Chapter 12 – The Neutral Zone…For Real

"What do we make of this?" Picard asked, gripping the edges of his chair tightly.

This was technically a briefing, but because Q had put them deep within the Neutral Zone, even at a speed of warp 9, they wouldn't be out of it for at least 2 hours, so they couldn't retreat to the briefing room. The threat of Romulans was too real, so they were constantly scanning for D'Deridex warbirds coming from any direction as they headed back to Federation space.

"The question is: can we believe Q?" came Beverly's voice from the back of the bridge. She stood there with her arms crossed. A few murmurs of agreement came from the front – people like Paris, Kim, and even Worf.

Kathryn shook her head as she paced, "No, Q may be annoying, arrogant, and bitter, but one thing he's not is a liar. And this other Q seems to back up his story…for whatever reason, he does truly hate Q."

The bridge went quiet as most of the pairs of senior officers became lost in thought. The security officers standing by the console, both with their arms clasped behind their backs; the two doctors by the turbolift, one biting her cheek and the other tapping a finger on the side of his arm; the two first officers, both looking down at the ground with their eyes narrowed; the two engineers, both keeping an eye on constant scans from the area. Deanna was just looking out of the viewscreen at the passing stars. Data and Paris were keeping an eye on the course heading, Seven was…well, being Seven…and Kim was thinking too hard.

"I am still not fully aware of the reason that Q would come after us." Tuvok said, interjecting into the silence.

Janeway couldn't help but grin even in the dark situation, "That's because it's emotion, Tuvok. Pride. If it was just Q vs. Q…"

"The whole galaxy would spontaneously combust," Paris muttered underneath his breath, causing Kim to snigger along with him. Both Janeway and Picard gave him similar pointed stares, which made him immediately shut up.

"Think of it – the battle would go on forever. You're aware of the civil war, which, until we stepped in, would have gone on for our lifetime, if not longer. Q told us that this would provoke him into fighting with the other Q."

Janeway stopped pacing and turned to look out the viewscreen. "And all of this because we jumped a wormhole," she sighed bitterly.

Before anymore could be said, an alarming beep came from multiple panels. Worf immediately crouched down over the security console and Data turned around in his chair to take a look at ops.

"Three D'Deridex class warbirds!" Worf grumbled.

"Red alert!" Picard shouted, having the red alert klaxons go off all around. Geordi and B'Elanna took one look at each other before both taking off to the turbolift to head down to Engineering.

"They are on an intercept course," Data said loudly over the din. "Estimated time to arrival, 2 minutes."

"How come we didn't see them?" The EMH shouted. "They're not even cloaked!"

"How come you didn't see them either, then?" Paris yelled back, still irritated by the EMH's condescending tone, even though after 5 years, he should have been used to it.

The EMH looked shocked, "I'm a doctor, not a sensor array!" Huffing angrily, he also headed towards the turbolift to head down to sickbay, closely followed by Dr. Crusher.

"They are charging disruptors!" Worf rumbled again.

"Shields up," Picard barked in return, looking intently at the viewscreen, which had subsequently changed to a view of the three dark green, and menacing (yet in a subtle way, beautiful) warbirds.

"Shields up," Data acknowledged.

Janeway jumped in as she sat in an empty seat, "Evasive manoeuvres, Mr Paris!"

"Aye, captain." Paris responded tensely.

The first light green beam of energy came out of the tip of the D'Deridex's wing and must have missed the Enterprise, as there was no sudden jolt that always accompanied impact on the shields. The next shot from the second vessel, however, didn't miss its target. The bridge shook, adding a deep rumbling to the constant roaring of the red alert.

"Direct hit, shields to 93 percent," Tuvok said calmly. And truth be told, Worf was just getting the slightest bit annoyed at the Vulcan. He had already expressed his annoyance at the idea of a Vulcan security chief, and his placidity was the reason why.

"Return fire!" Picard ordered sharply.

Worf pressed the subsequent buttons on his panel and the orange phaser fire of the Enterprise came into view, hitting the leading warbird's shields, which turned a dark green.

"Direct hit," Worf said, "No damage."

"Keep firing, Mr Worf," Picard said calmly, even as shot after shot of disrupter fire hit the ship's shields. Sparks flew out of consoles and landed onto the floor where they quickly dissipated but nevertheless caused damage to the electrical systems. Two hits from each warbird, with three warbirds, meant six attacks all at once, which wasn't boding well for the Federation ship.

"Shields down to 12 percent," Tuvok said neutrally.

"Mr. La Forge…" Picard called over the commchannel as he glanced at Janeway, who was wearing the same expression that he was.

In engineering, it was a madhouse. Smoke was billowing out from many consoles and also from unlit and sparking panels on the wall. B'Elanna was running around yelling instructions to the old Voyager crew, and Geordi was running, putting out fires, and barking orders to the Enterprise engineering department.

"Captain, we're doing our best down here!" Geordi yelled in return, waving a fire extinguisher in order to put out a brushfire on a console.

"Vorik, amplify the pulse differentiation!" B'Elanna yelled, running over to a surviving console and punching in commands.

"Aye, Lieutenant," Vorik said calmly. B'Elanna growled under her breath – it seems Klingons in general don't think much of Vulcan indifference in battle time.

"Three warbirds," Geordi said, throwing down the extinguisher in annoyance, "If we ever survive this…"

"What's going on down there?" Picard's voice came through the comm channel.

With a crash, mingling with the klaxons, another console burst into flames. "Nothing good, Captain. Shields are on the verge of collapse, warp drive is now offline, engines are failing, inertial dampeners are at 10 percent and we've lost cooling tanks 3 and 4– we're almost sitting ducks!"

"And the status of the warbirds?"

It was B'Elanna who came into the picture, rubbing sweat from the ridges on her head with a hand. "Minimal damage to the leading warbird, no damage to the flanking."

Another alarm chose that moment to come into focus, this one a lot more meaningful than the standard red alert klaxons, "Security breach!" Geordi yelled, looking at a panel on the wall, "We have Romulans on deck 6!"

The phaser fire on deck 6 lit up the hallways – the majority of it coming from Romulan disruptors from the dozen or so military officers now roaming the hallway, gunning down any opposition they encountered. Bodies of crewmembers in the wrong place at the wrong time were scattered across the hallway floors, some with their eyes wide open in the moment of shock before they were killed, and some shut for some other reason.

"hna'h, Hhrau lloann'na fvaid!" the leading commander yelled in Romulan at the troops behind him, to roars of acknowledgement and more disruptor fire. The universal translator made a log of what was said in Federation basic – "take down the Federation –" and there was no real translation for the last word, but really, the point was gotten automatically. When the security forces, led by Worf and Tuvok arrived, the slaughter began to turn into a full battle.

Green met with orange and blue as the phaser and disruptor fire passed each other, all trying to hit their targets. The Romulans ducked behind a bend in the corridor as Worf advanced with his phase rifle firmly in his hands. A shot from the Romulan commander caused Worf to duck by a door frame, holding his weapon vertically.

"Cover me," Tuvok said, joining him in the doorframe.

"I should be the one advancing!" Worf responded angrily, swivelling his head to look in the corridor and shooting another blast from the rifle at a Romulan who had foolishly poked his head around the corner. "I am the security chief on this vessel!"

"We do not have time to argue semantics, Mr Worf."

Tuvok merely gave the best scolding look he could, which simply said "trust me". Worf muttered a Klingon expression under his breath and started to lay down cover fire.

Tuvok, ducked low, carefully stared making his way down the corridor full of scortch marks and burned holes. The blue fire from Worf's phaser rifle as he continually started pressing the Romulans back, occasionally hearing a shout when he nicked one wherever he could hit, provided satisfactory cover, Tuvok thought, as he rounded the bend and started firing his hand phaser.

Quick flashes of orange came from his phaser as he hit the invading Romulans, his bursts, although set on stun, causing green lacerations to appear on the skin of the attackers as they collapsed in a heap in the corridor.

A jolt from the ongoing battle outside caused both security chiefs as well as the still standing Romulan commander to lose their footing. Tuvok rolled out of the way of a poorly aimed frantic disruptor blast and popped up, hitting his target square in the chest.

As the final Romulan fell with a cry of revenge, Tuvok stood up as another blast rocked the Enterprise. Other Enterprise security members littered the hall with burn marks embedded on their skin – the disruptors were definitely not set to stun. Tuvok gave the most Vulcan-like sigh in existence as he tapped his commbadge.

"Tuvok to the bridge."

"Yes, Tuvok?"

With a short raise of his eyebrow, he turned back to Worf who was quickly getting up from his strategic position on the ground, "The security breach is under control."

Another jolt. Kathryn could tell that Picard was getting annoyed now. So was she, for that matter. The Enterprise was giving it everything and still losing – 3 on 1 was really fair, wasn't it? She blamed Q for this, in a way, but then again, if it wasn't for Q, they'd be dead. And Romulans – they liked to take prisoners, since it usually fit their political agenda, and that would still constitute being alive.

But still, this whole situation made her blood boil.

"Full spread of quantum torpedoes," Picard said shortly, clenching his armrest firmly.

The security ensign that had taken over Worf's position when he left with Tuvok, a young man with closely cropped brown hair and blue eyes, gave acknowledgment in the affirmative, and moments later, the blue streaks rocketed towards the leading warbird.

The dark green of the shields lasted for 2 direct hits before flickering and disappearing. The remaining three torpedoes smashed into the warbird head-on, one even going so far as to break one of the wings away from the main body of the ship, sending a quick shower of sparks before they were snuffed out by the vacuum of space.

The Enterprise limped backwards as the one warbird started to spark and change attitude planes from the one that the Enterprise and the other D'Deridex ships were in. There was an odd quiet in the battle as the other two Romulan ships stopped attacking to notice their fallen comrade. It was at that moment that the D'Deridex exploded, sending a shockwave of warp core breach magnitude and assorted debris hurling towards the Enterprise.

"Brace for impact!" Picard shouted, and everybody within distance subconsciously reached for the closest object towards them that wouldn't move. The shockwave hit.

It blasted the ship backwards, throwing even the people holding on to something to the ground, and setting off even more alerts. Shields were gone, weapon systems offline, navigation offline, life support was failing on deck 17, and certain subroutines in the system's library had gone corrupt. Kathryn grimaced as she picked herself up and tried to remove some of her hair from her eyesight – even though she never actually had it happen to her, she knew it was never a good thing to be hit by a shock wave caused by a core breach.

As everybody picked themselves up from the ground, the two remaining warbirds stayed still in space, as if they were now stuck in a stalemate game of chess. Finally, the two warbirds shimmered as they withdrew underneath their cloak.

"They're probably retreating," Paris breathed, leaning back in his chair and groaning as he cracked his back. "They play tough until they actually get hit and then they back off."

A commlink came open, cutting shorter the very short respite on the bridge, "Captain! We have a problem!"

"Problem?" Riker answered Geordi, and Picard looked at him with eyes wide.

"Yeah, whatever that explosion was, it blew our remaining coolant tanks – we're looking at a breach in 3 minutes!"

"Can you stop it, Geordi?" Picard asked, sharply.

"No, captain."

Picard stood up immediately, "All hands, this is the captain – get to the escape pods, quickly!"

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Author's Note: Hiya. Yeah. Again. So much for "no more multi month pauses" ... er...yeah. :) Sorry. I've had some stuff going on (work sucks, school sucks too), or I haven't been motivated to write anything or I've been motivated but just been lazy...hehe. But, now because it's summer and I don't work day shifts, I can watch pretty much 6 or 7 episodes of TNG and Voyager a day (in fact, 'Cause and Effect' is on at this very moment!), I got back into it. And now my goal is to have up to chapter 16 finished by the end of the summer. I have plans for everything up to 16 so it's not going to be too impossible. This is definately not my best chapter but it (and the next chapter, WARNING) is pretty much filler.

Oh, and yes, if you're wondering, that is real Romulan. I've been studying it on and off for the past 8 months or so - getting books from the library and learning about the grammatical structure, phonetics and pronounciation (let's just say I am really, really a lot better at writing it than I am at speaking it) - and it means what it says. The word 'fvai (the 'd' is plural for living nouns) varies in meaning from book to book - but none of the meanings are very flattering. And yes, I am a huuuuuuge nerd.

Another little stupid but awesome bit - the security ensign who takes over from Worf on the bridge is a throw to Nemesis, where none other than Bryan Singer takes over. I just watched Nemesis and love Bryan Singer so said "eh, why not?". :) Subtle and I doubt any of you would have gotten it but I still loved it. Hehe.

I also wanna say thank you to my new lovely beta Le'letha :) she caught some mistakes my old beta wouldn't have dreamed of catching cause they're no ST fan. So yeah. Thanks, Le'letha :)

That's it for now, I think. I'm also going to be putting 'Do No Harm' up in small bits starting soon, so if you want to, check that out too! I heart you all,

TheNthDegree