Recovery Pt2

Posted on Tue Jul 28th, 2026 @ 4:53pm by Fleet Admiral Mike K`Wor Bremer & Commander Robert Stark & Lieutenant K`Wor & Christopher Bremer & Lieutenant Commander Ariana Monroe-Wayne & Lieutenant Commander Anna Bagwell & Lieutenant Arev & Lieutenant JG Gerard Sullivan & Commander Namia Grian

1,967 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Episode 120 - Guardian at the Gate
Location: USS Perseus
Timeline: Current

ON:

USS Perseus - Bridge

"All salvaged equipment has been beamed aboard. Two of Ten and Commander Stark are working on the propulsion systems. Mr. Arev and member of the Gladiator crew are working on sensors and weapons. I'm taking a team to work on the shields now." K'Wor explained to Bremer.

Mike nodded as he listened while he was also looking at a sensor display on his chair's small panel. "How long before everyone is beamed up from the surface?"

"Minutes." K'Wor replied.

Mike nodded again as K'Wor left the bridge to help with repairs. "Christopher, come here."

Mike's youngest son walked over from the side of the Bridge he'd been relegated to.

"Do you know how to read sensors?" Mike asked to which Christopher just cocked his head to the side while his facial expression replied 'really dad?' "Okay, keep an eye on this target. Once it gets within ten thousand kilometers, you let Mr. Sullivan know."

Mike then continued as he stood. "Sullivan, keep the planet between us and that...thing. Once it hits the Ten K perimeter, we need to be moving. Set a course through this system to keep maximum distance, while keeping a clear path for us to warp to the Type K star that also had life signs registered on."

"Aye sir," Sullivan responded, "plotting course now, I'll have to do it manually while we are, er, creeping behind the planet, sir. As long as Christopher keeps eyes on the proximity, we're good to go as soon as I hear the word."

Mike glanced over at Mr. Cain who was typing away on his PADD, writing a masterpiece no doubt. Mike then glanced at a medical report of the Gladiator's survivors and his own Marine injured, then he looked at the damage report of in-progress work. He hoped the work would be done before whatever that thing out there was spotted them.


Arev materialized on the transporter pad with Chief Enrik. As Arev stepped down to make room for the next group, the transporter operator spoke, "Lieutenant Arev, sir. The bridge instructed me to ask you to begin repairs on weapons and sensors as soon as you were aboard.

Arev nodded, "Thank you." He looked at Milton Enrik standing purposeless, "Chief Enrik, you are with me."

Enrik nodded and smiled, "Aye, aye, sir." The Gladiator's crewman followed Arev out of the cramped transporter room, into a cramped hallway, "It's been ages since I was aboard anything with corridors as small as these." A brief pause, as if waiting for Arev to respond, then the human continued, "Where to first?"

Arev considered, before he left the ship, sensors were the least damage of the two systems. As long as nothing had changed, effecting repairs with what parts they collected should take no longer than 15 minutes. "Sensors. Repairs on the system should take approximately 15 minutes."

Milton nodded and both men made their way to the primary sensor control room.


Bridge, 20 minutes later

"Dad!" Christopher said excitedly.

Mike walked over to see what was going on.

"Um, I mean Sir." Christopher added quickly. "There was a...a blip for a moment over here but I'm not sure what it was." Christopher pointed at the display.

Mike tapped a few buttons and realized that someone had been able to make repairs to the sensors, and they were operating at nearly one hundred percent again. "There was a gamma ray burst beside the conduit we came through."

"What does that mean?" Cain asked from across the Bridge.

"I'm not sure what it means, but it appears another conduit opened beside the one we passed through, then closed a few moments later. However, this one has a different resonance signature, it looks to have been artificially generated, then closed." Mike replied.

"Well, I guess we'll find out when we try to return home." Cain replied to no one in particular.

Grian, weary of everything, decided to comment. "Shall we make an attempt? I don't know about anyone else, but I am somewhat eager to get home."

"Let's make sure we're not leaving anyone behind." Mike replied.

"Stark to Bridge, propulsion is as repaired as we can get it. I can give you warp seven point three. We do have fully impulse capabilities. Maneuvering thrusters are in the eighty-five percent range." The Commander explained.

"That's better than we've had since we got it, nice work. Bridge out." Bremer replied.

Mike then looked at Sullivan, "Let's see some fancy flying. Take us to that Type K system and keep up out of sight of that 'thing' out there. Grian, long-range sensors, let's make sure our path is clear of tentacles, Kazan, and any other strange Delta Quadrant bullshit."

“Alrighty, no problem.” Grian spun back to her console, fingers already dancing across the long‑range sensor controls. “Keep us on this heading, but be ready to jink hard if we have to. Those tentacles won’t give us the courtesy of predictable movement. And the Kazon… well, they’d better have the sense to stay out of our flight path.”

"Avoid Delta Quadrant bullshit - I'll do what i can," Sullivan promised, "any anomalies on those sensors, Commander, just shout and we can coordinate as and when we need to. If anything happens, I'll take any questions about pushing limits in dangerous situations once we're safe again..."


She smirked, Bremer’s Delta Quadrant comment still lingering in her mind. “I’ll do my best, but unless Starfleet’s secretly perfected a Delta Quadrant bullshit detector, we’re stuck with the Alpha Quadrant model. I’ll crank the crazy up to ‘cover your ears and run like hell.’”

Mike smirked.


Arev stood up as Enrik recalibrated the last EPS flow regulator to the phasers. He tapped his combadge, "Arev to bridge. Weapons are online." He checked his PADD, "Estimated 94% functionality until we can properly replace components at Starbase 400."


Down in Engineering, Stark was finishing up but replacing a panel over a power coupling access. "Hey, Double T, can you realign that plasma flow regulator to the forward RCS thrusters?"

After a moment no replies, Stark looked back at Two of Ten. "Double T, are you receiving?"

"You were speaking to me?" Two of Ten asked.

"Yeah, Two of Ten, Double T, the 'Amazing Cybernetic Engineer', the..."

Two of Ten cocked his head to the side, "You have given me a 'nickname'?"

"Well I think Double T has a nice ring to it, and it's easier to say that Two of Ten all the time." Stark replied with a smirk.

Two of Ten nodded, then started the realignment of the regulator. "This will be completed in TM."

"TM?" Stark asked.

"Two minutes. I used your rule for nicknames, and ..." Two of Ten started to reply.

Stark held up his hand, "Let's just get the job done, then we'll work on how and why nicknames work when we get back to the Alpha Quadrant." Stark then tapped his comm-badge, "We're done down here until we dock with the Pegasus or return to Starbase 400 Bridge."

Mike looked around the small bridge, "Alright people, let's go."

Ariana stood quietly hoping that they’d find their way home, she had her family to get back to and right now this situation was telling her that she was away from them far too often.

Anna sat back after her last patient. She had been very busy but at the moment, they were contained. She had a feeling that like her, the crew was ready to go home.

Sullivan tapped at his console, "Course laid in, sir, waiting on your word to go."

"Hit it!" Bremer said. A moment later the Perseus shot away at warp.


A short time later, with a minor detour to avoid another Kazon ship thrown in, the Perseus arrived in the Type K system. Sensors were able to pick up two more wrecked shuttles on the fifth planet with a handful of survivors. As the Perseus entered orbit, they were greeted by yet another Kazon vessel, a massive Predator type.

The small Aquarius class vessel swooped into the atmosphere and beamed up the twenty-three survivors, including an infant that had been born just during the crash landing, and the Gladiator's Data Recorder, then climbed back into space. Maneuvering to avoid weapons fire, the Perseus let loose with a barrage of pulse phaser fire at the attacking Kazon vessel before turning and jumping to warp on course back to the transwarp conduit.

At reduced speed because of the damage, the Kazon ship slowly gained on the smaller Starfleet vessel, but the distance was just short enough for the Perseus to arrive before the Kazon ship did, but only slightly. As the Perseus dropped to impulse, the Kazon vessel arrived and opened fire. Aft shields held as the Perseus retracted her nacelles in preparation to enter the tunnel.

Suddenly, a spatial anomaly a few thousand kilometers from the transwarp conduit appeared and a metal 'tentacle' looking object started to come through. The Kazon vessel broke off pursuit of the Perseus and immediately turned and opened fire, soon to be joined by another Kazon vessel.

The Perseus slipped into the transwarp conduit and started back for the Alpha Quadrant. The return trip was far less bumpy and Sullivan was able to ride and 'waves' like a surfer. Stark and Two of Ten were able to adjust the ship's deflector to help disperse some of the subspace sheer as they rode with the 'current'.

"Something is following us, but I can't get a clear reading." K'Wor reported from Tactical.

"Kazon?" Mike asked, almost hoping it was.

"I don't think so." K'Wor replied looking up.

Finally, the Perseus burst through the opening in the Alpha Quadrant, and was greeted with the sight of over a dozen Federation ships, mostly their task force from Starbase 400, along with Jurati's Borg ship, the Enterprise-G, and three newly arrived Starfleet construction vessels.

Mike tapped the comm-button on his chair. "Bremer to all ship, red alert, some...thing is followed us through."

Having already delt with one 'tentacle' thing trying to come through, the fleet of ships were able to project their shield grid nearly to the edge of the conduit aperture. As the 'tentacle' tried to come through, it ran into the shield energy. It tried to push through again, then again, before falling back into the transwarp conduit as the aperture closed.

"You couldn't warn us you were on the way back?" Captain Seven asked with a smirk over the comm.

"It would have been the....logical thing to do." T'Lar added.

Mike, along with the rest of the Perseus crew let out a collective sigh of relieve as the small ship maneuvered to dock with the Pegasus-C. Mike closed his eyes for a moment. The Perseus had managed to recover seventy-two survivors of the USS Gladiator out of a crew of fifteen hundred.


A few hours later, after a shower and a meal aboard the Pegasus, Mike went through the logs from the Gladiator's Data Recorder. In it, Captain Zandusky explained they had encountered a beacon and another conduit aperture similar to the one in the Alpha Quadrant. Scans reveled the conduits were in the process of being linked, and this would allow the 'mechanical tentacles' of the 'Alliance of synthetic life' direct access to the heart of the Federation. They Gladiator crew found a way to destroy the beacon and implode the other conduit, but the ship suffered catastrophic damage in the process. Mike forwarded all of the data to Fleet Admiral Sevlek for his review.

A short time later, the ships from Starbase 400 turned and headed off at warp back toward the station as another Starfleet task force arrived to hold the line.


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