[A Starfleet Prison Facility, sometime in the future…]

The Prison Warden walked up to the cell and pressed the intercom button. “Hello prisoner 843128.”

There was a low growl that grew in intensity and volume before a slam on the door was heard. “My name is VOK!! You pink skin pig!” Came from the Klingon.

“Tsk tsk. I’m hurt. I thought we were friends.” The Warden smiled.

Vok growled some more before walking away.

Warden smirked then pressed a button to open a slot in the door. “I have something for you, something that you would be very interested in.”

“I don’t want anything from you!” The Klingon growled as he went up to the wall from across the door and pressed his ridged head against it as he slammed his fist against it. His mind was filled with pain and rage as well as blame. He was blaming himself for not listening to his Intel Officer when they had allowed the rest of the D’Ghor vessels to flee, back when they ‘pretended’ to be friends with Starfleet. He should of listened. Now his par’mach’kai and his unborn child are gone, his house dismantled, followers fled or dead, and he was found by Starfleet on a Federation colony as a broken man.

“I guarantee you, you will want to see this.” Said the Warden.

Vok growled again before he pushed himself off the wall and walked over to the cell door, yanking the padd from the Warden’s hand before reading it. He then noticed that it was a DNA report. When he was taken in, they took some blood from him, apparently it was standard medical procedure to make sure he wasn’t carrying some pathogen that no one in prison had been treated for, or whatever the reasons were, Vok didn’t really care. But what the report said shocked him the most.

The Warden chuckled heartily as he enjoyed watching such ‘great’ warriors fall into the pits of depression and despair, while he sealed the hatch shut and walked away with his guards.

Vok plopped down onto his bed while staring hard at the data before his grip tightened without even thinking of it, until the padd cracked and part of it he held shattered in his hand, the rest clattering to the floor. He tossed what he had left in his hand at the wall before placing his ridged head into his hands. “Everything I knew was a lie…” He spoke softly and now his thoughts turned to wishing he could have a warrior here to perform the Hegh’bat for him…as he no longer wished to be alive.

The DNA report basically said…that he was not related at all to the ones who made him believe that he was… That he was no descendant of what used to be a great house that became nothing but deceit and traitorous when it was helped by the Romulan Empire or the Tal’Shiar. He was nothing more than just a regular Klingon who dreamed the impossible, and what got him stuck in this prison for the crimes he had committed to achieve such impossible dream….

[Present Time]
[USS Don S. Davis]

Officer at the Weapons Station, his eyes went wide at what his sensors were telling him. He looked up at his Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Commander Walker. “Sir! Centaur is under attack, Vorcha Attack Cruiser. It’s closing in!”

Walker quickly dropped his butt into his chair while looked at his tactical officer, “Shields u-” He was interrupted by a series of exterior explosions and the deck violently shaking him around in his seat, everyone else trying to either hold on to their consoles or the railing but some failing as they are tossed to the floor. The lights flickered and shifted hue to the standard Red Alert as it automatically went off when the ship detected that it was being hit by weapons fire.

The IKS Shadriq had decloaked while moving at attack speeds, firing a single torpedo to each nacelle of the Centaur along with a single heavy disruptor bolt to the port nacelle, causing the hull of the nacelle to shred open and warp plasma to spew out from it, while several smaller disruptor bolts lanced out from their weapon ports and struck the impulse engine and several weapon ports on the dorsal saucer of the Centaur. Then as it flew over the small vessel, it adjusted its trajectory towards the Don and launched another two torpedoes, one for each nacelle, followed by a heavy disruptor bolt, also contacting with the nacelle, which did the very same to the Don as it had to the Centaur, shredding the dorsal section of the nacelle wide open and warp plasma to spew out of it. Before the Vorcha began to fly over the Don, it also launched two more torpedoes right into the aft torpedo launcher of the Don, then as it flew over the Don, a series of smaller disruptor bolts left their weapon ports and hitting several dorsal phaser arrays as well as hitting the impulse engine a couple of times before completing its ‘Hit and Run’ tactic by finishing its flight over the Don and moving away.

Walker had eventually been thrown out of his chair after enough hits to the non-shielded vessel had caused one of the stations to erupt from a power overload and spewed sparks out of it after the explosion, following by a fire spewing from all sides that the damage control team closest to the Bridge had came up quickly and are currently spraying out the fire. He pushed himself onto his feet as he grunted, the low lighting for their current alert status had been replaced with emergency red lighting. “Report!”

“Multiple hull breaches on several decks. Warp engines took a major beating, the starboard nacelle is badly damaged, warp drive is offline, hell the warp core is offline. We’re running off of auxiliary power and batteries. I got shields up but they’re at sixty percent, we lost two dorsal arrays, two have been damaged, and the aft torpedo launcher has been destroyed. Phaser power is at eighty percent and the impulse engines are operating at seventy-five percent due to damage.” Reported the officer at the engineering station.

“Bloody hell. Who fraking fired on us?!” Walker demanded but before anyone could answer, the intercom chirped.

“Cargo Bay One to Bridge. What in the actual hell is going on?! Do you have any idea how fraking close we were to destabilization?!” Came from the specialist team leader.

Walker pressed a button on his left arm rest to reply, “I apologize but we had no idea that we were about to be attacked out of fraking no where.” Then he left the comm open so that the specialist team could hear the rest of the report.

“It was a Vorcha Attack Cruiser, sir. Transponder says the IKS Shadriq.” Reported the Tactical Officer. “And they’re swinging around!”

“Commander, you have to do whatever it takes to not allow the ship to take anymore weapons fire! We are on the edge of complete destruction here, not to mention complete chaos to half of Alpha and Beta quadrant! Or with the size of this cluster, maybe the galaxy!! The magnitude is just too damn dangerous, you need to get us out of here, now!” The specialist complained.

“I wish I could, but warp drive is offline, hell we don’t even have main power. Do what you can to destroy those molecules but we are stuck in this fight. I will see what the Centaur can do, Walker out.” He pressed the button and closed the link before looking to his officers. “Whats the status on the Centaur?”

“They’re in better shape in power wise, but they’ve taken just about the same kind of damage we did. Their port nacelle is badly damaged, their warp drive is offline, their impulse engines are damaged and only operating at eighty percent. They lost all four of their dorsal phaser banks but both torpedo launchers seem to be fine.” The engineering officer reported after running a detailed scan on their escort. But suddenly the intruder alarm went off.

“What the hell?!” Walker barked before looking at Tactical.

“Internal sensors must of been damaged on certain sections of the ship, but now they are detecting twelve Klingons and they’re heading for the main cargo bay where the resonance chamber is!! They’ll be there in ten minutes!”

“God damnit! We don’t have a well armed security force on board. Get me the Centaur, quickly!” Walker ordered.

[USS Centaur]

Carter forced the other half of the turbolift door open after the lift had got him there and only one half of the split door had opened for him. “Report!” Carter also noticed that the standard bridge crew had returned to their stations as he had ordered earlier, but it was a mess. Apparently two of the outer consoles, a secondary science and secondary engineering console, had a power overload and exploded. He could see that two crew persons were being treated by a medical staff.

“All dorsal phasers are gone. Shield generator took a hit and so our shields are only operating at sixty-five percent. Port nacelle took heavy damage and warp drive is offline. Impulse engines were damaged as well and we can only go maybe three quarter impulse.” Reported Gomez.

“What about the Don?” Vakai asked as he pulled himself back onto his feet by his hands on the railing.

“They got the worst of it. Pretty much the same damage we got, but their aft torpedo launcher is destroyed and their main power is offline, she’s running on auxiliary and emergency batteries.” Gomez replied.

“Sir, Don is hailing us.” Said the comms.

“On Screen,” Vakai and Carter said in unison before looking at each other, Carter smiling at Vakai and Vakai smiled back before they both gave the main viewer their attention.

“Centaur, we have a problem. Internal sensors are offline in several sections of the ship, and we just now detected twelve Klingons on board. They’re heading for the main cargo bay where our resonance chamber is. My security team is not armed enough to handle this, I need your help.” Said Walker.

Vakai looked to Carter. “I can order Koyda and Maya to gear up in their Hazard gear and send a team to the Don’s main cargo bay.”

“Do it.” Carter ordered.

Vakai went over to the comm station and raised them directly, where he explained the situation to them.

“Ryker, get us behind the Don quickly. Gomo, lower the forward shields when the team is ready for transport.” Bother Ryker and Gomo acknowledged to Carter’s orders.

“We will sync our aft shields with your tactical officer so that way they are lowered and raised back up in unison.” Said Walker.

Suddenly a new voice was heard over the intercom.

“I know what you are doing.” Came a low, heavy, raspy voice. “And it will not matter. If I do not get what I want, I will destroy both your vessels.”

Carter looked to Vakai and mouthed ‘Hurry’ before looking up at the ceiling as if the intercom system were there. “I am Captain Carter of the USS Centaur. Explain for your aggressive actions against two Starfleet vessels, and maybe I won’t file a complaint to the Klingon Council.”

There was a hearty, loud laughter, a series of them before the voice returned. “I don’t answer to the Council, Captain.”

Carter frowned, ‘Great…another bloody rogue. The Klingon Empire may be their allies but they are such a pain in the-‘ Vakai cleared his throat and Carter turned his head to look at him. Vakai mouthed, ‘Ready’. Carter mouthed back, ‘Do it.’ before looking to Gomo and nodding his head. “Then to whom am I speaking to.”

“I am Captain Vok. Descendant of Duras.”

Carter cursed under his breath and then Vakai said, “Transport complete!” Carter gave the ‘cut’ signal with the finger across his neck, the transmission now terminated. “Ryker, I need your best flying skills, now! Without dorsal phasers, we’re going to have to focus a lot of fighting from our ventral weapons but we can’t take too many hits to our ventral shields, understood?”

“Absolutely, Captain. Initiating the Ryker maneuver.” Ryker acknowledged with a grin.

Carter then turned to Gomo. “If that bastard is a descendant of who he believes he is, then we have no chance of negotiating with him. He wants Omega, and there is no way in hell he is getting it!” Carter pointed at the Vorcha on the view screen as the Centaur moved around the Don from its rear. “I want that ship burning!”

“Say no more, Captain!” Gomo acknowledged.

Carter turned to Vakai. “Take your damn seat and teach this Klingon a lesson.” Carter pointed to the center chair.

Vakai smirked, “Aye, sir.” He said as he walked over and sat down. “Ryker, Gomo. Let’s do this. Gomez, we’re going to need all the power we got to the shields and phaser banks.”

Gomez’s fingers were darting over her board. “I’ll do what I can!”

“Yee haw!” Ryker shouted as he entered the commands of his ‘maneuver’ and the ship literally rotated on it’s Z axis until it was completely upside down…well in terms of space, nothing was truly ‘up’ or ‘down’ but it allowed the Centaur to use the ventral phaser banks to attack the Vorcha while they approached it at the best top speed they could go. Ryker even inverted his controls so he could fly the ship like it is, in a way of making ventral now dorsal and dorsal now ventral.

“Keep us in between the Klingon ship and the Don! I don’t want them taking any more weapons fire, or we’re all fraked!” Carter told Ryker and Ryker acknowledged as he adjusted the ship’s trajectory.

“I’m going to need quicker responses from the thrusters, Gomez!” Ryker told her.

“Working on it!!” Gomez replied as Gomo allowed the phaser capacitor to stay near fully charged while firing each phaser bank in a sequence, not wanting to drain it too quickly but still wanting to provide a heavy beating as much as this ship could dish out against a Vorcha Attack Cruiser.

While the Centaur worked to keep the Vorcha busy, the Don S. Davis began to turn away to starboard, the port side lifting up and phaser beams lanced out from the ventral phaser arrays toward the Vorcha when they had an opening, doing their best to provide assistance but also try to not draw too much attention to themselves for good reason.

[Meanwhile on board the Don]

Koyda and Maya lead the team of six security officers from the Centaur, as they went to set up a barricade at both directions in the corridor just before the door to the main cargo bay, using crates and containers that weren’t explosive or any of the sort. Not knowing exactly which direction the Klingon invaders were coming from, they set it up that way so they had both directions covered as a precaution. But once they showed up, it was not easy as they had intended it to be.

The team tried to take down as many as they could with their rifles as the twelve Klingons charged at them, but they were only able to take down four before they got into close combat, forcing them to fight off eight Klingons in a hand to hand combat, which is usually always a disaster, as the Klingons excel so well in this area of fighting.

Back to the space battle at hand, the Vorcha fired a volley of disruptor bolts at the Centaur and launched a couple torpedoes at the Don before peeling away to resume its hit and run tactic, it even began to cloak itself while it pulled away.

On board the Centaur, “Ventral shields down to twenty percent!” Gomo reported.

“We’re taking too much weapons fire on the ventral, we’re going to need to roll back over.” Carter chipped in.

Vakai turned to look at Gomez, “Can we reinforce the ventral shields some how?”

“We can do what we did before, pump all battery power into the ventral shields but once we do that, we won’t have any emergency batteries. So if we lose main power and auxiliary, we’ll be dead in the water and nothing will stop them from destroying the ship.” Gomez explained.

“Then it’s a risk we have to take, we need to force them to retreat some how, to keep them from getting the resonance chamber! Do it!” Vakai ordered.

Gomez nodded and began to enter commands at her station.

“The Shadriq is cloaking!” Gomo reported.

Carter cursed under his breath, “We need to keep track of them!”

Vakai stood up, “Gomo, quickly set the first three photon torpedoes to proximity fire and try anticipate their trajectory, fire the torpedoes and have them explode just in right time to reveal the Shadriq, then fire phasers at what you see. We need to keep them lit up!”

Gomo nodded his head and his fingers darted over the console before hitting the fire button, launching the three torpedoes.

Gomez then turned in her seat, “Ventral shields are up to forty five percent, that’s the best I can do!”

Meanwhile on board the Don, Walker watched as the Vorcha began to disappear but then saw the Centaur firing torpedoes. He squinted a little and then saw how the torpedoes exploded, revealing the Shadriq, then watched as phaser beams from the Centaur’s ventral banks lanced out to keep the Shadriq ‘lit up’.

Walker looked to his tactical officer. “Pull up the Battle of the Bassen Rift, adjust our phasers accordingly and fire on that ship! We’re not going to let them use their cloaking tactics, hell no.” He then turned to the helm. “Bring us about, I want us to keep assisting the Centaur, there is no way she can fight that Vorcha on her own.” Both officers acknowledged and soon, the Don came back around and her phasers lanced out with mere seconds in between to keep the Vorcha from getting away. Even if it was small, light damage to the hull, it was keeping the Vorcha ‘tracked’.

Walker then pressed the button on the left arm rest that gave him a channel link to the main cargo bay. “Is that chamber ready to destroy those molecules yet?!”

“Just a few more minutes, we have a lot here, we need to make sure we eliminate them all, we can’t have any mistakes.”

“Well hurry! How’s the security team from the Centaur doing?”

“They’re doing a hell of a job keeping the Klingons away but they’re in a middle of a hand to hand combat. I can’t look right now to get you an accurate detail, trying to finish down here!”

Walker cursed and watched as the Centaur fired a couple more torpedoes, not set to proximity this time, as they soared across space just to make contact with the hull of the Vorcha. At that point, the Shadriq disengaged the cloaking device and their shields were back up near full strength, finally realizing that using their cloaking device in their hit and run tactics wasn’t going to work anymore, not when both ships were hounding them to keep them ‘tracked’.

On board the Shadriq, Vok growled loudly and in quite a rage, that he slammed both his fists onto his arm rests before standing up. He then pointed at the view screen, at the Centaur, while looking at his weapons officer. “I want that ship gone, now!!”

The Shadriq then came about, and launched a large volley of disruptor bolts, including a single heavy one, along with a few torpedoes, all towards the Centaur. Gomez cursed under her breath and tried to work quickly to redirect shield strength from the aft sections towards the front before they took the brunt of it all. Many of the disruptor bolts hit their shields but the larger one punched through and smashed into the ventral saucer section, the sheer force knocking the Centaur off its trajectory, by which the trajectory made the three torpedoes contact with the Centaur’s torpedo pod, essentially destroying the pod but not completely so the nacelles were still attached.

One of the other bridge consoles, a third one, exploded due to the power overload, sending a crew person over the railing from their seat as the other personnel ran over to put the fire out and check on them. Suddenly the lights went out and the red emergency lighting came on.

“Main power is offline! Rerouting Auxiliary power to critical systems.” Gomez reported before turning her head to Vakai. “We don’t have weapons or shields anymore, we’re a sitting duck!”

Suddenly, Walker’s voice came over the intercom. “Centaur, you still have impulse engines, haul ass away from the Klingon ship, now!!”

Vakai looked to Ryker, “You heard the man!”

“Punching it!” Ryker replied.

As the ship’s trajectory was corrected, it moved away as quickly as it could with only now half impulse speed available while the resonance chamber suddenly appeared between all of them. Walker stared at it on the main viewer before turning to his tactical. “Fire the gravimetric torpedo!!” And the torpedo was sent.

On the Shadriq, Voq stepped closer to the main screen. “Transport that chamber, now!!” But it was too late, the torpedo was faster than they were, but the Intelligence Officer had anticipated this, because the second they saw the chamber was beamed into space, they moved to the tactical station and began rerouting power to the forward shields, strengthening it as much as possible before the torpedo made contact with the chamber, causing a large explosion and a massive blast radius from the nearly four hundred million molecules that was inside it.

The Don had adjusted their forward shields as well as the Shadriq did and the Centaur had gotten far enough to be just on the edge of the blast radius before it hit them. But the Shadriq was closer than the three vessels were and their forward shield generator overloaded, causing secondary explosions on several decks and literally shoving the ship further away from its position. The Don on the other hand, the forward shields strained from the blast until they were no more, but it wasn’t as bad as the Shadriq had it, so the generator didn’t overload but still, it was enough to cause some damage to their forward hull on the saucer section, severely damaging both forward phaser arrays on the dorsal and ventral of the saucer.

On the Shadriq, Vok forced himself back onto his feet from the deck as he looked around, the Bridge filled with smoke, hearing sparks spitting out from some where. “Report!” He shouted.

His Intel Officer pulled themselves up from the floor with their grip on the weapons console, doing their best to respond to their Captain’s order. He grunted as his head hurt, thinking he may slammed his head on the console before meeting with the deck. Everything looked like it was swirling, but he was a warrior, he needed to concentrate. He tried to shake it off until his vision came back to normal, not sure if shaking his head helped or he was just recovering on his own. He read over the display before finding his voice, “Forward shield generator is gone. We lost a few disruptor banks, including the heavy disruptor. Forward torpedo launcher is damaged, but we can get it operational again.”

“My lord! Starfleet vessel is hailing us!” Reported the Comms Officer.

Vok growled, “On viewer.” He then turned to see the bushy haired face of a man before him on his screen.

“I am Lieutenant Commander Walker of the USS Don S. Davis. We just detonated the very thing you wanted from us, and I can assure you…we have more of those torpedoes in our forward launcher. You know exactly what those torpedoes can do, and if I have to, I will use them to stop you. So you have a choice, Captain. Get the hell out of Federation Space, or be prepared to go to Sto’Vo’Kor.”

Vok growled even more, “I am prepared to die, Commander. We all are. It would be an honor for us to die in battle and meet the great heroes of the Empire in Sto’Vo’Kor! And I will make you pay for taking away what I rightfully came for!”

Walker sighed, “You’re not giving me much choice, Captain. Face it. You lost. There is no honor in continuing this fight! But ending this battle to save yourself for another day, is no defeat either.”

Vok lifted up his head and tilted it slightly with a small grin. “You speak like a Klingon, Commander.”

Walker shrugged one of his shoulders. “After being allied with your people for so long, we Starfleet Officers pick up a thing or two. So what is it going to be, Captain? You don’t have forward shields, one single gravimetric torpedo in my launcher will surely vaporize your ship. What honor would there be where you stand no chance to fire one more shot at us?”

Vok growled, “I assure you, Commander…I can get one more torpedo out before you launched yours and I won’t be aiming for you…” He grinned, as that was his hint for his weapons officer to lock onto the Centaur.

Walker shook his head. “How? We can see the damage you’ve taken. Your forward torpedo launcher isn’t even working right now. You think this chat we’re having is going to give you enough time to make the repairs? I don’t think so. I will not say this again, Captain. Leave Federation Space…or be destroyed.”

The Intelligence Officer walked around the console and grabbed Vok’s arm. “My lord.” He spoke softly. “Your grand plan. Your future for us and for your great house. If we are to restore it’s glory, we can’t let it end here. You must survive, or it will all be for naught.”

Vok let out a heavy, growling sigh as his officer was correct. “Warp Drive?”

The pilot turned in his seat, “Warp six is the best we can do, my lord.”

“Cloak?” Vok asked.

“Barely operational.” The Weapons Officer reported.

Vok returned his attention to Walker on his viewer. “Fine. You win, Commander. But I assure you…we will be looking for more of this…energy…and one day, Starfleet will regret ever crossing my path.” He then made the ‘cut’ gesture and the transmission was terminated. “Cloak the ship, and set course back to base at warp five. I don’t want us to be tracked as we leave Federation Space. But in crease speed as soon as the repairs to our engines and cloaking device has been completed…I don’t want to be stuck out here for too long…” He plopped down into his seat as he cursed in Klingon under his breath, disappointed that he failed to acquire this…weapon for himself.

Meanwhile, on board the Centaur. Sickbay was quite active, in fact it was so full, that casualties were being treated in the hallway. Carter stood there in that hallway, staring at his injured crew while the medical staff did their best to treat them. Vakai came up beside him, looking at the chaos before turning his head to look at Carter. “Repairs are under way, sir. Commander Walker says the Don has enough supplies to repair both our ships but neither of us will be back to full efficiency. We should return to the Devron Fleet Yards. Also the Don is providing their sickbay to assist with the casualties.”

Carter sighed with a couple nods of his head. “How about the security team over at the Don?”

“Maya got a nasty gash on her left arm, but she’s alive and being treated. Koyda and the rest of the team…some how they all survived. They did extremely well, sir. Keeping the Klingons from reaching the main cargo bay.” Vakai reported.

Carter nodded his head again, “I will recommend to Starfleet to give them a commendation. That’s if…they’ll do it…this entire operation is completely classified.”

Vakai nodded his head as well, “We should all be getting a commendation for this, sir. If the Don had taken anymore hits…”

Carter sighed heavily and looked up at the ceiling. “We would be dealing with ungodly disasters and phenomena that would surely rip our ships apart…if we survived the blast radius at all. But the Mankiran Planet would be ground zero and torn to pieces…Then billions…trillions of lives would be forced to change the way we travel forever.”

Vakai frowned and looked at him. “Sir?”

Carter lowered his head from looking up at the ceiling, and turned his focus onto Vakai. “You will understand, when-”

“When I make Captain, I know.” Vakai sighed, shaking his head. “But what are we going to do?”

Carter shook his head, “I don’t know. None of this makes sense, Vakai. There has never been a reported incident of these…molecules forming naturally. And to hear the Mankiran’s saying that they only had several hundred thousand synthesized…turn into about four hundred million just…out of the blue…it…” Carter shook his head again before rubbing his temples. “Everything I was told about this when I became Captain…something is happening, and…” Carter lowered his hands, looking at his injured crew. “What ever this is…if they can create these molecules like that…I am truly afraid of what else they could possibly do. And what if they’re hostile? How in the hell would we be any match against such a force?”

Vakai shook his head again, “Then I can only hope that they are friendly.”

Carter snorted with a grin. “Glad to have you here, Vakai. You’ll make a fine Captain some day.”

“I hope so…I certainly don’t like seeing the crew like this…”

Carter nodded, “The downside of being a Captain…and First Officer…or any senior staff member of the department this crew belonged to. We knew the risks when we joined, everyone did, and we knew that some day, we would be called upon to protect the quadrant, the galaxy even…at whatever the cost. I just hope we can pull through again, because I seriously doubt that this is over.”

Vakai frowned, “You think that this is only the beginning?”

Carter nodded again. “I do.”

-The end of Chapter Five, and likely of Phase One for the crew of the Centaur.
-They managed to pull it off in the fight against the Shadriq, but at what cost? Can the Don really repair all the damage that both vessels had taken? Surely such a task would take months, especially with the damage the Centaur has sustained!
-But what is it that Carter is afraid of? Who or what is doing this? Are they friend or foe? Guess we shall find out in the second phase!! So stay tuned for more adventures from the Centaur!!
-Also…another little sneak peak into the future? What exactly will happen to Vok? All in due time…