Time's Price VIII: Tapestry of time...

Time's Price VIII: Tapestry of time...

Star Trek: Excelsior featuring…
Star Trek Deep Space Nine | Cavalier Squadron

Based on Star Trek created by Gene Roddenberry

Concept by ThunderChyld and Ruahforever

Time's Price VIII:  "Tapestry of time..."

USS Excelsior | NCC-2000
Mission Date: 4/11/2309

The bridge was unusually quiet today.  Hikaru was sitting on watch in his seat looking forward to his return to Federation Space.  After returning from Qo'Nos, the Klingon Homeworld, the time came for he and his crew to bring home something new.  Pavel Chekov was at the front and to the right at the helm station. 

Somehow, things seemed to start off normal enough.  Hikaru had considered contacting Starfleet about their successful endeavor with the Klingons in creating a new product.  With a little time and a little effort--and some help from an old Klingon warrior named Kor, they were able to create a smoother brew of Klingon Blood Wine.

After almost three weeks of spending time with the Klingons, Hikaru developed a more reknowned sense of appreciation for their race and culture.  Especially after sharing a new kind of brew for Blood Wine...  Kor liked it so much, he had to share that with the crew of the Kre'Hest.  Kor even stated that this was the best that has ever been made or produced.  Kor also promised that there would be songs sung about the wine.

Although Hikaru smiled at that, he felt that this contribution was small, by adding a mint tea extract to the mixture, it kept the sweetness and the over bite of the drink without taking away from the rest of the brew.  It complimented the drink very well.

After taking a sip of it on his own and sharing it with Pavel, both agreed that it was much better than the 2308 vintage.  "Wonderful stuff that bloodwine isn't it?"  Hikaru's deep voice called to Pavel while at the helm.

"You know, the Russians made the best Vodka--but I got to admit, you made the best bloodwine..."

The young lieutenant next to Pavel--Carolyn Richardson who was a blonde, noticed a chime on her ops panel.  "Captain Sulu, I am picking up something on our forward sensors.  It appears to be an ion storm bearing zero-two-zero mark three--distance four hundred thousand kilometers."

"Bring us out of warp. I want to take a closer look at this phenomena."

"Aye..."

As Pavel dropped the Excelsior to impulse power, they were able to witness a large ion storm directly ahead seemingly close in on their position.

"Sensors?"

"Sir, that is a class-4 ion storm.  Our shields will be able to handle it.  However, our transporters will be offline if we travelled through it," Carolyn added with a little of her southern drawl.

"Lieutenant, increase power to the shield generators to compensate."

"Power transfered, sir."

"Keptin, that ion storm is closing in on us fast...much faster than it should..."  Pavel observed with his finger on the 'trigger'...

"I don't like this..." Hikaru considered his options.  "Helm--ease us back from it, nice and slow..."

"Aye--engines back one-quarter."

Excelsior pulled back from the storm itself.  As Pavel guided the ship away from this disturbance, the ominous looking storm cloud continued to follow them.  This did not sit well with Hikaru at all.

"Mister Chekov, bring us about and take us to warp five..."

"Warp five, aye..."

The ship came around and as it was about to use it's powerful warp drive to leap into warp speed, an acid green beam struck the ship's aft shields directly with no warning.  Klaxons aboard the Excelsior flashed and blared--warning everyone to head to battlestations. 

"Maximum shields...what the hell was that?"

"Captain that was a coherent disruptor blast.  Our aft shields are down 38%!  I am rerouting auxiliary power to compensate--but that shot did a lot of damage to our secondary systems...I am also dispatching damage control teams..." Carolyn added as she struggled to get the damaged systems back online.

As the ion storm dissipated,  the true nature now had form...  This ion storm was created to hide a Romulan D'Deridex Warbird.  This was a ship that was over 50 years before it's time. 

"What kind of ship is that?"  Hikaru shouted over the damage.

"This ship is an unknown vessel...they are firing again...."

"Pavel--return fire!"

As Excelsior struck back with repeated phaser strikes and torpedoes, the opposing ship's shields were simply too strong.  The Warbird fired once more striking the upper dorsal impulse generators.  When it exploded, the ship lost all manuverability.  That shot also penetrated the shields as if they weren't there...