by Mike Wright


TEASER

Shawn Gorman sighed as he looked over the sensor reports collected in the last half-hour. The Shadow Horseman was currently stationed inside the McAlester C-5 Nebula, gathering reports on Dominion activity in the Minos Korva system. The indications were not encouraging, over twenty heavy battle cruisers and fifty battle ships were orbiting the planet. From the nebula, it was impossible to tell what exactly was going on in the system. All Gorman new was that the Cardassians had attempted to take control of the sector over four years ago, hoping it would be a major staging point in a potential Federation invasion.

Of course these days, the Dominion had all ready taken control of three sectors beyond Minos Korva, only proving just how important the sector was. Starfleet SO was hoping to send a contingent of SO vessels into the area to take back the sector, but from these readings it didn 't look possible.

Under normal circumstances, they would just cloak and infiltrate one of the command ships. Unfortunately, there was a high energy sensor array in orbit Minos, which the Federation had placed in order to keep tabs on any vessel that might enter the area and attempt to pillage the now-dead civilization 's advanced weapon technology. And knowing the Dominion, they probably outfitted the array with special cloak-detection technology, known to work at a radius of five light-years.

The captain set the small padd on the table, sitting back in his chair. Outside the small viewport, he could see the fluctuations in the shields as they attempted to keep the protometric gasses from eating away at the hull. The deck shuddered slightly, and the comm system chimed.

"Captain," commander Lapel said in a low tone, "I don 't know how much longer I can keep these shields up. We 're down to twenty percent, and if we stay here any longer we 'll have to start diverting power from life support."

Gorman glanced back at the padd, realizing that it was a hopeless assignment. He hit his comm badge, and said "All right. Take us out of the nebula, full impulse. Once we leave, engage the cloaking device and set course for Deep Space Nine, warp six."

He could hear Lapel give out a sigh of relief as he acknowledged. Gorman chuckled a bit at the response, then headed for the bridge. As the doors slid open, he almost ran into Lieutenant Allenby. One thing Starfleet never considered when they designed the bridge was putting the aft operations console behind the center seat, so near the bridge exit.

She turned her head and grinned. "Morning captain. Lovely day out, wouldn 't you say?"

The captain laughed, looking at the holographic representation of the nebula before them. "Oh yes. Just look at those ultra-violet radiation spikes. Looks like a possible chance of rain."

Lieutenant commander Tarbis laughed from the tactical station seat at the head of the bridge. When Lieutenant Mirek was not on duty, Tarbis often sat in one of forward stations, just for the heck of it. "I 'm sure that will make Lapel 's life much easier."

Before taking the center seat, the captain checked the readouts at the science station, currently devoted to damage control. "Look 's like we 've got mild hull degradation to the starboard plasma manifold. Well, I guess the party is over. Tarbis do me a favor and go down to engineering. Make sure Lapel isn 't killing himself trying to keep the ship together."

Tarbis grinned, then left the bridge. Allenby sat in the navigation station, and Gorman took the center seat. "Ok lieutenant. Take us out, full impulse."

On the tactical screen, he could see the ship slowly moving out of the nebula. As the ship left, both of them let out a sigh of relief. "Shields are returning to full power," Lapel said.

The door to the bridge opened, and lieutenant Mirek stepped in. "We 're leaving, huh? Good, it 's a little hard to sleep when all you can hear is the sound of shields failing."

The captain laughed, checking the status monitors again. The alert klaxons went off, and a holographic representation of Minos initialized, showing three of the battle cruisers breaking off to intercept them.

Mirek quickly manned his station. "Cloaking device engaged," he reported.

"Set course for DS9, maximum warp," Gorman ordered.

They could feel minute vibrations in the deck as the ship entered warp. A few minutes later, an unbelievable force ripped through the bridge, sending all three of them out of their seats. The ship began shuddering uncontrollably, and all the stations went dark. The lights blanked out shortly after. As the holo-tanks disengaged, Gorman caught site of the star-field outside, and realized that the ship was in some kind of flat spin.

"Report!" he ordered, as the shuddering slowly died down.

Allenby attempted to access her station, but didn 't even get a rejection response. The bridge had lost all power.

ACT I

 

"We 've lost all power," Allenby reported. "I can 't access any of these stations."

Gorman shook his head, then opened the weapons locker. He pulled out three SO field tricorders, and handed them out. "Let 's start with a damage report. If the cloaking device is offline, then we 'll be in trouble once those Dominion ships get here." He hit his comm badge. "Gorman to Lapel."

After a few moments of silence, he hit it again. "Gorman to Tarbis. Gorman to computer."

"Internal communications must be offline," Allenby said. She ran the tricorder over the computer access terminal. "I 'm not getting any signals from the ODN conduit. Either it 's severed, or the computer is offline."

Mirek ran his tricorder over the bulkhead near the door, which seemed to be jammed shut. "There 's some kind of minor quantum fluctuations running through the hull. I think we may have snagged onto a quantum filament ."

Allenby laughed. "Great. Last time I was on the Enterprise, they had hit a quantum filament that caused major system damage. With the Horseman being as small as it is, we 're lucky to be alive."

Gorman was pulling their new hand-held HIPD out of the weapons locker, trying to turn it on. "I can 't get this thing to work. Looks like some of the internal circuitry was damaged."

"It wouldn 't matter anyway," Mirek said. "There 's a hull breach just beyond the hatchway. Looks like the door was automatically sealed."

"We can get to engineering through the jeffries tube," Allenby said, pulling out a floor panel next to the weapons locker. Below it was another environmentally sealed bulkhead.

"Wait," the captain said. "I 'm detecting another hull breach in deflector control. We can 't get through there either."

Mirek threw his hands into the air. "Well how else are we supposed to get out of here? The transporter doesn 't work, there 's no power to the bridge."

The captain sighed. "Can you detect any kind of power emanations in the ship?"

Allenby checked her tricorder. "We can 't tell, the quantum fluctuations running throughout the ship is interfering with the scanning field. Which would seem to indicate that the ship is still caught in the filament."

Gorman cocked his head. "Is there any way we can use that to our advantage? Pull energy from the filament and use it to power any of these stations?"

"The resonance is all wrong," Allenby said. "The ship would likely explode as soon as we tried it."

"We may have another option." Mirek began.

"What do you mean?" Gorman said.

Mirek pulled out Lapel 's engineering kit from underneath the ops station, and used Lapel 's lucky screwdriver to remove the transporter operations panel from the wall next to the transporter pad.

"Uh oh," Allenby joked, "Lapel isn 't going to like that."

Mirek pulled out a small field transponder, and set the panel next to the transporter. "I can use some of the components from the transporter to get a containment field running in deflector control. From there, we can use the jeffries tube to get to engineering."

"Good idea," Allenby agreed. "We can use the power cells from the phaser rifles to power the field generators."

"How long will the field last?" Gorman asked.

Mirek suddenly stopped for a moment, thinking. "Probably about 45 seconds. Should be plenty of time to get into the jeffries tube."

"Do it," Gorman said. "And make it quick. Who knows how long until those Dominion ships get here."

* * *

Tarbis was frantic as he pulled away several broken conduits that were covering Lapel 's blood soaked body. When the impact had occurred, he had just entered engineering in time to see a plasma conduit burst from behind the main engineering station. Several bulkheads and other transfer tubing fell out of the ceiling compartment onto Lapel, knocking him out instantly.

As he finally reached the man, he pulled the small medical tricorder from his back pocket and ran it over Lapel. He detected several internal hemorrhages, ones that would undoubtedly kill the man if gone untreated within the next few minutes.

"Computer," Tarbis said, hitting his communicator. "Emergency transport two to sickbay."

There seemed to be a slight beeping, then the comm engaged. "Unable to comply. Transporter lock could not be attained."

"Reason?" Tarbis asked.

"Quantum fluctuations in the hull are interfering with signal."

"Damn it!" Tarbis exclaimed. "Computer, what 's causing the fluctuations?"

"Unknown."

Tarbis shook his head, and began dragging Lapel to the turbolift.

ACT II

 

Mirek attached the last phaser power cell to the field generator, causing it to hum to life. He nodded, and Gorman quickly released the environmental bulkhead. As soon as it opened, air rushed in so fast that it sucked the captain in head-first. He rolled just in time, landing with the brunt of the force on his shoulder. Most of the air from the bridge had just filtered into deflector control, but it was still hard for the captain to catch his breath. Mirek and Allenby quickly followed. None of the emergency lights were working, and Allenby panicked as she realized she couldn 't find the hatch to the jeffries tube.

"Where is it?" she asked.

Mirek, who remembered to bring a palm beacon, snapped it on. Finding the hatch, he popped the manual release and quickly opened the door.

"Come on," Allenby said to the captain, pulling on his shoulder. He grunted in pain, realizing that his arm was broken. Despite this, he managed to right himself and jump into the tube. Just as Allenby moved behind him to shut the hatch, he could hear the undeniable sound of a security field disengaging. He felt a massive movement of air around him and incredible force of suction as he began to slide out of the tube. If it had not been for Allenby 's quick reflexes, he might have been sucked out before the door had closed.

Mirek looked back and grinned at Allenby. "Good one. Look here," he said, pointing to one of the conduits in the tube. He pulled back one of the thick bio-neural ODN relays, to reveal a fully functional computer access terminal.

"At least we know the computer is working," he said.

"Then there 's still a good chance we can take control of the ship," Gorman finished.

* * *

The small turbolift stopped at deck one, near sickbay. Tarbis managed to drag Lapel across the catwalk into sickbay, and lay him on the bio-bed. Some of his equipment had been broken, but he managed to get enough of it working to seal up the hemorrhages in Lapel, and bring him around.

"What happened?" Lapel asked.

"I don 't know," Tarbis replied. "Some kind of impact. You 've got several plasma burns, but I managed to take care of all the serious damage. You 're not going to be able to walk for a few days though."

"What about the rest of the crew?"

"I don 't know," he said. "Communication is down, I haven 't been able to reach them. I wanted to make sure you were all right before I went looking for them."

His comm-badge beeped suddenly. Very faintly, he could hear lt. Mirek. "Mirek to Doctor, were are you?"

The doctor slapped his badge in relief. "I 'm in sickbay, where 's Allenby and the captain?"

"Right here," Allenby said, slightly more clear. "The captain 's injured, he broke his shoulder."

Lapel, still light headed, hit his comm badge. "What happened?"

"We hit some kind of quantum filament," she said. "We still seem to be caught in it, most of the systems are being effected by quantum fluctuations."

Mirek helped the captain over to the turbolift, where it began its ascent to sickbay. "We 're sending the captain up to you while we try and get back control of the ship."

"Acknowledged," Tarbis replied.

Allenby was looking at the main warp core readout when Mirek rejoined her. "So what 's the bad news?" he said.

"The filament is affecting the stabilization field around the warp core," she said. "If we don 't get loose soon, the field will go down, and the core will breach."

ACT III

 

"Can we eject the core?" Mirek asked.

She laughed. "Two problems with that. One, without the warp core, we will never get untangled from the filament before those Dominion ships get here. And second, the minute the core leaves the ship, the quantum fluctuations will set it off before it 's a safe distance away. The whole ship will go up."

Mirek frowned. "What 's the condition of the impulse engines and the thruster core?"

Allenby ran a check, then arched her eyebrow. "Impulse power is online, engines fine as much as I can tell. Unfortunately, the forward firing thrusters nearest to the filament are down."

"Can we move through the filament?"

She whistled, looking at the damage control readout. "It 's all ready lodged about three meters into the port warp nacelle. If we go through it, we 'd sheer off the nacelle. And even if we tried, we couldn 't pick up enough speed to do it."

Mirek cocked his head, suddenly getting an idea. "I 've got it. Look." He brought up the holographic schematics of the ship, then laid over the filament. "It 's right next to the quantum torpedo bay, and as far as these readings tell us, that bay facing the filament is still functional. If we set off a torpedo in that bay, it should cause an explosion on a quantum level, pushing the ship away from the filament!"

Allenby looked at him as if he were crazy. "If you set off a torpedo, the whole ship will go up!"

Mirek moved towards the engineering security station. "Not if we transfer energy from the impulse engines and dump it into the structural integrity field, right here." He pointed to the port escape pod hatches.

"Why there?"

"Because, the more solid this area is against the torpedo bay, then the brunt of the explosion will be transferred away from the ship and towards the filament. We 'll lose that area, but most of the ship will still be intact."

"You 're crazy," she said. Just as she did, the deck leapt beneath them, and the red alert klaxons went off. "Warning. Structural integrity field failing. Warp core failure in two minutes."

Her eyes turned wide. "But I guess it 's the only choice we have." She transferred torpedo control to her console, then nodded her head.

"Ready," she said hesitantly.

He transferred the necessary energy, then hit his comm badge. "Captain, we 're about ready to try and free ourselves from the filament. You might want to hold on, it 's going to be a bumpy ride."

"Acknowledged," he said.

"Power transferred," Mirek said.

Allenby took a large breath as if it were her last. "Firing torpedo."

The port torpedo launcher erupted into a massive explosion catapulting the ship away from the blue quantum filament at almost near-warp speed. The Shadow Horseman tumbled end over end, finally coming to rest before one of the enormous Dominion battle cruisers.

ACT IV

 

Neyroun laughed as he recognized the Federation ship as it came to a halt before them. He had read intelligence reports that Starfleet had assembled several Special Operations ships, equipped with cloaking devices and specially trained crew. The results from these ships were particularly impressive, especially the reports of the Shadow Horseman. He remembered delivering the report personally to the Dominion from the Founder that had obtained the information.

The Cardassian Gul assigned to his ship, Gul Torah walked up to the screen. "I 've never seen a Federation vessel with that configuration before."

The Gul 's amazement made Neyroun laugh. "Fortunately, I have. It 's going to be quite difficult to take this ship. Chances are, we won 't be able to board her successfully. The captain has obviously programmed special contingencies against that. However, luck is on our side today. It looks like most of the ship has all ready been damaged." He turned towards the science station. "Get me a complete readout on that ship, I want to know where every member of her crew is located and the exact condition of the ship. Then beam them directly to the holding area."

      * * *

Mirek checked the sensor readings, and just about freaked when he saw the Dominion battle cruiser ahead of them. "Uh," he stuttered, "I must have miscalculated that one."

The small engineering turbolift came to a stop, and captain Gorman stepped off, good as new. "Status report," he ordered.

Tess almost laughed. "We had to use a quantum torpedo explosion to free ourselves from the filament. Unfortunately, we had forgotten about that." She pressed a button, bringing up the battle cruiser on the holographic display.

Captain Gorman grinned. "No problem. We 've been in worse situations. You guys know what to do."

Mirek, with a new sense of confidence, grinned back and moved towards the tactical systems monitor. "Shield generators are fried, cloaking device isn 't responding. We 've got one functional forward torpedo launcher, and both aft launchers are working. Phasers are at seventy percent, and all four emitters seem to be intact."

Allenby brought up the navigation console. "Impulse engines are at eighty percent, some of the thrusters are out. Possible chance of ten percent loss in maneuverability. I probably don 't have to tell you warp engines are down."

Gorman took the engineering station, since Tarbis was still working on Lapel. "Warp core stable, ninety percent efficiency across the board. ODN computer relays in the forward section are down of course, but we still have full functionality aft. HIPD isn 't accepting diagnostic requests." All of them knew that this meant nothing, as the HIPD often would not accept requests on standby mode, or when there was less than ninety-three percent power efficiency. "Look 's like we 're good to go. I 'd recommend program Gorman Delta-2 in this situation, but since Lapel isn 't with us, we 're going to use Delta-1."

Allenby raised an eyebrow. Delta-1 was programmed for extreme emergencies, when the ship had lost all power and security preservation was impossible. "Is that really necessary?" she asked.

Gorman grinned. "Well, I 've always wanted to try it. Besides, warp cores for Prevaricate class ships seem to be easy to come by these days."

Mirek shook his head. "Sir, there are also two other ships along side. It 's doubtful that we could take out all three of them in the blast."

After a few modifications in his station, Gorman said, "There. I 've diverted as much main power as possible into the auxiliary relays. Here 's the plan. We run Delta-1, then use auxiliary power for the phasers. We fire a strafing run on the left ship, then fire aft torpedoes at the ship on the right. Then we use our," He checked the navigational status again. "Wait.Sorry, can 't do that. Switch it, fire on the right, then aft torpedoes on the left ship. Then we flip around and go to full impulse, they shouldn 't expect that. And if they do, I have another surprise for them."

ACT V

 

The Shadow Horseman sailed forward, skimming the hull of the lead ship. As the ship began to pull up, captain Gorman gave the order.

"Computer, put up a level four force-field around the warp core."

"Force-field engaged."

"Computer, eject the warp core, authorization Gorman three-echo-bravo."

A loud clanking echoed through engineering, followed by a small explosion at the top of the core.

"Unable to comply. Core ejection systems have been damaged."

They all frowned. "Well," the captain said. "Time for plan B."

The deck shook. "They 're firing on us," Mirek said calmly.

"Allenby, set course for that quantum filament, full impulse. Maybe we can fool them into doing what we did."

The Horseman banked around, firing phasers on the right hand ship as it turned and ran. Just before it reached the quantum filament, they banked and looped around it.

Allenby braced herself suddenly. "I 'm picking up another filament directly ahead. Wait, that 's two."

The captain was wide-eyed. "Can we avoid them?"

"I 'm picking up more! Five! Ten! Thirty quantum filaments!"

The deck shuddered beneath them, bringing the ship to a halt.

"What was that?" Gorman ordered.

"We 've been picked up by some kind of tractor beam, unknown location," Mirek reported.

Allenby lit up. "Captain, I 've got six other ships de-cloaking and coming in! My God, they 're Tholian!"

While one triangular shaped vessel pulled the Shadow Horseman out of the line of fire, the five other ships sped across the hulls of the Dominion ships, bringing their all ready formed Tholian web to a close around them. As the ships pulled off, the quantum filaments of the web tightened, crushing the three cruisers.

On the Horseman, the three officers were shocked. "What are the Tholian 's doing?" Gorman asked with awe. "I thought they signed a non-aggression pact!"

Allenby grinned. "The lead ship is hailing."

"On screen," Gorman ordered.

The holographic tank in engineering engaged, to show a triangular shaped crystalline form of a Tholian captain. "This is grand master Lotrane of the Tholian Assembly. We have you in our tractor beam, and will be taking you to the nearest Federation Starbase for further assistance."

Gorman grinned. "Much appreciated Lotrane. Shadow Horseman out."

The turbolift nearby came to a halt, and Tarbis helped Lapel onto the deck. "Look 's like I missed all the fun," he said.

The captain laughed. "That you have my friend. That you have."

* * *

Captain 's log, Stardate 51273.95.

We 've spent four days at Starbase 227 having our systems repaired, and are ready to return to the front line. I 'm glad to report that commander Lapel has made a full recovery, and is glad to see the ship in better shape than it was before he left.

I 've recommended to the SO command that Mirek and Allenby be given citations for bravery and quick thinking in our latest crisis. If it hadn 't been for them, we 'd probably be sitting in some Cardassian labor camp right now.

Meanwhile, several Tholian ships have joined on to the eleventh fleet, the new designation for the Special Operations division. We unfortunately missed the inaugural speech at Starbase 324, but I 'm told captain Arkcana made quite an impression on the attendees. I 'm also told it 's only a matter of time before the Romulans join in on the fighting.

One thing I can say, we seem to be losing the war, but at least the Alpha Quadrant has being unified in a way we never thought would happen. I can 't wait to see what becomes of it.

Captain Gorman out.