"Captain, there's a message coming in," said Lieutenant Ivanovna, abruptly breaking a silent moment on the bridge. "From Starfleet," she added after a pause.
"On screen please Lieutenant," the captain responded, doing the familiar Starfleet tug on his uniform as he straightened in his command chair.
"Captain, this is Admiral Lowery," a silver-haired Vulcan on the viewscreen greeted him, "I've read your report and it seems that your personnel deployment was reasonable. Your temporary assignment is to patrol the immediate area and keep watch for hostile ships. Your first priority is the protection of the colony. We are attempting to contact the Gorn government to try and figure out what exactly is going on; until then you're on your own. Help is on the way, but it is twelve days away."
"I understand. Thank you Admiral," said the captain formally.
"Starfleet out," replied the admiral, and his image disappeared.
"Lieutenant, plot a patrol course around the system, keeping us within two hours of the planet," the captain said to Lieutenant Valen. "Commander Yilaan, come in please," said the captain through the ship's communications.
"Yilaan here. Go ahead sir," came back Yilaan's response from the planet. The captain then quickly related to her the plan of action as laid out by Admiral Lowery. "Very good sir. The planet's communications array should keep us in contact with you in case of an emergency," said Commander Yilaan after the captain finished his monologue.
"As I'd expected. Stay alert down there, and good luck. Freeman out."
"Patrol pattern ready sir," Lieutenant Valen reported.
"Engage please, Mr. Valen," ordered the captain as he sat back in his chair, with just the faintest look of tension about him.
Two days of patrols went by without incident. The crew was alert and ready, though some were beginning to show signs of having been on edge for a long period of time, almost wishing that an attack would come just to put an end to the uncertainty and the waiting.
"A vigorous massage and three tablespoons of cod-liver oil mixed with fresh garlic," the doctor was saying to the captain in sickbay as the latter paid her a visit. Doctor Giovanni was in the middle of stitching up a fracture in the wrist of Lieutenant Reiv Garon, a reserve helmsman who had been doing some maintenance high on a ladder in cargo bay four and had slipped and fallen to the deck.
The captain and Lieutenant Reiv exchanged pained looks. "Dr. Giovanni, that is the most disgusting combination I think I've ever heard," Freeman informed her.
"Call it what you will Captain, but my grandmother used to subject us to it all the time, whenever she felt that any of us were too tense or too hyper for too long a period of time. Don't ask me how or why, but I've seen it work a hundred times without failing," the dark-haired doctor replied.
"I have to wonder how that combination would actually work," the captain noted conversationally.
"I think the massage works out the tight muscles in the patient's body, and the tablespoons of oil and garlic taste so terrible that the patient forgets why they were upset to begin with," Giovanni explained with a smile.
"Maybe I'll give it a try," said the captain with an amused expression. "I'd imagine the holodeck can....."
He was interrupted by the ship's klaxon blaring suddenly and a call over the intercom by Lieutenant Ivanovna, "Captain Freeman, please report to the bridge."
Freeman tapped his comm-badge, "Bridge, this is the captain. Report."
"Captain," said Lieutenant Valen, "two energy patterns matching the cloaked ship we encountered earlier are on an intercept course with us."
"I'll be right up. Place us between them and the planet, Lieutenant Valen, and raise the shields. All hands to battle stations," said the captain as he nodded to the doctor and her patient and raced up to the bridge.
As Freeman emerged from a turbolift on to the bridge, Ivanovna looked over to him, "They are de-cloaking Captain."
"Open a channel to those vessels Lieutenant," ordered Captain Freeman.
"Aye sir," Ivanovna paused. "No response. Captain, they're locking weapons!" she added hurriedly.
"Lock phasers and load torpedoes, Lieutenant!" the captain commanded. The Gorn then fired the first volley; the Bristol was hit solidly and the crew lurched violently to their right, some tumbling out of their chairs as they did so.
"Return fire, all weapons!" yelled the captain as he attempted to scramble back to his seat.
Ivanovna punched several buttons, and multiple phaser shots emanated from the Bristol along with a couple of photon torpedoes, striking one of the Gorn ships solidly.
The ships maneuvered around in such a way that one Gorn vessel began to flank the Bristol. "One of the Gorn vessels is moving to flank us sir," Lieutenant Valen reported evenly.
"Bring us about to 213 mark 45, increase to one half impulse, Lieutenant," the captain ordered. The Bristol shook again from a combined disruptor and torpedo salvo from the Gorn ships.
"Continual fire, all weapons!" shouted the captain. "Damage report!"
The Bristol's phasers and photon torpedoes fired and struck the same Gorn ship that it hit before, as Ivanovna answered the captain's question. "Shields down to sixty-seven percent Captain! Minor damage to the secondary hull." She then spoke over the intercom, "Damage control teams, report to section five, deck seventeen!"
An acknowledgement of the order came back over the intercom from the damage control teams, as both sides fired their weapons again. The crew was thrown about to their left from a particularly heavy hit by one of the Gorn ships.
"Status of Gorn vessels?" barked the captain.
"One Gorn ship is heavily damaged, the other is unaffected," Lieutenant Valen replied.
"Ensign Gates, initiate the Kumar maneuver, reverse angle," the captain instructed.
"Aye sir," she replied smoothly, "increasing to full impulse."
The Bristol suddenly lurched ahead out of the two pronged staggered attack formation of the Gorn, swung around sharply and bore down on the damaged Gorn ship from an angle which the Gorn didn't anticipate. Ivanovna fired the Bristol's weapons again, hitting the damaged Gorn ship and destroying it. There was a violent explosion which rocked the remaining Gorn ship, as well as the Bristol itself.
"One enemy target destroyed Captain," commented Ivanovna in a seemingly inappropriate off-hand manner.
The remaining Gorn ship caught up with the Bristol and activated a full barrage of weapons against the Federation ship at close range. The Bristol lurched violently to its port side.
"Captain, shields down to twenty-nine percent!" shouted Ivanovna over an increasing amount of comm traffic filtering on to the bridge. "There is heavy damage to decks 23, 27, and 28. Main power is off-line; supplementing with auxiliary power."
"Engineering, report!" the captain called out.
"Anti-matter containment is fluctuating, but stable for now sir," came back Commander Jevor over the intercom, the irritation at having his precious engines damaged clearly audible in his voice. "Warp engines are temporarily off-line; we have an overloading of the starboard and port power couplings, but I've got people on it."
A full spread of photons was then fired from the Bristol and three of the torpedoes found their mark. Ivanovna then fired the phasers and caused further damage to the Gorn. "Captain, sensors indicate our last shots have taken out their weapons and crippled their engines," Ivanovna reported happily.
"Well done, Lieutenant!" said Freeman, turning to look up at her and smiling.
"Captain, we have another concern," Lieutenant Valen started to say.
"Bridge this is engineering!" Chief Engineer Jevor shouted over the comm system. "Get security here now! We have multiple intruders materializing!"
"Through our shields?" said Lieutenant Ivanovna incredulously. "That's ....." She was interrupted as several forms began to materialize on the bridge.
"Impossible, Lieutenant?" the captain replied grimly.
Weapons fire was exchanged by the captain, the security chief, and the four large, bulky reptilian beings that materialized on the bridge. The tactical panel was hit, and sparks flew. Hand to hand combat was then engaged.
"Computer, initiate anti-intruder protocols, authorization Freeman gamma-" the captain started to say before being interrupted by a Gorn hitting him in the stomach with the butt of a disruptor rifle. Captain Freeman, Lieutenant Valen, Ensign Gates, and two other crewman were fighting two of the enemy, while Lieutenant Ivanovna held her own against the other two. While Valen, Gates and the other two crewmen distracted the Gorn, Freeman completed his sentence, "authorization Freeman gamma-omega-six-charlie."
The lights turned a reddish hue, and the computer could be heard over the din of fighting, pronouncing various bulkheads locked down and anti-intruder devices in place.
Lieutenant Ivanovna grunted and swore in Russian as she knocked her two opponents senseless. She paused briefly to look at the two fallen Gorn and smiled to herself, before moving to assist the others. However, when she looked up and started to move towards the captain, she saw the last of his two opponents fall. Lieutenant Valen was also down, as was one of the other Bristol crewmen. Ivanovna and Freeman moved the bulky Gorn soldiers off to one side.
"Well fought Lieutenant," commented the captain to Ivanovna. Then under his breath, he added, "Maybe Yilaan was right about you after all."
"Thank you sir," she nodded.
"Computer, initiate level one force field around the Gorn on the bridge," ordered Captain Freeman, returning to business, and the Gorn were quickly imprisoned inside a shimmering field of energy. "Ivanovna, give me a report on the status of the intruders throughout the rest of the ship."
"Numerous reports of weapons fire and hand to hand combat on the ship. My panel is damaged sir, so I cannot get exact locations or numbers however," she reported.
"Move to science station two, Lieutenant, and use the lateral sensors to scan for large reptilian life-forms," Freeman suggested.
"Aye sir."
"Jevor to bridge," the Andorian called over the intercom. "My situation is under control. I personally took care of four of these lizards myself. However, some of my engineers are hurt; could you send our doctor down here?" asked Commander Jevor.
"Doctor, we need medical teams on the bridge and in engineering. We have," the captain began to reply before Ivanovna interrupted him.
"Captain, direct routes to engineering from medical are blocked," said Ivanovna quickly, before speaking over the intercom to the doctor, "Doctor, have your people go over to deck 30, section 10 and take turboshaft 6 from there to engineering."
"Understood, we're on it. Hang tight," the doctor replied over the intercom.
"Computer, disengage anti-intruder protocols to allow for free movement of medical personnel," ordered the captain. He then turned about to face Ivanovna, "Status of the Gorn ship, Lieutenant Ivanovna?"
"They," Ivanovna started to reply before pausing. "Hold on a moment. Captain, we have a message coming in from their ship."
"On screen please Lieutenant," the captain replied, turning his attention to the viewscreen.
The screen lit up with the face of a large lizard man-creature who spoke gruffly, yet understandably, thanks to the universal translator. "Federation ship, we wish cessation of hostilities," the lizard said simply.
Anger filled the captain. "Do you really? You've violated a treaty that the Federation signed in good faith with you forty," the captain paused to look at the now upright Lieutenant Valen holding his head over in one corner of the bridge, "over forty years ago. You've attacked my ship without cause, and attempted to assassinate me and others of my crew through an aggressive boarding action. What is the meaning for this attack? Are your people responsible for the destruction of the Templeton and other merchant ships in this area?"
"We are, Starship Captain, guilty of what you suggest. However, please allow me to explain. A plague has been wreaking havoc on our home planet. These merchants which you are so quick to defend began to charge us prices that threatened to cripple our economy. So," the Gorn paused and smiled grimly, exposing several poorly cared for teeth, "we went with tradition and solved our problem that way."
"Tradition?" Freeman inquired.
"Our way is to take what we want," replied the Gorn simply. "Some of those ships contained medicines that assisted us."
"Why didn't you ask the Federation for help instead of resorting to violence?"
"Our way is to take what we want," the Gorn repeated. "Besides, even if you didn't say no, your bureaucracy would've wasted so much time trying to decide what to do and how to do it, that there would've been none of us left to help."
The captain gritted his teeth. "That still doesn't explain the attack on us."
"We perceived you as a threat to our ability to save ourselves," the Gorn leader explained.
Freeman pondered that a moment. "Well maybe we can get our bureaucracy moving to help you out in this case. Why don't I contact my superiors in this matter and see what we can turn up?"
"We are at your mercy, we have attacked you, and yet you would do this for us?" said the Gorn incredulously.
"That is our way," said Captain Freeman. "We'll contact you when we hear something." He then turned to nod at Ivanovna, who in turn deactivated communications.
"Report on intruder status," ordered the captain.
"Sir," Lieutenant Valen said weakly, still holding his head but nonetheless staying at his post, "it would appear that all intruders have been neutralized."
"Excellent," the captain replied. "Doctor Giovanni, please report on....."
The captain was interrupted once again by a sudden occurrence. A medical team began to emerge from the aft-starboard turbolift. Instinctively, the crew all glanced their way when the door opened. One of the medics suddenly gasped and pointed towards the foreword-port turbolift. A horribly wounded Gorn had ridden that turbolift up to the bridge. He was now exiting, and, almost in slow-motion, pointing a hand disruptor at the captain and preparing to fire.
"Captain!" Lieutenant Valen cried out as he stood up from his post and lunged to his left. The lunge saved the captain's life; the Gorn fired and the disruptor blast hit the hapless Vulcan full in the chest, a blast that would've otherwise hit Captain Freeman. Lieutenant Valen fell clumsily to the ground. Ivanovna was there in an instant, and with two blows, had knocked the weapon from the Gorn's hand and knocked the Gorn senseless.
The medical team rushed over to Lieutenant Valen while the other officers looked on in horror. The leader of the team quickly examined Valen, and with a grim expression tapped his comm-badge. "Transporter room, three to transport to sickbay, now!" Two medical officers, along with Lieutenant Valen, de-materialized as the captain and security chief exchanged worried looks.
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