And The Children Shall Lead

"It has begun..."

The voice of the Prophet echoed throughout the large room, into the minds of every pilgrim of the rag tag cultist fleet and seemingly throughout the entire sector, as, almost simultaneously, those that had chosen martyrdom as their way to paradise obeyed the dictates of their faith.

Because security officers Tyvya, Oseno Jureth and Josh Vincent had enforced their dilligent implementation of all the harsh security protocols devised by Captain Kheren, the Artemis, the Alsea and the Lotus were spared from cultist assault.

The others were not so lucky...

"Captain Onia! our engines are shutting down!"

The Deltan commanding officer of the USS Wisconsin shot out of her chair.

"Engineering, report!"

"Captain! the cultists are..."

The strained voice of chief engineer Kraytine was cut short by the distinct whine of a phaser blast. Then, another voice came through the speakers:

"We are the Horizon Children; this ship's power is now under our control. You will obey our orders... or we will destroy it."

Onia looked at her bridge crew then glanced at the main viewer. Then, she saw that the Pittsburgh had just ejected its warp core.

"Who is responsible for this!" roared the towering captain of the Pittsburgh.

"Unknown, Sir!" his first officer answered while his fingers ran frantically over his console. "Sir, it seems there was some computer commands infiltrated into our system; it automatically ejected our warp core at a preset time!"

"Find me who's responsible! We swept that ship thoroughly for intruders and infiltrators before we left the starbase!"

"We did, Sir... but it appears the computer tampering was not done by anyone on board... it was done from the starbase, while we had been docked and connected to their main systems."

At that same moment, on Starbase 10, Operations was suddenly alerted by security.

"Ops! Security team 6 here, in maintenance section 3; we have found two unconscious officers! Lieutenant Scott from engineering and Lieutenant Brie from operations! We're rushing them to main sickbay!"

At the same moment, another message came from the USS Aurora:

"Commodore Brigham to Starbase 10; starbase, we are registering boosted thruster activity from you; you are moving at one quarter impulse toward 090 mark 12... towards the sector of the anomaly!"

"Fleet Captain Samji! our systems register no momentum and no propulsion system active. Sensors do not register change of position!" reported Lieutenant Commander Grok, trying to manage the hundred of communications suddenly cluttering up the airwaves. "Systems are in a diagnostic loop; we can't know if we're actually engaging or disengaging them or doing anything at all!"

And, as security officers moved out to answer the sudden alert, they were repelled by forcefields erected at every egress from the room.

"Every access to major sections of the base are isolated in level 10 forcefields, Sir!" then confirmed Lieutenant Jorga from the security console... just before it exploded right in his face from a sensor feedback.

And on board the USS McKenzie, things looked just as grim.

The moment the Defiant class starship dropped out of warp, helmsman Hughes eyes and fingers suddenly went frantic before he exclaimed:

"Captain! I have no control over navigation!"

And, on the main viewer, the ominious fire of the Azimuth Horizon suddenly loomed threateningly towards them; and all accross the small starship, the whine of the warp engines building up to maximum activation was heard.