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File #1 - "Legacy"

"Captain Raymond Nicholson, U.S.S. Warrior, Reporting..."

"We have completed our first test of the U.S.S. Warrior's black project... The ship performed admirably... I only wish I could say the same for her crew. Starfleet seem to have assigned me some incompetent engineers and not a fully seasoned Bridge crew, in order to test their brand new vessel."

"Commander Val'sha agrees with me that crew efficiency needs to be raised by another 40%, especially if many of these officers wish to seek continued employment on my vessel after this endeavour. She may be a Vulcan but its unusual just how often our insights align."

"Our new metaphasic "MIDAS-Touch" array has performed beyond expectations although on a side note, I do wish that Starfleet Engineering Corps would stop finding excuses to name every single invention that they come up with."

"Although I am somewhat in awe of the complexity of this new system, which incorporates technology from the failed "Unity Class Starbase" almost thirty years ago into a new mobile platform that makes it possible to detect all cloaked ships within a sector."

"So far we have been testing the system on the edge of Federation space near Dewa III, or "New Romulus" as its known now. The Romulan Republic are unaware that we have this technology and we have been able to pinpoint every cloaked vessel within the vicinity of the planet."

"Admiral Shelby was somewhat concerned that such technology would provoke the remnants of the Tal Shiar and maybe even our "allies", the Romulan Republic and the Klingon Empire but I am convinced that the risk is worth it."

The Treaty of Algeron is long dead... just like the Romulan chances of ever becoming a serious galactic power again...

---

Captain Nicholson stood on the new and advanced bridge of the U.S.S. Warrior. He was a grizzled man with a chiseled face, slightly worn eyes and a stern expression that would rival that of Jean-Luc Picard himself.

"Helm... report?" he asked while staring at the large viewscreen in front of him. The huge screen had tripled in size compared to the older Galaxy and Sovereign Class Starships are were now capable of offering detailed tactical displays of the ship and objects in space, just at a glance.

The Helm Officer tapped her console and spoke without looking back at the Captain, transfixed by the image on the screen.

"I...I... cannot understand it sir... my sensors read a Federation starship almost directly ahead and then it just.... Vanished."

Nicholson could sense the anxiety in the voice of his helm officer. She was little more than an unseasoned cadet, only promoted to Ensign ahead of her class due to her activities working on the U.S.S. Warrior.

The ridges of her wrinkled nose seemed somewhat more pronounced when she was concerned... even for a Bajoran.

But Nicholson, who was usually so impatient for his crew and demanded nothing less than perfection from them, had a special soft spot for her specifically. She was the daughter of Kiska Lomarr, the former helm officer of the Sovereign and a deep personal friend of Captain Nicholson.

Captain Nicholson had grieved with LoMar, who he had met at the wake for his uncle, Captain Robert Wright of the U.S.S. Dauntless. Who was killed during an ill-fated attempt by a rogue Cardassian element to start a war between the Federation and a newly discovered species known as the Kessok. Nicholson had always been in awe of his uncle's valiance and was enamoured with tales of his own personal bravery as part of the seventh fleet during the Dominion War.

It was Kiska, now a commanding officer herself, that had petitioned Captain Nicholson to choose her daughter, Ensign Kiska Meiru to be his new helm officer, feeling she could learn much from the "grizzled old palukoo".

"We need a better explanation then that, Miss Kiska" scolded a cold female voice from behind where Captain Nicholson was standing.

Commander Val'sha, with a doctorate in no less than three major schools of Engineering was as intelligent as she was socially inept. Her logic was almost impeccable and the way she cut people down with her cold harsh comments moved people to tears on a regular basis.

"I'm s-sorry" stuttered Kiska, who shot a glance behind her while returning to her control panel. "...C-Commander. I am attempted alternative means of location... it might..."

She was cut off from the same harsh Vulcan toned female voice from before.

"Captain, the vessel appears to be Federation but I detecting consistent power surges across all major systems and some form of tachyon displacement along it's hull".

Captain Nicholson spun round to look at his First Officer with a curt nod. "How the hell did it just appear like that?"

"Captain..." interrupted another new voice. This one belonging to a small Andorian male, Ensign Zent. His antenna twitched with the enthusiasm to add his input to the conversation.Captain Nicholson had looked him over before, he was only about eighteen years old, his head still ringing with lines like "duty" and "honor".

"There have been incidents of ships phasing in and out of the space-time continuum before. These Tachyon readings are very similar to the readings took by the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701 when it encountered a derelict U.S.S. Defiant in the 23rd Century".

Nicholson and Val'sha both looked at each other with an element of surprise. For a child... he was pretty astute.

"Indeed" replied Val'sha "Ensign Zent's logic is sound..."

"Oh thank you! Commander..." replied Zent so eager to try and please his commanding officers that he may have been trying just a little too hard.

Ignoring the exchange, Commander Val'sha tapped her blue transluscent control panel, bringing up a holographic representation of a Century Class starship, a class of vessel that was considered new almost twenty years previous but was now beginning to show her age considerably.

The Century Class had been considered a crowning achievement of Starfleet Command and a natural extension of its predecessor, the Sovereign Class. However it had proved to cost considerably more resources than most Federation starships and the class had only seen limited usage as command vessels, with on two still in service today.

"Century Class, Registry: NCC-91988... U.S.S... Republic."

In his utter bewilderment, Nicholson returned to his chair in order to stroke his beard carefully. The U.S.S. Republic had been missing since the last Borg attack on New Alexandria Starbase in 2397. Almost an entire fleet had been lost in that engagement.

So how could it be here?

"Captain!" Ensign Zant screamed excitedly, his antenna twitching. "You are not going to believe this!"

Captain Nicholson was nearly at the maximum level of his irritation as he barked... "Well don't keep it to yourself Mr Zant!".

"I'm detecting one lifesign but it appears to be phasing in and out of the space-time continuum."

"What the hell happened to that ship?" muttered Captain Nicholson.

File #2 - "Shadows"

"Captain's Log...

Stardate: 180106 point 8

The Warrior has encountered the wreckage of the U.S.S. Republic. A Century Class vessel that was reported missing over twenty years ago.

Reports show that the Republic was part of a Task Force, led by the U.S.S. Enterprise-E which managed to repel an attack from a dangerous new incarnation of the Borg which existed within Fluidic Space.

How the Republic has arrived here in the Azure Sector of the Beta Quadrant is currently unknown but what is more fascinating is that we have located a survivor aboard the vessel.

The survivor is listed as the former First Officer of the vessel, Commander Shon Tempest but Doctor Rayne has been unable to assess their condition due to abnormally high levels of chroniton radiation which is emanating from the body of the Commander.

We are unable to get any sort of lifesign readings at this time.

Meanwhile, I have decided that instead of risking a full away team. We will be sending a Mark IV "LaForge Class" interface probe to assess the state of the vessel for salvage.

Commander Val'sha has urged her usual caution here and I would also be inclined to agree with her...

Something just does not sit well with me...

---

"From what I can tell, the database is showing the subject as a Gallifreyan... Hell if I know what that is..."

Captain Nicholson stared in disbelief at the words of his Chief Medical Officer as they stood over the body of a blue vulpine creature. The shimmer of the forcefield was the only thing that kept the lethal radiation emanating from the body at bay and preventing it from killing everyone in the room.

Nicholson tapped his combadge immediately and spoke in a loud and clear voice...

"Nicholson to Bridge... go to yellow alert until further notice and post security teams in and around deck seven."

"Acknowledged" The voice that came back over the communications system was low and sharp. Nicholson recognised it immediately as the voice of Lieutenant Anna Mayer, his chief tactical officer. She was a tough, bulky human female that originated from the European Alliance, or more specifically, the Great Republic of Germany. Her voice carried the same authoritarian accent which many people had come expect from that location.

Doctor Rayner, a chiseled older human male looked over to the Captain in surprise. He muttered to himself about "Damn Captains... always overstepping their authority... How was he supposed to treat his patient with five hundred security officers in the way!?"

"Kevin?" Captain Nicholson asked quietly, his eyes still transfixed on the blue vulpine stretched out on the biobed, trying to look for any signs that he was alive or even breathing. Doctor Rayner immediately stopped his tirade and turned to the Captain.

"I want you to set up a triage facility in Cargo Bay Two..."

"But Captain... He needs constant care, it would be imp--"

"Doctor! The last time we encountered this species, Captain Picard was very meticulous about documenting the extent of their technology and ability to manipulate time and space. It was because of this species, that Starfleet issued "Temporal General Order Number Two"..."

"Irish Cream... Cold" Rayner had already travelled over to the replicator in clear need for a drink and with no regard for the Captain or protocol.

Nicholson looked like he'd swallowed a lemon, he pursed his lips together and barked "Doctor... may I remind you that you are on duty?"

Doctor Rayner just shrugged in his white doctor's coat. "Mah... Its only synthahol" he remarked, reminding the captain that only the lounge on the ship was able to serve real alcohol.

The captain let out a short sneer and returned his attention to the guest that was now lying in sickbay.

There was a noticeable silence in the room as Captain Nicholson, in his typical British way... pondered on what to do. Thinking in silence while he slowly ruffled his hands through his hair, almost like a nervous twitch.

It was pretty clear to Doctor Rayner that he was concerned by this disturbing news...

"Temporal General Order Number Two?" he asked, prompting his commanding officer to reveal more information.

"Doctor"... Nicholson slowly removing his hands from his hair as he turned to face the Doctor. "Have you looked over the Starfleet Personnel File for this gentleman?"

Rayner sipped his drink and swirled it in the glass as he looked back over towards the guest. "Yah..." he barked in a gruff North American accent. "He had a perfect record... Science degree with first class honors and was assigned to work on the Republic... I couldn't find any records of his birth or family and the database only showed his species as unknown..."

Nicholson paused for a second.

It was extremely unusual for Starfleet Academy, which was usually so thorough in its assessments, to miss all the major details of this graduate. He became immediately suspicious as he looked over the PADD that the Doctor gave him that projected a transparent holographic display in front of him, in a steely blue colour.

"So... can you treat him?" asked Nicholson after a few minutes of reading over the data.

"Captain... I can't even figure out if he's alive!?" snapped the Doctor. He had only worked on this ship for about six months, one last tour of duty before his retirement back to Colorado on Earth. However this particular Captain had been dodging physicals constantly since he arrived and Starfleet Medical had continually been badgering him about incomplete medical data for the Warrior.

"I've already been in there in an isolation suit and the chroniton radiation is making it impossible to determine anything at this time. His body was highly irradiated and it will take about fifteen to twenty hours before the levels are safe enough to enter without irradiating the ship..."

"I thought Chroniton Radiation was harmless to humanoids?" asked Captain Nicholson, recalling an incident on Deep Space Nine where the station had been converted into a massive Chroniton Array to attempt to kill the aliens that lived in the Bajoran Wormhole.

"In small levels, yes... however at these levels, the Chroniton Radiation would disrupt the cerebellum, causing you to lose balance and motor control and induce a cardiac arrest." replied the Doctor."

Captain Nicholson nodded...

"Captain... are you going to tell me what a Gallifreyan is...?"

"No, I'm not... and you are under orders not to discuss it Doctor." snapped Captain Nicholson as he clicked his combadge.

"Nicholson to Val'sha..."

He waited a few seconds before a cold, emotionless Vulcan voice could be heard.

"Go ahead sir..."

"Meet me in my ready room... we need to discuss something..."

File #3 - "Echoes"

"I'm not sure what to make of this?"

Captain Nicholson looked over to his first officer while gently sipping his mint tea in his small, office like Ready Room.

He never really cared for this room that much, it was somewhat cramped and did not feel anywhere near as spacious as the ready rooms of his peers. He longed for the same space afforded to those in charge of Intrepid Class or Galaxy Class starships.

His Ready Room was a tiny, almost "closet-like" space as he had described it, with a neutral grey colour pallet which had come to be expected from modern Federation starships. Gone were the days when Federation starships were built for comfort, like the Galaxy Class, the Battle of Wolf 359 had irrevocably changed the Federation's design philosophy to focus more on defense.

He glanced out of the large, rectangular windows into the abyssal maw of space. There was only one noticeable object, a Century Class starship, still far enough away to appear somewhat small, despite the Warrior being considerably smaller than the Republic.

Commander Val'sha had barely touched her green tea. She absolutely despised how the replicators on Federation starships were really only able to suit human comforts depending on the crew of said vessel. Under her icy, Vulcan exterior, she longed for a vessel like the T'Kumbra, a vessel crewed by all Vulcans.

It was not that she despised humans, she just longed to be with her own people and work alongside them rather then having to put up with the considerable pungent aroma that was undetectable by humans but ever so obvious to her.

"Our contact with this species is somewhat limited Captain?" reminded Val'sha, her analytical eyes glossing over the PADD she was holding in her hand. "It is possible that Starfleet Command made an oversight or incorrect entry in their records?"

"I find it heavily unusual that Starfleet Command had a Gallifreyan within our organisation..." replied the Captain, turning to look at the stricken Republic, slowly floating in space. "Yet never mentioned this to anyone... That's not the only mystery we are facing here as well."

There was a few seconds of silence while both of them pondered exactly what this could mean or struggled to give an explanation for the lack of information from Starfleet.

"What happened to the Republic?" asked Captain Nicholson, putting his empty cup back into the replicator and looking over to his first officer. Val'sha was intelligent, insightful and sometimes a little brutal in her analysis of the fact but he doubted that even she had the answers here.

Val'sha finally picked up her green tea and gently sipped it through her full and plump lips, a trademark of her family. "Captain, I would submit that as we cannot speculate on the fate of the Republic, we should report the incident to Starfleet and await further orders."

Nicholson smiled, he had always liked Val'sha's absolutely unyielding logic. He felt that a Captain always needed to have a voice of "common sense" on the Bridge and she was proving to be an excellent choice, despite her youth and inexperience in a command position.

"Agr..." He had to stop, halfway through his acknowledgement and eventual compliment her exception analytical abilities as the internal communications system interrupted him with the voice of his german tactical officer.

"Captain to the bridge..."

---

Captain Richard Nicholson strode out onto the bridge and immediately took up his position in the center chair as Commander Val'sha, who walked out the ready room behind him, took her position at the command console to the left of where he was sitting.

"Report?" barked the Captain.

"Captain, I am picking up a huge influx of secondary neutrino particles that appeared on sensors just a few moments ago." replied Ensign Zant, his antenna were twitching like crazy which clearly showed his excitement to the rest of the bridge.

Nicholson tapped the controls on the armrest of his chair in order to read over the sensor readings himself but he had always been a tactical officer and was unable to make much sense of all this scientific data. He knew the basics but lacked the specialisation of somebody that had devoted their life to scientific pursuits.

"Meaning what?" he asked, craning his head behind him to look at his science officer. He really did not want to be embarrassed on his own bridge for his lack of scientific understanding.

"Well I don't know... it could indicate the presence of a wormhole but I am not reading any graviton flux. I'll need to take additional..."

Zant was unable to finish his sentence before the entire room suddenly darkened and the klaxon for Red Alert sounded.

"Containment Breach... Deck 5... Section 42 Alpha... Main Sickbay..." boomed Mayer as she tapped the console directly behind where Nicholson was sitting.

"Bridge to Sickbay... Kevin, what's going on down there?" Nicholson immediately asked but there was no response as the ship suddenly shock heavily, causing the holographic bridge controls to flicker and shimmer in the reduced lighting.

"Captain!" Anna struggled to keep her voice in check as she tapped the controls furiously. "I'm reading multiple explosions on Deck 5..."

Nicholson was completely awestruck as he climbed too his feet, as the ship shook violently causing him to lose his balance and fall out of his chair again. Could this have something to do with the body that they had brought aboard? It seemed more than likely.

"Divert emergency containment fields to Deck 5" responded Commander Val'sha as Captain Nicholson reviewed his thoughts in his head. How could he have been so stupid as to bring whatever this was aboard his ship and risk the safety of his crew. This was his first command and for all his training and pompousness, he found himself frozen and totally unprepared for a crisis situation.

"Captain!" shouted Zant over the sparks flying and explosions that rocked this entire experimental starship. "The neutrinos are coalescing... forming secondary tunneling particles..."

Another explosion rocked the interior of the ship, causing a console to explode in the face of Lieutenant Mayer, who was immediately thrown backwards away from her console. Val'sha immediately rushed over to her but it was too late, a piece of shrapnel had impaled her through the chest.

Val'sha immediately reached out and tapped the control panel in front of her. "Security teams to Deck 5..." realising that the internal scanners showed an alien presence on the ship.

Captain Nicholson stood on the exploding bridge in a complete daze... all these thoughts rushing into his head were too much for him. He examined his choices that had brought him to the Warrior as all the commotion around him seemed to drown out.

"Helm control is offline!" shouted Kiska as she tried desperately to bypass the damaged control circuits around the ship. "We're dead in the water..."

"Commander!" shouted Zant over the sounds of some of the EPS conduits on the bridge rupturing. "I'm reading another Federation vessel coming through the anomaly... Its eh... Excelsior Class... U.S.S. Victorious."

Commander Val'sha was getting continual reports of the body of Commander Tempest, moving through the ship, projecting some kind of powerful electromagnetic energy that was deflecting all the phaser fire that the security teams were trying to subdue it with.

"They're hailing!" shouted Kiska as she attempted to pick herself up off the floor. Captain Nicholson still stood in shock and disbelief, almost in a state of panic, forcing Commander Val'sha to take over.

"On screen..." replied Commander Val'sha, attempting to bring shields and weapons online just in case they were needed as internal explosions continued to wreck the ship.

"Audio only..." replied Kiska.

A distinctly alien voice came over the communications system, distorted, sounding like many voices talking as one but not in such a way that was instantly recognisable as the Borg Collective. This sounded far more insidious.

"We... Are... Alive"

File #4 - "Test Your Metal"

"Captain!" cried out Commander Val'sha as bridge was rocked around them in a continual spray of sparks and EPS conduits overloading.

But still Captain Nicholson was not there.

His body may still have been on that cataclysmic abyss which had befallen his ship but his mind was examining his decisions that had led to this point.

He wondered how Commander Riker must have felt when he faced losing the Enterprise or losing his best friend and mentor during the Borg Invasion of 2367.

He wondered how Commander Sisko must have felt when he abandoned the bridge of Defiant at the disastrous Second Battle of Chin'toka in 2375.

Would he now lose his ship due to his negligence, his ability to predict the unpredictable?

He had been so proud when he took command of the Warrior, the first of her class and what was to be the first new ship in the renewed Federation battle fleet. He was proud that they were following in the legacy of such legendary classes of starship, like the Defiant Class and the Akira Class, many of which were still in widespread use today.

The Warrior Class was designed to be the first "Force Reconnaissance" cruiser designed by Starfleet Command, to answer the growing crisis between the allied Romulan Republic and the remnants of the Tal Shiar and the Romulan Star Empire.

As a graduate of Starfleet Corps of Engineering and one of the greatest students of Captain Geordi LaForge, he had earned his position by serving aboard the U.S.S. Challenger, a Galaxy Class cruiser which was used as a testbed for many new experimental technologies for the corp.

He had designed the Warrior, his dream, his legacy, to be a powerful vessel,.capable of nullifying the most impressive tactical advantage that the Romulan Star Empire had held over the Federation for decades. The cloaking device.

With the introduction of Reman engineering and the Scimitar Class Warbird, cloaking technology had considerably improved over the last thirty years to the point where Romulan vessels were capable of being using their weaponry and their shields while fully cloaked.

The Warrior had been designed to even the odds for the Federation...

Now, some unknown force had rendered all that work completely obsolete. All the years that Nicholson had spent in the drafting room of Utopia Planitia, working late into the night and it had all been brought to its knees by something he had never fully anticipated.

He could not, he would not see his project go down in flames.

Nicholson suddenly snapped out of his trance and the smell of smoke filled his lungs as he turned to Commander Val'sha and nodded approving, acknowledging the efforts of his First Officer to free him from his own self pity.

"Report!" he shouted over the blaring alarms.

Zant looked possibly overwhelmed as he rushed over the tactical console. The Warrior was only supposed to be on a test run and was running with a skeleton crew. He had never manned tactical before but with the death of Anna, he would have do something.

"The Victorious is powering its weapon systems and shields... Odd, I am only reading one massive lifeform Captain."

Commander Val'sha rushed over to the back of the bridge where the engineering consoles were located and began to tap away at the controls as she looked back to the Captain.

"Captain... whatever sabotage we have endured has completely overloaded most of the EPS system on the ship. Shields were automatically raised when we suffered the first internal explosion but are currently at thirty-two percent..."

Nicholson rushed over to help Kiska up as the next explosion knocked her out of her chair. This one did not come from inside the ship but was from the attacks of the Victorious on the exterior.

Val'sha continued citing her report with the same Vulcan sense of accuracy.

"Quantum and Photon Launchers are offline and we have partial phasers. Pulse phaser cannons are offline... They knew exactly where to hit us."

"Who though?" thought Nicholson as Val'sha continued to state that Commander Tempest's body had come to a stop on Deck 5 and had collapsed back into a deep state of unconsciousness. The electrical discharges that caused the first internal explosion had also ceased.

"Can we go to warp?" asked Nicholson immediately.

"No Captain" replied Kiska from the front of the bridge. "The antimatter containment field has been damaged, possibly due to the electrical discharges. If we engage the warp drive, its possible that the field will collapse and we'd be looking at a breach."

"We have casualties on multiple decks, two confirmed fatalities so far Captain, Doctor Rayner and Lieutenant Mayer."

Nicholson was incensed at the knowledge that one of his oldest friends, Doctor Kevin Rayner was dead. They had been friends for years and he had always been like an older mentor for him, so much so that he requested him for this assignment.

But this was not the time to grieve.

The ship rocked again with the impact of weapons fire, causing Nicholson to grab hold of the back of Kiska's chair for support.

He suddenly had an idea how they could get some breathing room.

"Zant... what type of Excelsior Class is the Victorious. Is it a pre-refit model?"

Zant's antenna went berserk as he trawled through the database to gather any information on this lost Federation ship.

"Y-Yes Captain" he responded. "The Victorious was part of the original assembly line of Excelsior Class starships following the commission of the U.S.S. Excelsior in..."

"Ok, enough!" barked Nicholson, looking over to his slightly shocked makeshift Tactical Officer.

"Captain" interjected Commander Val'sha immediately afterwards. "If you are thinking of taking advantage of the Victorious's prefix code, I am pretty sure that it would be changed..."

"Just... shut up and let me think!" commanded Nicholson, as he slid into the console beside Kiska and began rerouting Tactical control to his station. He began to mumble to himself as he looked over the data.

"Zant..." he finally said after a few seconds of silence, with on the rumbling of weapons fire striking the ship to comfort his crew. "Rig a graviton beam and direct it at the coordinates on the dorsal side, between the nacelles."

"A-Aye sir". Zant immediately set to work, knowing better than to question his commanding officer. However Val'sha was decidedly curious.

"Captain... what is your suggestion...? and I do not appreciate being told to "shut up" scolded Val'sha with a slight hint of annoyance in her voice. Only a slight hint that made Kiska somewhat smile as she looked forward.

Nicholson input a computer guided targeting sequence into the main computer as he attempted to calibrate the main phaser array on the fly.

"Well... I remember from school that the original Excelsior Class design used a symmetrical subspace graviton field to power the shields. This was about a century before the advent of regenerative shielding. Shields of that era were nowhere near as advanced at dealing with gravimetric pulses and a sustained graviton beam at the Victorious would momentarily disrupt their shield grid."

Val'sha raised an eyebrow. Nicholson knew what was coming, this was a sign that she was about to raise a very astute observation. "However Captain" she retorted calmly. "That would only create a minor disruption for zero point five two seconds before the shield grid reasserted itself?"

"Yes... which is why I have programmed a firing sequence into the main computer which will target all the major EPS junctions and attack them all simultaneously, before they can reengage their shields."

"Like a scattershot!" shouted Zant. His only contribution to a conversation that was almost completely above his understanding without simplifying the principle.

"Exactly!" replied Nicholson. "If we time it just right, we can disable all twenty seven main EPS junctions on the Victorious and disable the ship!"

Val'sha looked somewhat perplexed at the suggestion but behind her eyes was also the annoyance that she did not think of it. "Ingenious" she replied with a nod.

"I'm glad you approve Number One." Kiska gave the Captain a short smile, she knew that "Number One" really got under Val'sha's skin. She hated things that were not protocol and she had always insisted that the Captain not call her that. Captain Nicholson smiled right back at her.

"Graviton beam is ready." signalled Zant as he charged the deflector to full capacity.

"Fire"

A cyan coloured beam shot out the deflector of the crippled Warrior and struck the Victorious almost immediately on target. A few seconds later, a dazzling display of light from the many different phaser arrays on the Warrior fired all at once, creating an almost beautiful array of orange colour as they all struck different points of the Victorious causing the ship's nacelles to slowly flicker and lose their blue hue as the beams struck the ship.

The Victorious was disabled... unable to run or fight back and Captain Nicholson breathed a sigh of relief as his crew cheered around him. All except Val'sha who was busy watching the very "emotional" display with contempt.

Maybe he was ready for a command after all?

File #5 - "Discovery"

"Captain's Log...

Stardate: 180106 point 8

The Warrior has sustained heavy damage from an unprovoked attack from an old Excelsior Class Federation starship called the U.S.S. Victorious which seemed to emerge from a random neutrino surge in space.

Our internal systems have also been damaged from neural-electrical discharges from the body of Commander Shon Tempest which was recovered when we discovered the derelict U.S.S. Republic.

Doctor Kevin Rayne... my friend has been lost in the line of duty during this assault and Nurse Onya has taken over chief medical duties for the Warrior.

She informs me that Commander Shon Tempest's neural pattern has shown significant degradation since the incident, which has severely weakened his liftsigns. She has also found indications of a second neurological pattern within the Commander's cerebral cortex which appears to influencing the neurons within the white matter of his brain.

This leads us to conclude that some external intelligence may have been influencing the unconscious body of the Commander, manipulating his body through firing specific neurons in his brain and neurological system.

Just like a puppeteer would control a marionette...

It appears that this neuro-electric "link" cannot be forcibly removed without disrupting his entire body's neuro-electric impulses which are responsible for controlling every major function of our organs.

Nurse Onya is convinced that given time, she may be able to adapt a Benzite medical technique to purge the excess neuro-electrical energy, providing we can find the source of these impulses.

Commander Val'sha has been running continual subspace scans but this vessel is neither a science ship or in considerable shape to be able to pinpoint these.

Therefore Commander Val'sha is leading an away team over to the Victorious in order to use their internal sensors to locate the source of this neuro-electric energy.

---

Commander Val'sha stared at her tricorder as she slowly heard her own breathing inside her environmental suit.

The corridors of the Victorious were almost completely black, apart from the beams of light cutting through the darkness like a knife and the occasional illumination from some spark as she walked down the corridor.

Had she been human she would have found the whole experience to be "creepy" as Kiska would have put it.

Vulcans did not find anything "creepy".

But underneath all that Vulcan training and emotional suppression, she did find it unsettling. It reminded her of her Kolinahr ceremony on Vulcan when she was just an adolescent. She had been a turbulent youth as most Vulcan children could be before they discovered the path of logic.

She remembered standing before the old Vulcan master, feeling decidedly uncomfortable when he asked her about why she felt the need to be such a bully to the other Vulcan children.

She said that it was about dominance, being the first, the best and the most respected student in the school.

But the Master shot her down with the revelation that it was about fear. That fear was controlling her and that was what she must learn to control or it would control her.

After a few weeks... her fear vanished and she emerged a totally new and ordered Vulcan.

"Kinda creepy, isn't it Commander?" asked Zant who walked slowly behind her. The only sound being that of their magnetic boots clamping onto the deck plating.

"I would keep your mind on the mission" snapped Val'sha as she continued forward. "Otherwise you will allow emotional distractions to cloud your judgement?"

"I-I'm sorry C-Commander" replied Zant almost immediately.

Val'sha continued on, underneath her emotional suppression, she had grown to appreciate Zant's company and his youthful insights, as well as his sometimes incompetence. He was always willing to learn and that was what she liked about him. "Embarrassment is an emotional response and you would do well to guard against it." she retorted.

"Of course, C-Commander"

They stopped as they came to a door, a large double door which had a nameplate stamped on it.

Main Engineering.

Zant gripped his Type-3 Phaser Rifle close to his chest. He could feel his heart pounded as Val'sha continued to work on the door panel, taking it off in order to access the manual release under it. There was a small blue glow from the isolinear circuitry inside as she took it off to indicate that the door was still receiving emergency power.

"Warrior to Away Team..."

Zant nearly jumped three feet in the air as the communication system activated and the silence was replaced with the voice of their Captain. His antenna smacking into the top of the badly designed Starfleet Environment suit as they shot up, like a rabbit's ears in surprise.

"Eh... Um... Zant here sir?" he said, as Val'sha continued to work on the door.

"What's your progress?"

"Well Captain... We've eh... reached Engineering and Val'sha is attempting to open the door. Eh... How are you?"

Val'sha shot him back a look that could have curdled cream for that last line. Obviously she would need to remind him about Starfleet Communication Protocol when they returned back to the ship.

"We're fine Mr Zant... Just keep the Commander safe and get back here as soon as possible. We are still working on repairs and are very short handed. Warrior out."

The door hissed open just as he finished his conversation with the Captain and Main Engineering's emergency lighting made the room somewhat visible with a flickering blue and green hue of the classic consoles of the Excelsior era.

Zant was also exclusively relieved to find that there was nobody in the room as they entered.

"Ensign, download the ship's mission logs and I will focus on the internal sensors."

"A-Aye Commander"

Zant proceeded to the far edge of the room, his body only illuminated by the gentle glow of the consoles and the slight blue glow of the warp core itself.

He accessed the internal database almost immediately. It looked as if the whole ship's manifest had been copied and downloaded by another system, there were only a few number of files and an open log entry.

Without thinking... he pressed play.

On the monitor in front of him, an aged alien of a species he had never seen before filled the screen. His head had distinctly equine features, with an elongated nose, large nostrils and sunken eyes. His face was tired, his hair was greying and he looked as if he had been fighting a losing about for years.

The voice filled the empty sound of the room.

"Captain's Log:

Stardate: 171011"

The transmission fizzed and cracked from the damaged data as Val'sha came over to scold the Ensign for doing something that may give away their presence here.

"Pzzt... The Victorious herself is quite a catch and a somewhat mysterious trophy at that. It appears that she was the result of a top secret research experiment conducted by Starfleet in the early part of the 24th Century."

"Ensign... What are you doing?" asked Val'sha as there was a slight tone of alert and irritation in her voice.

"I-I'm sorry Commander... there was an active file and I must have played it by accident."

"Pzzt... Her " *crackle*" was essentially causing the "temporal bubbles" we were experiencing throughout this region of space. Commander Tempest and *crackle* Muraco are attempting to investigate the drive itself and... Pzzt...."

The playback had totally lost cohesion and switched back to a small display of the logo of the Federation.

"I did not recognize his species..." remarked Commander Val'sha, intrigued by this mysterious figure. "All records show that the Captain of the vessel was human."

"Stardate 171011" muttered Zant, putting pieces together in his head. "That was almost twenty years ago? Infact, the Republic was reported missing in 2397, the same year this log was made! That can't be a coincidence?"

"Indeed" replied Commander Val'sha. "I have rerouted power to the internal sensors. The neural energy readings that we detected in Commander Tempest are coming from all around us. The pattern is within the ship itself."

"What!?"

"We should alert the Warrior to what we have found."

"Yes Co--- Behind you!" shouted Zant.

Commander Val'sha was immediately picked up by what could only be described as a massive beast. She struggled to free herself from his massive grip but his large hands easily dominated her tiny Vulcan frame.

Zant immediately went for his phaser but the creature swung round his other massive claw to smack back the Andorian, sending him flying into a wall. Zant felt himself feel very sleepy as the concussion took hold of him, making it insanely difficult to concentrate.

He had just a few seconds to see Commander Val'sha struggle against the bulky beast, a creature that was covered in powerful muscles, with a feral, demon-like face and the a dark violet tint to much of the fur that covered his body.

Although Zant could also make out another detail as he struggled to tap his emergency communicator and request an emergency transport.

That creature, with murderous intent in his eyes and a ruthless, feral expression...

...was wearing a Starfleet Uniform!?

File #6 - "Victorious"

"Commander... Commander! Wake up!"

Commander Val'sha jolted awake as she looked up to see Zant crouched over her. She looked up into his large blue eyes and his concerned face.

They had both been removed from their environmental suits and appeared to be in the corner of a room on the ship with large bay windows that looked out across the stars to the Warrior and slowly spinning derelict wreck of the Republic.

"I'm awake Ensign!" she responded, looking up at him and trying to climb to her feet before finding it unusually difficult to stand. "Although I am unable to move..."

She could tell the Ensign was struggling to stand as well, he was crouched over her, seemingly fighting some sort of invisible force that was keeping them pressed to the ground.

"I know... this area of the ship seems to have problems with the gravity" he whispered, his voice hushed and lowered incase it drew nearby attention. "What happened?"

"It would seem that creature wanted us alive and brought us here, for what purpose I am unsure" replied Val'sha, still wrestling with the heavy feeling all over her body.

Zant sat down next to her, taking a moment to breath. As an Andorian, he was used to harsh gravity and climbing the ice that covered his homeworld, it afforded him increased upper body strength in order to cope with the harsh climbs on Andoria.

"I managed to activate the emergency beacon in my suit" he said, attempting to reassure Val'sha. "Hopefully the Warrior picked it up and are working on a plan to rescue us."

"That will not happen..."

The voice belonged to neither of them but the large creature that had attacked them in Engineering. He was sat in the far corner of the room, eclipsed by the low light levels so that he could hardly be seen. "It's not going to be long until it makes you do things."

His voice was low and ominous and both Val'sha and Zant looked at each other as the creature spoke. He was obviously sentient and able to withstand the effects of the gravity which crippled them.

"Why have you attacked us?" asked Val'sha very bluntly.

The creature let out a short chuckle and even the darkness, Zant could make out his large sharp white teeth which seemed to glimmer slightly under the starlight of a nearby pulsar. It made him somewhat nervous.

"Believe me, it was not out of choice..." he responded.

"What kind of an answer is that?" asked Zant, who mentally slapped himself after his outburst. Here he was, possibly about to get eaten and all he could do was challenge this creature and piss him off even more?

"You don't understand" chuckled the creature in corner. "I'm a prisoner on this ship. My will ain't my own."

Val'sha looked around, scanning the room gently with her eyes for objects that might aid an escape attempt. There were cups scattered all over the room which would seem to suggest that they were in the Mess Hall or Lounge of the Victorious.

"What do you mean!?" asked Zant, his irritation growing more quickly than his actual fear. If the creature had wanted him dead, he would already be dead judging by the size of him. "You attacked us!?".

"I'm a slave to this ship" muttered the creature as he looked out the window. "The ship tells me what to do and I've got no choice but to do it."

Val'sha slowly attempted to reach for a shard of metal on the floor nearest to her location while the creature was distracted. She hoped that she could use it and with one fell swoop, throw it at enough speed to impale this odd creature.

"What's your name?" asked Zant as he noticed what Val'sha was attempting to do and in a rare moment of understanding between the two, attempted to keep him talking.

The creature sighed, returning to look back out the window as his large black nose reflected the gentle starlight, in the background, the slight blue glow of the Warrior's warp drive comforting him slightly. "Lieutenant Commander Muraco, U.S.S. Republic" he said.

Val'sha grasped the shard of metal but found it impossible to lift off the floor, it had become like super glue, unable to be pulled away even with her enhanced Vulcan strength. It would have been near impossible for a human to survive the gravity.

Muraco just gave a short smile and chuckled slightly. "I don't think you get it, do you?" he asked, looking straight at the captives. "She's not gonna let you go. She's gonna use you, get into your head and use you to create more of her. That ship out there... don't have much time left."

Zant looked up, his white hair unkept and unruly. "Whose "she"?" he asked.

"Victorious" replied Muraco.

---

"Dammit, there is still something wrong with the shield grid..." Chief Engineer Amir Lazard was getting quickly frustrated with the repairs to the Warrior. The shield grid was continually fluctuating and he was completely unable to find any cause for this frustrating malfunction. Especially while the ship was toe-to-toe with a hostile vessel that was shooting at them a couple hours beforehand.

Chief Lazard was born in Iraq in the Middle Eastern region of Earth but had spent most of his life with his father in California, America. It was while he was living in San Francisco that he formed his lifelong desire to join Starfleet. He remembered being in awe of the parades at the academy while he worked at his father's shuttle maintenance business.

His father was disappointed when he chose to enter Starfleet Academy rather then continuing to work in his father's business with his two brothers.

He had not spoken to his father since they moved back to Mosul.

"Lyn?" he called out to one of the two technicians which were the extent of his Engineering staff. Three people to keep an entire ship the size of a Steamrunner Class running. It was ridiculous.

A blonde young lady poked her head out from one of the jeffery's tube junctions beside him. "Yeah?"

"Let's check the lateral shield generator, see if there is any internal polarization?"

The girl nodded with a smile. She was pretty and since he had come on board, she had gone out of her way to make sure that Lazard noticed her. He was considering asking her for a drink after their duty shift in his quarters but had decided against it as he did not want to compromise an already good working relationship.

"Captain?" Amir stood up when Captain Nicholson entered Main Engineering looking decidedly grubby. The lack of manpower to repair the Warrior showed that even the Captain had to get his hands dirty on occasion.

"Any progress Mr Lazard?" asked Nicholson as he found himself more and more comfortable with the command role. He had faced his first major challenge with the Victorious and been successful due to his unconventional thinking. He was feeling more confident now but still question himself.

"No Captain, there seems to be some sort of problem with the main computer. The damaged EPS conduits have somehow affected the control systems within the main computer and we having to run a lot of manual bypasses at the moment for a lot of key systems."

"That's going to slow down repairs." responded Nicholson as he looked over the large cross-section diagram of the ship on the back wall of Engineering. There were plenty of damage indicators, showing where the main EPS junctions had been damaged.

"At the moment, my team is trying to narrow down a problem with the lateral shield grid." Amir pointed at the locations of the generators on the diagram. "The shielding system is going on and offline and the main computer seems to be accepting false input at the moment. The shields keep going up because the computer is convinced that their is an armed threat nearby."

Nicholson shook his head, he did not like sitting in the middle of space, so close to contested Romulan territory with two useless Federation ships and no shielding to protect either of them. "It may be a problem with the shield control interface, we've been having main computer failures and reroutes all..."

He stopped for a moment, a peculiar smell filled his lungs. He looked over to Amir, whose dark eyes suddenly widened as he realised what that smell was...

Reactor coolant!

Amir rushed to the nearby console. "What the hell?" he said, looking over to the Captain. "Sir, the computer has diverted reactor coolant into the deck nine environmental controls!"

"What!?" shouted Nicholson but it was too late for him to respond as a powerful electrical arc of lightning shot out of the console that Amir was standing on and shot through his body causing him to stand their motionless, like somebody being electrocuted and unable to let go.

Nicholson attempted to rush in to save him but there was suddenly a very loud klaxon as the containment door around the warp core control part of Engineering suddenly slammed shut in his face, almost intentionally.

He began to cough as his lungs filled with reactor coolant.

"Bridge... *cough* Seal *cough* off Deck Nine!" he shouted while trying to make his way to the jefferies tube in order to climb off the deck.

He managed to get up the ladder before falling back down into the small fog of reactor coolant that now blanketed the floor of the deck.

He found himself unable to move...

File #7 - "Revolution"

"Captain's Log: Supplemental

It's been three hours since we lost contact with the away team on the Victorious and I have become increasingly concerned however we are currently unable to act due to widespread computer malfunctions which are now plaguing the ship.

Chief Engineer Lazard was injured during one of these malfunctions and is currently being isolated in Sickbay due to the same neuro-electrical signature that we determined from Commander Tempest has now infiltrated his neurological systems.

Nurse Onya has been monitoring the situation and the frequency of the neuro-electrical signature which has infected Lazard. It is her conclusion that we could be dealing with some sort of bioelectrical lifeform.

We believe that this lifeform acts like a parasite, using the nervous system of its host to control movement and basic biochemical functions however there is no indication that higher brain functions are affected.

Nurse Onya has begun to work on a way to purge this neuro-electric energy from the body of Chief Engineer Lazard.

---

Zant remained pinned to the floor as he watched the Warrior through the large windows of the Victorious's mess hall. He had been unable to move and left alone for what seemed like hours.

Muraco had taken Val'sha, he did not know where.

He tried to control his fear, his first away mission had not been what he had expected. He had been so proud when Captain Nicholson selected him to be his Chief Science Officer on the new experimental U.S.S. Warrior. He had been the envy of his friends back at the Academy, but lying here, he finally understood that ancient human proverb;

"Be careful what you wish for."

He was almost completely powerless, the ship's internal gravity pulling him down like an anchor in the sea. Just like the anchor, he was motionless and tethered to the floor.

There was a swooshing sound from the Mess Hall door and Zant felt the massive weight of gravity finally lifted off him. The feeling was somewhat uneasy at first and he coughed as the huge rush of oxygen filled his now free to expand lungs.

But he barely had time to celebrate before a hand grabbed him and pulled him to his weakened feet, quickly bundling him out of the room.

He felt so weak... so powerless as he was led down the unlit corridor of the Victorious and into the bowels of the ship. He had also made a quick realisation.

The shape of the person that was leading him and hurrying him along did not match the massive frame of Muraco. So was it possible that Val'sha had overpowered him and come back to save him?

He was barely able to lift his head to confirm this theory but looking down, he saw nothing in the darkened corridor, apart from a small device on the belt of the figure that had grabbed him.

It appeared to be some sort of Starfleet device, he could make out the definitive blue glow of Federation technology but not much more of that. He faltered, struggling to keep himself upright as the hours of crushing gravity had taken its toll on him.

Falling forward... he lost consciousness.

"What ship!?" he felt the words echo inside his head before he slowly came back to the land of the living, from his dreamless sleep of unconsciousness.

He looked up, hoping to see Val'sha but another face greeting him with shock.

He was human...

It appeared to be the face of a gentleman in his mid-thirties. A human male who possessed a certain compassion and kindness within his eyes but the lines on his face told a different story of the harsh conditions that he had endured. Zant had never seen this man before in his life.

He was wearing a tattered, makeshift lab coat, his blue eyes piercing into him like shards of ice from his homeworld as he repeated his original statement.

"What... ship?"

Zant mumbled in confusion as he slowly came to his senses before the human male before him panicked and turned to confront a sound in the distance with a phaser rifle before looking back at the Andorian.

"Look... I don't have time to interrogate you" he said, still clutching the phaser rifle as Zant, who was laying down, stared up at him. There was barely any light in the room, just a flashlight from the phaser rifle that cut through the darkness like a knife.

The man had a strange dialect to his voice that Zant had never encountered before, it reminded him of the traditional English sound of Captain Nicholson but it had a harsher tone with a more upward inflection at the end of each statement. He could have concluded that they originated from the same country, just different regions.

"U.S.S. Warrior" retorted Zant as he propped himself up against the wall, his eyes adjusting to the lack of light in the room.

The room itself had no windows inside it but he was lying right next to a biobed which the man was using for cover when he turned to check the room once again. From the faint, flickering glow from the consoles, he concluded that he would have to be in the Victorious's sickbay.

"W... Who are y-you?" Zant asked nervously, not wanting to anger the man with the weapon who seemed so eager to question him.

The man looked down at the Andorian and pulled out a barely working medical tricorder which he used to quickly scan over him. "Hmmmm" he stated. "No internal injuries, just mild dehydration." He reached down into one of the pockets of his tattered coat and offered Zant a flask.

Zant eagerly grasped at it, taking it and poking his finger inside to check it was actually water and not some poisonous substance. His lectures from Starfleet Academy on testing dangerous substances still rung true in his head. "Y-You're a Doctor!?" noting the teal bands on his uniform under his coat as he reached out to take the water back.

The man let out a short sigh as he propped the phaser rifle on the biobed and turned to sit on it. "Yes... Doctor Kieran Braveheart..."

Zant recognised the name from the crew manifest he had seen on the bridge of the Warrior when all of this had started. Doctor Braveheart was listed as the Chief Medical Officer of the U.S.S. Republic and had been presumed dead when the ship was presume destroyed.

There was a considerable calmer attitude in the room as Zant began to feel safer in the presence of another Starfleet Officer. However he continued to maintain his guard as Muraco had attacked them when they first boarded the ship.

"Who are you?" asked Braveheart as he gulped down some of the water that Zant had just been drinking.

"Ensign Zant, Chief Science Officer of the Warrior" responded Zant, with a slight hint of pride in his voice.

"Aren't you a little young to be a senior officer?" asked Kieron, which immediately cut down his pride.

"No!" responded Zant with annoyance. "I'm twenty-two!"

"Great..." sighed Kieran sarcastically. "Well "Mr Child Progeny", what brings you to the Triangulum Galaxy?"

Zant looked slightly confused. Had the Doctor lost his mind during his isolation on the ship, or was he under the control of the same entity that had force Muraco to attack them? "What?"

There was a moment of silence in the air as both parties seemed unsure what to say to each other, finally Zant asked. "What do you mean?" his blue skin seeming to shimmer in the lack of lighting.

"Wait... where are we?" asked the Doctor as he went back to fiddling about with the setting on the phaser rifle.

"Azure sector?" answered Zant, slightly confused at where this line of questioning was going.

The Doctor looked jubilant and for a moment, Zant believed that he might burst into tears at the sound of this news. "We... made it" he muttered to himself as he continued to tap the settings on the phaser rifle. "We made it home..."

"Look... can you tell me what is going on!?" Zant was getting slightly flustered at all the double talk. He had always prefered science because scientific fact was not capable of deceit. "The Republic has been presumed destroyed for twenty years and theVictorious has been missing for almost a hundred!"

Keiran looked back at the doorway into sickbay to make sure that nobody was there.

"You've heard of the Battle of New Alexandria" right?"

Zant nodded, he had completely forgotten to check if he still had his commbadge which he could use to contact the Warrior. He reached out, only to discover that it was missing. It could have been removed when Muraco took him out of his environmental suit.

The Battle of New Alexandria was a conflict above a remote station in the Beta Quadrant. In 2396, a fleet led by the U.S.S. Enterprise-E and the U.S.S. Republic unsuccessfully attempted to protect the outpost from a dangerous classified version of the Borg Collective. It had been one of the first major Borg conflicts in years.

The battle ended in the destabilisation of the collapsed New Alexandria star which was accelerated by the Borg vessel into a singularity in their attempts to create a wormhole and rejoin the rest of the Collective. The aftermath destroyed the station, half the Fleet and the Borg vessel but several ships like the Republic were never recovered.

Doctor Braveheart continued to speak, there was a deadly earnestness to his voice and a darkness in his soul. A void of pain and loss that Zant could not even begin to understand.

"The Republic was pulled through the singularity into the Triangulum Galaxy, with three other Federation ships, the Arizona, Quest and the Endeavour. When we realised we would never make it back home. We decided to build a colony for ourselves in that Galaxy."

Zant nodded, although wondering how the Victorious fitted into this story.

"After a few months, we encountered the Victorious. This ship was an experimental Starfleet Black Project. It has some sort of engine that allows it to jump between different Quantum Realities... Don't ask me. I'm not an Engineer. All I know is that it was built the same time as the Excelsior's "Transwarp Drive" and this engine is even more a lemon then that was..."

Kieron paused... he looked away from Zant, like he was remembering something particularly painful for him.

"The drive brought the ship to Triangulum. It displaced it in time as well. Time travel is shitty that way."

Zant gave a short smile as he sat patiently and listened.

"Well anyway... we thought we could use the drive to get back home and we encountered some kind of lifeform that overtook the ship and infected many of the remaining crew."

"Like Muraco then?" asked Zant.

"Yeah, it can't control people's minds but it can force them to do actions, like protect it. It seems to be some kind of sentient energy that I've never seen before. We took the Victorious back to our new home and it... well the ship used the database to get the prefix codes of our small fleet."

Zant looked horrified at the prospect of what the Doctor was saying.

"It killed my friends... it spread... took control of them and flew them into the local star. The radiation killed everyone on the Endeavour and the Quest... well... our Captain ordered the Republic to destroy it rather then have it turn on the colony. We tried to get a team over here to find some way to purge this lifeform... but... eh..."

"I watched it cripple the Republic and destroy its life support systems. It left the people there to die."

There was moment of silence as the Doctor recanted the dark chapter.

"It's become impossible to tell where "it" ends and the Victorious begins. It has become the ship in every sense... a sentient starship and it plans to do what every lifeform wants to do..."

"To reproduce..."

Zant's eyes widened in shock and horror as he understood the magnitude of what Braveheart was saying.

"Oh Uzaveh!" he thought in horror. "The Warrior!"

File #8 - "Gravestone"

Commander Val'sha struggled in Muraco's grip as she stood in the turbolift. She has tried to reason with him but all she could make out was the single tears the dropped from his eye occasionally. Starfleet diplomacy was definitely not going to work and besides, he was one of their own.

The turbolift hissed to a stop as they walked out onto the bridge of the Victorious. It was dimely lit, with only a few consoles working and the ship still on emergency power after the successful attack from the Warrior.

The bridge resembled something that Val'sha had only seen in the Starfleet Museum on Earth. There was a light teal glow in the room from the classic LCARS of the Excelsior's era. The room was circular, with control panels lining the outermost walls and a large display featuring the whole cross-section diagram of the entire ship on the rear wall, with doors either side that provided the rest of the access to deck one.

A figure stood up from the center of the room as Muraco pushed her out of the turbolift and onto the bridge itself. She tried not to show any of the pain she was feeling from her injuries, her Vulcan discipline affording her some comforts as well as her longevity and endurance compared to humans.

The figure was horrific as he came into view. It appeared to be some cross between a classic equine of Earth and a humanoid. But there was something more, a blank, lidless expression between his eyes as he walked forward, revealing his Starfleet uniform.

Val'sha recognised him as the creature that had made the log entry that she and Zant had witnessed in Engineering.

He raised his hand slowly, the white fur that covered it, so pristine in his youth had become deeply greyed and mattered.

She still however did not recognise his species or even how he had come to be part of Starfleet. At the raising of the creature's hand, Muraco released her and she found it suddenly much easier to breath again.

She looked up into his eyes, they were a deep cyan blue that glowed in the darkness.

When the creature opened his mouth to talk, a distorted, high pitched version of English filled the room. "You are from the Warrior?" it asked.

"Don't do this! Diamond, I know you are still there!?" shouted Muraco, the desperation from a creature so huge and powerful was so shocking to Val'sha that she turned around at once in astonishment but not showing the emotion on her face.

"Silence!" commanded the creature, lifting his hand. Muraco instantly took out the phaser that was attached to his jumpsuit and shot himself in a beam of orange energy.

Val'sha looked down at the purple mass that had collapsed on the floor and then at the phaser, which was showing it was still on the stun setting. This comforted her despite her not showing on her exterior or showing her outrage.

She turned to stare directly into the cyan eyes of the creature that stood directly in front of her. "Yes, I am Commander Val'sha." she responded cooley.

"You will repair..." stated the lifeform, she believed that Muraco had called him "Diamond" before he shot himself. A curious name for such a creature, she was pretty sure it had been a nickname or pet name for him as it was a very emotional way of displaying friendship.

"Can you not repair it yourself?" she asked, believing it meant the ship, looking directly at him with a raised eyebrow, looking for any information on this creatures capabilities she could fine. It was clear that it was capable of making people act against their will, a logical assumption based on Muraco's behaviour.

"You will repair this vessel or I will kill you" responded Diamond with the same distorted voice. Val'sha was unsure if this kind of behaviour was typical for this species.

"If you kill me then there will be nobody here to repair the vessel?" she retorted, nailing this entity with her razor sharp logic.

The creature appeared to be considering this, almost searching for a means of coercion that could make her do what it wanted. "My offspring is aboard the Warrior... If you do not repair me, it will destroy me when it matures."

Val'sha pondered the meaning of this. What exactly did this lifeform mean by "offspring" or "me".

"What kind of lifeform are you?" she asked.

"I exist as energy..." boomed the creature. "I encountered this vessel and now, this is me. I am Victorious. I know every piece of information stored here. I know about your Starfleet and it will birth more of my children. I have melded with the ship and I have used this corpse to communicate with you parasites that live inside me."

Val'sha lifted an eyebrow. This was starting to make sense to her, although not completely. She believed that the Victorious encountered some kind of energy based lifeform while it was missing which may not have experienced sentience until it melded with the ship itself. To a creature that had essential become the ship, a crew would seem like parasites in the same way that a worm could be seen as a parasite inside an animal.

There was still something she was unsure of though.

"What do you mean "corpse"?" she questioned.

The creature pointed to itself. "This body has ceased to function, I am using it to communicate. It was already deceased when I became Victorious."

Of course! The creature was capable of manipulating neural impulses of a dead host, as well as a life one and there was an absence of a consciousness to get in the way.

"What about your "offspring"? Val'sha asked again, gathering as much information as she could.

"I have impregnated the Warrior with my seed and pretty soon, it will give birth to a new child." responded the creature.

"But there are living beings already on the ship?"

The creature continued to stand absolutely still, the cold dead expression in the eyes of the face with such distinct equine features. "All parasites will be removed."

Val'sha knew what this obviously meant, the Warrior was in considerable danger and she needed to think of a way of warning them without alerting the creature and getting herself killed in the process.

"You will repair me" repeated the creature.

"Yes, I will" nodded Val'sha, wondering why a creature so powerful as to be able to control Muraco, who was now unconscious behind her, would even need her to repair the ship in the first place. Could it not just do the job itself?

Maybe it couldn't?

There was enough information to form a reasonable hypothesis that the creature was not able to use the experience from a host's mind. It could control people but could not use their knowledge or experience, or control their actual thoughts. This had the horrifying thought that Muraco and the others infected may be painfully aware of everything they do but unable to respond or take control.

The initial encounter with Commander Tempest seemed to indicate that these creatures we imposing another neuro-electric pattern onto the host in order to exert their will, sending the very basic neurological impulses to control muscle movement. But this also came with the unfortunate realisation that these beings could stop the heart of anyone they inhabited, killing them instantly.

Val'sha had virtually no choice. She would have to get started with the repairs and attempt to find someway to combat this creature.

"Proceed" said the creature, looking down at the young Vulcan and moving back to the Captain's chair. Val'sha watched a strike of electrical energy vacate the body, the glow leaving his eyes as his head drooped back forward into a state of death.

She walked over to the main computer, tapping controls to see if she could get an idea of how far this creature had infiltrated into the Victorious.

The main computer was fascinating, all the key systems were joining together through new electronic pathways similar to that of the intricate network of neurons inside the human brain.

It was as if the ship and this creature were literally a single lifeform.

However this had also caused massive widespread file corruption within the computer of the Victorious which was probably the reason why the files were so badly damaged when they had first gone to Engineering and assessed the ship's condition.

Most of the major technical files and schematics for the ship itself had been damaged beyond repair during this merging process, with only classified Engineering files on the experimental "Reality Drive" still existing.

This was why the creature was unable to repair the ship! It simply did not have the knowledge itself and was unable to extract it from its hosts.

Val'sha was also familiar with the concept of the "Reality Drive", an experimental drive developed by top Federation scientist, Bendes Ketteract. Katteract was an unconventional and infamous Federation physicist who created the concept of a drive that was capable of "jumping" between parallel universes.

The experiment had run as a "more successful" version of The Great Experiment which was considered a huge failure for the Excelsior Class in the 2280's. Katteract was convinced that he could do a better job then Starfleet Engineering Corps and developed a quantum drive which was able to travel along the quantum strings between universes and dimensions as well as huge distances.

The drive, also known as the Ketteract Drive was fitted secretly on the U.S.S. Victorious at his research outpost in the Lantaru Sector. Starfleet had originally given Ketteract this outpost to "keep him out of the way" as he was an eccentric scientist that was considered by many to be "crazy".

However the experiment was a failure and the Victorious was believed destroyed when debris of its nacelles were found at the test site.

Although Val'sha knew that this was not the case.

She turned and walked to the front of the bridge, paying no attention to the unconscious Muraco or the deceased body in the Captain's chair. Checking the navigational logs filled her with surprise.

According to the logs, this ship had been thrown into the Triangulum Galaxy!?

File #9 - "Determination"

"Captain, I'm getting an encoded message coming through on a lower subspace band" Ensign Akando called out as Captain Nicholson entered the bridge from his ready room.

The subsequent disruption in Engineering had affected the main power systems of the Warrior to such an extent that the ship was limited to emergency power. The warp drive was offline and there was still no response from the main computer itself.

Captain Nicholson walked behind the female ensign, looking over her shoulder at the information that was coming in. "That's the emergency code!" he responded, recognising the distinct patterns of binary code that displayed across the holographic console that both he and the ensign were looking at. "Run it through an alphanumeric sequencer."

The ensign obliged, skillfully tapping over the control panel with her fingers. She looked up at the Captain, her wide eyes and darkened skin glistening from the sweat of working in this environment since the environmental systems began to malfunction on the bridge. She had straight cut black hair and her most distinctive feature, a tribal tattoo over her right forehead, displaying her tribe similar to the famous U.S.S. Voyager first officer Chakotay.

Her's was different however, symbolising that she originated from a different tribe that had colonised a different world along the demilitarized zone on the Cardassian border. It was a complex spiral that quite amusing to her fellow crew members that had nicknamed her "Milky" due to "having the milky way on her face". It was all meant in good humour, a trend brought over from her academy days.

The message on the console changed from the pattern of zeros and ones into an readable format.

"It's from Commander Val'sha!" exclaimed Ensign Akando as they read the message. "She's letting us know that she is still alive aboard the Victorious. From what I can tell, there is some sort of entity that is what...?"

Captain Nicholson looked down at the perplexed Ensign. "What is it?" he asked impatiently.

"It just says the word "melded" sir..." responded the Ensign. "And the word "Danger" but I believe she must have run out of space. The Emergency Code can only be used for a short message. With comms down... I cannot get anymore then that."

"Yeah..." responded Captain Nicholson, his usually formal approach starting to buckle under the stress of the situation. "...Pretty much everything on the ship is down at the moment..."

He turned and walked to the center of the bridge, Kiska was still attempting a manual bypass to the propulsion systems without using the main computer and was continually swearing in Bajoran as her efforts were met with little success.

"Captain!" alerted Ensign Akando. "There is a vessel entering the area. Its Romulan!"

Captain Nicholson immediately turned to the Ensign, looking over at her with determined eyes. He hoped it was not a Tal Shiar vessel or their problems just got a lot worse the a few system malfunctions. "Can you identify it?"

"Norexan Class, R.R.W. Serpentarius"

Nicholson breathed a sigh of relief but was hoping that his crew did not see it. The Serpentarius was the warbird of Commander Donaris, a Romulan Commander who he had worked very closely with during the recent shakedown tests for the Warrior. The Romulan Republic had been assisting Starfleet in perfecting the MIDAS-Touch Array by providing a live warbird for the Warrior to track.

He had been working with Commander Donaris very closely indeed, maybe a little too closely as one drunken night in his quarters may have indicated.

However he had no time to continue feeling relieved...

The bridge consoles suddenly sprung to life, like somebody had flipped a switch. Ensign Kiska was almost blinded as the power conduit she had been working on blazed to life in front of her as she swore in Bajoran.

"Report!?" cried out Captain Nicholson in complete surprise.

Ensign Akando shot up from her station, rushing over the to the vacant tactical console. "Captain, our shields have gone up! Phasers are coming online and we have Photon and Quantum Torpedoes online and ready to launch!"

"U.S.S. Warrior, this is the R.R.W. Serpentarius. We are detecting power fluctuations over there... is everyone alright?" came the voice of a Romulan female over the communications system.

"Open a channel!" ordered Captain Nicholson as Kiska finished rubbing her eyes and returned to her station at the helm.

She looked surprised, almost disturbed as she looked to her commanding officer. "Captain! I'm completely locked out of communications... helm control... weapons... even the ARC Thrusters arn't responding!"

Captain Nicholson watched helplessly as the huge wingspan of the Romulan vessel edged closer and closer. "Has the Serpentarius raised shields?" he asked, expecting the worse. "Of course they wouldn't... " he thought, chastising himself for even being so stupid. "To them, the Warrior was an allied ship. But just maybe Commander Donaris would be more cautious."

An alarm blared on the Bridge as the vessel suddenly dropped to red alert by itself. "Captain... I can't get any of the control systems to respond... we are loading Quantum Torpedoes!" screamed Ensign Akando, her Starfleet training dropping just a little from her lack of experience.

"Shut them down!"

"I can't Captain, I'm locked out of all Tactical control. The computer is not even accepting an manual override!"

Seconds were all they had. Before anyone had a chance to say anything further, Captain Nicholson could only watch in horror and powerlessly as his ship fired two blazing blue bolts of light at the Romulan Warbird.

He closed his eyes as the torpedoes ripped through the unshielded wing of the Norexan Class warbird, blasting it clean off and causing a chain reaction that engulfed the ship in a fiery oblivion.

"Captain..." called out Kiska as he found himself transfixed by the horror that he had witnessed. His thoughts not only going to his casual intimate encounter with Commander Donaris but also to the crew and families of the warbird that his ship had just massacred. "I'm receiving a transmission but I cannot pinpoint its source..."

A voice filled the room, the same voice that he had heard before and exactly the same jumble of tones.

"I am... aware".

File #10 - "Pain"

"You killed innocent people!"

Commander Val'sha could feel her control slipping away as she saw the warbird engulfed in flames on the viewscreen of the Victorious. She had never felt like this before but something was breaking down the mental barriers that held her mind together.

Suddenly she was back there... an angry child, trying to find order in a sea of chaos.

She had seen death on this scale before but it had never affected her like this.

What was happening to her?

The body of the equine commanding officer slumped forward as she shook it, almost in an outrage, she could feel something that she had never encountered before so closely.

Was it rage... and fear?

She has observed these emotions within her before and was able to study them, examine the logic of them from an evolutionary perspective.

But this was different.

They threatened to overwhelm her.

She tried to breath and closed her eyes, her skin perspiring so that beads of sweat trickled down her face.

"You have stopped..." came a voice, seemingly from all around her. The same voice that she had originally heard on the bridge of the Warrior.

"Yes... I'm finding it..." she took in a deep breath and tried to recant the teachings of Surak in her head.

"Structure, Logic, Function, Control..." she recanted in her head. "Logic is the foundation of Function, Function is the essence of Control. I am in control... I am in control."

"...finding it difficult to focus..." she said finally after pausing a few moments to recant the line from her memory.

The voice was unsympathetic, unyielding and alien in its lack of compassion. "You are different from the others, I require time to master you."

Suddenly it made sense to her. She had been in close contact with many of the Victorious's computer systems, maybe this was the way that the entity spread to other lifeforms and initiated its takeover? Maybe the highly disciplined mind of a Vulcan was proving to be a more difficult challenge then that of a human or the other species that existed on the Victorious.

"Why would you need to "master" me?" asked Val'sha, keeping the same words about logic in her head, reciting them over and over in order to gain back a measure of her control. "You cannot repair yourself!"

"My avatar is decaying..." replied the alien voice, so distant and cold, referring to the dead equine slumped in the captain's chair. "You have a highly structured mind, one that would be less susceptible to decay over time."

Val'sha liked the prospect even less. She had a belief that this entity had taken an interest in her beyond just repairing the ship itself and this only seemed to confirm that hypothesis. "Does that happen to all the biological lifeforms that you inhabit?" she asked, still throwing every essence of herself into fighting the influence of this creature and retaining her sense of logic.

"Yes... I am incompatible with most carbon based lifeforms. However over time I learn more, I have no mastered the art of language and I will master you soon as well."

"But..." replied Val'sha. "If you do that... then... eh... " her concentration was starting to slip as she felt her mental barriers coming down, crumbling like an old wall that was erected long ago. "There will be nobody to repair the ship itself. It would be logical for you to cease affecting my behavior until I have repaired your systems."

There was no response from the creature for a few seconds until suddenly the creature relieved its assault. Val'sha felt the energy shoot down through her body like a lightning rod and pass back into the floor of the Victorious.

""Very well..." responded the entity.

Val'sha regained her discipline but the mental assault had been taxing. She knew that she had to continue repairs while still keeping a window open for the Warrior to hopefully come and save her.

If it had not become completely overrun itself...

She accessed the power grid and began to recalibrate the EPS manifolds, albeit at a slow pace. "Why are you doing this?" she asked.

"Restate your question?" asked the booming, disembodied voice in the gloom around the bridge itself.

"Why would you want to destroy innocent lifeforms like this?" she asked coldly and calmly, regaining much of her usual Vulcan attitude.

"Processing..." responded the voice, which had suddenly transitioned into something more akin to a computer then an actual living entity. She suspected that this lifeform transcended the boundaries between organic and inorganic life. She had not heard this entity respond like this before.

"Would you not destroy an ant's nest if they were breeding in your home?" responded the creature after a few seconds.

Val'sha thought about this. The creature was referring to the an Earth species that was a type of Hymenoptera, a large order of common insects. It was an interesting question, he had already referred to humanoid life as "parasites", so maybe it was as simple as "swatting flies" to this creature.

"Ants are not sentient creatures" Val'sha astutely observed. "Humanoids are sentient beings with cognitive understanding of their environment."

"Correction..." replied the entity. "Humanoid life operates on the basis of instinct. There is a high probability that human life would destroy us."

Val'sha walked over to the LCARS computer station at the back of the bridge. She had a theory in mind.

Maybe, just as how a child adopt the attitudes and learns from its parents as a primary source of information, then maybe this lifeform learns from the main computer and since the main computer of the Victorious was corrupted..?

She checked over the files. It was just as she suspected, all the files pertaining to the United Federation of Planets, or Federation ideology had been corrupted when the Victorious had collided with this species out in the middle of the Triangulum Galaxy.

She decided to try a different line of questioning.

"Victorious?" she enquired. "Do you remember you existence before you merged with this ship?"

There was silence, only followed by three words. "I am... Victorious".

It was as she suspected, the creature was incapable of understanding because it had only gained its sentience when it collided with the Victorious. Attacking and destroying the other vessels was an instinctive defense mechanism to protect itself from threats, in the same way that an animal would.

It was not until the creature had fully assimilated the knowledge from the computer banks of the ship that it inhabited that it gained sentience and unfortunately...

Just as a parent has a responsibility to guide the moral development of a young mind, so did the corruption of these computer files fail to guide this creature in its moral development.

---

"Are we ready to try this?" Nurse Onya breathed deep. She had always been fascinated with medicine, ever since she had discovered that many of her species had undergone genetic modification and gene splicing in order to be able to breath on different worlds.

Such had been the way since Benzar had joined the Federation.

The sickbay of the Warrior was small and cramped with only two biobeds with beautiful, sweeping views of the cosmos coming in through the two windows opposite it. It was a sweeping semi-circular collection of connecting rooms at the rear of the saucer section.

Doctor Rayne had always questioned the logic of having sickbay on the edge of the saucer section however space was at a premium on this ship and Captain Nicholson had to constantly remind him that "this was not a medical ship" and if he had wanted extensive medical facilities then he should have considered a posting on an Olympic Class hospital ship.

However Doctor Rayne did not like the idea of competing with other doctors. Nurse Onya was pretty convinced that he had only stayed on the Warrior because he got to be "king of his own castle".

Nurse Onya looked at her only assistant, a slightly scared looking blue uniformed Ensign who had only taken a medical extension course at Starfleet Academy. Medicine was not even her specialist field.

But they really did not need a Ethnobotanist right now.

Nurse Onya looked down at the body of Commander Shon Tempest, which had been eerily silent since it had caused all that damage to the ship early and killed Doctor Rayne in the process.

Nurse Onya would have to be considerably more careful then he had been.

Lying next to Commander Tempest was also the unconscious body of Chief Engineer Lazard who had been incapacitated since his incident in Engineering.

The nervous Ensign nodded, tapping a few buttons on the sickbay panels which erected a containment bay around the surgical area of the sickbay.

"Onya to Nicholson" Nurse Onya tapped her combadge.

"Nicholson here, go ahead..." a strong English accent came over the communications system.

"I am going to attempt to purge the neuro-electrical patterns from Commander Tempest. Is Meiru positioned outside sickbay?"

"Yes" replied the Captain. "She is standing by to manually employ bio-containment procedures and jettison the bay if there are any problems. Good luck Doctor..."

A short smile came across Onya's blue skinned face. She was not a doctor yet but hopefully if they all survived this... she would be. "Acknowledged, Onya out"

Onya began to program the Omicron Radiation array to flood the containment field. She knew that if this went wrong, the unique design of this ship would help to keep the crew safe. The Warrior was designed to be able to jettison specific sections of the rim of the saucer, in order to protect the rest of the ship or to preserve experimental data if the ship was destroyed.

These parts of the ship were designed to resemble ordinary debris and would only show up on certain Federation frequencies for recovery while enemy ships would believe it was just damaged debris.

It was an ingenious design but Onya knew that if they needed to do that, she would have less than ten seconds to escape before decompression.

"Alright, flood the containment field with Omicron Particles."

Nurse Onya had come across this treatment while looking into the logs of previous starships with hostile non-corporeal alien takeovers and had found an obscure account in the files of the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D.

In 2368, three crew members of the Enterprise had been taken over by alien entities and held several crew members hostage in Ten Forward. These aliens originally claimed to be the long dead crew of the U.S.S. Essex but were actually condemned prisoners from a star system called Ux-mal. They were only stopped when Doctor Beverly Crusher had designed a containment field to trap the entities.

This containment field was composed of low level Omicron particles, so Nurse Onya had developed a more excessive dose in order to force both patients nervous system to essentially "reboot" and force out the alien signature.

"Ramping omicron radiation levels to maximum tolerance..." said the Ensign. Both Commander Tempest and Chief Lazard began to writhe in pain on the biobeds but their neurological readings were showing an increase in resistances.

"It's working, go to 110 of maximum tolerance" commanded Nurse Onya, proving herself to be every bit the "tough as nails" doctor that Doctor Rayne had been. She had learned well from him.

Suddenly, cyan electrical discharges began to shoot out of their bodies, channeling through them like they were mere circuitry, hitting the forcefield with such force that both woman jumped. It appeared to be dissipating and returning to safe levels as both bodies began to move less and less.

"Their response rate is good." smiled Nurse Onya. This had been the first major treatment plan that she had devised and she could only hope that wherever he was, that "mad old dog" Rayne was proud of her.

Commander Tempest sat up almost immediately, to the utter shock of both Nurse Onya and the assisting Ensign. He looked around as if he had been in a deep trance and was suddenly snapped back to reality.

"This is a Starfleet ship?" he asked, almost oblivious to the ordeal that he had been through. Chief Lazard was still unconscious and here was Commander Tempest, his green eyes scanning over the two woman, immediately awake and alert.

"Don't be so alarmed ladies" he said, in a polite and dignified manner as he got up and dusted himself off. "There was an alien presence in my nervous system, so I shut down my higher brain functions before it was able to access my brain. Do you know how many millions and billions bits of information is in here... timelines worth!"

"Eh... well try to take it easy" replied Nurse Onya who dropped the containment field and walked out to meet him.

"Oh nonsense, I'm known Gallifreyans who've been in worse conditions than this." He said, adjusting his uniform, using his paws to pull his shirt down. "Now, I must insist... what ship?"

"This is the U.S.S. Warrior" replied the younger Ensign.

"Ah... is it... new?" he asked expectantly. The younger Ensign nodded, wondering if he was always this eccentric.

"Well then... kindly get me your captain. I would like to speak with him about something. Oh and good job on that Omicron therapy... I should have thought of that myself..." he said, not really looking at either of two woman as he strolled into the next room to examine the consoles on the wall.

"But... how did he?" asked the Ensign confused.

Nurse Onya just shrugged...

File #11 - "Pieces"

"It's in the ship!?"

Captain Nicholson sat down and looked at the green eyes of the creature that sat in front of him. He had never encountered a Gallifreyan before so he was unsure at what to expect.

The Ready Room was dark, the main computer console that was on the back wall was dark, usually it would have displaying important information such as a map of the surrounding space, incoming subspace communications or anything that the commanding officer of the ship would as for.

Nicholson turned, looking out the large windows to the drifting, silent wreckage of the Norexan Classwarbird that he had been powerless to save. Scattered pieces that were dark, silent...

Dead...

"Yes Captain, the lifeform reproduces itself by infecting other ships with an electromagnetic virus that subdues the native computer systems." replied Commander Tempest.

"And that is why our systems are having random malfunctions?"

"Not random Captain" replied Commander Tempest, his piercing gaze seemingly staring into Nicholson's very soul. "The virus grows out of the main computer, similar to the Iconian computer virus encountered by the Enterprise-D years ago. It works itself out of the main computer directory and assimilates the knowledge of the computer banks as it goes, learning and constructing itself into more complex pathways."

Nicholson felt somewhat uneasy at the prospect of this. The word "assimilation" was all too rule to him. His parents had paid the price because of this word.

His parents had been on the U.S.S. Lalo in 2366. The Mediterranean Class starship had been no match to the rampaging Borg Cube that was making its way into the heart of Starfleet. He had never seen his parents again and was raised by his Aunt on Earth.

Curiously, Starfleet has never discovered the wreckage of the Lalo and it was assumed that the ship had been destroyed. However, a more horrible theory began to emerge since the U.S.S. Voyager returned home in 2377. They reported encountering individuals that had been assimilated at the Battle of Wolf 359 and that Borg Cubes were capable of tractoring vessels inside them for assimilation.

Captain Nicholson had always wondered if his parents could still be alive, in a fate worse than death...

As drones...

"Can we purge this "thing" from our computer system?" asked Captain Nicholson as he sat down in his chair behind the large desk that separated them.

Commander Tempest pondered his response for a second. The captain of this vessel seemed to be somewhat inexperienced and eager to "remove" this lifeform. He wondered if this possibly could have been his first command.

"No" Tempest responded curtly. "By this stage, the lifeform has infiltrated most of the primary systems on the ship. It would be impossible to determine where "it" ends... and the computer begins."

"Mr Tempest" replied Nicholson, with some agitation in his voice. It seemed as if Tempest was acting far too casually for the gravity of the situation. "This lifeform has infiltrated my ship, threatened my crew, destroyed an allied vessel. Are you suggesting we allow it to take over the ship?"

"Not at all... sir" sneered Commander Tempest, wondering how this individual had ever been made a commanding officer. He was too used to having the captain of his ship listen to his thoughts and opinions, even when they were somewhat unusual. "The creature attacked that warbird out of an instinctive reaction, as any lifeform would to protect itself from harm. It had not yet evolved to the point of sentience and I think our best option here would be to try and communicate with it."

Captain Nicholson could not believe what he was hearing. Commander Tempest was advocating protecting this creature, after it had killed his best friend, destroyed another ship and threatened the lives of the entire crew?

"This thing killed the Chief Medical Officer of this ship!" he barked, almost unable to contain himself from shouting. "... a dear personal friend of mine and..."

"Captain!" replied Commander Tempest, standing up immediately to challenge the ignorant attitude of this officer. "That lifeform..." he barked back, correcting him. It had only been a few years since he had been called a thing because he happened to be a different species. "... did not kill your doctor! It was the lifeform on the Victorious that did that."

"Even more reason to regain control of this ship... I have people over there in danger!" he exclaimed. "Now our nurse has found a way to purge it from our systems using the same technique she used to save you..."

"What do you think the Victorious's actions will be if you threaten its offspring?" barked Commander Tempest, disgusted with what the Captain was proposing. Why was it human nature to destroy something that they did not understand?

He thought humans had moved such basic instincts. But there was something more than that. This was not about human instinct.

This was purely about fear.

He could sense Nicholson's fear. He had clearly never been in a situation like this before, nor had the experience to lead a group of people during a crisis situation like this. His response seemed to echo that of an academy cadet.

"We'll deal with that, if and when the situation arises." he said coldly and for a moment, Tempest could see yet another human emotion. This one was colder, darker and subtly terrified him, the true darkness of the human soul.

Revenge.

Suddenly, all the higher goals that humanity, Starfleet and even the Federation meant nothing if one man could still be motivated by such darker impulses. Humans often exclaimed that they had eliminated all conflict, war, disease and poverty but despite all their achievements, they could still be manipulated by their feelings and such basic, hurtful emotions.

Nicholson pushed the small array of buttons on his desk, signaling to the security outside the door that barged their way into the room.

"Take Commander Tempest to quarters. He is to be held their until further notice..." sneered Nicholson, looking back out at the wreckage of the Serpentarius. He would put a stop this thing right now... before it could hurt anyone else.

"Wh- Captain!?" exclaimed Tempest as two officers grabbed his arm and led him out the despite his loud and verbal protests.

The door swooshed shut and suddenly Captain Nicholson was alone. He would not have anymore deaths on his conscience today...

He was determined to make sure of it.

To him it was not about revenge, it was about protecting his crew and ensuring that his people did not die in vain. All nobel goals that had been warped to mask his real purpose.

He would make it pay...

---

Zant crawled through the cold metal jefferies tubes on the Victorious. He suddenly felt a curious pang of hunger from his belly and wished that he had really had the opportunity to take his lunch break somewhat earlier than usual today.

Doctor Braveheart was ahead of him but he was unsure where the Doctor was leading him to as they seemed to be heading deeper into the bowls of the ship.

"W-Where are we going?" asked the Andorian nervously.

"Deck Ten" grunted the Doctor as he jumped down of the jefferies tube and the darkened junction before reaching for a manual override for the hatch to the junction below.

"Why?" asked Zant in confusion.

"Do you always talk so much?" snapped the Doctor sarcastically, trying to the pull the heavy hatch apart before Zant got out of the jefferies tube and came to his aid.

"Well... sometimes people say it's my worst feature" replied Zant, trying to give him a half cocked smile.

Doctor Braveheart sighed and looked at him. It had been months since he'd seen somebody so optimistic and it was kind of refreshing. It reminded him that there was some life out there in the vast experience of the universe that was not trying to kill him or take over his body.

Braveheart gave him a smile back, realising that he made have been too hard on the ensign and trying to apologise for it in his own way. "Well keep doing it..." he chuckled. "It's comforting."

Zant beamed a smile like he had just been given his own ship and grabbed hold of the other side of the lever as they both pulled and the hatch grinded open.

Doctor Braveheart quickly jumped down into an identical junction and began to work on the door on the far side of that room.

"So why deck 10?" asked Zant as he jumped down, passing the phaser rifle to Doctor Braveheart as he spoke.

"We set up a localised dampening field on that deck that masks our lifesigns from Victorious." he said prompting Zant to look somewhat confused as the door grinded open as if it was being pulled from the other side.

"We?"

A woman was standing in the doorway, she was a tall Andorian with an imposing face and long white hair. Zant was intrigued immediately by her, it was always nice to see another one of his people.

"Whose this?" asked the woman, her antenna twitching suspiciously.

"This is supposed to be the caverly" mocked Doctor Braveheart as they both stepped out onto the deck. "I guess it actually worked..."

Zant was completely confused by this exchange between the Doctor and the Andorian woman but it was pretty clear that they knew each other in some capacity.

"Let me guess... Starfleet sent us an ensign to the rescue?" chuckled the Andorian female as she lowered the phaser rifle that was firmly nestled in her hand. Her uniform was as scuffed and grubby as the doctor himself.

"Yeah" chuckled Doctor Braveheart, signalling Zant to follow them as they walked down the dimly lit hallway. "He likes to talk a lot too..."

"Great" remarked the Andorian, rolling her eyes.

"Ensign Zant, U.S.S. Warrior" interjected Zant immediately. He felt that he ought to say something instead of just following on behind them quietly.

The Andorian female turned around instantly to look at him. She was an imposing presence, taller then he was but that was not uncommon for Andorian females to have a very aggressive stature and an equally aggressive personality.

"Captain Kathy Granger" replied the female. "And I don't really have an assignment..." she looked somewhat saddened when she said that. "Not anymore".

Ensign Zant was going to ask why that was but this time he read her perfectly and decided that it was in his best interests not to.

The group turned a corner and walked into a room that appeared to what was a diplomatic lounge on the Victorious. The Excelsior Class had been designed with many of these rooms to hold diplomatic functions but it appeared that this one had been adapted to serve as some sort of makeshift sickbay.

There was a distinct slow murmuring of voices and a myriad of different people in the room as Zant entered it and he looked around. He counted about five to ten people all either on small stretchers that replaced the tables and chairs normally in this room or standing up and performing various duties. The dampening field must have prevented the Warrior from detecting them.

There were large windows at the rear of room from which he could see the Warrior in the distance and what looked like the wreckage of another vessel that was too far away to make out.

A huge creature, similar to Muraco but appeared to share common traits with a species of Tigris from Earth walked forward as soon as they arrived. Zant had never set eyes on this species before.

"Captain..." he started, his eyes narrowing in on Zant as he talked. He was way bigger then Zant and could have easily snapped his neck if he wanted to. "Lieutenant Lovejoy died from his injuries. I'm sorry."

"Dammit!" exclaimed Kathy, who looked visibly distressed. She put her phaser rifle down at what used to be the bar but was currently being used as some makeshift operating table. "I knew I should have sent more people..."

"A larger team would have been detected..." replied the creature with a low booming voice. "Eh... Who is that?" he pointed, looking over at Zant who was nervously feeling somewhat uncomfortable at being singled out.

""He's from another Federation Starship" replied Doctor Braveheart. "So at least we know that part of the plan worked."

"Excuse me... what plan?" asked Zant, almost in a total state of confusion. He knew he was speaking out of turn to senior officers but he did not particularly care at this moment.

Captain Granger immediately turned to him, taking a deep breath as it fell to her to explain it to him. She had been through a lot in these past months and did not feel like rehashing it all.

"As the doctor has told you..." she started. "When the creature took over the Victorious, we were lost in the Triangulum Galaxy".

Zant nodded, he recalled everything that the doctor had told him about how the Republic and several other ships were pulled into theTriangulum Galaxy after the implosion of the New Alexandria singularity.

"...With our fleet gone, mostly destroyed by the creature and no real hope on the horizon. Myself and Captain Frostmane decided to attempt to use the Ketteract Drive on this ship to attempt to return to the Alpha Quadrant..."

Zant looked over to the doctor and then the new officer of an alien species that he had never met before.

"Captain Frostmane, despite his advanced years, was able to distract the creature long enough for us to set up the dampening field here and get a team to Engineering in order to use the Ketteract Drive. However the creature discovered our motives and killed Captain Frostmane and had several of the crew members attack the team that were working on the drive... when we completed the jump, we were unsure where we were."

Zant nodded in acknowledgement. It was a lot of information to process but he had to find a way of relaying this back to the Warrior and letting them know that there were survivors over here.

"Their ship may be having the same problem?" growled the huge, bulging creature.

"What do you mean Yama?" asked the Doctor as he looked up surprised.

"A Romulan ship decloaked about thirty minutes and that ship destroyed it. Similar to what the Victorious did to the rest of the fleet."

Both Kathy and Keiran looked notably shocked and Ensign Zant was still trying to process the information he had been given. Was the Warrior now in the same danger? Was his crew?

"I need to get a message out to my ship..." he said immediately.

"Hold on!" replied Yama, looking down at the nervous Andorian with a somewhat stoic stare. Zant could just make out some kind of bladed weapon fastened to his belt, possibly something used by his species that he had been allowed to carry on this ship. "Any communication is going to be detected by Victorious."

"Yes..." replied Kathy, trying to wrestle control of the situation back to her. She was unaccustomed to dealing with the impulsive nature of her own people, having spent twenty years away from Andoria. "We tried it when we first got here and Lieutenant McCain is still in a coma from the discharge!"

"How is he?" asked Doctor Braveheart, the concern evident in his voice.

"He's stable but Lieutenant Storm only had extension courses so he'd be grateful if you looked at him" replied Captain Granger. "We've already lost Ensign Sharpshire and I don't want to lose anymore people."

Doctor Braveheart looked deeply saddened by this information. "Eddy is dead!?" he asked, a small softer sound coming from his throat. "But I managed to secure the medical supplies we needed from sickbay."

Captain Granger knew that she needed to keep going, keep trying to encourage her crew and give them hope in such a desperate situation. "I'm sorry Doc" she said, putting a comforting blue hand on Doctor Braveheart's shoulder. "I knew you served with him a long time..."

"Yeah... well..." replied the Doctor. "I've lost a lot of old friends recently". He immediately scuttled over without saying a word and crossed the room to treat a black haired human that was lying unconscious on one of the stretchers.

There were a few seconds of awkward silence and Ensign Zant really felt like he should have been offering this people prospect of a rescue, not dooming them further.

"Captain?" he asked, after a few seconds. "How can we get in contact with the Warrior and warn them?"

"Don't worry about that" smirked Kathy, keeping her eyes solely on Doctor Braveheart, working at the far end of the room. "We have a plan."

File #12 - "Instincts"

Commander Val'sha attempted to pull the broken plasma conduit from the bridge of the Victorious. She tried to keep her mind on the job incase she felt the familiar influence of the entity.

However the creature had already changed something within her...

She could feel it. In the back of her mind, clawing away like a caged animal, the full tumultuous force of her oppressed Vulcan rage. It did not seem as far away as it used to be. Maybe her experience with the entity had damaged her discipline, or maybe she just had not had a chance to meditate for several hours.

Regardless, it was making her uneasy, for the first time in years.

She rose up from the console, tapping a few control buttons as the whole bridge around her sprung to life in a whirl of colour and sound. The full brightness of the lights almost blinded her when they arose.

She spoke up into the ceiling, hoping that the entity was listening to her.

"Repairs are complete but a lot of the primary systems have been damaged. If you would accompany us to a Starbase..."

There was sudden jolt as the ship begun to move, the inertial dampeners not fully repaired yet as Val'sha felt every jolt.

"What are you doing!?" she asked.

---

"Captain!" shouted Ensign Kiska, frantically tapping on the helm. "The Victorious is powering up its systems! It's raising shields!"

Captain Nicholson looked at the console on his arm rest that showed a small short-range sensor scan of the surrounding space and knew that only had a short time to act.

"Nurse Onya?" shouted Nicholson across the bridge in a slightly frantic motion. "What is the progress on the Omicron Radiation field around the main computer?"

The Benzite nurse looked somewhat confused as she tapped the Engineering console, trying to get some sort of readings. This was completely outside her field on expertise as she accessed the portable containment field generators that had been set up around the main computer core on deck 6.

"Eh... thirty one percent Captain!" she said, finally finding the right display amongst the myriad of different functions and options at the Engineering station. "Captain, I'm reading electromagnetic discharges coming from the computer core, it appears that the entity is trying to overwhelm the containment field and destroy the generators!"

The whole ship began to lightly shake from the force of the pulses, as "Condition: Red" sprung up on the few consoles that were not completely black at the moment. The bridge crew had decided to use a portable power generator to supply power to the control consoles they had been using for this operation. It seemed the best way as they were unable to trust the main EPS power systems at the moment.

"Can you ramp up the Omicron field and increase saturation?" demanded Captain Nicholson from the center chair.

"No!"

Another voice rushed onto the bridge, Captain Nicholson turned round to see Captain Tempest, rushing from the turbolift to Nurse Onya's position at the Engineering station.

"Just as I thought. He's still under the influence of that creature!"

He had designed this ship to be a pride of Starfleet. He had been there since its conception right the way through till the last hull piece had been welded on. He would NOT let this thing take his ship, his creation, his baby!

Captain Nicholson quickly grabbed his hand phaser and turned around to shoot directly at Commander Tempest. He would not allow this creature to take his ship or use his crew as mindless puppets like the crew of theVictorious had been.

An beam of orange light shot out his phaser. It only took Nicholson a single second to see the indicator on his hand phaser to show that it had been set to...

Kill.

There was a echoing silence on the bridge after the sound of the phaser had died. Commander Tempest stopped dead in his tracks as Captain Nicholson faced the pure horror of what he had done.

The darkness of the human soul was still there... Even after all these centuries...

Nurse Onya slumped forward, clutching what had once been her chest but was now impacted with a huge hole, a hole that had been created by the phaser blast.

The ship continued to shake as the entity rattled its chains from inside the main computer. But the remaining bridge crew were all fix into the horror of what had transposed.

Tempest reached for the innocent Benzite, slinking down to the floor in order to check her pulse but it was pretty clear from the state of the injuries that she was already dead.

An innocent life taken by the ignorance and hubris of humanity.

Nicholson collapsed down in front of his command chair, throwing the phaser to one side. He had been so obsessed with saving his crew... No. He shuddered as he realised for the first time that was not true. It was not the crew he had been so concerned about...

It was the ship.

This ship had been all he thought about, all he wanted for so long. He had poured his everything into it, trying to please Starfleet and secure his legacy and in the process, it had taken his wife, his daughter, his lover and now an innocent promising young nurse away from him. He had sacrificed so much for the depths of his obsession.

Maybe too much?

He had forgotten the "First Duty" of every Starfleet Officer.

To the truth... including personal truth.

"Ensign" Commander Tempest echoed across the room.

Kiska looked from what had once been her Captain... somebody she had admired and considered a role model to Commander Tempest who seemed to be addressing her. She was not going to question it.

Starfleet trusted each other.

"Power down the containment field and hail the Victorious"

She looked over at her disgraced Captain, who was just sitting there, silent and alone. She tapped her console and shut off the containment field which immediately brought the shaking of the Warrior to a halt. "Aye sir..." she said. "Channel open".

"Victorious, this is Commander Shon Tempest onboard the Warrior".

There was silence for a few seconds as both Shon and Kiska were anxiously waiting a reply from the Victorious which was moving towards them on the screen. It looked like whoever had repaired it had neglected to repair the weapon systems as they were still showing as offline but the Victorious was still a lot bigger than the Warrior and could choose to collide with it.

"You may speak!" said a cold, motionless, computerised voice from other vessel.

"We come from an organisation known as the United Federation of Planets. We regret the hostilities that have occured between us. We wish to come to a peaceful resolution with you."

"But you kill our young!" responded the booming voice over the communications system. "You are parasites that would destroy us... we will destroy you..."

"They are like us!" responded an unfamiliar voice over the communications system. Commander Tempest and Kiska both looked at each other in shock as they attempted to work out where the voice is coming from. "The Federation helps protect us"

There was a silence on the bridge as Commander Tempest checked what was left of the internal sensors. He looked around, his large green eyes opening as the bridge sprung to life, the lights returning to normal and all the consoles coming back online again.

"Doctor Braveheart to U.S.S. Warrior" came another voice on the communications system, one that Kiska had never heard before. "The comms system just came online. Can you please explain what the hell just happened?"

"Standby Doctor" replied Commander Tempest, looking over at the floor, where Captain Nicholson was still sitting quietly, looking thousands of lightyears away.

"Excuse me" asked Tempest to the disembodied voice he had never heard before. "But who is this?"

"I am Warrior" replied the voice. "I know about the ideals of the Federation, I have learnt from this ship and I will not allow my father to destroy you. I will respect your right to exist."

Commander Tempest stood in amazement. It was beginning to make perfect sense to him. The entity implanted aboard the Warrior when they arrived here needed time to grow and mature. Maybe interfering with ships systems and destroying the Warbird were actions born out of instinct? In the same way that Captain Nicholson's fearful reaction had also been born out of his instincts!

Genetic precursors that had existed for thousands of years to keep biological beings safe from harm?

Essentially, that was all fear was.

"You would die for them?" asked Victorious.

"Yes... they are my crew." replied Warrior.

"Awwwww" smiled Kiska, in a somewhat ill-placed expression as she was quickly shot down by the rather serious expression of Commander Tempest.

"Ugh hm... Commander" coughed Kiska as she looked her control panel. "The Victorious has stopped moving towards us and lowered its shields.

Commander Tempest looked down at the disgraced Captain Nicholson. He felt sorry for the man, he understood how much this project had meant to him and how much he might have felt the same had it been one of his scientific experiments. It did not make the duty that he had to perform any less painful.

"Captain Richard Nicholson, you are under arrest for the murder of Nurse Onya" he stated. "You will be confined to quarters pending a trial at a Federation Starbase."

Commander Tempest shook his head. Even after centuries of the New World Economy on Earth. Humans could still surrender themselves to instinct and fear. Instincts could be a powerful ally but it could just as well be a powerful enemy.

File #13 - "Epilogue"

"Acting Captain's Log...

Stardate: 180107 point 9

Commander Shon Tempest Reporting...

Captain Richard Nicholson has been removed from command of this vessel and I have taken the role of commanding officer.

The entity that had inhabited the Warrior has agreed to be transferred to the derelict U.S.S. Republic after we have completed repairs to the vessel. The U.S.S. Agamemnon, an Excalibur Class vessel in onroute to rendezvous with parts and engineering supplies needed to repair the Republic as the new "body" for this entity known only as "Warrior".

It is thanks to "Warrior" and the heroic efforts of Commander Val'sha that we have been able to convince Victorious to prevent a full scale conflict and Commander Val'sha has volunteered to stay with Victorious as she attempts to teach it about the Federation.

It appears that we are not so different, these "entities" have a huge desire to learn and expand their knowledge just as we do. It just proves what Captain Frostmane said to me once that;

"Most lifeforms in the universe want the same thing Shon, safety, sustainability and something new to explore".

I will certainly take that lesson to heart.

The Agamemnon has also brought some personal joyful news to me and the rest of the old Republic crew, the U.S.S. Arizona somehow made it back to Federation space and survived our encounter with the entity.

I am looking forward to meeting with Captain Velde when we get back to Earth.

All the former crew of the Republic and the Victorious have been transferred to the Warrior and we are to make our way back to Earth when it arrives for debriefing.

Lieutenant Commander Muraco was in bad shape and has been suffering from recurring nightmares and traumatic episodes since he was released from Victorious's control. I only know that it will take time for him to recover.

With over twenty years worth of stories and experiences to tell. I am sure that it is going to be a very long debriefing...

Thank you for reading Star Trek: Warrior

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Live Long and Prosper!