Tyran stood with Dinara on the uppermost
level of the station where there was a large viewing window. They looked out
into space where eventually, out of the gloom, a small object appeared against
the stars, slowly sailing toward the station. As it grew larger, the two could
make out that it was the Federation. They watched as she gracefully maneouvered
in and docked agaisnt one of the lower pylons.
"Time to go" he said to Dinara. The two stepped into the turbolift
and headed down to the pylon where the rest of the crew would be assembling.
They stepped out of the lift where The crew were already assembling. Karissa
and A.J, Sular and To Porat were there. Ensign Gregholt hurried orund hte corner
not wanting to be late and came and stood with the group. Lastly, Kira and doctor
Jin exited another turbolift and joined the group. Now the only survivng crew
from the late Ronin were assembled ready to be greeted once again by their captain.
The sound of an airlock opening could be heard throught the bulkheads. Then
another. Finally, the one they were staring at moved slowly to the left with
a hiss. There stood Captain Evans and Admiral Pike. They stepped out and greeted
the crew.
Pike, knowing only three of the crew went to them to greet them.
"It's so good to see you again Admiral" said Dinara giving him a hug. Pike uneasily tensed up a bit and tried to push her off
"It's.. good to see you too.. Dinara..."
"It's been a while Admiral" said Tyran extending his hand.
"Likewise Tyran. Your looking better than you did"
"Thank you sir" replied Tyran, his cuts and bruises having cleared up.
"And Kira. It's good to see you on your feet"
"Thank you sir. It's good to be on my feet." smiled Kira.
"I'm affraid, gentlemen, and Dinara. We don't have time for niceties right now. Captain Evans wants everyone in the conference lounge of the Federation immediately. We'd better head on in. The other crew had already gone onboard with Captain Evans. Tyran was already starting to like the ship as he stepped through the airlock. It was a great change from the cramped, dark corridors of the Ronin. These corridors were far wider and better illuminated. It reminded him a lot of the Knight.
"So this is our new assigned ship?" asked Tyran
"It is Tyran. Like what you see?"
"I do, Admiral, I do."
"Your easily impressed Tyran. Wait till you here the armaments on this ship."
"Go on" said Tyran brimming over with excitement.
"Well, defensive first. She comes with type 3 ablative armour. The toughest yet created. Metaphasic shielding and refractive shielding."
"Not bad"
"Now for the weaponry.... Four type XVII phaser arrays, two forward and two aft. Standard compliment of 100 tri-cobalt torpedoes, 400 photon torpedoes and 250 quantum torpedoes."
"That sounds pretty standard for a vessel of this size" remarked Tyran
"You haven't heard the best parts yet. Under the primary hull, Starfleet have put into place the first Isokinetic cannon in Starfleet." Tyran's eyes widened at the mention of this. "Also, agaisnt the wishes of many people in command, the Ronin is carrying a trilithium explosive"
"Admiral? Trilithium?"
"Tyran... I have something that the three of you should know. Only us four and the Captain will know of this. The Talosians wants this crew to be kept together and have the best ship in the fleet."
"The Talosians?!" exclaimed Kira.
"What could they want?" added Dinara.
"All I know is that we may be facing a threat very soon which will shape the very fate of the Federation and this entire galaxy."
Although Pike didn't mention what was to happen, the three of them all knew of what he was referring too.
The turbolift they were riding in came to a sudden halt and opened onto the bridge. They forgot about what Pike had just said about the Talosians and stepped out in awe. Tyran walked round the back past the mission ops stations and started looking over the tactical station. Kira stepped into the middle and began inspecting his chair. Dinara stood by the turbolift entrance with Pike just looking around.
"Gentlemen, sightseeing will have to be done later" interrupted Pike. "For now, we have a briefing to attend and are running late."
Tyran and Kira hurried after Pike and into the conference room. They took seats around the table and Captain Evans stood and began the meeting.
"Firstly, I'd like to say, it's great to be back." he said to a brief round of applause. "Secondly, let me introduce our new crew that will be joining us now. Firstly, our new Chief Of Security, Lieutenant Sean O'neil." Sean took gave an acknowledgemnt as to who he was. "and secondly, our new chief medical officer, Doctor Hancock." Hancock gave a little wave. "Lastly, Lieutenant Wang, our new Science officer and of course, you all know Admiral Pike.
One final thing before we get down to business, with the death of Lieutenant McQueen we have no chief engineer. With Ensign McCloud killed as well, there is only one person left who can fulfil the job, if of course he is up to it. Ensign Steven Gregholt, step forward please."
Gregholt stood up and walked toward the Captain knowing what was about o transpire and looking pretty pleased with himself.
"Ensign Gregholt, as of this day, you are now Chief Engineer of the USS Federation. Furthermore, I hereby promote you to the rank of Lieutenant Junior Grade." Ryan took a pip out of a small black box that had been before him on the table. "Congratulations Lieutenant. Do me proud."
"I will Captain, thank you sir" he said before returning to his seat
"Ok, I apologise for bringing you all into this straight away, but this has to be taken care of, before we can progress on our mission. There is the small matter of our duplicates. With the Gemini device destroyed, there is no chance of them duplicating again. Two of them are already 'finsihed off' thanks to Commander Bentara. That leaves four to go. Kira, Tyran, Tricia and Steve. Our mission is to find the Aldrin and these four and 'get rid of them' as soon as possible. We already picked up what could be the Aldrin on long range sensors, but before we go in for the kill, we need a way of overcoming the small matter of Commander Kira. Any ideas?"
"Captain, there isn't just the matter if Commander Kira, sir" butted in Tyran with a hint of urgency in his voice. "Sir, they have knowledge of Han'gosian shield technology." The few in the room that knew what this was suddenly looked hopeless.
"Excuse me? What exactly is Han'gosian shielding?" asked Talsmin
Tyran started to explain but Ryan butted in. "No need, Tyran, he said tapping a few buttons in front of him. The room went dark and a holographic projection was displayed in the middle of the table with complete schematics of Han'gosian shielding and explanations.
"That's a nice bit of technology" said Talsmin. "Where did you lay hands on that?"
"Just a little encounter we had aboard the Knight" said Pike. "Nothing to important right now. The important thing is, we have no way of overcoming them and if they have installed that shielding on the Aldrin, then we won't sand a chance of taking it down."
"Wait a minute, yes we will" spoke up Gregholt. "We could use the isokinetic cannon. The cannon uses an incredibley high yield of energy, most of which it uses to collapse the shields by overloading the shield grid. Even after doing so, it should still retain enough energy to blast through 10 metres of monotanium armour. Now, obviously, this would destroy a ship like the Aldrin, but we could lower the energy level so that there is only enough to disable the ship once through."
"You would also need to alter the phase varience of the cannon so that it wouldnt be affected by the shielding" added Talsmin.
"But do we have to kill them?" asked Karissa
"I agree" added Dinara. "I don't think killing them should be necessary."
"What would you suggest? That you let an evil duplicate of me roam free about the galaxy?" asked Kira. "Besides, we seem to be forgetting that I could easily stop an isokinetic cannon. I could just absoard the energy. It would be of no use."
"The Trilithium device?" asked O'Neil
"Far to dangerous and lethal for a single shuttle." stated Pike. "Weapons are out of the question as far as Kira is concerned"
"What we need is a way to drain Kira of his energy" said Ryan who was gazing out of the window. "Is there a way to do it?"
The room was filled by blank faces.
"There may be a way" came a voice from the end of the table. It was Lieutenant Wang. "About twelve years or so ago, the crew of the USS Enterprise encountered a device in a debris field which drained the ships energy and they couldn't restore power. If we could create a portable device that would drain Kira's energy, then he would be a normal human i would assume and would pose no more threat than one."
"That would work" said Kira. "I never heard of that Enterprise incident nor would I have ever thought of that. He would be caught completely unawares"
"There's still the matter of deploying the device within a close enough proximity. For that, we would have to beam aboard which would mean getting through the shields."
"I still stick with my idea of the isokinetic cannon" added Gregholt.
"I think it may be our only chance to get the shields down quick and get onboard quickly." added Talsmin.
"The isokinetic cannon, no. That we can use as a backup incase the Han'gosian shielding is in place." said Tyran. "What I propose is that we use the tri-cobalt torpedoes to take out the shields. It should only take three or four for a shuttle of that size. Then we disable propulsion and weapons with our phasers. Beam aboard, and get the job done."
"What do you think Admiral?" asked Ryan.
"This is your show Captain."
"Gregholt, I want you and the
chief to set up the isokinetic cannon should we need it. Wang, Kira, work on
the energy dampening device. Tyran, get a battle plan laid out. The rest of
us will take duty stations. Dismissed."
