Sit and Wait

Previously..

"Commander I've lost all control," Shale yelled.

"What !" Barker yelled. Panels began to explode all round them.

The Hellcat pitched downward maintaining its current speed. The inertial dampeners were not working. "I can't hold her."

"Try Shale."

"I am Chu !"

The control panel went off.

<<Collision Alert!>> The computer screamed in her analogous tome tone.

"Omigod." Chu said under his breath.

Now..

"One last thing to try." Shale remarked, struggling with the controls. "If this works, then at least we'll be safe."

"And if it doesn't ?" Chu enquired.

"Then we're dead." Shale remarked. "Which is what we're looking at anyway."

"What do you have in mind." Chu asked.

"Inject the warp core and detonate it. Hopefully, the blast will propel us away from the black hole." Shale replied.

"How will we survive the shockwave ?" Chu enquired. "Our shields are already weak. The rear shield emitters are off-line, we wouldn't stand a chance."

"We'll have to turn the Hellcat around and use the main deflector to re-enforce our forward shields." Shale replied.

"Do what ever you need to." Chu remarked.

"Start the core ejection sequence, I'll turn the ship around once it's way." Shale remarked. "Then fire two torpedos, that should be enough to detonate the core."

Chu moved across to one of the still operating consoles and started working on the controls.

<Warp core ejection system online. The warp core will be ejected in ten seconds.> The computer announced.

Ten seconds later there was a thump as the core was ejected. Shale turned the ship around and the black hole that was to become their absolute doom came into view in the window.

"I'm launching the distress beacon. At least the Leviathan will be able to find out what happened." Chu announced. "Firing torpedoes, Forward shields are at one hundred and forty percent. Let's just hope that it's enough."

"Let's hope." Shale remarked, still struggling with the controls.

Ten seconds later, the torpedoes detonated the warp core, which exploded in a flash of light. Two seconds later the shockwave hit the Hellcat and everything on the vessel went black.

Chu awoke and looked around in the gloom of the Bridge. The only light was from the flashes of the destroyed consoles.

"Computer emergency lighting." Chu announced.

Nothing happened.

"Shale are you OK." Chu spoke, hoping that at least they had both survived.

For a moment there was silence. Then Chu heard a voice.

"I guess we made it." Shale remarked in a quiet voice. "Although my arm hurts."

"Stay where you are." Chu remarked fumbled around searching for the hull wall. As he found it, he searched around and eventually found the emergency supplies. He opened it and took out a wrist beacon, switching it on. He then searched for the medical supplies.

Chu swung the light around and found Shale. Chu slowly moved across the wreckage towards his colleague and handed Shale the other beacon.

Chu opened the medi-kit and took out the medical tricorder.

"It looks like you've fractured your arm." Chu said. "We don't have the facilities to fix it here, but at least it's a clean break. This should ease the pain we can look for something to use as a splint later. Just try and keep it still."

Chu then walked around to the window and looked out.

"Well we've been thrown clear." Chu remarked as he looked across at the black hole.

Shale had switched on his beacon and started trying to find working systems, holding his damaged arm as best he could.

"It looks like most things are out, propulsion, shields, weapons. All we've got are thrusters and short range sensors." Shale stated. "Let's see if we can get some light in here."

Shale pressed a couple of controls on what appeared to be the only working console. The Bridge was bathed in red emergency light. "It's not much, but it's a start."

Two hours later the full extent of the damage was apparent.

"The hulls seems for the most part to be intact, we've lost some hull plating, scorched a lot more, but we've held together." Shale announced his arm now held stable by a couple of pieces of console support and some bandages. "Most of the rear section is vacuum, so we can't even get to the escape pods."

"Ambrose designed and built this vessel well." Chu replied, remembering the young Ensign. "Thank you Kirk."

"The deflector is destroyed, we've get no communications, no weapons and only thrusters for propulsion. The black hole is still having an effect on us and in twelve hours our thrusters will be dead and we'll start to drift back towards the black hole again." Shale reeled off. "Our only hope a surviving is the distress beacon. I just hope the Leviathan can get to us in time."

"Something's not right." Chu remarked in a puzzled voice.

"What do you mean ?" Shale replied.

"We're led to a G-type star and an M-class planet, hoping to get supplies and materials. Instead we find a demon planet, of no value to us at all. Then on our way back, we encounter a black hole which appears to have come out of nowhere." Chu stated.

"So you think someone planned all of this. Lured us away with a promise of 'treasure'. Who do you think did it ?" Shale replied. "The Zeratul, the Proletarian or some other force we've not encountered yet,"

"I don't know, I doubt it was the Proletarians or the Zeratul, I don't think it's their style. They both seem to prefer the direct approach. No, this was done by someone else." Chu said.

Shale had a thought and started to work again at the console. Eventually he managed to bring up the main viewscreen and brought up the Hellcat's flight path.

"Look at this." Shale remarked." This is our flight path to the planet." A red line appeared on the screen, showing the course they had taken. "And this is our return path." A second blue line appeared on the screen.

"Can you put the position of the Leviathan on the screen." Chu asked.

Almost immediately two dots appeared on the screen.

"Look at this." Chu remarked. "According to the sensors, the Leviathan's move over fifty light years away from us. Commander Devore wouldn't have move away from us, in fact she'd probably have moved closed."

"You're right and when we plotted the course back, it brought us into direct contact with the black hole." Shale remarked.

"But why didn't the sensors warn us about the black hole ?" Chu enquired.

"Someone or something must have tampered with the sensors, giving us false reading." Shale proposed.

"But we're the only two people aboard, I don't think we'd try and kill ourselves." Chu remarked.

"This could have been done before we left, hidden in the Hellcat's computer system and activated remotely." Shale replied.

"Then you think we have a saboteur aboard the Leviathan." Chu asked.

"We could have, we know that we have a murderer aboard, this could be the same person who had to kill to hide their secret or it could be two separate individuals." Shale remarked.

"I guess we'll have to wait and see. When we get back we'll talk to the Captain." Chu said.

"If we get back." Shale remarked.