Chapter Text
The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 14: Close to the Edge Part III - I Get Up, I Get Down
Scene 14: I Get Down
I get down…
14.14
I Get Down
“Another ship coming through,” Lieutenant Commander Senek announced. “It is the U.S.S. Escort.”
Captain Skip Howard and Dean Sakura Nakamura Holland both stood up slowly, their eyes widening, expressions tightening with mingled concern and wonder.
On the bridge of the U.S.S. Mako, Commander Jason Bates and Commodore Yui Song got to their feet equally slowly. Both veteran officers drew a slow breath.
“Gods below,” said Bates, quietly, his voice husky, almost a whisper, his head slowly shaking:
“What happened to her?”
The U.S.S. Escort had been the second ship of the Escort class. Its keel had been laid before the keel of its sister ship, the U.S.S. Defiant. The Defiant had become legendary under the command of Captain Benjamin Sisko.
The Escort’s original captain and first officer had not survived the first minutes of the ship’s first battle with the Klingon Empire. It was under the command of the ship’s 2nd Officer and tactical officer, Lieutenant Rhonda Carter, that the ship had attained notoriety. Over the course of the Second Klingon War, Carter had received one field promotion after another, and was ultimately elevated to captain so that Star Fleet could assign battle groups to her command, just in time for the beginning of the Dominion War. Carter's court martial from near the end of the First Cardassian War still hung over her head, but Star Fleet so desperately needed fighters that she had been promoted anyway, despite the written objection of the Star Fleet Judge Advocate General.
In defeat or in victory, the U.S.S. Escort had limped home in horrible condition from one battle or another. The ship had been rebuilt so many times it was difficult to identify any system that had not been overhauled or just completely replaced. But even after the worst battles during the two consecutive wars, Rhonda Carter had brought most of her ship and most of her crew home every time.
None of those battles had left the Escort looking anywhere near as bad as it looked now. Even while traveling at the cusp of Warp 10. Bits of ablative armor and hull plating were falling off, but remained trapped in the warp field and tumbled along with the ship. And the ship had evidently been skewered by a giant thorn made of rock.
A cone of rock protruded below the ship and a broken and crumbling castle of rock jutted up over the bridge. Broken bits of rock were also caught in the warp field and tumbled along with the ship, creating a trapped trail of debris.
Re-entry into the Milky Way Galaxy required the Escort to drop out of warp and engage in station keeping at an exact set of coordinates and wait for the out door from the Jar Galaxy to sweep across the ship at a velocity far higher than any warp engine conceived would be capable of.
From the perspective of the U.S.S. Escort, a tiny Milky Way Galaxy approached at an incredible speed and swelled to full size and the only evidence that the transition was complete was the sudden appearance of the U.S.S. Mako, the U.S.S. Beagle, the U.S.S. Puppy, the U.S.S. Arizona, the U.S.S. Bluebird, and two additional support craft that had never before been deployed during the mission of the Beagle Task Force.
From the perspectives of the Beagle Task force, the broken and skewered U.S.S. Escort gradually emerged from nowhere, accompanied by tumbling bits of rock and hull plating.
Then the pieces of rock protruding from the ship’s hull and the bits of rock that had been tumbling along with the ship were energized by a combined transporter and replicator program, removing all of the rock only to be replaced by a number of small thorns of rock, each with what appeared to be some sort of creature atop it.
Only seconds after the combined transporter/replication program was complete, the port side nacelle broke away from the ship, spilling 5 crew members out of the ship and leaving them drifting in the vacuum of space…
Close to the Edge Part III - I Get Up, I Get Down