SEASON 2: EPISODE 02

Q, TIME AND AGAIN: Part Six

  “That’s it!  We’ve officially gone past the moment where the warp cores explode,” announced Masters joyfully.

  He watched a relieved bridge crew as he announced the news.  They had all been on edge from when he told them what could happen in the future, but it appeared they had now avoided it.

  “I guess we’ve just changed the future,” said Commander Core.  “It also looks like Q was incorrect, thankfully.”

  Masters smiled smugly at the thought of being right and Q being wrong, it almost felt like he had beaten Q.  Sometimes the simplest answer was the right one.  Q appeared to have just been messing with the minds of the Starfleet crew.  One would think that a being as powerful as Q would have far better things to do.

  “So what happens now?” asked Lieutenant Letac.

  He hesitated.  “I don’t know.  I never got this far before.  But I’d say we can continue to our rendezvous with Task Force 59 with no other problems.”

  “Sounds good,” said Ensign Cole.  “It sounds as if I’ve had enough excitement on this trip for one day.”

  “Continue on course then, Ensign.  Commander, would you join me in my ready room?” asked Masters as he stood up to leave.

  The Commander nodded and stood up to follow Masters.  The Commander pointed to Lt. Commander Whitechapel.  “Lt. Commander, you have the bri…”

  “Captain!” interrupted Lieutenant Letac and Lt. Commander Whitechapel simultaneously.

  Masters froze in his tracks, the two officers tone immediately started to concern him.  “Yes?”

  “You know how you told me that in the previous todays about the sensor ghosts?” said the Lieutenant.  He did not like where this was heading.  “Well, it just happened,”

  Masters swore under his breath and hurried to the Lieutenant’s console to check the console.  There was nothing out there at the moment, so he checked the sensor logs, which showed that the sensors had very briefly detected something, though it could not determine what it was.

  “This can’t be happening.  This always led up to the warp cores exploding.  I want the sensors off, every single one.”  Masters looked up to Commander Core.  “I want you to get Lt. Commander Celcho and have him cut all connections from the sensors to the warp core.”

  Commander Core immediately started to relay his orders to Engineering.

  “Captain, what are we doing here?” asked Letac.

  “The only thing now that is the same is the sensor problem.  The sensors might cause the overload.  That’s the only thing…that’s the only thing!”

  The Lieutenant looked oddly at him before going back to disconnecting the sensors.  He eased away from the Lieutenant to give her more room to work.  Now, it was only a matter of time to see if this would make a difference.

  Beep.

  The loud sound caused Masters to sit up in shock.  His eye darted around the room as he felt disoriented.  Sweat dripped into His eyes stinging them.  He put his head in his hands and swore loudly out of frustration.

  Beep.  “Captain?”

  “Commander, get all the senior staff together in the observation lounge.  We have an imminent situation that we need to discuss.”

  “Right away, sir,” said a confused Commander Core.

  Masters got out of bed.  “Q!  Q, show your face here now!”

  “You hollered,” said Q from behind Masters.

  He spun around.  “Can’t you just appear in front of me for a change?”

  Q looked mortified.  “Oh, that would be no fun!”

  “Q, you know what is happening, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “What?”

  “Your ship keeps exploding and killing everyone.  Then you wake up and you do it again.”

  “Don’t give me the run around, Q!  Tell me.”

  “Alas, I cannot.  I’m not allowed to interfere with lesser species.”

  “That’s never stopped you before!”

  “What can I say, I’m reformed.”

  “Then what the hell are you doing here?”

  “I was in the neighbourhood and decided to stop by.”

  Masters clenched and unclenched his fists.  He forced his breathing back to normal and he started to calm down.  “I have to save them.  Even if it is only part of the ship and crew, I have to save them.”

  Q nodded at Masters understandingly.  “You will.”

  Lieutenant Commander Pavlo Celcho nervously waited for the order to come.  The captain had proposed a risky and dangerous action to get rid of the warp cores, which he had told them, would explode soon.  Celcho didn’t like space-time anomalies at all and with good reason.  The last one had cost him an arm and nearly killed him and the fact he was involved in one right now and didn’t realise made him very nervous.

  He felt and heard the slight change in power usage as the ship dropped out of warp, the signal would come soon.

  “Masters, to engineering commence the ejection operation.”

  That was the signal to go and the engineers got to work.  A portable tractor beam emitter had been placed in engineering.  The crew manning it fired the beam, which latched onto the warp core.  The beam moved slowly down, taking the Warp core with it.  The crew had opened up all the junctions in the warp core ejection tube allowing a smooth trip to the ejection hatch.

  “Open the hatch,” he ordered.

  “The system has failed, I can’t open the hatch,” reported Ensign Muir

  Celcho nodded, just as the Captain had said the hatches would fail.

  “Engage program ‘Forced Exit’.”

  The tractor beam operators switched off the beam as the flickering light surrounded the warp core area.  The only sign of what happened next was a flickering red light on one of the consoles, showing a hull breach and the activation of emergency force fields.  The Marines had placed explosives at the hatches in case they failed to open.  The explosives had breached the hull and the ship’s emergency force fields had sealed the hole.

  Celcho watched as the top of the warp core disappeared down the tube.

  “Disengage the emergency force fields before the warp core runs into it.”

  Ensign Muir nodded and started to do as he was ordered.  Suddenly the deck shook causing Pavlo to stumble before he regained his balance.

  “Report!”

  “We’ve had a surge through the warp nacelles.  No damage to speak of,” said an engineer.

  “I can’t disable the emergency force fields!” cried Muir.

  “What?”

  “The surge…systems are erratic!  I can’t bring the fields down!”

  Fear washed over Celcho’s face.  “If the warp core hits the fields it could rupture!”

  The ship shuddered heavily again.

  “How long until it hits the…”

  The ship shock with ferocity.  Celcho was thrown to the ground.  He was helped up by one of his subordinates.

  “Report!  Did the warp core rupture?”

  “No.  It just cracked.”

  “Lieutenant Dyson, what about your core?”

  There was no reply.

  “Lieutenant Dyson?  Ensign Muir, are the internal communication systems still online?”

  “No.”

  “Can you get a scan of the other engineering room?”

  “Yes…I’m not getting any life signs.  The radiation level in the room is lethal.  Their core has ruptured and is leaking radiation.  It appears that their field around the warp core in the room failed and they received a fatal dose of radiation poisoning.”

  “How stable is our warp core?”

  “Not very.”

  “Okay, Ensign Muir and Crewman Davis come with me.  We’re going to go down and try to manually shut down that force field.