Road to Nowhere

Posted on Sat Dec 13th, 2025 @ 4:29am by Commodore Wilkan Targaryen & Commander Ash Randall & Commander Zhora zh'Roothi & Lieutenant Commander Kuzos & Lieutenant Commander Sora Bernadotte & Lieutenant Commander Aidan Datari & Lieutenant Urvasi Elandorn & Lieutenant Rio Kholin MD & Lieutenant Amber Laurell & Lieutenant Joshua Silas & Lieutenant (J.G.) Dylan Blake & Ensign Sayori Nakai & Ensign Mirakylin Yumerieva

2,307 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Distress
Location: Bridge, U.S.S. Enterprise
Timeline: 2439-08-12, 10:15

Captain's Log, Supplemental:

Enterprise is approaching DS47. We're at Red Alert and all hands are at battlestations.

Commodore Wilkan Targaryen watched as the HUD overlay on the Viewscreen counted down to zero. It had been a little over an hour since he'd ordered the ship to proceed to Deep Space 47 and, despite all their efforts, so far, they'd been unable to reach the Federation's only space station in the region. The radio silence had been deafening to the Enterprise's Captain, so much so that he wondered what they would actually find when they arrived. Part of him didn't really want to know what they'd find for fear that it wasn't going to be good.

The minute Starfleet returned to the Gamma Quadrant they should've begun retrofitting 47 to better prepare it for operations in this area. The Dominion were their friends now, but that didn't mean they'd stay that way. Wilkan understood that they didn't want to antagonize the Dominion and that was part of why Starfleet hadn't built a larger, more battle-ready station in the area. Still, with the possibility that they'd find nothing good out here, he'd wished that a more tactically oriented station had been brought out here.

He wondered what the rest of his crew were thinking right now.

At the Helm, Urvasi was looking over the pre-programmed evasive maneuvers to memorize beginning and ending shifts to work on being able to use them in combinations to mix up the observed or known evasive maneuvers by enemy combatants. Also, she wanted to think of a couple of manual ones she could progress through that were not a part of the pre-programmed ones. Once in a while she would glance at the course lines to make sure there wasn't drift caused by gravity influences.

Sora was checking over the status of all departments of the ship, confirming that red alert protocols were in place everywhere on board. She had fallen into a quiet, calm mood, her mind cleared of everything but the task at hand. This was by far not the first time she was facing battle, and it most certainly would not be the last. While she had not yet seen the Enterprise crew operate in combat, she had been with them during the crisis with Tchema, and was certain that, no matter what was to come, they would operate effectively.

Kuzos stood poised at the tactical station. The board showed green with all systems at their optimal level. He briefly wondered if it was the dark ones who had returned and instantly pushed the thought from his mind. It didn't matter who they found. He stood ready and would defend the Enterprise and its crew. He thought on the irony of that thought. mere months ago that thought, course of action would have been foreign to him. He had come aboard as the Dominion liaison officer and now he was the Enterprise's chief tactical officer, with the Dominion and the Federation now allies. Politics truly did make strange bedpartners.

As they traversed toward Deep Space 47 the thought chain of Zhora zh'Roothi had been constantly shifting. The well-practiced motion of ensuring all systems and their backups were poised at maximin effectiveness for the moment they arrived had dominated her primary notion. All decks reported ready and standing by for whatever awaited them. In the tense silence the Commander pondered the repercussions of their precarious situation on the Quadrant if the station had been assaulted. Though, Wilkan had mostly avoided the topic she knew the incident with Tchema hadn't gone down well with Vegg resulting in the Enterprise being shunned somewhat. A rather damning thing for the flagship to be pushed out onto the fridges instead of forging ahead to strengthen relationships like her predecessors. The might of the Enterprise, however maybe required this day as the Federation celebrates its national holiday - ironic really - while the homewards took time to pause and reflect on what's been they were racing towards a potentially hostile situation and a highly, abet ancient enemy if Kuzos could be believed that could shape their future.

Ash had continued work on her addendum to the official limits of the warp power systems aboard Enterprise while they barreled toward DS47 at warp 9.992, their, theoretical, maximum warp capability. It was, of course, possible to exceed that maximum, and for sustained periods of time without risk of structural damage to the vessel or overload of the warp systems but, it just wasn't done. Warp 9.992 was the official speed limit and exceeding it was treated almost akin to violating the Prime Directive so, no trifling matter, to be sure. As they approached their destination the Chief Engineering officer quietly began humming a song to herself and, at various points, actually sang a few wors that were, barley, audible but, quite clearly were "...I'll send and SOS to the world..." And "...Message in a bottle...". She had finished her work on the warp manual by this time and was, apparently, making personal log entry on a PADD that she completed as they exited warp. The Tuansee casually reached down and picked up her, Doctor Watson-like, medical bag that she used to hold her engineering kit, dropped the PADD into it, and closed the bag with an audible 'Click!' and set it back down to begin her, Engineering pre-encounter, checklist.

Arriving on the bridge Amber took a seat, she wanted to be on hand incase her input was needed. Right now, the crew were focused on their work, emotions were wavering yet controlled as everyone did what they were expected to do.

Still stood at his station, Aidan kept a firm eye on the sensors. Still, the worry was clear on his face because he wondered what his little girl would make of the red alert claxon. "Still nothing clear," he reported, "just a weird sensor ghost that I can't clear up."

In Main Sickbay, Rio Kholin was making sure everything was ready in case of anything untoward happening. She had experience of new situations like this and it was always worth being ready for any problems that might require instant medical responses. If you were ready for the worst case scenario and it didn't happen, then it was okay because you had prepped anyway and it saved some dusting however if you weren't ready - or were only ready for something lesser than was needed when it happened suddenly, then you might invite a failure that could be something you would regret. It was a no-brainer and it also helped to keep what some Terrans called "Sod's Law" at bay as well. She and her staff ticked off all the lists and signalled a full house of green lights. It was no less than she would have always asked for, but she was still proud when they all did well so she praised and thanked them all as one, once the end-result confirmation green light was dispatched to the Bridge via the CO, XO and COO's Bridge Monitor Read Outs.

As the countdown clock reached zero, Wilkan rose from his chair and walked toward the forward stations. "Slow to 1/3 Impulse power, Lieutenant, and let's hope that we see nothing out of the ordinary when we're at space normal speeds."

Urvasi called out, "Drop out of warp and slow to 1/3 impulse, Aye Aye, Sir."

Of course, the time was padded with three extra seconds to allow cooldown from Warp 9.992 to Warp 7, to Warp 1, and dropout. The Energies of that high of speed with a formulated warp bubble had to have time to dissipate as the Engines quit feeding the energy. Now that they had dropped out, Urvasi selected 1/3 impulse from the previous impulse speed that the ship had been at before entering warp. Urvasi called out, "Captain, Helm, 1/3 impulse power."

As the Enterprise slowed and space returned to normal, Commodore Targaryen realized just how much he had wanted to see everything normal before him, because it was far from normal. The Cardassian Nor Class station grew larger on the viewer as Enterprise approached, large visible scorch marks from weapons fire dotting several locations on the base's outer hull. Not a single light was on in a starbase that housed nearly 300 people, and the power core at the base of its central core was dark as well. Their attacker was nowhere to be seen, but that didn't mean that they were out of the woods yet. Actually, the fact that their enemy was gone was probably the most frightening part. It meant that they were still out there, possibly doing this to someone else.

"I want a full-scale scan of that station completed, and I want it now," Enterprise's Commanding Officer said in a near growl at the sight of the Starfleet base.

The Trill nodded without looking up, eyes fixed on the small screen in front of him as data and images poured in. "The station is empty sir," he reported after a few minutes, "no life signs whatsoever. Not even a single vole."

Sora looked up at the station, and shook her head. It looked bad. Whoever or whatever had attacked it, certainly knew what it had been doing. Apart from the scorch marks, the station appeared structurally undamaged, yet it was shut down and completely devoid of life, according to the scans. She checked her own console and ran a secondary scan. "Emergency power is at a minimum. We've got atmosphere, but the recyclers are offline. Gravity is active. Apart from that, nothing. Not even lights. Might not even have power to the internal doors."

"Kuzos, full tactical analysis of the immediate area. I want to know if there's an enemy ship out there and if there is find it," the Commodore ordered next as he walked back to the central area.

Kuzos gave a curt nod and began a full scale tactical analysis of the area around the starbase and then widening it as the analysis grew larger and more in depth. After several silent, nerve wracking moments he announced. "The area is clear, that is to say on ship appears on any tactical scan I've done. It does not mean one isn't out there using a cloak the instruments cannot detect."

"We need to get teams aboard that station. Commander, see to preparations for the away missions," Wilkan ordered next. "You'll lead one team, Sora will lead team two, and Ash team three. I want the first team to focus on securing operations, two will get the computer core back online, and three will see to restoring power."

The Commodore's order stirred the Executive Officer from her stunned stillness. "Of course," zh'Roothi replied quickly and rose to begin the required crew assignments.

"Aye sir," Sora acknowledged with a nod, and stood, indicating towards Lieutenant Blake that he was to relieve her at the Ops station. She then sent a transmission informing those selected for her boarding team to report to transporter room 2. "I'll head there momentarily, just need to grab something from my quarters first." She certainly was not going to go into a potentially hostile situation without her trusty rapier, Myrtenaster, belted to her side.

Ash nodded, "Aye, sir. Restore power." The Engineering Chief confirmed as she hopped out of her seat and headed for the turbo-lift."

From the side workstations there was an interruption by Galatea. The Artificial Intelligence of the USS Enterprise, her holographic form was working at the Communications console. Turning from the station, "Commodore, we have intercepted a hail from DS9 directed to DS47. Would you like me to respond?"

"Alert them to the situation, Galatea, but we don't have time to directly talk right now," the Commodore explained as he looked at the sensor overlay on the viewer. Commander Datari's words were still ringing in his ears. 'No life signs whatsoever. Not even a single vole.' Were they dead? Were they taken? They needed to find out.

Urvasi kept the Enterprise at a 30km distance and circled it at 1/3 impulse to allow for scanners to sweep over every inch of the station. With the Enterprise circling at a distance, if a ship was found or a surprise attack was launched, they could shift and change direction and speed at a moments notice, besides keeping sensor sweeps going at full sensitivity without having the space station causing any interference. As transporters worked farther out than this distance, they were within easy transporter range as well for any away teams to be sent off.

"Sir," Galatea interrupted as almost everyone on the Bridge was leaving for their assignments, "message from DS9: Commodore Targaryen has alerted us that she's going to be joining us aboard the Defiant."

"This could get confusing real fast," Lieutenant 1001 said as he took his seat at the Flight Control console.

Wilkan's eyebrow lifted, "What was that, Lieutenant?"

"Nothing, Sir," the Bynar answered as he quickly made himself look busy at the flight controls. "We're in stable orbit of the station."

Rather than see his brother dug in any deeper, 0110 added, "There is no evidence of pattern scramblers rigged to go off if they detect a non-Cardassian transporter signal, Sir, I believe we're safe to transport in the away teams."

"Nice save, Lieutenant," Wilkan said as he walked back toward the Communications console, "tell Commodore Targaryen her offer is appreciated, but unnecessary. We've got it."

"She said you'd say that," the hologram answered, "and she said to tell you that she's on her way anyway."

The Enterprise's Commodore Targaryen sighed, "Alright then. Time to roll out the red carpet." He walked back toward his chair, "keep a close eye on the away teams. This could get bumpy real quick." He looked at the station on the viewscreen, "And let's hope that this goes better than I expect it to."

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