Into the Breach: Part 2

The away team assembled in the Polaris transporter room with Major McGregor and his subordinate Master Sergeant Pierce in full battle gear in front of the officers led by Jureth. Lieutenant Somers had briefly objected to being left behind as Jureth had left the bridge, but he had pointed out that it would be up to her to retrieve them if something went wrong. Oseno  had issued phaser rifles to Solius and himself leaving Snowfire to carry whatever scientific instruments she wished. Once they were all on the transporter pad Jureth nodded to the transporter chief.

"Energize"

The familiar hum and glow of the transporter gripped them and whisked them away. When they rematerialized they were in near darkness. The marines switched on lights attached to their weapons and swept the immediate area for threats and finding none stood at the ready. Oseno switched the light on his phaser rifle on as well and played it around the immediate area. The interior was very similar to the dreadnought that they had been aboard prior to the attack, but was scarred from some unknown damage. The atmosphere was stale and carried a smell of...death.

"Commander K'Leysha, lifesigns?"

The dark-skinned, white-haired Vulcanoid woman had activated her tricorder the moment they had materialized, her sensitive eyes needing only the instrument's lighting to see clearly about and what her instrument was telling her in colors, numbers, graphs and colors. Although it was standard-issued, she had extensively modified the instrument to work best with her own rather esoteric methods whilst remaining compatible with Starfleet protocol.

And then there wre her telempathic abilities.

"Affirmative, Sir," she answered after a moment. "But... they're very faint... and fading quickly.  I'm no medic but these readings are not unlike those of a diseased organism at the terminal stage of infection. What I detect however is not biomolecular but subatomic in nature;  high levels of residual baryon radiation, the same type which Starfleet periodically uses to sweep starships utterly clean of all micro-organisms. This vessel was exposed to a vast and intense field of  baryons all over its external surface, so much that it penetrated deep within its entire frame. Sir... This bioship is... dying,"

Snowfire closed her violet eyes a moment then opened them, looking beyond the nearest curved corridor aligning faint embers of glowglobes away from them.

"There is a single mind aboard... I can't determine if it is from a single occupant or from the ship itself... a few hundred meters from here towards the prow. It 's so diffuse and faint that it did not even register to the Circle on the Polaris. I'm getting it only after a moment of being aboard. And Sir... it too is dying."

S'Tan began to survey the area, sweeping his rifle's light across the room. He took out his tricorder and began gathering technical information. Upon hearing Snowfire's comments, he added his own department's analysis. "There's barely any power being generated. If you asked me first, I would have equated the ship to what we would experience if the dilithium was exhausted. The ship is powering down. It seems as though everything is truly connected."

He tapped his tricorder and brought up the tractor beam's information.

"Either way," He continued, frowning, "we need to keep moving. I may have forgotten to mention, but life support is currently being drained from the Polaris. We have 30 minutes to return before there is not enough air to support the amount of life aboard the ship."

Oseno had to restrain himself from nearly having a heart attack as his head jerked in Solius direction "That would have been a piece of information to be volunteered Lieutenant! Why are we draining life support from my ship? You can explain while we move, Major if you will, and quickly please."

"Aye" was McGregor's only reply. While his team was trained for a variety of missions he understood that the primary role of Marines in situations such as this was to be first in and last out.He motioned to Pierce and the Marines led the way down the passage toward the coordinates that Snowfire had given for the location of the sole being on the vessel.

This Nicor class cruiser was but a quarter of the length and width of the dreadnought thay had previously boarded. yet it was built almost exactly the same way as far as it,s innards went. It took them barely a few minutes to go from the aft section to the prow where the control center was located. Along the way, all the glowglobes on each side were either faintly pulsing, darkened or sometimes even bursted open like rotten eggs. The walls were also darkened in streaks and patches like half-burned flesh, seeping thick fluids as from lacerations and a kind of yellowish, sickening sparkling on their dull surface. It truly felt as if looking at the skin of a sick living being; one afflicted with a virulent, fatal sickness.

The Romulan suppressed a grin as the Human overreacted to his actions. He explained his science as they moved through the dying ship.

"As I explained on the Polaris, Sir, I had to bypass multiple layers of security and protocols. I hoped you would understand that meant more than just shutting off the coffee maker. I had to reroute enough power to sustain the beam while I was away from the ship. The only system that could do that in such a small vessel is Life Support. Additionally, I felt it would have made a few of the crew members whom were left on board very...unhappy. Therefore, silence is superior to creating a false panic."

All along the way, openings had been left open like festering wounds, showing beyond their irregular frame other passages looking just as badly afflicted as the main one they were following. At the end, the passage opened to a control centre much like that of Bothby''s vessel, albeit on a much smaller scale. In there, the half of the Marines covered the exit and the room from their weapons'sights, two outside the others inside. The other half had entered to cover with their rifles the sole occupant of the ship.

The three-legged, massive leathery Undine was lying on the floor like a wounded horse. His skin showed the same markings as the hull of his living vessel, his eyes also darkened and glazed. It barely reacted to the arrival of the humanoids around it, lifting a weak three-fingered hand towards them, his large triangular face upturned and panting silently.

Then it turned halfway towards Snowfire.

The Illythirii suddenly stumbled, raised a hand to her head as she used the other to brace herself on the nearest wall. When she touched it, she suddenly shook as if receiving an electric shock.

For a moment, she panted just like the Undine. Then, the creature closed its eyes and its head fell slowly to the floor with its arm raised. The skin turned a pale grey as it lay still, unbreathing.

Snowfire herself leaned panting on the now greying wall for a moment before coming back to her feet to look at Oseno, as her eyes began to clear again. But there was a haunted shadow over them that leadened her voice as she spoke.

"Sir... I... it... This ship... it encountered... something; something huge, like a cloud of stellar dust moving at faster than light speeds... moving with purpose, yet dead.... Living yet without thought, dead to the mind, but still moving with intent. It is moving towards a specific point of Fluidic Space, something called the... the Heart of Life."

Snowfire shook her head like someone trying to lift the cobwebs of a bad dream from her mind.

"There were two others like this ship that met this... giant luminescent cloud. The three of them were... killed as they touched the cloud with their own weapon discharge... like... like..."

She didn't have to finish. The scene she was describing reminded them of how Boothby's dreadnought had destroyed the Undine attack force, emitting a large cloud of irradiated particles that reflected in a huge explosion the energy of their powerful beams a thousandfold. And it also reminded some of them of another thing, something they had all learned about in History courses at the Academy; when a massive, unknown object looking like a titanic cloud had come from deep space, ravaging Klingon space and then Federation Space as it had relentlessly moved towards planet Earth.

"V'ger..." The word came out so quietly from Oseno's mouth that almost no one heard it at first. The Bajoran was a student of the adventures of Captain James T. Kirk, but perhaps more so than other cadets had been as Kirk had fascinated a younger version of Jureth. The man's command style, and ability to think on his feet had earned him every bit of the reputation he had acquired. The encounter with the V'ger ship, morphed from what had once been an ancient Human space probe, was just one of the many attributed to Kirk and his crew. The description of the energy cloud sounded near identical to the one that had carved its way to Earth so many years ago. Oseno looked at Snowfire with concern

"Commander, are you alright? What you are describing sounds exactly like Captain Kirk's encounter with the V'ger entity."

The chief science officer of the Horizon blinked once.

"Yes, Sir, I'm fine. It was just... bewildering. The minds of the Undine are quite peculiar, especially as that they do not think in terms of fixed concepts, in words or even language as we do; more with raw perceptions, emotions and intuitions ordered with a cold and almost mechanical logic fueled by exceedingly centered self-awareness. The thoughts of this one were mingled with the basic consciousness of his ship and they were both very... intense as they felt themselves dying."

She shivered briefly as if to free herself completely of some afterthought or bad feeling. Then she cocked her head a moment before answering his comment.

"Your assessment is a good one, Commander. What I got from this Undine matches in many aspects the incident you mention. Although the energy cloud this ship encountered is smaller and considerably less powerful than the eighty-two AU and twelfth power field of the V'Ger entity, it is nevertheless large and strong enough to disable many good-sized starships in mere seconds. And it moves at high warp towards a determined sector of this universe for purposes unknown."

She paused then closed her eyes a moment before opening them again to stare straight at Jureth.

"What I got also was a definite image that reminded me of something else, much more recent. Just before annihilating the attack fleet that was about to destroy the Horizon and our shuttle, the Undine dreadnought we had boarded produced a vast energy and particle field; a field that created devastating detonations when concentrated energy of high intensity was fired into it and funnelled those amplified detonations back toward their source. What I saw in this dying Undine's mind was basically identical... only much larger and more intense."

She paused again,to let her commanding officer digest the implications of what she was saying. Then, she spoke plainly.

" Sir, we now know the Boothby impersonator's vessel, the largest ever seen so far from their universe, was not to be found in the debris field after the battle. We now know about its defensive field... and this energy cloud plowing it's way into the heart of Fluidic Space. And we know that the Undine who commanded this vessel is dead..."

Now she stopped, clearly trying to rein in the emotions that she feared could hamper her reasoning. Hope was like the tide; it could carry a ship safely to the shore or it could crash against the rocks and everything along with it.

The engineer scoffed at the situation, "The Tal'Shiar always told us that V'ger was a made up superstition to cover up a Federation super weapon. That being said, I think that it is time to return to the ship and seal the portal between our space and fluidic space away. Let the Undine deal with their own problems. Let's be honest...this 'Tree of Life' doesn't sound like something we want to be around when the space dust atomizes it."

Oseno's own analysis did not quite agree with the Romulan's, far from it, and he said as much.

"I don't believe that to be a realistic option Lieutenant, If I am reading what Commander K'Leysha is telling us correctly, I think we may have at leased partly caused this problem. Well, not us directly, but a Starfleet officer....which means the Prime Directive has been violated, and we are obligated to attempt to correct it. Am I right Commander? "

"Yeoman Blackbird herself couldn't have said it better, Sir."

Aware that the chief engineer was even greener than her regarding Federation policies and yet, as logical and reasoning as she was, Snowfire addressed him next.

"If this energy cloud is the same as the one produced by the dreadnought, a vessel we know was not destroyed by the battle near the boundary with Fluidic Space and was not to be found afterwards in our own universe, then it is plausible to assume that this object tearing its way through the Undine's universe is that same vessel. And there was only one being still alive aboard when we left: Captain Kheren."

The Ilythirii woman did not bother to recite the specifics of the Prime Directive to him; if he had not sworn that he knew, understood, accepted and upheld that most sacred law of the Federation, he would never have set foot on a Starfleet vessel to begin with. And if she knew one thing about Romulans, it was what Honor and the Word Given meant to them.

The engineer sighed in defeat. "I understand. Let's assume for a moment that it is the Captain who is controlling the death cloud. Adding in the fact that he is/was a secret Undine operative, why would he be rushing towards this Heart thing. Why not go the other way and finish his mission of destroying the non-Undine?"

"We lack sufficient data to answer those questions," admitted Snowfire. "For one thing, the way the dreadnought acted to save us all from the attacking force would be quite consistent with the behaviour and mind of a starship captain, especially ours. On the other hand, this deadly and massively disruptive course towards what seems a most significant part of this universe is completely wrong for Captain Kheren. If both events are related to him, then there is a key piece of the puzzle we are missing for the moment."

Her purple eyes now focused sharply on those of the Romulan.

"And I would have you know that this Undine operative statement is not a fact at all; it is merely a vague and unfounded suspicion coming from a man whose very troubled  life was based on secrets, deceptions and deceits. I have been in contact with Captain Kheren for some time now; had he been an Undine, I would have known - and taken appropriate action. But to offer you a more objective evidence, there are his wives; the Andorian matrimonial bond could never have developed if the Captain had been anything but a full-blooded Andorian... And any substitution later on would have been immediately detected through it. You are Romulan; don't fall prey to Human suspicions and fears."

Oseno stepped in at that moment and stopped the conversation between the two officers

"Commander K'Leysha is correct, the captain was suspected at one time of being Undine, but was cleared completely of any suspicion. His own security protocols which are in place on the Horizon and the Polaris are designed to detect imposters. All of that aside, we need more information. Commander K'Leysha, unless there is anything we can do for the pilot then we should return to the Polaris so the Lieutenant can stop the drain on the life support system. Then we will meet and decide to either return to the Horizon for help or continue on our own."

" I'm sorry, Sir, but this Undine has no cerebral activity left whatsoever," said Snowfire with a sigh. The ship itself is barely registering any life sign now and getting fainter still.... although there is some weak flaring up here in this control room... But it too is fading."

The Romulan ignored the science officer's attempt at flaring his emotions and hefted his rifle onto his shoulder while checking his tricorder. "There is no rush. We have 10 minutes to return to the ship. The crew should be none the wiser, though the air might be smelling stale to the more acute noses on board. Nothing that pulling a wire out in the environmental systems can't make real."

He turned around to inspect the room one last time. If he had more time, he'd have loved to pull every wall off the ship and see what makes these ships so unique and powerful. However, he assumed that they would be getting a chance very soon to get far too close for comfort.

Nodding to the engineer, Snowfire started recording as much data as possible from what was left of the Undine and his ship before they left. She kept most of her attention on the last flare up of life signal that was coming from the control room, especially from a wall section that looked like some oval-shaped compartment seemingly full of fluids, like a cistern. The recording beeping of her tricorder got slower and fainter and dimmer until the moment it stopped althogether, the greenish liquid in the semitransluscent wall ovoid becoming darker and thicker like some drying dye.

And then, there was nothing left but to leave what had essentially become both a tomb and a corpse.

"That's it, Captain." Snowfire said quietly. "Unless there's anything else, we should leave. Standing in a tomb is not my idea of respectful."

Oseno nodded and tapped his combadge "Oseno to Polaris"

"T'Lana here Sir."

"We've learned all we can here, and we're ready to come home."

"Understood, the transporter room is standing by."

Oseno took another look around the control center of the Undine vessel and at the now dead pilot, and bowed his head for a moment.

"Do not let him walk alone, guide him on his journey..." he said quietly, which was a portion of a Bajoran prayer for the dead, before tapping his combadge again "Oseno to transporter room, five to beam back, energize."

The transporter took them and deposited them in the Polaris transporter room where Somers was waiting with a security team.

"Your weapons have been returned to the ship's armory, please stand still," she ordered as she scanned the away team with a tricorder "Commander Oseno, welcome back, Lieutenant Commander T'Lana is waiting on the bridge."

"Did she get promoted while I was gone?" Oseno said with a smile knowing that Somers was testing him in the preapproved manor "When I left she was a Lieutenant."

"Apologies Sir," Somers replied "You may proceed."

Oseno turned to the other officers "once our security chief clears you Mister Solius fix our life support, and then you and Commander K'Leysha meet me in my ready room in thirty minutes."

The Romulan nodded. "Go ahead chief."

Somers glanced at her tricorder "Lietutenant Solius, good to have you back in one piece, I"m sure you're eager to return to main engineering." Of course she new full well that the lieutenant had not been in the Polaris engineering room.

Solius held up his hand in rejection, "Sorry Marine. I'm sure that Lieutenant Akaal doesn't want a third wheel in there. I came here on the bridge and I'll stay there until we're back with the Horizon."

The security chief nodded "you can proceed Sir, thank you."

Next she addressed Snowfire "Commander, K'leysha, welcome back, ready to get back to the bridge?"

"Not unless the Circle decided to move there whilst I was gone," she paused, forehead wrinkling for a moment, "which they haven't." She smiled. "I might be needed up there later on, but for now I'm quite happy with them."

Somers nodded "Proceed Commander."

As Somers was clearing the Marines Jureth returned to the bridge.

"Report," he ordered

"We are at station keeping Sir" T'Lana reported "The tractor beam is still engaged on the Undine vessel, we have seen no other significant sensor contacts."

"Release the tractor on the Undine vessel Mister Kalaar, and Mister Hunter back us off to a safe distance."

S'Tan took Jureth's order for him as well. He restored power to Life Support, Environmental Controls, Sensors, Shields, Weapons and the Warp Core Integrity Field. He also restored the alarm systems that should have been blaring since he bypassed standard security protocols and tampered with the systems.

As the officers complied Oseno turned back to T'Lana "Lieutenant, in my ready room please." He scanned the bridge "Mister Hunter, you will have the conn when you've finished maneuving."

"Aye Sir."

With the Polaris hold on it broken Oseno watched on the viewer as the dead bioship resumed it's drifting meandering course through fluidic space. He then motioned to T'Lana who followed him into the the Polaris' ready room where he sat behind the desk and motioned her to sit on the other side. Then he brought her up to speed on what they had learned aboard the Undine ship and she raised an eyebrow as he finished speaking.

"If Captain Kheren is the cause of this V'ger like entity Sir, why is he continuing to move into Undine space? Why not return to the Horizon and attempt to signal us?"

"I don't know," Oseno admitted "I don't even know if we can catch up to the ship, and if we do then what? As much as I hate to admit it our best option may be to return to Horizon and report what we've found. I will see what Commander K'Leysha and Lieutenant Solius have to say first though."

"As much as I want to be done with this brown wasteland in space, Sir. I do not believe that returning is the best solution. We have no idea how to open up a portal to the fluidic space, and let's be candid. Starfleet is most likely chewing Captain Redding a new...ear. If we return, we will not be coming back." The Romulan paused for a moment, as an idea came to him. "I believe that we could twist the situation to our advantage in terms of getting permission for an ...'extended stay', if you will. Assuming Kheren is the one controlling the Death Mist, then it is a Starfleet problem. Therefore, as the only Starfleet Officers in the area, is it not our duty to solve this conundrum?"

Oseno nodded "Yes, as I said, if the Prime Directive has been violated we are obligated to try and correct the damage done. Our dilemma is our limited resources, the Horizon would be significantly more capable of resolving this issue.  The aperture that we came through is the only permanent one in existence, it is still there that's why we left a nav beacon behind. We also have Voyager's method for opening a portal should we require it though we'd likely blow out our navigational deflector using Seven of Nine's graviton beam."

"Sounds like you are suggesting to return to the Horizon. I'd be better equipped to handle any extreme stress on the deflector dish...but do we want to run the gambit that Starfleet doesn't haul us off?" The engineer mused. He had spent some time in a Romulan prison once for 'improper use of computers during duty' but his family was able to have him released before he was executed. He assumed Starfleet prisons were much less harsh, but none the less, he was not fond of the idea of returning behind bars.

"Starfleet really isn't in a position to haul us off...at least right now. I'd like to hear Commander K'Leysha's opinion given that she is the senior science officer aboard and definitely has more knowledge than myself on whether we can stop this...ship or not."

Snowfire entered midway through the conversation between Solius and Oseno, having been touching base with her Circle down below to get a full mental check-up from them. She'd been pretty sure that she'd held her own boundaries in the link to the dying Undine, but it helped to have people that could make sure. But now, as the room fell silent again, she spoke. "I've had a little time to process the nature of the situation we face, and whilst I don't know the full capabilities of the Polaris as well as I do the Horizon, I believe that this death cloud is something that we can stop. At the very least, I can promise even odds."

"Given what I gleaned from the mind of the Undine we encountered before he died, the strength of the field around the - presumed - dreadnought is considerable. It is not, however, invincible, and one thing that both have that most Undine bioships do not is a deflector shield. If we modify the deflector to create a full particle screen, it would be theoretically possible to reach the core of the field without suffering severe rad exposure. More, from what we have observed it might well be possible to force the field to expend itself by firing torpedoes modified to emit a finely tuned burst of baryon radiation on detonation. By using the sensors within the torpedoes to observe the field, we could use them to create destructive interference patterns that would disperse the particles over a massive area." She paused, forcing herself to remember safety concerns - it was still hard. "A full particle screen will be far more of a strain on the Polaris's generators, but we'd have a clear safety margin. The only problem is that intensification of particle density against it could severely heighten the power requirements, but if we hold enough modified torpedoes in reserve we should be able to disperse the field faster than it can reform for long enough."

And here was the hardest part of the plan. "From what I saw, I cannot believe that Captain Kheren is not the intelligence controlling the bioship that must be at the core of the death-field. My link to the Undine, however, leads me to several conclusions that I had not considered previously. The level of connection between bioship and Undine is far deeper than we've ever imagined, this being a large part of what makes those ships so deadly, but in this case I believe the result of the field's course. From what we saw of the Captain before we were transported out, he was being merged into the bio-dreadnought to give it a new commander. But that process is one that, for all of his mental strength, I doubt he was able to adapt to fully. From what I saw of it, there are very few in all of known space that would be capable of doing so. But the ship was under attack, and as the connection is so deep the effects of an attack on a ship are felt by its pilot. Consider the likely reaction. Groggy, unknowing of your full capabilities, you find yourself in immense pain and under attack. A presence in your mind tells you your capabilities, and you find a way to destroy that which hurts you. But in doing so, you likely lose yourself - if only for a while. And so the ship defaults to your last command, mixed with its own instincts."

"I believe the ship is trying to return to its home, but is also still in receipt of its new commander's order to destroy any who attack it. This would explain its vector and extremely aggressive posture thus far. I may be off on the exact specifics, but this is most definitely a problem that we must resolve if we do not wish to reignite a war that you," she nodded to Jureth, "so valiantly opened a pathway to stop. And it is the contradiction of order and instinct that offers us our best chance." Snowfire tapped her head gently.

"Between myself and the Circle I have brought with me, I believe I can break into the connection between the bioship and Captain Kheren, but only if we can open a clear pathway where the radiation cannot interfere with our attempts. At that point I will lead an attempt, with the full backing of my Circle and the Polaris's empathic net, to break into the link and pull the Captain far enough clear of the bioship that his rationality returns to him. Given what I know of him, and what I've now had the chance to observe first hand, I believe that given a clear path the Circle and I can succeed in this." She looked again to Jureth. "It is in the end your decision, Captain. But I believe that the plan I have outlined, at its core, is our best chance of successfully preventing the Field of Death - as the Undine called it - from reaching the Heart of Life. And so too preventing the reignition of an utterly genocidal war between two universes."

Oseno paused taking in all the information that the science officer was relaying. He was a tactical officer, he understood torpedoes, phasers, and targets. The science of most of this plan was largely beyond his comprehension,  particularly the telepathic portions of it.

"Commander, this may be an oversimplified question," he said "but do you think the captain would stop if we simply hailed him, or is he likely too lost to recognize us as friendly?"

"I very much doubt that a hail would register - if it was received at all." Snowfire replied. "It would, in my judgement, be more likely to attract hostile attention. The bioship is the primary intelligence in the merge right now - otherwise the ship would have been heading for Andoria. And I do not believe that it is even capable of listening, unless its commander wishes it to. Given the likely state of that commander, subsumed into a merge,  a technological hail is more likely to be seen as an attack."

"Hmm...that is a good piece of information..." Oseno mused and looked at each of the officers in turn "Based on the information at hand, and your expert opinions, I believe we need to do what we can do to try and mitigate the damage being done to the Undine as a race. The Prime Directive has been violated, even if it was done unknowingly, and Starfleet, and by proxy the Federation has been placed in the middle of something akin to a civil war. We are the only Federation representatives in this are of space, and so we will act. Commander K'Leysha, work with Mister Solius, and with anyone else you require to make the systems modifications necessary to carry out your plan. We will move at the best speed we can manage in fluidic space toward the dreadnought's destination. We will remain at yellow alert with our shields up as it is possible we will encounter hostile Undine vessels along the way. Understand that the only way I will reverse our course of action is if you as my staff believe it is no longer in our best interest to continue or I somehow hear from the Horizon and am ordered not to do so. Questions?"

"Orders should it come to the fact that we cannot save the Captain?" The Romulan asked. He knew the weaknesses of the Federation, and death from trying too long to save their fellow crewmen/officers was at the top of the list. "Destroy the vessel and save the Undine?"

"If it comes to that..." Oseno paused a moment, it wasn't that he hadn't considered the possibility, it was just something he had pushed off as unlikely "I will not allow a race to be exterminated to save a single man...neither would he."

The Romulan snapped to attention to acknowledge the command. "Aye, Sir."

He turned to the science officer, "Commander K'Leysha, I can get started on the deflector dish right away, should be simple enough to do and possibly let us glide through Fluidic Space more easily. The torpedoes, on the other hand, are a bit out of my field. If you give me the exact alignment parameters, I should be able to take care of it as well. But I'd feel more comfortable if you coordinated that. I work on ships, not bayon...radiation..."

"Baryon, Lieutenant." Snowfire corrected with a smile. "I'll get the alignment parameters to you within the hour, and work up an algorithm to calibrate the torpedo output to their surroundings so as to create the most effective interference pattern from each detonation. I'll run it by Lieutenant Ji'lan, her speciality is in astrophysics so she should be able to give some insight on the subject, and I would ask that she monitor the effect of the torpedoes as we close. If parameters shift, I have full confidence in her ability to patch the algorithm when necessary." This was more directed at Jureth however, as, technically, Snowfire lay outside the Polaris's internal chain of command. It was more than simple courtesy to ask Oseno for permission to borrow his CSO.

Oseno nodded in response to the unasked question "Whatever, and whoever you need Commander. I'm giving you the authority to do it, I will get us moving. Dismissed."

Oseno stood and strode back out onto the bridge assuming with T'Lana behind him and assuming the other officer would follow suit. 

"Report Mister Hunter."

"We are at station keeping Sir, awaiting your orders." 

"Very well, return to the helm Lieutenant, and set a course along the dreadnought's track, best speed you can manage." 

"Aye Sir." 

Oseno then went over to the ops station "Lieutenant Palos, I want you to drop a message beacon announcing our intention to intercept Boothby's dreadnought. If the Horizon comes looking for us this will at least give them something to follow." 

"Aye Captain," Palos responded and Jureth was surprised the intelligence officer didn't offer some other flippant remark. He returned to the command chair as the Polaris began to move out.

It was at that very moment that  the telepathic wave of the dying Undines struck Snowfire and every member of her Circle aboard... and the Vulcan T'Lana as well.

Oseno saw his friend in obvious pain, and could tell something was wrong with Commander K'Leysha as well and tapped his combage, "Medical Emergency! Medical team to the bridge!"

The reaction from the Circle was instantaneous, every member extending and taking the mental 'hand' of all others and channelling their concentrated power to Snowfire. And well that it was, for the reaction of the Ilythirii CSO had been even faster. She'd flung her power into the Aegis around the Polaris, shielding all aboard from the worst initial effects, but leaving her standing alone until the Circle responded. And for that a brief moment she fought a futile battle against the tsunami of emotion pouring out of Fluidic Space from the minds of now-dead Undine. The Aegis cracked, the intense sense ability of a Tri-Gifted weakening her via her inability to lock her passive sensing - for if she did, she'd lose her hold on the Aegis - and her mind writhed under the onslaught.

But then the Circle was there.

Power flooded into her, the combined strength of over a dozen telepaths - all trained to a level far beyond that of most member of the Federation - combining with the power they were funnelling from the empathic net to grant her the strength to hold the psionic shield they'd erected around the Polaris. For an endless moment, even that fluxed beneath the onslaught, but then the sheer distance from which the emotion was coming caught up with it. And powerful though that signal was it was also spread out, and spreading ever further in each passing instant. Against a single telepath, or even a group that did not know how to act together, it could have been devastating, but against an Aegis with Snowfire as its keystone and a full Circle behind her it was...manageable. Only just, but an "only just" still counted as a success.

Snowfire let out a long, shuddering breath as the moment of unbearable stress failed, releasing the power of the Circle back into itself as she assessed the state of her mind. She was ok...but there was damage there now. If she was lucky, it would subside by the time they reached the Dreadnought, but if not... she shook herself. If it didn't, it didn't, she'd survive. She had to. Then she looked across at Jureth.

"We..." she shook her head, mostly to clear it, "we just got hit by the equivalent of a telepathic sledgehammer. The Aegis around the Polaris held however, even thought it was very close for a few moments." She took another breath, straightening back up to her full height as her system stabilised. "It was loosed by death, the death of scores of Undine and their ships. I can only imagine that a larger force gathered in an attempt to deflect the dreadnought from its course...and given the speed at which they're reacting, we likely have little time before it is confronted by vessels more in its weight class - if not larger still."

"I will be fine, I just need a little rest, but it now become imperative that we reach the dreadnought before any further response can be mustered. I can only imagine what a full reaction force might be like, considering the size of the Undine force deployed in their crusade against the Borg."

The medical team arrived at that moment and Oseno directed the corpsman and Doctor Lowe toward Snowfire and T'Lana "We've just been hit with a massive telepathic wave Doctor, please evaluate Lieutenant T'Lana and Commander K'leysha for any residual effects. You may want to send a team to evaluate the members of our telepathic vanguard as well." Oseno looked over at Snowfire "I'm sorry Commander, but in the interest of you all I want the Doctor to do her thing."

"Fantastic," The Romulan exclaimed sarcastically, "So now we're being attacked by ghosts. Technology can't protect us against that! I will double down the efforts to modify the deflector dish."

The engineer brought up the schematics of the Polaris' deflector onto his screen. The design was simple because of the smaller ship, but it was much harder to pull the required power. He was sure that they'd need life support, so he pushed his prior stunt aside. He eventually determined that if he increased the M/AM reaction speed in the warp core, they could effectively double the power output. This of course was highly dangerous as it puts more strain than the recommended amount on the core's containment unit. Before he gave the word, he looked over at the Captain.

"Sir, A word about the modifications to the deflector dish. We might have an issue."

Oseno looked at the Romulan as he took in Snowfire's report regarding the telepathic wave, this mission was starting to take a turn he did not like.

"What is it Lieutenant?" he asked as evenly as he could manage, another problem was just not something they needed right now.

The engineer ran his hand over his hair as he spoke. "Well Sir, the ship is too small to successfully just increase the deflector field's size. The Horizon would be able to handle it, with the way the warp cores are aligned. But the Polaris? It's single core isn't designed for what I'm trying to accomplish. There are two options to modify the core. Both are bad. Firstly, I can do what I did before." He let himself stop there, as he knew the Captain would understand.

"But I don't think that is a long term viable option, as the systems are still resetting." He continued. "My only other option without more time to research is to incrase the Matter/AntiMatter reaction in the core. But it's a high danger procedure that would increase the power output. But by doing so, would limit our warp capabilities to 6.2 and the increased strain on the warp core's casing. But lets just say that the...turbulence would give an increased chance of a breach. I've already run some numbers. We'll be able to survive 10 minutes in the cloud, but beyond that I cannot guarantee that we'll leave safely."

"What if we do nothing, and rely strictly on the modified torpedoes to get us into the cloud?"