“Ooh, a storm is threatening,

My very life today.

If I don’t get some shelter,

Oh yeah, I’m gonna fade away.”

Jagger/Richards. (1969)

 

Words hold great power.

They serve as the vehicle for our intent and represent the most powerful tool in our arsenal, wielding the singular ability to do great things and conversely hold the potential to effect great harm.

With a word we can inspire, we can heal, we can build and we can lead. But with malign intent our words can also be used to lie, to divide, to dissemble and ultimately destroy.

Words have the ability to raise nations and erase whole civilizations. With a word we can bequeath a lifetime to knowledge for the betterment of generations to come or we can order a pogrom that will see the same words burnt in a square at night.

The words we choose come with great responsibilities and say a lot about who we really are. Some may choose to bandy words freely, giving others an insight into their soul and showing us what little value they really place upon words.

Others recognize their custodial obligations to gather their intent and marshal their words carefully understanding that, once released, a word sent out into the world is a very hard thing to be taken back.

Words take on a life of their own.

Which is why, as Captain Samantha Hyland stares down the barrel of a phase – pistol, aboard the deck of a 22^nd century United Earth Starfleet vessel as it spends its last few seconds succumbing to the intense gravity – well of a main – sequence star, she is reminded of the words of a far-wiser person than she.

“Words are weapons baby! Be careful where you point them.”

Sam raised her hands in the universal gesture of placation and nodded for the rest of the away team to do the same.

“Captain Dunsel. My name is Captain Samantha Hyland. My people and I mean you no harm. We are here to try help repair your ship and stop its descent into the Sun, but that’s going to prove a little hard to achieve, if you keep on pointing that weapon at us.” Samantha explained levelly, careful to maintain the 22^nd century Captain’s eyeline at all times.

“What a pile of happy horseshit!” Roy Dunsel spat contemptuously. “Captain of what? There’s no ship on our sensors, so why don’t you cut the crap and tell me who you really are and what the hell is going on here?”

Samantha tool a deep breath, an action that was coming harder and harder to do as the temperature in the engineering space was becoming increasingly hotter as the SS – Challenger slipped steadily into the heart of the Sun.

As if to punctuate that peril, the deck jumped and vibrated like a bell once more, as the NX – class vessel was buffeted and pummeled by the fierce solar radiation and unimaginable heat that was at that very moment, eating through her hull.

Chagrinned at being frustrated so by the vagaries of fate and keenly away that the next words out of her mouth may indeed be her last, Samantha weighed up her rapidly diminishing options.

Lieutenant – Commander T’Shon, the USS Vigilant’s Chief Science Officer, had taken great pains to impress upon the Captain that preserving the timeline and avoiding any divergence that would further the temporal paradox that the 25^th century ship and crew already presented, just for existing in this parallel dimension, was of the utmost importance.

Given that such actions were almost guaranteed to draw the unkind attentions of the interspatial beings known as ‘The Loom’ (a species whose solution to a messy – timeline was arbitrational – erasure of any witnesses to a temporal – incursion from the face of reality) – this was a fair point and logical advice from the Vulcan.

On the other hand, Samantha Hyland didn’t exactly have a stellar track – record of following advice and seemed to have only the loosest relationship with the concept of following orders. She was a woman that tended to follow her gut and, yes, that instinct had taken her into harms way more often than not and at times she had suffered dreadfully for it.

Yet she couldn’t see how further dissemblance was going to be of any help in this current situation, within the next two minutes the NX-03 would start to come apart & be consumed in the nuclear-fire at the heart of the Sun and she just didn’t have time to make small talk whilst they all burned.

So, the words that she chose were the truth.

“You can’t see my ship, Captain Dunsel, because it is currently loitering beyond the range of your sensors. We came aboard using our personnel transporters that have far greater reach than the cargo transporters that you use in this time. We are able to do this because we are not from this point in Space/Time. We are United Federation Starfleet officers that have travelled here from the 25^th Century in a different, parallel universe.” Sam confessed openly, whilst Rani and Macey looked at her with jaws agog.

The deck shook violently again, causing the away team to nearly stumble and Captain Dunsel was forced to tighten his grip on the rail of the gantry above them.

A long, deadly silence persisted throughout main engineering, save for the tortured sounds of the ship’s last moments.

Roy Dunsel stood and held Samantha’s iron – gaze for a  moment longer and then the UEA Starfleet officer seemed to sag a little as he nodded and lowered his sidearm.

“Yeah, that’s about in keeping for what is fast becoming the weirdest day of my career.” Captain Dunsel grimaced wryly and nodded down to the 25^th century Captain and her people.

“As you can see, Captain, I am just about out of options and absolutely shit out of luck. Whatever you think you can do, you’d better do it fast.” Roy frowned, his blood-streaked face grimed with a patina of dirt and sweat in the strobing light of the warp core.

Sam nodded gratefully and tapped her Commbadge, opening a channel to the Vigilant.

“Commander? Is my package ready yet?” She hailed.

“I have a team placing it on the Pad now. Ready to energize on your mark.” Came Commander Rozu’s easy tones across the commchannel.

From his vantage on the maintenance gantry above, Roy Dunsel looked out with detached bemusement as Samantha smiled and replied.

“Send it!”

There formed a pinprick of blinding white light and soon the familiar swirl of complex energies heralded the arrival of the replacement EPS Static Eliminator module, that the engineering team aboard the Duderstadt – class ship had managed to replicate in record time. As Rani picked the module up in her hands, its smooth surface still felt warm from its recent fabrication.

“Don’t worry, Ma’am!” The Vigilant’s Operations Chief assured, as she hefted the part and quickly set about fitting the component that would permit EPS power to be routed to the Impulse engines and give the SS Challenger a fight chance. “I’ve got this!”

Samantha nodded, placing her trust and all of their lives in the capable hands of Lieutenant Ojha. She nodded to Macey.

“Ensign you’re with me!”

Together the CO and the Helm Officer began to climb the ladder that lead up to where Captain Dunsel was standing on the maintenance gantry. As she climbed, the slim Nordic – woman raised her head and called out to the Challenger’s Skipper.

“Captain. The Lieutenant is attempting to restore operating power to your impulse engines. The Ensign here is our pilot. I think it’d be a very good idea if you showed us to the bridge?”

As the two women reached the top of the ladder, Roy knew that his ship didn’t have long to live. There was the need for answers and some very, very good information. He didn’t know if he trusted this woman and her wild claims, but there would be only time to unravel all that, if they survived the next few seconds.

“This way Captain, Ensign.” Dunsel nodded and led his uninvited guests to the hatch that led from the engineering module.

The deck canted and slewed as the trio made their way up the starboard pontoon that joined main engineering and the warp nacelles to the flat pancake – disk of the vessels primary hull. The light flashed on and off intermittently, but Sam was struck with how comparatively smaller and more cramped the corridors of the NX-03 were, compared to the generous internal accommodations of her own 25^th century vessel.

It really had been a long way, getting from here to there.

One of the advantages of being aboard a legacy vessel, with only 7 decks, was that the distance to their destination was thankfully small and they made the bridge with seconds to spare.

The command-and-control space that they entered into was similarly modest by comparison, yet as they emerged from its single turbolift the bridge of the SS Challenger held all the familiar hallmarks and touch-stones that would inform the layout of Starfleet vessels for century’s to come.

On a central dais sat the Captain’s chair, with Roy Dunsel immediately sank into with such familiar ease that it made Sam momentarily homesick for her own, which Commander Rozu was currently keeping warm for her.

Immediately flanking the big – chair a rail transcribed a rotunda wit the Tactical and spare duty station facing inwards. Corralled within and immediately fore of the CO, the Helm and Navigator’s console faced a utilitarian forward viewscreen, with a small station for the Communications Officer (the technology for the ubiquitous babel – busting Universal Translator was still in its infancy in this time, so a talented linguist took up the slack and did the ‘heavy lifting’) and the science station that was key to the NX – classes mission of discovery and exploration, filled the port bulkhead.

Aft of the rotunda was a small conference table with standing room only and the cramped accommodations were completed by a systems monitor behind that and the entry to the Captain’s ready room.

Compared to the generous and well – appointed accommodations aboard her own ship, Sam struggled to imagine just what it must be like to set out on a 5-year voyage of discovery aboard such a vessel. It was akin to what she imagined life must have been like on a WW2 era submarine.

What was also immediately apparent was how few crew members were present on the bridge.

True, the systems aboard the 22^nd century craft were simpler than the complex contemporaries aboard her own command, but they also distinctly lacked the sophisticated automation of the Vigilant’s systems. Everything here was distinctly analog and each process required a person to interact with it to maintain and operate its function.

Here, the Tactical Station and the Communications post were filled, respectively with an African – American male in his early 30s and a young Caucasian woman with short brown hair that looked like she had just walked out of the Academy yesterday.

Yet there was no time for introductions.

Macey Lewis made a beeline for the Helm controls, whilst Samantha took up station at the Science console, as she arrived there she took stock of what functions were available to her. Although the control interfaces were literally hundreds of years away from the Holographic LCARS systems that she was familiar with in her own time, a cursory stock-take of the functions afforded her confirmed what did what.

She lowered her eyes to the viewing hood of the main astrometric scanner and called out.

“We’re exiting the Photosphere and passing into the Convective Zone!” Sam reported to the CO of the SS Challenger. It was surprising how easily she shrugged off the mantel of command and acquiesced the responsibility and burdens of command to another. Starfleet had drummed the need for flexibility and trust in the chain – of – command into all of its students.

“Impulse drive is still offline!” Ensign Lewis warned.

The view through the forward screen was now so searingly bright that Captain Dunsel actually cut the feed to the cameras. The external temperature was now so hot that they would surely fail soon anyway and Roy knew that nothing is as big a morale – killer and having to dwell upon the thing that was about to kill you.

If they didn’t retain focus, they would all be dead in the next few moments.

Samantha tapped her Commbadge and called out urgently, “Lieutenant? How’s that repair coming along?!”

Lieutenant Ojha’s reply was strained.

=^= “The module’s fitted captain. Just a few more seconds as I run a degaussing protocol and you should have power!” =^=

Sam winced, the vibrations thrumming throughout the ship had now reached a frequency where they were almost constant and it made her teeth judder and her voice vibrate with its violence. The Convective Zone of a star’s surface was a kilometer’s deep sea of nuclear fire when hot plasma rose, cooled and sank, creating convection currents the size of continents.

“We don’t have a few more seconds, Rani! Forget the protocol and bring the EPS junction online now! We can fix any damage later, if there IS a later!”

=^= “Wilco! Standby!” =^=Ojha confirmed and cut the comm.

Sam turned back to her scope and confirmed her worst fears.

“External hull temperature at 5,700 °C and climbing rapidly!”

The Convective Zone that the SS Challenger was plunging into was a region of the Sun roughly 200,000km deep. As the reached the base of the Convective Zone, the average temperature would be at around 2 Million °C, but by that time they would have been reduced to a vapor of complex hydrocarbons and their troubles would be over.

Captain Dunsel sighed in defeat and turned to look at Samantha with a small, sad smile on his face.

“Well, you can’t say that we didn’t give it a damn good try.” Roy admitted regretfully. “Wherever you’re really from, Captain Hyland, they breed them tough there. It’s been a pleasure knowing you, if only for a short time.”

Samantha bunched her fists in abject frustration furious that, after all she had endured, after all that she had been through up until this point, that it was all going to end here. At least, she reasoned with some small measure of comfort, the Hive Mutagen that coursed through her veins would finally be consumed by the eviscerating fire of the Sun, never to threaten the Galaxy with its curse every again.

She wasn’t sure if the same would apply to the crystal lattice that grew inside of her and constantly kept the Hive contagion at bay. From what she had learned during her encounters with the gnomic race of Crystaline Entities that had killed her father and rescued her from the Mirror Universe, she rather fancied that that mercurial life – form probably used such stars to sunbathe.

She closed her eyes, hoping at the last to see the faces of those who she had loved, but had gone on before her, but there was nothing.

No words seemed suitable for a moment like this.

“YEEHAW! GETSOMEMUTHERFUKA! THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT!”

Macey Lewis roared with elation as the Impulse controls suddenly came back online and the pilot stabbed life back into the Challengers ailing impulse drive.

Sam’s eyes snapped open, Rani had done it !!!

They had all done it! They were going to live!

But they weren’t out of the woods yet and the woods were alight & burning bright.

Sam gritted her teeth as the forces of apparent gravity drove her down in her chair, like a giant had reached out and squashed it’s thumb into her lap.

The velocity of the NX-03’s descent into the core of the star had been considerable and the energy it created couldn’t just be dissipated in an instant. To escape the compulsion of the Sun’s awful gravity – well, Lewis had to drag the nose of the Challenger upwards and transcribe a parabolic arc to bleed off the crushing speed of the descent and translate that velocity into an escape vector that would carry them back into space.

The physics involved were punishing.

“C’mon baby-girl! C’MON!” Macey urged the venerable craft. She could see that the spaceframe was being stressed way beyond its design tolerances (not even counting the damage it must have sustained by the unimaginable temperatures outside) and warning alerts were showing across the board.

She was losing it.

The ascent vector required to nose up and escape the Convective Zone was too steep and she couldn’t bleed off their descent speed quickly enough to translate the energy into a positive climb. She attempted to finesse the curve by activating the NX-03’s maneuvering thrusters, but this deep into the Sun’s surface the reaction mass just instantly turned to steam as soon as it exited the nozzles.

As a former smuggler, Macey Lewis had been in tight spots before (although diving into the heart of a sun in an ancient spaceship from yesteryear had to top that list , admittedly) and knew that it was important to keep a cool head and never admit defeat.

She wasn’t gonna blow it.

Her eyes widened! That was it!

“Tactical! What kind of ballistic munition do you have aboard?”

Lieutenant Sullivan, the young officer behind the weapons console, replied. “We carry the very latest Mark I Photo Torpedo’s!”

Macey smiled, a desperate plan forming in the young pilot’s racing mind.

“Okay. When I tell you, I want you to launch a full salvo, maximum dispersal spread on the same linear vector as our current course and heading. Set your fuses to minimum for detonation!” Macey ordered confidently.

Lieutenant Sullivan frowned and protested, “”But that will place us right in their path when they initiate!” He looked to his CO for support.

Captain Dunsel considered the urgency of the situation and then shrugged.

“Do as the lady says Liuetenant, we’re in her hands now.” Roy ordered. The time for second guessing had been and gone.

Macey nodded in thanks, although she had little time to voice her gratitude as her slim brown fingers flew over the unfamiliar controls. As she worked she accessed the controls to the slim band of the navigational deflector that sat housed in the nose of the NX-03.

Working quickly, with half an eye on the telemetry that sang out their attitude and velocity, Macey used those control to finesse both the shape and alignment of the invisible field of energy that rode out in front of the starship and was used to displace any incoming stellar object that might interact harmfully with the vessel when it was underway.

“Steady.” She murmured and at that point no one on the bridge was sure if the pilot was speaking to them or herself, so totally enthralled in her task as she was.

“Steady.’ Macey said again, the temperature in the cramped bridge was now such that sweat streamed freely down her smooth brow.

There was a dreadful pause and then Ensign Lewis shouted, “NOW!”

“Torpedo’s away!” Called Lieutenant Sullivan and the hull resounded with the sound of the torpedoes exiting the hull.

With the main viewscreen deactivated, Macey used the Challenger’s navigational scanners to keep track of the Torpedo’s trajectory as they lanced away from the ship. The UEA Starfleet vessel plough doggedly behind them, trailing their arc and Lewis prayed hard that her calculations were on the money and they would intersect at just the right moment.

The torpedoes reached their minimum safe arming distance and exploded. A fraction of a second later, the SS Challenger slammed into the wavefront of the expanding detonation.

The bridge was shaken as if the hypothetical giant had gripped the fleeting craft and had shaken it violently, leaving Samantha supremely glad that ships of this time came with safety harnesses.

The carefully aligned and sculpted deflector field intersecting with the explosion and using the tremendous energy that it produced to rob some of that energy and translate it into upward momentum, slamming into the dissipating energy – wave and  giving Macey the precious few degrees of attitude that she needed, riding the deflector shield up higher & higher, back into the Sun’s Photosphere!

The NX-03 broke out from its death – dive and rose up from the heart of the blazing sun like a Pheonix born anew.

Captain Roy Dunsell collapsed back into his seat, as the newly-reactivated forward viewscreen showed the intense illumination of the star’s fire begin to dim and caress the underside of his command, and the welcoming black coolness of space beckoned from beyond.

He smiled broadly, much relieved to be alive against all odds.

 

“Ensign Lewis. You are one steely – eyed rocket – jockey and no mistake!”