Her mind was on fire with pain more intense than she had ever felt before. Every molecule in her body was being pulled in a different direction by other-dimensional forces beyond understanding. She felt as if she was going to be literally torn to shreds at any second. The searing sheet of pain drawn across her vision blinded her to everything else. Only the pain existed -- all else was unreal.
The torture stretched into an eternity, but as quickly as it started, it was suddenly over and felt like it had never happened at all. Jo Schmidt gasped and choked back the scream that had been frozen in her throat throughout the ordeal. The pain was gone and reality returned; she once again felt her Scorpion starfighter's seat underneath her, the flight controls in her hands, the cool recirculated air against the skin of her face, and the throb of the fusion reactor in her bones. A burst of static assaulted her ears, to be quickly replaced by the heartening voice of her Wing Commander, Lee Carter, requesting a head count. One by one, the Banshees sounded off.
"Banshee Two," responded Max Vasser.
"Banshee Three," said Sam Beckett, sounding much more withdrawn and insecure than usual.
Jo jumped in when it was her turn, trying her best to keep her voice from shaking. She was still getting over whatever it was that had happened when they had hit the black anomaly. "Banshee Four, fried to the core."
Alex Dalton finished the count in a quivering voice. "Banshee Five, barely alive."
"Well, at least we all made it alive," said Carter, relief obvious in her tone. Then, speaking to Matthew Cross in the Longbow she said, "Everyone present and accounted for, Captain. Assuming you and Dex are in there, of course."
"We're here, Commander. Let's find out where we are."
Jo activated the control to dissolve the replicated battle armor covering her starfighter's canopy glass, and seconds later had a clear view of what lay beyond her cockpit, or at least she should have. She frowned, then squinted, trying to peer closer, but it did no good; the view remained unchanged. She felt unreasoning panic start to rise again, but forced it back. There has to be a rational explanation for this, she thought, but at the moment she was at a complete loss to explain what her eyes clearly beheld.
It took Alex, the youngest member of Banshee Squadron, to put Jo's thoughts into words. In an awed voice, she asked the question burning in everyone's minds: "Where are all the stars?"
It was true. Silence reigned unchallenged as the seven people sat numb in their cockpits and tried to come to grips with the fact that the universe was missing.
There was only a solid wall of black before Jo's eyes. Not the faintest twinkling of starlight could be seen; no friendly stars, no wispy nebulae, no planets, no galaxies, not even a sense of depth -- absolutely nothing. The blackness was unbroken, wrapping all around in an oppressive, impenetrable prison. Though her instruments showed forward motion, it felt as if her starfighter was standing still; there was no visual frame of reference, nothing against which to measure relative motion. She fought the urge to activate the cockpit's armor sheathing again, to seal herself away from the disturbing void outside. Instead, she tore her eyes away and concentrated on her instruments. She was the squad's science officer, after all. Lee would be expecting her to explain all this and she was determined not to let her wing commander down.
Then she suddenly remembered something. A quick check of the short-range sensor quelled her anxiety though. "In case anyone misses them, the Breen probe ship is drifting about half a lightsecond behind us," she told the others through the commlink. "No sign of activity."
"Maybe they were more severely damaged by the anomaly than we were," suggested Max. "Still, best to keep an eye on them. Captain?"
"Excellent suggestion, Commander," replied Cross. "I'll have Dexter keep a sensor lock."
Meanwhile, Jo had been busy at her own sensors, and now jumped into the conversation to report her findings. "I'm reading three class-D planetoids nearby orbiting around a common center of gravity."
"The Trojans?" asked Carter.
"No. They're similar but not identical. Plus I'm not reading any abnormal neutrinos or verteron particles like back in the Serenity system."
"So no Black Gate and no way to get back home," ventured Alex.
"'Black Gate'?" said Max.
"As good a name as any, and it fits," replied Alex.
"Why don't we name it the 'Dalton Wormhole'?" suggested Dexter Gray, eager to make points with the object of his affection.
"Definitely not!" said Alex fervently. "Any wormhole that has my name attached is going to lead somewhere much nicer than this place! Someplace with flowers and cute boys!"
"All right, 'Black Gate' it is," said Carter. "But why can't we see the planetoids?"
"There are no stars to light them," said Jo. "But I am reading a sub-stellar mass behind us, bearing 171 mark 205, distance, 9.4 AU. Aside from the planetoids, it's the only thing I'm able to pick up. Anywhere."
Captain Cross exercised his executive authority and decided their course of action. "Let's head that way. Maybe we can find someone who can tell us what's going on."
The six small vessels of Banshee Squadron banked around in a lazy arc and at a leisurely pace headed back in the opposite direction towards whatever lay waiting for them. When they were sufficiently far away, the running lights on the Breen ship's hull flickered back to life and the warp nacelles powered up, their sharp glow the only illumination in this otherwise black realm. The vessel pivoted on its yaw axis and set off to follow the Banshees. At the same time, its form shimmered like a desert mirage as the cloaking device was engaged, and moments later there was again only the night.
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