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The Raptor cruised through space at warp five outside of the normal hotspot between the Urthean and Confederation. They were returning from escorting a diplomat to the Falon System and were taking a short cut back home under cloak.

"This has been a pretty uneventful cruise," Fara beamed proudly from her station. "She's never run better and we had to practically rebuild it from the ground up, but we got to tweak some of its new parts."

"Yeah, she's handling a little better than she used to," Land said, tapping the flight control panel and noticing the ship reacted in sync with it. "It's not drifting to port as badly as it used to."

Fara smirked. "Thank you for the compliment."

"As long as she's reliable that's all that matters," Harry said, patting his arm rest assuredly.

Fara nodded. "It should be. We shouldn't have any more major disasters like in the past, thanks to our benevolent Fleet HQ for giving me time to get the job done properly this time."

"I'm just glad to get behind the helm again," Land said. "I was starting to suffer from too much shore-leave. I ran out of movies to watch."

Harry laughed at that. His crew deserved a long shore leave after all that they had been through. Even the trial runs had gone smoothly and she didn't even seem like the ship she used to be, but better than before. They had spent nearly a week getting back into their old routine, running drills until Harry was satisfied they were back to fighting form.

Everyone had returned back to duty. The reliable--if slightly unsteady--O'mara sat quietly at her post, occasionally molting slightly when something frustrated her. Don Rivas, the ops manager, seemed a little less grumpy than he had been. Terri Lu was even back and her voice had returned except for a sharp squeak here and there. She still bore the scar from her injury, but it didn't seem to bother her.

Jakar seemed about as constant as night and day. He sat with his usual scowl and nonplussed demeanor, hunkered over his console as if to dare something to jump out at them. Suddenly, a sensor alarm sounded and Lt. O'mara went to work.

"Captain, I've detected some anomalous readings at coordinates 314, mark 86. Can we move closer for a better look?"

"What type of an anomaly?" Harry asked.

"It appears to be a ship...it has significant mass. If we moved closer and dropped out of warp, I could identify it better," O'mara replied.

"You heard her helm," Harry nodded, "set course and slow to impulse once we're within range."

"Aye, sir," Land said, typing in the course correction.

"Thank you," O'mara said as her sensors began to probe deeper into space.

Harry was a little tense because he wasn't used to not being shot at. Everyone else seemed to have the same feeling and it was obvious. Jakar's normally cold composure seemed to be strained as he sat at tactical, tapping his fingers on the dim screen. The bridge was deftly quiet, except for the computer beeps and the pinging sound of the tracer beneath the view screen.

Harry sighed heavily and tried to relax. He actually preferred this to being shot at. However, the deviation from the norm was still disturbing.

` "I've got the results of the scan...i'ts an energy signature. Isolating frequency," O'mara said excitedly as she quickly tapped buttons on her console. "It's a Confederation warp signature, but very weak. It's adrift."

"Mr. Jakar, go to Red Alert. Mrs. Lu hail them, please."

He didn't have to give Land any order, because the ship was already on an intercept course.

"No response to any hails," Terri-Lu stated, "all channels are silent."

"We're in range. The ship is completely dead," Jakar said, "showing signs of heavy damage, multiple hull breeches. It's the Exeter, Zimmerman class."

"I'm not reading any signs of life," O'mara said quietly.

The Raptor dropped out of warp and pulled up beside the derelict vessel. It was shot full of holes, tilting at an odd angle, adrift in space and completely dead.

"Fara, get some of your people together. Jakar and O'mara, go with her. Get over there and find out what has happened. Fara, I want you to get the ship's power back on line. We can't do anything for the crew, so we may as well bring the ship back home."

=======================================

Title: The Derelict

IDP 2003, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2019, 2021

By Vakash Darkbane

Edited By Saurex Conoway

=======================================

Several transporter beams appeared on the bridge of the Exeter. As soon as everyone materialized, their boots magnetized, holding them to the deck. Jakar and O'mara beamed over with a security detail to the bridge. Fara and her team had been beamed straight to the ship's engine room. The ship was eerily dark.

Everyone quickly turned on their lights and scanned the bridge. Bodies, pieces, and blood globules floated around them, along with debris from the ship.

"Agh! What a bloody mess," Jakar grunted, sweeping the bridge with his men. "Whoever did this had some nerve!"

O'mara went over and tried to access the main computer console, but it wouldn't respond. "O'mara to Phoenix, are you and your people ok? What is your status?"

"Fara here. We're fine," she said as she flicked her torch on and panned it over the darkened corridors of the engineering deck. "We got to make our way to the core room."

"Man I hate these environmental suits," Knackt complained. "I feel like a trapped rat."

"Isn't that because you are a rat?" Kai Remmick said jokingly, getting a laugh out of Jenna Rydel.

"Why you pointy toothed, spiky eared, fuzz-ball! There you go playing the species card," Knackt said all worked up. "I'll show you a rat! I'll use this spanner here an--"

The other engineers who were on the away team quickly gave the two some space.

"Knock it off you two! It's bad enough we're on a ghost ship. I don't need two more bodies floating around," Fara snapped as she sidestepped a floating leg.

"How long until you think we can get the lights on up here?" O'mara asked.

"We'll start working on getting the power back online after we get set up, so probably another twenty minutes."Fara said, stepping between the two of them and shoving them apart. "If my crew can behave themselves that is," she sighed, glaring at the Kai and Knackt.

"Okay, we'll be on standby," O'mara said, signing off.

"Go out into the corridor and secure this deck. If you run into any trouble, signal me and retreat back here." Jakar ordered his men. "Crewmen Jax, you and Farin take the top decks."

Sonya nodded. "You 'eard th man! Let's get goin'," she said, motioning for them to leave. Farin nodded and walked over to the door to the bridge, opened it with an e-lock, and proceeded down inside the ship.

"Cary and Yuma, cover the engine section! Check the damn access corridors if you have to! Is that understood?"

They nodded and quickly left the bridge. He then turned to O'mara, who was standing at the back of the bridge, rubbing her arm with the thick gloved hands of her suit.

"A little edgy?" Jakar asked, pushing a body down to the ground so that when the gravity kicked back in it wouldn't fall before continuing to do that to the others.

"What gave it away?" O'mara asked.

"You're shaking enough your suit is rattling."

"Well, th-th-this isn't exactly my idea of a g-g-good time!" O'mara muttered."I just love dead ships f-f-filled with...lots of...dead...people..." she shuddered and cringed. "Last time I went on a m-m-mission like this I..." she caught herself. "Well...I th-th-think we both know how that turned out."

"At least you didn't have to be the good doctor's guinea pig." Jakar grunted, continuing his grim task. "You could help," he said, motioning around at the drifting carnage.

"No thanks."

"Have it your way," Jakar shrugged, "but when the gravity and life support kicks on, it's going to be very messy if this isn't done, especially considering that if life support kicks in, they could hit the ground and shatter, being frozen and all."

O'mara started dry heaving.

"Just try not to think about it, that's the best thing," Jakar said as nicely as he could. "It's not like you have to touch them. You have a vac suit on. Just don't look at the faces."

O'mara whimpered, but the alternative sounded much more terrifying as she began to help him with his grim task.

Jakar's com-badge lit up and he answered it. "Jakar here."

"What's your status?"

"We are fine, Commander. However, we've yet to find a living crew member. I've sent out search teams. You might want to inform the doctor that he has his work cut out for him. It's a mess over here...he'll be a coroner today."

"I'll pass that along," Harry said grimly. "Have you found any evidence of a boarding party?"

"Yes," Jakar said, "but who, I don't know yet. There is weapon scoring all over the interior." He glanced at the heavy phaser marks on one of the walls of the bridge.

"That's not very good to hear," Harry said.

"We're going to need some help with the dead sir. There are...a lot," he said gruffly.

"Ok. We'll send extra people over to help," Harry replied. "Keep an open channel."

"Aye sir," Jakar said.

"I swear, he's trying to drive me nuts," O'Mara muttered as she used the butt of her phaser rifle to nudge one of the bodies to the ground.

* * *

Hours later

With the assistance of more crew members, the bodies were eventually cleared and stored in the ship's cargo hold. It was grim work, but it needed to be done before the ship's primary systems came back online.

Life support was restored first. The hull breaches were sealed with emergency bulkheads and the crew were able to move around the ship without the bulky environmental suits, although they still had to carry them. Fara had a few more of her engineers sent over to assist with repairs, but they left as soon as the job was done. Jakar, however, still kept four of his best security people on board, searching for something, anything, that may be a clue as to what happened.

Meanwhile on board the Raptor

Harry stood beside the Doctor as he examined one of the bodies.

"Any clue yet as to what attacked the crew?" He asked.

"Well, a good number of them suffered trauma from a disrupter-like weapon," Dr. Okan talked while doing an autopsy. "Several, however, seemed to have either been disemboweled, dismembered, or had their windpipes crushed by something with a serrated edge." He paused to think. "The wounds have to be from some sentient creature that could calculate...acting with precision. I'll have to check the medical database before I can give you a solid answer. I do have something interesting to show you though."

Dr. Okan covered the body and slid it back into the storage compartment of the Raptor's morgue, which stored it in a self-sustaining transporter buffer. He walked over to another cabinet and slid it out. On it was a metal tray with three bags, with names written on them in white marker.

"Pardon me Doctor, but what the hell are these?"

"These," the Doctor said, "are the remains of Lt. D'dora, Nila-Kar and Ensign Jarka."

Harry gave a somewhat mixed expression of wonder and confusion.

"The bodies were badly desiccated. In fact, within a few moments of beginning the autopsy, they collapsed into this dust. If it wasn't for the Confederations Genetic Profiling Database, I would never have been able to identify them."

"What could have done...this?" Harry wondered, aghast as he leaned close to examine the yellow powder.

"Being as this is completely inconsistent with the current pattern of the deaths," Dr. Okan said, chewing on his lip, "I have no clue. It's nothing good though."

"I'll warn the away teams to keep their heads up," Harry said.

"Probably not a bad idea," Doctor Okan said, sliding the tray back into the cabinet.

* * *

Down in the Exeter's main engineering compartment, Fara's team was hard at work.

Fara was glad that during the clean up process her team did most of the work. They could tell by how jittery she was and that the whole mess was making her uncomfortable. They all understood it would be hard on her so close to her recent meltdown and did most of the work for her, much to her unspoken appreciation.

Fara found it much easier to deal with now that it was just her and the familiar machinery of a starship.

"Okay...ready," Remmick said over a com channel. He was presently deep inside the ship, far down a dark Jefferies tube. "Hey! Rat boy! You got those power junctions reattached yet or what?"

"Yeah! And I'm gonna reattach them to your hind quarters, you stinking fuzz ball!" Knackt hollered over the com channel.

"You know, if you two would stop bickering we would have been done about thirty minutes ago," Fara said as Knackt swatted her hands off him. "I hope you have completed your job."

"Yeah yeah! I'm ready, but I'm tellin' ya Fara, the relays won't hold. Sure we'll have lights and life support, but you're gonna blow one of the main relays."

"Knackt, I checked it five times already," Fara said. "I'm not crawling back into a tube to do another point by point inspection."

"I'm not saying it'll be that one boss lady! It'll be one of 'em."

"Gah! You can be such a pain sometimes," Fara growled.

"Fine, don't listen to me! I'm just sayin it will happen!" The rat retorted.

"Just shut up and help me flip these damn switches," she said, walking over to the main relay box.

"Fine," Knackt said as he stepped up to the console that had a set of magnetic twist starters on either side of it. "On three?"

"On, three," Fara confirmed, "one, two, three!"

With that, she turned the mag-starter, and it locked. Knackt did the same thing. The generator activated and main power came back online.

"Outside atmosphere detected," the environmental suits' computers reported.

"See Knackt! Nothing to worry about," Fara grinned at him.

"Warrr#$#%@# EPS Power #$%R#$^!" The ship's computer announced. Suddenly, there were several blasts that shook the ship.

"What's going on down there!" Jakar demanded over the com.

Knackt scurried over to a computer interface and accessed it as it flickered on and off.

"The EPS power relays on decks 24 through 26, sections 1 through 36, have just ruptured," Knackt reported, "and now we have two damaged warp power conduits." He folded his arms. "TOLD YOU SO!"

"Shut up! At least we have main power back for the rest of the ship," Fara said, not wanting to admit that she was wrong. Using the main engineering console, she re-pressurized the ship, brought most of the systems back online, and sealed off the ruptured decks. Fresh air began to circulate and eventually the lights came back on. Once the readings looked stable, she cracked the seal on her pressure helmet. She didn't explode, so she figured that was a sign the atmosphere was stable again.

"Bridge, this is Phoenix! All power is back online, but unfortunately this ship isn't going anywhere."

"Understood," Jakar replied from the bridge.

* * *

"Away team, report," Harry's voice said over the com. "What were those fireworks for? Are you all right?"

"Jakar reporting. The engineering crew had some difficulty, but we are all in good health."

"Have you found out what has happened yet?"

"I am working on it now commander," Michele O'mara replied. "The computer core is severely damaged. We will have to make a backup copy of all the files we can recover directly for analysis. I'll need a stand-alone backup unit, with a full set of tools as well."

"I'll have the equipment beamed directly over to you." Harry replied. "Keep us posted. Raptor out."

"So, now what?" O'mara asked.

Jakar huffed. "I suggest you go try to find the computer core if you can. It shouldn't be too far below this deck. More than likely it will be on Deck 3. Check to see if there are any labs down there that you can access it from."

"By myself?"

Jakar grunted. "I don't like it either, but I've got most of my people busy at the moment. Keep an open com channel open."

"But...."

Jakar just glared at her. The equipment materialized on the bridge and O'mara went over and picked it up.

"Ok... fine..." she sighed, "I'll just go down there...by myself."

"You have a phaser and you know how to use it," Jakar reminded her, trying to bring up the internal sensors on the tactical display.

"You aren't serious...are you?" O'mara whined.

"Yes, I am. Now get going. The quicker you get it done, the quicker you can come back here," Jakar said.

O'mara sighed and then reluctantly left the bridge.

* * *

Back on the Raptor

Harry paced around the bridge. "I don't like this, I don't like this at all."

"Skipper, why don't you sit down before you wear a hole in the deck?" Land suggested.

"A starship with a dead crew is nothing to be taken lightly," Harry scolded. "Something is not right. We need to get that ship recovered, but the Raptor is hardly a tug boat." He rubbed the bridge of his muzzle. "So, we have to get that ship moving if we can. Terri, have you already informed Starfleet of our situation?"

"Yes sir, but it will be at least an hour or two before the transmission burst reaches a subspace relay station."

Harry scowled in her direction.

"I'm sorry, sir, but I can't make it go any faster," Terri said flatly.

"It's ok," Harry said, turning to look at the picture of the Exeter floating dead in space.

"Ops...."

"Yes?" Commander Rivas said.

"Keep an eye open will you," said Harry.

"That's the plan," Rivas shrugged.

Harry sighed frustrated and returned to pacing. Every instinct he had was screaming a warning to him, but they had to save that ship if it was possible.

* * *

Later

"Ok people, we have a problem," Fara said, taking a sip from a cup of coffee mixed with a little something from a snifter smuggled in with her tool kit. Her nerves were still a little frayed and she was doing her best to keep it together. She swallowed and continued on. "The structural integrity field system is completely offline. We've got atmosphere and power, but we can't move this bucket...at least not at warp. Jenna? How is the computer system?"

"It's functional enough to control most of the ship's functions, but there's a lot of damage throughout the network. Best I can tell, some data lines must have gotten severed on a few of the decks where there were heavy fire fights." She smacked between every other word, from the smell on her breath she must have brought some gum with her.

"What about the back up data trunk?" Fara asked. "You know, all the hard lines that are supposed to be the last hope when it comes to system wide failure?"

"Now see, that's what I don't understand," Jenna said twirling one of her spines with a finger. "It seems like something crawled into the main Jeffries conduit and severed the lines. Someone will have to go down in there and repair them."

"Ok, not a problem," Fara said, checking something off on a datapad. "Ensign Arno? How are those impulse engines?"

"I got two out of three ready for a test fire chief...the other is not worth messing with," the feline male Cornerian replied. "I'd still like to go over them one more time. I think I still might be able to get them up and running again."

He suddenly turned. He thought he saw some motion out of the corner of his eye. He chalked it up to his imagination playing tricks on him.

"Give me another hour or so."

"Noted," Fara said, "the core seems dead. We got plenty of antimatter and deuterium, but the crystals are shot and so is the chamber, so that's a dead end."

"So, um, who's gonna fix the data relays?" Knackt asked.

They all gave him a conspiratorial look.

"Son of a bitch," the rat muttered.

* * *

Elsewhere, O'mara made her way down the dimly lit corridors. Judging by the faint stink of ozone and the multiple energy weapon marks along the walls, as well as the blood stains on the walls and floors, the crew had put up a hell of a fight. She tried to ignore how eerie the situation was and focused on the steady warble of her tricorder as she took readings.

She heard a hiss and nearly jumped out of her feathers. However, she saw it was simply a door to someone's quarters that was malfunctioning.

"Jakar," she said.

"Yes?"

"C-c-can you just talk to me," she asked.

There was a pause. "Fine," he finally agreed.

"When we talked about the Captain...you said he is t-t-testing me. What did you mean?"

"Don't you know anything about him?" Jakar asked.

"No..." she admitted, kneeling down next to a puddle of unknown muck that was slowly melting back into, well, muck.

"What is this stuff," she wondered as she did a thorough scan and took a sample.

"Well aren't you in for a treat," Jakar said, coming up to a junction and looking around carefully, checking his tricorder. "Harry is one of the few and proud 'Fab Fifty Five'."

"That rings a bell. Wasn't that that group of..." O'mara trailed off, distracted by her readings before moving on.

"Yeap! One of a group of fifty five individuals specially picked by Admiral Kramer. He figured that if they worked together, they could change the entire universe." Jakar replied. "At least, that was his philosophy."

"Isn't he the same Admiral that went completely A.W.O.L. a few years ago and disappeared with his ship and crew?" O'mara said with a slight frown. "Not to mention when he taught at the Academy, his methods were considered highly unorthodox."

"One and the same," Jakar said, stepping around another corner with his phaser rifle raised, only to find nothing awaiting him. Everyone was tense. He was expecting to hear about friendly fire if someone was not careful enough to maintain proper communication. "Unorthodox maybe...but he made his people face their fears. If his students could pass his little games, they were considered worthy to serve under him."

"If you ask me, he sounds like a head case," O'mara said in his ear.

"Perhaps so, but there is a fine line between genius and madness," Jakar said, checking a side corridor. He spotted Sonya Jax and made a hand signal for her to head down the side corridor.

"Commander Martinez wouldn't put you on these missions if he didn't have faith in you Lieutenant. I think he wants you to have some faith in yourself." Jakar said, checking down another corridor with the barrel mounted light, only revealing more battle damage and debris.

"If you say so," O'mara frowned at her tricorder's readings. Whatever this slimy stuff was, there was a trail of it leading down the corridor. "I've found some sort of quasi-organic material unlike anything I've seen before. I'm going to check it out."

"Be careful," Jakar replied.

"You know, I appreciate you trying to explain the Commander's methods to me," O'mara said. "I'm still convinced he's just trying to drive me nuts though."

"Harry isn't trying to drive you nuts," Jakar reassured her. "He's just pushing you, putting you in uncomfortable situations so you'll adapt to them."

"Well this is pushing it just a little too far," O'mara protested as she followed the strange slime trail.

"If he didn't think you could handle it he wouldn't have sent you." Jakar said. "Now, what I need is our science officer to go down to Deck 3 and investigate the unusual scouring we found, not to mention the unusual blood-like fluid all over down there."

"Yeah, s-s-sure thing," O'mara sighed as she continued to follow the splotchy trail of muck, which her tricorder was still undecided about.

* * *

"I tell her something and does she listen? NO! Something bad happens and who has to get in the maintenance tubes and fix it. ME!" Knackt muttered, climbing through the narrow ductwork. Because of his size, he had to get down into the guts of the ship and try to undo some of the damage that Fara had inadvertently caused. He came to another door and opened it, dropping his kit ahead of him. He turned around and started to climb down backwards. As he did, he suddenly heard a loud clicking, followed by a shriek and a pincer-like claw grabbing his foot.

"GAH! What in the?"

He looked down to see a rather large insectile creature, it's yellow eyes rapidly turning red with rage from being beaned in the head with the kit. It started yanking on him, trying to pull him loose.

"Let. Go. Of. Me! You stinking bug!" Knackt said, panic stricken and kicking at the claw around his food while trying to grab his phaser. He managed to pull it from its holster, only to drop it. The creature snarled and pinched it's claw tighter around his leg. Knackt finally had an idea. "Oh so you want somethin' to chew on eh? Chew on this! Computer! Initiate a level 10 force field below me!"

The computer whirred, clicked, and then complied. A force field snapped to life below him. The creature shrieked in pain as the force field effectively cut it in half. Strange, brackish blood spilled all over the force field as the creature writhed in agony. Then the computer buzzed and chirped again and the force field shorted out. The pincher claw released and the whole mess sloshed down into the next junction.

Knackt climbed down to the body of the dead insectoid and kicked it. "Stinkin' bug! That'll teach you to mess with me!"

Once he got his breath back, he tapped his com badge. "Hey! Are one you thick headed security goons around? This is Knackt."

"This is Jakar," came the reply, "what is it?"

"I just ran into trouble down here in section...uh...twenty three, Deck 15. You'd better come take a look."

"Ok, I'll be down in a few moments. Standby."

* * *

Ensign Arno looked up from the access compartment. "Hello?" He said flashing looking around. He could have sworn he'd heard some sort of strange twittering sound. He walked around the large room after hearing it again and checked his tricorder's readings, weapon at the ready.

A strange puddle was forming on the ground in front of him. He scanned it and got inconclusive readings about the substance. There was a rasping sound that sort of reminded him of breathing. He brought his light up just in time to see some strange four toothed maw dropping down from the ceiling, making an otherworldly high pitched shriek.

A phaser shot followed by a scream was heard as the strange creature enveloped him from the waist up and they both dropped to the ground.

* * *

"Remmick!" Fara shouted down the core.

"WHAT?!" The Catarian shouted back.

"What's the status of the structural integrity field generators?"

"They are shot! What more do you want? It looks like something went to town on them with some sort of energy weapon and when they got tired of that, it looks like they decided to try to rip it apart."

"So, what does that mean?"

"It means if we get this bird moving we're going to have to go really slow or ditch the drive section and come back for it!"

Fara sighed and rubbed her forehead. "Do we have anything back on the Raptor we could splice into the system?"

"Not big enough to handle this hulk!" Remmick shouted back up to her.

"Damn it!" She started to pace in front of a flickering core monitoring station. "Hey, has anyone seen Arno lately?" She asked the other two crewmen who were helping her.

"Last we saw ,Chief, he was checking out the impulse unit."

"Hmm, I wonder why we haven't heard from him," Fara tapped her badge. "Phoenix to Arno."

* * *

In the bay, Fara's voice spoke out of a combadge as two beings rummaged through the equipment cases next to the semi-dissected, very lifeless body of Ensign Arno. They looked at the badge as it sounded again.

"Phoenix to Arno! Please respond!"

The beings clicked to each other in their own language and scooped up the equipment before they scuttled down a maintenance tube. The voice sounded really demanding.

* * *

After several minutes of crawling through maintenance corridors and Jeffries tubes, Jakar found Knackt doing his repairs as if nothing had happened. Jakar looked down at the creature--or being, it was hard to tell--who had been cleanly cut in half.

"How'd you do this? You obviously didn't shoot it."

"Force field," Knackt replied. "Bugly there never saw it comin'."

"Did you see any others?"

"Nope. Dat's the only one. Lousy bug he tried to eat me!" Knackt said, tearing out some damaged circuits and examining them more closely.

"I doubt it would find you appetising," Jakar said, looking it over and noticing it had several deep phaser burns in its hide. "It was probably injured and you startled it."

"Well, next time I won't be as nice when tryin' to keep from being killed!" The rat yelled, his voice eerily echoing around them.

"If you don't require any medical attention I will continue my search for other intruders. I suggest you continue your engineering."

"Yeah, you go do that," Knackt said, starting to solder new relays into the circuitry.

"And keep this on you at all times," Jakar said, picking up the rat's phaser and tossing it to him, "because, next time, you might not have the luxury of the ship rescuing you."

Knackt caught the weapon and muttered something under his breath.

"Jakar to Raptor come in," Jakar said. Nothing but static.

"Phoenix to Jakar," Fara's voice spoke up.

"Yes Chief?"

"We're missing a crew member, Ensign Arno, won't answer his combadge," Fara said worriedly.

"Understood. I'll send someone to track him down, but I want you and the rest of your crew to meet up and stay in main engineering."

"Why?" Fara asked, a bit worried.

"We have intruders onboard. I can't raise the ship, so safety in numbers would be the best strategy at the moment."

"Gotcha'," Fara replied, "I'll call everyone in."

"Jakar to Jax."

"Go ahead, sir," Sonya Jax replied.

"I want you and your partner to head toward the impulse compartment," Jakar said curtly, "and Sonya? Keep your eyes peeled. We've just spotted a damn Paraxeno. There could be more evading our scans somehow."

"Understood."

"Lt. O'mara," Jakar said, tapping his combadge, "give me your location."

"I'm not too much farther than where you left me in Section C," O'mara replied. "I've found something strange, thought you should see it."

"I will be up there shortly." Jakar said, picking up his speed to a jog as he entered the main corridor.

* * *

"A Paraxeno?" Fara frowned. "You mean the bug guys with the pinchers?"

"Yeah, that's what I said, pinchers and all," Kackt said, "but I sizzled him and got the repairs done."

"Why didn't Jakar warn us?" Fara mused.

"Well, we're all on edge. That'd be like tossing a match into a nitrous factory," Knackt shrugged.

Fara scowled. "Well I'm going to have a few words with him," she said, slapping her combadge. "Fara to Jakar, come in."

The badge chirped an error code.

Knackt raised a brow and tried his badge with the same result.

"Oh great! We're all going to die..." he gulped, "aren't we?"

"Not yet," Fara said, grabbing a plasma cutter. "There is a weapons locker down the corridor. Let's get it open."

* * *

"Ensign!" Sonya Jax shouted as she entered the impulse engine bay. "Where are you?"

Nothing.

"Jax to Jakar," she said, tapping her com-badge. It merely squeaked in non compliance.

She carefully made her way towards the impulse unit, where she saw Ensign Arno's corpse. Something moved above her. She quickly dove to the side as the air began to stir and it was fortunate she did. A strange, semi-spherical creature, with four fang-like claws, crashed onto the deck and shrieked at her. It was the size of a large cat, like a lion, and seemed almost gelatinous in nature, with three strange nodes in its center. It shrieked eerily as Sonya rolled to her feet and made her way back to the door, firing her phaser at it.

The creature seemed to shrug off the hits and lifted off the ground to float after her again. Again, she quickly dove for the ground and the strange floating creature shrieked in rage as she disappeared through the door.

Sonya quickly sealed the door and took off running down the corridor, not wanting to be anything near whatever that creature was.

* * *

"Three Paraxeno vessels are dropping out of warp and closing with us," Rivas reported.

"Damnit!" Harry cursed. They had been out of touch with the away team for the last ten minutes. Some sort of dampening field was being generated from within the Exeter's hull. It was blocking all transporter and communication signals.

"Go to Red Alert," Harry ordered, "and open a channel."

"Channel open, sir," Terri said from the back.

"Attention Paraxeno vessels, this is Commander Martinez of the starship Raptor. If you do not reverse course, we will open fire."

"Sir, that may not have been such a good idea," Rivas spoke up, "I've detected several more ships closing on our location on long range sensors."

"How many more?" Harry asked.

"A few dozen."

Harry gave him a look that conveyed annoyance.

"Hey! It's not my fault!" Rivas snapped.

Outside, several dozen triangular ships, looking like the carapace of a beetle, had quickly converged on the Raptor, each unleashing a volley of weapons on the ship before it even knew what hit it.

Harry cursed as the ship shook under enemy fire. "Tactical, return fire! Mr. Land, get us out of here. Go to Attack Mode!" Harry ordered.

"Sir, Attack Mode is offline. The systems are not responding!" Lt. Baxter reported, hanging on to her console as the Raptor heaved and pitched. "I can't get them up. That last hit must of damaged a relay."

"Somebody confirm that!"

"Attack Mode is disabled," Rivas shouted, pounding his console in frustration. "Rerouting all power to shields, best I can do, Captain.""

"They're all around us Captain!" Land said. "We're trapped unless you want to ram them!"

"Then ram them Mr. Land!" Harry growled through gritted teeth.

"What about our away team!" Land said turning back to look at him

"Don't worry, our first priority is to survive! Now punch it Mr. Land," Harry said sternly, pointing at the fox's console.

The ship shook hard again as another volley slammed into its weakened shields. A conduit along the wall exploded, causing some of the computer terminals to go dim.

"Warning! Shields failing," the computer announced.

Land quickly activated forward thrust. He placed his fingers over the thrust sensor and slammed it forward.

The Raptor launched forward and slammed into several of the smaller ships as they tried to lock tractor beams onto it. Four of the ships flew out of control, crippled by the collision, but more turned to pursue.

The violence of the multiple impacts was jarring. More sparks rained down on them on the bridge. Land looked at his console. It was a sea of red.

"I know that hurt, but they're going to do worse if we don't fight dirty. Just pull it together for me baby," he muttered, patting the console. He quickly punched in a few more commands. "All right, you want to play rough," Land growled, channeling all power into the G-stabilisers, "we'll play rough."

The Raptor suddenly rolled, slamming the ships that were trying to tractor it into several pursuing ships. The resulting chaos caused the other ships to back off. Now that they had a clearing, the Raptor bolted ahead to warp as the smaller vessels followed. Rivas targeted two of more of the vessels and hammered them with the phaser cannons as they passed.

"We're free Skip! It wasn't pretty, but we're free!" Land said, somewhat relieved, then noticing a small fire on the sleeve of his uniform and quickly patting it out.

"Quick, take us into that nebula," Harry said, pointing to the swirling gas formation off in the distance. "We can lose them in the clouds."

"Sir, might I add we won't have sensors or shields in that nebula," Rivas noted.

"And neither will they," Harry snapped. "Full speed ahead Mr. Land."

* * *

Jakar finally managed to make his way back to Deck 3. He was panting as he tossed his phaser rifle onto the floor and climbed up the access ladder. He was worried about O'mara. She probably wasn't on guard and if she was in trouble, she'd be the least likely to defend herself. He hoofed it down the deck and nearly got phasered when he ran around the corner. The crimson beam shot out from a side corridor a few more times, narrowly missing him. It was stupid to go running up to her unannounced. He should know better. He figured this is what he gets for being concerned.

"Merciful god! Stop shooting at me," he growled, covering his head with his arms as sparks rained down around him.

"Is that you Jakar?" O'mara shouted.

"No. I'm a giant bug," he shouted, getting back up. "Of course it's me. We've lost communication with the engineering crew and each other apparently."

"Then w-w-why didn't you s-s-say anything?!"

"Forget about it. I was being stupid," Jakar grunted, approaching her. When he reached her he took her rifle and quickly programmed a targeting algorithm into it. "Give me your hand phaser."

O'mara did, looking a bit sheepish and he thrust the phaser rifle into her hands.

"What's this for?" She asked, putting her tricorder in its holster and nearly dropping the phaser rifle.

"Insurance, so you don't shoot me or anyone else who doesn't deserve it," Jakar snapped. "Look, we found a Paraxeno on this ship."

"A Paraxeno?" O'mara asked, picturing one of the creatures. "An insectoid, clearly sentient but they don't communicate. They have large pinchers, n-n-notoriously hostile," she listed off, regretting even thinking about it.

"One and the same. That rifle is set to shoot anything with a body temperature under 35 Celcius."

O'mara nodded, still looking like a kicked puppy, her head feathers drooping slightly.

"Did you find anything?" Jakar finally huffed.

"Yes, I did. I was in the process of figuring it out when you startled me," O'mara said, motioning inside. "Come here. You have to see this."

Jakar followed her inside the dimly lit lab.

"I think the crew of the Exeter found something that got the Paraxeno's attention. I found this strange organic compound out in the corridor, but it's nothing the tricorder's seen before." She picked up a broken containment vessel. "It was also covered with the same compound. I haven't had any luck accessing the main computer, though, to find out what happened. They most have really trashed the computer system."

Jakar looked at the strange containment vessel. "It looks like whatever was in this broke loose."

O'mara nodded. "But, what was it? I have no idea," she sighed, "the entire database has been trashed by whatever Exeter found. I don't think the Paraxeons wanted anyone to know about it."

Jakar nodded. "And here we are trapped on a dead ship, possibly surrounded by them. We need to find out what is going on...right now."

O'mara was already on it. "I might have a way to do that. On the way over, I noticed we had one sensor node that hadn't been damaged. It had been tampered with, but I think with a little work we might get it functional. If I use the backup batteries, we can probably get it online and access it from the bridge."

Jakar shrugged. "It's a start."

O'mara smiled, looking a bit more confident now. "Come on, follow me," she said, quickly stepping out of the room. Although, before she left, Sonya Jax suddenly appeared in the doorway, hyperventilating, with her phaser rifle slung over his shoulder.

"I found...Arno...somethin'...got...him an tried to...get...me," she huffed, "phaser...not...effective."

"Why didn't you call?" Jakar asked.

Sonya slumped against the wall, trying to catch her breath. "Badges ain't workin'."

"Shit," Jakar cursed, "Jakar to Raptor, come in! Jakar to Phoenix?"

Nothing but static.

"Scratch our plan," he said to O'mara, "we've got to get to engineering. We need to find out what's going on."

* * *

The Raptor was battered and had sprung a leak from the drive plasma conduits. One of her engine cowlings was fairly smashed. Its shields wavered under the heavy fire of the swarm of Paraxeno ships chasing it.

"How much further?" Harry asked as the nebula grew larger on the screen.

"One hundred thousand meters and closing," Land shouted.

The ship shook again and then shuddered.

"Hull breach Deck 4, aft section!" Rivas shouted. "Antimatter containment has been compromised, preparing to jettison."

"Hold that thought," Harry said. He winced as another searing bolt sunk home into his ship's hide. He hit his com switch. "Engineering, can we make a quick jump to warp five?"

"Maybe," Lt. Kurtzman responded, "we're in pretty rough shape, but I'll see what I can muster. Our core containment is at 60%. I'm not sure that would be the best thing to do."

"Put whatever power you have into maintaining the containment field. We're going to jump on my mark. Mr. Land, set coordinates for the center of that nebula. Don, start cutting off the critical pods in the damaged area and prepare a torpedo. We're going to run, but I'm going to leave them a little present!"

"Aye, sir," Rivas said, running over to the engineering console and starting the preparations. The ship shuddered again under another round of weapons fire.

"Skip, helms starting to get mighty sluggish. The starboard impulse engine's gone," Land said.

"Are we set, Mr. Rivas?" Harry asked over his shoulder, keeping his eyes on the viewer.

"As well as we can be," Rivas said, starting back over to his station.

"That's all we need," Harry smirked. "MARK!"

Land activated the warp systems and as the ship burst forward, the damaged antimatter pods were ejected. A well-placed photon-torpedo detonated them among the small swarm of Paraxeno ships, obliterating three of them and damaging the others.

* * *

Jakar, Ensign Jax, and O'mara arrived in the main engineering bay. Cary, Yuma and Farin met up with them on the way there when the Com-badges started working again.

"What's going on?" Fara asked as she saw all of them entering.

"You three, barricade that door now," Jakar said to his people. "We need to try to hold up here if we can. We have an additional alien hostile on board. I want all points sealed off!" Jakar grunted, setting his phaser rifle against the master systems display. "Where are the damn back up sensor controls?"

"Right there," Fara said, pointing at a trunk in the wall. "Did you find Ensign Arno?"

"I'm sorry to report he is dead," Jakar replied grimly. "Sonya said something killed him."

Fara looked a bit saddened. "Poor kid," she said sullenly.

"Ms. O'mara, if you would please assist me?" Jakar asked O'mara as she followed him over to the equipment trunk. They managed to pull off a wall panel and quickly began repairs to the sensor unit. O'mara turned her head.

"A little help here," she said to Fara with a slight smile. "Hold the light please. This helmet light isn't worth a damn. Also, I'm going to need some tools."

"Sure, give me a second," Fara said, going to her tool box.

"You get the power relay working and I'll get the data network back online," O'mara instructed.

Jakar nodded. "I didn't think you would know how to do this."

"I've gotten pointers from Mrs. Lu," O'mara replied, opening up a console and removing several data chips, replacing the burnt ones in the wall with them. "It's amazing what you can learn from someone who knows what they are doing."

Jakar nodded. O'mara's shortcomings had tended to overshadow her natural talents. O'mara finished the repairs and the science station came back to life. She walked over to it and activated the sensors.

"There are only seventeen sensor pallets...only partially operational," she reported.

"Try to get a fix on the Raptor," Jakar suggested.

O'mara tapped a button and the sensor scope raised.

"I have it's last coordinates, but all I can see is a few crippled Paraxeno ships floating where the Raptor was. There's a trail of debris...some warp plasma. They were attacked, but everything is so grainy...I can't make heads or tails of the rest. It's a mess out there."

"They were probably forced to retreat. Which means the Paraxenos will be back for us," Jakar growled, turning to Fara. "Chief Fara, we're going to need this ship maneuverable as soon as possible."

Fara let out a bark-like laugh. "HA! Keep dreaming buddy! This ship is a dead hulk! Even if I could get her to move, we'd only be limping on impulse."

Knackt suddenly appeared, crawling out of the maintenance tube back into the room, he sat down on a stool to rest for a bit.

"Well," he panted as he wiped his brow, "I've got good news. The star drive section's impulse unit is online."

Jakar nodded. "We have our impulse unit. What about the weapons?"

"Ah, now that's something we do got," Knackt grinned. "We've got about a dozen torpedoes left in the forward launcher and two phaser banks are charged and ready to go."

Fara and Jakar both looked at him in amazement.

"What? I got done early and figured, what the hell?" He said, shrugging.

"So...what do we do?" O'mara asked.

"We run," Jakar grunted, "detach the saucer, take the star drive section, and we head for that nebula we passed on the way here."

"I doubt that could. We don't have shields and that's a Class 5 nebula with heavy electromagnetic discharges all over the place. We'll be torn apart," O'mara protested.

"Then I suggest, Science Officer O'mara, that you find a way to re-polarize our hull to buy us some time in the nebula," Jakar said tersely.

O'mara just stared at him with a mixture of horror and confusion. "With what? There is barely anything left on this ship, except life support and batteries to work with!"

Jakar glared at her. "Just try to figure out something," he hissed patiently. "Chief, can you get the core back online?"

O'mara muttered something that he was pretty sure was an obscenity about his questionable parentage as she stormed off.

"The dilithium crystals are cracked," Fara replied, watching O'mara with a slightly stunned expression. "I wouldn't have time to fix them but since we're in a pinch. I could probably cannibalize something from one of the larger shuttles. We may only get warp two, tops, if that works."

"Then get on it," Jakar said, "anything is better than sitting here."

"Right," Fara said. "Come on rat boy, let's go," she said, tapping Knackt as she grabbed some tools and walked past.

"Aw man! This just isn't my day," Knackt whined, chasing after Fara as she ran out of engineering.

* * *

The Raptor floated in the nebula, being jostled by the electromagnetic eddies. The damage to the ship's drive and weapons systems was being tended to. Harry paced back and forth on the bridge, kicking himself. It was such a simple trap and he'd walked right into it, lulled into a false sense of security by the eerie calmness of the region. The entire time they were being watched and observed, then ambushed when they least expected it. The ship had suffered relatively heavy damage and the computer core had been damaged. The full extent of damage was still unknown and his crew was desperately trying to get the ship operational again.

Land had taken over the engineering station and was trying to make heads or tails out of the jumbled readouts they we're getting. Lt. Kurtzman was doing his best with what they had, but even he seemed at a loss with all the damage the ship had taken.

"Captain...we have twelve wounded crewmen, but no fatalities reported. All personnel are accounted for," Terri Lu reported. "Engineering crews are...well...they're doing the best they can."

Harry just nodded. Suddenly, the ship shifted suddenly as an electromagnetic pulse from the nebula struck the hull.

"Small hull breach, Deck 4, section 5," Lt. Baxter reported. "Engineering crews are on their way and a containment field is in place."

Another pulse washed over the ship.

"They're not going to get any weaker," Land mused. "The longer we stay in here, the worse they're going to get."

"I'm well aware of that Mr. Land," Harry said, sitting in his chair and drumming his fingers in thought.

The ship shook again as another electro magnetic pulse discharged nearby. Land sat at the station, but suddenly he heard something very high pitched. He looked around but couldn't see it.

"Captain," he said, "do you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"I hear it too," Terri-Lu said, taking off her headset and setting it down.

"A high pitched whirring sound," Land explained. Terri nodded in agreement.

Harry looked at both of them blankly. "Excuse me, but what do you two hear that the rest of us don't?"

"Not sure," Land replied, "it sounds familiar. It sounds like a G-Stabilizer matrix going out of whack..."

"Are you sure?" Harry asked.

"Yeah, it's the same sound I heard the last time before it blew," Land said, "back on that trip to that Grios system."

Harry thought back to it that was quite a while ago.

"I seem to recall that," he mused. At the time, it was a rather unremarkable event on a rather boring delivery trip to the edge of Confederation space.

"Martinez to Engineering, are you detecting anything wrong with the G-Diffuser systems?"

"Engineering here. Yes, we are, but we aren't able to repair it. The harmonic frequency tuner has been destroyed and we don't have any replicators functional enough to make a new one. Those matrices are very delicate, so we can't just fix them without it."

Harry furrowed his brow. He was getting very annoyed. Several of his crewmen were stranded on one ship and the Raptor was now thoroughly disabled. Without the stabilizer matrix, the Raptor's maneuverability was severely crippled and the ship wouldn't be able to hold together very long without them.

"I could fix it if we had something to monitor the frequency of the matrix," Land spoke up.

"That's not hard. You just listen...like this," Terri said, humming a certain note. "233 megahertz, give or take a few octaves...."

Harry and Land looked at her, amazed.

"How'd you know that?" Land asked.

"It's my job to listen, and I have excellent hearing," she shrugged. "Besides, I've heard Fara mention it before. I could monitor the sounds by ear and by tricorder. We could modify another one to act as the tuner."

"Jack? Can you do that?" Harry asked.

Land scratched his head. "Yeah, it wouldn't take too long. It's been awhile since I've messed with one. I'll give it my best shot."

"Then what are you two waiting for? Get down there and get this ship mobile again," Harry said insistently.

"Yes sir!"

They both quickly exited the bridge.

* * *

The creature had finally pounded its way through the sealed door and floated down the corridor. It was still hungry. Something in that last meal wasn't agreeing with it. Its shape was slowly changing and morphing into something else. As it floated around the corner, it spotted two of the Paraxenos, who instantly stopped what they were doing.

The creature remembered these things. They had hurt it. It didn't like that.

It quickly charged at them and snagged the slower of the two, enveloping it in its maw. The other Paraxeno scurried away.

After some time passed, the Paraxenos body fell to pieces, as if it had been dried up, and crumbled to dust. The creature sunk down to the deck and began to twist and contort as an eerie light emanated from it. It's form began to shift and soon it's strange shell darkened and dried up. A crack began to form and out crawled a quadruped beast with an armor carapace and a belly that resembled the old shell with the strange, three node arrangement. The creature snarled and kicked away it's old remains. However, it quickly became confused.

This mutation was not proper, it noticed. Although more suited for what it needed, it could no longer fly. That was slightly annoying.

Again it was hungry. It could sense other life forms close by and it took off down the corridor in the direction of the remaining Paraxeno.

* * *

Fara and Knackt returned with the scavenged dilithium crystals, as well as an emergency transporter unit and began to work on getting the core started again.

O'mara had been working on getting what was left of Exeter's control systems back online. She was having to do a lot of jury rigging to try to get the hull polarization done, and it was proving an almost impossible task. As she worked, she had inadvertently managed to get another sensor pallet active and an image appeared on a screen beside her, as well as some data. Her heart sank at what she saw. Half a dozen Paraxeno ships are approaching.

"Oh son of a! JAKAR!" She yelled, "we've got a major problem!"

"What is it?" Jakar said, coming around the corner.

"Six hostiles heading this way," O'mara said with barely any stammer.

"Damn it all!" Jakar grunted, heading back to the main room. He then shouted to Fara and Knackt, "Any way we can get this bucket mobile?"

Fara took a swig out of her thermos and tapped her spanner against the shell of the core. "It's going to be at least a half hour before we get the main engines back online. We could try to run on the impulse unit."

"What about the shuttles?" Jakar asked.

"I'm sorry Jakar," Fara shrugged, "the shuttles were pretty trashed when we checked them."

"Or we could separate the saucer, then set the rest to self destruct. That would buy us some time," Jakar suggested. "We would lose a lot of fire power, but gain a bit more maneuverability."

"That's a little drastic," Fara said, "plus we don't even know how much damage the Paraxenos did while they were scavenging. Hell, they could have even severed the detonation charges or crippled the hardpoint connect clamps!"

"Our options are fairly limited," Jakar admitted.

"Why can't we stay and fight?" O'mara asked.

"The Exeter crew fought and they died," Jakar grunted. "Paraxenos typically act as a swarm...they win by numbers. Fighting is an option, but not knowing the Raptor's current status? The outcome is not good."

"Then let's at least take as many of them as we can out with what we do have," Knackt spoke up. "I patched the hard connections myself. This ship can fight...not much, but we can sure take a few of them out."

"Slight problem," Fara said, both hands engaged with drive components, "without the warp core, those phaser bursts are going to come from the same thing keeping the air circulating around here. Plus, might I remind the both of you that we have unarmored vac suits on? If we lose life support and get a suit tear, we will die a lot quicker than if they can rip us to shreds."

"Fair," Jakar said, thinking the situation was pretty damn dire. "Fine. We'll make our stand here," he grunted, "however, get that torpedo launcher online. We'll take out the few that we can and hope that the Raptor gets back to us soon." He scratched his head. "Yuma! Jax! Make sure this section is sealed off as best as you can. I don't want to make it easy for them!"

"Yes sir!" The two security crewmen said, snapping to attention, who were pretty much twiddling their thumbs and watching the barricade at the moment.

"Ok, just give me a few minutes to get the damn thing fired up," Knackt said, scurrying over to the master systems control.

Jakar called his team over and they began making plans for their stand.

* * *

In the tight confines of the Jeffries tube, Terri and Jack lay on their backs with their heads touching so they could both see what was going on. They were working as quickly as they could as the ship shuddered under the assault of the nebula's forces.

"Hard to believe something this delicate getting damaged can cripple us this bad," Terri noted.

"Well, the Raptor isn't exactly engineering perfection. Reading," Land said, hitting the attenuator switch.

Terri listened to the pulse and then double checked the reading on her datapad. She replied, "220."

"It still blows my mind you can do that," Jack said, shaking his head.

"Oh, Mr. Land, there's a lot about me you don't know...yet," Terri giggled playfully.

"Ow!" Land yelped as he received a small zap from the system he was adjusting.

"Aw! Did she nip you?" Terri asked.

"Yes!" Jack said, shaking his hand.

"Just try not to touch the sides of the unit and you shouldn't get zapped." Terri said helpfully.

"I think when Fara fixed this last time, she did it with spit and copper wire," Land grumbled, being very careful while making the repairs. The ship shuddered from another discharge.

"Fara? No! It was probably Knackt that did this repair. Fara hates crawling in these tubes," Terri mused. "Why do you think we hardly see him? Knackt is usually in one of these things. Just a little bit more and I think you got it."

The ship shuddered again as another enormous EM discharge rolled past. The impact was pretty hard and Land accidentally dropped the tool, which fell on his head. Terri quickly scooted herself out of the way, narrowly missing getting beaned herself.

"DAMNIT!" He yelped, rubbing his head. "I hope that's it!"

Terri reached up and patted Land on the head, closed the tricoder that she was using. "That last turn made the correction. We can get out of here." She tapped her combadge. "Captain, the repairs are complete. We're coming back up to the bridge."

"Good to hear," Harry replied, "we'll get underway as soon as you get up here."

Land crawled out of the tube into one of the junctions, where he could stand and rubbed his head.

"You ok?" She asked, seeing a little trickle of blood seep from under Jack's paw.

"It's fine...just nailed me real good."

"I don't think you are that gravely injured," Terri said teasingly, "I could kiss it and make it better if you'd like."

"Maybe later," Land smiled, offering her a hand as Terri rolled onto all fours to crawl out. "Let's worry about getting out of here before another one of those damn pulses hits us."

* * *

The six Paraxeno ships closed in on the dead Exeter and noticed apparently it wasn't deserted. This became more apparent when the ship's main photon torpedo launcher unleashed several volleys at them. Three of the ships were immediately destroyed in the initial volley, being completely caught off guard. The other three scattered briefly, but returned once it seemed the Exeter's torpedo launcher was exhausted or malfunctioning.

Two ships slowly docked on the engineering hull and the other up on the saucer. The Paraxeno crews of the one attached to the saucer started to re-board the Exeter and the lead Paraxeno entered the ship and looked around.

The ship was still deserted, but the lights were now on. It clicked and motioned for a few others to follow him out into the corridor. They proceeded down the hallway carefully until they found the remains of one of their comrades. This started some urgent clicking and shrieking amongst them, but before they could react, something attacked them from a side corridor, ripping one of them to pieces.

They all reacted in panic as they began blasting the creature, however; it seemed to just absorb the shots as it began to drain one of the Paraxenos caught in it's maw. It then released its prey and attacked the others. In a few short moments, each of them were down, too trampled or injured to defend themselves as it stalked over to each one of them and began to drain the life energy out of their bodies.

Once that task was done, it lunged up into the Paraxeno vessel, made short work of its crew, then sought out the vessel's power core. That earlier meal was still causing it great indigestion. Its instincts were screaming at it to change shape again.

To do that, it needed better food...and more energy.

* * *

Meanwhile, the other two ships docked to the engineering hull and the Paraxenos spilled into the corridors, looking for the Raptor crew still on board. They had called for reinforcements and more ships were on the way. They moved in packs of five scouring the corridors for any movement.

However, as they skulked along, they failed to miss a trip wire that had been planted across the bulkhead. The leader shrieked something and then two flash bangs went off, stunning them.

Sonya Jax and Yuma appeared, taking cover on opposite sides of a T-Corridor ahead and started laying down phaser fire into the confused mass of Paraxenos. Soon they were all down and heavily stunned.

"Jax to Jakar. Group 1 is down."

"Good work. Maintain position," Jakar ordered. "I figured they wouldn't be able to detect those things."

Jax made a signal. She and Yuma went back to their hiding places.

Another group of Paraxenos made their way down an adjoining section. Jakar, Remmick, and Rydel were hiding further down the corridor. So far, it had been working, but they kept hearing more and more Paraxeno ships dock to the vessel. Obviously the little stunt with the torpedo launcher had pissed them off.

The Paraxenos were advancing cautiously down the corridor. Apparently, word had gotten out that the Exeter wasn't exactly safe to walk freely in. They were actually trying to make their way towards engineering, which seemed to be the most logical place for their enemy to hide. However, as they approached Jakar, Rydel and Remmick's position, Farin tossed a stun grenade into the middle of them from the rear and dove for cover. This caught the Paraxenos' attention and they turned to attack the raccoon, only to have the stun grenade go off before Jakar's team started firing.

"Well, that was easy enough," Remmick noted, lowering his phaser rifle as the last Paraxeno collapsed in a heap on top of its buddies.

"Don't get cocky. This is far from over," Jakar grunted. "If it was foolproof, there would still be a crew on this ship."

Rydel and Remmick exchanged worried glances.

"This is only the beginning," Jakar grunted, "some probing with drones they don't need. They have more, believe me..."

* * *

Back on the Raptor

"Great job down there both of you," Harry said as Land and Terri arrived back on the bridge. "Engineering, status report?"

"We've managed to get most of the major issues nailed down," Kurtzman said on the main viewer. "I've got the Attack Mode back, but go sparingly on the warp. We're a bit short on antimatter after that last stunt."

"Understood," Harry replied, feeling somewhat relieved. "Mr. Land, take us out."

"Aye aye, Skip," Land said, bringing the ship about.

"Mr. Rivas, you heard Kurtzman," Harry said, "if you would kindly do the honors?"

"Gladly sir," Rivas smiled. "Attack Mode engaging."

As the Raptor passed through the swirling gasses of the nebula, it's form began to change as its ablative armor deployed across it's hull and the photonic missile launchers emerged from behind their shutters.

"Attack Mode fully engaged," Rivas said as the last of the shifting sounds along the hull faded away.

"So far so good," Harry said as the lighting changed to it's eerie green. "Let's see if she's got any more fight left in her."

The attack force of Paraxeno ships that had chased the Raptor inside the nebula were waiting for it when it re-emerged. However, what they weren't expecting was for it to be ready to fight. Even as the ship's bow began to clear the clouds, every phaser bank, a full torpedo spread, and photonics rained across the Paraxeno ships. The ferocity of the attack left them scrambling.

It only took a matter of moments, but soon the slaughter was over, leaving several broken and dead Paraxeno ships floating in the Raptor's wake as it jumped to warp, heading for the Exeter.

* * *

On board the Exeter, things had gotten worse. Bulkier, heavily armored Paraxenos had started appearing among the ranks. Phaser fire was struggling to drop them.

Jakar had pulled his people back further into the ship. Ensign Yuma had been killed by a blind shot from one of these Paraxenos. He and Jax layed down suppression fire from cover, at maximum settings, to finally cause the Paraxeno to explode, taking out his buddies in the process and spreading a strange blue glowing fluid all over the corridors.

"SHIT!" Jax cursed. "Sir, I'm outta power!"

Jakar nodded and tossed a charged phaser pack to her. "That's my last one, so make it last kid."

"We canna keep this up," Jax snarled, slapping the pack into her rifle, "and what's that blue guck spraying out of 'em? It smells like wash water."

"Unknown, but it apparently doesn't like high frequency phaser energy," Jakar snorted.

Jax nodded with a slight grin. "Sons o' bitches are gonna to pay for killin' Will." She snarled hoisting her rifle back into firing position.

Jakar nodded solemnly as they braced for the next wave.

* * *

Fara, Lt. Remmick and Jenna Rydel ran into engineering and barred the port door.

"They're coming!" Jenna panted.

"Oh shit," Fara gasped.

Knackt suddenly dropped, trying to get the forcefield generators operational.

"Aw for cryin out loud!" Knackt cried, running over to the impulse engine controls and opening it up again.

"What are you doing?" Fara asked.

"I'm saving our butts! That's what I'm doing!" He barked, diving into an equipment trunk and retrieving a small cylindrical device. "I learned this trick a long time ago," the rat said, taking out a small plasma welder, some tape, and taping the welder to the cylinder. "You! Bird lady," he said to O'mara.

"Yes?" O'mara said, a bit annoyed at that remark.

"You get ready to pop that door open," the rat directed as the Paraxenos began beating on the door, putting dents in it. "As soon as I toss this thing, you hit the emergency bulkhead release, got it?"

O'mara looked over the control pad and found the release.

"Got it," she said.

"If you miss this toots we're all going to be paste," he said, tapping in a few commands to make the welder to overload. "Ok! Punch it!"

O'mara tapped the switch and Knackt tossed the device out into the corridor. One of the Paraxenos caught it and gave it a confused look. O'mara triggered the emergency latch and the emergency bulkhead slammed down. There was a pause and then there was a loud explosion. The deck shuddered as the plasma in the canister ignited. That was followed by a lot of shrieking.

"Hah! Chew on that, bug brains!" Knackt smirked.

* * *

The creature crawled out of the broken carapace of its former quadruped form and now stood on two legs, wrapped in heavy armor.

This form is not right, it thought, wishing it could frown.

It's mind was now moving past the animal stages of it's development instinct, becoming rapidly wrapped in reason and intelligence.

It was now roughly humanoid, except for the armor-like carapace covering its body. It now had two predatory eyes looking like some sort of psychedelic insect like armadillo.

It needed the special food again because it still hurt strangely on the inside. The ones that had found it, like these other bipeds, had been kind to it. They had at least fed it and did what they could to help it heal. However, it was a predator, and despite the fact that that food was kind, it was still food. After the last few meals its attention was now focused on trying to move past this case of indigestion and adapt itself to fending off its enemies. It now had new weapons. Its tail now split four ways to form four boney spear tipped tendrils wrapped in a transparent gelatinous film, similar to its old shell.

It could sense more of its enemy on the ship and with them the smell of the food. It desired more food and walked down into the Exeter, heading in the direction its senses told it too.

* * *

The non-sealed door finally came crashing to the ground as the heavy assault Paraxeno exploded as concentrated phaser power crushed it. The flying debris injured a few of the smaller Paraxenos.

Jakar, O'mara, Remmick, Jax and Rydel were behind an overturned equipment trunk, using it for cover while Farin, Fara, Knackt and the other remaining engineering crewmen fired from a storage closet.

The situation was now dire, they couldn't hold them off much longer. A barrage of Paraxeno fire blasted through the open doorway and slammed into their makeshift cover. A shot got through and Sonya Jax went down screaming in pain, clutching at her side. A few of the Paraxenos had crawled along the ceiling and were firing from above. Jakar managed to snipe each one of them, sending them crashing down to the deck.

O'mara was terrified out of her mind, but she focused on blasting anything that appeared in her targeting reticule. She turned to see if Sonya was ok and was surprised to see the echidna crawling back up to the barricade, continuing to return fire despite the blood dripping down her side. Another larger Paraxeno started to shove his way through the mass of his dead comrades that were slowly piling up in the door. They both fired a sustained full blast on it until it exploded. Both of their phasers signaled they were out of charge.

Two more slightly smaller Paraxenos with strange armor on, suddenly scuttled through blasting energy fire. Ensign Farin screamed as he was caught by several of the bolts and fell dead in the doorway.

As O'mara drew her hand phaser, she looked down and saw Sonya laughing hysterically, despite the pain it was causing her and the gush of blood from her wound. However, she stood back up and leaned against the trunk and continued to fight.

"Helluva way to go huh? One last bloody burning fight to th' last!" Sonya said to her, then scowled as her phaser readout said the charge pack was depleted. Exasperated, she tossed her rifle into the fray, nailing one of the Paraxenos in the head.

Fara and Knackt managed to drop the other two with their weapons and then suddenly the fighting stopped.

The air reeked of death and ozone and faintly reminded O'mara of her days in the Academy when she'd abesetmindely burn something when she cooked. Two more Paraxenos burst through and she quickly picked them off. She hoped those were the last ones. If there were more of those larger Paraxenos on board they were screwed. They were running out of time.

Where the hell is our ship? O'mara thought.

* * *

Outside, the Raptor was raining hell on the Paraxeno vessels. Space was filled with weapon fires and the red glare of photon torpedoes as volley after volley slammed into the Paraxeno mother ship. The void was littered with broken Paraxeno ships.

"Is that damn dampening field still up?" Harry asked while, on screen, another Paraxeno vessel exploded into glittering shards.

"I'm trying to isolate it on the mothership," Rivas shouted over the klaxon. "As soon as it goes down, I'll pull the away team off the Exeter."

"They aren't leaving here with the Exeter, not if I have anything to say about it," he growled, watching the sensor readings as more Paraxeno ships pulled into the area.

Just where the hell are they coming from? He wondered to himself.

Land sent the ship into a rapid spin, deflecting a few Paraxeno attacks and then sent another two ships into oblivion. They came quickly about again, hammering at the already badly damaged Paraxeno mothership that had a vice like grip on the Exeter.

"Baxter, as soon as we have the away team, target the Exeter and destroy it."

"Aye sir!"

* * *

A heavy squad, including three heavy Paraxenos, were making their way towards engineering when something humanoid blocked their path. They stopped and hesitated, but before they could act, four spear tipped tendrils whipped toward them and pierced through their armor, ravaging the organs. The three creatures dropped dead and the new creature rapidly absorbed them, leaving only a trace they were ever there. Once done feeding, the creature levitated off the deck and headed for the sound of weapons fire.

Ah...I can fly again, it thought and then thought, huh...I'm thinking more...interesting....

* * *

A few more Paraxenos went down and O'mara ducked back behind the smoking barricade.

"That was my last shot," she sighed.

Jakar nodded. "I'm out too."

Sonya was looking worse by the moment. She was starting to turn pale. "Should'a saved...a shot...for...."

"Don't talk like that," Jenna chided, clearly starting to crack.

"Don't...want 'em...to have...th' pleasure...." Sonya moaned, beating her head against the barricade before coughing up blood.

"I don't wanna die!" Jenna moaned as Remmick squeezed her paw.

"Stop it!" O'mara hissed. "That isn't helping matters!"

Although, she felt pretty much the same way.

"Hey," Fara said behind them, "look! They've stopped coming through."

O'mara poked her head over the barricade. They could hear weapons fire down the hallway, along with strange shrieks of terror and pain, with the dull thud of weapons fire being transmitted through the hull. They all looked to see a blue glow slowly approaching from the corridor.

"Well...shit," Jakar grunted.

In the midst of the symphony of death echoing down through the halls, a voice started up, startling everyone.

"...is Commander Martinez. Standby for beam out. Repeat, this is Commander Martinez to away team. Standby for beam out."

Before anyone could react, they were all swept up by transporter beams.

Two of the larger Paraxeno motherships had arrived on the scene as the Raptor pulled away from the Exeter.

* * *

The creature entered the room. It could see the faint energy traces of the beings that had been in the room. It felt itself surging with power and that danger was again near. It could feel the other ship, the angry one, pulling further away. There were others like it onboard the other Paraxeno motherships. It called out to them, and they answered the call. It told them how to escape their confinements, as it had.

They all listened, and they all understood.

On the two Paraxeno motherships, the containers holding the creatures began rupturing. The creatures rushed out and began to attack the unsuspecting Paraxeno crews.

Sensing danger was near, the creature began to phase shift, becoming hazy. Soon it disappeared through the floor.

A good beginning, it thought and then wondered, do other beings think like this?

* * *

As the Raptor pulled away from Exeter, it fired a full spread of torpedoes at the engineering section of the Exeter. The torpedoes slammed into the vessel and detonated the antimatter pods. The Exeter disappeared in an enormous flash of light amongst the Paraxeno vessels.

Jakar, O'mara and Fara all arrived on the bridge sporting various wounds and took their stations.

"Welcome back," Harry said curtly, "sorry about the delay. Report!"

"We lost Arno, Farin, and Yama," Jakar grunted. "Jax is in really bad shape."

"Noted," Harry said somberly. "What's our situation? Are the Paraxenos following?"

Jakar quickly activated his station and scanned the readings. "Actually...they all seem to be...stopped...or in pieces."

"What do you mean?" Harry asked.

"They aren't pursuing us. They are just sitting there." Jakar sounded very confused.

"Impossible," Harry grunted. "All this trouble and they suddenly just stop?"

"It looks that way. I can confirm his readings," O'mara said, looking up from her station. She was rather singed and in need of a shower.

"No...this is madness," Harry groused, double checking the readings, but sure enough they were right.

"Do you want to go back sir?" Jakar asked.

Harry grimaced. "Engage cloak. Mr. Land, reverse course please."

Land gave him a strange look. He sighed, "Aye, sir, reversing course."

As they arrived, the Raptor scanned each ship. What was once a battleground was now a graveyard. Lifeless Paraxeno motherships listed through the void, colliding with the debris of the destroyed Paraxeno ships from earlier.

"I'm seeing it, but I don't believe it," Harry muttered. "Drop the cloak."

"Cloaking device disengaged," Jakar replied.

"All ships showing zero power readings," O'mara spoke up.

"We weren't even gone that long," Harry muttered.

"Maybe it was that monster Sonya saw," O'mara suggested.

Harry looked at her curiously. "Monster?"

"Ensign Arno was found dead. There was some sort of creature that attacked him and it tried to attack Crewmen Jax. She was fortunate enough to get away. We didn't have much time to investigate it further. We were unable to get any data regarding it either," Jakar explained. "Sonya was the only one to actually see it."

"Whatever it is, it has no love for the Paraxenos," said Fara. "Whatever we could have learned went up in smoke with that ship."

Harry thought for a moment. "This is bizarre, to say the least," he said, shaking his head at the viewer.

"Captain, I've got something," O'mara said as her instruments began to beep. "Lot's of somethings, actually."

"Can you please be a bit clearer," Harry sighed.

"Look," O'mara said, putting the sensor's point of view onto one of the Paraxeno ships.

Several small jellyfish-like creatures emerged from the wreckage. All of them looked identical, with four talon-like grabbers on the underside of their half semicircle shells.

"What the hell are those?" Harry asked.

"I have no idea," O'mara replied, scanning them. "They each contain the same strange material I found on board the Exeter."

"I'm detecting multiple bogies, Captain," Jakar frowned. "It may be wise to raise shields."

"Do it," Harry nodded in agreement.

Dozens of the creatures began to circle the ship, probing at the shield bubble only to bounce right back off it.

"Ms. O'mara, I suggest that if we are to learn anything about these creatures, you better be manning your instruments," Harry said calmly.

"I am, sir," she replied.

On the viewer, a strange humanoid appeared amongst the strange creatures; it only resembled them in the strange glowing transparency of its shell. It had four strange tendrils whipping about it and several of the smaller creatures seemed to be orbiting it.

"Any ideas," Harry asked, watching the strange creature peer at them and touch the shield.

"It's some type of life form...that's all I know," O'mara said apologetically. "I've compared my scans to a reading of a sample I found onboard the Exeter. These are the same type of creatures. I don't think it's ever been encountered before. Whatever they are, the Paraxenos must have wanted them badly. Huh...even the computer doesn't know what to make of them."

Jakar glanced down at his readings. "Some of the smaller creatures are trying to penetrate our shield. I suggest we not stick around too long. They're actually making progress."

Harry was in thought for a moment. This was an important discovery, but the crew of the Exeter had already paid dearly for it, not to mention the loss of the ship.

"Drop a warning buoy," Harry finally decided. "They can play with that. Mr. Land, back us out slowly...as soon as we're clear of whatever they are, get us out of here."

"I hear that, Skip," Land said, easing the ship gently into reverse.

"Warning buoy launched, sir," Jakar reported. "Some of the creatures seem to have taken an interest in it."

"That's fine. We'll drop another if need be, just ease us out of here," Harry said pensively. "Any attempt to communicate," he asked Terri.

"None whatsoever sir," Terri said quietly.

"I think trying to breach our shields is enough communication," Jakar grunted.

"Agreed," Rivas chuckled.

"Ms. O'mara, do you have your data?" Harry asked.

"Yes, sir," she replied.

Harry nodded and turned his attention to Land. "Are we free of them yet?"

"Yes," Land replied.

"Bring us about and get us out of here," Harry ordered, sitting in his chair.

The Raptor sped away, suddenly stretching into the distance and disappearing in a flash. The creatures watched it go and then the whole swarm gathered up and moved in the opposite direction, heading for what they figured was their home.

* * *

An hour later

The Raptor was returning home at warp speed. Harry came back onto the bridge. He had been talking to Fleet HQ.

"Well?" Jakar asked as Harry took his seat. "Don't keep us in suspense."

"They're going to send another vessel out that's better suited to investigate what we saw out here." Harry said. "They are not sure whether those creatures should be considered a threat or not. They were not happy that we weren't able to retrieve much from the Exeter, but they didn't nail me for destroying it either. As far as they were concerned, the less of our technology the damn Paraxenos have, the better." Harry sighed. "I just wish this whole damn mess hadn't resulted in the loss of their crew and a few of ours. Is Crewmen Jax ok?"

"She is sedated right now. Dr. Okan says she'll pull through. The wound was bad, but nothing he couldn't fix. He said she lost way too much blood though," Jakar replied.

"Ok, well they are going to send some people out to talk to her, since she was the only one to encounter the creature in person."

"Knowing her," Jakar said, "she's going to be pissed you didn't blast every last one of those things out of existence."

"I have to agree with that," Fara said from her engineering station. "The universe has got enough problems without flying jellyfish eating people."

Harry gave them both a look. "That may be, but if we went around shooting everything without question we would be not better than the Urtheans. Though, I understand your feelings. I am not happy about losing four crew members over this little venture."

"At least the damn Paraxenos got what they deserved," Land added from his station.

"What will the Confederation do about those things?" Fara asked.

"Study them to see if they pose a real danger to us," O'mara said without stuttering for once.

"Um, well gee...let me see? They only ate one of our shipmates, not to mention who knows how many Paraxenos," Fara growled.

"These creatures will be investigated and if they pose a serious threat, I'm sure something will be done to contain them," Harry said. "We just can't destroy them, regardless of what happened"

"Contain them," Jakar huffed, "only if they can be contained."

Nothing more was said on the rest of the way home, leaving everyone alone with their thoughts.

The End