STAR TREK
S-I
TOTAL ANNIHILATION
Part Two
By Agelshaxe
Image thanks to Jason Hauck of Hell's Gate
Chapter Six
The
blue cloud of swirling asteroid dust and baryon particles hung in space, named
after a famed 23rd century physicist who invented the baryon sweep,
a radical way of ridding your ship of all baryons that had attached to its
hull.
«
Slow us to one-third impulse, miss Burnel. » Kline
ordered. « Shields up. »
«
Slowing... » Burnel said.
« Shields up. » Mantion said.
The
small starship entered the nebula at 25000 km/s, the
strong baryon density made the ship vibrate slightly.
«
Don't worry. » Eskina said, sitting at Ops. « It's normal. »
«
Scan the nebula for traces of tritanium and duranium. » said Sutter. « In this interference we can't
trust our ship-detecting sensors. They could detect reflections of our ship. »
«
Agreed. » said Eskina. « Scanning... »
The
bridge crew was silent for a few moments, besides the beeps of the consoles.
Everyone was staring in amazement at the swirling mist before them on the
viewscreen.
Suddenly,
Eskina said : «
I think...I got something, commander. »
Sutter
rushed to his side and looked at his console, then she said :
« Set a course, bearing 325 mark 215. »
«
Commander Sutter ? » Kline asked.
«
A duranium signature, it's big enough to be a starship, what class is the Watan ? » she
asked.
«
I think it's an Olympic-class science ship. » he answered.
She
blinked : « Strange, the signature would correspond to
an Oberth-class ship, but not an Olympic.
»
«
Let's just wait and see. » said Burnel.
The
ship turned to the left and a few seconds later it came face to face with the
USS-Watan. At least, what was left of it...
Tarses
heard his combadge chirp and he tapped it : « Tarses here. »
«
Doctor, we have possible casualties. We've just discovered what's left of
the USS-Watan. The baryon particles have eaten
through half the globe section of the ship. » it was commander
Kline who was talking.
Tarses
said : « All right, commander. We'll be ready. »
«
I know you w... »
Tarses
heard a loud noise over the commlink : « Commander ? »
«
My god... » Tarses heard a lot of people starting to talk around the
bridge, notably he heard someone say : « Security to
torpedo room. » and « Shields up. »
Kline
explained : « We just fired a torpedo at the Watan. It's totally destroyed. »
Jennifer
Mantion walked quickly towards the main torpedo bay from where the torpedo that
destroyed the Watan had been launched.
Then
she saw him, he sped past the opposite corridor. She started running faster,
she could hear his footsteps accelerating, he had
evidently heard her or seen her. She rolled on herself and passed the corner of
the corridor, her phaser pointed straight ahead of her. A crimson bolt of
energy flew out and slammed the man between the two shoulder blades. He crashed
to the floor, headfirst.
«
Mantion to bridge. » she said tapping her combadge. «
I've apprehended the man who shot the torpedoes. » she was in no means sure
that it was him but it was the logical conclusion.
Stevenson
came running down the hall then stopped dead in his tracks upon seeing the man
on the floor : « What ? ! That's him
? »
« Obviously. » Mantion grunted.
«
But that's... » he turned to the man who was dazed but awake. « Guisan ! Fred Guisan from Alpha shift in
Engineering. »
«
Thank you, lieutenant. » she smiled. « That was a speedy identification. »
She
picked up the crewman and led him to the brig where captain
Anderson was already occupying one cell.
«
He had an accomplice... » Kline shook his head.
«
Fred Guisan... » Stevenson scratched his head.
«
And now the Watan has blown up. »
Tarses crossed his arms.
«
What can we get from our first scans of the ship ? »
asked Kline.
Eskina
shrugged : « We don't have a positive life form count,
but I would speculate the whole crew was either dead or dying at the time we
got there. »
Janna
shuddered : « We can't read any traces of the
biological samples. I'd say they were either too small to leave a big enough
trace or were vaporized by the blast. »
Kline
suddenly sat up straight, as if someone had pricked him with a very pointy needle : « Maybe they weren't on the ship... »
«
What ? » Eskina blinked.
«
Wouldn't that make sense ? The two traitors in our
ranks...They were trying to bring us away from the ship, and finally they
destroyed it...Why would they want to destroy it ? Because they didn't want us to discover something...That the
samples had been taken. »
«
We can't be sure the samples have been taken... » said Tarses.
«
No, we can't. But why else would they try to lure us away, up to their last
resort...the 'backup' plan that
«
They could have destroyed the ship themselves. » said Eskina.
«
No. » Mantion said. « That would have looked suspicious. They probably preferred stalling us enough so that
the baryon particles could eat up the ship's hull so it looked like a natural
attack and not a weapons attack. »
Eskina
nodded, understanding more and more.
«
So what did they do with the samples ? » asked Sutter.
«
That's what we need to find out. » said Kline, turning to Eskina and Mantion : « I want you two to do an extensive scan of the
region for ion trails our warp resonance traces. We might be able to find if someone
came in here to take the samples or leave the ship. »
«
Aye, sir. » they said almost simultaneously.
« Dismissed. » Kline said.