Across Borders
“Commander, the warp engines are failing!” - “Do we have enough momentum to overhaul them ?” - “No Ma’am. We have to…” Lt.Cmdr. Jefferson did not have enough time to finish the sentence, before Jade MacKinnon shouted into the intercom: “Then stay at warp as long as possible!” - “Aye Ma’am. But that would damage the warp core beyond repair.” - “Do it!” Thomas was obliged to follow that order, even it was against his better justice. But noone on the bridge would know, how long the warp core could really last this lasting overload. So he decided to turn off the engine, just a few seconds before the core had taken to much damage. The drive, that the ship still had could not last very long, for the warp field collapsed almost instantaniously, but it lasted long enough to bring them close enough to the uncloaked Romulan vessel, to fire a marking beacon. The beacon was magnetically locked on the Romulans hull. “Let’s hope the Romulans don’t have time to remove the damn thing”, Jerry mentioned rather blunt. “Let’s hope so, let’s hope so”, Jade was a little absent minded. “Thomas, how long do we have to crawl at impulse?”, Cmdr. MacKinnons voice came out of the speakers in engineering. “At least two more hours.”, the chief engineer replied, “but we are doing our best, to make it earlier.” - “Very good! Go on!” They were almost at the boarder to the Romulan neutral zone. Jade summoned the staff officers in the situation room: “We have to make a decision. Do we cross the border, or not? I’m all ears for your suggestions.” No one spoke. After what seemed like hours, Alexa finally said: “I think I’m speaking for all of us, Commander. We should go after those bastards and try to get our Captain back.” All the others nodded agreeingly. “Very well. I am about to violate a direct order from starfleet. If anyone has an objection to this I shall note it in my log.” As again no one spoke, she stood up and dismissed the others. “Tom, a word with you. How long will it take to get warp back?” - “Maybe half an hour commander.” - “Okay. Do what you can. I don’t want to go on impulse once more.” - “Understood” He went of to main engineering. As Jade re-entered the bridge and took seat on the captains chair, Ens. Taylor noted: “We are now leaving federation space.” - “Where is the warbird?”, Jade wanted to know. Solak answered right away:” We still have them on long range scanners, but they are to far away to give you the correct distance.” - “A qualified guess would be alright with me.” - “They probably reach Romulus within the hour.” - “Then let’s hurry up. Full impulse.”
“I - WON’T - TELL - YOU - ANYTHING!”, Cpt. Martin shouted at the top of his voice. “There is no need to be rude, Captain. Just tell us what we want to know and you are free to go.” - “Ha! You don’t believe that yourself, do you?” That last sentence sounded almost a bit sarcastic, if it weren’t for the situation Martin was in. “Look”, Jarun sounded very calm, “we can play this game otherwise too, but I don’t want to mistreat you, honestly”, he obviously did his best not to kill the Captain where he sat. Cpt. Martin sighed: “OK! All I can tell you is, …”, he stopped midsentence. “WHAT?”, the Romulan was in rage. “Ah, nothing. Nothing at all!”, and he grinned blue-eyed in the aliens face.