A Broken Teacup

This is a work of Fan-Fiction set in the Star Trek universe. If you're unfamiliar with Star Trek, I hope you'll find the story stands on its own merits. The events take place concurrent with

Start Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country,

and although I mention well-known characters, places, and scenes, this tale is not about them.

Disclaimer: Star Trek, its characters, settings, ships, sentient species, fictional technology, and in-universe canon are the property of Paramount and the various authors who created them. None of the material in Star Trek is owned by me. This is a work of creative fiction written under Fair Use rules. It is not intended to infringe upon any rights, copyrights, or intellectual property held by any person or corporation, nor shall it be published or distributed for any form of profit or compensation. This is just for fun, people.

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"Red Alert! Red Alert! All hands to stations!"

The captain's voice somehow carried over the klaxon blaring through the tiny cabins and corridors of the USS Chandrasekhar, NCC-675, orbiting a small dead planetoid in the Archanis sector of the Beta quadrant, near Klingon space. Chief engineer Gordon Delgado abandoned his sandwich in the galley and careened onto the bridge.

"What's happening?" Saarsh, the Andorian first officer, arrived at the same moment, blustering past Delgado towards captain Niv.

"Subspace shockwave. It's Massive," growled Rrawwl, the Catian helm officer. "Shields at full. Won't be enough."

"It will reach us in eighty-six seconds. The wave carries nine point four times ten to the twenty-third petajoules of energy," explained T'Laan, the Vulcan Lieutenant at operations. "In normal space. Subspace effects are unknown, but they will be substantial."

Everyone stopped for a heartbeat. That much energy would destroy the ship. There'd be nothing left but dust.

"Options." Captain Kraagla Niv snapped. Normally, the Tellarite woman would be affectionately insulting everyone. The crew was used to it. Her uncharacteristically abrupt order put a sharper edge to the danger.

"Steer into it. Put warp power to the shields." Rrawwl knew, as well as everyone else, that while it made sense, it would not save them.

"Maneuver into the planetoid's shadow. Or make planetfall on the lee side of where the shockwave hits." Saarsh understood that Oberth-class ships like the Chandrasekhar could not make planetfall safely. If they lived, they'd be stranded on a dead rock incapable of supporting life with no guarantee of rescue.

"Insufficient," said T'Laan, "Gamma Apophis Four Beta will be destroyed by the wave. The ship would be caught in a maelstrom of debris moving at near relativistic speeds. We would not survive."

"Flaco, give me something." The captain looked sternly at Delgado. He'd always felt awkward about the nickname.

"Uh, we, uh, we go to warp. Directly away from the center of the blast. The warp field might resonate with the subspace part of the wave and work like a shield. We could catch the wave and ride it, to dissipate energy, instead of just getting smacked." Delgado frantically worked his engineering control display. "Looks like warp, uh, four point something. Four point two. And, uh, divert emergency power into the shields and structural integrity field."

Kraagla Niv glanced around at her bridge crew. More than two years of working together let her read their expressions as clearly as any computer display.

"That might work,"

said the way Saarsh held his antennae.

"I've got nothing better,"

said the curve of Rrawwl's tail.

"Working,"

said the cant of T'Laan's pointed eyebrows, as a staggering amount of math poured through her green-blooded Vulcan brain.

"Do it. Recall all personnel from the surface. Emergency transport. Don't bother telling them, just yank 'em back up," the captain barked.

"Already done," said Saarsh, from the meager tactical station. "All personnel on board."

"Course laid in," called T'Laan. "Bearing zero three eight mark one four two, warp factor four point one eight nine."

"Go, you lazy furball!" Kraagla Niv was back to her old self. Rrawwl's paws were ready on the controls.

"Engaged."

An Oberth-class isn't much of a Starship. The Chandrasekhar was a research vessel, surveying ancient outposts of the species known to the Federation as "The Burrowers," and to the Klingons as the "Hur'q," who, centuries ago, occupied that sector and large portions of the present Klingon Empire, even Qo'noS itself. The ship carried only fourteen officers for three shifts of bridge rotation, twenty-five enlisted personnel, four of whom were Delgado's entire engineering staff, and thirty-one civilian xenoarcheolgists and xenoanthropologists from various research institutes. She was overworked, underpowered, and unappreciated.

The Chandrasekhar's nacelles energized and the starfield blurred into warp. Her normal cruising speed was only warp five, so four point two was a significant portion of what she was capable of. She made the crew feel it with a subtle groan of effort.

"Energy wave closing, bearing one eight zero mark zero." T'Laan called. "Thirty seconds to contact."

"Onscreen."

The forward viewer lit up with a display of visual noise. It looked to Delgado like a malfunction, until he realized they were seeing a nearly flat wall of chaos bearing down on them from the rear. The computer had colored invisible effects with angry magentas and purples. Small numbers pinpointing peak energy glittered like sunlight across the surface of the wave, rolling and ebbing. It might have even been beautiful, if it hadn't represented a torrent of certain death.

"Flaco, bring the warp reactor all the way up to critical. Emergency power. Prepare to divert warp power into the shield generators and structural integrity field."

"Ready, Sir." The captain favored the Starfleet tradition of using the male honorific regardless of gender. She'd been 'Mister' Niv since her days as an ensign, despite the fact that, by Tellarite standards, she was a ravishing beauty. Apparently, there was a special something about the beadiness of her eyes and the curvature of her tusks.

"T'Laan, do something useful with that hot garbage between your pointed ears. Is this going to work?"

"Pehaps. The energy wave is dissipating as a function of the inverse cube of the distance from its source. We've already created a greater chance of survival. Commander Delgado is correct that the warp envelope will mitigate the effects of the subspace propagation. Twenty seconds to contact."

"All Hands, this is The Captain," said Niv through the ship's intercom channel. "This is an emergency. We are about to be struck by a very powerful energy wave, origin unknown. We will sustain damage. Sickbay, stand ready to receive casualties. Everyone, prepare to Brace for impact."

"Ten seconds."

"Warp power to the shields now, Flaco."

"Reactor at one hundred six percent. Warp power to shields. Warp power to Structural Integrity."

"Five seconds."

"Brace, Brace, Brace. Captain out."

"Three. Two. One. Conta..."

A riot of light and darkness seized the ship, as if struck by a freight train and buried under a tsunami all at once. The ship's artificial gravity sheared off, then slammed back on inverted and then down again, tossing everything and everyone around like the viscera of prey in the jaws of a playful targ. Relays blasted open, showers of sparks flew and blooming flames rampaged through the bridge and the whole rest of the ship. Displays flickered off and powered back up, stunned and confused about what they were supposed to show, damn near impossible to read through the smoke and chaos.

"Shields holding... Reactor core at one hundred eight percent. One hundred ten percent and climbing," Delgado called out. He could only see out of one eye and had lost feeling in his left arm.

"Multiple hull breaches, all decks," said T'Laan. She'd lost her seat and was clinging to her console. "Emergency bulkhead seals holding. We've lost one hundred fourteen millibars of atmospheric pressure."

"Captain, we're at warp five point four!" Rrawwl shouted over the blaring klaxons. "Reducing power!"

"NO!" Called Delgado. "We've got to ride it out!"

"STEADY Mister Rrawwl!" The captain barked.

"Five point four and holding." Rrawwl's fur was up, and parts of it were singed, but he held fast.

"Reactor one hundred twenty percent," Flaco could taste blood in his mouth and his vision blurred in his one remaining eye. "She's going critical. We can hold it a few more seconds."

"It's working!" yelled Saarsh, "Energy wave dissipating. We survived the first hit, we're through the worst of it. We're in a secondary..."

The words never came out. If they did, no one heard him. The entire bridge lit up as white as the core of a sun. The inertial dampeners flickered, and everyone was thrown forward as though they'd hit a wall. The main viewer cracked and failed, pummled with the bodies of the crew. Flaco dragged himself, somehow, back to his console. The reactor... SHIT. One thirty-eight.

"Reactor critical! Failing!"

"Cut the power!" Commanded Niv.

"It's no good!" Rrawwl scrambled at his controls. "We're about to lose containment!"

"Eject the core!"

Flaco pulled the handle as soon as captain Niv's words were out. She was somehow beside him, next to Rrawwl, who'd clawed his way back to the helm, frantically working the controls. "Maneuvering thrusters, turn the belly towards the core, the explosion might..."

There was a sound too loud for anyone to hear. The concussion would have deafened anyone still conscious enough to experience it. Flaco noticed the darkness, and accepted his death quickly and gratefully.

***

...then he awoke, after a timeless time, to the sound of a bio-bed gently chirping. There was light, and a dull ache which was probably a great deal more pain than he could process. He could feel both his arms, and after checking around for a bit, both his legs. He could not move. Perhaps that was the bed's restraint field.

"Doctor, this one's awake."

"Good. Now we can move him." Jirex Na Soth, the ship's Edosian Chief Medical Officer, quickly wobbled over with the triangular gait peculiar to his three-legged species. "Gordon? Blink twice if you can hear me and understand me." His elongated brown face emerged into Delgado's restricted field of vision. He found the doctor's stilted, high-pitched voice oddly soothing, in his haze of confusion.

Blink. Blink.

"Excellent. You've suffered a severe concussion and brain swelling. We've reduced the cerebrospinal pressure and it's well regulated now. You have multiple contusions and several broken bones, which we've already mended. Your kidneys are bruised, so you'll be sore for a long while, and you can expect blood in your urine for the next few days, but there was no other major internal organ damage. You also burst a blood vessel close to your optic nerve. That's why you can't see out of your left eye, but we've repaired that and your vision should restore itself fairly soon. Do you understand so far?"

Blink. Blink.

"Very good. Ordinarily, we'd keep you in the bio-bed until you're fit to return to quarters and complete your recovery, but unfortunately, we need it. We only have four, and there are other crew members who will die unless we move you out early. You've been unconscious for nine hours. Do you understand?"

Blink. Blink.

"Excellent. Captain Saarsh will hold an impromptu meeting of the surviving senior staff here in sickbay, as soon as you're up to it."

Wait... CAPTAIN Saarsh? What about...?

Oh, Dios.

The doctor had just slapped him with the news of Kraagla Niv's death. The message was clear; the crew had a duty to the ship and her present captain, and they were not yet out of danger. Mourning them would have to wait. Delgado nodded numbly and stirred against the restraining field.

"Easy now." Jirex was joined by a Denobulan woman in civilian grey coveralls. "Seeflax will attend to you for the time being. She's the one who found you and got you off the bridge." He dismissed the field and helped Flaco down. The woman's arms were around his waist, supporting his weight, and his own arm went around her shoulders. He'd have fallen if she hadn't held him up, his legs felt like useless rubber.

"Thaaak" was all he managed to say before coughing up something he didn't want to think about. "Thaank youu." Ugh.

"Some water?" She had a cup already. Flaco grasped it weakly, so she helped hold it to his lips. Jirex snuck up behind him with a hypospray and administered something that cleared the cobwebs from the engineer's mind and infused his limbs with strength.

"Take it easy, Commander. I know you're feeling better, but it's smoke and mirrors, I'm afraid. Your injuries are still there, you're just able to dismiss them right now because we need you awake and alert. The hypo will wear off shortly and you'll need your rest." Jirex turned his attention to the new patient in the bio-bed Delgado had just vacated- one of the enlisted men. Noor? Was that his name? Flaco was not good with people and didn't spend much time with those outside his immediate circle. With a spiraling sense of dread, he realized he'd have to readjust to the changes in the ranks from death and injury.

He turned to the Denobulan woman. She was attractive enough, he supposed, looking at him with her oddly flexible face. She was squinting slightly, her pursed-lip smile disturbingly wide.

"You're..."

"Seeflax. Just Seeflax, in this context. Denobulan family names are used relative to the company we're in. Since it's just me, I'm just me." He was still staring at her. The woman was clearly stronger than she looked, though Flaco knew it was easy to make wrong assumptions about other species. "I'm a xenoanthropologist with the Rigelian Science Academy. Although right now, I suppose I'm a medic."

"Good. Um. Thank you. I'm Gordon. Uh. Lieutenant Commander Gordon Delgado. I'm, ah, the ship's engineer."

"I know. Doctor Na Soth let me know how badly you're needed. You've got a lot of work to do, time is critical, and there aren't any resources to spare. They say the ship's in pretty bad shape."

"That's putting it mildly." Saarsh entered the small sickbay. The Andorian's scarlet uniform was still scorched and in disarray, spotted with his blue blood. He'd unclasped his tunic at the shoulder, allowing the dirty white lining to show across his chest. "I'd normally do this on the bridge, but since we're all here, and Jirex needs to keep working, we'll make this quick and be out of his way."

"All here?" Delgado glanced around.

"You, me, Jirex, and Rrawwl are the only surviving senior staff, Flaco. Captain Niv and Lieutenant T'Laan didn't make it. Rrawwl is temporarily acting as First Officer. Laparin, from Beta shift, is now the senior officer at ops. He has the conn and he's already been briefed." Delgado remembered that Laparin was a Bolian he'd seen around, but didn't know very well, since they'd been on different shifts. The man was bright blue, like all his species, and had a prominent vertical seam bifurcating his head and very likely his entire body. Flaco nodded at Saarsh to continue.

"All right, everyone. We've sustained major damage. I don't have a complete casualty report, but we've got something like twenty to twenty-five dead or critically injured personnel, and many more injuries of various severity. That's way beyond our ability to deal with. Doctor Na Soth is doing all he can, but I've ordered everyone who's physically able to help locate and render aid to any survivors. We had seventy souls on board when the wave hit. As far as functional crew, we're now down to maybe half of that.

"Life support and artificial gravity is holding. Main power is nominal. Whatever that was, it seems to have energized all the systems it didn't overload. The impulse reactor is online, but we don't dare use it. The inertial dampeners are down and we've lost hull integrity, so the stress of propulsion would tear the ship apart. The transporter systems seem to work; we've had to use them to rescue injured personnel all over the ship. That's it. That's the good news.

"The ship's superstructure has been heavily compromised. I think the only thing holding us together is the Structural Integrity Field, and that's only because Flaco supercharged it before we got hit. We've got multiple hull breaches and we've lost fifteen percent of our breathable air. A lot of our available power is keeping the force fields up so we don't lose any more. Beyond that, I think we blew out every plasma relay on the ship. The EPS is fluttering power all over the place, and the computer systems are only working across backups and emergency reroutes. That means all our systems are disrupted. Deflector shields are gone. Replicators are mostly inoperative. Turbolifts are unreliable. The comms systems are down, we can't hail anybody.

"And, of course, we have no warp drive. The initial hit seems to have completely destroyed both nacelles. We ejected the core, which blew up immediately. Captain Niv saved the ship by ordering the helm to put the unmanned gondola between the primary hull and the exploding core. Rrawwl barely did it in time. That explosion seems to have disrupted part of the wave and shielded us from the remainder of the effect. We'd all be dead if not for their prompt action, and for Commander Delgado's idea to shield us with the warp envelope and create precious distance. Thank The Ice for that inverse-cube effect. I'm putting you all in for commendation, whether or not we live through this.

"Help is not, I repeat, NOT on the way. The closest starfleet vessel to our last position was probably the Excelsior. Captain Sulu had to have encountered the same energy wave we did, and we have no idea if they survived. Even if they did, we have no way to contact them, and I'm sure they've got enough problems of their own. They might ask US for help.

"So, that's it. We're dead in the water. This vessel is now Starfleet's biggest life pod. No comms, no warp, no impulse, and we're still falling apart. Even using the maneuvering thrusters is risky. We're in basic survival mode, everyone. Your orders are to live, save whoever else we can, and make whatever repairs we can manage. Flaco, I'm afraid you've got the worst job in the fleet right now. I'll need engineering's assessment within two hours. I'm sorry."

"Yes, ah, yes, Sir."

"Dismissed. I'll be on what's left of the bridge." Saarsh stepped over four people lying prone on the floor of the overworked sickbay and made his way out.

"Why does he call you 'Flaco'? I thought your name was 'Gordon.'" Seeflax was still holding on to Delgado, seemingly concerned about his ability to stand. She guided him gently into sitting on the floor while he gathered himself together.

"It's, um. It's an insult. I mean, not... It's a Civil Insult. Like a nickname. Captain Niv, well, you know Tellarites. They insult everybody as a way of, uh, showing respect, I suppose. She calls Lieutenant Rrawwl 'Furball.' She calls Saarsh 'Blue Devil.' I think that's an old slur from the Andor-Tellar war, before the Federation was formed."

"Yes. I've worked with Tellarite scientists. They're a fascinating people. Very noble. Very strict about their social codes. Their capacity for civil insult makes them very capable diplomats. I find them delightful."

"It was a, a kind of difficult adjustment for me. I mean, until I got to know Captain Niv. I mean, uh. Humans from Earth? Most of our insults are about each other's parentage and mating practices. It turns out that's the one thing you CAN'T insult a Tellarite about. They consider it Taboo. I didn't know that at first and embarrassed myself. They love it when you call them smelly, or lazy, or stupid, but you absolutely cannot say 'bastard' or anything like that."