The crew of the USS da Vinci had managed to free her from the subspace distortion that had rendered both warp engines and communications inoperative.  They were now travelling at warp 4 in the direction of Samson III, the location of a number of distress calls.  Travelling this fast was a huge risk, if they ran into another one of these anomalies and came to a sudden halt; the consequences could prove catastrophic.

The Chief Engineer have voiced his concerns, rather too forcefully for the Commanders liking, but  Anacostia-Bolling had remained calm during the minor altercation, at least thankful that the rest of the senior staff seemed to back her; even if they did understand the risk.  Federation citizens were in danger, and for now, they were the only vessel in a position to respond.

For now the da Vinci’s sensors appeared to be working perfectly, so they picked up the freighter, long before it came into visual range.  The Boxcar as this vessel was registered; belonged to a company operating out of Helox II.  Ferrying equipment to Samson III and returning with fresh farm produce and other goods.   In a world were replicators could create almost anything on demand, so long as you had the correct quantities of the corresponding raw elements with which to work with; a number of people, especially those in outlying regions still preferred, when possible, the real thing.

Mary did understand their point of view.  She’d eaten dozens of apples in her life, but it had always been the same apple.  The computers that operated the replicators had a set pattern to follow, so you weren’t just ordering it to create an apple of your required variety, it was creating a facsimile of the very apple that had first been scanned into the system.  With the same size, weight, colouration and taste, every time.  You couldn’t even get that level of uniformity on the same tree, let alone an entire orchard.  It did mean though, that you never had a bad apple, unlike in nature.

The da Vinci approached slowly, shields up and weapons at full readiness.  Every possible long and short range scan was being deployed, looking for the slightest discrepancy or minute detail that could indicate an impending threat to the ship.

The Boxcar was just a fraction larger than the Saber; its main body was an elongated oval with clamshell doors situated fore and aft; just behind the wings that kept the ships two main engines away from the side of the freighters hull, a pair of boom like structures ran along either side of the final third of the ship and extended back another twelve metres and joined together by a flat cross piece.  The whole effect was to give it the look of an old style transport aircraft from Earths distant past.  The only thing that marred the overall effect was the damage caused by a hostile attack. This was not an attack made by pirates or anyone with an aim of stealing the cargo; that much was evident from the drifting debris that fanned out from the large gash in the vessels side.

“Captain I’m picking up residual Polaron energy.” Beriev announced from his position at the rear of the Bridge.

“Confirmed, the Boxcar has sustained multiple hits from Polaron based weapons.” Grav added in his usual gruff tone.

“Are there any signs of life?” Anacostia-Bolling enquired hopefully.

“That’s a negative.”  Her Saurian science officer replied. “I’m not registering any life signs.”

Lieutenant-Commander Alara Ley who occupied the fold down jump seat to the Commanders right, shuck her head. “What a waste.  How many were on board?”

“The crew manifest, lists seven, all of them human.”  Beriev informed her

“Number one, take an away team and see what data you can retrieve from their computers.” The Commander requested.  Her Tellarite security officer turned from his station, fully expected to be one of those selected for the team. “No mister Grav, I want you there at tactical.  Just in case whoever did this; comes back.”

He grumbled under his breath, but understood what his commanding officer meant. If the ship needed to suddenly jump into combat, having the best available officer operating the weapons, made sense.

**********

Less than ten minutes later, four space-suited figures were beamed on to the bridge of the freighter.  The Lieutenant-Commander wasted no time in giving out her instructions; sending the engineer on her team to engineering to see if he could get any power going.  The security officer, Lieutenant Grav insisted should come with them, nodded and followed the engineer out the door.  The chances of anything actually happening were relatively small, everyone was dead after all, but their resident Chief Tactical and Security Officer, just wanted to make sure.

That left Alara Ley and the Arbazan male, Ensign Gofan; the da Vinci’s newly acquired computer expect to see what information they could extract.  They had to wait a while until partial power was restored to the Bridge systems.

They hadn’t touched anything, when the monitor screen that sat at the front of the Bridge, flickered to life.  The male face that appeared on the screen looked humanoid; the most noticeable features were a large fin-like crest runs across the center of their foreheads, getting wider as it reaches the tops of their skulls,  There were also two ridges that came from below the ears, along the sides of the neck an curved towards the chest area,

The male seemed to be looking directly at the two of them, even thought it was perfectly clear, this was a recorded message, triggered by them restoring power.

“Officer and crew of the unidentified Federation vessel currently listening to my message; heed this warning.  This area of space is now under the control of the Vaadwaur Supremacy.  You are alone and vastly outnumbered; this is by our design.  Lower your shields power down your weapons and send a message confirming your unconditional surrender on the following frequency.”  A set of numbers appear just below the man’s neck. This was a man who spoke with a calm yet commanding presence, a man who was used to installing fear and reverence in all those that saw him.  “Obey at once or know this will be the last voice you ever hear.”  Then the screen went blank.

The XO and ensign didn’t know it at the time, but this message had also been transmitted to the da Vinci, and everyone on the Bridge there, had heard it to. The Trill officer was puzzled; she’d heard or read about this Vaadwaur Supremacy, somewhere; she just couldn’t place it.  It was her symbiont that gave her the answer.

‘They were discovered in the Delta Quadrant by the crew of Voyager.’ Ley informed her.

‘But how did they get all the way out here?’ Her thoughts asked back, but before the symbiont could say any more Alara blurted the next part out loud.  “Underspace!  It was a test run in preparation for a full scale invasion.”

The Arbazan looked at her confused. “I don’t get you?”

“All those apertures that popped up everywhere, they originated in the Delta Quadrant and so do this Supremacy lot!” The Trill XO informed him. “They can literally drop in anywhere bypassing all the barriers preventing our ships from going to warp.”

“They could rip us to pieces, planet by planet, one sector after another!” Gofan gasped in shocked realisation.

“They may already have started.” Alara Ley informed him.  She tapped the communicator on her suit. “Away team to da Vinci, beam us out now!”