No Grave but the Stars, Part 3

Posted on Sun Jun 12th, 2022 @ 10:41pm by Lieutenant JG Miraj Derani
Edited on on Tue Jan 3rd, 2023 @ 1:25am

Mission: WHAT IF?
Location: The Basssen Rift
Timeline: Another lifetime
1725 words - 3.5 OF Standard Post Measure

Previously in No Grave But The Stars

Mal and Zh'erim exchanged glances. "Could we be being followed? Is that a beacon of some sort?" Mal asked.

"No, we'd pick up the signal," Zh'erim said. "Besides, in here, no-one could find it anyway."

"Then what is it?" Miraj asked again. Ilon shrugged. She began to spin the ship around, trying to see if there was anything out there. But nothing,

"Let's go Mij," Mal said with more certainty than he felt. "No point getting paranoid. But maybe a little haste?"

Still frowning as best she could, they jumped again, and they reached their destination ten minutes later having powered through as fast as the ship could manage. At which point all the proximity alerts screamed, and she wrenched the helm into a hard climb as their space was suddenly filled with masses of giant ducts and pipes and plating.

The wreck filled their view screen. It was mostly intact, but several gaping holes showed the extent of the damage. Miraj's jaw fell open as she leant forward trying to see the extent of it. It towered over The Stranger Tides, ducting and vents in a random lattice that made it look cobbled together from a thousand different ships stripped for parts. Because it was. It wasn't a Scimitar-class Warbird, all elegance and curves. It was almost the complete opposite.

She was skimming the surface of a Borg Cube.

And now the continuation

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The cockpit exploded into a riot of swearing and cross shouted demands to run, dodge, evade, but right now all Miraj cared about was not hitting the damn thing.

The inertial dampeners screamed defiance at the laws of physics as she twisted them away, corkscrewing back up into space. And then she came to a stop.

"Mij, what are you doing? Get us out of here!" Mal jumped from his seat, meaning to wrest control of the con from her.

"Look!" She jabbed a finger at the view screen. "It’s dead. They're not hailing us, they're not tractoring us. Its full of holes!"

Mal looked. The Cube was indeed full of holes, he couldn't see any lights. "Are we sensing anything from that thing.?"

Zh'erim shook his head. "We're not sensing anything right now. Except possibly Ilon's blood pressure."

"Fuck you," Ilon said good naturedly; he was staring at the Cube, just as rapt as Miraj.

"If it was live, they would have tried to eat us by now? Wouldn't they?" Miraj pressed.

And the longer they held position, just watching, the more her brother thought she was right. "Okay. But no closer. Just in case. Let’s see if we can find the Romulan ship floating round here, and then get the hell out."

"Can we see anything? Anything at all?" Ilon asked.

"Not with all the radiation. And it’s all hot." Zh'erim slammed his hand on the console in annoyance.

"I'm not disabling the engines whilst we sit in tractor distance of a Borg Cube." Ilon pre-empted the next suggestion, and Mal agreed.

They circled the Cube for a while, half looking for the wreckage of a warbird, half watching the Cube for the minutest sign of life. But there was no life on the Cube, and no wreckage of the Scimitar.

Miraj turned a yearning gaze on a giant hole blown in the side of the Cube. The edges were mangled strangely, it was hard to tell if whatever made the hole had blown out or in. "There's one place we could check..."

"No." All three men said at once.

"Maybe the Borg tried to assimilate it, before they-"

"You are not going in there." Mal cut his sister off before she could get the rest of the sentence out. "You're a trouble magnet and I'm not risking it. Before we know it, you'll be the next Borg queen or something." he grumbled.

"That is an exager-"

A small sleek vessel decloaked right behind them and sent two photon torpedoes into the Stranger Tides

They smashed against the shields, the impact rocking the freighter.

"Z?" Mal shouted, as Miraj yanked on the helm, pulling them out of the line of fire. "What the fuck?"

"Shields are at 25%!"he gave Mal a small shake of the head, a warning. Once more shot and they’d be in serious trouble.

"Mij, bring us about!" Mal shouted.

Miraj brought them up and over in a long arc, and beneath them they saw the curve of a Myriad scout ship. She didn't have to be told to run, the Stranger Tides rolled around its center and shot away, trying to get the Cube between them and their enemy.

Mal opened fire with the stern chaser as she fled, but the Romulan ship danced through the strafe of disrupter fire, closing on them.

"Jump to warp!" Mal decided. He saw Miraj's hand move on the helm.
And nothing happened.

Romulan phaser fire burst just off their port side, Miraj swinging the ship away from what should have been a dead on hit, and he swallowed. They were in serious trouble. “Ilon!?”

"Those torpedoes knocked the starboard coil out!" Ilon shouted from below. "I need a minute!"

Mal ground his teeth. The Romulan fire was getting closer. Even with Miraj at helm, there was only so fast the Stranger Tides could go, compared to the Romulan vessel. He knew he should have upgraded the impulse engine. But Miraj had insisted on better maneuverability, and he'd given her her way, like he always did.

Too late to regret it now. His stomach swooped as the ship dipped low to race across the top of the Borg Cube, swinging from side to side to avoid the strafing of the Myriad ship.

"Torpedoes!" Shouted Zh'erim, and they were all flung forward as Miraj brought the ship to a sudden dead stop. The torpedoes flashed past them, exploding on the Cube's surface, then she accelerated straight up, ramming the heavy armoured hull of the Tides right into the scout ship with a clang that set their ears ringing.

Below Ilon swore again as he dropped his tools, scrambling to get the clamps that would let him pull the misaligned coil back into the right place. “I’m trying to work!”

“We’re trying not to die!” Mal shot back.

Miraj rolled them around to bring the forward phasers in line with the Myriad vessel, and Mal let off a long blast. The Myriad sent torpedoes again, and Miraj easily dodged. Concentrating on keeping the forward phaser banks pointed at the Myriad vessel, she didn't see the torpedoes bounce off the Borg Cube a few scant meters below. Zh'erim was trying to coax more power to the forward shield, he never thought for a moment that they'd need the aft shield at full strength. He didn't see the torpedoes either. All Mal’s attention was on aiming the forward phasers on the enemy. He spared no attention to what was behind them.

Nobody say in time to stop the two torpedoes bounce up into the bottom of the Stranger Tides. They must have been lower yield as they crashed into the particle shields, and obliterated them, but failed to destroy the Tides utterly. There was a moment's rush of air before the bulkheads closed and the SIF sprung into place. "They took out the Orlop." Zh'erim snarled. "We're venting Plasma."

The speed of their ship was noticeably slower, the controls more sluggish. The Myriad vessel closed, all its weapons hot and ready. In the second it took for their phasers to fire, Miraj had dropped the freighter over the other side of the Borg Cube. They couldn't outrun them, they couldn't get lost in the cloud and Ilon needed time to get the warp back online. There was only one more place to go.

She zoomed down the long side, hoping she'd find what she was looking for before the Myriad caught up. Two seconds later she was rewarded. A hole, just big enough for the Tides had been blasted right out of the Cube, and she dove in, navigating the tight squeeze, switching up and down and back where she could to hide their presence further.

A few heart pounding minutes later she found a small openish area where the Tidescould latch on. They killed every source of power, and hoped the ship would cool down fast enough that they could play dead, and sensors wouldn't find them.

Inside the Tides cockpit, they craned at the view screens, trying to spot pursuit. And then faint light fell inside their hidey hole. It wasn't aimed at them, but a sweeping searchlight from another vessel. It glanced and reflected off the dead spaceship that surrounded them, and a flicker caught Miraj's eye.
Peering down, she traced the movement of light along a curved surface, graceful and alien to the Cube. "The Scimitar!" She hissed, whispering even though there was no way that their pursuers could hear them. "It's down there! The aft starboard section at least. That would have replicators!"

Mal and Zh'erim both said "No!"

Ilon, at the doorway, said "We'll need EVA suits. That thing's going to be alive with radiation.

Mal turned to Ilon, a look of betrayal on his face. "You're supposed to be on my side."

"I don't want to get murdered by the Syndicate," Ilon said pointedly. "Which will a hundred percent happen if we show up without those rifles. Whereas the Myriad will only murder us if they catch us. Things will go quicker if all four of us suit up and go over there. That bloody scout ship is on visual only in all this radiation. We could get down there, lift a replicator, and be out before they found us, tucked in here. Then it's just a case of running for it, hope they don't realise we've gone."

Mal sighed.

"Please!" Miraj turned puppy eyes on him. "Pretty please!"

"Ugh, fine." It was the logical thing to do anyway, Mal told himself. "Suit up."

To be Continued…

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