Star Trek: Ascension - Chapter 5

Chapter Five

It is said by the local systems that the only thing remarkable about the Zendalen Ardis asteroid belt is that there is nothing remarkable about it. Even the most common collection of cosmic drift harbors something of value; ore for mining, chemical ice, or even a mineral density strong enough for the foundation of an outpost to cling to. Yet this collection, decorated with a backdrop of the cloudy belt of the Ardis nebula, offers nothing of value. Not even pirates or smugglers bother with it, as the alloy hulls of their ships are easily detectable among the balloons of dusty rubble. However, these are the very reasons the asteroid belt has been chosen for the rendezvous with the Enterprise. As the Titan wades deeper into the giant rocks towards the center of the belt for her rendezvous any other ship would be just as easily detected.

The Titan reaches the coordinates and comes to a stop.

“U.S.S. Defiant, this is Captain Riker of the U.S.S. Titan. Ambassador Worf, access secured channel for clearance authorization.”

The Defiant decloaks, facing the Titan. Even on the other side of the pocket the Defiant seems stark and menacing.

"Authorization confirmed Titan," Worf's voice returns. "You are clear to approach."

The Titan rises and passes behind the asteroid that guards the Defiant's back and swings around to descend abeam the ambassador's ship.

On the bridge of the Defiant, Worf sits in the command chair with Lt. Nog at tactical and the bridge crew at their stations. "Activate view screen."

Within a split second of Lt. Nog's compliance the image of Captain Riker and his bridge crew appears on the screen, and a key on the tactical display begins to flash.

"Ambassador, it's good to see you again," Riker greets in a familial tenor. "I hope they're not spoiling you too much in the empire."

Noticing the flashing indicator, Nog leans towards the command seat with a whisper. "Ambassador Worf, sir."

"You have no idea," Worf says to Riker with an impatient glance at the Farengi.

"One moment, captain," he adds turning to scowl at the young lieutenant quizzically.

"They are scanning us," Nog whispers quickly.

Fire rushes through the Klingon's veins as his sight falls the flashing indicator at the lieutenant's console. Worf stands abruptly, charging the view screen with his roar. "Why are you scanning us!"

Stunned by the accusation, Riker stands before the view screen on his own bridge and shoots sharp eyes at the operations station. "Rager?"

The lieutenant commander is already checking her instrument panel and then turns to the captain with wide eyes. "Confirmed, captain, someone's accessed the sensors!”

Raise shields!" he shouts decisively, despite his attachment to Riker and his crew as he sweeps back to his station.

The sudden chime of Worf's communicator is instantly followed by the frantic voice of Dr. Bashir. "It's gone! The device is gone! It's been transported away!"

"Why have you taken the device!" Worf thunders, his fingers digging into the arms of the command chair.

Riker swings his focus on McDowell at tactical for an explanation when the bridge systems suddenly begin to blink and fail, including the lighting.

"Report!" Commander Dupree calls out while Riker returns to Worf.

"Worf, we're losing..." The burning countenance of the Klingon ambassador grows fuzzy as Riker tries to beat the inevitable.

The image of Worf distorts and goes black abruptly. Throwing a frustrated look at his second officer, Riker rushes to ops and leans over Rager, pressing the question with only his presence.

"The bridge has minimal power, captain," Rager reports quickly. "All command functions have been rerouted."

"Rerouted to where, lieutenant? " Commander Dupree snaps, having met the captain at the station.

"Captain," McDowell calls urgently.

Riker straightens and turns to tactical, "McDowell?"

“The last thing the sensors recorded was the Defiant cloaking.”

The report sends a chill through the entire bridge crew. Recognizing the effect of a cloaking Klingon on his crew, Riker addresses McDowell in as routine a manner as appropriate. "Launch a communications drone notifying the ambassador of our condition and request assistance."

"Systems non-responsive, captain," McDowell returns quickly, bolstering his voice.

"What the hell is going on?" Riker mutters under his breath.

Commander Dupree springs into action, panning the bridge as she shouts at the command crew, "We've got Starfleet’s most advanced piece of hardware dead in the water. Let's get our ship back people!"

*

The Titan sits silent and motionless in the asteroid field as the Enterprise drops out of WARP beyond the field and meanders through the pocked planetoids to the rendezvous location.

"USS Defiant, this is Captain Picard of the Enterprise. Ambassador Worf, access secured channel for clearance authorization. USS Titan, we have you on visual, respond please. "

Picard stands before his seat watching the image of the Titan on the view screen and waits.

"The Defiant is responding, captain," Torak reports from tactical.

With a burst of light from the Titan's nacelles, she leaps across the rendezvous point with her enhanced phasers digging into the body of the flagship.

The shocked bridge crew scrambles from the floor as the Titan's phasers continue to hammer them.

"Shields!" La Forge barks over the barrage.

"Direct hits on decks twelve through twenty-three with decompression on eighteen, nineteen, and twenty! The engines are nominal. Casualty reports are coming in from all decks," the Vulcan tactical officer calls over the red alert siren.

As the Titan completes her offensive pass over the bruised hull of the Enterprise, the Defiant uncloaks and descends on the Titan with a barrage of her phasers fire.

On the Enterprise, Picard checks his command console as the ship shudders.

"Shields activated: 92 percent,” Torak continues.

"Helm, lay in a pursuit course!” Picard orders, watching the Defiant pummel the Titan on the view screen as it comes around for another offensive pass.

On the bridge of the Titan, the dismayed command crew tear their stations apart under the red emergency lighting desperate to regain control of the command functions. As they do so the view screen activates abruptly, showing the Titan's attack on the Enterprise and the retaliation of the Defiant.

"Get those systems online now!" Riker shouts.

"We're being pushed out at every turn! The viewer is all they're giving us!" Rager cries.

The Enterprise swings through the asteroids to join the Defiant.

The Titan weaves through the belt using the asteroids for cover while returning fire. The bridge is rocked by the onslaught from the Defiant and Enterprise and the commander crew must shout to be heard.

"Answers!" Riker yells. "Who are 'they' and how did they gain control!"

"The Enterprise has joined the pursuit," McDowell reports.

"No shit," Rager interjects.

"Answers!" Dupree barks, glaring at the helmsman.

The bridge lights suddenly return and their reprieve is broken by the chirp of the communications system.

"I have those answers, captain," Lieutenant Alden's voice offers from the speakers.

"Alden," Riker acknowledges with a sigh of relief. “Report! Can you get any of the systems online?”

"Actually," Alden's voice replies, "that would be up to my employer."

*

The sitting room at 221B Baker Street is spacious, but dark. Standing before the vintage fireplace a silhouetted Moriarty faces the flames dressed in Edwardian attire with his hands clasped tightly behind him. “History does indeed repeat, Captain Riker. Your vessel belongs to me now.”

He turns his back on the fire; his face is cold and hard. His steely gaze fixes on the wall opposite him and a facsimile of the Titan's view screen replaces the fine decor. The pursuit and bombardment fills the scene, flooding the dark room with flashing colors. In the center of the room the captain's chair replaces the antique furniture and Moriarty takes the seat as his own.

Riker and his crew stand in stunned silence, locked in place by the voice from the past.

"I am sure you realize that any attempts on your part to regain control of your vessel will be quite useless," the professor concludes in his signature civilized malevolence.

The Titan continues to careen in Moriarty's bid to get the vessel into open space, dodging the blasts of the pursuing starships and the surrounding asteroids.

On the Enterprise, repair crews rush from the turbolift s to the open bridge components and Geordi looks to the captain from his station. “We can't let them go to WARP, sir.”

Picard nods and opens a line to main engineering. “It is imperative we prevent that ship from escaping, chief.”

With the heart of the Enterprise pulsing behind her in anxious rhythm, Sonya Gomez sweeps from the monitor displaying the Titan's schematics and fixes her gaze on her engineering crew as she replies. "We’re already working on it, captain."

The Titan begins evasive maneuvers as she races out of the protection of the asteroid field and into open space. Behind her the Defiant sinks in her trajectory to makes way for streams of red phaser fire from the Enterprise.

The Titan's form, however, begins to distort as her cloaking device begins to bend light around her. Behind her the Enterprise and Defiant send all their weapons against her in a desperate attempt to disable her before she disappears.

However, just as the Titan vanishes three Romulan warbirds decloak ahead, spewing all possible trajectories the Titan with artillary. The Enterprise and defiant quickly coordinate the volley of their weapons with the Romulan attack. The Titan is silhouetted by the triangulated bombardment that penetrates her defenses, crippling her cloaking device.

With the Titan laid bare the warbirds break formation. The lead warbird maintains guards over the Titan while the two flanking vessels focus their attack the other two Starfleet ships.

The Enterprise crew is rocked by the onslaught.

"Forward shields down to thirty-three percent!" Torak calls.

"What is the status of the aft shields?" Commander La Forge returns.

"Ninety two percent," the Vulcan answers.

Picard and La Forge glance at each other with a coordinated nod.

"Helm," the captain orders, "continue vector heading and come about 180 degrees! Transfer auxiliary power to aft shields!”

"Torak," La Forge continues, "ready aft torpedoes and target the port standing warbird!"

As the Enterprise maintains her defense, she swings in her orientation, bringing her tail to bear and returning fire on the warbird with a barrage of quantum torpedoes.

Abeam, the Defiant soars erratically around the second warbird evading its artillery and targeting its weapons array.

Under the retaliation of the lead warbird, the Titan activates its advanced counter measures, releasing a cloud of remote artillery drones. The drones launch from the Titan's hull like escape pods and swarm the lead warbird, eating away at its shields with phaser fire.

A Klingon battle cruiser suddenly decloaks and joins the fray, targeting the warbird oppressing the Enterprise.

"Captain, the Klingons are hailing," Torak states calmly over the rupturing station panels and groaning hull.

The captain looks to La Forge with wily eyes as he replies to tactical, "On screen."

The field of battle changes to the robust face of a Klingon captain and his eager command crew on their sultry bridge. "I am Kordor of the IKS Gorr. The empire has sent us as a silent guard in the transport of the device and we rally to your defense Captain Picard. Withdraw from battle and tend to your ship, we will tend to these Romulan p'toks!"

Picard smiles diplomatically but counters the suggestion. "Your assistance is greatly appreciated, Captain Kordor, but we cannot withdraw. We must prevent our quarry from going to WARP."

"The Romulans have already seen to that," Kordor assures from the screen.

Even as he speaks, the Romulan warbird shatters the field grids on the Titan’s nacelles. However, before the warbird can inflict more damage the parasitic drones penetrate its shields, amassing at the ship’s powerplant and eating their way into the warp core. The Romulan ship vaporizes in a consuming explosion that showers the contending starships with radiation and debris.

The remaining warbirds slip swiftly into the field of asteroids, vanishing under their cloaking devices as they flee. Like a whisper, the Gorr cloaks as well and the Enterprise and Defiant move to overshadow the Titan.

On the Titan's bridge, the command crew is busy putting out fires, tending to wounded, and checking station controls. Riker meets Dupree at the engineering station at the back of the bridge where diagrams display the critical damage.

"We're still locked out of all command functions, captain," Dupree sighs. "We can't even access the internal sensors. There is no way of determining how extensive the damage is ship wide."

"What about the turbolift s?"

"Not functioning."

Riker looks from the commander to the schematic as he pauses to consider his options. "Take two officers and use the Jeffries tubes to assess our condition."

"Should we take arms?" the commander checks.

"No," Riker begins, "Our enemy won't be in the corridors. "

*

Picard takes his seat next to La Forge. Around them the repair crews are thinning out and the command crew stands ready at their stations. Picard exhales deeply and looks at Geordi. "It seems the Romulans never miss an opportunity."

"I'll say," Geordi quips.

"What is the status of the Titan?" Picard asks, looking to the view screen's projection of the ship.

"The Romulans were able to break her shields, but who ever is in control over there was able to raise her secondary shields pretty quickly after the warbird was destroyed," Geordi answers. "Regardless of the fact that she's not going anywhere, we still won't be able to board her with her shields up."

Picard nods and then stands and turns towards tactical. "Hail the Defiant."

"On screen," Torak acknowledges.

The battle-hardened faces of the Defiant bridge crew appear on the view screen, their visage of fortitude paling against the stewing countenance of Ambassador Worf.

"Report, ambassador," Captain Picard orders.

Worf stands before the image of Picard, annoyed with himself over being caught by surprise and loathe to explain it to his former captain. "We decloaked upon receiving the Titan's clearance code. While Captain Riker and I were exchanging hails we were scanned. Before we could respond the device was transported off of the Defiant."

"Were there any indications that Captain Riker was being coerced in any way? " Picard asks from the Defiant's view screen.

"No, sir," Worf answers plainly. "I believe the Titan was commandeered somehow. Just before we lost visual contact the Titan's bridge appeared to experience a systems failure."

Picard contemplates the information then focuses again on the view screen. "Worf, I would like the Defiant to join the Gorr in remaining cloaked for the time being. If who ever is responsible for this is waiting for accomplices to arrive, it would be best if the position of your ships was unknown."

"So, you do not believe it is the Romulans who are responsible for taking the Titan?"

"Captain Riker wasn't informed of his mission until this morning. I find it hard to believe the Romulans could have received the information regarding its nature so quickly," Picard explains.

"Then why would they attack?" Worf counters.

"I would guess that these Romulans have been shadowing the Titan covertly and have simply exploited the situation. There are many factions within the Star Empire that would like to see Captain Riker's mission with the Romulan government fail," Picard points out.

"If that's the case, it's a good bet they'll be back," La Forge interjects with a wary nod to Worf.

"All the more reason for the Defiant and Gorr to remain cloaked," Picard concludes.

Worf's burning glare wanes and he looks at his comrades with determination. "I agree, but that still does not answer the question of what happened on the Titan."

"Determining that is the task at hand," Picard answers. "In the meantime, coordinate with Captain Kordor and remain under cloak, ambassador."

Worf acknowledges then the image of his surly demeanor is replaced by the Defiant's gray hull amid the starry expanse. Within seconds the Defiant melts into transparency. Nearby, the Titan lists slightly in space with tattered engines and the Enterprise over her shoulder.