The Diligent, the lone Starfleet ship among a dozen Klingon warbirds, wound its way through the labyrinth, racing the route passed along by the Serenity and the Ingenuity. Their first target lay just beyond the Rolor Nebula, and the next would be nearly a thousand lightyears coreward. At traditional speeds, it would have been a multi-year mission, but the Underspace had changed all of that.

“Aperture incoming, T minus thirty,” announced Commander Jordyn Kerrigan

Her call caused everyone on the bridge to focus up. They knew exactly what it meant. In half a minute’s time, they’d tear out of the Underspace, guns ablaze as they laid waste to a Cardassian array that was meant to either control or collapse the Underspace.

“Notify Polaris we are about to engage our target,” Captain Dorian Vox ordered as he looked over at the operations officer. Just hours ago, a communique across hundreds of light years would have been unheard of, but Chief Shafir aboard the Polaris and Commander Sena aboard the Serenity had collaborated together to devise a way to relay their subspace carrier wave via the Cardassian probe network and the dynamics of the compressed foliations that underwrote Underspace itself.

“Message away,” the operations officer confirmed.

“T minus twenty,” Commander Kerrigan reminded them as they drew ever closer to the aperture that would momentarily eject them back into normal space on the far side of Federation territory.

“Red alert!” Captain Vox declared. “Shields to full!” While Captain Lewis and Commander Lee had lured the Keldons back into the Underspace under false pretense of supporting the Cardassian objectives, even unmanned and unguarded, the array’s automated defenses were not to be trifled with. And there was always the possibility the Cardassians might have pulled a fast one on them.

“T minus ten.”

The bridge crew looked forward in anticipation, watching the bright orange and brown hues of the corridor’s walls race by them as they fell towards a speck of infinite blackness, the terminus of this branch of the Underspace network. At first, the aperture was barely discernible in the distance, but as they advanced, it grew larger and larger until at last they fell through.

“Report?” Captain Vox requested as the orange and brown of the Underspace was replaced by the stillness of a starscape deep within the Thomar Expanse.

“The array is right where Captain Lewis said it would be,” reported Commander Na’Goth from the tactical station. “But sir, we’ve got a problem.” The Caitan didn’t even have to explain before they saw the issue on the main viewscreen. “We’ve got company. Five Galors, four Keldons, and a full complement of support craft, all on approach.”

Where the hell had they come from? Captain Lewis had reported no assets in the area besides the pair he’d followed into the aperture an hour prior. Had the Cardassians known they were coming? Or was this just a lucky coincidence?

“Instructions, sir?”

“We have our orders,” Captain Vox replied. “We make for the array, and as soon as we have a firing solution, we take it out.”

“And the Cardassian warships?” Commander Kerrigan asked. Starting out at the Cardassians racing towards them, she could see the bright glow of their impulse engines at full burn. They were closing quickly.

“We are not to engage them.”

“And if they fire on us?” Commander Na’Goth asked warily. The Chief Tactical Officer had not an ounce of doubt that the Cardassians would fire the moment they were in range. “At their current course and speed, they will have a firing solution on us before we reach the array.”

“Defensive actions only against the Cardassian warships,” Captain Vox replied firmly. “This is about protecting the Underspace, not starting a war with the Cardassian Union.” The Admiral had been very clear about their rules of engagement.

The Caitan tactical officer looked less than pleased. He knew that Admiral Reyes had ordered them to minimize loss of life out of hope it would prevent things from spiraling further, but loss of life or not, the Cardassians would not take kindly to this sort of meddling.

“Might want to tell that to them,” Commander Kerrigan offered as she nodded towards the main viewer. Dead ahead, the Negh’Var flagship, along with the B’rels and Mat’Has, were peeling off and heading for the Cardassian squadron.

“Get me General Golroth, now!” Captain Vox demanded. This was exactly what he’d feared would happen in throwing in with the Klingons.

A moment later, General Golroth appeared on the viewer.

“Captain Vox. The time is finally upon us!”

Captain Vox could see the fire in the Klingon’s eyes, and the bloodlust in his veins. “Yes, to destroy the array,” he responded firmly, reminding the General of their purpose. “And then to high tail it back for the Underspace.” The General had agreed to the Admiral’s conditions back over Vespara Prime. This was not about killing Cardassians. It was about protecting the Underspace.

“A Klingon does not, as you say, high tail it from the enemy.”

“Our mission…”

“Is to stop the Cardassians. And that’s what I’m going to do. Are you going to help me or not?”

“I’m going for the array.”

“Good. And when you’re done, you can have whatever scraps are left.”

The General then hung up the link without waiting for the Captain to object.

“God damnit,” Captain Vox cursed under his breath. “They just can’t help themselves, can they?”

“They’re Klingons, sir,” Commander Kerrigan sighed as she looked down at the terminal in her armrest again. “Their targeting sensors are locking on the Cardassians. Orders?” If she was honest with herself, she was not particularly surprised by the General’s actions.

“Continue for the array,” Captain Vox replied as he looked out at the viewer, watching as the Klingons and the Cardassians drew nearer to each other. At least it would buy them time to destroy the array, he thought to himself. But if this spiraled from here, the implications of what this would mean for interstellar relations were not good.

“And then?”

“And then we leave,” Captain Vox answered flatly. The General had been warned.

“What about our allies?” Commander Na’Goth objected from tactical as the first disruptor fire leapt from the Klingon warbirds and, a moment later, the Cardassians responded in kind. “We can’t leave our allies.” The Caitan was a principled man, and he thought the same of his captain. Turning their back on the Klingons after they’d saved Vespara Prime didn’t seem the right thing to do.

“They are not our allies,” Captain Vox replied coldly. They were simply friends of convenience whose motives had aligned for some short period of time. It wasn’t lost on him that the General’s motives in stabilizing the Underspace aperture had not been entirely pure. It hadn’t really been about saving Federation lives, but rather about gaining access to the Underspace. “I’d hoped we’d have their support a bit longer, but we’re going to have to do the rest of this on our own.”

“Probably for the better,” Commander Kerrigan admitted. From the first moment that General Golroth’s flagship had revealed itself over Vespara Prime, he’d always had another plan, and not once had he actually stuck to any agreement he’d made with them. Still, the Serenity and the Ingenuity had already flagged two additional targets, and there were certain to be more coming. If they only had one ship, it would take a while to clear them. Having the support of the Klingons would have been helpful.

“Sir, the array has just acquired a lock on us,” interrupted Commander Na’Goth.

“Do we have a targeting solution yet?”

“Just a couple more secon…” the Caitan tactical officer began to say, but a loud alarm interrupted him, one they knew all too well. “Vampire! Vampire! Vampire!”

After Nasera, that was a call they knew all too well, and it sent chills through their spines as a defensive barrage leapt forth from the automated defenses of the Cardassian array.

“Evasive actions!” Captain Vox shouted. “And get us in range!” He looked out the main viewer as the helmsman dove the ship hard, continuing to close the distance while narrowing the Diligent‘s profile against the incoming barrage. Meanwhile, phasers and countermeasures lanced out from the Diligent to intercept the warheads. “I want that array out of my sky! Now!”

An impact struck amidship, and then another, and another. Captain Vox gripped the railing as sparks flew, but it wasn’t more than the battletested Alita and her crew could handle. In fact, if anything, the lightness with which the ship shook assured him that the Diligent, one of the most formidable ships Starfleet had ever churned out, would be just fine.

“We’re in range, sir,” Commander Na’Goth reported.

“Fourteens, kill track zero one zero,” Captain Vox ordered.

“Fourteens, zero one zero, aye.”

“Fire! Fire! Fire!”

The two Type-XIV pulse cannons mounted forward on the bow coughed forth a barrage, but the heavy shielding and ablative armor on the array absorbed the impacts. “Minimal damage, sir. Recommend we crank it up.”

“Agreed,” Captain Vox chuckled. There was a lot more, he knew, where that came from. “Torpedoes, all forward tubes, fire!”

In unison, the eight forward launchers of the Diligent unleashed a hellstorm of torpedoes, and this time, the full brunt of all that the Alita class heavy escort could muster was more than the array’s defenses could take. It exploded in a fiery inferno.

“Damage report?”

“Minimal damage, sir,” reported Commander Kerrigan as she reviewed the systems display on her armrest. “The Klingons are still engaged in a firefight with the Cardassians though.”

“How’re they doing?”

“They’re making progress,” Commander Kerrigan reported as she cast a heads up display of the battlespace onto the main viewscreen. “But the Cardassians are putting up quite a fight, and General Golroth is requesting our assistance.”

“Admiral Reyes was very clear with him,” Captain Vox sighed. “This is not our fight, and we will not get dragged into it.” The General might have saved Vespara Prime from all-but-certain doom, but that didn’t expunge him from his present sins. “Helm, bring us about and take us back through the aperture.”

There were still more arrays out there and, with or without the Klingons, that was their mission.