Dathasa stood tapping her foot impatiently as the engineer finished the modifications to her ship. She had recently procured a Vaadwaur nav-core, and was having it fitted to her Ranger Corsair Saeihr. She wrinkled her nose at the engineer as he approached her wiping his hands, smelling strongly of ozone and grease. “Alright, I think you should be good to go now.” He said, “Can’t be sure though. I’ve never even seen one of those, let alone fit it into a ship. Just as likely to detonate as get you anywhere, I think. That being said, no refunds.” he finished with a laugh and held out his hand. 

Grumbling, Dathasa dropped some credits into his hand and climbed up into the cockpit of her ship. Flipping switches and tapping commands into the console, the little ship’s impulse engine burst into life, and it began to hover off the ground. She looked over to the engineer, whose hand was now in front of his face, shielding it from the dust and debris being kicked up by the warming impulse engines. “Well,” she said dryly, “See you if I see you, I guess.” She flipped a switch and the cockpit slid closed, sealing her in. She pushed the throttle control forward, and the ship rose from the surface of Freecloud, headed for the cold dark of space.

She headed away from the planet, preparing the new navigation system to open an underspace conduit for the first time. Before she finalized it though, her sensors pinged with an approaching vessel, and her face broke into a wide smile. Coming to a stop in front of her was another Ranger Corsair, its name scrawled in Klingon under the canopy on the port side, QeH Duj; Ship of Fury. 

The comms crackled, and a strong feminine Klingon voice came through. “Is that you, jupwl’ qun?” 

“Balth jIlegh, jupwl’!” Dathasa replied. “What are you doing in Freecloud, Dranoj?”

“I was bringing in a bounty and resupplying. I meant to head back to Fenris, but my warp drive is non-functional, and my engineer cannot determine the problem.” Dranoj said.

Dathasa explained the invasion of the Vaadwaur, and the seemingly related lack of FTL travel, or long range communication. She told Dranoj about Captain Bowman, the interrogation, the battle with the Vaadwaur ship above Freecloud, and Scott’s decision to head to DS12 while Dathasa procured another nav-core.  “…but we have a plan.” she continued, “I was about to use an underspace conduit to get to Deep Space 12 and rendezvous with Scott to try and figure out where the Vaadwaur are coming from.”

“This Captain Bowman sounds like a formidable warrior.” Dranoj replied, and Dathasa could see her nodding approval through the cockpit canopy. “I will accompany you. If the sector is in danger, it’s our job as Rangers to defend it. Lead the way, Dathasa.” The QeH Duj swung itself around to rest beside Dathasa’s ship. Dathasa input the coordinates for Deep Space 12 in her nav computer, and waited while it made the calculations. Strange ancient symbols raced across the display as the Vaadwaur Nav-core took over, and then an underspace conduit aperture opened. 

The spider web of violet light opened before them, edges shimmering seemingly in and out of reality. “Follow me.” Dathasa said over the comms before easing her Corsair towards the event horizon. As she passed into the conduit, she was forced back into her seat hard by the turbulence. Warning lights sounded as she turned, flipped and weaved her way through a field of debris. Once safely out of the densest portion, she relaxed herself. “Still with me, QeH Duj?” she asked over the comm.

“Yes, although a little frazzled.” Dranoj replied. “Working with you is never dull, is it?”

“Life is too short to be boring, Dranoj.” Dathasa replied, laughing. She checked her display and added. “Looks like our ETA to DS12 is about twenty-six minutes. We had better lock in to make sure we make it there in one piece.” 

“On your wing, old friend.” Dranoj replied, falling in beside the Saeihr.

Dathasa held tight the controls of her ship, her eyes fixed on the twisting corridor stretching out in front of her. She adjusted her pitch down half a degree, avoiding a pressure surge that bloomed into the corridor from above. She radioed Dranoj, who was still flying half a click off her port side. “Our distance to DS12 is holding steady. We should be there in about ten minutes at our current speed.” 

“I’m getting turbulence I don’t like.” replied Dranoj, “Something ahead is pulling on the phase boundary.”

“Maybe it’s a weak spot in the conduit.” Dathasa said, but as the words left her lips, she felt it; an off-tempo rhythm in the conduit.  It was like a second heartbeat that had been layered under their own. 

“There!” Dranoj shouted into the comm, “Starboard side, forty degrees above!” Dathasa turned her head reflexively, just for a moment, and out of the corner of her eye she saw it.

Looming massive and motionless through the debris, a huge disc shaped space station sat perched in an intersection of underspace corridors. One large, brutal spire rose from the center of the structure, a piercing blue light at its top. Circling it slowly were two Astika battleships, and a dozen or so Manasa escorts. “Shit.” Dathasa said softly. “This must be how they’re disrupting subspace. Look at the size of that thing.” 

“We must go, Jupwl’.” Dranoj said over the radio. “We do not have the firepower to deal with this.” 

“This might be the only chance we get, Dranoj. We need to do a recon sweep, then we’ll run.” Dathasa replied, eyes still wide with awe at the imposing structure. 

The comms were quiet for a moment that seemed to stretch to eternity. Finally, Dranoj spoke. “You go left, I’ll go right. Radio silence. Do your scan, and we meet back here. If anything even twitches out there, we break for this conduit, and hope we lose them in the debris.” Her ship was drifting close now, only a few meters away, and Dathasa could see her face, screwed up in a worried determination. Dathasa gave her a quick nod, then took a deep breath, and punched the throttle forwards towards this hornet’s nest. 

The Saeihr glided across the space quietly, engines throttled back to a whisper. Inside the cockpit, Dathasa barely breathed as she flipped a switch activating a sensor baffling relay, and the hull of her ship began to shimmer slightly. It would never hold up to a direct scan, but it might be enough to buy her a couple minutes to escape. She was now way closer than any sane pilot should have been, the outpost filling the entire bottom half of her vision, encircling her entire ship. “Computer, log entry.” she whispered reflexively, as if they would hear her voice carry across the station, “Scans confirm they have subspace suppression fields working a full strength. Not jamming, so much, but muting everything around them. Communications, warp fields, hell even gravimetric ripples. They’ve bound and gagged the whole sector; probably the whole quadrant.” She adjusted her sensors as she made another near silent pass. Every reading came back with noise that sounded like static from a monitor, but there was definitely a pattern. “There” she whispered in excitement, “At the base of the spire. That’s the source of the signal. If we can wreck that spire, it may reopen subspace to us.” 

Her head swiveled around as one of the Manasa-Class escorts turned off its course and headed towards her position, and she froze. Its weapons remained dormant as it approached, but Dathasa’s hand moved slowly to hover over the engine kill switch. The seconds stretched into hours as the ship approached, then it turned away again, returning to its original flight path. Dathasa heaved a heavy sigh of relief and slumped back into her chair, wiping the sweat from her brow and palms. She retook the controls and turned her ship back towards the conduit she had come from to find Dranoj already waiting there for her. “Decided to get personal, did you?”, she asked as Dathasa came to rest beside her.

“Too personal.” Dathasa replied. “I have the coordinates downloaded into my nav-core, so we can find this place again, so let’s get out of here before they get curious.” Dathasa punched the throttle forward and sped off once again towards Deep Space 12, and Scott.

“I couldn’t agree more.” Dranoj said, pulling alongside her. “Hopefully your Starfleet friend has a fleet we can bring here.” 

“I doubt it, but that won’t stop him from coming anyway.” she let her mind wander to him for a second, and she smiled despite herself. “That’s just the kind of man he is.” 

The two small ships bucked and groaned as they sped towards the exit. They were going fast now, faster than was safe. Dathasa knew there wasn’t a tail behind them, but that didn’t make her feel better. She wanted to be out of the conduit as soon as possible. Her sensor board flickered, and the Nav-core pulsed. A brilliant light exploded ahead of them, then the conduit opened up to reveal normal space just ahead of them. They fired out of the tunnel like bullets from a gun, and there it was. Smoke still billowed in places, and she could see the lights from welding torches as repair crews worked to close all of the burnt, gaping holes in the station’s hull. Together with Dranoj, she made a quick loop of the station, and saw at last the USS Leif Erikson moored between a couple docking pylons. She set her ship down in one of the open hangars, Dranoj setting down beside her. 

“I need to find Captain Bowman.” She said to the nearest person in a Starfleet uniform. 

“Who?” they replied. 

“Never mind.” she grumbled, pulled out the combadge Scott had given her before he left, and tapped it. “Computer, locate Captain Bowman.” 

Captain Bowman is on Deep Space 12. 

“Yes, I know that.” Dathasa said irritably, “Where on Deep Space 12 is he?”

Captain Bowman is in Commodore Sorev’s office.

“Show me.” She demanded. The path was illuminated for her, lights along the corridor strobing towards the turbolift. Dathasa and Dranoj took off at a determined pace, only barely stepping out of the way of people who crossed their path. The doors of the turbolift closed behind them. When the doors opened again, they continued following the lights until they stopped outside of a closed door. Dathasa, not waiting for permission, opened the door and marched inside, Dranoj a half step behind.