From: Jamie LeBlanc (plainsimplegarak_at_yahoo.com)
Date: Sun Aug 03 2008 - 12:39:03 PDT
"Endings and Beginnings" (Continued from "Pain")
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Location: USS STONEHENGE
Stardate: 2.80803.1200
Scene: Main Sickbay
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
A high pitched shriek rang through Sickbay, followed by a curiously Starfleet-grey colored comet. Even the stalwart doctors gave pause as the form of the security chief sped through the halls. “PEeeeeeTEeeeeRrrr!”
He was caught, and nearly clotheslined by a thin blue arm. Matthew’s legs stopped moving a split second later as his body lagged behind them. Dr. Jos turned, antennae pinned tightly to his head to fend off the shriek. “Matthew…” He waited patiently for the security officer to turn towards him. “Your husband is all right. But I won’t let you see him until you calm down.”
Matthew Aspinall sucked in a ragged breath, his pupils dilated from the effects of the medicines he had been given to ward off his beginning mutation. “I need to see my husband.” Slowly he knit his brows, “please, Doctor.”
Aerdan fixed him with a very solid stare, his expression somehow both warm and icy at the same time. “Calm down, Matthew. You can see Peter as soon as you calm down. If you run in now you’ll end up breaking his concentration; and you could cause neural damage.”
Very slowly the human stopped pulling and slumped in exhaustion against the shorter Andorian. “He’s alright, though… right?”
“He’s being monitored constantly. If he stops being all right you’ll know immediately, Matthew.” The neurosurgeon assured. Glebben, godsend that she was had appeared with a tray of hyposprays and one cup of Talaxian sala root and chamomile tea nestled within. The agile Ferengi pushed the cup into Matthew’s hands before returning to her rounds. “Drink that. It’ll help flush the after effects from the medicine from your body.” Jos added, steering Matthew to one of the chairs at the end of the room.
Sitting down obediently, Matthew sipped at the warm, sweet liquid. “Keep… keep me updated?”
Aerdan gave a small nod. “I’ll let you in there as soon as I can, Matthew.”
~*~*~*~*~*~
Scene: Bridge
Pol’Gra looked up from her console and gave a small nod to Rharn Alcedo. “We have an 85 percent systems recovery so far.”
The Nocturian stretched and looked at the aft view being shown on the viewscreen. The translucent tendrils were uncoiling from the warp nacelles slowly, as if something was physically pushing it away. “Engineering,” she called, waiting for the comm. System to connect. “Ronnie, how long can we sustain warp drive?”
[[We’ll need at least five hours to repair the damage to the systems for sustained warp of any kind, Captain. But I can give you a three second burst if you really need it.]] her voice was frazzled.
Rharn pushed her electric blue hair back from her face. “Lieutenant, prepare that burst, I think we are going to need it.” As Ronnie Zanders gave her assent, the Captain looked over to where Urika Shar and Kiros Karn were busy entering the ETERNITY’s systems information into the console. “How much remote control can we have over the ETERNITY?” she asked.
“From the black box and what we downloaded from their bridge, technically we can do most anything. We have the prefix code and the entire command code sequence, but we are limited by what the ETERNITY is physically capable of.” Urika murmured, her panel springing to life.
“Can you bring the ETERNITY’s engines online?” Captain Alcedo asked, staring intently towards the viewscreen.
Kiros looked up, nodding lightly. “The engines can be brought online, but the vast majority of the systems have been assimilated by the alien force. I don’t think we can get any engine control – the systems have been physically severed and mutated.”
Rharn gave a peaceful smile to the young cadet. “I don’t need to control the ETERNITY’s engines, cadet. What we need is bait. And these things seem drawn to the energy signature of warp engines like a Toba cat to Tc’huk meat.”
~*~*~*~*~*~
Scene: Sickbay
“No…. NO!” Peter Aspinall’s frame shuddered as a small line of blood drained from his nose. “We are just as many… we are just as strong.”
Nearby Betazoid exo-botanist Kallan Tyne closed his eyes, mouthing the words the chief engineer spoke without speaking. Even Suvek had voluntarily put himself in a biobed and lowered his ages-old emotional defenses to join the telepathic assault.
Peter could feel the tension building, even without seeing it. He could feel the last gasp from the alien force as it struggled to keep a hold on the STONEHENGE, and he was determined to not let it stay.
And eerie sound wafted through the ship, emanating from sickbay and rippling through the corridors. “This is our ship. Leave it…” over and over again, in a variety of languages and intonations, a barely recognizable drone, building to fervor. Telepaths yelling, screaming, speaking in meditative droning all rose in a cacophony of rebellion.
And suddenly it stopped.
Peter’s eyes snapped into clarity as he felt a massive headache looming. He struck Makena Kagiso’s face like a slap and murmured two words before he collapsed back on the bed: “It’s over.”
He woke to consciousness less than five minutes later warpped up in the embrace of his husband.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“99…. Pol’Gra held her breath, along with every other person on the bridge…. 100 percent systems recovery” she announced, triumphant.
A sigh of relief passed through the bridge, but the tension didn’t dissipate. They watched as the alien force floated free of the nacelle pylons. “Cadet Karn, power up the ETERNITY’s engines.”
The derelict ship flared with power, and again the bridge held its breath, watching as the alien force was drawn to the power output like moths to a flame. Rharn held her next command until Pol’Gra affirmed that both inter-dimensional ‘ships’ had latched on to the ETERNITY. “Lynette… you’re on.”
The young FCO turned back, and despite the severity of the situation she smiled. Easing the STONEHENGE into an arc, she turned for only a second. “Cadet, do you have that tractor beam ready?”
Karn nodded. “I do, make it quick.”
“Cadet… you’ve never seen me fly before.”
Passing around the outer gravitational well, Lynette maneuvered the STONEHENGE into a pass that brought the ship above the ETERNITY. They snagged the derelict vessel along with its hang-ons at the last minute, the tractor beam lancing out though the darkness. Lynette sucked in a breath before taking both ships into what started as a lazy turn and narrowed into a whipcord curve.
The STONEHENGE skirted the edge of the gravitational well, dragging the ETERNITY at a distance, and on her second pass, the HENGE dipped though the horizon of the crushing pull. Lynette bit her bottom lip, watching the readouts start to pull the ship inexorably backwards, watching as the ETERNITY followed them around. Just as the derelict’s momentum brought it into the gravity well, Lynette barked out. “Cut tractor beam!” The beam cut out, the ETERNITY falling swiftly into the black pit, sucked unstoppably into the black hole while the STONEHENGE struggled to break itself free. “Grab on to something!” Lynette warned, hoping that Ronnie could deliver up her promise. As the HENGE pulled out of the arc, facing away from the Black hole, the FCO punched it to warp.
The hull shuddered and the ship groaned as it ripped free of the gravity well. The burst was short, landing them haphazardly in space half a light year away from the black hole, shaken but in one piece. “Aft viewscreen.” Captain Alcedo ordered, watching as the view of the ETERNITY sprang into life, all alienforms still clinging to the nacelles as the ship was swallowed by blackness.
“Where does it go now?” Kiros asked, watching the Captain.
“Back to where they came.” The Nocturian replied.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Scene: Sickbay
“Ow! Ow ow ow ow ow ow!”
Xordin snapped his head up, hearing the Alterian’s voice chorus through sickbay. Nearly running, he found her hopping like mad around a biobed, her tail twitching madly. “Izhlana! Are you OK?”
The little security officer gritted her teeth, rubbing her arm, which was fast reappearing from the dimensional rift. “Pins and needles! Pins and needles!” she gasped trying to shake the feeling from her arm.
“Better that than not having an arm at all, right?” the Atlekavich prince offered with a lopsided smile.
“Shush, you.” She slapped at his playfully which just pushed the sensation into her arm again. “Owww….”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Scene: Captain’s Ready Room
Time Index: ten hours later
Ronnie Zanders walked into the ready room to find Rharn Alcedo looking out the window at the stars as if they held some answers the Nocturian couldn’t quite grasp yet. “Captain…?” she prompted.
“Yes, Lieutenant?”
“We are ready to get underway to E4 at warp 3. I have already contacted the base and they will be waiting for us to make repairs.” The hybrid engineer shuffled her feet a bit.
“Good. Then let us get underway. I just sent a message to ANDORIA and contacted Lieutenant Commander Kor. She will be meeting us on E4. If you can apprise her of the repair schedule…” Rharn trailed off.
Ronnie gave a small nod. “Of course, Captain.” She chewed her bottom lip for a moment. “Are you alright?”
The crimson furred woman paused a bit. “Yes, Lieutenant. But…” she considered her words, “I still wonder what will happen to the alien force.”
“You did what you needed to do for this universe.” Ronnie murmured. “I find that saving one universe is enough for one person to worry about.”
Slowly the Nocturian gave a small smile. “I see your point.”
Ronnie turned and exited as she was dismissed, leaving Rharn to continue to watch the stars as they slipped past the window.
~*~*~*~*~*~*
NRPG: So, we’re off for E4!
Joy: Arm? Arm! Yay!
Katrina: I left it open for you to come to E4 when you’re ready. I didn’t know how much more you wanted to write with Eishnala’s family or not, otherwise feel free to jump directly to E4 and we’ll be there :)
Margie: Happy vacation!
Peter: I left the Peter part a bit vague in case you wanted to embellish ro go back and write about it.
Aaron: Are you with us still? Please reply.
Sarah: How you doing? We miss you!
Phillip: I wanted to give Lynette a moment of glory. I know you wanted to write an epilogue for her, hopefully this sets it up. Good luck with RL!!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Jamie LeBlanc
Lieutenant Commander Aerdan Jos
Chief Medical Officer
USS STONEHENGE
"Why do we fly? Because we have dreamt of it for so long that we must"
~Julian Beck
From HyperNews_at_youth.net
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Thu Dec 04 2008 - 03:10:38 PST