Myths Become Reality

Posted on 13 Aug 2016 @ 1:47pm by Ensign Kelly Khan

1,113 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Risky Business
Location: USS Chimera Bridge
Timeline: MD 6 || 1335 hours

Cadet Senior Grade Kelly Marie Khan sat in the Command chair on the USS Chimera and took a deep breath. She was actually in command of the Intrepid class ship and knew that she would likely be giving commands to men and women that could lead to their deaths. She had taken Command school, but the reality versus the training were two vastly different things. She was mere days away from turning twenty-two years old and was on her senior class ship cruise and found herself in the Gamma Quadrant fighting once loyal forces of Starfleet.

The ship she had been assigned to, the USS Black Hawk, flew in formation between the Chimera and the USS Cochrane and the Black Knights flew around and ahead of the three ships as they searched for the rumored Romulan Valdore class warbird. The Consortium had a massive head start on them and the Romulan ship was rumored to have a Thalaron weapon on it which could turn people to ash with its deadly radiation and Kelly hoped vehemently that it was just a rumor.

First, the Black Hawk had had to fight the Chimera and Cochrane and then take over both ships and get the Consortium agents confined, then she had been assigned to the Chimera while Lieutenant Langston had been assigned to the Cochrane and all three ships hunted for the Romulan ship.

The young brunette looked around at the bridge crew who cast sideways glanced in her direction and she knew they were wondering if they could trust her just as she was wondering if she could trust them. The presence of a Black Hawk Security officer near her was comforting but one officer wasn't enough to take on an entire bridge compliment if they wanted to actually do something against her.

So far, nothing was being picked up on the limited sensors, but the Hayden Nebula limited them and the weapons and shields were non-existent. Kelly started to call out for readings from the Operations officer, but was interrupted. "The Black Hawk fighters are reporting contact with something moving in the nebula!"

"Red alert!" Kelly called out and the klaxon went off ship wide and the lights went to emergency red. "All available hands to battle stations! Get every weapon we have online and divert power from anything that doesn't require life support or ship functions to the helm and weapons. Without maneuverability and firepower, we're sitting ducks out here and I don't plan on dying today." She looked ahead at the viewscreen where the birdlike shape of the Romulan ship slowly materialized out of the nebula's soup and swallowed hard. She wanted to take the helm, but she had her job to do and they had theirs. The next moments would determine everything.

The officers on duty, limited to Security, Operations, Engineering and Helm snapped to their orders despite the fact that it was a cadet that had been placed in charge of their ship. She had the voice of Command and they were used to taking orders. Reports flooded to Kelly of hull breaches, problems in Engineering where the Chimera had taken heavy hits and others.

"As long as we can fight, we can give the Black Hawk the time it needs to take that warship down before they try to kill all of us," Kelly said. "Evacuate all personnel to decks with no breaches and seal off everything else. Helm, take us about on course one zero five mark three two four. Security, target their engineering section."

The Ops officer looked up with a white face. "Sir! I'm detecting a build up of Thalaron radiation. Estimated time to completion is four minutes."

Kelly swallowed hard and hoped that the Black Hawk and Cochrane would be more effective than her beat up ship, but she would give the order to ram the Valdore if it came down to it. She watched as the Black Knights swarmed the Romulan warbird and willed Rocco to lead the charge safely.

A message from Lieutenant Commander Bast came from the Black Hawk and on the bridge of the USS Chimera, Cadet Khan acknowledged the orders. "You heard the message," she said to her bridge crew. "Evacuate outer compartments. Assign any personnel that's standing to assist! Let's cook that Romulan bird!" The Intrepid class ship came about and began to close the distance to the Valdore class warbird and the Security officer started to manually calculate the firing ratios for torpedoes and phasers while the Operations officer read off the distance as it dropped.

"Fire at will!" she ordered. "Keep them off balance!"

Photon torpedoes were launched in volleys and every operational phaser array released deadly beams, but with the soup of the nebula interfering with sensors and rendering the weapons virtually useless, it was like they were doing a pyrotechnic display instead of actually trying to take the Romulan warbird down.

"Close in," Kelly started to order before a scream from the Operations officer screamed and she turned her head. The man was staring at his hands in horror as they turned grey and the effect spread under his uniform and to his neck. Kelly started to bark another order and the Ops officer pitched forward and exploded into a pile of ash.

Suddenly the nebula lit up as a rift opened in subspace, vast and wide, fed by the unlimited energy of the black hole that was now beginning to feed on the nebular material. drawing in everything from light to nebular gases, the rift was monstrous, stretching for hundreds of kilometers in either direction.

"Full reverse!" Kelly ordered as the horror materialized on the viewscreen in front of the ships that had been confronting the Romulan Valdore warbird that was no longer present. The ship that held the deadly Thalaron device was no more, but now they bigger problems on their hands and it looked as if it weren't about to take any prisoners as she watched everything begin to get sucked into it.

Before anything could be done, all power on the ship went out and Kelly felt an odd sensation as if she were a glass of water that someone was drinking. To the uninitiated, one would think that wouldn't be a bad thing, but to the water, it was a sensation of being turned inside out and poured into a long tunnel filled with darkness and that was the last thing she or anyone else knew as consciousness departed for a vacation.

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