SEASON 2: EPISODE 02

Q, TIME AND AGAIN: Part Fourteen

  The fighter cruised away from the Swiftfire as fast as it could.  Captain Masters watched the range indicator and waited.  The countdown didn’t have much time left but the further he got them from the Swiftfire the better.  The fighter was heavily damaged and like Wing Commander Benton had predicted the weapons’ jettison system was offline.  Now all that mattered was getting the torpedoes as far away as possible.

  Masters relaxed back into his seat.  There was no escape; the Swiftfire’s transporters were down.  Beaming out of the ship with the emergency beam-out system was impossible too.  The system was probably down but he didn’t have a sealed suit for going out into a vacuum so it didn’t matter if the system worked or not.

  The countdown was in the last ten seconds now.  Masters looked out at the starscape around him.  This was always what he had wanted to do, ever since he was a child.  He had look dreamed of exploring the stars and he had done just that.  Now he was quietly travelling in space surrounded by his dream.

  He mumbled.  “There are worse ways to go.”

  Daley barely waited for the pilot to finish her statement; she was already running for the nearest Normandy dropship.  She heard running next to her and saw Colonel Tiki right next to her, he obviously had the same idea that she had.  Then jumped onboard the dropship.

  “I’ll fly,” she said to Tiki.

  “I’ll operate the transporter from back here,” replied Tiki.

  The Normandy class dropship came equipped with its own transporters.  The pilot was able to operate them but the were mainly designed to be operated from the rear cabin of the dropship.

  Daley powered up the dropship, ignoring the normal starting procedure.  The only thing she checked that was working was the transporters.  She steered the large auxiliary craft out of the shuttlebay and after the fighter.

  “He’s out of range,” called Tiki.

  Daley pushed the throttle up to get the ship at full impulse as quickly as possible.  She checked the sensors and luckily the Peregrine class fighter they were chasing was not travelling at full impulse, they could catch it up.  The question was would they be able to do that before it exploded.

  “We’re running out of time!” called Tiki.

  Daley knew that, she could fell it.  As soon as the fighter had taken off from the shuttlebay she had been hit by a sense of dread.  She had felt it earlier, around the time the Jem’Hadar had started their attacks on the Swiftfire.  She had put that down to the threat the Jem’Hadar posed but now she wasn’t too sure.  There was something different about the feeling.  Something about it that had made her turn and run for the dropship.  She couldn’t explain it.

  She checked the sensors and watched the distance decrease, looking for the magic number that would mean they would be in transporter range.  The figure came and went.

  “We’re in range!” she yelled.

  “I’ve got a lock!” called back Tiki.  “Preparing to beam out.  I’ve lost him!”

  Daley felt her heart sink and she looked up saw four distance explosions.  She hung her head in defeat but for some reason the feeling that had swamped her was gone.  Her eyes glanced over to the sensors and what she saw surprised her.  The sensors had registered the explosions, but the were also detecting a Peregrine fighter ahead of them, only much further away, which was heading back towards them.

  She heard the colonel walk up behind her.

  “I’m sorry.  We were too late,” he saw, his voice filled with sorrow.

  “I don’t think we were,” she said.

  “What do you mean, Captain?”

  Daley pointed to the sensor display.  Tiki had a look and he gave her a confused look.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “I have no idea.”