The captain sat in his command chair on the Bridge, stroking his chin with one hand impatiently, as the Bristol approached their object of interest at impulse power.
"The phenomena is now within visual range, Captain," Lt. Katrina Ivanovna said from her tactical station behind the captain.
The captain stood up and straightened his uniform, as he walked towards the front of the Bridge. "Put it on the screen," he ordered.
The image of the multi-colored cloud formation appeared as ordered. It seemed to be shifting about rapidly.
"What's that? Is the thing moving?" Commander Yilaan asked.
"Sort of sir," Reiv responded. "Various tendrils, for lack of a better term, are shifting about, extending from the main mass about 100,000 kilometers. The main body appears to be stationary, however."
The captain nodded. "Bring us to within 500,000 kilometers of the effect, Ensign," he ordered.
"Aye sir," Ensign Gates acknowledged.
The Bristol slowed to a stop at the position requested by Captain Freeman. "Begin intensive scans on all levels," the captain ordered. "Ivanovna, prepare a class one probe and launch it into the effect when ready."
"Aye," Ivanovna said. "Probe launched," she said a few moments later, her thick Russian accent adding to the abruptness of her comment.
"Getting telemetry from the probe sir," Reiv commented almost nonchalantly. His tone then changed to one of excitement, "Sir, this is interesting."
"Report, Lt.," the captain ordered.
"Well sir, the phenomena is made up of the usual elements one would expect in a nebula, but there are several peculiar energy readings. See, look at this sir," Reiv said, pointing at a readout on his console. "See normally those two would be much much lower, sir."
The captain nodded, "Continue scanning and recording. I want a detailed analysis of this thing for Starfleet."
A few minutes of scanning and recording went by, when suddenly Reiv shouted, "Sir! Electromagnetic activity has just jumped 5000%!"
The captain started to say something when Ivanovna interjected, "Captain! I'm detecting a massive...."
She was interrupted as the Bristol was suddenly hit hard by something. Since the shields were down, the force was tremendous against the hull of ship, and keenly felt throughout. The crew was thrown hard to port, as the ship rolled 45 degrees, all the while rotating out of control laterally. Fortunately for the stomachs of the crew, the inertial dampeners managed to absorb most of the effects of the lateral spinning movement on them.
The lights went off and most of the consoles went dead. The computer's voice commented, "Emergency lighting activated," and there was dim light on the Bridge. A couple of metal struts had come down from the ceiling. One had landed right where the captain had been standing; fortunately (which is a relative term here) he had been thrown against the port bulkhead in the blast.
"Damage report!" he yelled over the red alert klaxon that the computer had activated.
Lt. Ivanovna winced as she got to her feet and ran her hands quickly over the controls at her station. "Main power off-line captain. Auxiliary generators are providing life support. There is minimal power for stabilizing thrusters," she added, noting the Bristol was still listing out of control.
"Activate the thrusters," he ordered. Lt. Reiv, a big bruise on his head, nodded groggily.
"Thrusters on," Reiv said briefly. The Bristol ended its lateral rotation and reversed its previously forced 45 degree pitch, 'straightening itself' with respect to its previously traveled course.
"What else Lt. Ivanovna?" the captain asked, getting to his feet slowly.
"Several casualty reports are coming in, Captain," she reported. "Navigational sensors are off-line. Emergency bulkheads have sealed off a hull breach on Deck 31. Decks 5-27 all have outer hull damage, but are not in danger of a breach at this time. Shields and weapons systems are all off-line. I'm also showing our position as several million kilometers away from the cloud we were studying."
"Confirmed," Reiv said.
"Effect repairs immediately," the captain responded. He then noticed that Yilaan was lying unconscious near her seat. He tapped his comm-badge, "Medical team to the Bridge!"
"Aye sir," came a reply from someone he didn't recognize.
Captain Freeman tapped his comm-badge again, "Engineering, report!"
No response came back. The captain waited a few moments, and tapped his comm-badge again, "Engineering, this is the captain! Come in, please!"
After a few more moments, a voice responded. "Bridge, this is Commander Jevor, come in please."
"Jevor this is the captain, report!" the captain replied.
"Captain, my apologies; communications are erratic down here. Sir, the warp engines are off-line. The impulse engine is functional at minimal power. Whatever hit us nearly shattered our anti-matter containment field," Jevor reported. The captain's eyes grew wide. "I had to do an emergency core shut-down, which was successful. Once I reroute a few energy circuits and do an examination of the Dilithium chamber, we may be able to restart the core."
"Well done, Commander. Thank you for your quick action down there. Do whatever you can to restore main power, and pull whomever you need," the captain said.
"Aye sir. Jevor out."
"Computer," the captain called out. "End red alert."
The klaxon ended, and, a minute later, a medic exited the aft-starboard turbolift onto the Bridge.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
"It's Commander Yilaan," the captain responded.
The medic, a young human male Lt. jg. fresh out of the academy, walked over to the fallen form of the first officer. He whipped out his tricorder and did a quick scan of Yilaan. "She has a slight concussion. I need to get her to Sickbay." He then tapped his comm-badge. "Transporter Chief, this is Lt. Lofton. I need to beam Commander Yilaan from the Bridge to Sickbay," he said.
"Sorry Lt. There's no power to the transporters," Chief McClellan responded.
Lt. Lofton sighed and tapped his comm-badge again, "Sickbay, I need a stretcher team on the Bridge."
"Acknowledged," someone from Sickbay responded.
"There's no need," said Yilaan quietly, struggling to sit up. "I can make it myself."
"Commander, lie down!" Lt. Lofton said authoritatively. "You have a concussion. Wait for the stretcher."
Yilaan raised an eyebrow, but lay back down. The captain smiled to himself, impressed by the Lt.'s thoroughness, as well as his devotion to his patients. Not every young Starfleet doctor has the courage to stand up to their patients, when their patients are higher ranked.
The captain assisted Ivanovna with some rewiring of controls, while Reiv and some of the others cleaned up the debris on the Bridge and organized damage control teams for deployment throughout the rest of the ship. Ivanovna's latent engineering skills were no surprise to the captain, after reading Yilaan's report on her performance on Alyas Five, where she, Yilaan, Reiv and Dr. Giovanni had been trapped for almost a week.
After several minutes, a stretcher team arrived and carted off the injured Yilaan. Lt. Lofton left with them, after briefly examining Reiv's head and determining he had nothing more severe than the ugly bruise on his forehead.
Ten minutes more of repairs went by quickly. The captain and Ivanovna finished their work on the firing controls. "Let's run a test on these before turning our attention elsewhere," the captain suggested. Ivanovna nodded and tapped several buttons. "Diagnostic proceeding," she said, adding a moment later, "Everything checks out Captain."
"Good. Let's move on to Science Station Two," the captain ordered.
As the two officers were about to effect repairs, the computer suddenly initiated a yellow alert. The captain and Lt. Ivanovna exchanged alarmed looks and the Lt. rushed over to the tactical and communications station. "Captain we're receiving a priority message from Starfleet Command. I have Admiral Hanson on subspace."
The captain replied, "Put him on," as he walked around the tactical station to the front of the Bridge, which was closer to the viewscreen. Stars on the screen were replaced by the image of a balding human male, in his late fifties.
"Captain Freeman, this is Admiral Hanson. I'm calling to inform you that...." the Admiral on the screen let his voice trail off. "Captain, what the hell happened?" he asked, noting the damage to the Bridge.
Captain Freeman brought Hanson up to speed quickly on recent events. "And now the computer's initiated a yellow alert sir. What's it all about?" Freeman asked.
"For the past couple of days, the U.S.S. Enterprise has been investigating a series of mysterious disappearances of several Federation colonies," the admiral began.
"Wait a minute, did you say that 'colonies' were disappearing? How is that possible?" Captain Freeman inserted.
"Whole colonies have been destroyed without a trace, leaving only large craters to mark where they used to be," Admiral Hanson continued. "We have confirmed, by means of magnetic resonance traces, what did this." The admiral paused for effect, then continued. "The Enterprise has engaged a Borg vessel in Sector 417."
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