Captain Freeman sat in his command chair, with Commander Yilaan at his side, and waited expectantly for the first sensor pass to be completed. Ensign Todd manned the navigations console beside Lieutenant Hathaway at the helm.
"Captain," Ivanovna reported from her position at tactical, "our sensors are having difficulty penetrating certain sections of that asteroid field, but I am not detecting anything out of the ordinary at this time."
"What is the source of the interference? Can you tell if it's natural or artificial?" Freeman asked quickly.
"I am unable to trace the interference to any one source, Captain," Ivanovna replied. "I can't be certain, but I think the interference is a natural phenomenon, but unlike one we've encountered before," she continued after a pause.
"Any signs of Romulan ships?" Freeman pressed.
"Negative, Captain. I'm detected no vessels, and no energy signatures that would match known Romulan cloaking device emissions," Ivanovna reported.
"Lieutenant, focus an intense scanning beam into the center of the sensor disturbance and report," Freeman ordered, standing as he did so.
Ivanovna's fingers danced rapidly over her console as she quickly carried out the captain's order. "Nothing sir . . . no, wait, there is something! I'm getting strange readings from a large asteroid, bearing 347 mark 355. You may want to take a look at this."
Freeman walked around to the tactical station where Ivanovna stood aside to give him a good view of her display. "It's the metal!" Freeman said, then he frowned.
"What is it, Captain?" Yilaan asked, noting her captain's expression.
"This seems a little too easy," Freeman replied sternly. "Something doesn't feel right about this. Lieutenant, put the area up on the viewscreen." Ivanovna did as requested. "Magnify." He brooded for a moment while staring at the viewscreen. "Still no sign of Romulan ships, Romulan energy signatures?" Freeman asked.
"None sir," Ivanovna confirmed.
Freeman sighed inwardly. He'd all but written this off as a wild goose chase and now here this 'super-dilithium' was apparently very real. "Commander Yilaan, take Chief Engineer Perriman, Lieutenant Bradley, and Ensign Lu from Geology in the runabout Trieste and go check this out. You should be relatively protected from any Romulan detection grid by the same interference that is partially masking our own sensors, but be quick about it nonetheless."
Yilaan nodded and summoned the appropriate crew as she made her way to the main shuttle bay. When the four were prepared, Yilaan signalled they were ready, and they launched the Trieste and made for the source of the super-dilithium signature.
Freeman and the bridge crew watched them go, as Yilaan began to skillfully pilot the craft around the asteroids and debris in the field. Freeman then flipped up a panel on his command chair. "Note in the ship's log, Federation runabout Trieste has undertaken Operation Crystal on the sole responsibility of the captain of the U.S.S. Bristol, Captain Mark Freeman, on Stardate 90261.5." Lieutenant Hathaway cast a brief, troubled, glance back at the captain as Freeman finished his log supplement before returning his attention back to his station.
"Captain, I'm receiving a low level communication from the runabout, scrambler code Federation Ten-Alpha," Ivanovna reported after several tense minutes.
"Decode and put Yilaan on the main viewer," Freeman replied.
The image of asteroids was replaced by that of the Bristol's first officer. "Captain, we're close to the asteroid. We're still getting readings. The asteroid appears to have a somewhat hollow core. I've detected small tunnels leading to the surface. Permission to beam in and investigate further?"
Freeman considered her request. "Granted, but make your stay very brief, Commander. You're there to collect samples, not mine the asteroid."
"Understood. Yilaan out." Her image was replaced by asteroids on a starry background on the viewscreen.
"Captain, I'm now reading an energy fluctuation of some kind near the asteroid. It is increasing in intensity," Ivanovna reported.
"Open an encoded frequency to the runabout, Lieutenant," Freeman ordered and Ivanovna complied. "Bristol to Trieste, come in," Freeman called out urgently. "Return to the runabout and come back to the ship." No answer came, so Freeman repeated, "Bristol to Trieste, come in. Abort and return!"
"No response Captain. I believe our transmission is being jammed by something connected with the energy surge," Ivanovna reported. Moments later, several lights flashed and a fiery explosion erupted from the very place the Trieste had been.
***
Lieutenant Junior Grade Julie Bradley sat attentively at her post on board the Trieste after Commanders Yilaan and Perriman and Ensign Lu donned full space suits and beamed inside the asteroid. Whether it was by pure chance, or Yilaan's intuition, Bradley had thankfully been spared beaming in with them inside the rock. It wasn't so much that she hated closed in places; she simply hated closed in places that had no metal struts or bulkheads in place to reinforce them, and especially ones that had no air to breathe. This particular fact had never really come out during her Academy days. In fact, she might have gone her whole life without realizing this fear if not for a survey mission she was assigned to during her cadet cruise. There had been a cave in from which she had barely escaped with her life, and from that time on she'd vowed to never get near another cave if she could help it.
However, this incident wasn't exactly common knowledge either, and Bradley decided to keep it that way. Thus, Bradley had volunteered, perhaps a bit too eagerly, to stay behind and Yilaan had taken her up on it. However, Yilaan had made her suit up anyway, just in case she was needed. 'Needed for what?' Bradley thought to herself and shook her head with a shrug.
Her thoughts were interrupted when a red light came on. "What the hell?" she exclaimed aloud, unable to initially make sense of her readings. "Commander, I'm getting an energy surge, extremely close by," Bradley called out, to which there was no reply. She glanced up at the viewscreen and blanched just as the runabout was shaken about; a Romulan ship had decloaked and fired on the Trieste.
The runabout's computer initiated red alert and blared warnings about the structural damage sustained. Bradley tried to raise the shields but another volley sent sparks flying around her and threw her solidly to the deck. The runabout started to list out of control as the computer blared more warnings about a warp core breach in progress and that the structural integrity field was nearing collapse. To make matters worse, the ship was listing right towards another asteroid in the vicinity, which would result in a collision that would certainly destroy the ship if either of her other problems didn't happen first. They were having a race, and Bradley didn't want to stick around to find out which calamity won.
"Computer, stand by to transport one to the prior coordinates," she called out, donning the rest of her life support gear as quickly as she could. More displays sparked. She was having trouble hooking up her oxygen recycler to the air pumps. The computer then announced that the warp core would breach in ten seconds. "Dammit," she swore, realizing her time was up. "Energize."
Bradley found herself whisked away to a place inside the asteroid, living her worst nightmare. She turned her suit's power pack on to keep from freezing to death, then pressed the suit's comm buttons. "Commander, this is Bradley. I need help," she said simply.
"Bradley?" came back Yilaan's surprised reply. "Where are you?"
"At the beam in point. I don't have my life support suit fully operational and require assistance. Bradley out," she said rapidly, then kept quiet so as to not use any more air than she absolutely needed to.
"Julie, hang on. We'll be right there," Yilaan replied.
Lieutenant Bradley began to fumble around in complete darkness for her air pump hose, realizing she didn't have long until she used up the air inside her space suit. She thought about staying absolutely still to conserve air, but not knowing where Yilaan and the others were or how long it would take for them to get there, Bradley tried to get her suit working on her own.
As she tried to snap the hose into place by feel, she unconsciously shifted her feet and encountered more rock, causing her to lose her grip and to stumble forward. She caught herself on a nearby wall, but had started to breathe heavily. Bradley was beginning to feel light headed as the fear of her surroundings began to grip her and she began to frantically flail for the hose. She nearly jumped out of her suit when she felt a hand grip hers, but that hand snapped her hose into place and lifted her up off the ground.
"Why are you here, Lieutenant?" Yilaan asked matter-of-factly, as she flipped on Bradley's air recycler. "What's happened?"
After a few moments of drawing deep breaths of cleaner air, Bradley brought her up to speed on what had occurred to the Trieste. "So I'm . . . that is, we're stuck in this place," Bradley finished, emphasizing the last word with equal parts disgust and fear.
"Relax, Lieutenant. These suits will give us at least twelve hours of air, more if we ration it. Captain Freeman knows where we are and will rescue us," Yilaan assured her, carefully glazing over the fact that, with a Romulan presence, the task would not be an easy one for the Bristol or her crew. "Meanwhile, you can help us. We have tracked down the vein of super-dilithium and we'll need to retrieve some samples."
"Very well, Commander," Bradley replied neutrally. Her mind was barely keeping her fear in check as she started off. The group returned to where they'd found the traces of the super metal, and Yilaan took some samples. They were going to continue on when suddenly Bradley gasped, then stopped, as a flash from behind her caught her eye. "Commander, did you see that?" said Bradley in a startled voice. The group stopped and turned to look in the direction Bradley indicated.
"Commander, I think we have company. My tricorder is indicating there may be life signs in that direction. They're heading for us," Ensign Lu informed her.
Silently, Yilaan motioned for her away team to take up a defensive posture behind rock outcroppings. Ensign Lu handed her phaser to the unarmed Lieutenant Bradley, who took it with a look of surprise. "I think you're probably a better shot," said Lu with a small smile. Bradley nodded in acknowledgement as she sought out a protected firing position while Ensign Lu found someplace out of the way.
Beams of light, presumably from hand-held flashlights, began to dance around against the wall of the passageway the away team faced, and when their Romulan sources emerged, the Bristol crew didn't hesitate to fire first. The crew only had three phasers but managed to score hits with two on their first volley, causing two Romulans to be thrown backward somewhat and into their comrades. One of those hit forced another Romulan backward against a sharp rock outcropping tearing his suit. His brethren paid little heed to his frantic waves and shouts as his air vented into the vacuum around them, instead intent on continuing the attack against the Federation personnel.
More weapons fire was exchanged. It quickly became obvious that the Romulans had their disruptors set on something different than stun; a focused beam designed to rupture the space suits of those they hit. Their initial barrage missed, though it struck parts of the asteroid in several places, sending pieces of rock flying about at various speeds and trajectories. One chunk smacked Yilaan's face plate, but she was able to hold her position and not allow it to knock her backward.
The Romulans clearly had the numbers advantage, but were apparently not used to fighting in zero gravity, and were unable to compensate adequately for the superb defensive placement of the Bristol personnel. One by one they were being picked off, until one particularly fierce disruptor barrage broke away a large chunk of Commander Yilaan's rock protection. As she turned to try and fall back, she was hit by several disruptor blasts which damaged her equipment on her back and tore her suit on her left leg. One of the blasts ruptured one of her air recycling tanks, propelling her head over heels while she frantically tried to seal the breach in her leg. She wasn't entirely sure if she was successful because the next thing she knew, her helmet was banging heavily against another outcropping, and she lost consciousness.
While that was happening, Ensign Lu grabbed Yilaan's loose phaser and continued the defense. As the Federation trio finished off more Romulans, it became obvious to their attackers that Ensign Lu was not as well protected as the others. With a signal and a shout, the remaining Romulans focused their attention on Lu and soon whittled away her defense. Before she could turn to flee, she too was hit by several disruptors, opening several breaches in her space suit. She was fortunately spared the agony of suffocation; the blasts alone had killed her and thrown her body backwards into a wall, with air whooshing out of her ruined space suit.
Their attention diverted, the Romulans made easy targets and Perriman and Bradley took advantage of the provided opening by finishing them off. Perriman pushed himself off the wall nearest to him over to his fallen comrades while Bradley sat unmoving, perspiration dotting her face. She was in a state of shock.
"Lieutenant, Ensign Lu is dead. Yilaan is alive, but unconscious. Her equipment is damaged. I'd say she's going to run out of air in about four hours," Perriman succinctly told her. "Lieutenant?" he said after a pause, turning back around to look at Lieutenant Bradley. A Romulan held her about the neck of her space suit with a disruptor pointed at her helmet.
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