The Alpha Centauri Mystery - Part 20 - Return to the Aquinas
Summary: After having escaped the Iapetus in a shuttlecraft with the samples, Ayer sets course for the disabled Aquinas, hoping to find help there before returning to Alpha Centauri, the nearest Federation world in the vicinity. Ayer, Zaag, Sandra and Zjavick may have recaptured the highly important crystals, but they have lost Enbek and Watters. Yet, despite their sacrifices, the battered crew is not out of danger yet. The Romulan ship and the Iapetus, although both heavily damaged, are making repairs. Soon, their propulsion systems will be on line again, and they will come after the shuttle, determined to steal the shuttle's valuable cargo. A distress call has been sent, but will Starfleet be able to send help before the shuttle is intercepted?
And now the continuation:
Time was not on their side. Ayer knew the limitations of the type 11 shuttlecraft, but he also knew that they had to get to Alpha Centauri as quickly as possible. The wreck of the Aquinas was only minutes away at warp 6 -- the shuttle's top speed -- but the engines were already beginning to overheat after three hours at maximum warp. Ayer, determined to get to the Aquinas as soon as possible, had ordered Zjavick to deactivate all non-essential systems and route the resulting extra energy directly to the engines.
"We're not going to be able to keep this up for much longer," Zjavick warned as he felt the shuttle beginning to shake. "The engines are overheated, sir. Pretty soon they won't be able to form a stable warp field anymore."
"We only need a few more minutes, Commander," Ayer replied. "Just a few more minutes until we reach the Aquinas... Five or six minutes more ought to do it. If we drop out of warp now and continue on impulse, we'll need hours to reach the ship."
"Actually, more like days," Zjavick corrected him. Warp six was many, many times faster than impulse, and they all knew that the Iapetus or the Romulan vessel would catch up with them if they lost the ability to go to warp. "I see your point, sir. But don't you think we should slow down to, say, warp four?"
"And add twenty minutes to our trip?" He sighed and shook his head. "If we slow down to warp five instead, would the engines still be able to hold out until we reach the Aquinas?"
"ETA at warp five: ten minutes, forty-seven seconds," Zjavick reported, and thought for a moment. "If this were any other mission, sir, I would have disengaged warp drive already. The engines are overheated, and our warp field in danger of becoming unstable. Slowing down to warp five will help, *slightly*, but I seriously doubt the engines will last another ten minutes, even at a lower warp. One thing's for sure, though," he added. "At our current warp, the engines will automatically disengage within a minute. At least at warp five, they may cool down a bit."
"I'm taking us to warp five," Ayer said with a sigh. "It seems that this trip is going to take slightly more time than we had hoped. Sandra, anything on sensors?"
Sandra was standing in the back of the compartment and looked at the sensor readouts. The last half hour, Zjavick had been extremely busy monitoring and tweaking their warp field, and Ayer was flying the shuttle, so Sandra had taken it upon herself to watch for anything unusual on the sensors. She shook her head. "Still nothing. Then again, sensor efficiency is drastically reduced. The overheated engines are creating a slight imbalance in our warp field -- it's distorting sensor readings."
"Can you compensate?" Ayer asked, while still looking at his controls.
"Negative," Sandra replied after a few tries. "Subspace interference from the overheated engines is driving the sensors crazy. There's nothing I can do about it. Sorry to say this, Uncle Pete, but we're essentially blind."
"Damn," Ayer muttered under his breath, and then turned to Zjavick. "Any way to get rid of that imbalance?"
"Not at this time, Captain," replied Zjavick. "I'm already having trouble maintaining a stable warp field with these overheated engines. I really can't be bothered to get rid of a few imbalances, sir, I'm sorry. That would require tweaking the warp field even further, which will most likely get us out of warp... Or our engines would explode."
"Ah," Ayer said and nodded. "Point taken. We'll just have to fly blind then. We still have the co-ordinates for the Aquinas, so as long as we know where to stop, we'll be fine. I hope."
"As long as the Romulan ship and the Iapetus don't get their engines back on line, yes," Zaag added. "But they can't have repaired so quickly, can they? I mean, they were both pretty badly damaged. You don't think that-"
"There's no sense is speculating, mister Zaag," Ayer told the Ferengi. He then turned around and showed a cautiously optimistic smile. "But I think we can assume that they'll be far too busy fighting each other while repairing their systems. By the time they get to the Aquinas, I hope to be back in Alpha Centauri space already -- hopefully with a few Federation starships waiting for us there."
"That is, if we even get to Alpha Centauri," Zjavick told them. "Our warp engines are overheated... badly. That means that we won't be able to go to warp again before they are cooled down."
"How long?" Ayer asked.
"Couple of hours," Zjavick reported. "If I had my tools and a shuttle bay in which to work, I could speed up the cooling process and maybe even increase the maximum speed of this shuttle a bit." He shrugged. "But we don't have the time for that, or the equipment."
"We do have a shuttle bay," Ayer said. "At least, I hope the bay on the Aquinas wasn't destroyed in the explosion." He looked at his Chief Engineer. "I'd like you to work on the shuttle anyway, if possible. The sooner you can cool the engines down, the faster we can get underway again."
"What about the shuttles on the Aquinas?" Sandra cut in. "Surely you have a shuttle similar to this one aboard."
Ayer nodded. "We do. But we should assume that that shuttle was either destroyed, or in any case severely damaged in the attack." He sighed inaudibly. "But you are right, Sandra. If a shuttle on the Aquinas is capable of high warp, and if it is less damaged than this one, we'll take that shuttle."
Sandra nodded. "Fair enough." She paused for a moment. "What about the rest of the Aquinas crew? They weren't all killed, right?"
The Captain stared at his console. "I hope not," he said softly and then turned around to face Sandra. "The Aquinas is in shambles. I doubt any system on the ship still works, so we won't be able to count on any backup from the ship, when the Iapetus or the Romulan ship arrives. Most areas of the ship have become uninhabitable due to the explosion, so many of the crew may have ejected in escape pods or they used shuttles to abandon ship. Once we're out of warp, I'd like you to scan for those shuttles, and possibly their warp trails if they're not near the Aquinas."
"Got it." Sandra readied the sensors for a quick, short range scan. While they were at warp, the sensors were useless, but in a couple of minutes, the warp field would be shut down and she would be able to scan again.
"Warp field is severely fluctuating!" Zjavick reported. "Automatic shut-down sequence activated... Core shut-down in eight seconds, sir."
"Abort," Ayer ordered. "Abort the shut-down sequence. We can't afford to loose warp drive now."
"Automatic shut-down sequence aborted, Captain," Zjavick told Ayer after he had deactivated the shut-down systems. "I don't know how long I can keep us at warp, though. It's becoming increasingly difficult to keep the warp field stable."
Ayer put his hand on Zjavick's shoulder for a moment before returning his attention to his own console. "Understood, Commander. Keep at it. We *have* to get to the Aquinas quickly."
"Oh, I'll get us there, sir," Zjavick replied. "I just don't know in how many pieces."
"That... doesn't sound very encouraging," Zaag interjected. "You mean that we could blow up if we stay at warp too long?" He took a step backwards and bumped into the wall. "Okay, that's it. Just put me in an escape pod... I'll wait in space for you to come back, then. I don't like this risky 'maybe-we'll-blow-up-and-maybe-we-won't' business, so kindly leave me behind in an escape pod and go on your way." He felt sorry for Sandra, and hoped she wouldn't be angry at him for being a coward.
Zjavick actually chuckled. "Launching an escape pod at warp is a risky undertaking on its own, but launching one out of a ship at warp with a highly unstable warp field is simply asking for trouble. Unless you want to be torn to bits by the subspace stresses that our unstable warp field produces, I suggest you stay here and sit tight -- one way or another, this will all soon be over."
Zaag sighed. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means," Zjavick explained, "that we may reach the Aquinas as planned... But with our luck, that won't happen, and the overheated engines will malfunction, causing lapses in the already fluctuating warp field. Some parts of the shuttle will be subjected to intense gravimetric stress... The subspace torque we'd experience when dropping out of warp that way would be enormous."
Zaag took a step closer and looked at Zjavick as if the man had just spoken in another language. "And what is *that* supposed to mean?"
Zjavick turned around for a moment. "Mister Zaag," began the engineer, "it means that if we don't drop out of warp real soon, we'll all die."
"Then what are we waiting for?" Zaag now practically yelled. He didn't want to die before, and he didn't want to die now either. "Let's drop out of warp! There's no sense in dying... If we blow up, nobody will be able to retrieve the samples."
Ayer nodded. "I agree that dying and taking the samples with us would sort of defeat the purpose of wanting to take the crystals to a safe place, but for all we know, the Iapetus is right behind us. We can't allow the Iapetus or the Romulans to get their hands on the samples. I'd rather blow ourselves up than hand the samples to them." He looked at Zaag, and then at Zjavick. "We stay at warp until we reach the Aquinas, no matter what."
Zjavick nodded. He understood the severity of the situation; if exploding was what it took to prevent the crystals from falling into the wrong hands, then that is what they would do. "Besides," he added, hoping to lighten the mood. "What was that rule again, mister Zaag? The riskier the road, the greater the profit?"
Zaag grumbled. "I've heard that before." He walked away to his chair and sat down. There was little for him to do but wait until they either arrived... or died.
"ETA?" Ayer asked to Zjavick. He preferred to arrive at the Aquinas before the warp engines blew up and before the shuttle was disintegrated because of the subspace torque. After arriving at the Aquinas, they would of course still have to warp to Alpha Centauri, but that was of later concern. For a moment, Ayer doubted that they would eventually reach the system, or even that they would reach the Aquinas, but he stopped himself. He had to keep thinking positive -- even though he knew very well that the odds were vastly against them. After all, what resistance could a single shuttle offer if they were intercepted by the Iapetus or the Romulan ship?
"Three minutes, twenty-two seconds to the Aquinas, Captain," Zjavick reported.
Nodding, Ayer proceeded to ask the next question. "How long before... well, before we explode?"
Zjavick checked his readings. "I can't really tell, sir. But I estimate that we have just about three minutes before the warp field goes critical. After that, we *have* to shut down the engines, or we'll be scattered throughout the sector."
"Damnit," Ayer cursed. "That simply isn't good enough, commander!"
"Unless you want us dead, it's the best I can do, sir!" Zjavick shouted back.
The next few moments were filled with silence. Zjavick, Sandra and Zaag were wondering what Ayer was going to decide -- shut down the engines after three minutes and risk being intercepted in the last stretch, which was actually a very good possibility, or continue forward at high warp, knowing that it would probably kill them and destroy the crystals? After three minutes, they would still be twenty seconds away at warp five, which translated in more than four hours at impulse -- plenty of time for the Iapetus or the Romulan ship to catch up with the shuttle.
"Increase to warp six," Ayer suddenly ordered.
Zjavick looked at him as if his Captain had gone crazy. "Captain?" he asked incredulously. "Sir, if we go to warp six, it'll only increase the stress on the engines. They won't last long at warp five, let alone at warp six!"
"We don't need them to last long, Commander," replied Ayer. "At warp six, the journey would take us less than half of the time it'll take us at warp five, am I correct?"
Zjavick nodded reluctantly and checked his console. "At present speed, we'll arrive at the Aquinas in two minutes, fifty-eight seconds. At warp six, it'll take us..." he retrieved the information from the computer, "one minute, thirty-six seconds. But I must point out, sir, that the increased stress on the engines will cause them to overload and the warp field to collapse a whole lot faster than three minutes."
"How much faster?"
Zjavick sighed and made a fist. "I don't know, sir. I'll have to run more calculations and scans on the status of the engines as they are now, but I suspect that, taking into account the subspace variance and the fluctuations in the warp field, combined with the increased subspace torque-"
"Commander, I need a guess *now*."
"Anything from one minute twenty to one minute, forty seconds," Zjavick answered reluctantly. He knew what was coming.
Ayer showed a slight smile and turned to his console. "I'm taking us to warp six."
"Captain," began Zjavick, "I must object to this-"
"Objection noted, Commander. Engaging." Ayer punched in the final command, and the shuttle accelerated to warp six. Within moments, an explosion on one of the aft consoles lit the compartment. A second later, another panel blew up in flames.
"Sandra, Zaag, get that fire out!" shouted Ayer as he felt the shuttle shake around him. "Zjavick, status?"
"The warp engines are overloading," reported the Chief Engineer. "The warp field is deteriorating, and I'm having trouble keeping the field, or what's left of it, stable. Hence the bumpy ride, sir."
"Can you hold on for a minute and a half?"
Zjavick nodded, but didn't look up from his console. "I can, sir, provided that the engines don't blow up." He took a quick look at Ayer and then returned to his console again. "Still so sure this is a good idea, Captain?"
"I never said it was a *good* idea, commander."
"That's reassuring," muttered the engineer. "One minute, twenty seconds to the Aquinas."
The shuttle shook heavily again when another console behind them blew. Sandra almost fell to the ground as she moved towards the front of the shuttle, but managed to grab hold on Ayer's chair. "The fire is out, but so are our weapons," she reported. At Ayer's puzzled, yet concentrated look, she elaborated, "our warp field is breaking down. The resulting subspace torque is wreaking havoc to our systems. We've already lost our forward phaser, and power surges have destroyed the aft one as well. We're defenceless."
"We're definitely going to switch shuttles once we get to the Aquinas," Ayer muttered.
"Temperature in the port warp nacelle is already 120 degrees above maximum," Zjavick reported, "and rising rapidly."
"They'll just have to hold on." Ayer paused and looked at Ensign Burke. "Sandra, see if you can increase power to the cooling systems. We need to cool down the nacelles, or we may not make it."
Sandra nodded. "I'll get on it," she said and took her station.
"One minute to the Aquinas," Zjavick announced. "Warp field critical."
"Hold us together," said Ayer as he wiped the sweat of his forehead. The heat from the overheated nacelles made the temperature inside the rest of the shuttle rise as well. "We're almost there. We're going to make it."
An explosion right next to Zaag seemed to contradict that statement. "Zaag!" Sandra shouted and kneeled down next to the fallen Ferengi. "Are you all right?"
Zaag squealed loudly when Sandra touched a badly burnt part of his ear. Fortunately, that was the only part of Zaag that was hurt -- other than his burnt ear, he seemed to be fine. "My lobes, my lobes!" he shouted. "Sandra, my lobes!"
Quickly, Sandra took a hypospray and a dermal regenerator out of the nearby medkit and used them on Zaag's ear. The Ferengi was still squealing, but not so loud anymore. "That was close," Sandra said with a sigh of relief. "For a moment there, I thought I lost you."
Zaag smiled despite the pain, and tried to sit up. "Funny. I was just thinking the same about you."
Sandra returned the smile. "Nobody's going to die," she said, trying to comfort him.
Zaag's smile disappeared. "Watters did," he said softly, his look betraying his fear.
Sandra swallowed hard. She hadn't been able to save Watters after he had so bravely sacrificed himself for the rest of them. She looked away for a moment and blinked a few times before looking back. "That's precisely why we won't die," she finally said after a couple of seconds. "If we die, Watters and Enbek would have died for nothing. We can't let that happen, Zaag, and we won't." She was surprised to find herself smile as she placed her hand on his shoulder. "We won't."
As if it was the most natural thing to do, Zaag subsequently embraced Sandra, and she hugged him back. Sitting on the floor, they were locked in an embrace that made their sadness go away and their fear subside. They found comfort in each other, and the heavy shaking and the periodical jolts that rocked the shuttle only made them cling to each other more. The outside world didn't seem to matter anymore; there was only Sandra and Zaag, holding on to each other and finding support and strength in one another.
"Thank you," Zaag said softly. "Thank you for everything."
Sandra closed her eyes and enjoyed the embrace. She didn't reply, but simply hugged Zaag tighter. After a while, they both let go and stood up. Sandra smiled and gave the Ferengi a quick kiss on the forehead, before winking to him and returning to her station.
"Twenty seconds to Aquinas!" Zjavick yelled. The shuttle was shaking a lot, and Sandra and Zaag could barely keep their balance. A conduit had breached, and had quickly been sealed again, although it had resulted in the temperature inside the shuttle rising another few degrees.
"Anything on sensors yet?" Ayer asked Sandra. Another shock went through the shuttle, and Ayer had to steady himself before continuing. "Any sign of the Aquinas yet? Or the Iapetus or the Romulan ship?"
Sandra checked her console and shook her head. "Negative. Sensors are still being disrupted by the fluctuating warp field -- I can't scan outside the shuttle."
"Then let's hope we don't run into a trap," Ayer said softly. The shaking of the shuttle made it extremely hard to hit the right buttons on his console, but so far he had managed. "Zjavick, report!" he ordered.
Zjavick was having trouble staying seated as well. "The port nacelle is one hundred and fifty degrees above maximum," he reported. "Breaches are forming in the nacelle housing. Same with the starboard nacelle -- the engines are about to blow, sir!"
"Just a few more seconds..."
The Chief Engineer shook his head. "We don't have a few seconds. Our warp field is collapsing, our engines overloading. We have to drop out of warp, or we'll be destroyed!" The shuttle shook violently as if to prove Zjavick's point.
"Vent all plasma from the nacelles," Ayer suggested. "That might cool the engines down and give us the seconds we-" He got no further, for a large explosion at the back of the shuttle threw them all to the ground. Smoke and fire was seemingly coming at them from every corner of the compartment. "Report!" Ayer demanded.
"Pressure in the nacelles is growing rapidly. Starboard bussard collector has exploded, and the port injector has cracked," said Zjavick, reading the data off his console. "We're venting drive plasma... Pressure is not dropping." He turned to the Captain with an urgent and almost pleading look. "Captain, we *must* drop out of warp, now!"
Ayer stared at his console. They only needed a couple of seconds... But they didn't seem to have any time left. Before he could make a decision, the shuttle lurched heavily again. "The plasma conduits have fused shut," Zjavick reported. "Warp plasma is blocked to the starboard nacelle. We're losing the warp field!"
Knowing that maintaining warp would kill them all within seconds, Ayer made his decision. "Dropping out of warp," he announced as he worked his console. "All stop. Zjavick, deactivate the warp core. Sandra, I want sensors."
The stars stopped flowing by as the shuttle came to a halt. While Ayer, Zjavick and Sandra were busy working at their consoles, Zaag took a step forward and looked out of the window. There, not terribly far away, he saw the wreckage of the battered Starship Aquinas. The saucer section had been cut from the engineering section in the explosion, and various pieces of small and large debris were still floating through space. "Never thought a destroyed ship could look so good," the Ferengi said softly.
Ayer looked up, and smiled wryly. "The Aquinas," he said in barely more than a whisper. He sighed. "We made it."
Suddenly, from behind the wreck of the Aquinas, a second shuttle moved towards Ayer's type 11. "Shields," the Captain ordered, even though he knew this shuttle was coming from his own ship.
"Captain, we're being scanned," Zjavick reported, "and now they're hailing us."
Ayer nodded for Zjavick to put it up on the monitor, and turned his chair to face the small viewer. On the monitor appeared the inside of the other shuttle, with several of Ayer's crew cramped inside it. "Captain, it *is* you!" an overjoyed Ensign yelled.
"Ensign Reaves, good to see a friendly face again," Ayer returned the smile. "What's your status?"
The look on Reaves' face told Ayer little good. "Since you left, things have gotten worse," said the Ensign. "We've lost life support on all decks, and we've evacuated everyone. Most of the shuttles are off looking for help, but a few of us have stayed behind with the escape pods." He sighed. "We sent out a distress call, and even received a response from Starfleet. They say that they'll have a ship here as soon as they can, but it might take a while. Until then, we are to stay put."
Zjavick rolled his eyes. "We're in the bloody middle of Federation space! You'd think Starfleet would have at least *one* ship in the area."
Ayer nodded and looked at the engineer. "They had, commander," he said, and gestured towards the wreck of the Aquinas. "We were that one ship."
"Captain!" Sandra's distressed voice ended the conversation. "I'm reading two warp signatures, closing fast."
"Federation?" Ayer asked.
"Affirmative... But I'm not reading any Federation transponder signal." She looked at Ayer with fear visible all over her face. They both knew what that meant.
Ayer gulped. "Time to arrival?"
"Expected arrival in..." Sandra double-checked her readings. "Five, four, three-"
"Evasive manoeuvres!" Ayer shouted when he realised that the Iapetus would be arriving shortly. "Reaves, get out of there!"
In a blinding flash of light, two of the three sections of the Iapetus dropped out of warp. The three modules, separated during the Prometheus class' characteristic Multi-Vector Assault Mode, were all ships of their own, making them a force to be reckoned with. The third module, however, seemed to be missing. The second module immediately opened fire on Reaves' shuttle, while the saucer section locked on a tractor beam on Ayer's craft. The crew could do nothing but watch as one of the modules of the Prometheus class vessel destroyed Ensign Reaves and his shuttlecraft.
"Captain, we're being-"
Sandra didn't have a chance to finish her sentence, for a channel was already opened. Instead of Ensign Reaves on the shuttle, Captain Donovan was now visible on the Bridge of the Iapetus. "Hello, Captain Ayer," Donovan said with a sly grin on his face. "I believe you have something that belongs to me."
Ayer squinted his eyes at his opponent. Finally, the Captain of the Aquinas had returned to his ship, but it had all been in vain. After all this, Donovan, it seemed, had finally won.
