Facing the Nemesis

On board the USS Horizon, the news of Commander Oseno's retrieval almost brought a cheer up from the bridge personnel. Even the captain sat in his chair, obviously releived despite his stony face. His voice however was strill hard etched with concern.

"Nice work, Lieutenant Moore. Now get back here full throttle."

He then sat forward with his elbows on his knees, all four oculars straight at the screen and the retreating form of the menacing USS Nemesis.

"It's not over yet, people. We still have one crewperson out there and a madmind to deal with..."

As he said so, the hissing voice of Khan came back like that of a haunting specter.

"From Hell's heart, I stab at thee!"

And on the viewer, the torpedo ports of the destroyer flared up and a full salvo of quantum torpedoes flew straight at them.

"Brace for impact!" shouted Kheren.

There was a blinding flash and the immense vessel shook so hard they would have all been thrown out of their seats against the bulkheads as it not been for their PIDs. Still, they were all shaken up pretty soundly in their seats. Lights went out for a moment, then one by one the consoles lighted up again under the reddish glow of emergency lights.

"Damage report!" shouted the Andorian.

"All regen armor down underside, standard armor scrapped off fifty-three percent, all systems on decks 40 and down offline," answered Robert Baoule. "Another shot like that will perforate us!"

"No casualties captain," then added Doctor Lumquist from the medical command chair. "All lower areas had been evacuated as per your orders. But if a shot like that gets through..."

"Sir," then said helmsman Snow, "with all lower decks systems offline, it means that the polaris will have to dock on full manual mode."

"Fortunately, we're not moving at all so it should be easy, " answered Kheren, " if we stay in one piece long enough."

He tapped his combadge.

"Engineering! Mister Sisko, we need to survive the point blank attack of a heavy siege destroyer for at least a few minutes more. Any miracle would be welcomed."

Sisko wracked his brain for a solution. No shields and multiple hull breaches, even where the crew was evacuated could cause structural integrity to fail across the entire ship. A chain reaction in the EPS conduits coming from the belly of the massive Horizon could cause explosions to propagate through the entire ship not unlike lightning arcing to hit multiple buildings throughout a densely populated urban area.

He tapped his combadge. "Sisko to Kheren. The best we can do is to raise forcefields partitioning the evacuated underbelly of the Horizon from the rest of the ship. This would serve to keep us safe even if the entire underside of the ship is blown apart. Hopefully we'll have shields before that point, but it's better to be safe than sorry."

"Good thinking, Chief Engineer. But shields are inoperative in a Mutara class nebula; so let's concentrate on armor and structural integrity. And if your Prophets would like to join your team, they will be most welcomed."

It might have sounded like jest, especially coming out of someone from a species that never had any belief in the supernatural; but Kheren's tone of voice was deadly serious.