Jonathan and Rebecca walked into the headquarters of Starfleet and headed for the offices of Special Operations. As they reached the outer office of Commodore Alexander Banner, their CO, they both worried why they had been recalled back to Earth. Both had thought that is was due to their last mission.
January 5, 2386...
The small vessel dodged and weaved through the debris of the large asteroid which had just been destroyed by the Romulan Warbird that had been chasing them for the last couple of hours.
The mission had on the surface appeared to have been a simple one; travel to the Federation-Romulan-Klingon border and search for a missing science probe. It was a three day mission and both Jonathan and Rebecca had agreed to take the mission, even though they knew that if things went on, they would miss the return of their daughter Amy who had been spending Christmas back on Earth with Rebecca's parents.
That had been a week ago and the three-man team consisting of Jonathan as Commander, Rebecca as Helm officer and Lieutenant Reed as the Operations officer has set off from their base at Starbase 92. Now Lieutenant Reed was in a serious condition and the Mustang class runabout was being chased by the Romulans as Rebecca tried to push the vessel too hard to reach Federation space.
They had tracked the probe's flight path straight into Romulan space and against the orders of their superiors, they had crossed the border and discovered the probe on the surface of a small moon orbiting a gas giant. The Mustang class runabout was equipped to infiltrate enemy space without being detected, but what the Special Operations team could not have known was that the Romulans had a cloaked listening post in orbit above the same gas giant.
They had managed to recover the probe and get it loaded into the runabout when the Romulans had attacked. By the time Rebecca had got the vessel off the surface, reinforcements in the shape of a Warbird had arrived. Lieutenant Reed had been injured during the attack and was in the medical bay, with Jonathan trying very hard to keep his friend and colleague alive.
Rebecca had tried to "shake" the Romulan vessel by heading for an asteroid field, but the Warbird had merely continued to pursue them, using their disruptors and plasma torpedoes to obliterate any obstacles.
"How are we doing?" Jonathan asked as he came onto the command deck of the runabout and took a seat at the tactical station.
"Nice of you to join me," Rebecca replied sarcastically. "Now, how about getting our weapons online and fire back."
Jonathan was already working on the weapons systems and moments later, the rear phasers and torpedo tubes came to life, firing at the much larger vessel.
"How long till we reach the border, Beka?" Jonathan enquired.
"Two minutes..." Rebecca replied, "...as long as the Romulans don't get us first."
The runabout was rocked as an asteroid ahead of them was hit, sending small pieces of rock at them, which hit the shields and hull.
"Hang on," Rebecca said as she pushed the runabout into a ninety-degree climb. Seconds later, she turned the runabout once more in the opposite direction, putting them nearly a hundred kilometres above their current position.
"I hate it when you do that," Jonathan remarked.
"I know," Rebecca said with an evil smile on her face. "But it got us away from that last asteroid shower and confused the Romulans. We'll be clear of the field in a few seconds and we can jump to warp."
Twelve seconds later, just as the Romulan Warbird got back on their tail, Rebecca punched the flight controls and the runabout jumped to warp. Within half an hour they were crossing the border back into Federation space and setting a course for home.
"How's Reed?" Rebecca asked.
"Not good," Jonathan replied. "I've managed to keep him from dying, but he'll be out of action for a while."
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