Lieutenant Jo Schmidt's voice rang over the cockpit's intercom. "The dog is standing by on the transporter, Captain."
"Acknowledged," said Captain Matthew Cross. In an aside to his copilot Ensign Dexter Gray he said, "Hang on."
Cross took the USS Crockett in a steep dive back towards New Jersey and the Lakehurst Naval Air Station where the smoldering wreckage of the Hindenburg lay crumpled on the field.
"That took the Suliban by surprise," reported Dexter. "They're falling behind."
"They'll be back soon enough," was Cross' grim reply. "We better make this quick."
No sooner had Cross made his dour prediction than a new barrage of explosion began rocking the little Starfleet vessel.
"That didn't take them long," he muttered angrily. Another hit on the aft shields sent on overload into the ship's systems, causing an entire row of display screens at the rear of the cockpit to blow out in a shower of sparks. The pounding didn't relent. Hit after hit rocked the Crockett. The reverberations made his teeth rattle. Cross tried every evasive technique he could think of, then stated making up new ones, but all were spectacularly ineffective. The ferocity of the Suliban attack was overwhelming.
"I guess we should be happy the Suliban are trying so hard to kill us now," he commented. An especially powerful hit jolted the ship.
"Are you kidding?!?" exclaimed Dexter.
"It means they've guessed that we're trying to beam someone back and will stop at nothing to keep us from succeeding. That means we're on the right track," Cross explained. "I just hope the dog is the right choice," he muttered too low for Dexter to hear.
He opened the intercom to the transporter room. "Stand by. We're almost there. Wait for my mark..."
The range indicator on the sensor display rapidly ticked down the distance to the fallen Hindenburg. Cross watched it with one eye while trying desperately to keep the Suliban from scoring too many hits on the Crockett's failing shields. "Stand by!" he shouted.
The Crockett did a wild zigzag above the cloud tops causing the Suliban cell-ship's next volley of shots to miss.
"Drop shields!" shouted Cross to Dexter. "Energize!" he yelled into the intercom.
Ignored amid the belching smoke clouds and running emergency personnel, a distraught mother knelt in the mud consoling her crying child. The smoke stung her eyes and she could feel the heat from the blazing ruins of the Hindenburg prickling on the back of her neck, but even in the face of the terrible decimation of life around her, the tears of her son were by far the harder for her personally to bear.
"Don't cry, Billy," she cooed, hugging her son to her breast, tears of empathy forming in her own eyes. The strong emotions welling up inside her were as much a response to her child's crying than from the shock and overwhelming relief and thankfulness that they were both still alive after such a horrible tragedy.
"We'll get another dog," she said.
"I don't want another dog!" wailed Billy. "I want Max!"
"There there," crooned the mother, stroking the little boy's hair and silently praying for a miracle.
Hidden by the oily smoke and unseen by human eyes, a four-legged shape coalesced out of a cloud of scintillating gold sparkles. It raised its nose into the air and sniffed, searching for one particular scent, then loped off, barking joyfully.
Billy raised his head from his mother's shoulder and looked through the swirling smoke. He thought he had heard something. He wiped the tears from his eyes to clear his vision. There! A familiar shadowy form galloping straight towards him through the obscuring haze! Yes!
"Max!" cried Billy as the big, exuberant dog bowled headlong into his young master knocking him into the dirt and started licking his face.
Billy's mother could do nothing else but sit back in disbelief and marvel at the happy reunion, and thank heaven for small blessings.
"Transport complete!" sang Jo's triumphant voice across the ship's intercom.
"Good work," replied Cross. "Now get back up here." He turned to Dexter. "We have to keep the Suliban from killing everyone on the ground or this is all for nothing."
The instant Jo and Alex were back in their seats, Cross sent the Crockett into as tight a turn as the already-overtaxed SIF could handle, heading straight back towards the Suliban cell-ship. It was a game of chicken between two comparably-sized ships, but it was a game Matthew Cross couldn't afford to lose, for to do so meant the destruction of the future history of humanity.
He let his thoughts wander back to the time-travel-induced vision he'd had of himself standing at the altar, and the woman with lovely almond eyes and short brown hair standing beside him smiling. If that glimpse of things to come had any chance of coming true, he couldn't fail here.
Taking a deep breath and holding it, Cross tapped the phaser firing control. Brilliant blue bolts of energy slammed into the nose of the boxy cell-ship, sending it spiraling away. Cross didn't relent. He kept the Crockett tight on the Suliban ship's tail and pecked away at its shields with continuous phaser fire.
Apparently, the Suliban decided that it wasn't going to come out of this fight the victor, because it suddenly angled sharply upwards and rocketed away from the Earth back into deep space. A roughly circular region of space in front of the fleeing ship began twisting around itself, reaching tendrils of energy across the sky seeking to pull in anything they touched.
In a blinding flash of white light, the Suliban ship dove straight in and disappeared.
"Another time warp, Captain!" said Jo from her seat at the rear of the cabin.
"No kidding," snapped Cross. His fingers danced across his control board, and before the vortex could collapse, the Crockett dove in after the Suliban vessel. His ears were filled with a roaring like the end of the world and then everything went white again.
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