CHAPTER 4: Beyond Antares (part 3)

 On the main bridge of the USS Horizon, the dreaded deadline was coming up fast.

"Transwarp 8! " Lieutenant Snow shouted as the ship lurched and the vibration heard was now dimly felt even through the PID's field protecting them.

"Now would be a good time, Number One," offered the captain in his deceptively soft voice. Then he glanced towards the science station. "How about that enhanced deflector shield, Lieutenant Commander?"

"Aye captain." Redding said quietly as he launched the buoy, imagining what it might look like being bounced around after dropping out of Transwarp 8 speeds. Although there could be no sure way of knowing if it survived the rapid deceleration an emergency buoy could survive the direct destruction of a vessel from a warp core breach, so the odds were good. He watched for a few seconds for the pods beacon, proving it survived the launch, and started to worry it must not have when the signal appeared much later than expected. With a shock, it occurred to him that the subspace beacon had to catch up to them before they could receive it.

"Buoy launched and transmitting captain," and then tried to stay out of the way. He was a 150 year old security officer after all and even holodecks were still new to him, this was going to be left up to their scientist and engineers to save the day.

"Done, Captain," Snowfire replied, "got it in ahead of the jump to-" the entire ship seemed to shiver, and the steady acceleration shown on Lieutenant Snow's display began to flicker. "Yes!" Snowfire exclaimed, not quite baring her teeth as the steadily mounting velocity of the Horizon faltered. "Captain, I advise that we launch lifeboats. The deflector grid's creating a bow shock ahead of us, and I can push that wide enough to cover lifeboat deceleration to speeds they can survive. This is the best chance they'll get - the acceleration shock at Transwarp 9 will be greater, but I won't be able to spread the field as wide exactly because of that."

"I wouldn't recommend that Captain." Redding said looking around at Snowfire. "By the time we get them loaded and launched we'll be well outside Federation space, although we might have them stand by for the Polaris' launch so they could regroup with it." True, the Polaris couldn't pick them up, but it was still the best option they had. 

"All non essential personnel are already standing by in lifepods, as per your orders, Captain, " then specified Ensign Blackbird behind the command dais. "That is eighty percent of the current crew ready to abandon ship, with an added ten percent aboard the Polaris herself, leaving enough of a skeleton crew to man the Horizon."

There was no hesitancy in Kheren's decision. The safety of his crew came first; that of his ship came close behind. K'Leysha's warning had to be taken into account to maximize survival and Redding was right; if they waited too long, their people would either share their own fate or be left stranded in unknown space, too far away to be rescued without the support of a starship.

"All but key personnel, abandon ship."

There was a clunking noise reverberated throughout the vessel. Then, on the screen, hundreds of tiny hexagonal shapes joined the display of streaking stars shooting away from the stern of the colossal starship. They floated a moment within the display of light and then whisked out of their view like soap bubbles popping.

"Receiving distress beacon from every lifepods, Sir, " confirmed Lieutenant Tyvya from her secondary security station. "They're safe a few light years from the outer rimward edge of Ferengi space."

"Should not cost them too much to be picked up by the Ferengi, " commented yeoman Blackbird with a sigh of relief despite their still dire situation.

Helmsman Snow made a point of reminding it to all of them, as if the constant vibrating around the bridge wasn't enough.

" Transwarp 8.6... 8.7... "

Kheren also sighed in relief; his crew was safe... well, almost all of it. He spoke into his combadge.

"Horizon to Polaris; get ready to leave port. Engineering; Mister Sisko, any word about how to furl our sails? "

In Engineering, all that was left was Sisko himself, along with Ensigns Cooper and Blakely as backup. One of his Assistant Chiefs, Lieutenant J.G. Robert Baoule was still on the Bridge manning the station there. Sisko had just finished inputting final calculations and was ready for the separation.

"I just finished sending calculations and instructions to Ensign V'Rel on the Polaris, Sir," responded Sisko. "The timing has to be just right. As soon as the Polaris launches, we will have several seconds until the Polaris decelerates out of range. At the same exact microsecond, one second after they're clear, we will cut power to our navigational deflector as the Polaris extends its deflector around both ships."

Kheren, with a glance to the Bynar doctor managing communications from his own command station, made sure all ship channels were open.

"Horizon to Polaris; confirm and standby for launch!"

Before cutting communication, Sisko took a pause and made sure to emphasize the next statement very clearly. "Before the Polaris is out of range, Sir, someone... ANYONE... must reactivate the navigational deflector or we will be ripped to shreds. This can also not happen until AFTER we have decelerated below 1500 C, or we will be kicked back into Transwarp and the whole thing will start over again. Sir, this window cannot be timed and programmed into the computer. Someone has to monitor this range and find it manually. This will be a bumpy ride, so whoever is left must do it, even if myself and my team are out of commission."

He added, "I have extended Engineering control to every console on the ship, Sir. Good luck to us all."

Kheren received a confirmation nod from everyone on the bridge.

"Confirmed, Mister Sisko. "

Silently the chief engineer said to himself, May the Prophets guide us, although he wasn't sure they were listening so far out of the range of Deep Space Nine. He grew up with his mother's Bajoran influence, but also his father's skepticism. Jake Sisko had seen many fantastical things while on that station, but Jake, and Joey Day himself to an extent, believed that they were just aliens with amazing powers that they just did not have the capacity to understand.

At this point, however, Lieutenant Commander Joseph Daystrom Sisko decided he could take all the help he could get.

There was again a loud booming, louder than any so far. The ship lurched sharply and, even wearing PIDs, many had to grasp their console or armrests to stay upright at their post. Now,they could all hear and feel the vibration now coursing uninterrupted from bow to stern, even with the energy reinforcement provided by their science chief and the efficient power distribution from their operations leader.

"Captain... Transwarp... 9..." breathed out the helmsman.

On the large viewer before there eyes, it was like the whole universe was rushing at them to devour them in maws of light and fire. And it had come sooner than expected.

Next would only be left... infinity.

Now, it all rested on the shoulders of their chief engineer and the commander and crew of their escort vessel.

"Horizon to Polaris; launch now! "

***

Aboard the Polaris V'rell had been joined by his Andorian engineering colleague Akaal and the two men were working feverishly to implement the programming that the engineering staff on the Horizon had provided.

"V'rell, adjust the warp core power output .23 %!" Akaal shouted from across the room where he was working on the ship's navigational deflector.

"Aye Lieutenant," V'rell confirmed as he turned from the shield system console to the warp core and made the minor adjustment.

Akaal pounded his fist on the console in front of him in frustration as the navigational deflectors calculated output fluctuated again as the Horizon continued to accelerate. He corrected the output and sighed as he watched it stabilize to the numbers needed to protect both vessels. He didn't know where the Bajoran engineer Sisko had pulled this plan from, but it was a huge risk. With the navigational deflector stabilized he turned to another console and began to quickly adjust the ship's structural integrity field.

"V'rell, the deflector is stable, I'm moving to the SIF, get going on the inertial dampeners, though I'm not sure it's going to matter much."

The Vulcan nodded, and while the two engineers worked at a feverish pace on the bridge Jureth was watching the digital countdown on his console with building angst. They had not heard from the captain in nearly six minutes and Jureth knew that time was running out for both ships. He opened the intercom to engineering again

"Oseno to Akaal, status Lieutenant, we're running out of time."

"I'm well aware Sir," was Akaal's terse reply.

"You have about 90 seconds.." Jureth answered before closing the channel and addressing the bridge crew

"Mister Hunter, begin the launch sequence, verify moorings and umbilicals clear."

"Aye Sir, moorings clear, umbilical lines clear, the board is-"

Hunter was cut off by the largest reverberation yet from the Horizon and the shouted voice over the comm channel between the Polaris and her home vessel.

"Horizon to Polaris; launch now!"

"Mister Hunter emergency launch! Oseno to engineering, you're out of time Mister Akaal, we're beginning the launch sequence! Everybody hold onto something!"

The Polaris lurched as her impulse engines fired, and Shawn Hunter's fingers flew over his console as overrode the Horizon's computer and engaged the depressurization system in the hangar while simultaneously opening the hangar door. The door opened and Hunter fired the Polaris thrusters trying to keep her stable but to no avail. The tiny escort was practically yanked from the hangar as Shawn fought just to keep her from tumbling end over end.

In her engineering section V'rell and Akaal worked in tandem. The instant the Polaris computer told them they were clear of the hangar V'rell activated the ship's shields and shunted power from the weapons systems to the navigational deflector. Akaal, the more experienced engineer, at the same instant engaged the beefed up deflector and began to extend it around the Horizon.

Jureth gripped the arms of the command chair as the Polaris bucked and shuddered in the transwarp wake of the Horizon, and for the first time in a long time the Bajoran prayed in earnest to the Prophets in the Celestial Temple to deliver him, his ship, and his comrades from a meaningless fate.

Deactivating the Horizon's navigational deflector was not something Sisko needed to leave to himself or any of the crew. It was fortunate that he was able to program it into the computer, because the timing needed to be exact; too exact to allow for humanoid reaction time. The moment the Horizon's computer sensed the existence of the additional deflector, it deactivated the Horizon's. At that moment, the ship lurched and then violently shook as they fell back down to Transwarp 8. The only thing keeping Sisko and his team on their feet was the PIDs, but the personal inertial dampeners were being overworked to fight against the chaotic and unpredictable tumbling of the ship.

"Report!" called Sisko.

"The Polaris' deflector is holding, Sir, but not for long. She is decelerating at a slightly higher rate than we are," reported Blakely. The inertia of the much larger vessel was causing it to maintain its velocity better than the Polaris.

"What can we do to step on the brakes?" asked Sisko.

"Thrusters in full reverse might give us a little push back."

"Aye," Sisko said, and activated the fore thrusters. At this point, there was no time for protocol to ask the Captain, when every microsecond of delay could affect their chance of survival.

The ship lurched again as the thrusters added to the Horizon's deceleration, pushing it closer to the Polaris. This smoothed the ride a bit as the Polaris' deflector was able to strengthen against the hailstorm of debris that occasionally would push its way through and pound against the ship's shields and hull.

On the main viewer of the Horizon, the silhouette of the starships's small escort vessel appeared, emerging from the aft of her underbelly. For a moment, it looked as if the long, flat shape of the vessel was suspended behind her mothership for only a few instants - soon to fall swiftly behind - until a flash of white light burst from the deflector dish built into its curved bow. The flash engulfed the vessel, and the titanic structure of the Horizon before it, forming a translucent bubble that shimmered around both ships as the Polaris bounced at its rear.

"The Polaris has caught us in their deflector field!" confirmed helmsman Snow excitedly.

"But their power core is being drained rapidly," then said engineer Baoule, looking over the readout of their external sensors. "The Horizon is so big that the energy output of the Polaris will not be able to sustain this added mass within their expanded field much longer than..."

The shuddering of the ship seemed suddenly to diminish, but in fact it came faster, becoming so intense and swift that it rose into a constant hum throughout the immense vessel. Then the vibration intensified, from a low him to a high pitched whine that tore through their ears and down to their very bones.

Kheren, Lyrya, Tyvya and the rest of the Andorians were the first to pass out along with any Ferengi still aboard, their ultrasensitive hearing making them the most vulnerable to the piercing wail of the ship. Barely a second later fell the Vulcanoids, and then the felinoids left on board, pointed ears flat on their skulls, security officer Mrriish falling slowly onto all fours before her black-furred pantherlike face rested on the deckplates in front of the turbolift.

The console in Engineering blinked each fractional transwarp level as they reached it.

Transwarp 2.4

"We have to reactivate the deflector!" shouted Ensign Blakely over the intense hum.

Transwarp 2.35

"Too soon!" Sisko responded. "We have to get to Transwarp 2.25, which will be below 1500C."

Transwarp 2.3

"Cooper!" Blakely yelled as the other Engineering officer fell to the floor. Seconds later she followed him.

Transwarp 2.25

Sisko removed his fingers from his ears that he had put there in attempt to delay the affects of the humming and lunged for the console to re-enable the deflector. As he did so, a large piece of debris punctured the Polaris' ever-weakening deflector field and crashed into the lower hull near deck 35. The large rock was not much bigger than a chair but at the velocity it was hitting the ship, it rocketed through the hull and every deck plating in the ship until it finally slowed down and wedged into one of the computer cores. The explosive penetration of the debris caused EPS relays and consoles to explode in Engineering and a large flame burst out, scorching Sisko's reaching hand.

He fell back in pain and immediately passed out.

A single, identical yellow signal flashed simultaneously and insistently on each and every board of each and every station throughout the entire starship; but it would not be long before the rest of the crew would also drop inert where they stood.

Out of all those who stood to be most affected by the ultrasonic scream torn from the Horizon's bones, Snowfire was one of the most prepared. She had access to all the internal and external sensors, and whilst engineering had worked to give them this chance, she and her team had worked frantically to model the possible results. The moment that the fore thrusters had fired, she'd known which simulation was right, and had scrambled desperately for a fix to what she had then known was coming. In the end, it had been something of a brute force measure, but it had been the only one she could get to in time. She overloaded her PID.

So when the sound came screaming through the vessel, she felt none of it. She simply sat, almost incapable of movement, within a shell of negative inertia as the crew around her started to fall. Captain, Security, Counsellor, all gone in instants. She knew that all across the ship, those aboard would be fighting to hold themselves up against the wall of sound that she could see on the readouts in front of her. There was a counter to that, a very simple one, but she couldn't make it happen. She was frozen in place, not even her lips capable of movement. Only her mind, watching the screen before her. Caged. A single movement would break the shell from the inside, and that lethal sound would send her into oblivion. But...she didn't have to move. She had others who could do that for her.

:Daniel,: her mind spoke, reaching for the subordinate most capable of rational thought at the current moment. :Internal forcefields. Destructive interference.:

She sensed confusion for a brief instant, then a bright flare of understanding. He understood! She sensed him move, not even wondering as to why she couldn't do it herself - smart as he was, he probably could work it out - fighting against the tempest of sound howling across the ship. She could feel it now, like the touch of a phantom on her skin, breaking through the protection granted by her overloaded PID as the power cells on the device started to fail.

Tap, tap, tap, she saw the screen in front of her change, and then an alert flash upon it. Not the engineering alert, not yet, but this was just as lethal. Daniel didn't have the level of authority to initiate the protocol. She blinked once, feeling the beginnings of his worry as the sound began to overwhelm him too. There weren't many left, and none but Daniel who wouldn't see her speaking into their mind as a gross violation of privacy. She could do it with most of her senior staff, but that only because of a mutual agreement of trust between them. No matter. She could do it. Rank, after all, hath its privileges. But that was a human thing. To an Ilythirii, rank was far more a thing of duty and burdens. Obligation and a complex web of rights and responsibility on both sides of the rank line. The engineering alert flashed before her - and Daniel couldn't reach it.

:I have it,: she sent, mental voice utterly calm, :just make sure we make it.:

And she moved. The shell around her shattered, the scream of the Horizon's agony cutting into her like a knife, but she was already moving, and pain was - again - something that she had been trained to endure. Tap.

Pain.

Tap.

Agony.

Tap.

All across the Horizon, the internal forcefields designed as both safety and security measure sprang to life, each one vibrating at a particular frequency, creating destructive interference to cancel out the sonic torture ripping through her crew. A low rumbling rose against the scream, turning to a bellow, and then both vanished as the program behind the forcefields matched relative frequencies across the ship. In the astrometrics lab, decks below the bridge, Daniel pulled himself up, blurry eyes focusing intently on the ship's velocity as it dropped, dropped, dropped...

Now.

A long finger stabbed down, hitting the override as the Horizon's velocity dropped to fourteen hundred times lightspeed, the Polaris bouncing at the very edge of the expanded deflector field. There was a moment, an instant, where nothing happened. Had something gone wrong? The vibration and deceleration, had it been to severe?

And then the Horizon's deflector roared to tumultuous life.

Aboard the Polaris the effects of the rapid decelleration were less felt than they were aboard the Horizon, but felt nonetheless. Jureth was held in the command chair not only by his PID, but by the chair's restraint system as well. The little escort shuddered violently and he called out to his bridge crew

"Status report!"

"The Horizon is slowing Sir," Ji'lian reported from her science station "it looks like it's working."

"Acknowledged, Mister Hunter what about us."

"We're still riding in their wake, but we will have to get out of the way eventually, or we could have some real issues."

Jureth nodded and opened the channel to engineering, "Oseno to engineering, Mister Akaal, Mister V'rell how are we doing?"

"Hold that though Sir," Akaal said

He checked the power output on the navigational deflector and could see that the smaller ship's system was rapidly approaching its limit, and if it blew out there would be nothing to protect the Polaris from the transwarp wake or debris, but there was no way to relieve the stress on the deflector until the Horizon was ready to reengage her own system. If he backed off the power there might not be enough juice to protect both ships, and if he fed it any more power the system would overload. Suddenly an alarm blared, and he moved from the deflector to the warp core. The ship's power systems were not designed to handle this type of load and primary circuits were getting dangerously close to failing. Akaal's fingers flew over the console routing some power to secondary circuits to try and take the load off the system. The Andorian knew it was only a temporary fix though, the whole grid would blow either before the deflector did or when the deflector did, they could not keep this up for too much longer. Additionally, he was getting this strange feeling through his entire body, and the engineer knew it had to be the efffects of the rapid slowing of the ship...he just hoped it didn't get much worse.

"Mister Akaal! Are you there?!"

The captain's voice from the bridge brought Akaal back to reality

"Yes Sir, power grid is fluctuating Sir, and the longer we keep this up the longer we risk the whole thing going boom."

"Understood,"

Jureth closed the channel "status on the Horizon T'Lana." he asked the Vulcan who was sitting behind him at the ship's tactical station

"Continuing to slow Sir, by now they will be feeling the effects of the process, I suspect we will soon as well. It is likely that most of the Horizon's crew is unconscious."

Jureth could already feel what T'Lana was describing, his head was beginning to throb and it was as if he could feel every vibration of the ship.

"T'Lana who is the least susceptible to these effects?"

"Likely myself Sir, and perhaps Ensign V'rell and Lieutenant Akaal. Vulcans and Andorians have much higher tolerances for most things than humans and other species."

"Listen to me Lieutenant, if we all drop, it will be up to you to get us to safety..do you understand."

"Yes Sir."

The Polaris pitched again and Jureth watched as Shawn Hunter fought the ship's own inertia to keep her from simply blowing away like a flimsy building in a high wind. Oseno tapped his command chair console and opened a comm channel to the Horizon

"Polaris to Horizon, do you read us? What is your status?"

No response was forthcoming, and Jureth was now very concerned for both the ship and her crew and then Lieutenant Ji"Lian called out

"Captain, I'm detecting power building in the Horizon's deflector!"

"Mister Hunter, get us out of the way!"

Shawn Hunter didn't respond, he was slumped forward at his console, unconscious. Jureth looked frantically around to T'lana who was already moving from the tactical station as Jureth as well began to feel strangely and his vision began to blur. He closed his eyes and shook his head trying to clear it up, but it was to no avail, the world went black.

T'Lana moved as fast as she could given that she was also feeling some of the effects of the rapid slowing of both ships, and the Polaris, no longer under the expert guidance of her helmsman, was thrashing wildly in the transwarp wake of the much larger Horizon. The former security officer had the same basic navigation training as all Starfleet officers, but she had never piloted anything larger than a runabout. She realized that trying to use the helm station was a meaningless endeavor with Hunter in the way but did check that he was alive before stumbling back to her tactical station. She tapped in the command overrides necessary to gain access to the navigation systems and called engineering.

"T'Lana to Akaal, are you there."

There was a long pause before Akaal replied "barely Sir."

"The captain...and the others are unconscious. The Horizon is..." she paused fighting off the increasing vibrations in her body "powering her deflector, we need...to move."

"Understood, I will leave this channel open..when I tell you to...." and then Akaal stopped and T'Lana heard another voice

"Lieutenant, this is V'rell, Mister Akaal is...resting. I am going to begin reducing the output of our deflector to something resembling normal. When I do, you need to fire our impulse engines all back one quarter. It will help us move out of the way of the Horizon or we will be sheared apart. Do you understand?"

"Yes," was the only reply T'lana could manage without breaking the concentration she was using to stay conscious.

"Now, impulse all back one quarter."

T'lana tapped the console one..twice..and a third time to direct the impulse engines to fire and the Polaris bucked violently as she slowed to the point where T'lana's PID was not able to keep up and she had to hold her console or be thrown to the deck of the bridge.

"Lieutenant, this is V'rell are you still there?"