“I’m Captain Chris Harriman of the Federation starship Dragon,” Chris replied.

“Harriman!” the Vorkalai said in a loud tone. “You killed my brother!”

“He no doubt attacked us,” Chris stated, shrugging.

“If I didn’t have other orders, I’d detonate that bomb this second!” Per’tar stated loudly.

“Spare me the humanitarian crap,” Chris stated. “Get out of here before we do destroy your ship.”

“Don’t make threats, Captain,” Per’tar said before laughing quietly. “I’ve got the drop on you.”

“Perhaps” Chris stated. “But no doubt our positions will soon be reversed.”

“Don’t make idle threats, Captain,” Per’tar stated, a look of extreme anger on his face. “Back your probe off.”

She barely caught it. A slight signal from the Captain. Perkins didn’t know how to interpret it. What was he signaling for her to do?

“Or what,” Chris said, obviously stalling. Unfortunately, the Vorkalai saw that as well.

“Stop stalling,” Per’tar stated. “Back the probe off NOW!”

Perkins suddenly realized what to do. She immediately began working…

“It’s gone!” some one suddenly shouted to Per’tar.

“What?!?”

Chris smiled, for Perkins had interpreted the signal correctly. “Commander, beam that bomb away from the nebula, as far as our range will allow,” he ordered.

“Aye, sir,” Perkins replied. She entered the command and once again transported the antimatter bomb. They wouldn’t have been able to beam the bomb out of the nebula had the probes not been in place.

“Transport successful,” Perkins stated.

“Enter the weapons command code V-187,” he ordered again.

“Code entered and transmitted through the probes,” Perkins replied.

“Weapon’s down!” some one said again.

Per’tar glared at Chris. “We may not be able to conventionally detonate the nebula, but can you stop our core from going critical in ten minutes?”

Chris glared at him, then signaled for the comm to be cut. “Helm, enter that nebula, full thrust. Do NOT use impulse power.”

“Aye, sir,” James replied.

“Put us between the two probes,” he continued. “Perkins, coordinate with the Britar cruiser. Have them beam whatever signal we send to them as far away from the nebula as possible. Target the lead ship’s core and prepare to transport as soon as we are in position. We’ll be the signal booster.”

“Good thing they don’t use a matter/antimatter core,” Sarah commented quietly.

Chris smiled. “Indeed,” he replied.

A few minutes passed by, James reported, “We’re in position.”

“Energize,” Chris ordered.

Chris waited, anxiety building up in him. Hopefully there would be enough distance. If not, then 40 parsecs of space would be destroyed. If they succeeded, they still needed to get 2 more power cores beamed away.

“Transport successfully beamed the core far enough away,” Perkins stated. “Nebula is unaffected.”

“Transport the other two,” Chris said. He sighed and slumped in his seat. They had done it. But they still had a job to do.

Not more than a second after Perkins declared the last core thrown clear of the nebula, Chris ordered, “Helm, plot us a course to those ships. Prepare timed bursts of the tractor beam to push those ships out, one at a time.”

He then looked at tactical. “Ada, prepare to beam those Vorkalai off of their ship into holding cells. We don’t want them blowing an air lock or something.”

Ada nodded, “Aye, sir.”

“Approaching the Vorkalai ships,” James reported.

“Begin tractor pulses,” Chris ordered. “We can’t cause a single micro-spark, so be careful, Perkins.”

“Aye, Captain,” Perkins replied. “Beginning pulses.”

“Helm, take us out,” Chris ordered.

A quick pulse hit the Vorkalai ship as the Dragon began to move forward, causing the Vorkalai ship to begin movement. Another then hit, guiding it in the right direction. And yet another. This series continued until they emerged from the nebula.

When emerged, they put up a full tractor on the ship and towed it to a safe distance. They then went back for a second one, and that’s when the problems began.

“Sensors show five minutes to a hull breach,” Perkins stated in an alarmed voice.

“Damn,” Chris said, staring at the ship on the view screen. It would have to be cut short. “We’ll have to pick up the pace a little. Let’s go, people!”

The ship had barely come about when the pulses began. The Dragon never slowed down, almost ramming the Vorkalai ship as tractor beams attempted to speed up its progress through the nebula.

The few minutes flew by quickly, Chris’s pulse beating rapidly as they did so.

Finally, with only thirty seconds to spare, they emerged.

“Engaging full tractor,” Perkins stated.

“As soon as we’re fully clear, engage full impulse,” Chris ordered.

“Engaging now,” James stated immediately. On the view screen, showing the aft of the ship, the nebula began to immediately become ‘smaller’ on the view screen.

“Massive hull breach…!”

Perkins never had a chance to finish as debris hit the Dragon’s deflector shields, causing it to lurch to one side.

How ever, the lurch subsided rather quickly, and the Dragon ceased its movement. Perkins released the tractor beam.

Chris smiled as he said, “We’ve definitely been through worse than that.”

“Captain, we’re receiving a distress call from the Omtara sector,” Perkins suddenly stated. “From a rather large group of Britar battle cruisers!”

Chris frowned. “Let’s hear it.”

“This is the Anotair battle group to any Hintaru ship,” a gruff voice stated. “We are being attacked by a massive Vorkalai ship! Unlike any thing I’ve ever seen before! It’s tea**** *s apart! Please! We ne** ******** **lp! ***** than any other ship on records!…”

The transmission abruptly ended. It left an impact, though.

Chris was speechless. So far, the Vorkalai have thrown thousands of ships against even a small fleet of Britar ships, and the Britar came out victorious. This massive ship had to be more powerful than any thing the Dragon crew had ever seen…even more powerful than a Borg ship.

“Set a course to intercept that signal,” Sarah suddenly said in a commanding tone, making up for Chris’s loss of words. “Warp 16!”

“Course laid in,” James stated.

Not more than a second after he said that, Chris finally said something. “Engage! Have the Britar cruiser take the last ship out of the nebula.”

The ship leapt into high warp, going towards an unknown destiny…

“We’re approaching the location of the distress signal,” Perkins stated. A sensor alarm Chris had never heard suddenly sounded. He frowned, wondering what it was. Then he remembered what it was. An alarm that went off only when a temporal anomaly was detected. He had heard it a few times on the Enterprise.

“I’m detecting severe temporal distortions in this area of space,” Perkins stated. She turned around, a frown present on her beautiful face. “They are severe enough to destroy us, so I suggest we stay back.”

Chris pounded the arm rest of his chair in frustration. But then he realized that if the Dragon could be destroyed by the disruptions, so would the Britar ships. “All stop,” he ordered.

The stars immediately returned to their normal state of being stationary. Perkins turned back around to face her console.

“Any idea what’s causing the temporal anomalies,” Chris asked.

“None,” she said. Then, in a confused, yet surprised voice, she said, “Captain, they aren’t just distortions in time, but in the space-time continuum itself!”

Chris frowned. “How is that possible?” Though the two were related, disrupting the space-time continuum itself wasn’t easy for any normal non-god like beings. Disrupting the space-time continuum in even one small area could have adverse effects on something trillions of parsecs away. Could even cause certain species to go extinct before even coming into existence. The possibilities were endless, but most of them weren't that wonderful, either.

“I don’t know,” she replied. “But there is a faint trail of this type of distortion leading away from this area of space.” She looked to Chris. “Leading towards Vorkalai space.”

“Follow the trail,” Chris ordered.

“But sir…” Perkins began.

“I know,” Chris said harshly. “We’ll be heading right into controlled Vorkalai space. We have no choice. If it’s what I think it is, we’ll need every advantage against this that we can get, which includes intelligence.”

At first nothing happened. “James!” Chris shouted louder than he should have.

“Uh, aye, sir,” James said, obviously hesitant about heading out of the protection of the Defense Platforms. “Course plotted.”

“Engage at maximum warp!”

The Dragon leapt back into warp speed again, this time only going to warp 15. Not more than a minute into the flight, though, a sensor alarm sounded on Perkin’s board.

“Captain, an area of half of a light year has been effected by the same space-time distortions,” she said, shocked. “It’s taken out a large portion of our defense perimeter!”

“Damn!” Chris said. Now there was no way of knowing… “All stop,” he ordered. “Hail the defense base.”

Immediately, Admiral Piarn’s face appeared on the screen. “Captain,” Piarn said as he nodded.

“Admiral, I think I may have some bad news,” Chris stated.

Piarn frowned. “What sort of bad news?”

Chris sighed. “Well, for one, we have a huge gap in the defense perimeter,” Chris said.