Disclaimer: Star Trek is not mine. The original characters are. Any likeness to persons portrayed here is purely Intentional.

Story Revamp: 07/01/2009

Chapter Update: 07/21/2009

Warning! Proceed no further. This story has undergone a major overhaul. Plot, characters, arrangement, chapters, you name it, have all been changed, added, deleted, altered etc. Unless you're a new reader, reading after July 1st, 2009, I suggest you go back and start with the newly added Prelude and continue on. You may recognize much of the story. A few installments have even only had minor changes, but unless you want to be lost, go back and start over. Besides, its' been like six months since I last posted...reread it. :D

EXCURSION GAMMA ~ volume one

IV: Reigns

ONE

“Fly or shoot?” Alexander asked, urgency filling his tone.

“What?”

“Fly or shoot?” he repeated forcefully, “Which one are you more comfortable with?”

“What? Uh…I…”

“I can’t do this by myself, Miria. Pick one: fly the ship or shoot at the bad guys.”

“Oh!” she said, finally understanding, “Um…fly. No, shoot. Wait, fly!

“Never mind, I’ll fly, you shoot. You know what to do, right Commander? You got this?”

“Yes,” Miria responded, offended. He did not have time for tact and sensibilities.

“Just lay down cover fire while I try to get us out of here.”

Miria joined Alexander at the forward console. He knew his ship well and the Solara was quickly moving away from their foe, but the Ly Jadicean ships were much faster. As the attack fighters closed in, weapons fire began to weaken the Solara’s shield. Under a brutal barrage, she bucked involuntarily as three pot-shots rattled the shield, buoying her off-course, and a sweep of energy erupted in a flicker of blue.

One burst, followed by another, sailed harmlessly past the advancing aggressors, effortlessly evading the defensive fire. Another volley came with a surprise as the amber-pulsing spheres met their mark with a deceitfully pleasing detonation.

“Ha-ha! I got one,” Miria exulted, raising her hands triumphantly.

“Great, just stay focused. Soon as we’re clear, I’ll jump to warp.”

“Okay…”

“I’ve got three Imperion ships closing in us, Miria,” he reported, scrupulous in his attention, “Heavy cruisers: wow, they’re big…They’re blocking our escape route.”

Alexander had never seen starships as large; he doubted Miria had either. He mentally groped for an adequate adjective to describe their immensity. Each was scores of kilometers in length and at least one in height and breadth. The elongated wedged silhouettes eclipsed the moon and a significant portion of the gas-giant it orbited; the black canvas of white pinpricks was all but blotted out.

The furthest monstrosity was nothing more than obscured black shadow as the system’s star blinked into view beyond the circumference of the swirling planet, its surface agitated by roiling storms and blood-red like the dying star it orbited. The fierce sinister flares of the star spewed a harsh torrid glare past the planet, and, unforgivingly, across the spectacle.

The other two, however, were quite visible. Alternating matte charcoals and inky obsidian of crenelated plating were striated with sterling and the occasional heliotrope. A series of clusters of globules marked the girth and emanated an eeriness as violet churned to magenta churned to wine. Daunting and powerful in every way, they held an organic feel in the individualistic details and were not identical, though generally the same.

Alexander’s breath caught at the sight.

These cruisers were not yet in weapons range of the Solara - Alexander presumed as well as hoped. Like ever patient yet ravenous shark waiting for scent of first blood, they loomed in any potential escape vector, save back down to the surface of the moon, which was not an option at all. To follow any obvious course would undoubtedly bring them into the cruisers’ reticules.

“What do you want me to do?! Alex, we’re no match for them,” Miria moaned in despair.

“Check the weapons manifest,” Alexander replied as calmly as possible. He had an idea, or hoped he did. “We should be carrying at least one micro-Tricobalt device, fire it between the largest three on my mark. We’re smaller and more maneuverable. I can get us close enough; the rest is up to you.”

Just not too close…

“Got it, loading it into the launcher,” she narrated, then paused. Slowly, she stated in a overly casual tone, “Uh, Alex, it’s asking for me to set the yield. What would you suggest?”

“Set it to max,” he decided, “should only be about ten megatons.”

“Of course. My thoughts exactly,” she answered very quickly, obviously feigning her knowledge of the subject matter. “Ready.”

“Ok, not yet…hold,” Alexander said. He drove their miniscule runabout back through the blanket of darting fighters toward the towering behemoths. Stray shots rocked them. They were almost close enough, “hold…Fire!”

As the twinkling azure explosive arced from their launcher, Alexander swerved the Solara sharply, narrowly avoiding impact with the closet of raiders. The round would fall nowhere near hitting its target when it did go off, but that had not been Alexander’s intention. Assuming weapons control, he then launched a bombardment of micro-torpedoes and two Quantum torpedoes into the blast radius.

“Nice shot,” he told Miria, “now hang on.”

Within seconds of both he and Miria firing off their rounds, and with pinpoint accuracy, Alexander discharged two quick crimson bursts from their aft phaser array. Aimed at the Quantums, the antimatter rounds ignited, and, in a chain-reaction, the other warheads did as well. With a pop-pop-pop, like antimatter fireworks at the Academy graduation, the self-reinforcing shockwave met the Tricobalt device with destructive force.

White Flash

Boom

The detonation was larger than Alexander expected and Miria screeched, passing often into the ultrasonic, through its entirety. The shockwave and fallout blinded Solara’s rear sensor array, and, with luck, the enemy scans. Diverting power to aft-shields, they blindly road the brunt of the force clear of the Imperion vessels. The scattered fighters appeared to be disabled, at least momentarily, and the ensuing barrage did considerable damage. A second wave of fighters emerged from the three Imperion cruisers.

The cruisers lay well out of the blast radius and were undamaged. Alexander would have been surprised if they had been, as it was not his goal. To say it was a “match of no contest” was a ludicrous understatement. The light-show was a diversion. Solara was small enough that the blast easily hid them from the enemy sensors, even if momentarily. It was all the time Alexander needed to activate the cloak and make them virtually invisible.

“What are we doing carrying that level of firepower?!” Miria demanded in an overwhelmed outrage. She was shaking. Understandably, though, as Solara had taken a beating.

“It’s all about how you use what you got,” he said smugly, knowing she would recognize her own paraphrased credo. Her forehead crinkled in disapproval of his humor.

Assuming they can’t see right through us…

“Alex, let’s go,” Miria urged anxiously, “Warp-speed, come on!”

“Something’s wrong,” he told her, hurriedly absorbing his readouts. “The…induction driver coil assembly is offline. What in the-”

“Is that…bad?”

“Well, we can’t jump to warp.”

“What?! Can you fix it?”

“I don’t think it’s broken. It looks like it’s been manually disengaged. I’ll be right back,”

“What?! No, no, no.” Miria protested fervently, “Alex, I’m…not task-trained on a runabout. And I certainly cannot be the Solara’s tactical officer and helmsman at the same time.”

“Alright, then you go.”

“I can’t fix the warp drive!” she exclaimed, baffled by his proposal, “Are you insane?!”

“It’s not broken,” Alexander insisted emphatically, “We’ll keep an open com channel; I’ll talk you through it.”

She shook her head, angst-fully refusing.

“Miria, I can’t do both. I can’t be at two places at once. Our shields are at 35% and their ships are almost in weapons range again. You can do this. You have to do this.”

“Alright, I’m going,” she said, giving in. “You’ll talk me through it?”

“Every step. Now go!”

Miria did not move right away. However, a well timed thruster burst from Alexander in conjunction with momentary failure to the inertial dampers had her out of her seat and sliding across the floor on her hindquarters. Now on her feet, Miria was quickly on her way.

“We’re cloaked,” Alexander called over his shoulder, “It’ll buy us a few more minutes, but their technology is very advanced. I doubt it’ll hide us for long.

“We have a cloak?” Miria demanded, pausing in the exit.

“Yeah,” he answered emphatically, annoyance coloring the reply.

“That’s illegal,” she informed him curtly, disdain coloring her response.

“We’re in the Gamma Quadrant. Go!”

“Khitomer Accords, right,” she mumbled, remembering the concession, “Going.”

A blaze of incoming fire, white hot. Too much to see through.

Take out enemy turrets, give us a chance. Scanners jammed. Can’t get past.

“…ull up…comin…too hot…mayda…”

Explosion. Flash. Static.

Companion. Not returning fire. Dead in the water?

Where the hell are those fighters?

More gliders. Overwhelmed. Swarming the others.

“On your six!”

The blue bursts stopped. Quantum torpedoes? Cover fire gone.

Moving towards the Achilles. No defenses. Fighters gone. Barcelona out of range.

So many, too many. Can’t keep up.

“…Bossman…going…”

Two more. But not even a dent. Flash. More explosions.

Out of missiles.

“…breakin’ up…can’t…Bossman.”

Raiders broke through. Cruisers moving in.

Explosions different this time. Fleet’s shields…

“TBird! Back off! Back off!”

White

Black

The Ambassador was quite proud that she only found herself turned around once on her short jaunt to the engine room. The Solara was holding up reasonably well, she noticed.

“Mems, what’s the hold up?” Alexander called over the open com-link.

Someone’s getting pushy.

“I’m outside the engine room door, but it won’t open,” Miria reported, “I think it’s jammed.”

“Then un-jam it, use the manual release. Unless you prefer to be incinerated.”

“Right.”

A compartment adjacent the entry held two grips used to force the panels apart.

“I’m in,” Miria called, sliding between the door panels. She was met with a blast of hot, smoky air. She presumed the centralized, horizontal column, pulsing a radiant purple, was the Solara’s Warp Core. Miria had not spent much time in Engineering over her career, but she was pretty certain she could identify that. “It looks pretty bad in here. Are you sure it’s not broken?”

“No, but how would I know from here?” Alexander returned, “All the consoles should be indicating a problem; go to the large display on the port side of the entry way.”

“No good, the display’s shattered.”

“There’s a command station in the starboard section,” he informed her, exasperated. It took Miria a moment, but she found the station; instructions were waiting.

“Okay, got em.” Returning to the central walkway, Miria approached the core, but was startled with a low-level shock as she met resistance. “Alex, there’s a force-field around the core and forward section.”

“Alright, I got it.”

“Wait,” she called out apprehensively, “what if there’s poisonous gas behind it?”

“There’s not.”

“You don’t know why that field is up-”

“Well, then we’re dead either way, Commander Memlillia,” Alexander cut her off matter-o-factly, “I’m lowering the field. You still alive?”

“Yes,” she retorted. She was astounded by his brash.

“You don’t sound very happy about that. Hurry up!”

Traversing the engine room, Miria had to dig her way through downed railings and panels to find the correct station. The display was damaged and she had to reconnect the power.

“I’m at the console and I’ve entered the command codes-”

“Okay, first you need to–”

“I’ve got it,” she told him. Miria had the instructions and did not want the added confusion.

“Wait, you don’t-”

“Computer, reengage plasma induction conduits and reinitialize driver coil assembly.”

There was a negative beep.

“Alex, it didn’t work. What do we do now?”

“Great. We’ll have to try it manually.”

“What do I do?”

“It’ll be simple,” Alexander said, trying to assure her. Miria was dubious. “Go over to the core. There’s a railing. Do you see the mote-like pit surrounding the core?”

“Yes,” she said, sizing up the reactor, silently hoping radiation was not leaking. “I see it.”

“I need you to climb behind the rail and look down into the pit.”

“What?! I’m not going down there. That safety rail’s there for a reason: Stay out!”

“Miria.”

Miria paused to mentally prep herself and secure her hair, which had tumbled free some time ago. Awkwardly ducking under the rail, she leaned her head down into the opening. Miria had no idea what she was looking for and was about to say so when a tremor rocked the ship; the ambassador tumbled headlong into the pit.

“What was that?!” the precariously positioned female irritably demanded.

“Weapons fire; they’ve found us.”

“Well, return fire!”

“No can do,” he refuted, “They’ll be able to triangulate our position.”

“I thought you said they found us.”

“Might have been a lucky shot, no way to be sure, but if I shoot, it’ll give away our position, for sure. I’m on the move, but I can’t dodge them indefinitely.”

“Fine, what am I looking for?” Miria demanded, regaining her footing.

“Two large cylindrical conduits: they should be the only ones not glowing.”

“I see ‘em,” she reported triumphantly, “Are they supposed to be connected to the core?”

“Yeah.”

“Well they aren’t. They’re sticking straight up.”

“That’s not them,” Alexander said with a short tone, “Try again.”

“Don’t get cheeky. I’m trying my best.”

Continuing forward, Miria grumbled to herself about crawling around in the belly of a little shuttlecraft in the middle of nowhere. There was more turbulence, and fire-suppressant sprung up in her face.

“Cloak has failed.” Alexander’s voice was urgent and forceful.

“Now, I see them,” Miria said between coughs. The suppressant had sent her into a hacking fit, “One has a round thingy with a bar on it that’s perpendicular, the other one has the same, but is parallel, and they’re not touching.”

“Okay this is good,” he said, another blast jolting them, “drop the…um…‘round thingy’ into place, then rotate the lever so that it locks into position. They should look the same now.” “I got it!”

“Great job. Get back to the console; you know what to do.”

Miria scrambled from the pit to the station and reentered the instructions.

“Done!”

“Engaging engines, Warp Six,” he triumphant voice came over the com. A moment passed, and then, “We’re clear. The enemy did not pursue.”

Sighing with relief, Miria lay back on the console and slid to the floor.

That wasn’t so bad, I guess.

“Treimer!” the Colonel shouted. Inhaling sharply, he was jolted awake by the sound of his own outcries. Breathing heavily, he fought against his restraints until realizing he was still just strapped in. Struggling, the Colonel yanked himself free of his harness and then collapsed against his seat. Covering his face, he caught his breath and forced his racing heart to slow.

Closing his eyes, he saw flashes of the battle: weapons fire, a burning fighter – one of his own – spinning out of control and bursting into a quick burp of flame. Gasping, the Colonel forced his eyes open and sat up quickly. Nausea overtook him. Putting his head between his knees, careful to keep his eyes open, he waited for it to pass.

Once control was regained, the Colonel ordered his thoughts. They escaped, but just barely. Hidden in the asteroid field under the cover of the green fog. The Colonel had been drifting in and out of consciousness for several hours now. His fighter was heavily damaged, the controls dead.

Treimer.

They had moved clear of the fleet together and the Colonel had towed him to safety. His subordinate’s vessel was adrift just a few meters from him. Wiping away the carbon scoring from his once transparent canopy, the Colonel could see it. The fighter was flipped over, opposite the direction of his own. Since up or down had no meaning in space, it was of no consequence.

Still, seeing Treimer’s motionless body pressed against the cockpit’s transparency was unsettling to the Colonel. Upon closer inspection, he could make out the bloodied face of his wingman. There was no vapor on the canopy near his mouth.

He’s not breathing.

“Treimer,” the Colonel called out. His headset was dead. “Sergeant Treimer, do you copy?”

The fighter’s com was down, too.

“Treimer!” The Colonel yelled again, banging against his own canopy.

As if sound carried in space, he mentally kicked himself.

There was a hum, and then something shot overhead. At the sight of it, he had another flash of the battle. A scout ship, he remembered. As long as their fighters were powered down, they would remain protected; the cloud made them impervious to their sensors. They were just inert debris.

“Pretty close to it,” he muttered.

Two, three…four, five, the Colonel counted. They had about a half an hour, if he remembered correctly, before the scouts returned. It was all the time they had; that last patrol was much closer than any of the others had been.

Waiting a few more moments, he powered up his sensor array.

C’mon, TBird. Be alive.

“Report!”

“Sensors are offline again, sir; we’re blind,” Crewman Dûr called out.

Lieutenant Vance was somewhere in the aft section of the cramped shuttlecraft. With interior illumination offline, Susannah could see nothing. B’tia, the toddler granddaughter of the aging mother of one of Searchlight’s crewmembers, was crying again. Silently, the girl had slept in the arms of the elderly matron for the majority of their stint aboard; ever since they had been turbulently bombarded, the bawling had not ceased. That is, until the brazen Lieutenant loudly demanded their status. She breathed a sigh of relief at the respite from the noise.

“Excuse me, Doc,” Vance said, emerging from the darkness. She quickly evacuated the seat and made way for him, but remained close by to listen. “How’s Koday?”

“He’s…fine,” she lied. There was nothing more she could do; they needed Vance focused.

“Weapons are down,” Dûr continued, “warp and impulse engines are useless, thrusters only. We got no shields, and life support is at thirty-two percent. There’re micro fractures all along our starboard nacelle and we’re venting plasma. The deflector is burnt out. Structural integrity is buckling in the aft-section, but containment fields are holding. The subspace transceiver and communications array are toast. And artificial gravity is failing.”

“Well, what do we have, Crewman?”

“The backup power generator is holding,” Dûr said, exhaling, “thrusters, like I said, transporters are operational again, and the replicator is still online.”

“The replicator? Really?” the Lieutenant inquired with a surprised and hopeful tone. “That’s usually the first thing to go. At least we won’t starve to death.”

Silently, Susannah waited patiently. She was becoming restless and a little anxious.

“Looks like we’ve got everyone were gonna get, Doc,” Vance told her, finally, “We can’t risk using transporters like this. They’d most likely end up piles of goo in our aft-section.”

Susannah grimaced and nodded acknowledgment, biting her lip.

“That Chaffee is packed full, but they have a lot more room than we do,” he said, “if we hadn’t transported everyone over when we did, there wouldn’t be enough air to go around.”

“Before we lost sensors, it looked like they were alright,” Dûr interjected, “The shuttle was disabled, but everything else looked good. Your patients should be just fine.”

“So, now what?” she finally asked, ignoring the discrepancy: many of those patients were in fact in need of immediate medical attention. “It doesn’t look like a rescue is coming anytime soon.”

Looking out across the clearing, Susannah could see the remains of the fleet. The starships were hard to make out at such a distance, and without the bright blues and reds of their engines it was even harder, but they were there. Whether or not the crews survived was anyone’s guess.

Their attackers left as quickly as they came. Ships larger than Susannah had ever seen, or even heard of, descended on the fleet without warning. Defenses down, her compatriots rallied to mount a counter attack, but the pinnacle of Federation technology paled against the onslaught. The fleet was fortunate to have several squadrons of fighters among its ranks, but their attempts to stave off the enemy were futile.

Susannah recalled her view of the battle literally being blackened as wave after wave of enemy support craft swarmed from their colossal mothership until the starships were obscured from sight. When the space cleared, she expected to see nothing, but instead, from the vantage point of their little shuttle several thousand kilometers away, the fleet looked undamaged. Adrift, but undamaged.

It was Susannah’s theory that the crews had been taken prisoner. She could think of no other reason why the ships had been left intact but not salvaged. Or why the enemy would wait around for so long: nearly a half an hour passed before the larger ships left and the scouting patrols began. Vance had agreed to commence immediate rescue operations of the nearby survivors. Unfortunately, they were quickly discovered by the patrols and were forced to take refuge within the gaseous cloud after taking heavy damage. Perched in the shadow of an asteroid’s crater, they hid.

“We’ve got thrusters and a window; let’s go take a look-see,” Vance suggested, immediately going to work at his console.

“What about those scout ships?” Susannah protested, “The moment we leave this little hiding place of yours, they’re bound to find us.”

“We’ll fly along the perimeter of the clearing using the asteroids and the gas cloud’s EM field for cover,” he informed her confidently, his tone casual, brushing off her concerns.

“The last time we ran into one of –” she began.

“At the first sight of trouble, we’ll duck for cover, snuggle up real close to one of these floating boulders, and power down. We’ll be fine; nothing to worry about, Doc.”

For some reason, Susannah did not feel very reassured.

[A5] “So, what was its name?”

Alexander and Miria were on the Bridge of Solara. Making what repairs he could, they were retreating to the asteroid field as fast as the little starship would allow. Blasting out of the star system at near maximum warp had blown a few of their already damaged systems. They were now limping back at Warp 2 with minimal systems and no crew.

“I’m sorry?” he said to her query.

“The ship, what was its name?” Miria asked again.

“I’m not following you.”

“You’re wearing a red shirt now,” she said, “not gold.”

“What are you going on about?” Alexander turned to face Miria, bewildered by her inquiries. An incredulous smile slowly spread across his lips.

“You’re an Ops officer, a ship designer by trade, so you fall under the broad term of engineer,” Miria stated; it was quite clear she was implying something. “Both the engineering and security departments are designated by the yellow on their uniform. You’re wearing red now.”

“And?”

“Besides admirals, only pilots and starship command officers wear red. A simple promotion doesn’t warrant a color change. You’ve always found the non-reactive controls of a starship to be tediously boring; obviously, you were assigned a command post,” Miria concluded her deductions, “So, what was its name?”

Alexander let out a sigh, “You’re good, you know that?”

“And you’re being evasive.”

He exhaled noisily through his nostrils and pursed his lips. Uncrossing his arms, Alexander returned his attention to the helm.

“As the sole official representative of the Federation Council out here in the middle of nowhere, I have a lot of clout; it would be easy to find out.”

“Refresh my memory, what is the political term for ‘power abuser’?” he asked rhetorically.

Miria only laughed in reply while he pretended to be busy with the controls.

“First Officer, USS Montgomery,” Alexander finally answered, caving.

“Ironic,” she mused, “good for you. What happened?”

Melodramatically waving his arm at the space around them, he replied, “Spent a few weeks at Pathfinder before the assignment began, so I hadn’t even left headquarters when I was ordered to the ship yards at Utopia Planitia to assist in overseeing the final production phase of several Prometheus-class ships. I was told I would be joining up with the Montgomery in a few weeks, but I was barely at Utopia a week before being pulled for this little task.”

“I don’t suppose they’ll wait for you,” she said with a sympathetic look.

He remained silent, thinking. None of their lives would wait for them, he imagined.

“Things have been so busy the last few days I hadn’t really thought about it,” Alexander confided, “I’ve had everything else on my mind, but now, I think I just realized how deep were in: so much for traipsing around the Gamma quadrant for a few months and then going back to our lives. There’s a whole ship of people with interrupted plans. The Vanguard crew – what’s left of them – didn’t sign on for this anymore than we did.”

Miria was silent; reflecting, he surmised. Alexander’s mind began to wander as he considered the vast implications of their predicament. Lost as those they had come to rescue, things were decidedly more complex and, he feared, would continue to complicate.

“Alex,” his friend said, her voice soft, cutting through the quiet, “I’m sorry.”

Turning once more from his console, Alexander saw her face was downcast. His forehead crinkled as he scrutinized her and patiently waited for her to clarify.

“For not listening to you,” Miria said, “I’m sorry. You were right about the colony and the risk being too great. If I had just-”

“Miria.”

“Alex, the mission was a complete failure. It’s my fault.”

“There was no way to know what would happen,” he insisted, “but, these things do happen. We did it by the book and were lucky to even get away with our lives. Comes with the job. You know that.”

“You knew,” Miria protested. “You knew it was too dangerous to proceed my way, but I wouldn’t listen.”

“At least I didn’t say I told you so,” he joked. “Is this really the first diplomatic mission you blew?”

“It’s the first time anyone’s died under my command.”

He blanched, barely concealing his response.

Dang it, he mentally berated himself. How could I be so insensitive?

That was very out of character for Alexander, but with all the excitement, the repairs, and his ponderings of their being marooned, he had all but forgotten. Barely acquainted with the fallen officers, Alexander had not given so much as thought to the good men and women whom had died. Guilt swept over him. He had always been so resolute to never be that kind of officer, to just dismiss the death of a comrade.

Never again.

Squeezing her hand, Alexander gave a sympathetic smile. It was hardly sufficient, but was all he could seem to muster. Returning his gaze to the stars streaming by, somber silence continued.

“I do what I do so that violence can be avoided.”

He nodded slowly with sympathy, but before Alexander could respond, his console began beeping. “Hmm…that’s odd,” he said, “I’m getting strange sensor readings from the fleet.”

“What? You mean were here already?”

“Yeah, we just dropped out of warp,” he replied, “Why?”

“Alex, I’m not sensing anyone.”

“We are still pretty far out,” he offered, “And there’s a lot of interference, maybe it’s messing with your empathic abilities too.”

“No,” she protested, analyzing the sensor data for herself, “We were a lot farther out before, when we were taking readings of the gas cloud. There are thousands of people in the fleet. I should be able to sense them as a group.”

“You’re right something’s up,” he said, “they’re not responding to hails.”

The sensor readings were garbled with interference. Much more than when they left.

“These radiation signatures almost look like residual weapons fire.”

Crack

The Solara was jolted. The lights dropped as Red Alert was triggered.

“What was that?” Miria called out. Another jolt followed.

“Raise shields: someone’s shooting at us.”

The Solara took two more hits before Alexander was able to escape into the cloud. His scans showed no enemy vessels, or friendly ones for that matter.

“The Imperion?” Miria wondered.

Alexander, in a frenzy at his console, shrugged.

“Were being hailed,” Alexander informed his copilot, who was as puzzled as he. “I’m putting it on screen.”

Above the Solara’s forward viewport was the viewer. The signaled was weak and static plagued the image, but it was obvious the signal was friendly.

“Sorry about that, sirs,” said the man. “I had to get you outta sight before they saw you.”

“Before who saw us?” Miria demanded.

“It’s not safe here,” he informed them. The bright tail of a fighter dropped into their view. “There’s a dense cluster of asteroids three hundred kilometers to port; follow me.”

The transmission clicked off as the fighter darted away. Solara quickly followed but was not as maneuverable in the clutter as the compact combat craft. Alexander eased the runabout into the midst of the towering space-boulders. The Marine had already set down in the shadows of the largest. Bringing them to a halt, Alexander set the autopilot to maintain the current distance between the asteroids. The viewscreen lit up again.

“Colonel Skahticus?” Alexander asked, as he managed to clear up the image.

“That’s right, Commander. Didn’t expect to run into the two of you out here.”

“What is going on, Colonel?” Miria demanded once more.

“You don’t know?”

“We’ve just returned from a diplomatic mission to a local colony,” Alexander replied. “We were attacked, and barely made it out alive. Lost all but one of our crew. We haven’t had contact with the fleet since we left.”

“You were one of the lucky ones then, sir.”

Miria and Alexander exchanged uneasy looks.

“Your fighter looks pretty beat up, Colonel. Why don’t you come aboard and we’ll talk?”

“Commander, I’ve got an injured wingman in the backseat.”

“We have medical facilities on board,” Alexander told him, “I’ll beam you both there.”

“Much appreciated.”

Author's Note:

I'm sorry it's taken SO long to update. This one may need some more revising, but I said...ah, what the heck, just take it. Reviews, comments, and critiques are, as always, much appreciated and VERY welcome.

Enjoy

PS The document uploader is giving me hell. It's not saving things the way I change them, creating all kinds of strange spelling errors, removing spaces around italicized words, deleting lines in two case, and more crap. I'm working on figuring out and fixing it. A special thanks to Pacificuser to pointing out my need for proof-reading. I beg mercy.