Open are the doors of the Horizon [✱3]

Posted on Mon Mar 10th, 2025 @ 3:21am by Captain Rovak & The Commander & Lieutenant S'Lace & Lieutenant JG Eris sh'Rhavar & SubCommander Saa & Lieutenant Commander Atna & Lieutenant JG Akaar Zuul & SubLieutenant Attania Viren & Lord Akhenaten
Edited on on Mon Mar 10th, 2025 @ 4:45am

2,830 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: The Serpent's Tooth [3]
Location: USS Excalibur, Unnamed Star System, Universe E5
Timeline: 2155 - MD06

“Captain’s log, stardate 79690.39. We are six days into our first exploratory mission of another universe. Although we did not immediately notice in the excitement arrival of our Toa friend Mana’i, the anomaly had connected us for the first time to a region of space within range of other objects. We have found an entire star system positioned on an outer arm of a galaxy that appears quite identical to our own Milky Way.” Rovak said, standing up to walk around the 23rd century bridge as he continued.

“The system is uninhabited, but on a class-M planet we have discovered a mineral with quite remarkable superconductive qualities, we have already transported a sizable portion back to DS13. Aside from the mineral, there is very little else remarkable in the system, but we have taken thorough surveys that the teams back aboard the station will review in depth. In approximately two hours we will return to DS13, leaving approximately three hours until the next shift in the anomaly’s gateway. I am hopeful that the next destination the anomaly bridges us to has so much to discover. End log.”

Over the next couple of hours Rovak reviewed the status of the teams in preparing their departure, and glanced at the data they had collected. Other than information about the mineral, there was nothing that stood out.

The transporter chief reported twenty minutes ahead of schedule that the last shipment of the mineral had been beamed up. In view of the time to spare, Rovak ordered one last orbit be taken around the planet.

Halfway through the orbit, an alarm flashed at the helm. Rovak checked the chronometer, it was 2355. Still more than three hours until the scheduled shift.

Akaar had reassured his friend Rune, stressing that he would remain absolutely on guard at all times. He understood that the lieutenant had been through a great deal—at least from what little Rune had shared—but the Violanari officer found his friend’s protective instincts to be a bit excessive. Akaar hoped Rune would learn to temper them soon. If the issue arose again, he might have to suggest that Rune seek counseling.

His thoughts were interrupted by a rapid series of chirps and beeps from his console. Looks like we have company, Akaar mused, his bright yellow eyes narrowing. Unfortunately, the sensors failed to confirm the incoming vessels' affiliation, though one unmistakable detail stood out—the use of transwarp or something similar. Worse still, there were a lot of them, and they were arriving fast.

"Captain," Akaar reported, his voice firm, "we have six unidentified ships approaching at transwarp speed. ETA: ten seconds." His hands moved instinctively across the console, reinforcing tactical readiness.

"Helm, how long to get us back to the anomaly?" Rovak asked sh'Rhavar.

“I can have us back at the anomaly’s event horizon in…” Eris sucked in a breath through her teeth as she did a quick calculation.

“…three minutes, best possible speed, Captain,” Eris finished. Her thin fingers flew over the console in a cyan blur as she prepped the necessary commands.

Rovak realised this was a moment to try something. He opened a comm channel with the button on his chair. “Rovak to Commander. I wish to inquire if this vessel has a cloaking device.”

“Sure.” Came the Commander’s voice a moment later.

“Thank you, Commander.” Rovak said, closing the channel.

“Any time!” The voice responded.

"Engineering, this is the Captain. I understand we may now be in possession of a cloaking device. Can you confirm?" Rovak asked.

A moment later, Saa's ratcheting buzz emanated from his armrest.

"Things just got a little whimsical down here, Captain. Give me a moment."

It took a moment for Viren to process that an entire new system, fully integrated, had just appeared within engineering. The systems responded to it like it had been there all along.

Saa let out a calming breath as the results of her preliminary diagnostic flashed over her neural link. "I can confirm that a new system has appeared in Main Engineering and seems to be functioning," she reported.

Rovak didn't need further explanation. "Mr Zuul, activate cloaking device."

They had a cloaking device. Oh, the Romulans weren’t going to like that. Technically, Starfleet hadn’t built it—the Time Lords had. And, conveniently enough, just as the Captain had asked for one. Akaar mused on the irony; while the treaty hadn’t been blatantly violated, using a cloaking device was still prohibited. He wasn’t sure how the Romulan Free State would react should they ever find out.

Not well. And he certainly wasn’t going to be the one to tell them.

His fingers danced over the console as he quickly located the new controls linked to the recently installed camouflage system. Unlike the Romulan and Klingon designs he was familiar with, this cloak lacked the usual indicators of either technology—no signature distortions, no energy bleed-throughs, no familiar residual traces. This was something else entirely.

The Commander had clearly whipped up something utterly fresh.

Akaar studied the specifications for a moment, intrigued by its distinct mechanics. Then, as the Captain’s voice cut through the hum of the bridge, he set curiosity aside and executed the order. "Cloak engaged, Captain."

The ship's presence faded from sensors as if it had never been there at all.

Akaar’s bright yellow eyes flicked over the readings, ensuring stability. Let’s see how long we can stay invisible before someone notices. He asked himself.

S'Lace had not had much to do in regards to her assigned duties. However she did take ample time to study sensor reading regarding life forms on the M class planet below. She wondered if any of the humans had given it a name; humans quite enjoyed doing that. They would likely name it after one of their ancient deities, or something comforting like "New Haven". Or something utterly silly like "Bob".

And...then came the red alert. Without a word she exited the bridge to head to Sickbay. It seemed the peaceful planetary survey just come to an end...

Eris glanced around the bridge, looking to see if the cloaking had…well…changed anything. She couldn’t see that anything was different. Nothing was transparent or translucent that wasn’t before the cloak dropped into place.

Eris turned back to her console and let out the breath she’d been unwittingly holding, forcing her mind to focus and her nerves to relax.

Five ships dropped from superluminal speed with individual flashes. They each had a golden pyramid in their centre, surrounded by a symmetrical wedge-shaped lattice at the base that extended from the points of the pyramid. Two of them were damaged, one of them badly, it burned and left a trail of debris as it went. The three apparently undamaged ships flew ahead.

The latticed pyramid vessels moved with purpose, the undamaged ones were on course for the gateway. Akaar’s bright yellow eyes flicked over his tactical display as he initiated a quick scan, evaluating their potential threat level. Nothing alarming. Two however, were damaged, one of the two was in worse shape then the other. Akaar wondered if the Captain was going to order that the Excalibur move to assist them or simply sit here and watch them or move to block their passage into our universe. Akaar noted that the black lattice work does have a certain Borg quality to it, like the Borg could have designed it.

"Captain, the latticed pyramids are headed toward the rift," he reported crisply. Akaar interpreted their flight pattern suggested deliberate intent, not aggression.

His gaze returned to the tactical display, ensuring there were no unexpected variables. For now, the ships weren’t hostile—but in his experience, that could change at any moment. Another signature popped into existence on sensors.

“Send an encrypted message to the station, text only. Advise them to go to yellow alert and prepare for incursion.” Rovak ordered.

A message was dispatched, encrypted of course.

A moment later, another ship emerged, a long, sleek, industrial vessel, obviously designed with a completely different ethos to the pyramids that emerged earlier. Almost immediately after its deceleration finished, blue particle beams lanced out from the new arrival to the leader of the three pyramid ships.

The new contact registered on sensors, dropping abruptly to normal speed. Akaar's bright yellow eyes tracked the vessel as it settled into realspace—clearly a different affiliation than the latticed pyramids. Though he shouldn’t assume anything just yet. "Captain, another contact just arrived," Akaar announced, his voice calm but alert. It seemed this was going to be a very busy day.

His fingers moved swiftly across the tactical console as he initiated a focused scan of the newcomer. The vessel was sleek, with an industrious, streamlined design, very different from the geometric structure of the latticed pyramids.

Akaar's brow furrowed, but he kept his reaction measured. Before he could make any sense of the readings as weapons fire came from the sixth ship. "They’re firing on the pyramids, Captain." His fingers instinctively tightened on the edge of the console as he continued, "It seems we are witnessing a conflict." Of course, they could all see that for themselves now. The viewscreen filled with streaks of blue beams and golden pulses, illuminating the void like a silent, chaotic storm.

And just like that, their situation had become even more complicated.

The particle beams punctured the shields of their target easily, blasting through the outer superstructure surrounding the main pyramid shape of its hull. All three began firing pulses of golden energy back at the attacker, it moved to swerve around their fire, the distance between them gave it plenty of time. The attacker fired another particle beam at the second ship, which impacted the zenith of the pyramid, blasting it clean off.

The results of both vessel types displayed on Akaar's tactical monitors, being compared to each other. "Captain it appears the latticed pyramids are using a plasma analogue weapon while their enemy has tetryon based weapons." He knew they'd possibly be a threat to Starfleet shielding but with the Excalibur, he wasn't sure. Perhaps he should ask. "Commander, is tetryon energy capable of affecting your ship's systems?"

"This ship has the same limitations and vulnerabilities as any Starfleet ship." The Commander explained succinctly through the sound system.

"Thank you Commander." Akaar said, that's good to know, so no special treatment.

Rovak watched intently. He knew they could not interfere, but once the ships entered the Dreizhen system, they were his responsibility.

The newcomer ship had nearly caught up to the slower ships when they too began to open fire on it. It paid no attention to them and discharged another tetryon beam, this time puncturing the hull of the third vessel, causing it to slow.

"The plasma weapons on the pyramid ships seem to be almost entirely ineffective against the aggressor's shields. All of the pyramids now have hull breaches." Atna reported.

“Helm, can you get us to the anomaly before they reach it?” Rovak asked.

“ETA to anomaly: two minutes - if we break off now, sir,” Eris reported. Her right hand hovered over the “execute command” keystroke, wavering only slightly with a nervous tremor.

"Get us there, best possible speed." Rovak ordered in response to the Lieutenant's assessment. "Full stop once we cross back through the anomaly.

Eris nodded and acknowledged the order, deftly punching in the last of the sequence. The Excalibur heeled over and around as she swing her dish toward the anomaly. Eris brought the ship to full impulse to sprint back, knowing she’d have to gauge when to shut down the engines so that she didn’t cause the Excalibur to drift into the anomaly.

An alert flashed across Akaar’s console—one of the lesser damaged latticed pyramids had suffered a critical engine failure or a sudden power spike—it was hard to tell which. What was clear, however, was its new trajectory—a direct collision with the sleek, industrious aggressor.

"Captain, one of the pyramids is on a collision course with their enemy." Akaar reported, his tone sharp with urgency.

The less damaged of the two lagging pyramid ships veered suddenly off it’s course and into the passing newcomer ship. It exploded against the sleek newcomer’s shields, but the attacking ship seemed to have lost all control, and it careened into the other wounded pyramid ship, destroying them both in an even bigger explosion.

“Shields!” Rovak ordered as he saw what he knew was a high-energy reactor breach. The cloak dropped and the shields rose, just in time to shield the constitution-class ship from damage. The blast buffeted the vessel slightly, but in a moment they had steadied.

"Captain, the aggressor," Akaar prompted with concern as he continued to track the sleek industrious vessel's movements. His Violanari instincts told him that the attacker would probably follow soon if not now. He found that it had actually been destroyed when that earlier collision happened.

They were preoccupied by the need to stop the pyramids from entering the rift that it hadn't been noticed. "Their enemy was destroyed in the collision sir." Akaar reported, "there is still debris from both ships present." He hinted to Commander Atna. He wondered if she'd be interested in the debris for analysis, but knew better to voice the idea. It wasn't his department, but he was curious about what their hulls were made of--for tactical research of course.

Once Atna had steadied herself, she re-checked the readings. "Captain, the pyramids are 30 seconds from the anomaly. They're heading directly into it." Atna wondered what these beings knew about the anomaly.

Eris instinctively grabbed the Navigation console’s contoured sides to ride out the shot to their shields and once the ship had settled back down, she focused on the chase. She had a tendency to think in small-craft terms but that could be a good thing too…like now. Her fingers flew over the controls as she nervously bit her lower lip, anticipating the visitors’ next move.

“Open a channel.” Rovak instructed, knowing they were already at best possible speed. Frak did so.

“This is Captain Rovak of the United Federation of Planets. You are heading towards an anomaly in spacetime that will take you into another universe. The other side is our territory, and we may take entry without permission as an act of aggression.” Rovak explained.

“No response or acknowledgement, sir.” Lieutenant Frak at Comms announced.

“Unidentified ships; stop now, or you will be disabled upon entering our territory.” Rovak instructed again.

The Excalibur shot across the space between where it was and the anomaly, but even its superlative engines could not get fast enough quickly enough, and it breached the anomaly a moment after the last of the trio of pyramid ships.

“You are ordered again to stop, or you will be disabled.” Rovak said, tapping the button on his chair to open the channel again once he was sure they were all back in the ‘vanilla’ universe.

The lights on all three ships started to flicker and die, and soon they were floating on nothing more than their own inertia, all their systems were down.

"Captain the readings are showing that something aboard all three ships attempted to power up and failed, leading to power outages across all three ships." Atna didn't have enough information to say what, but her instincts told her it was some sort of propulsive system.

As soon as the other ships shut down, Eris pulled back on the throttle and put the Excalibur into a high, banking circle, putting the phaser banks in the best possible position to fire accurately on the opposition. Then, the tone of the captain’s voice changed and communications indicated that the other ships were communicating, Eris brought the ship to rest next to the other ships.

“Captain, they are broadcasting a message, text-only. All three ships are broadcasting the same. ‘Kal mah’. Over and over again.” Lieutenant Frak explained.

“Hail them again.” Rovak instructed. Frak gave him the okay signal. “Unidentified vessels, this is Captain Rovak. Please explain your message. What is kal mah?” There was silence for a moment, lights began to switch on again within one of the pyramids.

Suddenly, an image appeared on the viewscreen. It was a man dressed in proud golden armour, he resembled a spacefaring Pharoah from Earth’s ancient Egypt, his voice was deep and booming. He was surrounded by what appeaared to be tall, strong human men with identical symbols tattooed onto their foreheads. “My name is Akhenaten. We seek sanctuary.”

"Interesting," S'Lace murmured from Sickbay. This was not expected. Sanctuary from whom? From persons with them on those ships, or were they running from someone? And if they were fleeing, what sort of vessels did they possess?

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