The Alpha Centauri Mystery - Part 8 by Ben Versteegt
Summary:
It seems the Alpha Quadrant is in danger - again. The Dominion war is just over, and now another danger comes looking around the corner: some mysterious samples with radiation which can be used as an enormous power source. Ensign Sandra Burke has fled the Starfleet base on Alpha Centauri, which was destroyed by Romulans who were after the samples Sandra has with her.
A Cardassian was also after those samples, but has been captured by Sandra and Zaag, a Ferengi bartender who has come with Sandra to the Excelsior class USS Aquinas, captained by "Uncle Pete" Ayer, a Starfleet Captain who knows Sandra very well. Now, they are chased by another Starfleet vessel, a Prometheus class, which has them outgunned and outclassed. The Aquinas gets fired upon by this vessel, and is forced to drop out of warp. During the following fight, the Aquinas is almost destroyed. The damage is extensive.
Captain Ayer decides to eject the warp core, together with some anti-matter containment pods. He plans on detonating the core to stop the Prometheus class vessel. The problem is that the Aquinas herself will most likely be destroyed by the explosion. Yet Captain Ayer figures they will either die in battle, or from the explosion caused by detonating the warp core. With pain in his heart, he gives the order to detonate the core.
And now the continuation:
Lieutenant Watters looked up, horrified and amazed. He didn't expect this order from the Captain. "We're going to die..." he murmured under his breath. His head slowly moved down, and his eyes finally rested on his console. One light on the console was lit up more than the others. He only had to tap on it to initiate the warp core detonation. His hand slowly moved towards the spec of light. He knew full well that it was he who had to bring the crew of the Aquinas to their deaths. He had to detonate the core, and he would die shortly after. He just knew it.
Yet he tapped the light.
"Detonating warp core, sir." he said with a lump in his throat.
"Shockwave approaching, Captain," a young Ops officer reported.
"Sandra, full thrusters. Get us as far away from the shockwave as possible." Ayer said softly. There were tears in his voice. "Bridge to Zjavick. We need all the power you can give us to shields, thrusters and structural integrity. Now."
"Aye," Zjavick replied briskly over the comm. He had work to do.
"Five seconds to shockwave impact!" the Ops ensign shouted.
"Let's hope that shockwave does as much damage to our pursuers as it does to us," Ayer said, and then in a louder voice, "All hands, brace for impact!"
Sandra looked at Zaag, then at Ayer for one last time. She nodded to the Captain as a final goodbye. He nodded back, and sat in his chair. Grabbing hold of the armrests, he waited for a few seconds; waiting for his own destruction.
"Sandra..." she turned around to see Zaag, looking at her. There was pain in his eyes. It was the pain of a man who knew he was not only going to lose his own life, but also the life of the one he loved.
Sandra smiled faintly. It was all she could do to respond to Zaag, before the shockwave hit them.
The shields initially took most of the damage, and the Aquinas was hurled forward uncontrollably, riding on the shockwave like a surfboard on a wave. But after only a few moments the shields failed again. The shockwave made contact with the hull again. The warp engines were pulverized on impact. Explosions were seen all over the ship, parts of the hull spontaneously breached and were vaporized by the power of the shockwave, and various systems overloaded.
On the Bridge, nobody could say a thing. The ride had been hectic at first, and it was difficult to stay seated, but with the shields gone, things got even worse. The ship shook violently, and the crew now had no way of staying in their chairs anymore. Explosions lighted the Bridge, now that the lighting grid was destroyed. The force of the explosions hurled crewmembers across the Bridge. Some died instantly as they collided with the ground, head first. Others fell to their deaths as the turbolift they were in malfunctioned because of the sheer force of the shockwave, and fell down.
Captain Ayer tried to stay in his chair for as long as he could. This ship was his, and he refused to die in any place other than the center seat. It was the place from where he commanded the ship. But he couldn't stay seated. The force of the shockwave, the shaking of the ship and the countless explosions forced him out of his chair. He fell forward on the ground, but landed on his hands to break the fall.
Fire was now lighting up the Bridge. The science stations at the back were already consumed by it. Another shock went through the ship. Ayer looked back when he heard a console explode behind him, but he couldn't see where it was coming from, since he was still laying on the ground. Not more than a moment later the Vulcan FO fell down on the ground too, right next to the Captain. She was dead. It was a horrible sight; she had all kinds of burns, and the floor right next to her head became green with the blood of the Vulcan.
Ayer couldn't breathe. The only thing he could do was looking at the face of his dead FO.
The voice of Lieutenant Watters brought his attention back to the matter at hand. "Sir," the STC shouted, while looking at his console that was barely working. "The gravimetric sheer of the shockwave is decreasing! It won't be long before..." he got interrupted by yet another explosion. "...before the shockwave releases us!"
Ayer struggled to get up and keep his balance. He realized that this ordeal was almost over. However, he sensed a 'but'. "But?" he asked simply.
The ship was still shaking around them, and Watters too had problems keeping his balance. "Structural integrity is gone, sir." he said. "So are shields, weapons, engines, and our hull integrity at some points is almost down to zero!"
Ayer was about to reply, but another heavy shock sent him to the ground again. The eerie sound of metal scraping against metal was heard throughout the ship. The Captain knew what that meant. " The ship is being torn apart!"
He was right. Another shock indicated a change in the ship's mass; a large piece of the ship had broken off. At that particular moment, Ayer began to realize he had lost the Aquinas. His ship was gone. It wasn't a ship anymore, just a few pieces of debris, now.
"Sir... the shockwave..." Watters sounded pleased for some reason, even though the ship had just been broken in two. "It has dissipated."
The Captain breath a sigh of relief. "Thank God. Sandra, see if you can get us to a full stop. We might..." he stopped mid-sentence as he turned to look at the CONN position. "Sandra?"
There was no-one there. The CONN position was empty. There was no dead body, either. Not of Sandra, anyway. "Where is she?" Ayer asked, almost panicking. "Where did she go?"
"Sandra?" another voice said. It was the voice of Zaag. He had just regained consciousness after having been unconscious due to a fierce blow to the head. "Sandra?" the Ferengi asked again. "Captain, where is Sandra?"
"I wish I knew." Ayer said softly. He walked to the helm. "I'm engaging emergency thrusters. Those that haven't been destroyed, anyway. That should slow us down a little." He sighed. "Coming to a dead stop."
"It's a *dead* stop, all right." Watters said under his breath. There were a lot of crewmembers laying on the ground. Most of them were dead.
"Where is Sandra, Captain?" Zaag said forcefully.
"I don't know, Mr. Zaag. I'm sure she was here a minute ago... wait..." It hit him. "Where are the samples?"
A silence filled the Bridge. Finally, it was Watters who spoke. "Ms. Burke was carrying the samples, sir..."
"And now she's gone. And so are the samples," Ayer stated. "What a coincidence. Mr. Watters, tricorder." he held up his hand. Watters found a tricorder that still worked and tossed it to the Captain. He opened it and started to scan the CONN position. It was a bit of odd to see, actually. The Bridge was practically falling apart around them, while the Captain was just... scanning.
Watters didn't have time to say anything about it. He grabbed a fire extinguisher and emptied it on the flames. There were still some half-burning consoles, but the worst flames had been extinguished. Only now did he ask, "Captain, what are you scanning for?"
"I'm searching for... ah, got it." The Captain walked towards Watters, and so did Zaag. He was curious too. Ayer showed them the readings. "I've scanned for a residual transporter signature, and I found it. There's no doubt about it; she was beamed off the ship. Presumably to the Prometheus class vessel."
"And they took the samples with them," Watters added.
"Forget the samples!" Zaag interrupted. "We have to get Sandra back!"
"Perhaps you haven't noticed, Mr. Zaag," the Captain said seemingly calm, "we are not exactly in a shape to mount a rescue." It was an understatement. The ship was in ruins. Ayer sighed and turned to Watters. "Is the enemy ship still here?"
"Short range sensors are hardly functioning..." the STC replied. "I don't see them on sensors, but I can't rule out that they are still here. And before you ask, sir, I don't know what damage they sustained. And besides, I don't think it's their damage we should be concerned about."
"Fine then," Ayer said with a nod and a faint smile. "Can you give me a status report of the Aquinas?"
"Most of the readings are somewhat garbled, Captain," Watters replied. "The emergency Bridge reactor is feeding power to these consoles, but it's barely enough."
"Just tell me what you can."
"Aye sir." he paused as he tapped some controls. When the list of damaged systems came up, he sighed. It was quite extensive. "Shield emitters are destroyed, sir. I'm reading numerous hull breaches on nearly all decks, and..." he paused when he saw what else had been destroyed. "The..." he cleared his throat. "The Engineering section of the ship has taken most of the damage, as was the plan, sir. But a piece of that section has been ripped of the ship. The whole aft section, actually..."
Ayer felt as if he had been broken, together with the ship, but he didn't let it show. He was the Captain, and had to be an example for the crew. For what was left of it, really. There were many dead bodies on the Bridge alone. Amongst them were the FO and the CONN officer. Ayer had always seen them as part of him family.
"How many casualties?" he asked with a lump in his throat.
Watters shook his head slightly. "Unknown, sir. But I'm guessing there are a lot of dead or injured people on this ship... Which is obvious of course." he added with a sigh.
"Let's start with the Bridge then." Ayer replied with distaste for what he had to do now. Identifying the dead was not his favourite activity.
"You can't just leave Sandra behind!" Zaag shouted. "We have to save her! We have to do something!"
"Didn't you hear a thing of what I said?" the Captain shot back. "We're crippled! We're a hulk in space. This isn't a ship anymore, it's a junkyard now, full of scrap metal! What do you suggest we *do* in our condition, Mr. Zaag, hmm?"
"I... I don't know, Captain." Zaag looked down at his feet and the scorched ground. "It's just... I don't want to lose Sandra."
Ayer took a step forward and placed his hand on the shoulder of the Ferengi. "Neither do I, Mr. Zaag. And we will find Sandra, I promise you. We will rescue her." His face darkened. "We have to."
