can say for most of the AQ fleets. But point me at the problem and we'll get on it." As he walked, he slid his hand back to give a small cut-off gesture to the Bobsies. While their talent for subtle reallocation of assets was a boon in most circumstances, robbing their rescuers blind of spare parts would have been an act of supreme ingratitude.

[Comrade Tortoise]

"Please don't take that the wrong way, I am not disparaging your ship. For a ship to survive this long--let alone one that old-- requires a certain something that exceeds the original intent of the men and women who built it, and the nominal quality of the construction. However, there is a non-zero chance that this" she made an all-encompassing gesture out a hull breach sealed by emergency forcefields as they walk by "will be destroyed, and a significantly higher chance that subspace shockwaves will propagate throughout the sector. The universe does impose certain limits and that close to the epicenter... well..."

[Josh]

Hantle shrugged. "Well there's also a chance that the Q Continuum will snap their fingers and blink us all out of existence in the next second, 'specially now that they don't have Picard around to entertain 'em. In the meantime, work to get done. Didn't catch your name, commander?"

[Comrade Tortoise]

Vagel's eyes shifted a bit as she did probability calculations in her head

"Unfortunately--or fortunately--the Q tend to begin interfering with individual ship's or captains early in their operational history. The prior probabilities of that seem even lower than that of omnidestruction. I will however make inquiries in the direction of other ships, and adjust my estimates accordingly. But yes, there is work to do. I am Lt. Commander T'Ran Vagel, chief engineer, USS Humboldt. Any combination of rank and name is more-or-less acceptable. My department has rejected rigid formality as inefficient, unless rank needs to be asserted."

At that point, they were nearing their beam-out point and three other vulcans in blue and yellow uniforms were arriving.

...

USS Humboldt

"Captain, we are approaching the first cluster of probes. Warp fields about to come into contact... and they are merged."

"Fire phasers" he responded, and the tactical officer went into motion, sending beams of coherent destruction at the borg devices.

[Josh]

"Smart. Senior Chief Byron Hantle, Starfleet, very, very retired. Until that little beagle-eared bastard talked me out of it, anyway. This is 0111101 and 1101110," he pointed the Bobsies. "They go Bobsy-1 and Bobsy-11." He stopped for a moment and stared. "That's -11 there."

"I'm the smart one," Bobsy-11 added.

"He likes to think so," Bobsy-1 smirked at his sibling.

"They're quality engine techs," Hantle said. "Two of them, they do the work of four. Worst part, they know it."

"We are also,"

"devotees of the Gods of the Warp,"

"beyond the comprehension,"

"of your secular mind."

"But we will accept,"

"your limitations and add you to,"

"our prayers,"

"in the hopes,"

"that together,"

"we will sacrifice many Borg,"

"to their glory."

Hantle took a deep breath. "Yeeeeah, that's a thing they do."

[White Haven]

USS Scylla, Bridge

Lesschey zh'Rethan was not like most starship executive officers. She hated The Chair.

The pale-blue-skinned Andorian woman sat in -- more perched on, really -- the captain's chair that sat in the center of Scylla's bridge, trying to look confident and comfortable and mostly just ending up looking a bit constipated for her trouble. She was an engineer by choice, a fixer rather than a fighter, and she would clearly be much happier if circumstances hadn't necessitated that she, or someone like her, take up the role of Scylla's executive officer. Of course there were a great many people who would have been happier if circumstances differed, largely because the circumstances in question involved the attempted genocide of every last civilization known to the Federation, or anyone the Federation knew.

All in all, things could be worse.

Still, things could be better, not least of which that the captain could be back on the ship, and thus in The Chair instead of her. Her eyes and antennae both twitched towards the communications console for the dozenth time, as if hoping to be met with...something. Unlike the previous eleven times, this time her attention arrived just as the Andorian rating there sat bolt upright and leaned forwards. Before Lesschey could open her mouth to inquire further, he shattered the quiet of the bridge with a voice that started out unsteady.

"Captain Kadon reports an incoming Borg Cube!"

The bridge shuffled as officers and ratings who had slouched or relaxed or leaned against consoles during the previous quiet tension reacted to the report, overlaid moments later by the blare of the red alert klaxon.

And then the communications rating spoke up again, this time more confident in his report, and at the same time even more spooked by what he was relaying.

"Riskadh again; all ships are to retreat from the Cube and...prepare for a possible subspace explosion."

But for the alarm still cutting across the bridge, the proverbial dropped pin would have been audible in the heartbeat that followed. Running from a cube was not new. Events that shattered the entire framework that surrounded what was popularly conceived as reality were.

"Signal all deployed crew to return to the ship, and for that matter tell anyone else's crew down there that they can signal for a transport if they need a way off the tender. Tell them to activate any working SIF gennies on their way out; it's worth a try," the Andorian engineer began calling quick orders; for the moment, this was an engineering problem, and that she was comfortable with. For when it became a tactical problem... "And get me a channel to the Captain's shuttle, for relay to his commbadge."

"Captain, we're out of time. We need you back here."

[hr]
IRW Saehir

"--Scylla crew, recall immediately."

If the words of the recall order weren't blunt enough, the strident yowling of the red alert klaxon audible over both the voice and the hash of background static would have made up the difference. All that urgency told the young Orion man in a standard-issue Starfleet vacsuit was that he was going to have to improvise.

Nothing new there.

He took a look out across the damaged EPS conduit that ran the length of the corridor, spitting out sparks and rapidly-cooling gas and, most importantly, one of the long list of exotic types of radiation that absolutely, positively torqued with any transporter sensitive enough to safely transport living matter. With an irritated growl, he wiped a gloved hand across the vacsuit's faceplate to clear it of condensation and started to jog, then sprint down the corridor. A brief tap to one armband keyed up the suit's communicator.

"Kerman to Scylla, I'm hip-deep in interference, not going to be able to beam out. Lock on my commbadge and prepare to tractor me once I'm clear."

A surprised, then confused voice started to babble something back, something that cut off as he slapped the communicator again. This was going to be tight...

[hr]
Bolian Gas Miner
Jason watched his father descend the catwalk elevator with an...interesting expression. It would have taken an empath to even begin to sort out all the emotions and confusion and chaos flitting across it from moment to moment, and even one of those would have probably ended up with a nasty headache for trying. Cryptic words, smug, self-confident bastardry, implicit shadow-games--and then the high-pitched squeal of a priority signal cut across it all, followed by a familiar woman's voice.

"Captain, we're out of time. We need you back here."

That put a new complexion on things. He paused for a moment, said, "Thank you, Lesschey," closed the channel with a tap of his free hand, then added, "We'll talk later."

And then he squeezed the firing stud.

[rhoenix]

U.S.S. Gilgamesh
Bridge

With Captain Solheim working to apply duct-tape solutions in Engineering to keep the core stable, Commander Inzeti working in another part of Engineering to ensure that the Gilgamesh's shields, sensors, and weapons at least had power running to them, and Lieutenant Adranis maintaining security across the rest of the ship, Lieutenant Commander Nevola was alone on the darkened bridge.

Nonetheless, she had alerted her Captain regarding the current situation (bad, and getting worse), and the two communications she'd seen since arriving back in the local area of the Riskhadh. One of the comm messages was from the Riskadh itself, the other was from an unknown Klingon-made ship, with a Romulan at the Captain's chair.

She replied first to the Riskhadh, after making minute adjustments to the Gilgamesh's speed and heading. As before, the only lights shown on the bridge on the Gilgamesh were the faint lights from the console illuminating Lieutenant Commander Nevola's features, which would show a somewhat surprising view to anyone who wasn't already familiar with her - after all, seeing a Romulan with a dyed and decidedly non-regulation haircut, in a Federation uniform, who had a pistol sitting visibly on the surface of her console was a touch unusual - but perhaps not for these times.

"Acknowledged Riskhadh, we'd be greatly obliged if you'd stab that Cube in the eye for us," Swift replied, her eyebrows narrowed. "In fact, I'm pretty sure there's some bloodwine left somewhere on this ship that the Borg didn't break, and it's all yours if we get out of this."

Taking a deep breath as she cut the connection, she ran a passive scan of the unknown ship that had hailed them, offering to destroy the frigate. Swift sighed to herself as the sensors resolved not at all, and then activated the comm system to reply. She also set the transmission, both ways, to be duplicated and sent to the Riskhadh in real time. "This is Gilgamesh to Khanjar. We've received your transmission - en route to location now."

With that, Swift gently made adjustments in course and speed to move to the coordinates specified (while also alerting the Riskadh of the intended plan), and the small Federation destroyer rapidly closed on it's target coordinates. The instant it did, the warp bubble rapidly collapsed, returning the Gilgamesh to normal space with shields active, though greatly weakened. Moving like a silver arrow shot from a bow, it moved at full impulse sublight speed along the course specified.

[Agent Fisher]

USS Samuel B. Roberts
Badlands


Jess Shepard felt her blood run cold. A Cube. Guisti was already taking the initiative, setting course away from Riskadh, trying to put distance between them and the Cube..

Shepard knew the odds against a Cube, especially with a task force scattered all over the badlands, with a combat subgroup of two destroyers and a couple Klingon ships. Not good. She was a fan of history, and every crewmember knew the stories of the previous ships to bear the proud name of Samuel B. Roberts. The ships of the name seemed to have a thing for facing opponents many times their size or being outgunned in a fight. A Miranda class, fighting in support of her fleet, raking a Domion Battleship with phaser and torpedo fire. A United Earth Starfleet picket ship facing off against a flotilla of pirate vessels. A tiny warship barely worthy of being in the same ocean as a metal behemoth, escorted by a fleet of ships still larger than the brave little warship, charged towards them. A proud tradition of being the underdog. Of staring down certain defeat and through guile and guts achieving victory. But with a heavy cost. Only the Miranda had come out intact from that list of encounters.

And a Borg Cube, comparable to the IJN Yamato that had stared down the Sammy B.'s namesake, was coming for them. Shepard hoped the Klingon's plan worked. Otherwise it would be time for history to repeat itself, and once again, the USS Samuel B. Roberts would be called to hold the line.

[LadyTevar]

USS Spector
Battle Bridge

The message from Capt Kadon was the topping on a shit layer cake. Kirk closed her eyes against the pounding headache brought on by stress as her mind raced. Whatever the Klingon Captain was about to try would be nasty and dangerous to everyone, but especially to her Peregrines, spread out all over the plasma cloud. Not all of them might make it back to the nest.

"Send to the Humboldt: forget the probes, they've found us anyway." Kirk ordered, keeping the emotion out of her voice. "All Wings, high speed rendezvous at the Tender for pickup. Hanger, prep for combat landing. I want the birds in the nest as fast as possible. Helm, get us back to the Tender best speed."

Out in the storm, the Peregrines lit their engines and peeled off for the rendezvous at their best speed through the storm.

[General Havoc]

The bridge of the Argonaut was tenser than usual, which was saying something these days. Venerable she might be, but the massive cruiser was a warhorse nonetheless, and positively yearned to be moving, fighting, blasting away with her weapons and sustaining the blows of her enemies, not a sleek fighter but an elephantine behemoth. For nearly five years she had done these things, and suffered for them, but now she was pinned in place as though by a thumbtack, locked into a rigidly-maintained point so as to project her shields around the cavernous bulk of the Fleet tender off her port side. Across the way sat other ships, a D'Deridex, a Valdore, ships who, in the presence of unexplained subspace explosions and Borg frigates, should have been fighting, engaging, at the very least forming up to escort the weak civilian ships out of harm's way. But Argonaut, like her crew, could do none of those things now. She could only sit and wait and watch as telemetry from other ships came in.

Kalpov had, for the last hour, been resisting the urge to demand information from officers he knew full well did not have any to offer. Such reports as were coming in were fragmentary in the extreme, flashes of frigates and spheres and the occasional bit of telemetry as something exploded or flared up only to vanish again. Even after the frigates were spotted in the immediate vicinity, even after they fired on the lighter ships, there was nothing to do but watch for immediate threats and keep everyone at battle stations, something he hated to do for extended periods. Men's nerves were a commodity to be expended wisely like any other, but there was little option now. All he could do was -

"Commander?"

"What is it?" responded Kalpov before the Ensign could even finish her question.

"We've got a relay message from Riskadh coming in. They're engaging a Borg Cube."

"They're what?!" Kalpov whipped his head around so fast he'd have risked whiplash had he possessed proper bones. "With what?"

"With... I don't know sir. Much interference. They're telling the rest of the ships to leave the area. And there's... something about a subspace explosion."

"What?" asked Kalpov, but even as he said it he saw the same realization dawning on everyone else's face as within his own head.

"My God," said Luthor. "They're gonna ram the damn thing."

"Will... will that work?" asked one of the other Ensigns.

"Even if it did," said Kalpov "why would that - "

"If they take out the Borg power core, it'll cook the whole thing off. Klingons got that down to an art just before Qu'onos."

"We're a light-month away from them," said Ereshal. "Even a Cube's Power Core at maximum burn couldn't hurt us out here. Why would they be broadcasting a warning for that?"

"That ship's carrying Tricobalts," said Kalpov. If they all went off - "

"Even that's not enough," said Ereshal. "We'd detect it, sure, but at this range it wouldn't be dangerous."

"So then what the hell are they planning? What could they do that would hit us at this range?"

Ereshal typed several commands into her tactile sensor, but ultimately shook her head. "Maybe there's some local phenomenon. I'd need the local telemetry to be sure."

"Options then?"

She shrugged. A tricobalt detonated at the fringes of an event horizon's supposed to make a hell of a bang," she said. "In theory it reverts a major fraction of singularity's mass to energy all at once, but the precision for something like that is past even Starfleet's tolerances, and I don't think it's ever been tried above about a solar mass. Anyway the subspace of the Badlands is too unstable for Black Holes to form."

"Anything else?"

"They're Klingons, Commander, they've probably got ways to use Tricobalts to shine their baldrics. Setting one off in a star's core is pretty impressive, but there'd need to be a Class-O or better around. Maybe if they somehow coaxed the Borg into Transwarp they could - "

"What about a Plasma Gyre?"

The last comment came from Ensign Resir, still sitting on the sensor station, and prompted silence from across the bridge. All eyes turned his way, and several seconds went by before Resir elaborated.

"I mean... Plasma Gyres are basically giant subspace storms, right?" he asked to the silent bridge. "So what would happen if they shot a tricobalt into one of those?"

Kalpov turned back towards Ereshal, who blinked her blind eyes several times, but did not answer.

"Well?" he asked.

"I... I have no idea," she said. "It... I mean in theory it could destabilize the storm system I suppose."

"And what would that do?"

"I don't think anybody knows, Commander," she said. "The Badlands are a fairly unique phenomenon. It might extinguish it of course, like an explosive pressure wave putting out a fire? But..."

She seemed disinclined to continue. "But?" asked Kalpov.

"But... all that energy in subspace, I mean if the underlying structure is disabled, it has to go somewhere. In theory it might vent the entire thing into spacetime."

"And would that be enough to hurt us here?"

She typed in a few commands to her computer terminal, and Kalpov knew what the answer was going to be before she even spoke, from the slight change in the color of her face as her fingers beheld the answer.

"The blast would be... I mean if the Gyre were big enough, we're talking Exotons of energy. It'd be like planets colliding. But even that wouldn't be enough unless..."

"Unless?" asked Kalpov when she did not finish.

"Unless the blast was propagated through subspace," she said. "If that happened, it might start a chain reaction with other Gyres, and cascade into a total subspace prolapse."

"And how big would that be?"

Ereshal lifted her hands in defeat. "There's no models for that," she said. "Not in something like the Badlands. It might blow the entire sector apart."

Kalpov let that thought sit for a while. "How many people do we have on the Tender?" he asked.

"Four hundred and seventy," said Luthor. "Should I order them to evacuate?"

Kalpov was silent for a few moments. "Do it," he said. "And sound shelter alert, just in case."

"Yes sir," said Luthor. "Anything else?"

"One thing," he said. "Set an emergency course. Opposite vector to the Klingons. Maximum Warp."

"But... Commander?" asked the Helmsman. "At max warp, we'll be blind. The sensors can't compensate in this soup."

"Trust me Lieutenant," said the Commander, "if it comes to using that, the sensors will be the least of our worries."

*----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*

Perhaps Admiral Leyton knew what was coming and perhaps he did not. It was impossible to determine what he could have known about the overall situation. Yet given everything, it was probably reasonable to assume that he was not expecting this.

The shot dropped him instantly, like a puppet with its strings cut, and he fell insensate to the floor in front of his son.

*----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*

The Frigate chasing Gilgamesh followed her through maneuver after maneuver, locking onto the 'wake' of loose plasma she left behind and refusing to be shaken, unaware of course that her quarry had no such intention. When Gilgamesh finally dropped out of warp, the exploded right on top of her almost instantly, before shifting to impulse in her turn and opening fire with both Disruptor cannons and a volley of plasma torpedoes. Whether the Frigate was capable of seeing what else had been brought to the party or not was unclear, but it had a target in its sights and was plainly dedicated to annihilating it.

A quality it shared with its big brother.

The mass that could be nothing but a cube was confirmed not long after Riskadh ordered her fellow ships to flee from the behemoth's path. Emerging first onto sensors and then onto visual scanners, it loomed through the flowing gas like a living asteroid, its edge like a floating ship's prow, shoving the plasma of the Badlands aside as it burst onto the scene. Whether it saw the other ships scurrying away like ants was unclear. It could not have failed to see some of them. But before it was a Battlecruiser, armed and lit up like a Christmas tree. And it was towards this target that the Cube flew, its myriad of weapons charging and loading in preparation for pounding this itinerant Klingon warship into the same ionized gas as its surroundings.

[Lys]

The cloaked Khanjar established an ambush position only scant kilometres from the designated exit point, and at 4 o'clock from the vector. The ship's Riov had little to do but observe, and so she started singing softly.

A friend in need's a friend indeed,
A friend with beams is better,
A friend who's best at ambushes,
A friend who's dressed in leather.

A friend in need's a friend indeed,
A friend who'll deal is better ,
Our thoughts compressed,
Which makes us blessed,
And makes for stormy weather.

A friend in need's a friend indeed,
My Klingoneese is better,
And when she's pressed she will agress,
And then she's boxing clever.

A friend in need's a friend indeed,
A friend who kills is better,
My friend confessed set the test,
And we will never sever.

Fifty seconds after she started, Enriov Charvanek's voice fell silent, just as the sensors indicated Gilgamesh dropping from warp and the Exterminator stubbornly following close at its heels. At that precise instant, erei'Riov Menhit t'Keres and Captain Mirai Makok sprang into action. "Drop cloak, max power to forward weapons!" ordered the first. "Forward impulse," commanded the second. With all available power spoken for, the Khanjar's shields stayed at 50% as the cloak dropped.

Just as the battlecruiser faded into the visible spectrum, the little Defiant zipped across its bow, close enough to be seen without visual augmentation. "Target confirmed, weapons free," said Tactical Officer tersely, and the ship's weapon mounts shifted slighting to aim at the Borg frigate's predicted exit point. At the same time the Executive Officer jammed the transmit button on her console, already configured to broadcast to the Gilgamesh, "Break and evade, break and evade!"

The words had scarcely left Mirai's mouth when the target showed up on screen, hot on the destroyer's tail. Khanjar's gunners needed no pause to confirm their target, and no order to open fire, both had already been given. The very instant the Exterminator appeared on their sights, almost close enough to reach out and touch, every forward battery on the battlecruiser issued forth a torrent of pulsed disruptor fire, combining into a murderous barrage capable of chewing right through the toughest defences.

[Cynical Cat]

The Cube loomed on the Riskadh's screen like an oncoming mountain. "Break starboard hard," Kadon snapped in battle language. "Evasive, maximum speed. Keep us out of their reach. Weapons, free fire at the Cube. Get their attention. Effectiveness is irrelevant."

"Breaking starboard," Khedirareplied from her station at the helm. "Acting to run to the storm."

"Keep us out of their reach zan Khedira," said Kadon. "Run us ahead. Shields, concentrate rear."

Khedira said as she rammed the power sliders to full and looked at the power displays. The Riskadh surged forward, blazing into warp towards the plasma gyre. "Engines, I need more power."

"Acknowledged," came the reply as even more power was fed to the engines from the matter/antimatter reactor.

"Arikel, computations status?" asked Kadon.

"Finalized," she said. "The results have been forwarded to you and Kallor's station."

"Tactical," Kadon commanded. The nightmare Cube vanished from the forward screen, replaced instead by a graphic displaying the massive storm. An icon representing the Riskadh moved along a vector line and another line displayed the projected course of the pursuing Borg Cube. A floating trifoil marked Arikel's calculated target point.

Kadon scanned through the results. "Zan Kallor, are we ready?"

"Affirm. Death or glory captain."

"Two tricobalts on your discretion."

The elderly klingon's fingers hovered over the firing buttons. "Affirm," said Kallor. He watched the Cube approach on his display and checked the storm target coordinates. Good. Just another moment until optimum position. Almost.

"Acting," he said as he pressed the button. Two tricobalt torpedoes shot out of the rear of the Riskadh and flew into plasma storm.

"All power to the engines and shields," Kadon ordered. "All hands brace for impact."

Detonation.

[rhoenix]

U.S.S. Gilgamesh
Bridge

Her eyes narrowed in concentration, Swift's entire focus was on making the Gilgamesh dance. The upper phaser strip struck out at the frigate behind the Federation destroyer, slapping against the Borg frigate's shields repeatedly, ensuring that the Gilgamesh had the Borg frigate's undivided attention.

Each of the phaser beam shots weren't very powerful, due the engines of the ship not running at peak capacity, the Gilgamesh's phaser strips themselves not having the size and power of most of the other ships in the fleet who had them, and the ship terribly under-crewed besides. However, damage wasn't the primary objective in Swift's mind. Thoroughly irritating the Borg into getting into the proper position for the surprise strike, however, was.

The massive Klingon battlecruiser melted out of cloak even as the Gilgamesh rushed by near enough to see the joining on the hull armor of the much larger ship, the Borg frigate hot on her heels. Swift automatically replied "Acknowledged, Khanjar" even as she moved the Federation destroyer through rapid and smooth evasion maneuvers. Half of her attention was on flying the ship through maneuvers that might make one space-sick even on a combat shuttle, the other half watching the tactical area. She watched the frigate's avatar trailing the Gilgamesh on the map, even as the Khanjar began to unleash a torrent of energy at the Borg frigate sufficient to destroy a small moon.

"That's right," she whispered, as much to the Borg frigate to herself, even as the phaser strip flashed out with two more strikes aimed at the frigate's shields, and the Gilgamesh spun its way around a retaliatory volley of fire from the frigate. "Follow me and ignore the huge-ass battlecruiser behind you."

[Cynical Cat]

The nightmare mass of the Borg Cube plowed through plasma streamers without concern, its shields momentarily flaring as they deflected energies sufficient to melt through a starship's hull. It followed a course plotted by a network of interlinked cyborg minds and computer systems calculated out the optimal intercept course with inhuman precision. Engagement range in seventeen seconds. The klingon ship would be destroyed and the biological and technological salvage would be added to the Borg's strength. As they had always done and would always do. Forever.

Two tricobalt torpedoes flew from the klingon ship at an angle. Data projection indicated a miss and as such not a priority. Fourteen seconds.

"Tricobalts on course," said Arikel. "Three seconds to impact. Two. One."

The burning white stars vanished into the blazing hellstorm that was the heart of the storm. "Power transfering to engines and rear shields," said Arikel.

"Nothing," grunted Kallor as he watched the plasma storm. The Borg Cube loomed on the screen, inescapable as death. "Worth a shot though. It would have been-"

"Blast wave!" shouted Arikel.

The storm swelled, surging outwards to engulf the cube and overrun like a wave crashing on a beach. Through the blazing shrouds of plasma, the cube was plainly visible and still racing forward, as dark and inexoriable as death.

"Borg shields are sufficient to withstand the outer plasma shockwave," said Arikel. A sheet of blinding white light blazed through the plasma storm and struck the cube. It tumbled and spun as the secondary blast wave slammed into it.

"Multiple shield collapses, extensive damage to the outer hull, however they retain power."

"Tactical," Kadon barked in the shortened syllables of battle-language. The screen shifted to an overhead display showing the Riskadh slowly but surely losing its race against the blast waves. The cube was resuming its advance towards them.

"Cooked, but not killed," said Kallor. "If it it retains even a quarter of its firepower, we'll be outmatched even with its shields down."

The cube exploded, torn to fragments in an instant. An expanding shell of debris and plasma overran and consumed the secondary blast wave and then the primary. The sphere of absolute destruction raced towards the Riskadh.

"What a death," said Kallor.

"We go to the Black Fleet with our place secure," whispered Khedira.

"G'dayt," cursed Aaveroke.

The swelling sphere abruptly contracted, collapsing down to nothing in the space of a second. A flare brighter than an F class star marked its collapse as mass and gravity readings went berserk. Then there was nothing. No light, no storm, no shock waves, no Borg Cube. Nothing.

"Analysis," Kadon snapped.

Streamers of plasma from the rest of the Badlands began to snake through the void left by the collapse. "We cascade detonated several subspace distortions at the heart of the storm," said Arikel. "The energy destabilized the plasma reactions around the interior. The primary blast wave was driven the initial energy release of the detonation. The secondary blastwave was the core of the storm and consisted of hotter, denser plasma. The last was direct action of the subspace fields destabilizing and then imploding."

Kadon gazed at the tactical display. "Display gravimetric distortion map, same area." The main viewer changed to display a massive canyon formation at what used to be the heart of the storm.

"Space/time rift," said Arikel. "Roughly analogous to a supermassive black hole. In ten thousand years, the Badlands may be quite different."

"No deed committed under the Naked Stars is unremembered," said Kallor.

"Aaveroke, inform the rest of the fleet of the destruction of the cube and our survival," said Kadon. "And inform them of the new hazard to navigation."

"Yes captain," said Aaveroke.

"It needs a name," said Arikel, "for the charts."

"Kadon's Rift," said Kallor. The bridge crew roared with approval.

"Kadon's Rift it is," said Kadon. "Let's round up our squadron and our new friend. And crack open the last barrels of blood wine as each shift ends. We do have a victory to celebrate."

"The guns are hot, the hull is ringing," he sang softly. "The engines sing the song of triumph; and everyone on board awaits, A prize upon the high horizon."

"Hand and weapon," sang Kallor, joining together.

"Heart and power!" said the bridge crew together.

"Cry it with the voice of Empire! Victory and prize and plunder! Vengeance flies at morning!"

[Josh]

"Okay," Shirazi said as he looked at the padd "can anyone translate what the hell just happened?"

Yhrea drummed his fingers on the console. "I have nothing."

"I'd love to see the data the Vulcans got out of this," Gleck commented. "But our sensors don't have the resolution to give me any fine information. There was a blast, there was a cube, then there wasn't a cube and there's no blast... wait, signal incoming from the Riskadh, there's, well there's a rift there now. Space-time rift. Like a black hole. Cube is down, they're recalling us."

"Reengage primary cloak," Shirazi ordered. There had been entirely too many ambushes in this soup, and the activity was sure to bring more Borg calling. "Signal the Riskadh that we're on the way. Lee, plot us for mark seven-niner-three by four-six. Stay sharp on the scopes, we don't know what else is out there."

The salvage operation was very likely going to be a bust, and they were going to have to figure out how to get this half-assed fleet moving again.

He looked at the data that had just echoed to the padd, showing the new anomaly marring the Badlands.

What are we doing out here?

[Lys]

A few minutes earlier

The Exterminator's murderous volley of polaron beams and plasma torpedoes would have been sufficient to annihilate Gilgamesh, but even heavily damaged as she was the little Federation destroyer evaded with grace, taking advantage of the transition out of warp to throw off her enemy's aim. It was barely enough, most of the fire passed less than a ship length behind her. Only a single beam struck home, bringing down the dorsal shield, sending power surges into the battered ship's systems, but mercifully failing to score the hull.

Gilgamesh would not be so lucky against a second volley, not at point blank range, but the Borg frigate never even got the chance to register that it missed its target. For scarcely had the Exterminator opened fire that it was itself buried under a mercilessly brutal barrage containing all the power and fury that Khanjar could muster. The sheer weight of fire collapsed the frigate's shields and imploded its hull in but an instant, leaving it not so much torn to pieces as completely and utterly obliterated. There was nothing left but a rapidly expanding cloud of hot gas, and even that had dispersed and vanished when the victorious Klingon battlecruiser surged through the space once occupied by its enemy.

"Send the following to Riskdah," ordered Enriov Charvanek. "Eliminated Borg frigate pursuing friendly Fed destroyer, evacuating area. Good luck and stars be with you. End Transmission. Now tell our new friend to follow us if they want to live." She turned to her First Officer, "Mirai, get us the hell out of here."

The battlecruiser quickly spun up her warp drive to the maximum manageable within the Badlands, her reactor feeding all remaining power to shields in preparation for the coming insanity. She was gone moments later, heading directly away from Kadon, the Borg Cube, and the soon to explode plasma storm nexus.

*----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*

Several minutes later

Khanjar plunged through the Badlands as fast as her warp engines could go without tearing her apart. The ship's crew nervously awaited any sign of whatever cataclysm brewed behind them, hoping to outrun even the complete destruction of the Badlands. Fortunately, such a disaster did not come to pass.

"Message from Riskdah!" announced the Comms officer. "They're reporting themselves victorious and alive. The tricobalts induced a supernova-like event in the plasma gyre, destroying both it and the Borg cube, and leaving behind a large space-time rift akin to a supermassive black hole. It appears to be stable, they're calling it... Kadon's Rift." There was laughter around the bridge at that, the tension rapidly beginning to ease into relief. "Updating navigation charts. Squadron Leader Kadon wishes for us to rendezvous with his ship."

"Do it," Ishtar said mirthfully, "I owe the crazy bastard a drink for that trick."

[Josh]

The troublesome spar had finally succumbed to the saw, not before wrecking three quadrinex-alloy blades. Kolar's corpse had been shifted to the side, freeing the workspace if not the foot room of the cramped compartment.

Tolbert leaned in, cursing the engineers who'd designed the Meh'Ta's engine spaces for the hundredth, no thousandth time. She carefully slithered her hand underneath the spinning reaction shaft to hit the dump valve for the ion flux modulator.

"Stupid, frigging, no-ergonomics, piss-poor engineering!" she grunted as she tugged the lever.

In fairness, a tank dump was typically performed with the reaction shaft in stable rather than running hot, but the deteriorated state of the engines made such hasty improvisation necessary.

She was not in the mood to grant any favors to the original design team in any event.

Peenostinga caught her on the way out, pressing a bottle of water into her hands.

"Drink, hew-mon. You're no good if you fall out from overheating."

Tolbert took a large swallow, the tepid water hitting her stomach, which violently rejected the contact. She spewed white bile as she staggered across the floor, the obnoxious voice in her head telling her that the chief would have her scrubbing the deck plates for a week to clean up the mess. She pushed it down and forced herself to take another drink, taking it more slowly as she reached out with her other hand to twist the dial and initiate a resequence on the secondary phase inverter. Her stomach roiled dangerously, but accepted the liquid.

"You need this?" she said, offering the bottle to Peenostinga.

The marine was flushed, but seemed to be handling the heat better. Peenostinga shook her head. "Armor's got a feed line. And cooling systems. Worth every slip of latinum. What do you need me to do now?"

Tolbert took another cautious sip. "Back to monitoring the board. God knows what else the old man's going to throw us into next."

[rhoenix]

U.S.S. Gilgamesh
Bridge
---

There are certain moments that happen to organics - those moments where all factors line up perfectly, where all factors in a single instant are perfect for a given course of action.

Swift's eyes narrowed at her console, even as her hands moved over her controls so quickly to be a blur. This was not one of those moments. Indeed, she thought - the past five years had been, with some good exceptions, filled with the repeated shattering of everything and every place she had ever called familiar.

However, this particular moment had factors she could take proper advantage of. Just as the Gilgamesh spun away from a torrent of fire from the Exterminator frigate to line it up for the new Klingon battlecruiser that had mysteriously shown up just at the right time (an item that, had Swift been not solely responsible for flying the ship at the moment, would have rolled her eyes and made choice comments in Rhi'hannsu about, having seen such "ship shows up at exactly the right time" ploys in the past), Swift made her next set of maneuvers ready.

She watched the tactical readouts carefully, waiting for the instant the Exterminator frigate began to move in response to the massive battlecruiser suddenly making its appearance like a leviathan from the depths - a metaphor not far off, considering what kind of place the Badlands were.

The moment arrived at last - the Exterminator frigate fired off another salvo at the Gilgamesh that took all of Swift's skill to avoid and still stay on the right vector for what she planned to do. The Exterminator frigate began to move a little more predictably, a sign that the Borg collective was weighing tactical values between the small destroyer, and the much larger battlecruiser. Taking immediate advantage, Swift acted.

The Gilgamesh cut main power to her impulse engines at the exact moment a hard firing sequence activated through the small Federation destroyer's powerful maneuvering thrusters, causing the small ship to spin on it's vertical axis to very suddenly be facing its tormentor. With no pause, the Gilgamesh instantly leapt to full impulse speed, angling above and over the Exterminator frigate, as a salvo of six photon torpedoes were very suddenly directly in the Exterminator frigate's path, trapping it in a killing box with the large Klingon battlecruiser on the other side.

"Surprise, you mechanized hemorrhoids," Swift snarled to herself.

[White Haven]

Bodies, dead or unconscious, are fucking heavy. Leyton couldn't help but reflect on that as the overengineered 'shuttlecraft' he'd taken out to the cryptic meeting sliced through the nebula back towards Scylla. The elder Leyton's stunned body was crammed in behind the two command chairs in what little clear space was left between the controls and the machinery-filled rear of the craft. Somewhere around the midpoint of the trip, the universe decided to stop making sense. Terse transmissions mentioning fun phrases such as 'tricobalts,' and 'subspace...timey-wimey,' and 'oh god, the Klingons' were exchanged back and forth.

At that last, Leyton cranked the throttles forwards to the firewall, shifting power to the shields to compensate for the increased speed in the plasma soup of the badlands. A deceptively calm voice cut across Scylla's updates, "No time, coming in hot. Tractor-grab for the docking."

What followed was efficient, well-practiced, exceedingly uncomfortable, and ended up dislocating one of the elder Leyton's shoulders. The tiny, overpowered shuttlecraft streaked in towards Scylla, far too close to stop under its own power in time. Scylla herself, however, had power to burn, and enough mass to soak the small craft's momentum without noticing. Tractors lashed out, a great number of them, and progressively shoved the shuttle to a near-halt shortly before it entered the shuttlebay itself. A shuttle's inertial dampeners are not designed with that in mind, and Leyton's grimace upon stepping out onto the deck of his ship speaks volumes about the bruises left by the command chair's harness.

As a primary entry-point in the event of a small craft storm, the shuttlebay earns a substantial auxiliary presence in the event of a mobilization. His eyes pass over assorted weapons teams with assorted bizarre contraptions. No, no, too heavy, no, that won't do much good if I make them move it -- THERE. He picks out a squad of...not conventionally-armed, but at least only slightly oddball troops, points to the open shuttle hatch, and calls across the bay, "Chief Ve'rhan, please escort the other occupant of this shuttle to the brig and confine him there. You will find him unconscious at this point in time, but should he awaken, you are to disregard anything he says. I will be on the bridge."

I really don't have time for this shit.

As he walks quickly towards the double-wide doors sealing the shuttlebay from the rest of the ship, he can't help but look over at a commotion on the far side of the bay. A single spacesuit is floating in through the bay's barrier shields, met by a small team of similarly-suited individuals. Leyton pauses for a moment to watch as the new arrival unfastens its -- his, apparently -- helmet, revealing the green skin of the ship's sole Orion crew member. Even over the din of the shuttlebay and the distance between them, the captain could still hear a shout.

"That... was...awesome!"

I...really, really don't want to know.