Approaching Storm

One Cat's Eye class scout and only three Banshee class starfighters lifted into orbit above the planet Serenity. Captain Matthew Cross had not been a happy man when Carter and her two remaining squad members finally arrived in the Banshees' hangar, partly because of their tardiness and partly because of Max's abrupt departure.

His steely voice clicked over the open comm channel. "The *Baris* and *Lurry* are already half a lightyear ahead of us." His voice still sounded somewhat accusatory. "Set course to 147 mark 3 -- warp 5. Engage!"

Safely removed from their commanding officer's ire in their starfighter cockpits, Lee Carter and the two other Banshees set the nav coordinates and punched their throttles at Cross' command.

As the stars outside her canopy smeared rearwards in a tachyonic rainbow, Carter pitied Ensign Dexter Gray for having to sit in the same ship as Cross, but then remembered that the young man was the only one among them who *hadn't* irritated Cross lately.

At warp five, it took only fifteen minutes to cover the half lightyear to the two Sherman-class cargo drones, which had automatically slowed to sublight at their approach. As the four Banshee vessels burst from subspace in another rainbow display, Carter made a quick check of her tactical display. She could relax. Aside from their own blips and those of the *Lurry* and *Baris*, the scope was clear.

Captain Cross' voice buzzed in her ear again. "Commander, keep in tight formation with the convoy. I'll take the *Crockett* out ahead to make sure the way is clear. Lock your tactical maps into our sensor feed."

"Aye aye."

Carter watched her tactical display as the blip representing the Cat's Eye ship *Crockett* sped ahead of the lumbering cargo vessels. As soon as everyone was in place, she gave the order to resume warp speed.

At the robot freighters' top speed of warp 3, it would normally take just under 40 hours to cross the 15 lightyears to the Polon system, but the proximity of the Briar Patch, with all its subspace instabilities and hidden sandbars would stretch that out to more than triple! That meant 5 days of crawling along at a snail's pace with nothing to do but sit and stare out at the unchanging stars. In a few hours, Carter's team would begin rotating in shifts, two Banshees remaining on patrol around the convoy while the third slept and relaxed inside the *Crockett* while the empty fighter flew alongside on autopilot.

Until then, Carter settled herself more comfortably in her seat and prepared for the long haul.

Time marched on... It was the middle of the afternoon on the second day out from Serenity. Carter and Jo were keeping themselves amused by trying to see who could fly their Banshee closest to the robot ship's subspace transceiver antennae without clipping them with their wings. Inside the Cat's Eye ship *Crockett*, Dexter Gray and Alex Dalton were alone in the rear crew module doing whatever it was that a young couple did when left all alone... That left Captain Cross up on the control deck, occupied with his own thoughts.

The helm of his ship had been acting strangely all morning. At first it had been nothing serious, just a minor curiosity, a slight tendency for the ship to drift off its programmed course towards the fringes of the Briar Patch. Over the last twenty minutes however, it had become pronounced enough that he was beginning to worry about it.

He thumbed the intercom switch.

"Cross to Ensign Gray. Report to the cockpit immediately."

When Dexter Gray's startled voice came back over the intercom, he sounded like he'd been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. "Right away, Captain!"

Seconds later, a flushed Ensign Gray burst into the cockpit followed by Ensign Alex Dalton. Dexter dropped into the copilot seat and busied himself with pushing buttons and peering intently at readouts... anything to avoid his captain's stern gaze.

Cross noted that Dalton's uniform was on crooked. He allowed himself a tiny inward smile, but on the outside kept his 'mean' face on. He addressed the perky, blonde fighter pilot. "Ensign, you might want to return to your Banshee and rejoin your wing commander. Something unexplained is happening and I want everyone ready for action."

"Aye, Captain," replied Alex smartly, and after flashing Dexter a parting smile and wink, darted back out the cockpit door heading for the *Crockett's* transporter room.

Cross's index finger was inches from the ship-to-ship comm switch when Commander Lee Carter's voice crackled through the speaker grille.

"*Griffon* to *Crockett*, come in."

"What is it, Commander?" replied Cross, but he already knew why Carter was calling. She had detected the same anomaly he had been watching.

"Sir, Lieutenant Schmidt has been monitoring a persistent course error for the last few hours, but it's gotten a lot worse in the last few minutes. It seems to be especially affecting the two robot cargo ships. They're becoming more and more resistant to the course corrections we feed them. It's almost like something's trying to pull them and us into the Briar Patch."

Cross frowned and quickly checked the sensor logs. Yes, there it was. The robot ships were being affected as well as the three Banshees. Damn! How could he not have noticed that? He'd been too busy worrying about his own ship and not the ships he'd been assigned to protect, that's how. He mentally flogged himself with a wet noodle.

"Stand by," he said into the comm. Then, turning to Dexter, he snapped, "Scan the nebula in the direction we're being pulled. I want to know what's there."

Dexter worked his console for a few seconds, turning the Cat's Eye vessel's impressive suite of sensors in the direction of the anomalous attraction. It didn't take long to gather preliminary results.

"I'm reading a planet in a small solar system just inside the edge of the Briar Patch, sir," he reported. "It's not on any of our charts. There's some very unusual subspace waves around it, and some of them are being projected in our direction. They could be deforming with our warp fields, making us veer off course like this."

Another uncharted solar system..., thought Cross. There were plenty of those within the bounds of the Briar Patch -- the twisted subspace folds and radiation pockets of the area meant Starfleet would be discovering new planets here for decades to come. But this strange subspace interference was something completely new, and it threatened his mission.

"Relay the data to the Banshees," Cross ordered. "Then prepare for a course change. I'm taking us directly away from this new planet. It'll mean the convoy will be late arriving at the Polon colony, but that's better than never arriving at all."

"Aye," replied Dexter, but even as he moved to comply with the captain's orders, the *Crockett* was wracked by severe tremors which grew steadily worse. Around him, the metals and polymers of the bulkheads began groaning in protest.

Cross' fist pounded on the comm switch and he shouted to be heard above the rising din. "Report, Commander Carter! What's happening to the robot ships?"

Carter's voice came back over the radio. "They're definitely under the influence of something! They're starting to shake!"

Jo interjected her own observation across the open channel. "They're starting to shimmy!"

Determined not to be left out, Alex added her own synonym. "They're starting to, uh... shudder!"

Any annoyed retort Captain Cross might have made was cut off by a sudden, violent lurch of the deck under his feet as his ship was unmistakably and ungently yanked from its programmed heading towards the Briar Patch.

Behind the *Crockett*, the two robot cargo drones and the three tiny Banshee starfighters rolled and tumbled, but were all equally powerless to fight the irresistible force that was drawing them at warp speed towards the uncharted planet.