Eventually everything seemed to stop moving; despite Lieutenant Dervon’s best efforts to avoid it, he found himself lying on the deck looking up at the now dimly lit bridge around him.  His stomach was roughly half a light year behind the rest of his body, which felt generally intact.  There was a dull ache in his right elbow and a slight twinge in the back of his neck.  The dancing purple, green and yellow spots of light before Jason’s vision did nothing other than to be rather annoying.

Ensign C’Rren was at his side running a Tricorder over him. “You appear to be ok Captain, just a pulled muscle, but be careful of the neck until you can get it treated.”  He then used the hypospray in his over hand on Devron’s neck to give a little pain relief.

Jason couldn’t help smile a little; the young Caitian was certainly a ‘jack of all trades’.  Not only was he the only science officer on the ship due to its small size, he’d covered communications in Ensign Cho’s absence, was certified in basic first aid and had even took a number of  solo Gamma shift duties on the bridge.  Dervon sat up slowly holding his neck so as not to move it to much, the pain still made him wince but it was easing.

“Is everyone else ok?” He called out.  Each member of the bridge crew replied, which was at least one good sign. “Any idea what just happened or where the heck we are?”

The view screen was blank, not working or receiving no information from external cameras and sensors, rather than there being nothing out there to see or detect,

“We appear to have been pulled through some sort of aperture which opened up right on top of us.  Gravimetric reading increased too swiftly for our limited systems to calculate” Commander Salan announced, having taken the science offers seat.  “At present no external devices appear to be working.  So I am unable to ascertain our current situation.”

“Navigation, warp drive and impulse engines all offline Sir.” Lieutenant Stuart called out.  “We have emergency power only.  Unable to contact Engineering.”   The half Orion First Officer was holding her knee, having bashed it hard against the consul in front of her and it was to this injury C’Rren attended to next.

“Ship-wide communication is out.” Added Cho.

“Shields are down and phasers are inoperative.”  Tholakath stated calmly. “Not that I’m able to see anything to target.”

Dervon got back to his feet and looked around at everyone around him.  “Ok folks do what you can to get systems up and running again, Mr C’Rren you’re with me.”  Tholakath moved to, but only to help in getting the doors to the corridor beyond the bridge open, as they seemed unwilling to open without manual assistance. “Commander you have the bridge.”

There first port of call was sick bay; situated as it was, behind the bridge.  The door there only bothered to open half way before stopping.  Devron pocked his head inside.  Doctor Andrianakis was currently treating crewman Rahul, who appeared to have injured his ankle in some way. 

“Anything I can help with?” Devron asked, gazing around the room and noticing various items of equipment and medical supplies scattered across the floor.

“Not unless you know how to get an EMH working?”  Andrianakis retorted harshly.

“I’ll send someone from Engineering when I can.” Jason replied a little meekly. “We’ll talk later when you’re not busy.” 

“You do that.” The doctor responded.  She hadn’t even asked about what had happened or acknowledged his suggestion of talking later; she just carried on dealing with the young Indian crewmember who witnessed the odd exchange before him. 

Devron and C’Rren moved on, past the Captains quarters and Officers mess, neither of which they checked as both should have been empty.  Their destination was the upper section of Main Engineering. 

            **********

Ensign Albert Torf, was the ship’s acting Chief Engineer; though the word ‘acting’ was hardly ever mentioned,  on account of the length of time he’d been in sole charge.  The ships actual Chief hadn’t been back since ‘Frontier Day’ and had been training and mentoring cadets aboard one of the latest Olympic Class hospital ships, the USS Chapel.  The Chapel herself had lost every single member of her engineering staff in those disastrous events.  As of last month Charlie Lyambo had been made a Lieutenant JG. The Betazoid missed his friend and work colleague, but understood how important the work he was doing aboard the other vessel.

Torf was one of those few members of the Betazoid race without any telepathic abilities what so ever.  Never once had his mind touched the presence of another or heard their thoughts.  His world was a silent one, but that had never hindered him in his role as an engineer.  In fact he wondered at times how others of his race managed to concentrate. Had he any form of telepathy he may have had the chance to react to what was to come.

The day had started normally enough: he and crewman Tyson kept an eye on things as the Jaxartes slipped carefully into Harpers Rift.  The warp core hummed away in standby mode, its shimmering blue light hardly moving, the immense power it could provide, not needed to propel the ship forward.

They were both standing either side of the central island running through a set of Level 2 diagnostics when it happened.  First there was the alarm which blared out and the rapid flash of data scrolling down the screens; both in front of them and over at the other main workstation.  It indicated that helm had just been thrown into full reverse, but all additional information told the Betazoid they were still moving forward.  Had he gripped hold of something at that moment he might have been ok, but his first reaction was for the ship and not any personal safety.  A quick set of command inputs would give them an extra 20% power to pull away from whatever danger they faced.  Warp drive could be ready in seconds if he was given the word.

Instead the sudden and dramatic lurch the ship made forwards sent Torf flying; frantic arms waved in a bid to grab hold of something, anything.  But the large flat smooth surface of the island, offered no purchase for his fingers.  The impact with rigid unyielding decking was hard, knocking the wind completely out of the engineer’s lungs.  The Betazoid rolled on to his side, curling his body up; heaving and gasping for breath.  His back was in pain, but not enough to suggest he’d broken anything.

Slowly after a few minutes the engineer managed to get his breathing a little more under control, he could feel his heart pumping and thudding in his ears, the groans and incoherent mumbling from Tyson somewhere across the room.  One thing he certainly couldn’t hear was the hum from the warp core.  Rolling back the other way, Torf’s eyes looked across at the normally blue glowing cylinder; it was dark and lifeless.

Crewman George Tyson was on his feet, both hands held up to his face, unconcerned by any predicament the vessel may be facing.  Blood seeped slowly between fingers, ran down the back of his hands and either on to his jacket sleeves or dripped on to the floor.  There were those that had told him he had a distinguished looking nose, whatever was exactly meant by that!  Right now though; Tyson wasn’t sure he still had a nose and not just a blooded mess under his hands.  The consul bore the signs of where it had impacted moments before; a large splatter pattern half covering the screen he’d been looking at. 

            **********

When Devron and C’Rren arrived on the gantry above; the sight they looked down on, made them both wonder what on earth had happened!  Tyson’s blood, and there seemed a lot of it; followed a trail from the island to were one of the emergency medical kits was stored, leaving a blooded hand print and several splodges along the wall.  By now though, the Chief Engineer had managed to stem the flow, but not before the front of his own uniform, like that of the crewman was covered. 

The Caitian raced down the ladder; though it shouldn’t have been surprising to anyone how remarkably agile and fast he was.  Taking over the care and assessment of Tyson, Torf looked up to see their Captain descending at a much more leisurely pace.

“What happened?”  The Betazoid asked brushing a few drops of blood from finger tips on to clean stain free section of uniform jacket.

Jason came to a halt, halfway between the ladder and the engineer. “We’re still looking into it, it took out all our systems.” He replied. “It was like being sucked into a black hole or worm hole, but we had little to no warming!”

“Well as you can see the Warp Core has shut down.” Torf waved a hand in its general direction. “But at least all the safety protocols seemed to have kicked in.”

“How long before you can get it up and running?”

The engineer walked over to one of the control panel, tapped a few commands, muttered to himself, before crossed to the island and imputing another set of instructions. “That’s odd.”

Devron frowned. “You’re the second person that’s used the word ‘odd’ today.”  

“According to these reading; all matter and anti-matter reactions have ceased.” Torf responded a few moments later. 

“Ok, that is odd!” Pondered the Captain.