Post by graywand1 on Nov 20, 2008 17:15:49 GMT -5
Hello, everyone. This is a reimagining, if you will, of my story Ashes of the Columbia. I received some writing books which made me reassess how I write my stories.
A/N: This is set six months after the episode "Demons" and "Terra Prime" and within days of the Avatar episode "Boiling Rock."
"Watch ye therefore, for ye know not when the master of the house cometh."
-Mark: 13:35
The Starfleet vessel Columbia sailed through the ominous region of space. The region they were in had many names, the Klingons called it Klacht D'Kel Bracht. Humanity, on Earth at least, called it the Briar Patch. The deceptively ungainly looking vessel, with a main hull that looked like some giant had squished two poorly made tea saucers together, attached some metal struts and stuck lit cigars in metallic foil on the end, sailed through clouds of brilliant orange and red, the colors of fire and blood. The clouds of this region were so vast that it made the large vessel that sailed through them seem like an insect compared to them, and the dangers of this region could crush them like one. Right now, the bridge crew in the little top of the amalgamated saucer, that to any observer looked like it should be sitting on some mammoth humanoids table, was setting a course to a newly-discovered system.
Captain Erika Hernandez strode onto the Columbia's bridge. Settling into her black leather command chair at the center of the advanced and modern command center, the blue-jumpsuited fortyish woman with brown hairtook a moment to listen to the reassuring thrum of the warp engines reverberating through the hull before she set to work immediately. "Report," she ordered. Her ship had been charting this area of space for weeks now, preparing for the war everyone back home knew was coming against the forces of the Romulan Star Empire. This is technically part of my orders, but I prefer to see this detour as fulfilling our mission statement back when we left spacedock, to explore strange new worlds and seek out new life and new civilizations. And go where no man has gone before.
It was her science officer, Commander Arya Naidu, an Indian woman in her mid-thirties with shoulder-length black hair that answered her from her science station on the port side of the bridge. "One star in the system, sir, G-Type. One world in the system, M-Class. And," she said with a hint of curiosity in her voice, "with a moon that is remarkably similar to Luna."
"Show me," she said, her interest piqued. And the viewscreen built into the wall in front of the helmstation at the front of the bridge changed to show a moon that, as she said, looked entirely similar to Luna in every respect, right down to geography. Yes, she thought as she gazed upon the sight on her viewscreen. It does look like our Moon. If I imagine just right, I can see every sea, I can also see Tycho City, New Berlin, even the majestic dome-enclosed expanse of Lake Armstrong from this exact place near Earth.
"Show me the planet," she ordered. And the image on the viewscreen changed to show the planet. Her breath caught in her throat. She was staring at a big blue marble with white whisps of cloud and capped, almost lovingly, with two poles like her homeworld. There was a huge main continent, brown-green from space like the continents of her homeworld. The main continent appeared to be in the middle of the geologic process of splitting into three smaller landmasses, she could see the splits from here. It gave the primary landmass a look a lot like that of a huge crustacean with even larger claws reaching out to consume the smaller brown islands that surrounded it like a bowl as if they were detritus.
"How big is the main continent?" She asked urgently, eager to hear the answer to the question.
Commander Naidu looked into the hooded viewer at her science station. After a few moments she stood up and looked at her, saying, amazement in her voice, "Roughly the size of Gondwanaland, sir."
dang, she thought, amazed at the concept. That means it roughly the size of India, virtually all of Eurasia, North America, and South America north of the mouth of the Amazon combined. "Prep survey teams to go down, Commander." She ordered, or would've ordered had not a sensor alarm rang out from the tactical console on the port side.
"Sir," the tactical officer, Lieutenant William Gleason said from his station starboard of her command chair, surprise in his voice. "We're picking up a Romulan warship bearing 145 mark 54."
What, she thought, incredulously, How did they sneak up on me? Aloud she said, "Show me." The viewscreen changed images to reveal a green, horseshoe crab shaped vessel coming at them. The incoming enemy vessel had upswept wings on either side that were tipped with curved warp nacelles that glowed green at the ends. The vessel lunged with the terrifying speed of a raptor streaking towards an unfortunate rat.
This rat has a few tricks up her sleeve, she thought. "Tactical alert," she ordered. Instantly the lights dimmed slightly, red lights started blinking on every bridge panel, and muted versions of the alarms blaring throughout the ship rang through the bridge.
"The enemy vessel is powering disruptors, sir," Gleason said, fear lacing his voice. Then another alarm rang off the console. "They're firing."
"Evasive maneuvers," she ordered, standing up. "Delta sequence." Even as she said it she watched as two green blasts lanced from the enemy vessel. She watched the viewscreen pitch to starboard as the ship lurched violently to avoid the enemy fire, the ship's inertial dampeners maintaining the illusion that the ship was still flying straight. "Return fire," she ordered.
"Aye, sir," the tac officer said, his hands playing along his board as if it were a musical instrument, and he was its grand master. After an instant it sang back its response that the ship's weapons were obeying his command. She watched as two angry red beams of light lanced out at the Romulan ship. She watched with satisfaction as the two beams of light made contact with the enemy vessel, striking her directly in the crab shaped main hull.
"Direct hits," Gleason said, sounding satisfied with his work at first. Then he let loose with a frustrated sigh. "Minimal damage." The console blared out it's alarm and he said, "They're firing again."
It was as if the hammer of some ancient god had struck the Columbia. Erika world suddenly jolted with a gut-wrenching intensity to the right. In those few moments before the inertial dampeners could compensate for the pummeling the ship had just undergone, she felt the deck disappear out from under her. She flung out her left arm, acting on instinct, but she watched the deck rush toward her and knew it couldn't help. She felt a bone-jarring pain rip through her head when she collided headfirst with the warm deck with a sickening thud. Her last sensations of her bridge before the darkness claimed her was the sight of her helm officer lying unconscious in front of her, the young woman's panel ablaze, and the acrid smell of smoke filling the air.
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The Columbia hung in space in the skies above this world, a terrible smoking wound in her back, heralding the great ship's impending destruction. The Romulan bird-of-prey streaking away into the night had wounded her mortally, hitting her in just the right place to guarantee her destruction when her protective hull plating didn't polarize the way it was supposed to, exposing her warp core, the device that allowed her to traverse the stars and her beating heart, to the devastating fire of the Romulan enemy. As her killer speeded away into the firey clouds, half the saucer broke apart, hull plating shearing away to float in the vacuum of space. Launching from the exposed sections of the vessel, like the teeth of the dragon, were dozens of cylindrical objects, carrying the crew of the dying vessel away from her. For an instant they hung in space, floating among the wreckage of the ship. Then automated engines blared to life on them, and sent the pods hurtling through the space between the ship and the planet, heading for comparative safety in the main continent. An instant later, Columbia flared to life in a burst of orange and crimson light as the explosion of the warp core ripped through her superstructure. Most of the pods had managed to speed away before the ship's final, violent demise, there tough hulls protecting the precious lives inside from the heat of re-entry. However a few pods hung there for an instant too long, speeding away from the wreckage too late. The wake of the explosion shoved those pods away from their fellows, straight toward the island chain.
Straight into the jaws of fire.
A/N: This is set six months after the episode "Demons" and "Terra Prime" and within days of the Avatar episode "Boiling Rock."
Prologue
Where Men Have Gone Before
"Watch ye therefore, for ye know not when the master of the house cometh."
-Mark: 13:35
The Starfleet vessel Columbia sailed through the ominous region of space. The region they were in had many names, the Klingons called it Klacht D'Kel Bracht. Humanity, on Earth at least, called it the Briar Patch. The deceptively ungainly looking vessel, with a main hull that looked like some giant had squished two poorly made tea saucers together, attached some metal struts and stuck lit cigars in metallic foil on the end, sailed through clouds of brilliant orange and red, the colors of fire and blood. The clouds of this region were so vast that it made the large vessel that sailed through them seem like an insect compared to them, and the dangers of this region could crush them like one. Right now, the bridge crew in the little top of the amalgamated saucer, that to any observer looked like it should be sitting on some mammoth humanoids table, was setting a course to a newly-discovered system.
Captain Erika Hernandez strode onto the Columbia's bridge. Settling into her black leather command chair at the center of the advanced and modern command center, the blue-jumpsuited fortyish woman with brown hairtook a moment to listen to the reassuring thrum of the warp engines reverberating through the hull before she set to work immediately. "Report," she ordered. Her ship had been charting this area of space for weeks now, preparing for the war everyone back home knew was coming against the forces of the Romulan Star Empire. This is technically part of my orders, but I prefer to see this detour as fulfilling our mission statement back when we left spacedock, to explore strange new worlds and seek out new life and new civilizations. And go where no man has gone before.
It was her science officer, Commander Arya Naidu, an Indian woman in her mid-thirties with shoulder-length black hair that answered her from her science station on the port side of the bridge. "One star in the system, sir, G-Type. One world in the system, M-Class. And," she said with a hint of curiosity in her voice, "with a moon that is remarkably similar to Luna."
"Show me," she said, her interest piqued. And the viewscreen built into the wall in front of the helmstation at the front of the bridge changed to show a moon that, as she said, looked entirely similar to Luna in every respect, right down to geography. Yes, she thought as she gazed upon the sight on her viewscreen. It does look like our Moon. If I imagine just right, I can see every sea, I can also see Tycho City, New Berlin, even the majestic dome-enclosed expanse of Lake Armstrong from this exact place near Earth.
"Show me the planet," she ordered. And the image on the viewscreen changed to show the planet. Her breath caught in her throat. She was staring at a big blue marble with white whisps of cloud and capped, almost lovingly, with two poles like her homeworld. There was a huge main continent, brown-green from space like the continents of her homeworld. The main continent appeared to be in the middle of the geologic process of splitting into three smaller landmasses, she could see the splits from here. It gave the primary landmass a look a lot like that of a huge crustacean with even larger claws reaching out to consume the smaller brown islands that surrounded it like a bowl as if they were detritus.
"How big is the main continent?" She asked urgently, eager to hear the answer to the question.
Commander Naidu looked into the hooded viewer at her science station. After a few moments she stood up and looked at her, saying, amazement in her voice, "Roughly the size of Gondwanaland, sir."
dang, she thought, amazed at the concept. That means it roughly the size of India, virtually all of Eurasia, North America, and South America north of the mouth of the Amazon combined. "Prep survey teams to go down, Commander." She ordered, or would've ordered had not a sensor alarm rang out from the tactical console on the port side.
"Sir," the tactical officer, Lieutenant William Gleason said from his station starboard of her command chair, surprise in his voice. "We're picking up a Romulan warship bearing 145 mark 54."
What, she thought, incredulously, How did they sneak up on me? Aloud she said, "Show me." The viewscreen changed images to reveal a green, horseshoe crab shaped vessel coming at them. The incoming enemy vessel had upswept wings on either side that were tipped with curved warp nacelles that glowed green at the ends. The vessel lunged with the terrifying speed of a raptor streaking towards an unfortunate rat.
This rat has a few tricks up her sleeve, she thought. "Tactical alert," she ordered. Instantly the lights dimmed slightly, red lights started blinking on every bridge panel, and muted versions of the alarms blaring throughout the ship rang through the bridge.
"The enemy vessel is powering disruptors, sir," Gleason said, fear lacing his voice. Then another alarm rang off the console. "They're firing."
"Evasive maneuvers," she ordered, standing up. "Delta sequence." Even as she said it she watched as two green blasts lanced from the enemy vessel. She watched the viewscreen pitch to starboard as the ship lurched violently to avoid the enemy fire, the ship's inertial dampeners maintaining the illusion that the ship was still flying straight. "Return fire," she ordered.
"Aye, sir," the tac officer said, his hands playing along his board as if it were a musical instrument, and he was its grand master. After an instant it sang back its response that the ship's weapons were obeying his command. She watched as two angry red beams of light lanced out at the Romulan ship. She watched with satisfaction as the two beams of light made contact with the enemy vessel, striking her directly in the crab shaped main hull.
"Direct hits," Gleason said, sounding satisfied with his work at first. Then he let loose with a frustrated sigh. "Minimal damage." The console blared out it's alarm and he said, "They're firing again."
It was as if the hammer of some ancient god had struck the Columbia. Erika world suddenly jolted with a gut-wrenching intensity to the right. In those few moments before the inertial dampeners could compensate for the pummeling the ship had just undergone, she felt the deck disappear out from under her. She flung out her left arm, acting on instinct, but she watched the deck rush toward her and knew it couldn't help. She felt a bone-jarring pain rip through her head when she collided headfirst with the warm deck with a sickening thud. Her last sensations of her bridge before the darkness claimed her was the sight of her helm officer lying unconscious in front of her, the young woman's panel ablaze, and the acrid smell of smoke filling the air.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Columbia hung in space in the skies above this world, a terrible smoking wound in her back, heralding the great ship's impending destruction. The Romulan bird-of-prey streaking away into the night had wounded her mortally, hitting her in just the right place to guarantee her destruction when her protective hull plating didn't polarize the way it was supposed to, exposing her warp core, the device that allowed her to traverse the stars and her beating heart, to the devastating fire of the Romulan enemy. As her killer speeded away into the firey clouds, half the saucer broke apart, hull plating shearing away to float in the vacuum of space. Launching from the exposed sections of the vessel, like the teeth of the dragon, were dozens of cylindrical objects, carrying the crew of the dying vessel away from her. For an instant they hung in space, floating among the wreckage of the ship. Then automated engines blared to life on them, and sent the pods hurtling through the space between the ship and the planet, heading for comparative safety in the main continent. An instant later, Columbia flared to life in a burst of orange and crimson light as the explosion of the warp core ripped through her superstructure. Most of the pods had managed to speed away before the ship's final, violent demise, there tough hulls protecting the precious lives inside from the heat of re-entry. However a few pods hung there for an instant too long, speeding away from the wreckage too late. The wake of the explosion shoved those pods away from their fellows, straight toward the island chain.
Straight into the jaws of fire.