It seems the Alpha Quadrant is in danger - again. The Dominion war is just over, and now another danger comes looking around the corner: some mysterious samples with radiation which can be used as an enormous power source. Ensign Sandra Burke has fled the Starfleet base on Alpha Centauri, which was destroyed by Romulans who were after the samples Sandra has with her. A Cardassian was also after those samples, but has been captured by Sandra and Zaag, a Ferengi bartender who has come with Sandra to the Excelsior class USS Aquinas, captained by "Uncle Pete" Ayer, a Starfleet Captain who knows Sandra very well. Now, they are chased by another Starfleet vessel, a Prometheus class, which has them outgunned and outclassed. The Aquinas gets fired upon by this vessel, and is forced to drop out of warp. Determined to not go down without a good fight, Captain Ayer orders the ship to be turned around and fire everything she's got. The showdown between the Aquinas and the Prometheus-class vessel is about to begin...
And now the continuation
"Disengaging warp drive," the Lieutenant at Helm reported right after Ayer's mark. "Hard turn to starboard."
The stars on the viewscreen seemed to stop flying past the ship, and stood still for a moment. Then, they moved to the left with great speed, as the ship turned to the right. The crew braced themselves as the inertia almost threw them to the port bulkhead. The stars stopped moving again, and in their midst a Prometheus class dropped out of warp and came closer to the Aquinas, firing weapons at the less modern ship.
This was Lieutenant Watters' cue. His hands flew across his console, and a moment later, a salvo of phasers and photon torpedoes were flying towards the Aquinas' assailant.
"Direct hit!" the STC shouted. It was answered by even more quantum torpedoes from the Prometheus class vessel.
"Increase power to the forward shields!" Ayer voice was barely heard through the sound of the explosions. The Bridge was now on fire, as was the rest of the ship. "Keep firing!"
"Casualty reports coming in from all over the ship!" A voice cried in the chaos.
"Shields down to 16 percent!" another one shouted. "That last blast knocked out our forward phasers!"
"Turn us around!" the Captain yelled to the CONN. "Tactical, all power to the aft shields! CONN, full impulse! We have to put some distance between us and that ship!" He tapped his comm badge, as he grabbed hold of the Captains Chair's armrest to prevent him from falling onto the ground. The explosions were shaking the ship apart. "Engineering, prepare to eject the warp core."
"Sir?" was the response from Engineering.
"You heard me, Commander Zjavick. Stand by to dump the core. And while you're at it, throw in one or two antimatter pods."
"Sir, if the core or either of those pods are hit... It'll create a massive explosion! We could be vaporized if we are too close to it!"
"That explosion is what I'm counting on, Commander. Eject the core and the pods on my order."
"Aye Sir..."
It was at that moment the Captain noticed the Aquinas wasn't moving. "CONN, I thought I had ordered you to..." he stopped mid-sentence, as he saw the Lieutenant at the Conn laying on the floor next to his station. Blood poured out of his head, which was covered with burns. His console had exploded in his face. The CONN officer was dead.
Sandra immediately walked towards the officer, felt his pulse and then retreated her hand. It was covered in blood. She turned to Ayer with a shocked look on her face. "He's dead."
For a moment, the whole Bridge was quiet. Until the next explosion, which rocked the ship. "Shields are failing!" Lieutenant Watters, the STC, shouted. "Forward phasers and torpedo tube one are destroyed!"
Sandra knew what to do. She sat down in the empty chair the Helmsman had just occupied, and started to lay in a new course. "Turning the ship around," she reported. "Full impuls."
From space, one could see the impulse engines of the Aquinas flare up, as the ship desperately tried to evade the deadly blows of its Starfleet enemy. Phasers and quantum torpedoes punched through what was left of the shields, impacting in the hull of the nearly defenseless ship. There were a number of explosions, followed by the loud hissing of a compartment decompressing. Crewmen were sucked out into space with the air, awaiting a horrible death in the vacuum of the endless space.
"Multiple hull breaches!" Watters yelled, almost in panic. "Emergency forcefields generators are destroyed on some decks, Captain."
"Seal off those sections." Ayer ordered with a lump in his throat. Lives had been lost. "Mr. Zjavick," he called through the open comm channel. "Eject the core and the antimatter pods... Now!"
Again from the vastness of space, one could see a hatch open at the lower part of the Engineering hull of the old Excelsior class. Out of the hatch shot the warp core, along with two antimatter pods. As the Aquinas hurried to get to a safe distance from the core and the pods, and the Prometheus-class came closer and closer, the three important pieces of equipment floated aimlessly through space, just waiting to be blown up.
Another shock went through the Aquinas, as phaser fire punched through its hull... again. "Are we at a safe distance?" Ayer asked.
Sandra shook her head. "At this speed, we need at least two minutes more before we destroy the core and the pods. Otherwise we might risk the chance of being blown up with them. I suggest we..."
She was interrupted by another explosion. A part of her console went up in flames. Other consoles exploded as well. Sandra could just barely hold on to her chair. "That last torpedo..." she said, after looking at the readings she was getting from her scorched, but still mostly intact, console. "It destroyed our impulse engines!"
"Damn..." Ayer cursed softly. "Looks like we won't be going anywhere." He thought about what he was going to do for a moment, but he knew there was nothing else he could do. "Evacuate the Engineering section. I want all the crew to go to the saucer section."
"But sir..." the Vulcan FO began. She was cut of by the Captain.
"Just do it."
Moments passed, filled with explosions, sparks and flames. A nod of the FO confirmed that most of the crew had been evacuated to the saucer section. Some brave officers had stayed behind to man the key positions in Engineering and the rest of the lower section.
Ayer looked at Watters, his STC. "I want all the power you can give me to the aft shields. Reinforce structural integrity too."
He stood up from his chair, looking at his damaged Bridge and the exhausted crew. "I want you all to know..." Everyone on the Bridge knew. It was the farewell speech. "I'm proud of you all. The time we have served together may have been short, but it was memorable." He paused, swallowing the lump in his throat. He then tapped his comm badge. "Mr. Zjavick," he began. The words he was about to say didn't come out easy. With pain in his heart, he gave the order. "Detonate the core."
