The Alternate Ending To The Hunt For Jake Grey Part 9:
Another Time, Another Place by Jake Dominguez
Captain Redding orders the Revanche to go into evasive maneuvers. Greymoran tells Rita to do the same but a blast from Macedonia 1 levels the Archangel's sheilds, and knock it back several kilometers, throwing the crew from their seats.
Aboard his ship, the other Jakob Grey watches in terror. "That's me on that behemoth isn't it? I have to do something." Grey notices his communication system and torpedo launchers are back on-line. He pushes a series of butons, and a pair of torps lance out at Revanche and Archangel. The torps detoante away from the ships, but the flash temporarily blinds their targetting sensors. "I can't let you stop me guys," he mutters to himself. "I have to do this. Wish me luck." He hails the other Grey's ship. "I was wondering when you were gonna show up!"
Grey froze when he heard the call. He turned to TorGal. TorGal shrugged. Grey touched a button on a nearby panel. "Who is it?" he demanded. Jake responded. "It's me, you fool. These idiots sought to enlist my help, believing that as an alternate of YOU, I might know a weakness. I'll help you destroy them all, if you'll find me a way back to my universe. Open your pod bay doors, I need to dock." Jake did his best to sound angry and vicious. He hoped it didn't sound forced.
Grey looked at TorGal, then laughed. "What an infantile ruse. Open our pod bay doors, and weaken the shields in that section to 2%. Keep the weapons charged. He'll try to do something stupid, like ramming us. I want a passive lock on him. When he comes within 200km, or you detect his warp engines powering, blow him out of space. Concentrate on those passive sensor readings." Then Grey got back on the comm. "Come in, brother."
Jakob sighed heavily. The evil Grey bought it. Now, all he had to do was kick in the warp drive at the right moment, turning his ship into a battering ram. "Computer, prepare for ramming speed." Jake prepared to engage the engines, but noticed a strange readout on the sensor display. He couldn't detect any sensor 'pings' coming from Grey's ship at all. Not even a docking sweep.
Keith stared at his sensor panel in anger. "I knew we shouldn't have trusted him! He's a Jake Grey!" Jackson tries to get the targeting back in alignment, then notices something emanating from the other Grey's science vessel. "Sir, the alt-Grey seems to be powering up his weapons. Awfully dangerous to do during docking procedures." He looked up as the realization hit him. Greymoran and Rita figured it out too becuase they shared a concerned look. "Oh no. Jackson, tell me, he's not going to do something stupid and brave, is he?" Sorik sighed. "Such a pity. I had hoped Mr Grey might ally with ourselves against his evil counterpart. Now it appears his human nature is leading him to make a gesture of self-sacrifice."
Jakob Grey's eyes widened. The pod bay doors of Macedonia 1 are open. By now his weapons were charged and armed, but without sensor sweeps the Macedonia couldn't detect it. He almost gasped with laughter. The other Grey, in his arrogance, didn't plan for every condition. Now, only one thing to do. He keyed up the photon torpedo launchers. The hull of the Macedonia 1 was completely protected, all except the pod bay, which had shield power of roughly a standard structural forcefield. Easy for anything solid and traveling at least .001c to penetrate. But Jake was not a man to leave a great deal to chance. Not everything, anyway. Grey looked at Torgal. "He's moving slowly, sir. Still about 250km away, coming in. I don't detect any..." TorGal shouted. "What?" "Energy discharge! I've switched passive sensors to scan his systems, and I'm detecting a non-propulsion energy buildup." Grey snarled. "Active sen-!" By then it was too late.
Jakob slammed his engines into full impulse. The small craft ate up kilometers like popcorn. He plotted a course to take him directly under the massive station, which was still not sweeping or firing at him. He waited two heartbeats and a half, then played the weapons console like a virtuoso. The phaser beam blasted away the thin shields over the pod bay, just in time for a salvo of torpedoes. Jake fired every weapon into the blossoming explosion, which simply got larger, and larger...until the great station locked him in a tractor beam. He struggled against the beams, but the power of the station was too strong. Another beam locked on, and another, and all began to reel him in at once. His ship shrieked with the stresses the beams were placing on it. Jake saw only one recourse. He quickly brought up the nav console and tapped random numbers into the course selection grid. Under the list for warp heading, he moved the selector all the way into the red.
"Damage!" Grey screamed. The bridge was filled with smoke. "Still not determined, sir!" TorGal yelled back. Grey turned and watched the frail little craft struggle under the bright blue beams. "No, 'brother', you are finished. Rest in pieces." Then, in the distance, the tiny ship turned a bright white. Just then, everything came apart.
The crew of the Archangel watched mutely as the tiny captured ship turned white, and the station blossomed into a brilliant supernova. Everyone gasped except Hudzen who simply stared and Sorik whose nictitating membranes slid over his eyes to protect them from the light.
When the light faded, a sizeable chunk of the Macedonia spun in space, surrounded by debris and burning ships.
A single tear rolls down Rita's face. Hudzen lowers his head. Keith seems simply frozen in place. Jackson walks up to Greymoran and places a hand on his shoulder. Haer'Dalis, still on the Archangel walks in front of them all. "I know this is no conselation, but what that man did was heroic. Songs will be sung, poems recited for the fallen raven, this I promise mighty wizard." He nods to reymoran. The Revanche flies up alongside the Archangel. "Redding to Greymoran. Come in sir. Are you all right?"
On the viewscreen, several ships near the destroyed station jumped to warp.
"I'm, I'm fine Captain." Greymoran shake shis head to clear his thoguhts. "Keith, can you get me a bearing on Grey's ships that escaped?" "What? Oh, yes sir. Um, they all took off to various universes sir, in groups of two and three. No way to tell which ship is Grey's sir." Redding hears this and cuts in. "I saw the explosion sir. I think it's safe to say his flagship, I, Claudius was destroyed." Greymoran smiles. "That had to piss him off. Hopefully the destruction of his battlestation will do so even more, and he'll slip up. Captain Redding, I'm afraid we'll have to-" "Split up? Yeah I figured. I already had Derisa pick out a potential target for us. A pair of Star Destroyers were severly damaged by the explosions, but were still able to get away. We tracked them to a B5 universe. We're ready to go. Just waiting for Haer to come back." "I'm on my way Captain." Haer'Dalis turns to bow for Greymoran then jogs to the turbolift. Keith goes over the records. "OK, I got one sir. I suggest we go to, let's see, WCU9. Sensor records show only one STU style ship." Greymoran's smile broadens. Those Star Trek ships had been a consitent thorn in their sides. Keith paused when he noticed this. "Continue Mr. Yeager." "It's a Galaxy-class vessel sir. It went to WCU9 along with, let's see here, ah. One Cylon Basestar sir." "Excellent choice. I'm willing to bet Grey escaped on that vessel. We'll have to split this mission though. The Terran Confederation can handle the Cylons, although if I remember right in WCU9 they're still recovering from the Border Worlds war. But they wouldn't last long against even a standard Galaxy-class. Keith, I want you and," Greymoran visually scans his crew all standing on the bridge except Ahz, who is till conspicuously absent. "Commander Sorik, to take a shuttle to ConFed Command & Control on Earth. Rita, as soon as they're gone, we'll follow those two ships. They'll probably be long gone by the time we jump to where they jumped, but it's a start." Carrie's voice chimes in. "Portal generator is on-line and ready. Just give the order." Greymoran nods. "OK. Crew, I want you to take a moment and remember, we've got an edge unlike any other. Grey is on the run. Hopefully this good luck will continue. We'll take time to remember the other Jake Grey and his sacrifice later, but for now," he makes a dramatic pause. "We go get the bastard Grey, and make him pay for everything he's done."