Starbase One
Fleet Admiral Williamson fast walked to his desk in his office atop Starbase One, reading the long range message displayed on the PADD. Admiral Herring followed Williamson closely, anticipating questions, as the twin doors to Williamson’s office closed behind them with a subtle hiss. The day had been concerning, but the information on the PADD had even Starfleet Intelligence on their toes. This fact translated to every man and woman in uniform was potentially going to be under scrutiny, something no one outside of the immediate surroundings was currently aware of. But it was hard to ignore when a five-star is fast walking by with a PADD in their hand with a four-star following closely behind them, and neither looked happy about whatever was going on.
“How old is this message?” Williamson asked directly, walking around his desk and taking sitting down. Admiral Herring stood a few feet from the front of Williamson’s desk with his hands coupled behind his back at casual attention as he waited for more questions he anticipated were coming as Williamson tapped the beeping command to display more of the message. There was less than a page worth of writing, but the screen was small, and the message his wonder what was going to tell the president immediately after this meeting. Fleet positioning details rolled around in his mind, and he began subconsciously contemplating recommending changing the orders of ships throughout the rest of the fleet. He wasn’t happy with what he was reading. Herring unknowingly thought many of the same things.
“Approximately two minutes ago, right before we lost contact with Voyager.”
Williamson read the last of the message, and then firmly dropped the PADD on his desk. Herring recognized the gesture and tensed up as Williamson looked up at him and asked, “What about the Freedom?”
Herring turned his head. “No word, sir, since that message. We lost contact with them at approximately 20-hundred-hours. Their last long-range message indicated they were entering the bottleneck. We did receive a heavily-distorted message fragment that indicated they made it through the bottleneck safely, but the rest of the message was garbled. Intelligence is working on trying to make sense of it, but there’s very little that go through. They doubt there is enough actionable intelligence to go on.”
The question Williamson was asking himself in silence mid-contemplation of what decision to recommend to the president was whether or not the message was garbled due to mechanical failure, environmental interference. . . Then he looked at his desktop monitor screen and noticed the time (his appointment with the president was in five minutes, and he had decided what action he was going to recommend to the president), then he immediately looked up and directly said, “That will be all. Dismissed.”
Williamson and Herring exchanged a salute and then Herring quickly walked out of the office, heading to Intelligence headquarters. Williamson stood up, paged the president’s office to notify the president’s staff that he was on his way, picked up the PADD, and then immediately started for the president’s office which was a transporter beam, a brisk walk, and a brief check by Starfleet security away.
USSC Voyager
One-third of the bridge crew entered cargo bay two through a pair of wide twin doors, right behind a median-sized pirate who was eager to profit from having participated capturing such an apparently prized starship. Several crew members were effectively tossed across the cargo bay like a toddler playing with their block toys as the other median-height pirate before the rest of the bridge crew entered and proceeded to the back of the cargo bay. Aaen had recovered somewhat and noticed the commotion and shifted his weight slightly as though he was going to step in to intervene—holding back as the pirate sharply held the business end of the high-powered particle rifle inches from Aaen’s face.
“DO IT! DO IT! C’MON!” the pirate taunted him, inching the end of the barrel closer to Aaen’s face. Aaen was still a little woozy and felt a tad off-balance and decidedly held back and rejoined the rest of the bridge crew.
“ALL OF YOU! AGAINST THE WALL! NOW!” the leading pirate growled. The bridge crew complied quickly. The bridge crew were back-first against the wall and looking around as though waiting for one of the Pirates to snap. The Pirates proceeded to taunt the captain, first officer, and ambassador—mocking the fact that they lost control of their ship. The command crew held their emotional and psychological ground, as it were. Aaen was more interested in where the tallest of the Pirates was at, and what they were doing. Worse, he was starting to worry about what the Pirates were planning to do, both with the Voyager, the Freedom, what might have happened with the other ship in the envoy, and, even more, what their big-picture plan was. . . He was also wondering where the Delta Force commander was, and what they were going to do to stop what was happening here. Maybe he was fighting the tall pirate on the bridge? No. He wasn’t there when the ship was being taken over. . . But. . . Where?
The two Pirates were pacing with their particle rifles panning over the bridge officer lineup. . . Almost as though they were waiting for something. . . Aaen and the deputy were silently studying their behavior, looking for some sign of weakness. . . Then the Pirates stopped in the middle of the cargo bay, about ten feet apart facing the crew. Their posture had changed. They were holding their rifles more deliberately now, almost like they were preparing to fire. There was some sort of chatter coming from under their helmets, then the pirate on the right directly shouted, “Yes, SIR!” The pirate looked at the pirate standing closer to the cargo bay entrance and nodded, “Now!”
They quickly took aim: the captain and the deputy were the first to be targeted. “Good-bye!—FIRE!”
A subtle flash of light boomed from the front of the cargo bay amid the black concealment of offline overhead lights and stacks of tall cargo containers. The pirate on the right shuddered as though a bolt of lightning had just struck it in the back. The pirate collapsed instantly, nearly motionless and unresponsive with its rifle sliding on the deck a few feet away. The other pirate snapped and the sound of the pirate’s gear clashing with the floor, then the pirate turned around and aimed directly behind him. A second abrupt booming flash slammed the pirate flat on its side, sliding backward for a few feet, its weapon a few inches away from where the pirate was standing.
The crew stood slightly more at ease. Aaen and the deputy rushed to collect the Pirates’ rifles as the source of the two shots ran toward the bridge crew.
“Are you all okay? Is everyone alright?” the Delta Force commander asked the captain directly.
The captain nodded and made direct eye contact. “Report.”
“It’s not good, captain. The Pirates control the key areas of the ship. We have greater numbers, but they out-gun us nearly three-to-one. What little sensor log information is available indicates Freedom is nearly completely disabled. They have partial life support, but they’re running on emergency power. The security forces on Voyager aren’t enough to retake the ship. What’s worse: Maddog—himself—is coming here, to Voyager. The Pirates do have something big planned for the Federation, but they’re doing a good job of keeping tight-lipped about it. Whatever’s going on, the Pirates don’t seem too concerned about Federation resistance.”
“What do you recommend we do next?” the captain asked sharply.
“I think our first move should be to retake the ship. Once we re-establish full-tactical-control of Voyager, we’ll be in a much better position to mount a counter-offensive.”
“How are we going to do that when all of our security forces are on their knees with particle rifles trained on them?” the deputy asked.
“Maybe we can signal the fleet to come and help us!” the Right-Wing Sensor officer quipped.
“That’ll be impossible unless we can re-take the bridge or main engineering. But I doubt any such effort will be successful with so many Pirates on board.”
“We need a large-scale tactical plan, captain,” Aaen interjected directly.
“Correct.” the Delta Force commander quipped.
The captain looked at Aaen and said, “Agreed.”
“We’re gonna need a lot more weapons to retake the ship,” the first officer interjected.
The Delta Force Commander nodded sharply and then said, “There is an armory not far from this location. If we can get to it, we can get arms and gear for nearly every member of the bridge crew. We will need to act quickly. There are about ten or fifteen Pirates headed this way. I barely managed to sneak past them en-route to this location.”
The captain turned around and looked at the rest of the bridge crew, “Okay. Crew! Our immediate objective is to get to the armory, get armed, and then begin working to retake the ship.” the captain declared. Aaen wasn’t the only bridge crew member who was excited at the prospect as he held the pirate’s particle rifle in front of him with the stock pointed at his shoulder and the barrel at the floor to his left and his finger just slightly above the trigger pool.
The Delta Force Commander looked at the captain and nodded, “Agreed, captain. We will need to move quickly, and quietly. Crew, if we are discovered, we may never see our families or the Federation again. I’m sure I don’t need to remind you of how Pirates treat unwilling captives. . .” he spoke darkly. Several crew members, paid particular attention to his tone of voice and the look on his face, despite the dim lighting, including Aaen, and took this as a challenge of survival, recalling what they had all heard about the Pirates in years prior. Their spines chilled for a few seconds, but the challenge to survive outweighed the fear and anxiety of what the rumors entailed. Aaen clenched the grip on his rifle and held it higher as if to prepare to snap, aim and fire. “Captain, we will move out on on your order and proceed to the armory to prepare to retake the ship. Even as we speak, we are running out of time.”
“Shouldn’t we take their uniforms and gear to blend in?” the bridge engineer asked.
The Delta Force Commander turned his head dismissingly, “There’s no time for that. There’s too many of them coming for that to work in time.”
Enough debate. “—Move out.” the captain commanded.
The Delta Force Commander gestured for Aaen and the deputy to take a position at the edge of the primary twin door entrance to the cargo bay—
Footsteps echoed faintly through the adjacent corridor—the sound was getting louder.
A second series of gestures indicated to fall back and take up new positions.
The sounds of a paced march down the corridor got louder. They were nearly here! Aaen realized, snapping and training his rifle on the doors as he marched backward to the position the Delta Force Commander gestured for him to take. Aaen glared down the rifle sights, resting his finger firmly on the rifle’s trigger—
*****
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