Summary: The flight to the Aquinas has been in vain. Despite their best efforts, Ayer and his team have been unable to reach the Aquinas without eluding Donovan. Having apparently repaired two of the three modules of his Prometheus class vessel, the Captain of the Iapetus now holds Ayer's shuttlecraft in a tractor beam. His target is clear: he wants the samples.
And now the continuation:
"I will die before allowing the crystals to fall into enemy hands!" Ayer shouted at Donovan.
The grin on Donovan's face sent shiver's down Sandra's spine. From what she had learnt while aboard the Iapetus, was that this Captain was hardly a normal Starfleet Captain -- in fact, he seemed to take great pleasure in the torture or killing of his enemies. "We have a full complement of weapons aimed at your tiny shuttle, Captain Ayer," replied Donovan. "Don't make me use them."
Ayer leaned in closer to the monitor. "If even a single spark of energy from your phasers impact my shields, I will destroy this shuttle." Another shiver crawled down Sandra's spine, but this time because she knew Ayer well enough to see that he did indeed mean what he said. "If this shuttle explodes, then so will the samples. I'm sure you don't want that to happen, do you?"
Donovan's grin disappeared. "You wouldn't have gone through all this trouble to finally destroy the crystals, and you and your crew in the process, would you?"
"I would," Ayer replied. "And I will, if you fire at me."
Donovan showed his teeth and stifled a growl. "You and I both know that the samples are too important for the Federation to be lost," he said. "That is precisely why *I* need to retrieve the samples. Don't you see, Captain? We're on the same side here. The side of the Federation!"
"It doesn't look that way from where I'm standing," said Ayer, the look in his eyes a cold and hard one. "You fired on my ship, you killed my crew! If you were on the same side as I am, you would have escorted us to the Starbase, instead of crippling my ship and beaming the samples away!"
Rolling his eyes, Donovan sighed. "Think, Captain," he said. "If I hadn't stolen the samples, the Romulans would have. They are the ones who destroyed the outpost in the Alpha Centauri system, not me." He, too, leaned forward. "If it weren't for people like me, Captain Ayer, the Federation would have already fallen victim to the Romulans, or any other major power in the quadrant."
Ayer was furious at his nemesis. How dared he? How dared he claim he was doing the Federation a favour by crippling one of its starships and by killing its crew? "You don't protect the Federation," Ayer fumed. "It is people like you who damage the Federation!"
"What I do is for the good of the Federation!" Donovan shouted back. "Do you think the samples would be safe at a Starbase? Or at Starfleet Headquarters, where they would be tested, prodded and poked for the entire universe to see! Don't you see, Captain? Something as powerful as these crystals must be kept secret. I provide that secrecy. The research of the crystals cannot be handled through normal channels, surely you realise that. Now hand them over!"
"You know I won't do that," Ayer replied. "I won't hand something that could be used as a weapon over to an enemy, and you are a fool if you think I will comply."
"I am no enemy!" Donovan shouted, pausing between each word to make absolutely sure Ayer would get the message. "There are other forces at work here, Captain. Forces that you do not understand. It is imperative for the continuation of the Federation that you hand me the samples. They are not safe with you, you must realise that by now."
"Oh, I realise that perfectly well, Captain Donovan." Ayer took a deep breath, trying to suppress the doubts he was having. What if Donovan really was telling the truth? What if by keeping the samples, Ayer would only jeopardise the existence of the Federation? But no... He wouldn't believe that. He couldn't. Donovan was a man willing to destroy ships and lives to get what he wanted, and this was not what the Federation was about. If men like Donovan represented the Federation, then that was a Federation which Ayer wanted to be no part of. "But I believe the samples are safer with me than they are with you."
Donovan was outraged. "We are both on the same side, Ayer!" He took a breath to say something else, but stopped before he could speak. A faint hint of a smile appeared on his face, as if he had just remembered something. "Captain Ayer, I am ordering you to lower your shields and stand by to be boarded."
Ayer could barely contain his surprise, which turned into amusement after only a moment. "You are *ordering* me? We have the same rank, Captain."
Captain Donovan smiled. "My ship has a lot more firepower than your shuttle. Starfleet regulations are clear on the matter: the commander of the vessel with tactical superiority has the overall command."
"In combat situations!" Ayer protested, correcting Donovan.
Donovan's smile turned into a wide grin. "This qualifies as a combat situation, wouldn't you say? Especially since my ship just destroyed one of your shuttles and is holding you in a tractor beam."
"You can't be serious..." Ayer gasped. "You can't just go shooting around and killing people, and then say that you're in command because you have the most powerful weapons!"
Ayer's opponent squinted his eyes at him. "I believe I just did."
Ayer looked at his crew, who seemed as perplexed at Donovan's strategy and interpretation of the regulations as he was, and then back at Donovan again. "This is ridiculous." He shook his head. "As far as I am concerned, you stopped being a Starfleet officer and an ally as soon as you attacked my ship, and you became an enemy. So let me make things clear for you, Donovan: I do *not* accept orders from you."
Donovan grunted. "Have it your way, Ayer." He closed the communications channel, and the screen went black. For less than a second, the compartment was filled with nothing but silence, as everyone was wondering what Donovan would do next. The answer came shortly after, with a tremor that could be felt throughout the shuttle.
"They've increased power to the tractor beam," Zjavick reported. "They're pulling us in."
"Can't we disrupt their tractor beam?" Zaag asked. "I mean, you Starfleet people usually know how to do that, right?"
Zjavick shook his head. "Not this time. Normally, I would send back a power surge along their tractor beam and overload their emitter, but we're not really in any shape to put up a fight. We couldn't send a power surge back, even if we tried."
"Power up the warp core," Sandra suddenly suggested. Everyone looked at her as if she had just gone mad. "Create a warp field," she continued, not bothering to explain.
"In case you hadn't noticed, Ensign," began Zjavick, "we barely managed to avoid getting blown up last time we tried that. And we're in a tractor beam! If we tried to warp out of here, we'd tear ourselves apart, if not by the tractor beam, then by our unstable warp field."
"Exactly!" Sandra shouted enthusiastically. "Our warp field would be terribly unstable. So unstable, even, that the gravitational forces around the shuttle would vary unpredictably-"
"...interfering with the gravitational pull of the tractor beam!" finished Zjavick. "Excellent idea, Ensign!" He looked at Ayer. "Captain?"
"Do it," replied Ayer, despite the risks he knew where involved. The gravitational forces could just as well pull the shuttle apart, but that, he told himself, was just a risk they had to take. And as risks went, this one wasn't too terrible anyway.
Zjavick nodded solemnly. "Powering up warp reactor... Warp field is forming, Captain." A few moments of tension followed, as Zjavick worked at his console. The problem wasn't to make the warp field unstable enough, since it already seemed to be unstable without any help at all. The problem was to keep the warp field stable enough, otherwise it would fall apart too fast, and the tractor beam would still be able to pull them in. Thanks to Zjavick, however, the tractor beam failed to get a good grip on the shuttle. "It's working," he reported. "They're having trouble breaking through the interference. We're free from their tractor beam, Captain."
Ayer smiled. "Excellent work, Commander." The Captain pushed a few buttons on his console, and activated the impulse engines. "I'm taking us towards the Aquinas. We may not be as powerful as the Iapetus, but we're sure as hell more manoeuvrable than that large ship. We may be able to hide behind the Aquinas."
"Wouldn't be so sure of that, sir," Zjavick replied, as he struggled to keep the warp field stable enough. "They'll have us surrounded in no time at all."
"In that case, I'll need more power to the impulse engines," Ayer ordered and sighed. "I suppose no one here has any brilliant ideas as to how we're going to elude them?"
"Not at the moment, no," Sandra wryly replied, "although this unstable warp field will make us more difficult to detect on sensors. They'll have to target us manually, and they won't be able to lock on a tractor beam."
"Not until our warp field collapses, anyway," Zjavick muttered. "Which won't be long now, not that anyone's listening, of course."
Ayer had heard. "I'm sorry, Commander, but I'm afraid I have to keep relying on your miracles for just a little longer." There was a silent pause, in which not a word was said. There was an eerie atmosphere inside the forward compartment on the shuttle; all four occupants knew that the chances of them getting out of this situation alive and with the samples, were close to non-existent. A grim realisation settled over the three humans and the Ferengi, but didn't make a dent in their equally grim determination to keep going. They couldn't allow the samples to fall into the hands of people like Donovan. If there was one certainty in the entire universe, it was that fact.
"Iapetus, second module, dead ahead," Sandra broke the silence as she looked at the ship that was visible through the front windows. She didn't have to report that particular fact, since everyone saw it too: the second module of the Prometheus class vessel was holding position in front of them, ready to take out the shuttle before it could get away. Undoubtedly, the first module of the Iapetus was located behind them, and with the wreckage of the Aquinas located to their port, they had little directions left to go.
But Ayer wasn't willing to give up this easily. "Going up," he announced, and tapped his console hard. Immediately, the shuttle changed course, its nose facing upwards, but not for long. A bright phaser beam lit the cabin as it streaked past the shuttle, missing it by only a few metres. Ayer had been so smart to bring the shuttle down again, instead of up, dodging the fire from both modules of the Iapetus. He had been right about this shuttle in one aspect: it did seem more manoeuvrable than the Iapetus. Searing past larger and smaller chunks of debris from the Aquinas, Ayer managed to dodge quite a few phaser blasts.
"Way to go, Uncle Pete!" Sandra yelled, burning with enthusiasm. It was of course, to put it mildly, extremely gratifying to see an unarmed, defenceless shuttlecraft elude the weapons fire of one of the most advanced starships the Federation had to offer, and then some. What made it even more exciting, Sandra thought, was the realisation that Donovan would undoubtedly be extremely frustrated by all of this.
"Don't cheer for me yet!" Ayer replied, his face tense with concentration. "I'm not going to be able to dodge their weapons for more than a few minutes... As my First Officer would say: random chance can only operate in our favour for a short amount of time." Ah, Ayer's second in command. Always the logical Vulcan. He missed her. It turned out she had been right with that statement: their luck was now indeed running out.
"Warp field is collapsing!" Zjavick reported, signalling in the beginning of their end. With the unstable warp field gone, the Iapetus would have no trouble getting a weapons lock on the shuttle. Ayer and Zjavick exchanged glances for a brief moment, and the engineer knew what his Captain was asking of him. "I'm sorry, Captain. There's nothing I can do to stop it from collapsing this time."
Ayer nodded sombrely. "Hold on," he said, and took the shuttle towards a different heading. They had one more chance to escape and to get out of the Iapetus' weapons range, before the warp field had completely broken down.
"Warp field has collapsed," announced Zjavick, and Ayer cursed silently. They had lost their one advantage, and now they had to keep going, knowing full well that the Iapetus could destroy them with one well-targeted torpedo. "And we're not out of their weapons range yet."
"I hope you're not saying what I think you're saying," Zaag said with a sigh. When another phaser beam passed them and dissipated harmlessly in space, Zaag realised that it could just as easily have hit the shuttle, probably ending their flight. "I'd say it looks like you're saying what I think you're saying," he corrected himself.
Violently, the shuttlecraft lurched around them all of a sudden, and the cause was no mystery to any of the occupants. "Direct hit, aft section!" Zjavick yelled, and looked at Ayer. "Should I... activate the auto-destruct sequence?" he asked, as Zaag and Sandra helped each other stand up again. They fell down again when the shuttle got hit a second time. Ayer had no time to answer Zjavick's question, for a conduit at the back of the compartment breached, and hot smoke poured out of it. Explosions inside the cabin sent consoles up into flames, and the alarming beeping tones coming from various consoles was barely loud enough to be heard over the constant hissing sound from the broken conduit.
"Hull breach, aft section!" Zjavick shouted his report at Ayer. "We've lost all shields, impulse engines are fried, even manoeuvring thrusters have been destroyed!" He slammed his fist into the barely working console. "The warp core is going critical! We'll have a breach in about a minute, and core ejection system is off li-"
He didn't get a chance to finish his report, because in front of his eyes, Captain Ayer disappeared in the blue light of a Federation transporter. At the same time, the crystal samples were beamed out as well. As the whine of the transporter died out, Zjavick looked at Sandra and Zaag, realising that there was nothing they could have done. Ayer and the samples were gone.
"This isn't happening," Zaag said "I'm dreaming, that must be it. I run a bar on a peaceful planet; I'm no Starfleet officer! I'm not fit for space battles... There is no way this can be happening to me!"
"Shut up, Zaag!" ordered Zjavick. He had other things on his mind -- like preventing a warp core breach. "Sandra, take the helm. Zaag, I need you on sensors. We need to know where the Iapetus is."
"Off our starboard bow," Zaag reported, "and are we going to die?"
Zjavick looked at the Ferengi, momentarily taken aback by the suddenness and directness of the question. After a moment of looking the concerned Ferengi in the eyes, he smiled faintly. "Not if I can help it, mister Zaag."
As Zjavick turned back to his console, Zaag turned back to his own, not quite sure if he was able to take comfort in the Engineer's words. If the warp core breach couldn't be stopped, then they would all die. It didn't help to put Zaag's mind at ease, when after a few moments, Zjavick announced exactly what he had been afraid of. "I can't stop the breach." He turned to Sandra. "Ensign Burke, are we in transporter range of the Aquinas?"
Sandra nodded, and stood up. "We are. But the Aquinas doesn't have life support anymore." Zjavick gave her an 'anything's better than this place' look, and Sandra sighed. "How much time do we have left?"
Zjavick's grim look didn't tell her much good. "Thirty-five seconds." The two of them shared a look, after which both glanced at the transporter pad. They knew that the shuttle's transporters could only beam over two people at a time, and with the shuttle breaking up around them, there might not be enough time for the third one to beam over before the warp core exploded.
Zaag understood the looks on their faces, and he knew as well as anyone else that there was no way that three people could be beamed over with this particular transporter. "You go ahead," he said with a lump in his throat. "I'll join you later."
Sandra looked at the Ferengi, the shock clearly visible in her eyes. "Zaag, no! You... You may not be able to..."
But Zaag didn't change his mind. "You're Starfleet officers; you're more important. Now go. I'll beam you over. Go, before I-" He didn't get any further, because Sandra moved forward and hugged him tightly.
"You are braver than I thought, mister Zaag," Zjavick said as he stood up. "But no. I can't let you stay behind." Before Zaag started to object, Zjavick continued with a smile. "For one thing, I doubt you can operate a transporter."
Zaag sighed. It was true -- he had no idea how to work such a piece of equipment, but he had watched a Federation transporter chief operate the device once. He shrugged. "How hard can it be?"
"I'm sorry, Zaag, but this job requires a professional." Zjavick motioned for Zaag and Sandra to stand on the transporter platform. "Locking co-ordinates," he said.
"Thank you," Sandra managed to say between sobs, as she tried to wipe the endless flow of tears away. "I won't forget this."
"Good," Zjavick replied, "because I won't forget it either. Energising." He punched in some controls, and watched as Sandra and Zaag disappeared, taken apart molecule by molecule by the transporter system, only to be put together again on the Aquinas. There was no life support left on the Aquinas, Zjavick knew, but they would figure something out. At least Sandra and Zaag would stay alive.
He wasn't so sure about himself, though. A bright explosion inside the transporter pad proved that feeling right. "Damnit!" he shouted to no one in particular. "Transporters are down!" He glanced at another console. Seventeen seconds. Not nearly enough to get the transporter back online again. Well, a miracle worker could do it... "I wish you were here to see this, Ayer," he muttered to himself as he set to work, for all the good it would do. "Turns out I was right..." He winced at the heat coming from the damaged transporter. "I'm no miracle worker after all..."
Ayer got punched in the stomach once again by a rather fierce looking security officer. He crashed to the floor, but managed to look up at the man standing before him, next to the security officer. It was Donovan. The Captain of the Iapetus grabbed Ayer by his hair and yanked him up, forcing him to look at the viewscreen. On the screen, it was clear that the shuttle was in serious trouble. Fire raged inside it, and scorch marks covered its entire hull. The warp nacelles were venting plasma badly, and sparks of electricity crawled over the nacelle housing.
"Beam them out," Ayer said, his voice reduced to a whisper. After the beating he had received, he had lost the strength to speak aloud for a moment. "My crew. Beam them out."
"Why should I?" Donovan responded with a smile. He was enjoying this moment and Ayer knew it. "I already got what I wanted." He looked at the viewscreen again. "Besides, from the looks of it, it's a little too late to beam them out now."
Ayer followed Donovan's gaze, and watched as the shuttle's nacelles exploded, sending the shuttle spinning around its axis -- but not for long. A bright and fiery explosion erupted from inside the shuttle, destroyed the aft section and made its way to the forward compartment. The shuttlecraft exploded in a fiery display of light and fire, leaving behind nothing but scattered debris. There was no way anyone could have survived this.
Ayer staggered to the ground, falling to his knees. The look on his face betrayed the loss he felt, the hurt, and for a moment he couldn't breathe. Zjavick, Zaag, Sandra... They were dead. "Take him away," he heard Donovan say, but paid no attention to it. He couldn't stand up even if he tried, and allowed the security officers to drag him away. He felt paralysed by the shock, and didn't even try to resist. Zaag was gone. Zjavick was gone. Sandra was gone. They were all gone -- he was the only one left. A lone Captain, without his ship, without his crew.
Aboard the lifeless starship Aquinas, Sandra and Zaag had watched helplessly as the shuttlecraft exploded. Unable to do anything but draw short and shallow breaths in the practically non-existent atmosphere on the Bridge, they sat down against a bulkhead, sharing their misery with each other. "He's not coming, is he?" Sandra whispered to Zaag, seeking the comfort of his shoulder.
Zaag put his arm around Sandra, and held her tight. "No," he said in an equally soft voice. "He's not coming."
But the familiar whine of a transporter told them otherwise. Within seconds, the badly burnt form of Lieutenant Commander Zjavick appeared right in front of them. He was covered in burns, and didn't look like he could stand on his own two feet for much longer. Sandra and Zaag, still clinging on to each other, looked at him in amazement.
"Good God," Zjavick muttered, as he looked back at the two. "I can't leave you two love birds alone for even a few seconds, now can I?" He managed a smile and tried to take a step forward, but his leg couldn't hold his weight anymore, and he fell down.
Sandra and Zaag stood up and quickly moved towards the wounded engineer. "Commander, you're alive!" Sandra shouted, feeling much better thanks to this good news. Despite the lack of breathable air, she took a deep breath. "Good to have you back, sir."
Zjavick could barely keep his eyes open. "I guess... Captain Ayer was right after all." With that, he closed his eyes and drifted into the dreamless sleep of unconsciousness.
"How is he?" Zaag asked Sandra. "Is he going to make it?"
"I think so," replied Sandra, after examining Zjavick's burns. "I'm no doctor, but I think he'll live. It looks like he beamed away while the warp core was already exploding. He got lucky." She stood up and walked to a deactivated console. "But he'll still die if we don't get life support on line soon. We all will. I don't think we have any air left for more than five minutes." She looked at Zaag. "How are you with repairing things?"
Zaag shrugged. "I fixed a replicator once."
This made Sandra smile. "Close enough. Come, help me try to bring life support on line, one way or the other. We may be able to power the life support system for the Bridge with some tricorders -- there ought to be some around here somewhere."
Zaag nodded and went looking for tricorders. "A shame that Zjavick had to pass out right now -- we could have used his miracles right about now."
A sigh escaped Sandra's lips. "I'm sure we could. Not much we can do about it now, though." She tried to take a deep breath, but breathing became more difficult every second. "Something tells me we have to hurry, Zaag." She gasped, trying desperately to fill her lungs with the much needed air. "I'm having trouble breathing."
Zaag was gasping as well. "Just ignore it," he said, trying to lighten the mood with a joke. "Who needs air anyway." Despite his last comment, he tried to work faster -- the little air they had wasn't going to last long. Ayer was gone, Zjavick unconscious, and they, too, were about to pass out due to lack of oxygen. Their day just couldn't get any better.
