USS Culver City was on her way back to Starbase 86 from the Tixar colony, cruising at warp 6.  Her mission at Tixar, a fairly straightforward maintenance visit to upgrade the colony’s power grid, had gone quite well, and the crew was in good spirits.

Lieutenant Commander Varyn K’lev, the ship’s commanding officer, was off-duty in his quarters, working on a design for a new impulse manifold, when suddenly the ship’s lighting shifted and the intercom came to life.  “Yellow Alert.  Yellow Alert.  All hands, Yellow Alert.  Captain to the bridge.”

K’lev dropped his PADD on his small desk and grabbed his tunic, pulling it on as he headed for the nearest turbolift.  A brief ride – only one or two decks – later, he stepped out onto the bridge.  “What’s going on?” he asked, walking to the center seat.

Lieutenant Ophelia Lotharys rose from the center seat as he approached, returning to her station at the sciences console.  “We picked up a ship behind us, and they’re catching up to us.  They haven’t answered our hails, either.”

K’lev nodded, sitting down.  “Put her up onscreen,” he said.

The ship appeared onscreen, in an aft view; it looked to be a mundane cargo ship, or possibly a personnel transport, but while the Culver City was not a fast ship by any means, she was still faster than the average transport.  Yet the mystery ship was gaining on them.  K’lev felt his heart rate increase as anxiety started to weigh on his mind.

“What do you make of her?” K’lev asked, the question addressed to both Lotharys and Lieutenant (junior grade) Tyrisa sh’Livo at tactical.

The young Andorian consulted her tactical displays.  In the meantime, Lotharys spoke.  “She looks normal, but I’m picking up some unusual power readings.”

Lieutenant sh’Livo looked up, nodding in agreement with Lotharys; she glanced quickly at her training officer, who nodded, before speaking.  “Something feels… off; I can’t explain it.  But I’d feel safer if our shields were up.”

K’lev tapped his lips with his right index finger, then pointed at her.  “Better safe than sorry; go ahead and raise the shields, Tyrisa.”  As the junior lieutenant set to her orders, K’lev turned to Chief Bong.  “Chief, hail them a-“

Alerts from two consoles – engineering and sciences – interrupted, as Culver City shivered.  “What was that?”  K’lev demanded.

Both Lotharys and a third-class petty officer manning the engineering station – Lieutenant Pelix, the chief engineer, preferred to be in main engineering over the bridge, if at all possible – started speaking in unison.  “That ship’s started emitting some sort of energy field; I think it’s a dampening field, but I’m not sure“ and “Sir, our warp field is destabilizing, almost like the nacelle coils are being drained” coming from the starboard side of the bridge at the same time.

“Well, stabilize it!  Ari, increase speed, let’s try to outrun them!  And Ophelia, see what you can do about jamming that field they’re emitting.”  K’lev swatted at his combadge.  “Bridge to Engineering.  Pelix, what’s going on down there?  Can you keep us at warp?”

“What d’you think I’m trying to do?” came the reply.  “I pour any more power into the coils, they’ll start overheating!  Unless you’d like to get out and push?”

A sharp glance back by Chief Bong was forestalled by K’lev’s raised hand.  “Keep us at warp as long as you can.  Bridge out.  He tapped the badge again, closing the channel, as the ship shivered again and started slowing.  “Ari….”  K’lev started, turning towards the helm.

“It’s not me!  The warp field’s getting too degraded to maintain speed,” the human junior lieutenant at the helm responded, their gaze fixed on their console as they looked for a way to squeeze more speed from the ship.

“The dampening field’s intensifying,” Lotharys jumped in.  “I can’t stop it!”

A flash appeared in the cosmos as Culver City dropped out of warp; the mysterious ship slowed to impulse as well, opening fire immediately.  Culver City rocked, and on the bridge sparks flew from one of the light fixtures in the ceiling.  K’lev was thrown against his chair’s armrest before clawing upright again.  “Red Alert!  Tyrisa, get the weapons online!  And Ari, evasive maneuvers, pattern I-don’t-give-a-damn-which!”

Culver City veered to starboard, the next blast from her unknown assailant’s disruptors flying wide of the mark.  Lieutenant sh’Livo worked her console, precious seconds elapsing before she saw the alert she had been waiting for.  “Phasers charged and ready, and torpedoes loaded!” she called triumphantly.

The ship bucked again, some rubble blasted clear of a bulkhead that covered a now-ruptured power conduit putting a damper on the young officer’s glee.  “Shields down to 63%,” Chief Bong announced.  “Hull breach on deck 6, emergency forcefields are holding.”  K’lev nodded, then called “Return fire!”  The battle became two-sided as Culver City’s limited phasers joined the fray.

From the helm, Lieutenant Phillips spoke up.  “I’ve got a nebula at 215, mark 306, at 500,000 kilometers; chart lists it as Mutara-class.  We could duck into there-“ Culver City rocked, and Chief Bong announced the shields now down to 40% “to repair and wait them out?”

“Do it!”

Culver City altered course, sprinting for the nebula as fast as her impulse engines could carry her.  The unknown assailant pursued, still firing disruptors.  The Culver City gave as good as she could, but California-class ships were not built for combat; by the time she entered the nebula her shields were down to 3% and she had several more hull breaches, sickbay inundated with wounded.

Even with the evolution of technology in the last two hundred or so years, certain stellar phenomena still played havoc on some systems.  Mutara-class nebulas were among them; what little shielding Culver City had left went down, her tactical displays and targeting scanners went down, and even her hull cameras were having some trouble maintaining good signals.  K’lev ordered a course change after entering the nebula, a 10-degree port turn with a 15-degree declination while decelerating to half-impulse, hoping that the pursuer would continue straight ahead and fly past and over the battered California-class ship.  After around 15 minutes, he ordered a further deceleration to one-quarter impulse, along with a 25-degree starboard turn on a 20-degree positive inclination, then looked around.  “How bad are we hurt?”

Chief Bong spoke from Ops.  “Reports are still coming in, but there are hull breaches on decks 5, 6, and 10, and sickbay reports at least 20 wounded.”  The chief paused.  “They say 3 dead, so far,” he finished.

K’lev swallowed hard; three dead so far, on his watch.  He remembered what Captain Crowe had said during the shore leave on Khitomer a few months ago, and it felt like a knife twisting in his gut.  So lost in his own mind was he that K’lev missed entirely that he was being addressed, until Lotharys touched his shoulder and jerked him out of his reverie.  “Varyn?  What should we do?”

“I don’t know,” he said, probably a little more sharply than was necessary.  “I need to think.”  With that, K’lev left the bridge for his ready room; behind him, the command crew exchanged worried glances, as Chief Bong followed him into the ready room.

“Permission to speak freely?” the chief asked.  When K’lev didn’t answer, Chief Bong pressed on anyway.  “Sir, this is Starfleet.  And in Starfleet, being a commanding officer is a great and terrible thing.  You can’t ever say what you said out there, ‘I don’t know.’  That’ll kill a crew, as surely as a quantum torpedo.  The captain must always have a plan, even when they don’t.”  The chief now took a kinder tone.  “We’ve been in tight spots before; no need to panic.  Take a breath, ask for ideas.  Start with the immediate, then go to long-term.  We’re all in this together, and it’ll take all of us to get out; it’s not just on you.  And don’t blame yourself for the dead, either; you did all you could, and they knew that.”

K’lev nodded slowly, taking a few deep breaths to try and calm himself.  After a few moments, he returned to the bridge, walking into a burgeoning argument between Lotharys and Phillips.  The argument tailed off, thankfully, when K’lev started speaking, which may have been helped by his starting in a louder voice than normal.  “Okay…  okay!  Everyone, settle down, let’s work the problem.”

At this point, he had the bridge’s attention.  “Ari, make sure we don’t fly into anything while we figure this out, and get an estimate from Pelix on the nacelles being recharged.  Don’t be predictable, but try to plot our course changes just in case.”  As Phillips began consulting their console, K’lev turned to Lotharys.  “Ophelia, we need to be able to see what’s around us, and the cameras” he gestured and the viewscreen “won’t be enough.”  His mismatched grey and grey-blue eyes then turned to sh’Livo, who had been sitting quietly at her station.  “Tyrisa, we need a tactical plan in case we run into that thing again.”

Orders jolted everyone into motion.  Phillips responded first, after consulting with Pelix in engineering.  “Engineering says they should be able to have the coils recharged in a couple of hours; Pelix wants to be sure they weren’t damaged first.”

K’lev nodded, then tapped his combadge.  “K’lev to sickbay.  How are things down there, Hilava?”

The young Ferengi CMO sounded stressed; her voice was also low, likely to avoid disturbing her patients.  “We’re up to 27 wounded, and 5 dead.  Of the wounded, 8 are critical.  It’s a bad day down here…”

K’lev nodded sadly, trying to stifle his again-spiking guilt at not acting faster.  “Do what you can for them, okay?  We’re working on a plan to get out of here, then we’ll run for Starbase 86 to get them some longer-term care.”

“I’ll do all I can for them,” she replied.  “Sickbay out.”  The channel closed.

K’lev walked over to his chair, noting Ophelia tapping away quickly at her console and stopping for a moment before heading to the auxiliary station against the bridge’s back wall and calling up some information on the few probes that Culver City carried.  His train of thought was interrupted by Lotharys speaking up her station.  “I think I’ve got something!”

K’lev spun around.  “Let’s hear it!” He said.

“Well,” she started.  “It’s not just me; Crewman Charlotte in Cetacean Ops had the original idea.  She suggested that we could use sound waves – sonar, she called it – to try and see through the nebula; whales have been using sonar for thousands of years, so she’s a bit of an expert.  It won’t be as detailed as our standard sensors, but Charlotte says we’ll at least be able to make out if anything’s out there.”

K’lev listened to the idea, a smile spreading across his face.  “That’s brilliant!”  He walked over, activating the intercom from Lotharys’s console.  “Bridge to engineering.  Pelix, think you can spare a couple of people from the coil issues?”

Pelix huffed.  “Depends.  If it helps us get out of here, yes; if it has to do with your sonic shower, no.”

K’lev chuckled wryly.  “My shower’s fine, or at least it was this morning.  No, we’ve got an idea up here, to help us see.  Ophelia’s going to send you her and Charlotte’s notes; tell us what you think.”  He nodded to Lotharys, who send the write-up.

A few moments passed before Pelix responded.  “Yeah, I can spare a couple of hands for this.  It’ll take around 15 minutes; I’ll let you know when it’s done.”

“Thanks, Pelix!  Bridge out.”  With that, K’lev nodded with a smile to Lotharys, who closed the channel.  K’lev then turned to Chief Bong.  “Chief, would you please note in the log Crewman Charlotte’s and Lieutenant Lotharys’s idea, with my recommendation that they both receive commendations for it when we get back to Starbase 86?”

Chief Bong nodded.  “Yes, sir,” he replied, making the note for the log as Lotharys blushed.

True to his word, Pelix’s engineers had the ad-hoc sonar assembly up and running within 15 minutes; for their good work, K’lev asked Chief Bong to add Pelix and the two technicians who did the work to the list of commendations.  The range wasn’t as long as the ship’s standard sensors would have been, but it should – in theory, at least – be long enough to give a second or two of additional response time.  Now able to see, a little better at least, Culver City stood a chance of safely escaping the nebula.

K’lev took his seat, leaning forward slightly as the ship pressed on, periodically changing course in the off-chance that their assailant could somehow track them in the nebula.  After about an hour and a half, Pelix informed the bridge that the nacelle warp coils had been successfully re-initialized; K’lev ordered a best-estimate course to bring Culver City back to the edge of the nebula where she had entered it.

As Culver City came about, a blip appeared on Lotharys’s improvised sonar display.  “Um, I think I’ve got something,” she said.

K’lev turned in his chair.  “What is it?”

“I don’t know,” she replied.  “It’s right at the edge of the sonar’s range, on course 79 mark 31, though, and I don’t think it’s moving.  Looks large, though, far larger than the ship that chased us in here.”

Everyone on the bridge exchanged glances.  K’lev swallowed, anxious once more.  “Think you can get a camera pointed at it?” he asked.

Lotharys shook her head.  “It’s too far away.”

“Let’s at least mark it on our chart, then.  We’ve got to alert the starbase anyway, so let’s make sure to mention it when ask them to send a patrol,” he replied.  “We’re in no state to go searching right now.”

Fortunately, it appeared that the California-class ship had shed her pursuer, and a couple of hours later she cleared the nebula, bore around on course for Starbase 86, and raced off at her top speed of warp 8.  As Culver City left the area, K’lev looked to Chief Bong.  “Chief, go ahead and send the report of what just happened to the starbase.  They need to know about that ship that attacked us, and that thing we detected, too, so they can send a patrol out this way.  Be sure to include the commendation list as well, and let’s add to it Hilava and her medical team.”

Chief Bong nodded, quickly composing the initial report and sending it off; a reply was quickly received.  “They acknowledge the report, and will send a patrol out as soon as they can.”

K’lev sighed in relief.  “Great news, Chief.  Now let’s get home.”