— USS Andromeda, Bridge —

‘Peoples of Alpha Centauri, hear the voice of the Vaadwaur Supremacy. Your isolation is by our design. Your defenses are inadequate. Your worlds are claimed for the glory of the supremacy.’

Captain Olivia Carrillo had always wondered how chilling it would have been to see the Borg at Wolf 359, and watch their broadcast as they tore through the fleet. Now she was standing on the deck of her ship, watching what may be just as chilling an announcement from a strange power promising the subjugation of the Federation and all its peoples. While this might have lacked some of the body horror of being assimilated, it was none-the-less a shock to the system. She glanced behind her where Lieutenant Claudia Jara the Chief Security Officer was standing at the tactical controls.

It was Lieutenant Eishita Das at the science station who spoke first. The Assistant Chief Science Officer said, “Captain we’ve seen an opening in Underspace. Ships emerging from the opening.”

The main display changed to show a hole that they had seen last year when Underspace had opened its various portals all across known space, and several ships emerged from it. Some were small fighter craft and some were large capital ships. It was clearly a war party, dropped right into an out-of-the-way backwater solar system in the Triangle.

“Shields up,” Carrillo said, adding, “Red alert. Try hailing the ships.”

“I think they’ve made their intentions known,” said her First Officer the Andorran Kan Th’kaotross. 

“If you’re going to punch someone in the face there’s no reason not to be polite about it,” Carrillo said.

Jara spoke up, “No answer. Fighters are approaching.”

“What are we looking at?” Th’kaotross asked as the crew was not at all familiar with the ships of the Vaadwaur Supremacy. 

“Fighters have energy weapons and torpedoes, there seem to be two larger ships, heavily armed with torpedoes and energy weapons,” Jara said, scanning. 

“Das I want everything we have on the Vaadwaur Supremacy, has Starfleet ever encountered them, who the hell are these people? What do they want,” Carrillo said.

Suddenly the ship shook, as canon blasts from the two larger ships hit the raised shields. The fighters streaked for the Starfleet ship, launching torpedoes.

“Can we stop being polite now,” Th’kaotross asked as the ship shook with the initial blows.

“Pr’Nor, flight pattern delta, gamma, six,” Carrillo said, “Jara phasers targeting the fighters when we get into position torpedoes at the larger craft.”

The Andromeda leapt into motion. What the crew did not yet know, was that they were being attacked by a relatively small force of twenty Pythus-class fighters, and two Manasa-class assault escorts. Since the Vaadwaur Supremacy had not anticipated much in the way of resistance in that particular solar system they had not sent an overwhelming force that gave the Andromeda a chance.

While a large ship, the Andromeda was quick, significantly quicker at sub-light speeds than its Galaxy-class predecessor. It arched to the side, lashing out with its phasers at the fighters. Those that got close enough where targeted by the Type-XII Pulse Phaser Turret. Beyond testing the Andromeda had yet to use it’s weapons system,  and so while they had more punch than back when there were on the Luna-class USS Luna, Carrillo was nervous. Having spent the last months doing either surveys or diplomacy it was god to see that the ship could rouse itself in defence.

“Shields holding at ninety-six percent,” Jara said, before she launched the first salvo of photon torpedoes from the forward burst-fire launcher at the Manasa-class assault escorts.

Lieutenant Das had looked up the Vaadwaur Supremacy, but did not want to interrupt the captain in the middle of the fight. Nothing she had was relevant, it was not like she had discovered a secret weakness, or that the file said that they were afraid of loud noises or anything like that.

“We could really use the Falcon right now,” Th’kaotross said about the DIvision’s other ship, that had just left and gone beyond calling range.

“I thought Andorians liked a good fight,” Carrillo teased.

“Not when we’re outnumbered,” the First Officer said.

The doors to the bridge opened as more staff entered, including Lieutenant Commander Vanessa Hume the First Officer of Andromeda Division, who was currently its acting commanding officer now that the Andromeda was cut off from all communication. 

“Who are these jerks?” she asked, not recognizing the ships, and she had thought that she was up on most threat vessels that they would be facing. Perhaps pirates, but it was too coordinated for pirates and what was worth stealing around here?

“The Vaadwaur Supremacy, the USS Voyager met them on their trek through the delta quadrant,” Das said, able to offer her insight now.

“Any clue what they want, beyond domination,” Carrillo asked.

“That’s about it, former empire that had fallen,” Das said.

“They seem to have got back up,” Th’kaotross noted dryly.

“Captain we’re almost done with the fighters,” Jara said. Thankfully the fighters did not seem to be well shielded, unlike the Andromeda. 

Carrillo who had been pacing sat down in the center chair, “Finish off the fighters then hit one of the bigger ships with two quantum torpedoes. Let’s see what they’re like when the numbers are more even. Pr’Nor change to flight pattern Sierra Whisky Tango.”

The two torpedoes struck one of the larger ships. It ceased firing and then Jara announced, “I’m detecting catastrophic explosions internally.”

“Don’t let the last ship run, I want to talk to someone,” Carrillo said.

“It’s still firing,” Jara replied.

“They’ve lost,” Carrillo said, puzzled that there was no hail for parlay.

“They don’t see it that way,” Th’kaotross said.

“Send the following message, ‘This is Captain Carrillo of the Federation starship Andromeda. You have attacked us in an unprovoked manner. Stand down now before we are forced to respond with further violence,’”Carrillo said.

“Ma’am, it’s picking up speed. It looks like it’s trying to ram us,” Jara said.

“Pr’Nor don’t let them ram us,” Carrillo said.

“That would be logical,” the Vulcan Chief Flight Control Officer said.

“Should I fire on them?” Jara asked.

Carrillo sighed, her nature as a Starfleet officer told her that there had to be some way to negotiate and end to this, but clearly, the Vaadwaur Supremacy wanted the fight. While the Andromeda was fast enough and agile enough to keep them from ramming them, eventually allowing a ship to fire on them was going to have negative consequences.

“Repeat the warning on all bands, then if they don’t stop fire on them,” Carrillo said.

Jara nodded and worked on that, “They’re not stopping. Opening fire, phasers first.”

The shields on the Manasa-class assault escorts were not as strong as on the Andromeda which had the newest metaphasic shielding. The phasers stuck the outline and as the Andromeda continued to fly in patterns around it, the ship’s shields died and then the phasers cut though the metal of the hull until the ship was too badly damaged to hold together. 

“Well that was…” Th’kaotross started then sighed, not saying anything more.

The Strategic Operations officer within Lieutenant Commander Hume piped up, “If they came here, they likely went elsewhere and in more force. Normally there’s just these two worlds, with minor space navies, this fight would have been over before it began and they’d have control of the region.”

Carrillo nodded, “Okay, and it sounded like they’re responsible for our predicament of not being able to communicate. So where do we slowly go at warp three?”

For a moment nobody answered then Carrillo tapped her commbadge, “Commander Young, how’s the ship holding up?”

Through the comm system the voice of the Chief Engineer emerged, “Were we just in a fight?”

“Yes,” Carrillo said.

“Shields held, no damage to the ship,” Young said.

“Good, fix anything broken and find me a way to go faster. I’m allowing you to break the laws of physics,” Carrillo said.

“Oh that’ll be easy,” Young said sarcastically.

Ending the communication Captain Carrillo looked at what senior staff was on the bridge, “Okay two hours, I want plans and I want destinations. Are we going to Starbase 86, assuming that these attacks also happened there, or where are we going?”

— USS Andromeda, Conference Room Two —

The senior staff assembled as requested after the two hours had passed. In attendance was also Federation Ambassador T’Venik, for while she held no rank with Starfleet, she was an advisor on the ship. Lieutenant Commander Diya Acharya the chief diplomatic officer was also there, as a senior chief, though likely it seemed no diplomacy would be occuring.

The meeting began with Commander James Young the Chief Engineer reporting on the battle damage.

“Shields held, dropping no lower than seventy-four percent during the battle. We’ve depleted our torpedo stores a bit, but nothing dramatic. We’re back up to peak status, no damage. Our only problem remains this no warp thing,” Young reported, adding, “Which Petty Officer Aasus Breasi  and I might have a work around for.”

Carrillo leaned forward in her chair, eager to hear how they were going to get around this imposed warp limit, “Well?”

Young nodded, “We can jury rig a slipstream drive. It’ll take about two days.”

Lieutenant Commander Gabriella Miller protested, “We don’t have any benamite crystals, those are required for slipstream travel.”

Young nodded in agreement, “We don’t but the third planet from the sun does. I found a small trace amount there  with scans. We can mine it and get it aboard the ship in about three days.”

Carrillo asked, “How long are we talking all in before we can use it?”

“About five days,” Young said, “that’s if we start now. And assuming I can build a slip stream engine from scratch which isn’t something I’ve ever done.”

Carrillo nodded, “Okay Young build that damn drive. Miller oversee getting us the benamite crystals. Use the runabouts. I want us to be able to move quickly in five days. If you have to leave now, do it. The rest of the meeting is going to be deciding what to do.”

Young and Miller both stood up from the table and the two officers left the room, on their way to set everything in motion. With some idea of how they would go, the crew just needed to know where they would be going. That was what Carrillo wanted to discuss next.

After the departure of Chief Engineer Young and Chief Science Officer Miller the table turned from practical conversations on how they’d move to a more philosophical one about where they were going once they could go somewhere.

“The Vaadwaur Supremacy are clearly behind us not being able to go anywhere or talk to anyone,” Commander Th’kaotross pointed out, “We should assume that they’re launching assaults against Starfleet targets in Federation space.”

T’Venik’s eyebrow raised, “They addressed their message to all species, do we not assume they are also attacking Klingon, Romulan, Cardassian, and other targets as well.”

“That’s a lot,” Carrillo said, “Even the Dominion tried to keep the various powers divided.”

Chief Counsellor Yuhiro Kolem offered her opinion based not on the tactical realities but on what they’d heard in the message which they’d replayed for the meeting, “They don’t seem like confidence is something in short supply. They took one one of the newest ships in the Federation with a minimal amount of force. They really only have met the USS Voyager, they could be overestimating themselves and underestimating us.”

Carrillo nodded, “Maybe, but being able to suppress warp and communication is a heck of an advantage. So where do we go Starbase 86, I imagine they’re under attack.”

Lieutenant Commander Victoria Hume shook her head, “Maybe the answer isn’t so obvious. Starbase 86 has defences, not every target will. We’re in a neutral zone, not far from Romulan space. There’s large populated Romulan worlds that don’t have a starbase or a fleet to protect them.”

Th’kaotross looked unhappy with that, “Damn the Romulans. We protect the Federation first.”

“We can do more good and save more lives if we help the Romulans,” T’Venik agreed.

An argument started and the senior staff quickly became divided over what the correct course of action was. The trouble was that Captain Carrillo saw no one clear course. Everything had pluses and minuses and the truth was that though the Andromeda was a part of Andromeda Division she was the captain. As long as that was true this came down to her. 

“Alright quiet, quiet,” Carrillo said holding up her hands to silence the room.

She continued once everyone’s focus had returned to her, “Since we can’t go anywhere we’ll make that decision in four days. Until then Lieutenant McKenzie, sends communication probes out in all directions. See if we can’t use them to network our way to be able to talk to someone. Klingons, Romulans, Federation. We’re smack dab in the middle of three people, we should figure out who we’re helping. We’ll meet again in four days and see what’s changed.”The Chief Communications Officer Randolph McKenzie nodded, “Yes ma’am.”

“Hume, Th’kaotross go over what we learned during the fight. Compare it to what we know about the Vaadwaur Supremacy so we know what we’ll be up against next time. Let’s meet back here in for days and see where we are then,” Carrillo said, knowing that her orders would satisfy no one and all that she was managing to do was kick the decision down the road a little.

She stood and gathered her PADD, “Dismissed.”