A gaping slash of inward coiling twisted metal was all that was left of the hangar bay doors. Three Breen shuttles, one in pieces, were strewn haphazardly across the scorched expansive deck. The still-powered remains of their magnetic landing systems were all that stood between them and the endless nothing. The lighting was dim, reduced to a few fluorescent strips that hung above the raised walkways skirting the bay’s interior. Nestled in the furthest corner of the vast, cave-like space, lay a single Starfleet Valkyrie fighter. The cool grey of its smoothed hull plating blended almost like a camouflage against the walls. Yet it did not belong; a prisoner, it lay malapropos within the blackened dungeon. It waited.

Nothing stirred. Silence hung over floating torpedo impact debris like a dense blanket. The faint, futile hum of environmental systems was all that could be discerned by human ears. Still the air filters obeyed their programming, pumping breathable air directly into the void. A strange tranquility had descended, upset only by the tingling of a transporter beam. Simultaneously, three humanoid figures materialized. Their mag boots immediately engaged, clamping them to the deck. Their steps were heavy, their movements awkward in zero-g. 

A piece of cable trunking floated past all three of their heads, narrowly missing Tel. A clang came from above. From the raised walkway, scuttling ocular sensors tracked them as they moved. 

Joran looked around and saw the Valkyrie 15 meters from him and instantly brought the phase compression rifle up to bear as he scanned the room, “Looks clear,” he said over the comm and glance back at D’vaid and Katsu. “Cover me, I need to climb on top to get into the ship.”

Materializing into the area, Katsu looked around, noticing the intense vibe that was going on in the darkness and such. She went straight to her tricorder and started to work “Triangulating signal, this may take me some time” Indicating that she would be unable to occupy herself with anything else.

Joran looked over at Katsu, “Not sure how much time we will have sir.”

D’vaid materialized in the ship and immediately had chills develop from the memories of the Breen on the station. He looked around pulling out his rifle watching for any movement seeing none he looked at the two other members in the party “Let’s get this done! Time is not our friend.” He said as he watched Joran start climbing the shuttle.

Joran began to move cautiously towards the Valkyrie keeping clear of the Breen shuttles and debris. When he got to the Valkyrie he looked around one last time, nodding to the others and began to climb the small rungs that were on the side of the ship.  Reaching the top he saw how the spiders had gained entire, “They ripped the entire hatch off the ship last time. Good thing I had my suit on…” he muttered over the coms, “Going in.”

Despite the vacuum, enough gaseous molecules remained in the hangar to transmit the sound of metallic scraping. It came from the raised walkways above, stopping and starting, intermittent with the dead silence. 

Joran looked up as he slipped down into the cockpit of his ship and a lance of fear flashed through him as he saw the movement of several spider-like entities above him. “They are above us on the walkways,” he said as calmly as he could over the com. “Give me a minute to get this powered up and then get out if you need to.” 

Pulling himself into the pilot seat of the Valkyrie started the start-up sequence; within seconds the cockpit lit up with lights and an alarm rang out in the small fighter.

–Hull Breach Detected; Vaccum Detected–

–Hull Breach Detected; Emergency Shield in Place–

Without warning the alarm stopped as an emergency force field slammed into place over the hole that was the entire port. Without giving it any thought Joran began to process of preparing the ship as the core was not designed to detonate when powered down.

D’vaid heard a groan from further in the ship and he became uneasy. That sounded like the ship was about to bring the five layers of hell at them. “Joran whatever your doing hurry up because its about to be real unfriendly here.” He said as he prepped his rifle for combat turning on the light and facing the doors where the groan had come from.

==Bridge, USS Altai ==

Astrid had made her way to the bridge following the beam-out of the away team. Taking up the tactical station she quietly did her work.  When the computer buzzed she nearly jumped out of her skin.  Her fingers flew over the sensors as she worked the panel and urged it to give her the information she needed.  After what seemed like an eternity and her heart rate raising well over one-hundred she reported, “Sir, I’m reading bugs converging on the away team.”

Streth stood by the large display at the rear of the bridge. Usually showing the master systems display, from the screen now shone a diagram of the dreadnought’s hangar bay. Three boxes to the right detailed each away team member’s vitals, equipment status and cortisol levels. As if in response to Astrid’s report, smaller dots appeared along the lines representing the walkways that ran along that hangar’s perimeter. 

“Away team, this is Streth,” the bridge computer sounded a tone, opening the comlink, “we’ve got around twenty signals heading your way. Move quickly and get out of there.”

He stepped back, watching the dots inch closer. There was no way he could simply watch, “Vogler,” he swung around to the tactical station, “is Oka’s signal transmitting? Can we boost it?”

Astrid frantically worked the controls feeling completely helpless, “I don’t know sir.  I’m not an engineer.” An idea suddenly struck her, “But, I have an idea.  There’s something about those bugs that plays havoc on the sensors, so a transporter lock is nearly impossible, but we aren’t worried about keeping the bugs intact.  In fact I assume we would prefer their destruction. We could override the transporter safeties and grab whatever piece we can of them. We won’t be able to grab the whole lot, but we can help the away team by picking off individual bugs.”

Beck overheard the idea and has already stepped up beside Astrid at the controls and frantically adjusted several settings as well as inputting his command codes as Chief Engineer to override the safety protocols. Then he brought up one single bug and adjusted the transporter targeting sensors to the abdomen of the machine. “Much like any real spider, the heart of the creature, or in this case, the control center of these machines, is right in the abdomen. As you said, we may not be able to beam the whole thing but just a piece of it and if we can beam this piece, we will make them completely inoperative.”

“Anything we can do to up their chances,” Streth muttered. 

Jones stood there beside Streth as he stared at the two officers before turning his gaze onto only Astrid. “Do it, Ensign.”

Astrid hit the button,  and one of the blips dropped off the screen. She didn’t complete the transporter cycle, and simply shunted the energy pattern into the ship’s reserves.   The idea worked.  It wasn’t a silver bullet,  but at least now the Altai could actually aide the away team.

She targeted another bug.  The lock was bouncing all over as she tapped out a sequence of commands.   As she started the transport the bug moved out of the way.   Growling in frustration she adjusted and as soon as she had the most minimal lock she intimated transport again. Another blip dropped off the screen.

==Hanger Bay, Breen Dreadnought==

Joran lifted his head from the controls when he heard D’vaid call out through the coms, “Yeah, I’m on it, I need 35 seconds to boot up and then it won’t take long.” he said through the open coms just as movement above the fighter caught his eye and he looked up and saw a spider dropping down towards him. “They’re dropping from above!” he shouted and instinctively raised the shields on the small ship and hoped they would appear in time, given that the system was still booting up. He stared as a portion of the spider shimmered and dematerialized just before it crashed into the Valkyrie and slid off the reinforced viewport just shields of the Valkyrie snapped into place.

“Hmmm, that’s new…” Joran commented absently before shaking his head and started to remove the safeties from not just the core but also the micro-torpedos loaded onto the ship.”

Seeing the spiders drop onto the floor, Katsu swallowed her fear for a moment and started to reconfigure the tricorder and aimed “Please work…” She tapped the button as a spider stopped, and a few seconds later it moved again now moving to her “Frak….” Katsu moved backward, checking the frequency again as she saw the one in front of her disappear. “What the…ehhh focus” Katsu spoke to herself looking at the frequency. “Come on….” She then aimed the tricorder again and pressed release as most of the spiders stopped moving, “Yes! I ….don’t know how long this will hold until they adapt to the frequency!”

D’vaid quickly shot all of the spiders and turned around seeing another wave coming. He braced himself this was like Deja Vu all over again. The spiders were a pain and hopefully this would be the last time he would have to deal with them. He opened comms “Not to rush you, but hurry up because this is going to turn bad very quickly.” He stated as the spiders came in a bigger wave than the last. The way this was going they would be overrun before they could escape. Out of the group only D’vaid had dealt with the spiders and he knew this was just the beginning of their attack.

Joran looked out the viewport and watched as the next wave of spiders rushed towards D’viad and Katsu, a familiar sense of urgency and danger washed over him similar to when he was in combat calming his senses. “And there we go…” he said as the Valkyrie hummed and its systems fully activated. “You best back off,” he said with a grin as he watched various spiders collapse as chunks were beamed away from their bodies and others collapsed as they entered the dampening field Katsu had activated. Coming up behind them he could just make out the shambling bodies of the Breen zombies. “Zombies incoming.”

With that Joran kicked on the trusters and the ship lifted several decimeters off the hanger floor as he spun it and released was a low-yield blast from the dual Type-IX Phaser Cannons into the centre of the on-rushing swarm scattering them. As he did he start the activation for the self-destruct sequence just as the shields began to flare around him as spiders began to drop from the ceiling onto the ship.

“Computer, initiate protocol Omega-Charle, Overload,” he said, a hint of sadness in his voice knowing the ship would be nothing but atoms shortly.

-Authorization Required for Core overload-

“Authorization Tel Omega 21 43 Gamma Activate.”

-Authorization Confirmed, Biometrics Confirmed. Core weaponized, detonation on your command-

Switching to the coms channel to the Altai and away team to avoid the computer from being overzealous he watched as D’viad and Katsu withdrew before the endless waves of spiders. “All set to go, best get to the Altai. If I lower the shields they will be in here in seconds.” As he said it he released another blast from the phasers vaporizing spiders and zombies alike.

The spiders were not holding back as much as Katsu wanted to, plus the tricorder amplified the frequency in only a specific range. It was kinda frustrating, but she nodded to the confirmation of the detonation countdown. “Got it!” She then felt something on her back and looked over her shoulder to see the spider. “GET IT OFF” She panicked and felt a pinch of something attacking her back. Katsu dropped to the ground screaming in pain “Ahhhhh” trying desperately to get the spider as others dropped around her onto the floor. With tears in her eyes, she looked at D’viad, and most likely he could read her lips begging for help. 

D’vaid immediately began shooting the spiders clearing a path to Katsu . Upon reaching her he grabbed the spider with one arm while shooting the ones that continued to surround them. The adrenaline pumping through his body he helped Katsu to her feet. He smiled and made sure she was alright before turning to continue shooting the spiders and zombies as they tried to reach them. He didn’t really think about it, but he was protecting Katsu in a way. He yelled at Joran “Hurry up I can’t hold much longer.” He said as he slung another spider into a group and watched it explode

The pain was still there. She fell forward onto her hands as she coughed up blood and felt her back getting wet. “Thanks….” She manages to get it out of her mouth in her weak condition. Katsu grabbed her phaser and fell on her side hitting the floor. She fired her phaser at any incoming spider as best as possible “I …feel a bit light-headed” Katsu learned in the academy. When wounded keep talking about how you feel physically. 

Joran sighed in relief as he saw  D’vaid grab the spider off Katsu and listen to their comms. Flippng his comm channel to the Altai he continued to fire the Type-IX phasers into the oncoming spiders and zombies trying to take out the largest groups while the ship moved towards the bulkhead nearest the core. “Joran to Altai, get them out of here NOW! CORE IS PRIMED, I cannot risk then disarming it ”

As he said it he swung the fighter to face the bulkhead as a horde of spiders hand through the door and fired directly into it blasting a hole half the size of the Valkyrie.

==Bridge==

Astrid slammed a fist onto the console trying for widen the confinement beam to destroy as many bugs as possible.  It wasn’t enough. “The away team is being overwhelmed!  We have to get them out of there!”