CHAPTER 4: Beyond Antares (part 2)

" All hands; prepare for departure. "

On the vast bridge of the Lotus Fleet flagship, officers were at their stations, ready to implement what they all knew would be a momentous event. The odd mixture of excitement and seriousness permeated the air as Captain Kheren and Commander Redding took their own seats on the command dais.

" All departments report green, Captain. " announced Yeoman Blackbird.

" Doctor, open a channel to flight operations. "

" Channel open... "

Without really being aware of it, Kheren straightened his uniform and sat straighter, his soft, deep voice taking a solemn tone.

" Space Station Echo 3, this is the USS Horizon. Request permission to depart. "

A feminine voice came over the bridge speakers but was, by order of the captain, transmitted accross the entire vessel so that the crew could also be made fully part of the moment.

" USS Horizon, this Echo 3 flight control. You are clear to depart on assigned vector 311 mark 15. Good tides and fair winds, Horizon. We will follow your wake. "

Poetically said but nevertheless clear, they were reminded that their flight would be closely monitored by both their point of departure and their destination, space station Deep Space 9.

" Thank you Echo 3, " said the Andorian as Doctor 110 closed the channel. " Mister Snow; standard undocking procedures and then proceed to full impulse on our projected trajectory once we clear the station. "

" Standard departure, aye, " answered the copper-skinned man at the helm.

If he was disapointed by the bland way they were moving out on such an auspicious occasion, he didn't show it. Like everyne else, he was living the moment as it was.

" We have cleared all moorings. Thrusters at full... We are now free and clear to navigate, heading 311 mark 15. ETA to DS9 at projected speed of transwarp 3 is... twenty-one hours.  Engaging impulse. "

There was a faint hum coming from somewhere deep within the bowels of the gigantic starship but not even the tiniest vibration. Even the exceptionally powerful impulse engines failed to affect the colossal mass of this vessel.

" Full impulse, Captain, " now reported Aguk Snow with a clinical voice. But then, there was a first perceptible hint of excitement when he spoke his next words; " Warp power at your command.. all speeds available through transwarp drive. "

Kheren took a moment to breathe before giving his orders through the shipwide channel.

"  Engineering, Ops; monitor all systems. Medical, Counseling; monitor all crew. Science, Tactical; full external sweep. Commander Oseno; supervise those transwarp sensor operations. Commander Redding; supervise flight operations and testings with helm.  All hands... we are going to transwarp. "

Now there was a definite vibration in the air. But it was not coming from the ship. So far and although they had already engaged the transwarp propulsion flawlessly for two full weeks, they had not exceeded the standard warp scale; in fact, they had not even gone to it's limits. But now, they were about to go way beyond it; not in a rigid closed-off tunnel like the Borg did with their own transwarp conduit technology or the similarly unyielding Quantum Slipstream Drive, nor even the brutal spatial jump of catapulting or folding space, but with full maneuverability, tactical and sensor capability denied to all these other forms of hypertravel. They were about to open a new era of space exploration as significant as the advent of standard warp travel itself... and they all knew it, felt it... lived it.

And that moment was now.

Captain Kheren looked at each of his bridge officers in turn before he fixed his silvery gaze to the main screen.

" Mister Snow... transwarp 3. "

Now there was a definite vibration felt through the deck plates as ultra powerful engines, the likes of which had never been engaged before, came to life. On the screen, the familiar jump to warp effect ended up in the still unfamiliar sight of transwarp flight, with it's elongated streaks of starlight going from blue to red from a seemingly dense cluster of sparkling lights right in front of them.

Long seconds of silence followed before the Inuit helmsman finally confirmed with barely more than a whisper what they were all seeing.

" Transwarp 3. "

They were now going at an astounding twenty thousand times the speed of light. Suddenly, there was a huge storm all around them that shook them all down to their core.

From bow to stern, over two thousand  living, sentient beings were shouting and applauding all at the same time.

Only the Vulcans and Saurians on board refrained form this outward show of elation; but that did not mean they didn't felt the moment just as deeply. Captain Kheren also was a model of restraint and composure, drawing on his own mastery of Vulcan Kolinhar; yet, he too could not control the spontaneous pumping of his left fist in front of him. And if his face could have conveyed any emotion, it would have been snarling in pride and triumph.

The Andorian commanding officer allowed some time for everyone to go through their emotions and congratulates one another before he brought things back to order.

" All hands; well done. We are now sailing into the History books. So let us make sure we do not capsize on the other end. Get to work, people. "

And for the entire next day, not many would be able to bring oneself to sleep or even slow down.

Stationed rather nervously at her Ops post, the Orion officer Elisha Leône surreptitiously breathed out a huge sigh of relief. Each transwarp threshold that they crossed was as exhilarating as it was frightening to this young rookie. But she swiftly gathered her thoughts together as she fastidiously checked over systems throughout the ship.

Afterward, Elisha turned to face her commanding officer.

"Systems ship-wide indicate that they continue to function within expected parameters Captain." 

"Thank you, Lieutenant, " answered the Andorian in the command seat;  "let us hope that it stays that way for the next twenty-one hours. "

In Main Engineering the voice of Joseph Daystrom Sisko rang out. "How's that chroniton field coming, Ensign Celes?"

"Almost there, Lieutenant Commander Sisko, Sir," replied Celes Arlana. "And... there, it is fully in place."

"And not a moment too soon, Ensign," replied the Chief Engineer, with a chuckle. "I could already feel my time drifting away from me."

"You jest, Sir, but without this field, that is exactly what would happen. You would actually lose seven seconds in this journey. Not a lot now, but if we go at transwarp for the rest of our careers..."

"Point taken, Ensign. And I suppose this is also good for protecting the ship itself." Sisko replied.

"Aye Sir, that is an important part. Without it, the temporal stress fractures would take significant effort and resources to repair every time we came out of transwarp."

"Just think Ensign," Sisko said. "Over two-hundred years ago, the very first Enterprise just barely reached two-hundred times the speed of light. We are now going one-hundred times as fast as that. Who knows where we will be going two-hundred years from now?"

"Not being Vulcans, we won't know," Celes Arlana replied. "But it may be a Galactic Federation building those ships, Sir."

"That would be something..." Sisko said, his head turning to look at one of the screens showing the view outside the ship. In Main Engineering, they didn't have any portholes to stare out of.

Commander Redding leaned back against a console and just then realized he had been holding his breath. In his minds eye he saw his older brother Jerry standing next to him with that odd 'cocked smile' of his saying -see Neil? I told you it would work, you just have to want it bad enough- Redding smiled and shook his head -Always had to get in the last word, didn't' you?- And then clapped along with the rest of the bridge officers.

If there was one in the entire crew of the Horizon who did not applaud, it was the ship's black skinned CSO, who was far more occupied with what the vessel's sensors were telling her. Or perhaps to be more precise, what they were refusing to tell her. As the jubilation - let them have it, for them it is a great victory - swept the ship, the tapping upon her console became far more tightly spaced, working on isolating a blip that kept flickering into and out of existence on her displays. As the celebration subsided, she tapped through another sequence, muttered something unpleasant in her native tongue, and contacted the astrometrics lab.

"Daniel," she said quietly, "I need you to run a sensor sweep. Focus is tachyon waveform signatures in a hundred twenty degree cone centered on our prow. There's something screwy in the basic sensors and I'd like a full scan."

"Aye, ma'am. Beginning sweep now. "

"I'll start cross-indexing with the records on regional anomalies, see if I can find anything." Snowfire replied. "Get that sweep done double-quick. I don't like this."

Sitting at his bridge station Jureth applauded along with the rest of the crew as the ship reached transwarp 3 for the first time, and then set about checking on the ship's transwarp sensors. Finding that everything was in order, at least for the moment, he checked again on the Polaris and noted that the little escort was sitting calmly in her hangar almost like a guard dog waiting to be called upon to perform her duties. The Aquarius Class vessel's power output was nominal and the video feeds from the internal sensors were showing that all was normal with her skeleton engineering crew the only souls aboard. He was about to turn his attention back to the transwarp sensor system when the officer at the ops station addressed him.

"Commander Oseno, there's a personal subspace communication coming in for you Sir."

Jureth was perplexed, who in the known galaxy could possibly be trying to contact him now?

"From?"

"USS Celestial Sir."

Jureth's heart jumped, there was only one person who could be trying to reach him  from the Celestial, Catherine Steele. Trying to contain both his joy, and at the same time his trepidation Jureth managed to get out a reply.

"Captain, permission to take this Sir?"

" A good opportunity to confirm communications efficiency while in transwarp, " said Kheren. " Go ahead, Commander. You may use the conference room if you need this to be private."

"Thank you Sir, I think I will."

Jureth rose from his station and exited the bridge into the ship's conference room. His heartbeat increased exponentially as he activated the holographic display at the center of the triangular conference table. For a moment the Federation logo appeared and then after several seconds it was replaced by the face of his long time...and still he hoped, friend.

"Hello Oseno," she said with a smile "Catch you at a bad time?"

"We're in the middle of a transwarp test...nothing important," Jureth replied smiling and then his tone softened "it's good to hear from you, frankly I wasn't sure I was going to."

Cat paused for a long moment before responding "I didn't know what to say, you are the best friend I've ever had and we've been through a lot together especially in the last couple of months, and I wasn't sure if I wanted what you wanted."

Jureth was stung a little bit by those last few words. He had taken a chance that Cat was feeling the same things was and he knew that there was a possibility that she might not be.

"I see...well-"

"But," she said cutting him off "I've had time to think about it and I think that maybe, once we're both back in the same area of the galaxy, we can see where things go"

Jureth was too happy to respond for several seconds, his heart raced, but this time it was in joy and excitement not trepidation.

"You have no idea how happy I am to hear you say that."

She smiled "Yes I do, you're an open book Oseno."

"Only to you I hope," Jureth replied

Suddenly the image on the viewer began to skew "Cat, I'm losing you"

"Losing it on this end too, see you soon!"

The monitor blanked and Cat was replaced once again by the Federation logo. Jureth wondered if the break was on her end or the Horizon's comm system having trouble keeping up with the ship's speed. He decided he didn't really care that much at that moment, but it would need to be reported to the captain.  What really mattered to him was that Cat at least had some feelings for him, and that meant that the risk he had taken had been worth it.

Jureth returned to the bridge and before taking his station made a point to stop near the tactical station.

"Thank you for the time Captain, but I should report that I lost the transmission without any effort my part. Not certain if the loss was here or the Celestial Sir."

The antennae on the top sides of the captain's snowy head started to move like fingers slowly drumming.

"Lieutenant Leône; check our comm system's status. Lieutenant Commander K'Leysha; anything nearby that could have caused interference with transmissions? "

"Aye Sir" the Orion Ops officer responded immediately to her Captain's directive as her focus then shifted to rechecking the status of the ship's communication system. It was peculiar since she had just ran a thorough system's check merely moments before. Something about this gave Elisha a rather eerie feeling.

Snowfire's gaze didn't even waver from her screen as she answered, black fingers moving swiftly across her panel. "There's something in the sensors, looked like a blip but I'm having astrometrics run it down. Somewhere in a cone ahead of u-"

She didn't get to finish her report, as a sudden booming roared across the frame of the titanic vessel. Nothing at all was felt but, on the main viewer, the colored transwarp field suddenly flashed and the streaks of light became more numerous, more brilliant and zooming faster from a much brighter and larger nexus of coalescing points of pulsing lights.

" Report! " ordered Kheren, suddenly sitting very straight on his chair, antennae pointing forward.

" Sir... nav sensors indicate we are now going at... transwarp 4! " answered Aguk Snow as his fingers ran on his helm controls. "But... engine readouts say our power output is still at nominal levels for transwarp 3! "

" Confirmed, Sir! " then said Robert Baoule from the engineering station. "No change in power levels or engine consumption, no system failure or change... but we have accelerated! "

" And we are still accelerating! " added the helmsman; " Helm controls not responding! "

" Condition yellow, " ordered Kheren tapping his combadge. " Engineering; Mister Sisko, we lost helm control up here. "

"Aye, Sir, we see that", came the voice of Sisko from Engineering. "We're looking into it."

The Engineer kept his response brief, as he was sure the Captain was too busy for a detailed explanation at the time.

There was another booming echo from bow to stern. This time, the booming was accompanied by a slight jolt felt throughout the entire hull of the colossal vessel and the light show on the large screen intensified once more.

"Transwarp 5! now 5.1... 5.2... "

" Captain! " the bald, black-skinned bridge engineer  warned; " this ship is designed with a top speed of transwarp 5 in mind; there is no telling what will happen or what we will be able to do if we go... "

" Red Alert! " shouted the Andorian.

"Put as much power into our deflector and structural integrity fields as we can then," Snowfire advised as the Horizon continued to accelerate. "It won't be able to stop us, but it'll help us hold together. If either of them go whilst we're at this velocity, we're dead."

"Lieutenant Leône; divert all available power to both systems, " ordered Kheren.

Reacting instinctively as this crisis began to unfold, Elisha cast aside her trepidations as she was reassessing all of the ship systems. She noted quickly that despite their continued acceleration, astonishingly no additional power was being consumed, and even though helm had lost control functions, her station was still operational. The Orion Ops officer worked tempestuously diverting all of this available power to protecting the integrity of the ship as it hurled increasingly beyond established safety limits.

Then responding to the captain's orders she quickly blurted out "Deflector and structural integrity fields now raised to one hundred and twenty-two point five percent normal operation parameters Captain!" 

"Add a tribble rolling in a ball if you have to, Lieutenant, but every additional fraction will count, " simply said Kheren in answer, keeping his four oculars straight at the screen as if he was facing some deadly adversary.

If she wasn't so engaged in her task and simultaneously frightened, the Orion Ops might have burst out laughing at the surprisingly witty response of her captain. Instead, she instinctively stated "I'd climb in a ball myself and start running like hell if that would help Sir..." as she continued vigorously reassigning power to funnel more energy into the already strained fields.

After a few more unorthodox maneuvers, Elisha managed to squeeze out additional power as she declared breathlessly "Deflector and structural integrity fields increased an additional thirteen point two percent Captain" Then with a sound of disappointment laced in her voice, she added  "I don't believe that I can add any more, Sir!"

"Prayers, if you believe that would help, " acknowledged the Andorian. "You're doing your job well, Lieutenant; now, we must both rely on our shipmates to do the rest."

"Understood Sir" she said resolutely, although inside she was feeling rather disappointed in herself that she couldn't do more at this moment.  

Redding couldn't help but think of the USS Response and its last run. Was he watching the same event all over again? this time he might at least remember it. Using his chair controls he downloaded all resent logs to the Log buoy including his own personal logs. " Captain, emergency buoy updated and ready at your order, but the longer we wait the further out of known space it will end up. "

"Good thinking, Number One, " said the captain, nodding appreciatively without looking at the large man at his right hand. " You do have some experience in this... implement at your own discretion. "

Down in Engineering, Sisko called out to Ensign Kilani Cooper, "I need options for a controlled shutdown, immediately!"

"Aye Sir," the Ensign responded and began working with Ensign Blakely to determine how to safely get them out of transwarp.

"If we turn off the navigational deflector it would do it," Blakely responded.

"Yes, and it would also kill us," the Mayan Propulsion Specialist protested.

"I know, but it's something to keep in mind," Blakely said. "Maybe if we can protect the ship another way... ride out the wave as it were... until we slowed down. Then turn it back on when we get below warp 10."

"We're still accelerating," called out a young crewman who was nervously monitoring the readings. "5.3... 5.4..."

"Sir, at this rate of acceleration, when we reach transwarp 10... if that is even a possibility... we will be over 30,000 lightyears from where we started!" stated Ensign Cooper.

"32,342 light years to be exact," came the nonplussed voice of the Vulcan crewman Surlac.

"And when will that happen?" Sisko asked the Vulcan.

"17.2 minutes, Sir."

"Sir when that happens we'll reach the edge..."

"I know... how do we stop this thing Ensign!" yelled Sisko to the two officers who were still discussing possibilities.

Ensign Cooper approached. "Sir, we have a plan, but you're not going to like it."

"Let's hear it."

"Sir, as you know the navigational deflector is actually used in the transwarp process to create and maintain the tachyon matrix needed in the transwarp calculations. As long as the navigational deflector is up, we're going to keep accelerating. The only other thing that is keeping us going is the warp core, but we can't shut it down without causing an immediate breach. If we shut down the navigational deflector every bit of space dust and debris will obliterate the ship instantly. However, the Polaris has a navigational deflector...."

Sisko followed up with the rest. "So we use it to protect the Horizon while we tumble out of Transwarp... you're right, I don't like it. Would there be enough power in the Polaris' deflector to protect us?"

"If we put all she's got into it, I believe so, Sir. We could run a few simulations but..."

"We're short on time, I know. Get to it anyway. We have to be sure this will work before we attempt anything," Sisko said.

After the Ensign hurried away to start the simulations, Sisko tapped his combadge. "Sisko to the Captain. Sir, I think we have a way to stop the ship, but it's dangerous. My team is running a simulation, but, Sir... if this continues, we'll be reaching the edge of our galaxy in just over 15 minutes."

He then proceeded to explain his team's plan to the Captain.

Listening to the chief engineer's summary, Kheren did not ask any question. There was no time for debate and he had to have faith in his people; after all, they were "all in the same boat" as the Humans said.... and Humans, which were the largest part of his crew, were the best survivalists in the galaxy; Bajorans like Sisko and Oseno, recent survivors of oppression and hardships, were certainly not far behind.

" Keep me posted, Mister Sisko. Our science chief came up with a way to sustain us a bit longer so you do have some more time to work with... "

The Andorian tapped his combadge to get to the shipwide channel as the red alert klaxon blared.

" All hands, PIDs; All non essential personnel to the lifeboats. All civilians and diplomatic personnel to deck 38. "

As he hit with his palm his own Personal Inertial Dampener on his seat, the captain then turned towards his Strategic Operations Officer.

"Commander Oseno, get to the Polaris and get her ready for launch. Seems like your transwarp launch might get a live testing sooner than we expected. And fill her up with your full crew and all our diplomats and civilians as per standard evacuation protocol. At least, if this fails, some of us will survive along with you. "

The Polaris was capable of evacuating no more than a hundred and fifty people along with it's entire crew complement of forty. That was as a whole barely ten percent of the entire complement of the Horizon... but is was still nearly two hundred people he could save if all things came to worst. And, as always, saving the lives of his crew  was the first and last thing on Kheren's mind. And here again, he made it clearly known.

And as he spoke, there was another boom, louder this time and the entire ship shook as if her shields had been hit by a torpedo blast. With their PIDs on, no one truly felt it, but their consoles visibly trembled eerily under their hands.

" Transwarp 6! " shouted helmsman Snow with awe. " At current rate... transwarp 7 in... four minutes! "

Just as eerie, there was no change in the sound of the engines despite their sudden acceleration to an astounding ten million times the speed of light. But, on the screen, the light shower coming towards them became even more spectacular in speed, color and brightness.

" Sir, " then chimed in Lieutenant Tyvya from the security station, even with reinforced structural field and deflector, I'm not sure we will be able to withstand many more of those transitions. Certainly not beyond... transwarp 9... "

Transwarp 9; nearly four hundred million times the speed of light... the number was so incredible, there was a moment of awed silence on the bridge. And beyond that was the next level; infinite speed, being everywhere in the universe at the same instant. One man, Tom Paris, one of the designers of this vessel, had reached it once... and almost died. For them however, aboard an eight million tons, one and half kilometer structure hurtling at such a velocity, death at this point was not just a risk; it was a certainty.

Snowfire had been conversing in low tones throughout the steady acceleration, her entire department bouncing ideas off of each other in the free-flow comm net that she'd initiated for critical situation resolution. As the Andorian Lieutenant finished her report, the Ilythiiri spoke a few more words and then cut herself momentarily out of the net to pass on what she and her officers had managed to come up with.

"There, I think, we can help. Lieutenants Lorenz and May have put something together that should keep us together. I'd rather that we don't have to test it, but the modeling is solid."

Snowfire tapped a few keys, bringing up the model in front of her and studying it again. The idea was rather elegant in its simplicity, but also risky in that it relied on using the deflector's bow shock to shield the rest of the ship from harm. But it was better than certain total existence failure.

"The specifics are rather complicated, but suffice to say that it has a better chance to keep us together then anything else my department can think of, Captain."

She paused for a moment as a message flashed on her screen, and then restrained the urge to hit the console.

"And...lifeboats won't help us at this point Captain," she said, very softly. "They're designed to drop safely out of warp and even some of the higher Transwarp factors, but at this speed they'd get torn apart before they can lower their velocity to survivable levels. The Polaris will have a hard enough time surviving the deceleration, and she's a full starship. Smaller vessels and lifepods won't stand a chance."

"Agreed, Lieutenant Commander, " just as softly admitted Kheren with a sigh, " but if there is the tiniest improbable chance that someone aboard would ever survive whatever will happen, it would be aboard those lifepods. And it's better to have them occupied with the emergency drill than sitting on their hands waiting in anguish for what may come. "

It was just compassion and wishful thinking at best and he knew it; but Andorian passion would never admit defeat, failure and death passively, regardless of fact or logic, especially where his clan was concerned. 

And for Captain Kheren, his crew was his clan.

"Implement your procedure, Lieutenant Commander, " he then ordered the Illythirii science chief. "Coordinate with  Ops and Engineering. Anything to buy us minutes, even seconds. "

"Done, Captain. And if we come up with anything else, you'll know." She turned her head, calling to Lieutenant Leone. "Lieutenant, I need you to go into the navigational deflector's field generation protocols and replace everything involving the field's shape with the code I've just sent you. Get it done fast. If we have it ready before we hit Transwarp 8, we might be able to use the acceleration shock." She didn't explain what that meant, but there was hardly time as she called down to Engineering.

"Lieutenant Commander? This is the CSO. We have a patch that should be able to hold us together past Transwarp 9 going into place now. As part of this, the deflector field is about to undergo some rather unique modifications in regards to its shape. Please do not be alarmed or try to stop it. It's just about the only chance we've got at this velocity."

"Aye, aye," came the voice of the Chief Engineer Sisko. "Thank you for the warning, Lieutenant Commander, we'll be waiting patiently down here."

She then closed the channel and switched herself back into the departmental net.

"We need a way to let the lifeboats launch safely." She said, without preamble. "Anyone have any ideas?"

Down in the sick bay, the one Bynar doctor, 011, who was not on the bridge was hurrying around giving orders in a chirpy, quick-paced voice, in order to prepare for the possibility of triage. "Get the hypostimulants to table 4," she directed to one nurse. "Prepare several cortical stimulators in case we need to revive nervous system activity."

"Where's the trauma section?" came the voice from behind her that she immediately knew to be Dr. John Pierce, the Chief Surgeon. Along with the Ferengi neurologist, Dr, Nagee, his role would be important, along with his fellow surgeons to sew up injuries and stop internal bleeding. Despite the use of the PIDs, there would likely be a lot of blunt force trauma, concussions, and traumatic brain injury  from falling debris.

She turned and quickly directed him to the area they would dedicate to extreme traumatic wounds, where Nagee was already preparing a series of intercranial stints.

Finally, when a break provided itself, she stopped and communicated to her sibling on the bridge.

"Captain, the medical team is preparing to receive injured... in case we survive," reported Dr. 110. There was no jest in her voice, nor was there any fear showing, but it was there nonetheless; just hidden by her stoic Bynar countenance.

From the moment of the first thunderous boom Jureth knew something was very wrong, though none of them could have anticipated what was unfolding in front of them. Acknowledging Captain Kheren's order to man the Polaris with a nod of his head he activated his PID and tapped his combadge in the same instant. 

"Attention all hands, this is Commander Oseno, all Polaris crew report to the ship immediately! Site to site transports are authorized under my authority."

Closing the channel he practically yelled at the ship's computer "Computer, command override, site to site transport to USS Polaris bridge. Command override authorization Oseno Six One Bravo Juliet."

At that moment Redding yelled out " Oseno! " and quickly snatched something off his side and tossed it to him. " Just in case " it was his memory recorder, and Redding gave him a quick salute.

"Authorization acknowledged, transport commencing..."

The transporter beam whisked Jureth off the bridge and deposited him on the much smaller bridge of the Polaris milliseconds later. Jureth immediately set to work addressing the ship's computer.

"Computer, recognize Oseno Jureth, Commanding Officer authorization Oseno Six One Bravo Juliet"

"Voice authorization recognized, input command."

"Computer, bring all systems online, and power up bridge consoles."

"Acknowledged...working.."

One by one Jureth watched as the ship's bridge consoles began to power on and while that was happening he strode to the command chair and opened the intercom to engineering.

"Oseno to Engineering, anyone down there?"

"V'rel here Sir," came the calm reply from the Vulcan engineering specialist "May I inquire as to what is happening? I have had to readjust the containment field of the Polaris warp core due to the increased vibrations from the Horizon."

"The transwarp system's gone haywire, they have no control over the ship's acceleration. This ship may be the only hope of anyone surviving Mister V'rel. I need to know if our transwarp launch formula will work."

"Sir, extrapolating from Commander Redding's test data and after running several thousand simulations on the computer there is a ninety eight point three percent chance of a successful transwarp launch at speeds up to transwarp three."

"What about about at transwarp nine?" Oseno asked knowing he would not like the answer

"That...is complicated" V'rell replied

"Get on it Mister V'rell."

"Aye Sir, V'rell out."

As they finished their conversation Lieutenants T'Lana and Hunter materialized on the bridge and Jureth immediately handed them assignments.

"Mister Hunter, I need to you link with V'rell in engineering and get this ship ready to launch. T'lana coordinate the incoming diplomatic and civilian personnel and get them stowed wherever you can stow them. This situation is going from bad to worse quicker than I perfer to think about."

Receiving simultaneous "aye sir's" from both officers Jureth opened the Polaris ship wide comm channel

"Attention aboard the Polaris, this is Commander Oseno on the bridge. All hands proceed to launch stations immediately, and prepare the ship for transwarp launch. Department heads make reports to me as soon as your departments are secure. Oseno out."

Closing that channel he tapped his combadge.

"Oseno to Horizon; I'm aboard the Polaris Sir and we are preparing the ship for launch."

As if to answer him, the ship jolted once more and this time, there was a distinct hum in the air, as if the entire hull of the gigantic starship had become a titanic chime softly struck continuously.

" Transwarp 7! " confirmed Aguk Snow gripping his piloting console as if he could somehow steer or reign in the vessel by the sheer strength of his tensed, straightened arms.

" Get ready for the second I give you the word, Commander, " then answered Kheren over the comm. "Standby for a deflector and structural reinforcement solution from the science department that should also come in handy for the Polaris. And if you do not hear from us after the next eight minutes, launch anyway and attempt Mister Sisko's plan. But if it looks like it will fail... do your duty as a captain; above all, protect your ship and crew. "

"Aye Sir," was Jureth's solemn reply to the captain. He knew what Kheren meant, even if he didn't want to acknowledge the reality of it. He said a silent prayer to the Prophets asking for guidance and even their intervention on the ship's behalf before addressing the Polaris science officer, a human woman who at first glance he swore had a tinge of green to her skin. Jureth hadn't actually had a chance to meet her but recalled from his personnel files that she was Cera Ji'lian, a human-orion half breed.

"Lieutenant Ji'lian, link your console with the Horizon and get ready to implement immediately whatever Lieutenant K'leysha sends you."

"Aye Sir,"

"Mister Hunter, what's our status?"

Shawn Hunter swiveled around  from his station to face Oseno "board is green Sir, impulse and warp drive are available. V'rell and I have corrected the launch calculations to compensate for the ship's excessive speed, but..."

"But what Mister Hunter?"

"The odds of a successful launch are much smaller Sir."

"Don't ever tell a Bajoran the odds Lieutenant...just be ready to launch at a moment's notice. Confirm that the hangar bay is clear and get us clear of any tethers to the Horizon."

Hunter nodded "Yes Sir," and then he turned back to his console and tapped a few commands which activated automatic releases for the umbilicals that were connecting the escort to her home vessel. Outside the Polaris alarm klaxons blared in the hangar as the umbilical lines came free of the escort. The two man M.A.C.O. watch team was gone having long since scrambled aboard the ship and with the release of the umbilicals the hangar doors were now sealed as the Horizon's computer automatically engaged launch protocols.

"Umbilicals and moorings are clear Sir," Hunter reported "We are free to launch."

"Good...now let's just hope we don't have to."

Jureth sat back in the command chair repeated his entreaty to The Prophets, and tapped several commands into his command chair console. The result was a visual eight minute countdown to Captain Kheren's ordered deadline.