Captain’s Log, Stardate 2400.11 – After two weeks of holding our position near the Barzan Wormhole, we have set course for Relay Station D-G3, which is at the midway point between the wormhole and the Markonian Outpost. This relay station is a critical link between our assets and allies in the Gradin Belt and the wormhole communications link. Our orders are to investigate and make any necessary repairs.

Captain Paula Camarero stood with her hands behind her back as she observed the shimmering bubble of the Susan B. Anthony’s warp field distorting the space beyond the ship’s curved hull to sustain them at well past warp nine. While still formidable tactical cruisers in their own right, the Anthony and many of her sister Sovereign-class starships now served as workhorses and flagships like the Excelsior had done for a century before them. As the regular host to senior Fourth Fleet officials, the Anthony’s hull glinted with blue and gold Starfleet Command accents and insignia. Camarero focused on the blue pinstriping at the edge of the saucer section for a moment, reflecting on how unusual it was for them to be heading directly into danger. Admirals didn’t lead from the tip of the spear, and so the Anthony had almost always been well behind the front lines in the campaigns she’d participated in so far. 

So far, the so-called Blood Dilithium Campaign had been no different. Admiral Liam Dahlgren was the senior officer present in the quadrant, and he was coordinating Fourth Fleet starships from the relative safety of the wormhole, a location not readily known to many of the minor powers in the area. The Anthony’s secondary objective was to keep a watchful eye on any ships probing the wormhole itself, being mindful that the Voth, Vadwuaar, or Borg were all likely candidates to take advantage of the chaos that blood dilithium was creating. They were also three of the races which would cause Starbase 38 to enact contingency protocols to destroy the wormhole rather than giving enemies of such power a foothold in the Alpha Quadrant, so the Anthony was a last-resort defense against the bulk of the Fourth Fleet being isolated in the Delta Quadrant for the foreseeable future. 

The door chime sounded.

“Enter, please,” Camarero said, turning her head just as Midshipman Emerson Blair entered the room carrying his holoPADD. Yellow alert lighting from the bridge briefly silhouetted him before the doors closed behind him. The young officer-in-training was spending the second half of his six-month midshipman cruise aboard the Anthony as Camarero’s yeoman. “What is it?”

“I’ve compiled the reports you asked for, Captain. All departments report ready for combat,” Blair reported, flicking a report from his PADD towards the console on Camarero’s desk. “Do you think it will come to that, sir?”

Camarero moved behind the desk, running her fingertips along the suede back of her chair as she thought about how to answer that question. The report popped up on her display when she glanced at it, and she could quickly see that the young man’s assessment was correct. That didn’t surprise her, though. Being in the Delta Quadrant had kept the crew on their guard.

“One thing I’ve learned in this job is that you should always expect the worst and be pleasantly surprised when it doesn’t come to pass,” the captain replied. “We’ll hope that it’s just a transceiver malfunction, but we should be ready for a Borg cube to be on the other end of a warp jump.”

Blair nodded, but he furrowed his brow slightly. “I’m sure we’ll be ready,” he said, though he didn’t sound particularly sure about that.

“There aren’t a lot of things even in this quadrant that wouldn’t take a look at the Anthony and turn tail, Midshipman,” she reminded him with a rare smile of pride. She glanced down at the report again. “Are you passionate about paperwork or just talented at it?”

“Sir?”

“What I’m asking, Midshipman, is what kind of role you see yourself in. It’s dangerous to reveal such a talent for reports unless you’d like to end up as a records officer,” she said, the barest hint of a teasing lilt in her voice.

“Oh,” Blair chuckled. “Ideally, sir, I’d like to be on the bridge. But I’m learning a lot from this assignment. There’s much more to being a captain than just giving orders.”

“You’re telling me,” Camarero muttered as she thought about the seven or eight other reports waiting for her in the system.

“Captain Camarero to the bridge,” came the first officer’s voice over the comm.

“Understood,” Camarero replied before tapping her badge. “With me, Midshipman. It sounds like we’re about to get an answer to your question.”

Captain Camarero led the way out of her ready room, finding the bridge abuzz with activity as officers compared notes on various systems all around her. Commander Adir Goodman rose from the command seat and moved off to the captain’s right as she took his place. He looked unusually grim, especially since his normal energy was that of an overgrown golden retriever. 

“We just got a data burst from RS-D-G2. The last thing the sensors from RS-D-G3 picked up was a pair of Hazari ships,” Goodman reported. “Our own long-range sensors are also now picking up a Hirogen warp signature.”  

“What is our ETA?”

“Two minutes, Captain,” the Andorian Lieutenant Arha reported from the helm.

“At this speed, we won’t be able to confirm the tactical situation for at least another minute, and if we slow down, we could give any hostiles time to react,” Goodman noted.

Camarero nodded and then pressed the intercom on the command throne. “Bridge to Admiral Dahlgren. Sir, we’re now aware of possible Hazari and Hirogen activity in the region of RS-D-G3. Do we have permission to engage, or should we abort?”

“The last thing we want is for either of those two groups to think that they can molest our equipment with impunity. Engage at will, Captain,” Dahlgren ordered immediately.

“Red Alert. All hands, stand to battle stations!” Camarero ordered. 

The illumination around the bridge darkened, and the klaxon began to surround all around the ship. The Anthony’s formidable defensive armaments were brought online as preemptive forcefields energized around key systems. Camarero kept an eye on the chronometer on her chair as they passed into real-time sensor range.

“Sir, I am detecting three Hazari vessels in combat with a Hirogen battleship in the proximity of the relay station,” Lieutenant Sharpe reported calmly from her station at the rail behind Camarero and Goodman. 

Camarero swallowed. Four ships would be a challenge for even a ship like the Anthony, but they did have an advantage from the element of surprise and from the fact that the other ships were already in combat. What wasn’t clear, though, was whether the Hazari attacked the station and were caught by the Hirogen or vice versa. She would have to give up some of her tactical advantage to answer that question, though.

“Dropping out of warp in thirty seconds,” Arha noted.  

“Sharpe, load a full salvo of photon torpedoes set to proximity blast. Disrupt their sensors but don’t target either the Hazari or the Hirogen directly until we know who started this,” Camarero ordered.

“Recommend Attack Pattern Gamma III in this scenario,” Goodman offered.

Camarero nodded. “Arha, slide directly into that once we’re out of warp.”

“Aye, Captain!” the Andorian replied with a tone of eagerness that Camarero had come to expect from her anytime the prospect of combat was brought up; as a transfer from the Andorian Imperial Guard, she had a perspective that wasn’t quite in line with the mainstream Starfleet ethos. “Dropping out of warp now,” she reported. “Executing Attack Pattern Gamma III.”

“Proximity volley away,” Sharpe added. 

A full salvo of golden-brown torpedoes arced out from the Anthony’s main forward torpedo turret, peppering all three Hazari ships and the larger Hirogen one with energy blasts that would be enough to severely impede their targeting abilities for a few moments as the Starfleet ship swung around to try to put herself between the hostiles and the station. There were plasma fires raging on the station, and the defensive emplacements had clearly been destroyed. Its failure to transmit could have been from any of the number of holes in the twin catamaran-like antennae assemblies to either side of the main habitation module.

“Oh, they didn’t like that. I’m sensing a lot of pissed-off aliens, Captain,” Lieutenant Edrun reported from the communications station. The Betazoid’s telepathic abilities often gave him a slight head’s up before formal communications had actually been established. “Should I hail them?”

“Open a general hail, Lieutenant,” Camarero confirmed.

The Captain took a deep breath and thought about all of the famous ultimata she’d heard in the historical annals from other starship commanders. Eloquence here could mean the difference between ending a conflict before it started and starting a war.

“Attention hostile vessels, this is Captain Paula Camarero of the Federation starship Susan B. Anthony. You are ordered to withdraw immediately from the area, or I will consider you a threat and respond accordingly. This is your first and only warning,” Camarero said as soon as the channel opened. 

The bridge fell utterly silent as they awaited a response.

“Sir, the Hazari vessels are falling back, but the Hirogen ship is coming to bear on us,” Sharpe reported from tactical. “Detecting weapons lock.”

“They’re hailing.”

“On screen.”

Moments later, the face of a masked Hirogen Alpha appeared on the viewscreen. He had light markings around his eyes and darker ones leading under his helmet where other humanoids would have a scalp. It was Camarero’s first time seeing one off of the holodeck or in historical records from Voyager.

The Hirogen laughed, which made Camarero raise an eyebrow; they weren’t a race known for their sense of humor, after all. “The Devore were right. You will make excellent prey, indeed.”

The mention of the Devore nearly made Camarero rise from her seat in surprise; the dots weren’t hard to put together from that admission, though: if the Devore had tipped the Hirogen off to the presence of the Anthony, the Devore likely sent the Hazari to attack the station as bait. Untangling that thread would be a task to handle when they were not nose-to-nose with a Venatic-class battleship.

“Your ship will be a fine trophy. We will give you the honor of a clean death, Starfleet,” the Alpha continued before the channel cut.

“Like hell,” Camarero muttered. “I don’t think our Hirogen friend was listening to my previous message, Commander. I’m inclined to raise my voice,” she said, turning to Goodman.

“Aye, Captain. Lieutenant Sharpe, let’s show these bastards why it is such a bad idea to face down a Sovereign-class starship. Prepare full salvos from all launchers and ready an alpha strike,” Goodman ordered. 

“Ready, Commander.”

Camarero gripped the armrests of her chair in preparation for the coming battle. There were over eight hundred crew members aboard her ship, not to mention a four-star admiral and his staff. The loss of even one soul would be a tragedy, but they were now in a situation likely engineered by the Devore to decapitate the entire fleet, and there was no backing out.

“Fire,” she ordered.

The Susan B. Anthony hung in space between the damaged Starfleet deep-space communications relay station and a Hirogen Venatic-class battleship. The Starfleet vessel was significantly larger than her opponent, but the Hirogen built their ships armed to the teeth, and the Venatic was essentially all armor, weapons, and engines. It would be a tough fight. On Captain Camarero’s orders, the Anthony opened up with a massive salvo of photon and quantum torpedoes from all of her forward launchers before pivoting forty-five degrees down and hitting full impulse. This maneuver saved her from the full brunt of the Hirogen attack, but she still caught a significant amount of searing blue tetryon blasts with her shields. 

Lieutenant Silver Sharpe was a talented and experienced security officer, but their experience in live combat had been limited to the occasional skirmish with raiders on the seedier frontiers of Federation space. During the Archanis Campaign, the Anthony had even tangled with a few Klingon warships. A Hirogen warship was a novel and intimidating challenge. Impressive as she was, the Sovereign class, like almost all Federation starships, was a combination between cruise ship, conference center, and university at its core, not a warship.

“Shields down to 77%, Captain,” Lieutenant Commander Tabe reported from the operations station. “Not bad, considering.”

“That almost sounded like a compliment,” Lieutenant Arha quipped as she completed the turn to put the Anthony on a course away from the station to swing around for another strike.

“It almost was one,” Tabe retorted.

“Stow the chatter, please,” Camarero replied; while she was open to suggestions from her officers, she kept a professional, banter-free bridge, especially during a crisis. It was something Lieutenant Sharpe appreciated about her. “Sharpe, I want all phasers on maximum power and auto-targeting.”

“Aye,” Sharpe replied, keying in a sequence to keep a constant stream of phaser fire going from the Anthony to the enemy ship. The bridge rocked when they took another hit. This time, it was a spatial charge. The Hirogen were using Camarero’s initial gambit against them: hurling charges in the general direction of the Anthony to try to blind her sensors. “Shields holding.”

“Sensor performance is degrading. Recommend we increase our distance,” Tabe noted.

“Do your best, helm,” Camarero ordered.

A Sovereign-class ship was quite fast at impulse speeds, but their opponent was built precisely for knife-fight range engagements like the ones they were in. It excelled at maneuvering its heavy forward weapons into firing arcs in high-speed, close-quarters combat. If they got into a spiral together, the Anthony’s better firing arcs would let her weather down the enemy’s shields, but there was the very real risk of a point-blank alpha strike doing significant damage.

“Captain, if we could use our warp drive to increase the distance even further, we could eliminate the Hirogen’s maneuverability advantage,” Sharpe suggested. “There aren’t any gravity wells in the vicinity to hinder us.”

“You mean run away?” Lieutenant Arha asked.

“No, Lieutenant, I mean a tactical retreat to improve our chances of surviving this encounter,” Sharpe countered; they had become used to the Andorian’s hot-headedness, but they also wished that she could rein it in on the bridge. 

“Helm, can you give me ten seconds at warp two?” Camarero asked. “Find a window.”

The Andorian grumbled. “I’ve got one,” she said, tapping away at the helm. “Engaging.”

“We’re not moving,” Goodman noted.

“I’ve engaged the engines,” Arha confirmed.

“Bridge to Engineering. Where’s our warp power?” Goodman asked over the comm while the ship rocked from another Hirogen volley.

“Engineering, bridge. There’s some sort of localized subspace interference present. It’s not enough to pull the impulse engines offline, but we won’t be able to establish a warp bubble until it’s gone,” Commander Donnog reported. 

“Explains why the Hazari are fleeing at impulse,” Tabe observed. “Attempting to localize the interference.”

“Looks like we’re going to do this at close range, then,” Camarero replied. “Sharpe, are there any vulnerabilities we can exploit here?”

“This class of Hirogen vessel has a sensor and weapons blindspot aft of their main engines. Voyager used it to follow two ships of this class in the 2370s,” Sharpe noted. “If we can push the impulse engines past the redline and get them to chase us, we may be able slow to zero and slip into it.”

“We’ll also be presenting our weakest arc to their strongest arc,” Goodman reminded the captain. The ship rocked again, and consoles nearer to the EPS junctions at the edge of the room sparked alarmingly. “Shields down to 50%,” the first officer reported.

“It’s also our smallest target cross-section,” Camarero replied. “Engineering, I’m overriding the safety interlocks on the impulse engines. We’re going to push them to maximum,” she said.

“Any chance I could persuade you not to do that, Captain?” the Tellarite engineer asked.

“Not this time. Give me every ounce of power you have,” Camarero demurred. “Sharpe, prepare an aft salvo and fire at your discretion.”

Sharpe watched on her display as the blue dot representing the Anthony pulled past the red dot representing the Hirogen, thanks to a boost of extra power to the impulse engines. They were immediately hit with more tetryon blasts, as Sharpe retaliated with a volley of photon torpedoes to bring their shields down by just as much. At the same time, the tactical officer prepared their forward weapons.

“I feel like I should tell you all that if this doesn’t work, we could collide with the Hirogen ship,” Arha said from the helm. “But we’re ahead of them and have enough distance to attempt an insertion maneuver.” 

“Can we just outrun them?” Lieutenant Elrun at the communications station asked. “They’re pretty intent on killing us if the disruptor fire didn’t give it away.”

“Tetryon fire, and, no, we can sprint for a few minutes, but they’ve got the superior sublight speed,” Commander Tabe quickly interjected. “We have to get behind them or stand and fight.”

“If we turn around now, we’re back where we started. All hands, brace for deceleration. Lieutenant Arha, you can do this: get us behind the Hirogen ship,” Captain Camarero ordered. “At your discretion.”

“Aye. Three, two, one… mark,” the Andorian replied.

Instantly, the Anthony slowed to a near stop, and Arha fired the dorsal thrusters to give the ship less than a hundred meters of clearance to slip under and behind the Hirogen battleship. The bridge crew had to hold on for dear life with their consoles, and poor Midshipman Blair was thrown to the ground from his place near the Master Situation Display aft of Sharpe. The tactical officer kept their position, waiting for the moment when the targeting reticle on their console would turn blue to indicate a lock.

“We have a firing solution!” they reported with uncharacteristic excitement.

“Take it,” the captain ordered.

Sharpe opened up with all of the Anthony’s forward firepower while Arha kept right on the enemy ship to keep them from turning or banking away. Quantum torpedoes slammed in between the Hirogens’ impulse engines, which in turn sent other explosions throughout the ship. Their strike had crippled the Hirogen. Sharpe let out of a sigh of relief that they shared with the rest of the bridge crew when they saw plasma fires erupting from the alien ship on the viewscreen.

“Hirogen ship is listing,” Tabe reported from ops. 

“Back us off and keep us right behind them at a safe distance,” the first officer ordered. “Any update on that subspace interference?”

Tabe nodded, and Sharpe could see that he was confused as he looked at his readings because they saw the ship’s lateral sensor arrays re-focus to take another pass at something. Sharpe pulled the readings up themselves and was also confused. While not a scientist, they knew how to read a subspace flow diagram. Something about it was familiar, too.

“The interference is centered on the relay station itself,” Tabe reported.

“I’ve never heard of a communication station being able to keep a starship from going to warp,” Lieutenant Arha said.

“That’s because it’s not possible. Not with standard equipment, anyway,” Tabe said. “I swear I’ve seen this wave pattern before, too.”

Sharpe flicked through a few of their briefing notes until they found the material on blood dilithium, which was the last new phenomenon Starfleet had sent them. Overlaying the scans from the station and the prototypical subspace distortion associated with blood dilithium, they found a substantial correlation and immediately tossed it up onto the main viewer.

“There’s an underlying subspace inversion designed to disable our warp engines, but this wave pattern matches phenomena found near blood dilithium deposits,” Sharpe said.

“But I’m not detecting any dilithium of any kind on the station,” Tabe replied, running more scans. He turned around to look directly at Captain Camarero. “We need to get out of here. If my instincts are right, whatever is causing this distortion is intended to attract blood dilithium out of subspace to our position.”

As the operations officer reported that, Sharpe saw that the three dots representing the Hazari had now altered course. Their retreat was either a feint, or they realized that they wouldn’t get paid unless they finished the job the Hirogen couldn’t do themselves.

“Not to add fuel to the fire here, Captain, but I’m also detecting that the Hazari are on the edge of the system and have plotted a return course for our position,” Sharpe reported. “ETA at their present speed: 47 minutes.”

“They’re definitely not in a hurry, then,” Goodman noted.

“They probably saw what we just did to the Hirogen and are considering their chances,” Camarero said, drumming her fingers on the armrest of her chair. “Number One, take a team to the station and see if you can shut down this interference. I’ll try to stall the Hazari.”

“How do you plan on doing that?” Goodman asked.

“The same way you deal with any capitalist: make them a better offer.”

First Officer’s Log, Stardate 2400.11. Supplemental. — I have assembled an away team consisting of myself, Lieutenant Commander Tabe, Lieutenant Lourde, Midshipman Blair, and Crewmen Park and Lee to transport over to Relay Station R-D-G3. Our mission is to find and disable whatever is causing the interference that is keeping us here. Since the Anthony is facing down more hostile vessels, I’ve left behind our security chief, so let’s hope we don’t run into any trouble. 

Adir Goodman was no stranger to complex missions, but the sheer number of threats to keep track of during this one took the cake. They had just successfully fended off a Hirogen attack, and now they were faced with three more Hazari ships and a mysterious energy formation to deal with. The two security crewmen he had summoned, Park and Lee, were waiting for the bridge officers in the transporter room, where they were getting a masterclass in successfully attaching their utility belts from the head of transporter operations, Master Chief Stepanek. As old guard as they came, Goodman walked in right as the senior enlisted member was regaling the two green crewmen about his time spent during the Dominion War on the Tangiers as a supply technician.

“—And as you can imagine, getting any sort of supplies during the War was difficult, with replicator power at a premium. But we made do,” the master chief was saying.

“Uphill, both ways, huh, Master Chief,” Goodman teased.

Goodman had quickly learned the lesson that despite standard Starfleet practice of just calling any of the three grades of chief petty officer simply “Chief,” Stepanek would make a fuss if he was ever anything less than “Master Chief.” Said Master Chief glowered slightly at the first officer’s mockery, but just nodded and stepped back up to his transporter platform while Goodman, Tabe, and Blair got their own utility belts on. The timing on this mission would be tight, and Goodman hoped that it wouldn’t be too much of a baptism of fire for Midshipman Blair’s first mission, but the young man had been available and in need of a job when Goodman left the bridge.

“Stick close to me, Blair. I want you to—” Goodman started but was cut off when the door to the corridor opened, and he was immediately greeted by the sound of Lieutenant Mahiri Lourde’s fast-talking tenor. 

“Sorry I’m late, Commander. I was just pulling the sensor data from the main computer. I’ve never seen anything like this before. Edrun might be better suited to this, but I suppose if we do get a blood dilithium incursion, that wouldn’t be ideal at all, given that he’s a telepath and all,” the science officer chattered as she went over to grab her own equipment. 

“Blair, run secondary tricorder scans while the lieutenant focuses on analysis,” Goodman finished. The young man nodded nervously and reflexively grabbed the type-2 phaser on his belt to make sure it was still there. “Tabe, get whatever data you can from the station’s main computer,” he added.

“Understood. If the Hazari were smart, they wouldn’t have left much for us,” Tabe replied.

“I think with the Hazari, you have to pay for the deluxe package to get a service like that,” Lourde said, immediately laughing at her own joke. “I was listening from the science lab. I wonder if the Hirogen were briefed that the Hazari were part of this, or if it was a double-blind experiment, so to speak.”

Goodman pondered that for a moment and then shook his head. “An interesting question, but we need to focus on shutting down whatever’s over there before we end up with a much bigger problem on our hands,” he said, trying to sound stern while also acknowledging the lieutenant’s perspective. He stepped up onto the transporter pad. “How is our landing site looking, Chief— err… Master Chief?” he asked, pinching the bridge of his nose as he corrected himself.

Stepanek indulged in a scoff but then recentered himself. “No life signs detected, and the station’s environmental controls appear to be operating normally. All of the station’s internal and external defenses are offline.”

“Good. Keep a lock on us, and we’ll be in and out before the Hazari get here,” Goodman replied. He waited until all of the away team members were up on the transporter pad. “Energize, please.”

Goodman and his away team materialized in the center of the gleaming command center of Relay Station R-D-G3—or what would have been a gleaming command center in normal times. These stations were almost important as waystations to welcome new species to the Federation as they were as communications hubs, and so it was a little dismaying to see the Federation flag hanging by only one hook above the master console.

“Confirming no life signs,” Lourde reported. “But I am picking up evidence that polaron weapons were used here, as well as molecular-level remains of the station’s four crewmembers,” she added, her normal bubbly demeanor gone. 

While Goodman knew there weren’t any lifesigns aboard the station, hearing that the crew were definitively dead hit him in the stomach like a battering ram. He didn’t know the people who served there, but they deserved better than being slaughtered while doing their jobs.

“Polaron weapons would indicate the Hazari,” Tabe said, sighing. “I guess this was a ‘no witnesses’ contract.”

“Computer, perform a systems diagnostic,” Goodman ordered.

“There is insufficient power to complete that request,” the computer reported.

“Why is there insufficient power?”

“There is insufficient power to answer that question.”

The commander groaned. “Stupid thing. Tabe, figure out what’s going on here,” he ordered, prompting the Bajoran lieutenant commander to sit down at one of the control stations to start digging.

“Sir, I’m detecting a massive energy source in the compartment under this room that doesn’t match this station’s fusion generator signature,” Lourde reported.

“Lee and Park, stay with Tabe. Blair and Lourde with me to check this out,” Goodman replied before leading half of his team through the large utility doors that separated the command center from the station’s main stairwell. There were blast points all along the bulkheads and a smear of blue blood on one of the directional signs leading to the engineering compartment. The doors had been sealed shut with an energy weapon, as evidenced by a rough seam. “These are made of duranium. Is there another way in?” 

“Checking the schematics, Commander,” Blair offered as he swiped through his tricorder. He turned to the bulkhead and felt around for a moment before releasing the concealed catch on a panel covering a Jefferies tube entrance. “This tube wraps around to the far side of the engineering bay. It’s quite the crawl, though.”

“Let’s get this over with, then,” Goodman said.

The commander took point, crawling on his hands and knees through the cramped utility tunnel until they got all the way around to the back side of the station’s engineering bay, a ten-minute journey that left all three of them with imprints of the deck plating on their palms. Thankfully, the hatch they found there was unsealed, and Goodman just had to kick the panel off with his feet to gain access. 

“What is that?” the commander exclaimed as his team examined a large device that was intertwined with the power cables coming off of the fusion reactor.

It was a massive sphere swirling with dark red energy inside, and Goodman instantly got a feeling of malevolence from it. The energy seemed to be, for lack of a better term, quiet or dormant, as if it were waiting for something. It gave off the impression that it was capable of doing much worse than it was doing at the moment and Goodman did not like that one bit.

Back in the control room, Tabe came to the conclusion that the station’s power was being shunted into a set of capacitors attached to an unknown device in the engineering section about twenty seconds after Goodman and the other half of their team found it. He’d managed to interface the power cell of his phaser into the station’s diagnostic computer to get a bare minimum picture of what was happening. Starfleet systems were usually pretty trusting, and so the station’s computer was happy to provide him with a basic schematic: whatever the large device was, it was drawing power from the station’s primary fusion reactor and then was interfaced directly with the two large communication antennae, which explained how it was able to distribute a subspace field. What Tabe did not realize until it was far too late was that there was another system drawing a tremendous amount of power: the transporters.

Midshipman Blair was entranced by the device in the engineering bay. It was eerily beautiful and alien. Lourde and Goodman were deep in conversation about how it might function, though Blair could tell that Goodman was going around in circles a little with his questions. He was pretty, but he definitely wasn’t a deep thinker, let alone a scientist, which was a pity. 

“I think I can get better readings from a little closer,” Blair said, stepping a few meters toward the device before either of his superiors could react. 

When the midshipman’s boots crossed an invisible line on the floor, the station’s fusion reactor kicked into high gear, and the mysterious device began to pulse before there was a flash of red light. The last thing Blair felt before blacking out was Goodman grabbing him in a bear hug and pushing him down to the deck. On the exterior of the station, a half dozen pods containing glowing-red blood dilithium materialized and then magnetized themselves to the hull. A second transporter cycle left more near to the device in engineering. As power poured through the device, the subspace inversion field got stronger and stronger, until formations of blood dilithium began to emerge from subspace on, in, and around the station, turning it from a symbol of peace into a well of blood.