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RAVEN IV

©01 The Media Desk & the USS RAVEN (IFT)

     The USS MALINCHE was on routine patrol scanning and marking some space junk, minding it's own business, when suddenly it found itself surrounded by Borg.
     "All stations reporting at red alert." A Lieutenant reported from the Ops station.
     Captain Grinolm nodded. His jaw was firmly set and he was staring at the viewscreen hard enough to bore a hole in it. "All right. The next move is theirs." He knew there was no way his ship could take on two cubes and a sphere and survive.
     It was the longest minute of his career.
     "They're hailing." The communications officer said.
     "About time." Somebody else muttered.
     The multi-tonal voice sounded like every recording they had ever heard of the Borg.
     "We are the Borg. We will speak to the Captain of the Star Fleet Vessel USS MALINCHE."
     Grinolm had to clear his throat a couple of times before his voice worked. "This is the Captain."
     The reply was immediate. "We are the Borg. We are searching for the Star Fleet Vessel USS RAVEN. We require Star Fleet to supply the location of the ship USS RAVEN."
     Grinolm looked from one officer to the other. "I am not privy to that information. The last I heard was that the RAVEN was on a classified mission."
     "We, the Borg, require the information."
     "I do not have that information. Check with Star Fleet Command."
     The voice was silent for several seconds.
     "The Borg accept your advice. You may continue."

     Just as suddenly as they appeared the three Borg ships moved away and followed each other into a transwarp conduit.
     Grinolm found himself sweating now that it was over. "Joeph, notify Star Fleet this sector that they may have company on the way, relay our little conversation to them as well."
     "Aye, sir."
     He looked around the bridge. "OK, all sections stand down. Let's catch our breath. All stations all sections report status. Before we get underway I want everything checked out twice. Make sure we haven't picked up any stowaways too."

     "Starbase one-fourteen just had a call from the Borg." Commander Melpson said from her monitoring station.
     "So did the ANTARES." Another officer added.
     "It looks like we've got at least three separate search parties looking for the RAVEN ." Admiral Ricketts said.
     "Any word on where Lukas is?" Melpson asked.
     Ricketts shook his head. "He's gone underground and pulled the hole in after him."
     "How long can you hide from the Borg?"
     "We'll find out won't we?"

     Ryan looked up at the slightly green sky. "I mean it's pretty here, but come on, how long are we going to run from hiding place to hiding place?"
     "As long as the Captain says we will." Rhoades answered. "Be glad we get to come down on shoreleave on this one."
     One of the sisters didn't seem to share her gratitude. "Beam down to watch the waterfall. No shopping, no dancing, nothing."
     Ryan glanced over at the nearby waterfall. "Beats sitting in an asteroid field watching for neutrinos."
     The cadet frowned, but then she nodded and shrugged.

     On the RAVEN sitting just above the magnetic pole things weren't either as relaxed or as pretty.
     Lukas had his hands folded calmly and was staring out the window at the greenish planet below.
     His engineer was waxing poetic over their latest advances in detecting Borg ships.
     "Except they have to be close enough so we could smell them for it to work." Mr. Dubin said at the end.
     Mel made a face, "Well, not exactly, but... yeah."
     "Keep working on it." The Captain said.
     "Yes sir." The two men said and left.
     He had heard about the progress on converting one of their phaser banks so it operated at such a high energy level they had taken to calling it a 'Cosmic Ray Gun'. Then there was Mike with the shield modifications that overlapped and interlaced while they rotated frequencies to ward off Borg tractor beams and transporters. Then came the sensor team. It was starting to run together.
     Lukas blinked and touched the com on his desk. "OK, what's next?"
     The computer answered. "Communications."
     "Ellingsworth." Lukas moaned. "OK, send him in."
     His com beeped a minute later. "I'm on my way Captain."
     "Take your time. I need the break."
     "Yes sir."
     "Give me ten minutes."
     "You've got it sir."
     Lukas stood up and stretched a kink out of his back. He decided to take a walk and look at one of their other projects.
     In the secondary hanger bay he was surprised to see nobody either working on or guarding what amounted to a last ditch secret weapon against the Borg taking his ship.
     To Lukas the long, sleek, almost alarmingly thin shapes seemed almost laughable when you considered they were to be used, one on one, against a Borg cube. But then again, stranger things had happened in their crusade.

     A couple of months ago Lukas had authorized a mission to give the Borg's own internal nanobots a dose of a slightly modified common human virus that, essentially, gave them a cold.
     It worked twice against them, in one case; a transwarp conduit maintenance ship had malfunctioned and exploded inside a conduit. Then the Borg adapted, vaccinated themselves against it. And they had to find another weapon.
     Before that they had tried out an experimental weapon from the Star Fleet weapon's lab. It had been a spectacular failure. But the information they had gleaned from it had led directly to the things he still called 'torpedoes' in spite of their fancy technical names.
     "Quantum induced spatial implosion device."
     "OK, that's nice." Lukas had said. "What's it do?"
     "It makes a hole in space and the Borg fall into it." Hackett said plainly.
     "Sounds good. Will it work?"
     The weapons team exchanged looks. The lot fell to the Star Fleet weapons tech. "Well sir. It should. It really should. But, there's a slight chance that the reaction could go critical and the field expand exponentially."
     "Exponentially." The Captain said sounding out each syllable.
     Hackett was grinning.
     "Spit it out."
     "The hole could expand and swallow a good piece of the universe."
     Lukas didn't say anything for a minute. "That could be an adverse effect."
     "But we don't think that will happen."
     "You don't think it will happen." Lukas shook his head. "OK, run your simulations and figure out a way to test these things in the real world without destroying the universe."
     "Yes sir." They said.

     Lukas stood at the control console. Three of the torpedoes were all but live, just waiting for a target. The others were still being assembled and tested. He brought up the video record of the live test on a derelict ship a couple of weeks ago.
     The torpedo streaked toward the hulk. Then it briefly flared as bright as a star. Then it was gone.
     An ugly blackish blob appeared next to the old ship and expanded rapidly. When the edge of what could only be called a splotch of nothingness touched the drifting ship, the old freighter shifted sideways toward the hole, or the hole toward it. Then they were both gone.
     "OK, where did it go?" Lukas asked.
     "We're not sure."
     The Captain sat there and waited.
     Hackett looked up at Ziggy. He cleared his throat. Lukas glanced his way.
     "The theory is that it's in a self-contained universe of null volume."
     "A subspace bubble?" Ryan asked.
     "No. We'd be able to detect that. As far as we can tell. It's actually outside of our universe."
     "So we'll be sending a Borg Cube into another universe?" Rhoades said.
     "No, no..." The Star Fleet tech said. "We'll be creating a whole new universe that consists of a cube, and its residents, that occupies no space and no time in our universe. A Null universe."
     "A singularity." Mike offered.
     "No. A singularity actually exists in our..."
     Lukas put up his hands. "Let's discuss that side of it later. It works, we didn't collapse everything into nothing, and it will at least keep the target Borg busy for awhile. And it'll take them a while to devise a defense to it." He nodded. "That's enough for me for right now."

     He let the display go dark. Then he walked back to the torpedoes and nodded to them. They worked, it was enough.
     Wasn't it?
     "Captain Lukas." Ellingsworth said over the com.
     "Yeah." Lukas answered. "I'm on my way."

     "Shoreleave party ready to beam up." Ryan said to his communicator.
     "Energizing."
     They materialized on the platform.
     "Well. Back to work." Rhoades said frowning at the undecorated walls of the transporter room.
     "Yeah." Ryan sighed.
     "At least there's something to do here." The medical cadet said.
     "I guess it all depends on your perspective." Another crewman added as the young girl walked briskly toward the door.
     "Operations officer, report to the Captain's ready room."
     Now it was her turn to sigh. "Yeah, back to work." She nodded to Ryan.

     "We still can't eavesdrop on their actual communications.... But..."
     Lukas looked up at his communication officer, too worn out from reports and briefings to even respond.
     "But," Ellingsworth finally continued. "I can pick up the priority status of the message."
     Lukas tried to raise an eyebrow. "Yeah. So?"
     "Routine Borg communications have a low priority. Like ours does, routine housekeeping stuff, personal messages, when the freshwater generator has a spasm. Stuff like that, it goes to Star Fleet with no priority ranking."
     Lukas nodded. That was first year cadet stuff. Commander Rhoades walked in, Lukas signaled her to sit down and Ellingsworth to continue his briefing.
     "If a Romulin Warbird drops out of subspace and starts shooting at us. That's a little higher priority."
     "Obviously."
     "Same with the Borg. From what I can intercept and interpret. When they talk about us, it's higher priority than their routine stuff."
     "Terrific."
     "But, here's the good part... When their quadrant command sends out a flash it's a general transmission."
     Lukas waited, he knew 'the good part' was still to come.
     "But every ship and outpost answers the flash with a confirmation code. The code is at the same priority as the outbound message. And so far, I've been able to at least see both the flashes and the answers."
     Lukas brightened considerably. "Giving away their position."
     Ellingsworth nodded.
     The Operations Officer smiled.
     Lukas closed his eyes for a long minute, then he looked at them. "OK, tell everybody to finalize their reports, I need a nap, then we'll have a general briefing and decide our next course of action."
     "You haven't been down to the surface yet." Rhoades said.
     "I've seen green skies and vine-trees before."
     "But you need a break."
     "I'll take a nap. That's a break."
     They gave up.

     Two hours later the last shore leave party beamed up and the Captain called in his department heads and ranking officers for a discussion, with the meeting being piped to the rest of the ship.
     All eyes were on the captain as he finished his coffee and stood up.
     In the RAVEN 'S Nest, Mr. Kada and several off duty crewman watched the proceedings on the viewscreen.
     "First things first. Everybody on this ship has stated their determination time and time again to be part of this ship's effort to do as much damage to the Borg as possible. It has been our sole reason for living for a couple of years now. And until recently, we had done more than our fair share of it."
     There was a wild round of cheering and applause ship wide.
     "But now," he continued, "it seems we have their undivided attention. And things may get nasty from here on out." Lukas paused for a second. "In fact, this may be the last mission. So. I'll make that same offer I made what seems like a lifetime ago."
     They waited.
     "There is a Space Lane Patrol Station between here and where we're heading to investigate a Borg base. We're going to stop there to drop off various items. Anybody that wants to, can help us transport it over, and stay with it. No questions asked. And in fact, it may help our cause. They can ensure the security of the samples and research notes."
     "Sir." The Star Fleet Weapons tech said. "I need to go with it. The information we have and research we have done must be preserved and continued."
     "Agreed." Lukas nodded. "Anybody that wants to, see the gentleman and be ready to go." He looked over at Commander Ryan. "How long to SL-374 at warp five?"
     It took Ryan a minute. "Just under two days."
     "In Forty Eight Hours, there is no turning back." He stood at attention. "Thank you. Dismissed."

     Mel and Mr. Dubin were deep in a heart to heart talk down in engineering.
     "So, after all that you going or staying?"
     "I don't know yet. I want to stay, you know, to see it through. But then again..."
     "You're not into suicide missions." He nodded, "Me neither."
     "But."
     "But. I'm like you, I'd like to be here for the end of it, whichever way it comes out."
     "Somebody's got to watch the engines and baby-sit the detector and all."
     "If you leave, I'd almost have to stay."
     "Same here."
     "But we can both stay. That'd be the best for the ship."
     There was a long silence, finally one of them spoke again.
     "Then it's settled. We stay."
     "I wrote a letter to a couple of old friends. I said 'hi' for you."
     "I've got a couple of pictures of us on shore leave yesterday to send with it."

     "Well Mister. You outta here?" Ryan said to the tall, rather scruffy looking man behind the counter.
     "Not just yet." Kada said.
     "Then what's with the boxes?" The XO nodded to a couple of crates sitting near the door.
     "I've got an old friend on the station. I made a deal. She's got some information we might find helpful and a case of Lattorian Fletin Sausages for me."
     "Fletin Sausages? They'll stink up the entire ship."
     "With any luck."
     "So you've got a girlfriend on that station, fifteen parsecs from nowhere."
     "Not quite a girlfriend, no. Just somebody I used to know in another career."
     Ryan nodded. "How spicy are the sausages?"
     "They'll make your hair fall out."
     Ryan winced. "I might try it."
     "I'll save you one."

     "We're staying." One of the sisters said to Rhoades.
     The Ops Officer looked from one to the other. "You're sure about this?"
     The other one answered. "We talked about it. We're in."
     "There's no guarantee that even sickbay will be safe."
     The other one answered. "No ma'am."
     The other one spoke up. "But when the shooting starts, you'll need us down here."
     "Unfortunately." The officer answered.
     "So we're staying."
     "Yes, ma'am."

     "Welcome to Space Lane Station 374." A smiling face said from the screen.
     "You look awful happy to see us." Lukas answered.
     "Well, we don't get too many visitors. I was told to extend Commander Straider's personal greetings to you. And to invite you and your officers to a official Station Dinner this evening."
     Some of the others looked hopeful but Lukas shook his head. "We need to keep moving. There are some old friends that are looking for us."
     "So we heard." The man nodded. "As you wish, Captain. Permission to assume orbit on arrival. Station out."
     "You heard the man. Standard orbit." Lukas said. "Lukas to all hands. We have arrived at the station. Everything and everybody that is leaving the ship report to the transporter rooms or shuttle bay one."
     There was a lot of everything, but the only 'everybody' that was leaving was the weapons tech.
     An hour after their arrival, the last crewman, Mr. Kada of course, beamed back to the RAVEN and the ship resumed its journey.

     "Set course for the Thorbad system." Lukas said as the station receded into the void behind them. "Warp six."
     "Thorbad." Ziggy repeated. "Computing." The man stared at his console. "Recalculating." He nodded at the XO. "Check that."
     Ryan hit several controls and examined the results. "Check. You've got it."
     "Course laid in sir."
     "I know. It's a haul. But it's where we're going." Lukas said. "Lock it in, engage."
     "Coming to warp six."
     Lukas stood up. "So we're committed. May I suggest that we make the most of this next week and make ourselves and this ship as ready as we can for what's to come."
     "Aye sir." Several of the bridge crew responded.
     The Captain nodded to each one in turn, then he went to his ready room.

     "What is that smell?" Lukas asked Ensign Dickerson as he walked into the Nest.
     "Lattorian Sausages." Dickerson answered from his seat at the bar.
     "What?"
     "I'd never heard of them either. He got a case of them from the station we stopped at. They're not bad."
     "They'd have to taste better than they smell." Lukas looked at the stuff on the ensign's plate.
     "They do."
     Kada walked out to the bar from the kitchen. "Good day sir. You want the Special or the Not-Special?"
     "Which is that?" He pointed to the plate.
     "He got one of each."
     Lukas thought about it, "Allright. I'll try it."
     "Very good sir." He went into the kitchen and came back a minute later with a plate loaded with steaming sausages. He presented it to the Captain with a flourish. "Enjoy."
     Lukas eyed it suspiciously. "You know, if we could get you to cook for the Borg the war would be over without firing another shot."
     "It would be my pleasure. Except they wouldn't know good food if you filled their ship full of it."
     Dickerson snickered but didn't say what he was thinking.
     Lukas picked up his fork and toyed with a sausage. But he had a question before he ate. "How reliable was the source of that information you gave me?"
     "About an eight on the ten point scale."
     "Can I ask where it came from?"
     "You can ask."
     "Will you answer?"
     "OK." The man grinned through an untrimmed beard. "It came from one of Commander Straider's lieutenants. Lieutenant Klastor."
     Lukas looked up. "The Klingon?"
     Kada nodded. "Her brother, Klalkstor I think his name was, was the first officer on a Klingon expedition into the area last year. They were looking for a new source of micrograded dilithium."
     "And they found Borg." Dickerson said.
     The bartender/cook nodded.
     Lukas looked at his plate. "What happened to her brother?"
     Kada shook his head. "Some of the crew managed to get away. They flew a shuttle until it ran out of fuel, then they drifted for awhile. A freighter heard their distress beacon and picked them up. There were only a couple of them left alive. But the information they had got through." Kada tapped the bar. "And now you've got it, to use against them."
     Lukas put his fork down. "Another one." He took a deep breath and set his jaw.
     "...nevermore..." Kada said softly.
     "Yeah. Klalkstor and his crew. Nevermore."
     They were silent for a minute. Then Lukas picked up his fork and ate his meal without another word.

     The long thin torpedoes were lined up and ready to go. Too long to launch from the photon tubes, they had to be expelled, there was no other word, from improvised facilities elsewhere.
     Ryan thought it was a little absurd, but some of the others appreciated the irony of using a bulk waste disposal hatch as the port side missile launcher. On the starboard side, a docking hatch was pressed into service. An otherwise unused scientific probe launch bay was pressed into service as the forward launcher. To the rear, they would simply partially open the hanger door and fly a torpedo out.
     "OK. They're ready." Lukas said as they closed the hatch on the science probe launch tube.
     Loading another torpedo into the tube under battle conditions would be a challenge. But, it was the only way it'd work.
     The 'Cosmic Ray Gun' phaser bank had been test fired a few times. It was an energy hog, but its output was off the scale and although the emitted beam was invisible, its effect on the target asteroid was immediate and dynamic. The rock seemed to melt as it began to glow, then it exploded.
     "But won't their regular sheilding absorb that?" Ellingsworth asked. "Ours does."
     "Normally, yes." Hackett grinned broadly. "Except in a battle their normal background shielding drops off to divert energy to the weapons and deflectors. Evidently they don't consider cosmic background radiation a threat when engaged against an enemy. Once we get them deflecting our phasers and photons, we'll hit them with this. It should go right through."
     "The only thing I don't like is that we can't test it until we're actually engaged against a Borg ship." Ryan said.
     "That way we'll know right now if it works or not." Lukas said with a tight grin.

     "We'll be nearing the Thorbad system in about five hours." Ziggy said as the Captain stepped off the lift.
     "Good. When we're two hours out bring the ship to yellow alert and call a staff meeting." Lukas said. "I'll be in my ready room."
     "Aye aye sir."

     The tension on board grew tangible as they neared the target system. The RAVEN 'S Nest was silent even though several crewmembers were catching a last break or a hurried meal before the impending battle.
     "More coffee?" Mr. Kada asked Mike.
     "One more, then I got to get to my station."
     The cook filled the cup then looked around. "Yeah, I need to lock everything down too. We'll be on emergency rations from here on out." He frowned. "Well, until it's over. One way or the other."
     The lieutenant sat his cup down. "In that case, I'll take a sandwich. What'cha got?"

     "Sickbay standing by." One of the sisters said over the speakers.
     "Environmental systems go. Emergency backups charged and ready." Lt. Commander Rhoades said from her station.
     "All weapons on line and ready. Spatial torpedoes holding on launch sequence."
     Lukas nodded at each report.
     "Shields steady. Metaphasic standing by."
     "Engineering going to full containment. Shield doors on automatic. Power full."
     "Com on standby. Monitoring all Borg frequencies, minimal activity, no mention of us."
     "Security on full countermeasures alert. All sections reporting ready." Ryan said from the XO station.
     Lukas looked at the ceiling for a minute. "That's it. OK. Let's go in. Drop to impulse, scan for the installation from the Star Fleet and Klingon files."
     "Working on it."

     It was a long tense couple of minutes.
     "Possible contact. Massive object in opposing orbit of the fifth planet." Ziggy said. "Coming up on the screen now." He paused. "Magnifying."
     Lukas stared at it for a minute. "That looks like a transwarp hub to me."
     "Now what do we do about it?" Ellingsworth asked.
     "Blow it up." Ryan offered.
     "That's about it."
     "They've seen us!" Ryan said suddenly. "Incoming ships from... well... from everywhere."
     "Evasive. Set course for the hub. All weapons, fire at will, save one spatial torpedo for the hub." Lukas shouted.
     "We're moving."
     The RAVEN shuddered and turned. Weapons firing almost constantly.
     A Borg sphere fell into a hole in space. A cube had a huge section blown away by an unseen force after several photon torpedoes impacted harmlessly against its shields.
     The smaller ship dodged and spun and dove through an asteroid field as it worked its way toward its target.
     "Borg fighters." Ryan said.
     "Fighters?" Lukas questioned.
     "I don't know what else to call them. Two drone craft, high engine output, massive weapons systems."
     "Where?" Ziggy said trying to make sense of the readings he was seeing.
     The ship shook from yet another impact.
     "There." Ryan said flatly. "Between us and the hub."
     "Can you get a torpedo through them?" Lukas asked as the ship rocked under him.
     "I can try." Hackett said. "Maybe if we fire everything at once one will get through."
     "We're not leaving until that hub is destroyed." Lukas shouted as a warning claxon announced yet another system was going critical.
     "We'll try it." Ryan nodded to Hackett. "Stand by, everything shoots at once. Aim two torpedoes at the hub."
     "Working on it. I think we've lost a conventional quantum launcher."
     "Ensign, give him a hand." Lukas ordered.
     The junior officer nodded and ran from his station to the weapons console.
     They worked at it for a few seconds, then both nodded at once.
     "Fire." Lukas said without emotion.
     Energy screamed from the ship. Every launch tube both original and improvised flared to life.
     Several small and one larger Borg ships lit up. A few exploded. Then the survivors fired in retaliation but the RAVEN was still moving along a wildly serpentine course.
     All most of them had eyes for was the spatial torpedoes' targeting monitor. They all gasped as several Borg fighters moved to intercept them.
     One of the torpedoes vanished in a small cloud of debris.
     "Damn." Somebody said.
     The other one was getting close, but a fighter was right on top of it.
     Then it was gone as well.
     "We'll do it again." Lukas said. "Same thing. From closer this time."
     The ship was screaming in protest as it spun on its axis and roared off at an angle to avoid another attack.
     "Working." Hackett and his partner said.
     "Launch everything we've got at the hub. Ignore the other ships." Ryan said.
     They looked at Lukas, he nodded. "Do it."
     "Aft shields going critical. I'm loosing them."
     "Hull breaches... all over." Rhoades added.
     "We'll survive one more pass." Lukas said. "One more pass."
     "Ready sir."
     "Hold it until it's point blank." Ryan said looking over his station. "They're right on top of us."
     The ship was lurching out of control as it sped through space.
     "Once they fire, set a random course at maximum speed." The captain said to the helmsman.
     "Warp's down." Ziggy said. "I'm not sure how much impulse we've got."
     "Then point us at a conduit. Any conduit. We'll drop out of it once we're clear."
     "Aye sir."
     "If the ship doesn't come apart first." Rhoades said watching her board slowly turn red.
     "If it does, we won't have to worry about it will we? Just get the missiles off first."
     "Almost there." Ryan said holding his hand up toward the weapons officers.
    
     Eternity passed.

     "NOW!" Ryan screamed.
     Hackett and the ensign fired off everything the RAVEN had.
     "Conduit threshold in three seconds." Ziggy said.
     "Detonation."

     The ship twisted in space.

     "Hey. We're alive."

     "Damage report." Lukas said picking himself up off the floor under the helm.
     "Almost everything." Somebody said.
     "Engineering to bridge. We've got a mess down here."
     "That's not a very official term Mr. Barnhart." Ryan said trying to focus his eyes.
     "It'll do."
     The Operations Officer slapped her console a couple of times. "Either I've got a total systems failure or we are missing a big piece of the ship."
     "Nevermind that. What happened to the hub?" Lukas said crawling into his chair holding his side.
     "You OK Captain?" Ziggy asked him holding his hand over his own head, blood trickling down his face.
     "I'll live. What happened to the hub?"
     "I dunno. Let me see if we got it on the recorder."

     There was only a half a second of information. But it was enough.

     The view showed an ugly grey-black hole in reality...
     And part of the array slipping into it.

     The bridge crew were still getting used to the idea that they had succeeded, and lived through it.
     "From the readings we got while we were in the conduit, when that opening closed up, the entire array overloaded and exploded, taking several Borg ships with it." Ryan summarized the data.
     "Why didn't it take us with it?" Lukas asked.
     "Simple. We didn't have the power to be running at full speed in the conduit. When it disrupted, we just fell into normal space. If we'd been going faster, we'd disintegrated."
     "How long will it take us to get back to Federation space?"
     "In this shape?" Mel said. "Never."
     "What's around here that's friendly? We've got to get moving before the Borg figure out where we went."
     "I'm not sure."
     "Captain. Mr. Kada says he needs to speak to you." Ellingsworth said from his station.
     He sighed. "OK. Put him through."
     The viewscreen showed the Nest, except a force field glittered where the front windows used to be and the bar was a shattered hulk of scrap wood and metal.
     "Yes sir." The man said standing up with some difficulty. "If you don't have anything else pressing at the moment. I forgot to mention something earlier. There is this old friend of mine on Fortoon. You know, that trading post where the freighter was heading that picked up the Klingon shuttle. He sent me a message awhile back, that if I was in the area to stop by and see him."
     "Fortoon." Lukas said. He looked at Ziggy.
     "Maybe three days."
     Lukas nodded at the screen. "Would that trading post just happen to have a space dock available?"
     "It's small. And out of date. Certainly not up to Star Fleet standards. But..."
     "Any port in a storm." He nodded one more time. "Best speed for the Fortoon outpost."

     The battered ship cruised toward the distant trading post as the crew tried to make the repairs they could. While keeping one eye out for 'their old friends.'