Star Trek: Phoenix-X / The Unreliable's Light
“Convergencies, Part II”
Soon, both ships were at standard warp to the Eta Serpentis Sector. Devoid, Tong, Gewdeque, Wally, Veker and the Unreliable’s EMH were sitting in the Phoenix-X’s conference room alone, preparing a plan to present to Breezie and Commander Seifer.
“Alright, so what have we got so far? We know that the Hiss is drawn to ships holding chronitons, but how could we attack without further damaging the timelines?” Devoid asks, leaning on the conference table.
Tong started. “What about dampening fields around the containment chambers? We could isolate field drops when we extract from the source.”
“Everything about this entity suggests an extradimensional sensory aspect,” Veker gathered. “I suspect they would supersede the field.”
Gewdeque was in deep thought before she tapped the table to get her out of it. “There have been cases where interphase devices have reconfigured chronitons to modify normal matter into an interphasic/cloaked state. Geordi and Ro in our timeline’s Enterprise-D, for example. Perhaps we could modify the chronitons themselves so they’re not detectable.”
Devoid looked to the side briefly and sighed. “I don’t think those modifications could work. Plus, according to what I’ve read on your computers, the transporter caused that and ours has been kaput for a good while. Also, we don’t know what the Hiss can and can’t detect. It’s practically like playing a deadly game of Minesweeper.”
“Even then, a direct confrontation is deadly. Before we went through the crack that led to your timeline, we were being ripped to shreds like it was Azati Prime all over again,” Wally stated, sounding like he’d rather not remember what had happened.
Gewdeque crossed her arms and squinted the other crew. “If she’s undefeatable, then please just come out and say so.”
“Seifer to Gewdeque. We’ve reached the Amaranthine. We should begin preparations to harvest the nebula.”
She tapped her combadge. “Sir, Devoid suggests the procurement of chronitons on starships is the cause of Hiss attacks. We seek methods of aggression divergent from annihilation.”
“Hm. It’s possible, although she did not attack until we started the testbed offensive. Have your team prepare the bussard ramscoop for now, and please let me know if you guys come up with any solutions. In the meantime, I will confer with Captain McKormic. Seifer out.”
—
Breezie sat in her ready room, drinking some coffee to keep her focused as she was thinking of a plan. In the middle of thinking of such a task, the computer terminal on her desk began making beeps. Commander Seifer was calling. Breezie hit a button and the call went through. “Seifer, I assume you’re ready to collect the chronitons from this nebula?” she asked, sipping at her coffee.
“Yes. I assume your crew is also ready to collect what we need in order to deal with the Hiss?” Seifer queried, appearing to be in his own ready room.
“Sally says we’ll be starting to collect them shortly, just need to get the ramscoops online. We rarely use the damn things so they’re taking a while,” Breezie replied.
The Commander nodded. “Understood. Keeping our heads in the game, despite a setback like this, is important not only to the success of the mission but to what Starfleet stands for.” He paused. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that to sound as lecture-y as it did. Perhaps it’s the uncertainty of an attacker that does not show itself in person is what I find somewhat unsettling. Anyway, let me know if you need any engineers.”
—
After the screen cut out in his Ready Room, Commander Seifer entered the Bridge of the Phoenix-X to view the angles of the collectors taking in the chronitons. Tong entered as well and took over tactical.
“Everything is nominal, sir,” he reported before wincing for just a moment. “That was weird. I just had this extrasensory kinesthetic feeling of something. Permission to revise my nominal to ostensible?”
Seifer walked over to the human. “Then I would have to look those words up and you know the computer catalogues all our inquiries. Besides, this is about your Esper sensitivities, right? Considering we’re shifting quantum realities, sitting right next to a temporal-based nebula, this could be anything. I recommend caution.”
“Yes, Commander,” Tong nodded before an alert went off. “Speaking of the nebula, the Unreliable has begun their harvesting as well.”
Turning to the viewscreen, Seifer nodded. “So far, so good. It appears that just having the material hasn’t set off the Hiss just yet. That being said, considering our last encounter, we may only get one chance for an attack.”
“Do you think she’ll make the hiss sound? Probably what I’m most curious about, next to the assured safety of the Prime timeline,” Veker added.
But, suddenly, four cruiser-sized drone vessels dropped warp and began syphoning the chroniton supply from the nebula. Two of them neared the Phoenix-X and the Unreliable and shot beams to intercept their chroniton collecting.
“Commander! They’re taking our stuff! They register themselves as just Sentinels,” Tong reported. “Simple, yet effective. Oh, and our chroniton reserves are being depleted as well.”
Seifer gritted his teeth. “Damn! Hail them.” He looked to Tong, who shook his head indicating a no response. “Fire a warning phaser off their port side.” As he saw no change to the sentinel’s activities, he added, “Hit them!”
“Aye, sir,” Tong replied, firing phasers and knocking Sentinel-1 off-axis. But it just so happened that it had completed its syphon of the Phoenix-X. “We’ve got no reserves, Commander. The nebula is nearly depleted of them as well.”
Suddenly, the Phoenix-X shook from an attack. Sentinel-3 flew around and fired energy pulses into them, covering Sentinel-1’s escape warp. The Phoenix-X increased its phaser magnitude and knocked Sentinel-3 off its momentum until it shook itself back to its senses and flew into an escape warp as well.
“Seifer to McKormic. I’m going after them before we lose their warp trails,” the Commander alerted through communications. “Yours may perform the same actions, but we can’t afford to lose our only weapon against the Hiss.”
After a shared nod with Hachi at the helm, Hachi shot the Phoenix-X off into matching warp speeds and they soon found themselves opening phaser fire on the two sentinels at high warp. Pieces of the enemy’s hull shattered out from hits, past the Phoenix-X and into normal space, but the sentinels just readjusted their stability and unwaveringly pushed on while returning pulse fire.
—
The Unreliable soon followed as fast as the warp engines could carry the Miranda-class, going in guns blazing. “Keep hitting anything until we find a weak spot. There's got to be a vulnerability somewhere on those sentinels,” Breezie commanded, firmly sitting in the captain’s chair.
“I can’t get a lock on scanners… It’s like the ships don’t want to be acknowledged by other ships,” Wally stated as the science console only received corrupted scans.
“Brute force it, Wally. It’ll have to work sometime!” Breezie said, turning to Wally.
“They appear to have a stability field powered by chronitons… Perhaps if we syphon from them, we’ll drain it and cause their warp core to destabilise!” Devoid proposed.
“That sounds like a plan! Sally, relay it to Commander Seifer ASAP,” Breezie stated.
Sally copied her plan over to the Phoenix-X, with it successfully getting to the other ship. “It’s through. Wally, prepare ramscoops to syphon from the closest Sentinel stability field,” Sally commanded.
Breezie went wide-eyed briefly as Sally commanded, only to see the plan actually beginning to work! As she saw on the viewscreen, the closest of the two sentinels began failing, the lights flickering and the ship slowing down from warp. “It works! Continue getting closer to the Phoenix-X, we can’t risk losing them around these sentinels!” Breezie yelled.
As Sentinel-1 began dropping from warp, the Unreliable began catching up to the Phoenix-X.
—
Aboard the Phoenix-X, Seifer and his crew watched as their own syphon of Sentinel-3’s stability field began. Their own reserves began to refill.
“The Unreliable was right!” Briggs observed from his monitoring console. “Maybe they are reliable?”
But, suddenly, the drone ship appeared to start their warp drop early, before their field was completely destabilised.
“Mr. Hachi, match their speed. Briggs, continue the syphon,” the Commander surveyed, studying the screen as the warp field dissipated and normal space came back into view behind Sentinel-3. “One thing’s for sure, reliability is relative.”
Sentinel-3 quickly fired another pulse on the Phoenix-X, knocking it back and out of syphoning range. Seifer observed as it ceased hostilities and moved off toward what appeared to be a large, frenetic portal in space. “Should we return fire?” Tong asked in hopes of winning combat.
“Hold on a second,” Seifer halted, watching the sentinel impulse into a position next to the portal while the Unreliable dropped warp right above the Phoenix-X to see the same thing. “These vessels are guards?”
Tong’s proximity alert suddenly went off next. “I’m detecting the other two sentinels approaching.” Both the Unreliable and Phoenix-X watched as Sentinel-2 and Sentinel-4 dropped warp nearby and continued on, ignoring them, to take positions next to the portal as well.
“They must have enough chronitons to secure whatever it is they’re securing here,” BOB suggested. “They’re protecting something.”
Gewdeque entered the Bridge. “Well, whatever they’re doing, we should let them. We need the breathing room to continue ship repairs sustained from both our initial entry into this alternate universe as well as the compromising pulses they hit us with.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” Seifer conceded. “Since we’re in the Unreliable’s universe, I wonder if there is any more light they could shed on these things. Continue repairs, Lieutenant Commander.”
She nodded and left again. BOB looked at Seifer. “Do you think Romulan ale is legal in this timeline?”
—
Later, aboard the Unreliable, the viewscreen displayed the portal in front of the two ships. The tear appeared as if the dark void of space was torn like paper to show the iridescent, fluctuating realm of this unknown realm.
“Wally, scan it, see what’s going on. I don’t think the sentinels intended to harm us,” Breezie commanded.
Wally nodded and scanned the tear, just as Seifer and Briggs walked onto the bridge. “Any idea what this might be? I’ve seen nothing like it in my timeline,” Seifer asked, looking at the tear on the viewscreen.
“It’s the same quantum-phased dark energy rip as the other tears, but more massive in output, with a fiercely unresolvable quantum signature,” Wally observed. “It’s another Universe, but nothing that our instruments can make sense of. What we can get is that any light within is artificial. No natural light is in there.”
Sefier squinted at several sentinel beams going into the tear. “It looks like they’re feeding chronitons into it? Are they keeping it from expanding fully?”
“Ohhh, no,” Briggs halted when saw the looks in both Seifer and Breezie’s eyes. “You guys are thinking about going through it, aren’t you?”
The Commander tapped his chin. “What’s the status of our chroniton reserves?”
“Well, sure. Both ships have enough to get through with some left over, but I believe Gewdeque would agree that we’d have to reinforce our structural integrity at least twice what it is now,” Briggs stated.
“Well, what are we waiting for? The solution seems to be hiding in there, so maybe we should start reinforcing it if we’d like to investigate,” Breezie proposed.
“Are you two nuts?” Briggs asked bluntly, looking at the two commanding officers as if they had suggested suicide as a plan.
“Get used to it, Briggs. Breezie is like a wild card when it comes to commanding a ship,” Devoid said, looking over from the tactical console.
Briggs sighed, the Silver Blood rubbing his fingers into his temples. “I should’ve morphed into a Warp 10 salamander.”
“Perhaps we can feed the chronitons to our shields? It could make us look like more sentinels to any sensor,” Devoid suggested, getting up from the chair.
“What makes you think that?” Seifer asked, thinking how such a plan might work.
“Well, as we know, their stability fields are powered by chronitons, so perhaps their regular shields are made up of the stuff too?” Devoid explained.
The commanding officers thought, Breezie sitting down on the captain’s chair. “I'm willing to check. Wally, could you get a scan of any of the sentinels’ shields? Particularly what they're made of,” Breezie commanded, looking at Wally who was sitting at the science console, his black and gold coat draped onto the back of it revealing his colourful suspenders.
“I'll give it a shot, Breezie. Hopefully I'll get something usable,” Wally said, starting a scan on Sentinel-3's shields discreetly so as not to alert the sentinel.
Briggs looked around at the bridge crew, all waiting for the results of the scan. “This is certainly a unique crew,” he observed. “By the way, is Romulan Ale legal here? Asking for a friend.”
Breezie looked at him with an expression that could best be described as a hybrid of confusion and disgust. “Oh, why would that rubbish be legalised? It's a poor product anyway. I don't drink much alcohol, but Gary who does says it isn't worth the hype. We have something much better. You ever heard of Andorian Cider?” Breezie stated.
“Andorian Cider? No, I don't think I have,” Briggs stated, as if he's hearing about a drink of legends.
“Gary says only about half a glass of the stuff can get even a Klingon totally wasted. He's got some bottles aboard, I can negotiate sending one over if you'd like,” Breezie offered.
Briggs nodded. “Make it so.”
“Dude. You know only commanding officers get to say that catchphrase,” Seifer criticised. “Oh, never mind. It’s an alternate timeline. Go nuts.”
—
Meanwhile, Lieutenant Commander Tong was busy assisting with repairs on the Phoenix-X, running systems-correcting commands from the Bridge. He stopped tapping at the side console when the strangest voice echoed from out of nowhere.
“She is relentless… She is of the lost… She is of the void……”
Noticing Tong’s disturbed lack of focus, Elly walked over. “Hey, man. You look like a Nagilum’s death experiment.”
“Yeah, it’s that kinesthetic feeling from earlier.” Tong shook his head out of it. “It’s becoming voices now. I think I’m hearing someone, or many someones from the other side of that portal.”
The Orion shook her head. “I do not envy you for having that Galactic Barrier/Esper augmentation. Except for the increased combat skills.”
“Not worth it,” the human of Chinese descent deadpanned. “It’s a mixed bag on which abilities become more prominent than others, and the telepathic one is not my strong suit.” He clenched his fist, momentarily energizing it. “On the other hand, give me something to punch.”
She nodded. “You’re the tactical officer. I’m the security chief. Whatever this is, we’ll handle it together. I’ll take your station if need be.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Tong nodded to her. “I should report this to Commander Seifer and Captain McKormic. Oh, and the tactical access code is Delta Marco Polo.” He looked at her perplexed expression. “It’s not a history thing. I was into Archer-level water sports at one point.”
—
A few decks below in a Jefferies tube junction, Devoid and Fiora were analysing a problem that had developed in one of the Phoenix-X’s nacelles. “Yknow, it’s good to know that despite all the fancy features a ship gets, it’s still the same parts powering it.” Fiora says as she opens a panel, finding a burnt out warp coil.
“Yep… Just seems to get easier to break such parts. I swear, what is this, a warp coil or an oven coil?” Devoid replied, looking at the rather charred warp coil.
Fiora laughed, carefully extracting the charred warp coil as the two heard something faintly, as if something was whispering in the rooms nearby.
“Your efforts are pointless… The void will break you… She will break you…”
Devoid & Fiora looked around, confused. “You hear that?” Devoid asked, baffled out of his mind.
“That’s weird… I heard that same voice in a dream,” Fiora uttered, seeming astounded. “I don’t remember what it said… But it wasn’t that.”
Devoid’s face became one of concern as he tapped his combadge. “Devoid to Alex, have there been any cases of hearing weird voices on the Unreliable? Me and Fiora heard something whisper and Fiora seemed to recognise it.” Devoid asks as Fiora finishes extracting the burnt out warp coil.
“Hm… Sally, Andy and a few of our guests from the Phoenix-X have mentioned hearing something out of nowhere. I’ll look into it, see what’s going on,” Alex said through Devoid’s combadge.
“Keep me updated, Devoid out,” Devoid replied, tapping his combadge again.
“Perhaps it’s from the tear?” Fiora asked.
“We can run a scan once we put this new warp coil in,” Devoid answered, holding the new warp coil.
—
Alex sat there in the captain’s chair. His blindfold wrapped around his head ever still… how long has it been… how long has it been on? 6 years? 7? Yeah, 7 years. It’s been quite a ride so far… He had replaced some of the fabric over the years… to hide his eyes or lack thereof. He looked up for a moment, looking into the distance. He slumped a bit after a moment…
“You know you cannot win, child of flesh… It be wise you start ru—”
“From the name of Azathoth’s consciousness, I rebuke thee from these passages of steel, to back whence you came.”
“Oh, SHI—”
Alex smiled… he may have limited power… but sometimes it’s not psychic or cosmic, but sorcery and eldridge.
“Grand-nephew would be proud. If he gave a shit about the things that inhabit his world, and if the others woke up already… not you father, you are fine. Sleep well.” Alex thought to himself before getting up and looking around the rather barren bridge. “How do I prove who I think this voice is?” Alex said, walking around. He brushed his hand against the many consoles nonchalantly before stopping and looking at the science console. Wally wasn’t there, he was helping the rest of the crew down in Engineering. “It’s worth a shot,” Alex said to himself, sitting down and beginning to scan for where this voice might be coming from. Alex took a deep breath and began scanning.
-Scan started… --ERROR: Signal not identified -Expanding signal radius… --Expanding to 20% --Expanding to 50%Alex was initially frustrated with the lack of any results, but thought he could find something if he kept expanding the range.
-Expanding to 80% -Expanding to 100% --Rerouting 90% of main power power to signal scanner --Reroute successfulAs power was rerouted to the sensors, the ship began to shake. 100% Range still wasn’t enough. Alex wasn’t going to give up now and began pushing the sensors further. He had to find something. He just had to find the source of this voice!
-Expanding to 105% -Expanding to 115% -Expanding to 130% --Starting reserve power usage - 100%The range expanded well beyond 100%, pushing the sensors closer and closer to their limits. Consoles began exploding and the lights around the bridge began flickering. Alex didn’t care though, he had to find the source, no matter what it took. One explosion was so close it knocked Alex off the chair and to the floor.
-Expanding to 145% -Expanding to 149% -Expanding to 150%Suddenly, the shaking stopped… All seemed peaceful as if no damage had occurred minus a small bit of smoke that would soon disappear from the bridge within minutes. Alex lifted himself up, looking at the console he was once using.
-Scan: Successful -ERROR: Could not find signal source“Shit… Wait a minute,” Alex said to himself before looking a bit below the error message.
-Alternative directive = Pinpoint pulses detected from signal to create route/approximate location -Alternate Directive: Active -Sending data of recent signal pulse to all consoles -Send data to nearby allied ship? Y/NAlex typed in a ‘Y’ and hit ‘SEND’, sending the data of the scans to the Phoenix-X before promptly sighing in relief.
—
Back on the Phoenix-X, Seifer found himself in a turbolift with his chief engineer, Gewdeque, who was seemingly distracted.
“The voices?” Seifer queried. “I started getting them too. Spilled a raktajino into someone’s Vulcan mocha and caused an eruption likened to a clash of brains-versus-bronze.”
Gewdeque sighed. “I’ve done that, but it’s not just the voices. The stress of the whole situation at hand has given me hesitation. I’m balancing focus and impartiality but the terrain gets more treacherous as we go. Kugo wouldn’t have flinched.”
“She was an excellent chief engineer but, even under her command, you proved yourself ten times over, and with a flexibility no one else had,” Seifer reaffirmed. “Hesitation is your jumping-off point to certainty and we’ll all be right there jumping with you.”
The human of French-Canadian descent nodded in realization. “Thank you, sir,” she replied, now with confidence, as the turbolift doors opened and they both exited to the Bridge. Then, in an official tone for everyone, she reported the work that had been completed just prior to this, “Commander! Both the Unreliable and the Phoenix-X are now reinforced to handle the transition through that portal.”
“Oh, phew,” Seifer reprieved. “Because I was not opposed to harvesting ship parts from other aliens. Just throwing that out there.”
Veker turned from science. “The Unreliable’s confirmation and scans of the sentinel’s chroniton shielding has yielded replicated converters now installed on both our vessels.”
“Translation, we can feed a layer of our chroniton reserves over our own shields so we come off as sentinels too,” Briggs explained as he took operations. “We’ll be like sheep in wolf’s clothing.”
Seifer looked at him. “No. Why are we the sheep? Stop it.”
“Commander, we’re receiving a payload of data from the Unreliable,” Tong reported as an alert went off from tactical. “There are signal pulses, on the level of brainwaves, coming from the portal. The voices?” He read on. “The Lost Void.”
The Commander nodded. “Yeah. I heard that term in one of those moments of mind-bending, room-spinning madness. Amazing work. Seifer to Breezie.” He tapped his combadge. “Very impressive with the data crunch by your crew. If we weren’t sure before, we certainly are now. The Phoenix-X is ready to enter the portal with our shield modifications. We should both go in, slow, together. How are things on your end? Do you concur?”
—
Breezie was confused. “I don't think you should thank me, Alex was the only one on the bridge. I was down in Engineering helping with the modifications to our shields.” She stated, leaning on a chair in Engineering.
“Oh. Well, I'll tell Alex thanks once I'm done talking to you. Do you concur though?” Seifer replied.
“Yeah, I do. We'll get to the bridge ASAP. Breezie out,” Breezie said, tapping her combadge to terminate the connection.
“We sent out data about that tear?” Sally asked, confused.
“That might explain the shaking. I thought it was the chronitons threatening to rip the ship fresh off the bulkheads!” Devoid replied.
“Apparently Alex got the data… I must congratulate him on it when we get to the bridge,” Breezie stated.
As most of the crew went from Engineering to the bridge (except for Fiora who went to get another Vulcan Mocha in the mess hall after someone spilled a raktajino into it), they spotted Alex by the science console, who looked like he had seen better days.
“Alex, I see you managed to get some data on the tear and likely those voices considering those have gone quiet… What was it?” Breezie said.
“I think it might be the Hiss, using a sort of Neural Transmitter in order to send her voice into our brains. Thankfully I managed to scare her off.” Alex explained based on the minimal information he got.
“Well, I guess we're ready to go in. Everyone, at your stations. May the wind be at our backs.” Breezie commanded the crew to go to their respective stations with Alex moving to the navigation side of the helm console so Wally can sit at the science station.
Sally hails the Phoenix-X, with the hail going through only seconds later.
“Unreliable to Phoenix-X. Are you ready?” Breezie asked, a sense of confidence in her voice.
—
On the Bridge of the Phoenix-X, Seifer glanced to a nodding crew before replying, “Ready.” He looked to his Coridanite helmsmen who was momentarily entranced by the viewscreen. “Hachi, get us closer and then slow to half impulse.” Seifer turned to Briggs and Gewdeque. “Engage the camouflage.”
“Chroniton overcoat and adjustable hoodie in place,” Gewdeque confirmed as both the Phoenix-X and Unreliable moved toward the Lost Void portal, guarded by the remaining three cruiser-sized sentinel drones. “By the way, who turned the tensity up?”
Seifer smirked. “Tension is Starfleet standard, Lieutenant Commander. It can’t be modulated.”
“Nearing the portal now, Commander,” Hachi reported as the massive void grew bigger on the screen, which the sentinels had been occasionally snapping stabilisation beams into the sides of. “Remind me again why we’re going towards the danger?”
The Commander nodded. “To do what we always do, Lieutenant. We don’t run.” He paused. “I mean, we may hesitate Discovery-style, but only for humanization purposes.”
—
Both the Unreliable and the Phoenix-X reached the threshold of sentinels, so far, but not certain, undetected as threats. The two ships left normal space and entered the Lost Void.
