The repairs to the U.S.S. Hepzibah are nearly complete. My new Chief Engineering Officer, Tarirl, reports that the warp core and impulse engines will be ready two days from now. All weapons and shields are fully operational, should any enemies of the Infamous come to try and destroy him. I imagine that he's glad to have a Prometheus-class starship protecting him.
It's also come to my attention that Six of Eleven and an Ensign Willard left the Hepzibah using one of our runabouts. I can only assume that they're going to betray the Infamous, and that they will be bringing friends with them. They will be crushed like the insects they are.
Everything was quiet. Nothing out of the ordinary. Suddenly, and without warning, a Federation fleet of assorted warships warped in, weapons and shields up, and surrounded the Hepzibah and the Infamous vessels nearby.
Whoever was currently in command of the Zepzibah's bridge would immediately notice that a single torpedo had materialized on the bridge, surrounded by a forcefield that was entirely impenetrable, and the torpedo itself immovable by any means. Part of the torpedo's casing was transparent; a drop of a mysterious red liquid inside some kind of containment bubble; beside an explosive that was set for a remote detonation from an unknown source. Yet, another technicality would become visible; it was in a constant state of communication with whatever or whoever was in control of it. Should the source go quiet for long, the torpedo would explode anyway, causing the torpedo, the Hepzibah, and any surrounding vessels and assorted entities to be consumed in a singularity.
Another Galaxy-X class vessel, the U.S.S. Sally, de-phase-cloaked and hailed the Hepzibah.
“Captain, multiple ships have come out of warp, and they don’t appear to be friendly.”
The bridge of the Hepzibah only had a skeleton crew - one tactical officer, one engineering officer, one science officer, and Captain Rosette. That was all she needed, anyways. Any more crewmen and she'd have a full-on rebellion, and she couldn't have that. D'ren would kill her and her crew if she let that happen.
Now, now was the time for survival. But she'd need D'ren. God, where WAS he?
Then the torpedo materialized on her bridge.
The tactical officer was manning communications at the time. "We're being hailed by one of the enemy ships."
"On screen."
What the Sally saw a dark-skinned woman with raven-black hair wrapped up in a bun, in a torn uniform similar to what Six of Eleven and Ensign Willard wore. "Hostile ship. What the hell did you put on my ship?"
Admiral Nat appeared on their viewscreen, wearing a modified Odyssey admiral's uniform and relaxing in his command chair. "A red matter torpedo capable of destroying your ship, and every other nearby vessel in a singularity. There is no way to remove it by any means. You have exactly ten seconds to surrender."
Rosette let a smirk cross her face. She'd pull a tactic similar to what D'ren did...
"Very well, we surrender. We are clearly outmatched by your superior forces, and the knife you've placed on my throat. Come aboard and we can talk about the terms of surrender in my conference room."
Let them come aboard. D'ren would show how powerful he was. He'd stop them.
The admiral sighed. "Negative, captain. Prepare to be boarded immediately."
In a moment, the lights across the Hepzibah flickered, and access to the ship's computers were locked out remotely. MACOs beamed aboard in all the critical areas, immediately firing upon any crew in sight, their weapons set to heavy stun. A total of ten MACOs all materialized on the bridge; all aiming their weapons at the various officers, and the captain herself. One of them took off their helmet, revealing their face, his dark brown eyes, and brown hair, tied back in a ponytail. He walked over to the captain, still pointing his rifle at her. "I am Captain Dennison of the United Federation of Planets. By the admiral's orders, you are relieved of your command. Where is D'ren?"
Elric finished reading the report to get him up to speed on the situation with the Hepzibah. He put the PADD down and then tapped into remote subspace relay stations throughout Federations space to connect with the ships at the edge of Klingon space. After a moment he could see that the Prometheus-class starship was surrounded, and local sensor reports indicated that it was boarded.
"I've got an eerie feeling about this," Elric said, as if having the upper hand was too good to be true.
Rosette leaned back in her chair and started to laugh. "He's going to save me. D'ren will come." She reached down to her side to grab a phaser. "He said he'd kill my crew if I resisted."
The Hepzibah officers looked over at their captain with horror in their eyes. They'd already put their hands up in surrender.
"You can't stop him. He is endless." He wasn't coming. He wasn't coming. And yet, and yet, she would fight until the end. That's what he would want. Of course. Yes. "He can change at will."
Captain Nat walked over to Elric and noticed the situation regarding the Hepzibah. He raised an eyebrow. "You might be right..."
Captain Dennison - U.S.S. Hepzibah, Bridge
Jim sighed. "Captain, put down the phaser. We'll destroy your ship if we have to."
In a moment, all activity on the Hepzibah stopped entirely, friendly or otherwise. The Sally's deflector emitted a slow, pulsing, green energy sweep and swept through the Hepzibah, and when the sweep was finished, normal activities resumed.
Jim continued. "That said, if your dear D'ren is listening, we'll have him know that we have the Infamous armada command codes; so unless he wants something very bad to happen, he'll surrender himself to us immediately."
Admiral Nat, still on the viewscreen, relaxed in his command chair, watching the situation on the bridge, and then, the screen panned over to the side, revealing Captain Sarah Walker in the XO's seat. "Believe me, you can get away. Nanites can be removed, in fact, we already removed all the nanites in your ship and crew, just now. Despite what he may be telling you, the armada is evidently headed in a different direction, and I seriously doubt the lady in charge would put up with this..."
Nat turned to Sarah and motioned for her to stop, suggesting that she may have said too much already. He turned back to Rosette. "Surrender yourself to us immediately. You may believe me that surrender will lead to your crew's death, but if you don't surrender, your entire crew will die anyway, and believe me, taking a chance by surrendering to us and having D'ren come after us all later isn't as bad as having your entire vessel consumed by the singularity right now."
Jim turned to the admiral somewhat sarcastically. "At least give us time to beam back, would ya?" He quickly turned back to Rosette before she could do anything, although a couple MACOs had been keeping her at bay anyway. "You're stuck between a rock and a hard place. I seriously suggest you pick the hard place."
Rosette dropped the phaser and, slowly, went down on her knees, hands behind her head. “When the Infamous ‘surrendered,’ he had two companions with him. They’re all in the brig, or at least they were. I left him alone with the Trill, and haven’t heard from him since.” She looked up at the MACO officers, speaking between heavy breaths. “If you’re going to kill me, like Mal’tosh and D’ren said they would... for the love of whatever God you believe in...DO IT THIS TIME.”
On the Sally, Six walked over to Admiral Nat. “Admiral, Captain Rosette is demonstrating behavior that is entirely out of character for her. She is not normally a malevolent entity. I have served under her for enough time to know, sir. I would strongly suggest not terminating her life, sir.” She looked up at the viewscreen. “If I might make a suggestion, what is left of the implants from my time in the Borg Collective could be useful in counteracting the Infamous nanites. I would sacrifice my own existence if it meant that she would be healed.”
Admiral Nat held up a hand. "We already removed the nanites, and we won't kill anyone unless we absolutely have to. Right now, we don't have to. I pray it stays that way." He motioned to the empty chair to his left. "Would you like to sit down? This might be a while."
On the Hepzibah, Jim looked down at Rosette. "Thank you so much." He turned to the MACOs keeping Rosette from trying anything, and they nodded. Jim turned back to the viewscreen. "Did you get that?"
Nat nodded. "We'll have guys there waiting for you."
Jim walked out to a turbolift, following my a MACO. By now, the shields of the Sally were already back up, despite the possibility of needing to beam the MACOs out at any time; no one had managed to beam aboard while the shields were down.
Captain Jim Dennison - U.S.S. Hepzibah, Brig
Jim arrived, and a dozen Omega Operatives were there waiting for him, all armed with T-116Bs. Jim motioned to the door, and an Omega opened it, and half a dozen of the Omegas rushed in, rifles ready and aimed at each of the brig cells where D'ren and his people would be located.
The human nodded to the alternate universe Captain Nat, as he was handed a report from an intelligence officer. Elric read it and turned to Nat.
"Several similar-looking humans were found killed around Qo'noS," he reported. "They appear to be Infamous clones. It's just like the death here. What do you make of it?"
Captain Nat sighed. "Sarah already told me before they left; word has it the D'ren out there is on a mission to take out the entire Infamous Armada. Makes sense to kill off all the other D'rens so they aren't a threat to his success."
In a moment, an officer walked over to them and glanced at the display, reading the location of the Hepzibah. Before Nat or Elric could speak, the unknown officer vanished into a somewhat sparkly, roundish, and yellow transporter beam, not unlike those used by the Undine.
Captain Nat stepped back, opening his mouth. No words came out.
Elric was taken in shock as well. He then spread his arms, cautiously. "I got this. I relocated Spacedock's lockdown controls to right here, next to the daily ship rosters and coffee orders. I can't even count how many times we've gone full lockdown, but we may as well make it easy for us if it's going to be a regular occurrence."
He activated the console and set the station into mode again. Transports and communications went into limited status.
Captain Nat sighed. "How the hell did he even board the station without those devices sending him back? Did he have access to whatever that other Undine used?"
The changeling appeared on the viewscreen. "Well hello, Krystal. Glad to see you showed up, although you are a little early. Follow us into the wormhole."
The transmission cut out and the Quas turned around and flew back into the wormhole.
When they reached the other side, they hailed the Mephiles again. The changeling spoke first. "Don't worry about the fact that I'm on a Herald ship, it's part of the Alliance I created and continue to control. When this is all over, they'll all be joining the Dominion, but that's for another time."
"Perhaps a more neutral location to start would be better," Krystal replied. "I honestly don't like not being in control of where I'm going because... well... I could be flown into a star. Not trying to be difficult, I'm just... I'd rather have at least some say with my life. From the neutral location I could come over by shuttle if necessary. I'm just not comfortable with handing over total control of this ship."
"Hmm. According to Aeris' report, the Undine Doctor Kohogeth used the devices as a cross-universal proxy to pull in people to the Unknown Undine Biobase, and, eventually her old ship into Fluidic space. His access came from the same biobase, so, it's possible whichever Undine faction is in play here either has a similar control or took over that same base. Either way, they've found a way to modify Spacedock's devices, which are inaccessible to us, even after all our efforts to uncover them."
He thought for a moment.
"Maybe we can go back to that base and use the controls there to go from proxy-access to something more thorough to possibly sync these anti-devices to our universe. That way we could repair and upgrade them as necessary?"
Krystal nodded before cutting the channel. She then ordered the ship to wait on the Alpha Quadrant side of the wormhole and to let Admiral Nat know. She then headed down to the armory and at least got a type 2 phaser, just in case, and then beamed over.
She wanted to show that she was ready for anything, but not so much as to be a provocation.
The Mephiles returned to the Alpha Quadrant and sent the admiral the message.
Admiral Nat - U.S.S. Sally
"So Jim, are they there or--"
The comms officer interrupted. "Message from the Mephiles. Turns out they're waiting in the Alpha Quadrant, and Captain Jade beamed to one of the Alliance ships and went with them."
Nat turned to the comms officer. "Got it." He turned back to Jim. "So are they there or not?"
The Changeling - Quas Cruiser, Bridge
The changeling watched Krystal materialize aboard the Iconian vessel. "We're on a course for the homeworld, where we'll free my people from Infamous control and then confront them when they come to retake control."
The Quas jumped into an Iconian gate and entered orbit of a yellowish planet, evidently the changeling homeworld. A number of assorted Dominion and Herald ships were scattered around the world, charging their deflectors for something of planetary scale, which was evidently going to be a coordinated effort of all the ships.
The repairs to the U.S.S. Hepzibah are nearly complete. My new Chief Engineering Officer, Tarirl, reports that the warp core and impulse engines will be ready two days from now. All weapons and shields are fully operational, should any enemies of the Infamous come to try and destroy him. I imagine that he's glad to have a Prometheus-class starship protecting him.
It's also come to my attention that Six of Eleven and an Ensign Willard left the Hepzibah using one of our runabouts. I can only assume that they're going to betray the Infamous, and that they will be bringing friends with them. They will be crushed like the insects they are.
Long live the Infamous.
Everything was quiet. Nothing out of the ordinary. Suddenly, and without warning, a Federation fleet of assorted warships warped in, weapons and shields up, and surrounded the Hepzibah and the Infamous vessels nearby.
Whoever was currently in command of the Zepzibah's bridge would immediately notice that a single torpedo had materialized on the bridge, surrounded by a forcefield that was entirely impenetrable, and the torpedo itself immovable by any means. Part of the torpedo's casing was transparent; a drop of a mysterious red liquid inside some kind of containment bubble; beside an explosive that was set for a remote detonation from an unknown source. Yet, another technicality would become visible; it was in a constant state of communication with whatever or whoever was in control of it. Should the source go quiet for long, the torpedo would explode anyway, causing the torpedo, the Hepzibah, and any surrounding vessels and assorted entities to be consumed in a singularity.
Another Galaxy-X class vessel, the U.S.S. Sally, de-phase-cloaked and hailed the Hepzibah.
Winning.
"I always hated this part," she said to herself as she caught the ball. "The waiting..."
The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
The bridge of the Hepzibah only had a skeleton crew - one tactical officer, one engineering officer, one science officer, and Captain Rosette. That was all she needed, anyways. Any more crewmen and she'd have a full-on rebellion, and she couldn't have that. D'ren would kill her and her crew if she let that happen.
Now, now was the time for survival. But she'd need D'ren. God, where WAS he?
Then the torpedo materialized on her bridge.
The tactical officer was manning communications at the time. "We're being hailed by one of the enemy ships."
"On screen."
What the Sally saw a dark-skinned woman with raven-black hair wrapped up in a bun, in a torn uniform similar to what Six of Eleven and Ensign Willard wore. "Hostile ship. What the hell did you put on my ship?"
Winning.
"Very well, we surrender. We are clearly outmatched by your superior forces, and the knife you've placed on my throat. Come aboard and we can talk about the terms of surrender in my conference room."
Let them come aboard. D'ren would show how powerful he was. He'd stop them.
In a moment, the lights across the Hepzibah flickered, and access to the ship's computers were locked out remotely. MACOs beamed aboard in all the critical areas, immediately firing upon any crew in sight, their weapons set to heavy stun. A total of ten MACOs all materialized on the bridge; all aiming their weapons at the various officers, and the captain herself. One of them took off their helmet, revealing their face, his dark brown eyes, and brown hair, tied back in a ponytail. He walked over to the captain, still pointing his rifle at her. "I am Captain Dennison of the United Federation of Planets. By the admiral's orders, you are relieved of your command. Where is D'ren?"
Winning.
Elric finished reading the report to get him up to speed on the situation with the Hepzibah. He put the PADD down and then tapped into remote subspace relay stations throughout Federations space to connect with the ships at the edge of Klingon space. After a moment he could see that the Prometheus-class starship was surrounded, and local sensor reports indicated that it was boarded.
"I've got an eerie feeling about this," Elric said, as if having the upper hand was too good to be true.
The Hepzibah officers looked over at their captain with horror in their eyes. They'd already put their hands up in surrender.
"You can't stop him. He is endless." He wasn't coming. He wasn't coming. And yet, and yet, she would fight until the end. That's what he would want. Of course. Yes. "He can change at will."
Captain Nat walked over to Elric and noticed the situation regarding the Hepzibah. He raised an eyebrow. "You might be right..."
Captain Dennison - U.S.S. Hepzibah, Bridge
Jim sighed. "Captain, put down the phaser. We'll destroy your ship if we have to."
In a moment, all activity on the Hepzibah stopped entirely, friendly or otherwise. The Sally's deflector emitted a slow, pulsing, green energy sweep and swept through the Hepzibah, and when the sweep was finished, normal activities resumed.
Jim continued. "That said, if your dear D'ren is listening, we'll have him know that we have the Infamous armada command codes; so unless he wants something very bad to happen, he'll surrender himself to us immediately."
Admiral Nat, still on the viewscreen, relaxed in his command chair, watching the situation on the bridge, and then, the screen panned over to the side, revealing Captain Sarah Walker in the XO's seat. "Believe me, you can get away. Nanites can be removed, in fact, we already removed all the nanites in your ship and crew, just now. Despite what he may be telling you, the armada is evidently headed in a different direction, and I seriously doubt the lady in charge would put up with this..."
Nat turned to Sarah and motioned for her to stop, suggesting that she may have said too much already. He turned back to Rosette. "Surrender yourself to us immediately. You may believe me that surrender will lead to your crew's death, but if you don't surrender, your entire crew will die anyway, and believe me, taking a chance by surrendering to us and having D'ren come after us all later isn't as bad as having your entire vessel consumed by the singularity right now."
Jim turned to the admiral somewhat sarcastically. "At least give us time to beam back, would ya?" He quickly turned back to Rosette before she could do anything, although a couple MACOs had been keeping her at bay anyway. "You're stuck between a rock and a hard place. I seriously suggest you pick the hard place."
Winning.
On the Sally, Six walked over to Admiral Nat. “Admiral, Captain Rosette is demonstrating behavior that is entirely out of character for her. She is not normally a malevolent entity. I have served under her for enough time to know, sir. I would strongly suggest not terminating her life, sir.” She looked up at the viewscreen. “If I might make a suggestion, what is left of the implants from my time in the Borg Collective could be useful in counteracting the Infamous nanites. I would sacrifice my own existence if it meant that she would be healed.”
On the Hepzibah, Jim looked down at Rosette. "Thank you so much." He turned to the MACOs keeping Rosette from trying anything, and they nodded. Jim turned back to the viewscreen. "Did you get that?"
Nat nodded. "We'll have guys there waiting for you."
Jim walked out to a turbolift, following my a MACO. By now, the shields of the Sally were already back up, despite the possibility of needing to beam the MACOs out at any time; no one had managed to beam aboard while the shields were down.
Captain Jim Dennison - U.S.S. Hepzibah, Brig
Jim arrived, and a dozen Omega Operatives were there waiting for him, all armed with T-116Bs. Jim motioned to the door, and an Omega opened it, and half a dozen of the Omegas rushed in, rifles ready and aimed at each of the brig cells where D'ren and his people would be located.
Winning.
The human nodded to the alternate universe Captain Nat, as he was handed a report from an intelligence officer. Elric read it and turned to Nat.
"Several similar-looking humans were found killed around Qo'noS," he reported. "They appear to be Infamous clones. It's just like the death here. What do you make of it?"
In a moment, an officer walked over to them and glanced at the display, reading the location of the Hepzibah. Before Nat or Elric could speak, the unknown officer vanished into a somewhat sparkly, roundish, and yellow transporter beam, not unlike those used by the Undine.
Captain Nat stepped back, opening his mouth. No words came out.
Winning.
He activated the console and set the station into mode again. Transports and communications went into limited status.
Winning.
The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
The single Quas class cruiser emerged from the wormhole and signaled the Mephiles, and started waiting for a response.
Winning.
The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
The transmission cut out and the Quas turned around and flew back into the wormhole.
Winning.
"Still don't know how the Dominion got a hold of a Herald ship..." she said to herself.
The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
Winning.
The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
Winning.
The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
"Hmm. According to Aeris' report, the Undine Doctor Kohogeth used the devices as a cross-universal proxy to pull in people to the Unknown Undine Biobase, and, eventually her old ship into Fluidic space. His access came from the same biobase, so, it's possible whichever Undine faction is in play here either has a similar control or took over that same base. Either way, they've found a way to modify Spacedock's devices, which are inaccessible to us, even after all our efforts to uncover them."
He thought for a moment.
"Maybe we can go back to that base and use the controls there to go from proxy-access to something more thorough to possibly sync these anti-devices to our universe. That way we could repair and upgrade them as necessary?"
Captain Nat shrugged. "We can try, but the admiral did tell me to stay put, cuz hyper-Q powers."
The Changeling - Gamma Quadrant
The changeling sighed. "In that case, beam over to my vessel, and instruct your ship to return to the Alpha Quadrant."
Winning.
She wanted to show that she was ready for anything, but not so much as to be a provocation.
The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
Admiral Nat - U.S.S. Sally
"So Jim, are they there or--"
The comms officer interrupted. "Message from the Mephiles. Turns out they're waiting in the Alpha Quadrant, and Captain Jade beamed to one of the Alliance ships and went with them."
Nat turned to the comms officer. "Got it." He turned back to Jim. "So are they there or not?"
The Changeling - Quas Cruiser, Bridge
The changeling watched Krystal materialize aboard the Iconian vessel. "We're on a course for the homeworld, where we'll free my people from Infamous control and then confront them when they come to retake control."
The Quas jumped into an Iconian gate and entered orbit of a yellowish planet, evidently the changeling homeworld. A number of assorted Dominion and Herald ships were scattered around the world, charging their deflectors for something of planetary scale, which was evidently going to be a coordinated effort of all the ships.
Winning.
The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)