The Aquitania came around for another volley of fire at the huge fireball.
Captain Diogenes yelled at his com badge, "Mr. Brosgarth! Where are those phasers?!"
Another explosion shook the ship as the Chief of Operations, Carol Magnus, flew back against a console with burns all over his face.
[I'm trying, sir! The power relays are overloading! There isn't much I can do!]
Captain Diogenes dropped his head. "Helm, prepare to ram that thing. I want to damage it as badly as we can before we go!" He sat down in his chair. "Attention all hands, this is the captain. Abandon ship! Stop what you are doing and leave this ship now!"
"Captain?" asked Captain Myn Donos, his first officer.
"You heard me. We're getting out of here."
The two friends left the bridge of the Aquitania for the last time.
Location: USS Seth
"Kat, I need more power to the forward shields!" yelled Lt. Commander Jovan Kalimar, called Jovo by his friends.
Commander Katianna Nadira made her way to the engineering console. "Got it!"
The Seth came around for another volley. Explosions raged the surface of the moon-sized fireball as it seemed to groan and weaken.
Jovo and Kat suddenly noticed a ship firing escape pods and going full-speed against the fireball.
The Aquitania rammed full-force into the fireball. The ensuing explosion caused a shockwave that shook all of the ships involved in the battle.
"What the hell what that?!" demanded Jovo.
Kat looked at a console. "I don't know, but it worked! Luther has weakened severely. A little more of this, and he'll be defenseless! We can move in for the kill!"
The fireball began to turn a darker red.
Suddenly, a com signal came in. Admiral Charles Doyle popped on screen. [Sloan is moving! He's heading for Earth!]
Kat looked at Jovo. "He must be planning on taking as much as he can with him when he dies!"
Jovo was staring into space.
"Jovo? Jovo? Jovan!"
Jovo suddenly looked at Kat. "Sorry." He looked at the screen. "Charlie, we'll take care of it! Wish us luck!"
Admiral Doyle smiled. [Thank you. For everything.] He shut off the com.
Jovo set some coordinates in. "We'll intercept Sloan just before he hits Earth. The Prophets gave me an idea."
Kat nodded. "Let's finish this!"
The USS Seth went to transwarp.
Location: Earth
Hundreds of ships took off the surface of Earth in expectation of a disaster that would destroy the capital of the Federation.
A reporter could be seen and heard on a huge screen above New York City. [Authorities are asking civilians to stay calm as this problem is dealt with. The situation is not, I repeat, is not as grim as it seems.]
Above, the panicking crowds could see a fiery dot clouding the zenith, threatening annihilation.
Location: USS Seth
The Seth came out of transwarp between Earth and the fireball.
"Position the ship facing the fireball, then disengage the force field and hold on to something!" ordered Kat. Kat quickly set the instructions into the computer and ran to a corner. A force field activated around her while the one in front of the ship disengaged.
Jovo stood in the center of the ship, glowing a bright blue, and exposed to the vacuum of space.
The fireball began to approach the ship quickly.
Jovo began to concentrate a huge ball of energy into his hands. He released the ball of energy, creating a constant stream of light between his orb and the fireball, within which lay the Orb of Creation and the life force of Luther Sloan, former head of Section 31.
The stream of light from Jovo's orb, the Orb of Kalimar, slowed the fireball's approach.
~He is strong,~ said Captain Diogenes as he moved around Jovo.
~Not strong enough,~ added Captain Donos.
~Let us help,~ offered Kat.
~Agreed,~ said Admiral Doyle.
The four Prophets approached Jovo, who was struggling. They each touched him on the shoulder. Suddenly, Jovo's eyes filled with a light purple flame.
The beam of blue light turned a light purple and shot out continuous bursts of energy that caused the fireball to groan with each one. The fireball began to turn a dark blackish-red color.
Then, Jovo took the energy from his orb and focused it into an immense light purple ball of pure energy. When the ball was as large as his own body, Jovo lunged it from the ship. Quickly, he used that same lunging forced to throw himself at the console and reactivate the forward force field.
The Seth filled with oxygen, and Kat went up to take a seat next to the nearly-unconscious Jovan.
The purple energy ball hit the fireball just five kilometers before the whole thing struck the Seth and about 15 kilometers before it struck Earth.
A huge shockwave shook the Seth as the fireball engulfed it.
Then, the fireball disintegrated, leaving nothing in its wake.
Earth remained safe and beautiful as ever.
Location: USS Virgo
"Captain?" the helm officer on duty said, awkwardly.
"Yes," said Stephen.
"I have something weird on sensors."
Stephen smiled. "What is it, Ensign?"
"Well, it's a ship, but its warp signature seems like it's Federation. The thing is, it's way too advanced..."
Jon got up. "What is a Federation ship doing all the way out here?"
"No idea. Ensign, try hailing it."
The ensign looked at the console nervously. "No response."
Benton added, "The ship seems very well-equipped, but it's damaged. There are two life signs onboard. Both are weak."
Stephen turned to him. "Beam them to sickbay but keep force fields around them just in case. We don't know anything about them. Jon, do me a favor and tractor the vessel into Shuttle Bay Two. If I remember correctly, the only ship in there is the Dawn. Have Jennifer take a look at that ship if she's not too busy with the Dawn's damaged power relays. I'll be in sickbay with our new arrivals."
"Ugh." Jovo opened his eyes and groaned. "Where...?"
A beautiful young doctor was standing over her. "You're on the Federation Starship Virgo. I'm Doctor Dana Maruu. Your ship was damaged, and you and your friend were unconscious when we found you."
"Is she...?"
"She's okay. She's hurt, but she'll be fine."
"Good."
Suddenly, the door to sickbay opened. Captain Maruu walked in. "How are they?"
Dana turned to face him. She handed him a PADD. "She's good. Thanks to Jenara and our tiny database, I know enough of Tanzaran physiology to treat here properly."
"She's Tanzaran?"
"Yup."
"What about the male?"
"Well, he's could be rated as okay, depending on your definition of 'okay.'"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, he's Human, but he has some non-Human characteristics."
"Such as?"
"Where do I begin?" She took the PADD back. "Isotope testing reveals he is eleven years old. He's got triple-helix DNA strands. Enough energy to power half the ship coursing through his body. Regenerative cellular structure. Kind of reminds me of Kalmar in many ways."
"Why is that so strange?" asked Jovo, sitting up. "Starfleet briefed all medical personnel on my physiology just before we went up against Sloan."
"Sloan?" asked Stephen.
"You have to be kidding. The former head of Section 31? He was removed from his position when Section 31 was made public knowledge."
Stephen and Dana looked at each other quizzically. Stephen approached Jovo. "What is the last thing you remember?"
"We were fighting Sloan, who was headed on a collision course for Earth. I fired an immense amount of energy at it, and we were engulfed by it. Then, I'm here."
"Thank you. Hold that thought." Stephen pulled Dana away from him. "So? What do you make of this?"
"Well, it does look like he's been drained of an immense amount of energy," said Dana. "I just don't get what he's been talking about Sloan and Section 31 and the destruction of Earth."
"Well, with what's happened recently concerning Section 31 on this ship, I'm not really interested in living another drama. Keep them under lock and key until we know more." With that Stephen left.
Dana looked at Jovo. "Yes, sir," she said, absentmindedly.
Commander Lataro entered Shuttle Bay Two where Jennifer was working on the torn runabout. "So, what do you have?"
Jennifer stood up and sighed. "The strangest machine I have seen in my life."
Jon walked up to her. "What do you mean?"
Jennifer picked up a few PADDs she had on the floor and looked through them quickly. "Allow me to introduce the USS Seth. It runs cleaner and more efficiently than any ship I've ever seen. Its transwarp core is about the size of a stack of PADDs."
"What?!" Jon said, incredulously.
"Yeah. And the ship also has a perfected form of the co-axial warp drive."
"Co-axial...?"
Jennifer threw him a small PADD. "It's a hypothetical drive that can travel through space and time by causing a small tear. The prototypes were unstable until Lt. Thomas Paris of the USS Voyager developed a co-axial carburetor which softens the effects of that form of travel."
Jon nodded. "So, it works by creating a tesseract?"
"A tear in space and time. Should be interesting to see. I've only seen it in books."
"I saw it firsthand."
"What?!" Jennifer turned to look at her superior.
Jon nodded his head again. "Before the whole deal on Xenon III, Captain Dernom and his Kelvan buddies were brought in from the Andromeda Galaxy via a tesseract. That's how Colonel Chee and Commander Wallace were able to join us."
"Commander Wallace?"
"Promoted and now in command of Starbase 901," said Jon, smiling with a sense of pride.
"Incredible."
Kat's consciousness returned slowly. Her thoughts were fuzzy. As her eyes opened she found herself staring up at the overhead of a ship. Suddenly a friendly face looked down at her.
"Hi, there, I'm Dr. Maruu. How are you feeling?" the woman asked.
"I have a headache, among other things," she replied. "What ship am I on? How did I get here?"
"You're on the USS Virgo," she was told. "We found your ship adrift and beamed you aboard."
Kat was shocked. Her memories were slowly coming back. The battle with Sloan. The fireball, the energy... Jovo... "Where's my..."
"Your friend is fine. He's in another area, but doing well. You both should recover quickly."
"Was anyone rescued from the Aquitania?" she asked.
Going over Jovan's story, she decided to ask Katianna what the last thing she remembered was. She got the identical story.
"I need to get out a message for my daughter and her nanny. They need to know I'm all right," Katianna replied.
"I'll see what I can do," Dr. Maruu replied with a soft smile and left. She needed to talk to the Captain once again.
"I ran a background check on Katianna Nadira," she said, "What I came up with was a photo of this woman and a long history, of which there is no mention of a daughter. However, there is mention of a son by Doctor Julian Bashir. Last thing that was heard from her was that she was transferred to an undercover operation somewhere in the Gamma Quadrant, taking her son with her. But she has been out of contact for the last year."
"Do you think this could be her?"
"I don't think so," Dana replied, "I just... feel, like this isn't the same person. And yet the photo is the same."
Stephen was silent for a moment. There was another possibility that accounted for their new guests. But was it too farfetched? After all, hadn't they lived through stranger things? "What about Jovan Kalimar?"
"Not on file."
"There's a reason for that," said a voice behind them. It was Kalmar.
"That man is my father."