The da Vinci came to an almost complete stop, roughly 500 metres in front of the Soval; now looking impressively large on the main view screen which was now showing images from the aft camera.

Lieutenant Grav didn’t need to be given any instructions; his fingers were operating the controls to activate the tractor beam the second they were in position.  Nearly everyone on the Bridge watched as the green cone of energy flicked.  “I’m getting interference from residual gravimetric anomalies.”

“I can adjust the harmonics by point 7 to compensate.” Lieutenant Beriev replied from his consul.

“Positive lock established.” The Tellarite grunted in triumph.

“Helm, ahead slow.” Commander Anacostia-Bolling instructed.

“Ahead slow.” Ensign Isaacs confirmed.

“She’s not moving.” Grav complained, after a few seconds of watching the screen.

“Helm, increase our forward speed by 15%.” The Commander stood up from her chair one fist clenched in the palm of the other. “Come on move.”

“Magnetic lock failure on port clamp!” Lieutenant-Commander Alara Ley exclaimed.

“What’s that mean?” The Captain asked turning towards her First Officer.

“It means if another clamp fails we might rip the saucer section right off,” The Trill replied.

On the Malems third sweep, the singularity they had been firing on started to destabilize.

“Hold on we have movement.”  Isaacs announced.

“Confirmed, forward momentum of the Soval has been achieved.” Beriev checked his figures. “Point zero three, zero four, zero six, forward velocity at point one metre per second.”

“Well done crew she is breaking clear.” Anacostia-Bolling  sat back down.  “Helm, increase speed to one quarter impulse.”

“One quarter impulse, aye Captain.”

((Malem Bridge))

Captain(Starfleet) Viran reported “The Soval is showing forward momentum…the da Vinci is moving off now at one quarter impulse, the Soval is in tow.”

“Follow the da Vinci, put us in a standoff position between them and the singularities.” The Commander replied.

“An what off the remaining orbs?” The Reman tactical officer asked with slow and stiff words.

“We will watch them.” The Commander was almost certain now that these singularities were a purpose-built technological construct. Though the possibility that they were actually a rare new sort of lifeform still existed. The energy waves, the obvious closed loop communication among them and the appearingly preprogrammed responses of the objects implied a more technological origin.

“First officer, signal the Ganelax, congratulate them on the success of their rescue plan.” The Commander slowly stood for a brief moment appearing more geriatric then his relatively youthful 80 years of age.

“You have the bridge Viran, I must retire to my quarters and rest.” He said as he slowly exited the bridge.

“Aye Commander.” The Vulcan raised an eyebrow, though he had been aboard the ship since she had deployed from D’Deridex yards over 2 months prior, much of the CO and his fellow Reman crewmates actions and personalities, or lack there of, still perplexed him.

((Soval))

As the ship started moving against the backdrop of stars they could clearly see, now that the murky green energy field had almost totally disappeared, the Captain wasted no time and sent the order to the Engineering section to try to get power back online. To their credit the EV suit and mag boot clad group of volunteers had restored emergency power and life support to most of the ship within 25 minutes. And after a energy transfer fed to the Soval by the da Vinci through their Bussard collectors the chief engineer was confident they would be able to reinitialize the warp core within the next 2 hours.

((Ganelax Bridge))

Cheers rose across the bridge of the Ganelax to nearly drown out the sound of the incoming congratulatory message.

“They’re free”, Sub-Commander Mrian called out in a sigh of relief.

Commander Vanren placed a hand on her back as their eyes locked. The standing officers rocked as Lieutenant Kortt angled the warbird into a sharp turn. The viewscreen now showed the Ambassador-class towed behind the spunky Saber. “Excellent work”, she told her first officer.

“Well done to you all”, said Vanren as she turned and spun to look across the bridge.

“Send out a message to thank and congratulate the Malem and da Vinci for their efforts”, Mrian added.

Epilogue

After the successful rescue of the Soval ,the makeshift squadron of vessels was joined by the Hurricane and they were all ordered to muster in the nearby Tirius system, and rendevous with a Federation cargo vessel, that hauling dilithium, dueterium, spare parts, and a small detachment of engineers and logistics personnel. While there they were tasked with overseeing the establishment of a forward supply depot on the site of a former Romulan base on a class M planet in the system. Starfleet also gave them orders to plan series of recon patrols to make contact with, or define the borders of a new faction that had been on the rise in the region known only as the Kleptarky. After reviewing all the data, Starfleet Intelligence had concluded that the various groups of singularities the Soval had been trapped by and other vessels had noticed from a distance were a form of border defense system of theirs.

They did not have any orders to attack, or penetrate the territorial integrity of the new faction, simply to make diplomatic contact, define their borders and chart the locations of the singularities so they could be logged as local dangers to space travel. The patrols were to spread out like spokes on a wheel from the Tirius system, and additional support in the form of the Rhode Island class Salvation and the IKS Slivin had been dispatched and were already en route.

The Soval was ordered to return to Framheim Station for repairs and to recieve some crew replacements. Though the ships assigned Emissary, Ambassador Krey and his small 3 person staff, were transferred to the USS Hurricane before TF 72’s old diplomatic workhorse departed the area. Krey, who officially still a held the rank of Captain in the Starfleet Reserve Cadre, was also given orders that he was to take over leading the mission when and if ‘contact’ was made with representatives of the Kleptarky.