T'Mev stands very straight and correct at the science station. Me, I'm lounging on the command console. Some day, I should just give in and get some chairs fitted on the bridge. T'Mev's face is thoughtful. I imagine mine looks pretty pensive too.
"The Organians," says T'Mev, eventually. "Their involvement was not anticipated, but it makes a certain amount of sense. The inquiries made by their representative have an obvious implication to us, with our perspective. They wished to know whether the Rift entity was directing Captain Grau's actions."
"Aye," I say, "and we cannae tell Ronnie Grau aboot it, either, or she'll be tryin' tae dig that beastie oot o' her heid wi' a spoon."
"More precisely," says T'Mev, "Captain Grau did not become aware of her... infestation... until the Siohonin invasion, so we cannot inform her of it prematurely, now."
"Ah dinnae s'pose the Organians could be ony actual help?. That'd be too much to ask."
"Q was reluctant to engage the Rift entity in direct conflict. The Organians are of a lower order of power than Q - certainly, an individual Organian would be hopelessly outmatched. Nonetheless, we must assume the Organians' attention is on us." T'Mev actually frowns. "It complicates matters."
"Och, like they werenae complicated enough already," I grumble. "Weel, let's hae th' team back in here, we cannae dae onything wi'oot 'em." I hit the intercom, and it squeals, and the bridge crew start filing back in. Zula shoots me a shrewd glance as she heads for her station.
"Right," I say. "Seems we cannae send in the Harrier wi'oot startin' some kind o' dust-up, so we'll be gaein' tae Priyanapari oorsel's, an' we'll be daein' it slow an' careful. Ah ken it's no' mah usual style, but a change is as guid as a rest, am Ah right?"
Muttered assent, or something like it, from around the bridge. "Was there anything in your little confab that mere mortals like us are allowed to know about?" Bood asks acerbically.
"Och, T'Mev's just bein' careful, dinnae fret, laddie." Bood doesn't look entirely convinced, but he moves to the helm without any more commentary, at least. "OK. We'll be gaein' in fer a quick looksie, in an' oot o' th' system at full impulse, nae bother. If the Leacock disnae get ony notice, we'll signal Ronnie Grau tae come in wi' th' Harrier an' dae a proper survey. If we dae get noticed, weel -" I grin "- we'll no' run intae onything th Leacock cannae handle, am Ah right?"
That gets a slightly more enthusiastic mutter of assent. Fact is, the Leacock is a tough enough customer for almost anything. I picture the ship in my mind's eye, slicing through subspace with the sharp blades of her extended nacelles... which look absolutely nothing like the skids of a "giant death toboggan", thank you so much for that mental image, Ronnie Grau.
And then we stop slicing through subspace, and the streaking stars slow down into hard little points of light, and the bright sun of Priyanapari is centred in the viewscreen, with the planet itself a pale greenish dot over to one side.
"Preliminary scans coming through," says Jidsi. Her voice is as lugubrious as her face - she knows her job well enough, I just wish she'd lighten up, once in a while. "Class M environment, no signs of industrialization... some anomalous chroniton traces, some energy signatures I can't get a read on, yet...."
"Weel, Ah'm no' expectin' miracles, here. We'll get mair information when we get a wee bit closer."
"Course laid in. Engaging impulse," says Bood.
And we wait for more information to come in. I really wish it was the Harrier doing this run, not us - if the Na'kuhl are here, the sight of a genuine in-period Starfleet ship might not ring their alarm bells the way the Leacock would. But if something here is already bothering the Organians -
"Jidsi. Whit's that?" A tiny little blip has popped up on the fringe of the tactical display.
"Working on it," says Jidsi. "Power signature... metallic construction...." She frowns. "Consistent with a Klingon design, but the power curves look weird."
"I'm reading a KDF transponder code," Zula chimes in. Her face is set in serious-professional mode. Which I guess is good, for now. "ID reads as IKS Hov'etlh, D7 class battlecruiser... but Commander Jidsi's right, that is not a standard D7's power profile -" She puts her hand to her earpiece. "Getting a hail."
"OK, then. On screen."
A dark brown, grumpy-looking female face appears on the main viewer. In this time period, the genetic plague affecting the Klingons has left them with ridge-free foreheads and messed up the melanin levels in their skin, resulting in some weird-looking complexions. This one looks like she fell asleep in a tanning booth for about six months, and is permanently angry about it. Hot dark eyes glare at me. "Xindi vessel. This is Captain Kirza of the Hov'etlh. Your presence in this star system is unauthorized, and you are ordered to depart, by my authority."
"Och, hello tae ye," I say. "Ah'm Captain Caird o' th' USS Leacock, an' we're jist stoppin' by tae say hello, in accordance wi' th' terms o' th' Organian Peace Treaty. That'll be fine wi' ye, aye?"
Her scowl deepens. "Xindi vessel posing as a Starfleet vessel... with a defective translator circuit," she says, "your presence is unauthorized, and if you do not depart immediately, I will take action to remove you. No further warnings will be given." And she cuts the channel.
"Yon lassie's spoilin' fer a fight," I say. "Xindi vessel, indeed. Dae Ah look like a Xindi-Primate? - OK, dinnae answer that one. Oh, an' red alert." The D7 has gone to full impulse and is racing towards us. "Jings. Just how non-standard is yon D7? A Klink cruiser is nae match fer an Ateleth, am Ah right?"
"Trying to get a solid read," says Jidsi, "but there's a lot of sensor spoofing...."
"Impulse drive is at least twice as hot as normal," says Zula, grim-faced now. "Shield and deflector frequencies closer to Honour Guard standard than a contemporary D7. That ship's been hotwired, heavily."
By our temporal meddlers, no doubt. "Weel, we've had a few improvements put in, aye? Let's see how they work oot fer us. Shields to maximum, all guns coordinate fire, launch fighters." The Klingon ship is approaching weapons range. The battle cry rises unbidden to my lips. "Creag an tuire!"
Virulent green disruptor light stitches itself across the heavens. The Leacock shudders as her Xindi plasmatic batteries open up in response.
The D7 flashes past us, shields flaming under our barrage, disruptor banks sizzling with savage energy. I snap out orders, and Leacock comes about, faster than you'd expect of a ship her size - but not fast enough to track the Hov'etlh with her forward guns. That ship can move.
And she can dish out the damage, too. One of the big Nusuti fighters is gone already, reduced to a random spray of debris; the others are visibly suffering, shields stripped to nothing, hulls scarred by disruptor fire. Our own shields - twenty-fifth century Aegis standard ones - are wavering around forty per cent. The Klingon came in fast and hard on that attack run, and took a savage bite out of us.
"Sensors, gie me a readin'! Will someone please tell me we hurt them as sair as they hurt us?"
"Those are heavy shields she's got," says Zula, "and her speed's so high, our targeting predictors were off. But she's venting plasma, we must have got a good punch in -"
"No!" Jidsi's voice is unusually firm and sharp. "That's not plasma, that's white-hot reaction mass! She's overloading her RCS and coming back for another pass, now!"
"Aw, crivens. Reinforce aft shields, and get a replacement fighter on the rails!"
The Hov'etlh comes about in a tight turn and streaks back towards our aft quadrant. Again, killing light floods the sky.
Leacock rocks and judders, and there is the flash-bang of a transient overload on one of the bridge consoles - and then another, and another. The lean shape of the D7 passes over us, close enough to graze our shields with hers, and then veers sharply to starboard, evading the barrage which erupts from our forward guns. Something glints behind her, a dazzling pinpoint of light -
The concussion knocks us all off our feet, and the lights on the bridge flicker, fail, come back red as the emergency circuits kick in. Overcharged photon torpedo, must have been. I scramble to my feet and try to take stock. The damage control board isn't happy reading.
"Forward shield is down," says Jidsi. "Attempting to reroute.... Klingon is coming about for another pass."
"Target predictors are updated," says Zula. "But that thing has some sort of vulnerability locator -"
"Aye, an' it bluidy weel works," I say, studying the boards, trying to work out which of my shields is least wrecked, and how to put it between me and the Hov'etlh. "If ony've ye hae got any canny ideas, now's when Ah'd love t' hear 'em."
"Setting up for a feedback pulse on the shields," says Jidsi, her fingers flying over her console interface. Fair enough, this is the sort of thing the Aegis systems are meant for... and the Hov'etlh is putting out so much damage, if we can reflect even part of it back at her, it should be enough to do some serious harm to that standard D7 spaceframe. I hope. If we live through it ourselves.
"Targeting predictors have a lock!" yells Zula.
"OK, great." The menacing shape of the Hov'etlh is coming closer, though. "Hang on, lads and lasses, here she comes!"
Disruptors rip at our shields - and lightning bolts flash back, to spark and flame around the D7's hull. And our guns open up again, and this time the Klingon ship's shields glare and waver in the barrage. But the disruptors are still blazing, and I swear I can actually see the dire glow as the Klingon's forward torpedo tube powers up -
WHAM.
The lights go out. I'm holding on to my command console, but my feet have left the floor - but I'm not falling down, because there is no down, the gravity plating has failed. There is no light except from the sparking and popping of burning circuitry. For a moment, I think we're dead. Then some emergency backup comes back on line, somewhere, and dim ruddy lights come on, and weight returns. I stumble and almost fall, pull myself upright -
There is nothing but a storm of static on the main screen. I slam commands into the console. It flickers, displays a burst of gibberish, then clears. I look at the status display. I'd have been better off with the gibberish.
"Penetrating strike in engineering," gasps Bood. "EPS grid is down -"
I can see that. We're dead in the water - unless, somehow, we hurt the Hov'etlh just as bad as she hurt us. "Jidsi! Zula! Get me a read on the Klingon!"
"Got them." Jidsi sounds like she's got a proper excuse for being miserable, now. "Shields are fluctuating, and she's venting warp plasma and atmosphere... but she still has drives, and she's coming about."
And with the EPS grid down, we've got nothing to throw at her but harsh language. I swallow, hard. We are down to one option, and it's not one I wanted to use. But with shields down, another barrage from that Klingon will blast us to shrapnel -
I hit the button, and pray the partitioned systems have held, pray the last-ditch setup works. "Hold tight, everyone! Emergency temporal shift!"
The bridge, and my body with it, wavers and ripples and fills with a colourless light... and then my vision dissolves, replaced by a sensation human beings have no name for, because we were never meant to experience it. The Hov'etlh is whisked away, and the stars whirl and dance about me, and a void opens up inside me and I fall through it. It takes an instant, and it takes forever.
I fall through the void, and I hit bottom. Normal vision comes back. The battered, red-lit bridge clicks back into place around me. The main viewscreen flashes, goes blank for a moment, then comes back with a view of a safe and empty starscape.
"Get a positional fix," I croak. "Time and space coordinates. An' then Ah'll need full damage reports -" I press my fingertips into my forehead. "Casualty lists."
There is a cough - not someone coughing from the smoke, but a sharp, throat-clearing, attention-getting noise. "We need to adjust our plans," says T'Mev. "Urgently."
"Aye," I say, "th' haggis is in the fire fer sure. We've got to get back to the twenty-third century an' warn th' Harrier, fer a start. An' work oot some way t' cope wi' yon Klingon lassie. Because if Ronnie Grau blunders intae yon system like we did - Ah dinnae care how guid she is in a fight, if she mixes it wi' th' Hov'etlh, she'll be gaein' hame in a long box."
"First, we must establish our position and effect immediate repairs," says T'Mev.
"I've got the position part already, sir," Zula interrupts. "We're getting hails from the Virgo -"
"Aye, we were meant t' snap back tae the twenty-fifth century. At least one bit worked," I mutter in sour tones.
"Virgo is offering assistance," Zula continues. "And - they have an urgent update for us. Seems Admiral T'Laihhae and her Suliban contact have gone missing."
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