Lasting Chaos

Posted on Mon Sep 6th, 2021 @ 12:03am by Captain Thomas Ward

Mission: The Story of a First Contact Launch Day
Location: Earth
Timeline: Current

Alarms were blaring. The red alert klaxons were going haywire. Debris had fallen onto the floor and many of the consoles were either destroyed or steaming. Thomas Ward struggled to climb back into the command chair after being rendered unconscious just a few moments prior. However, most of the bridge crew had suffered much worse.

“Report!” The Captain bellowed.

The Lieutenant Junior Grade at Tactical rose up to her station after being thrown to the ground. “Shields are gone, phaser banks are nearly destroyed, our torpedoes nearly depleted.” The junior officer heard a beeping from her console. She tapped at her console to figure out what it was. “Shit. Two more herald ships on an intercept course Captain.”

The Luna class ship was in rough shape, just like the other Alliance Vessels in the Sol System. The Titan was being pursued by two Herald vessels just above planet Earth. If the Iconians took the Human homeworld, the war would be over. The Alliance would lose the war. The Iconians would likely take over the Alpha Quadrant, and quite possibly the rest of the Milky Way in time. Being of intelligence background, Captain Ward had higher clearance than most. A few hours prior when the Titan was enroute to Earth, he was made aware of a classified plan that the Alliance would use to turn the tide of the war, or rather stop it from occurring at all. In other words, time travel.

Normally the Temporal Prime Directive would strictly forbid the use of time travel for this reason, but the war wasn’t going well. But nevertheless, the Department of Temporal Investigations made sure that the plan at hand was going to be highly classified. Hell, Thomas wasn’t even allowed to know everything about the plan. All he was able to know was that three ships were going back in time to change the war in their favor. How? He didn’t know. All he knew was to hope that this plan would work, and he knew that he needed to defend Earth at all costs.

“The Heralds are firing their main weapons at us!” continued the officer at Tactical.

“Reroute emergency power from forward shields to aft, and fire aft phasers, highest setting possible.” He ordered swiftly to the Tactical Officer, then began to give the Helm Officer orders. “Mr. Rollins, evasive maneuvers Beta-Delta-Three.”

“Aye sir Beta-Delta-Three.” The Helmsman carried out the order, tapping at his console. The Titan continued in one direction. The point of Beta-Delta-Three was to enable evasive maneuvers, but without changing the main course.

Simultaneously, the Titan fired at the Herald vessels, damaging both of them, but not before they could fire on the Starfleet ship.

The Herald energy weapons hit the Titan, with only a few shots that missed. Beta-Delta-Three only worked well with Akiras and Norways, but anything at this point needed to be done. The bridge shook violently. The Captain clenched to the side of his chair. “Damn Heralds are precise.” The Heralds fired again on the Titan causing the bridge to shake again.

“No shit.” the officer at Tactical retorted. There would be time for language reprimands and formalities later. “Captain, our phasers are offline.”

“I’m through with these bastards. How many torpedoes do we have left?”

“Two Quantum and Four Photon torpedoes. Shall I use them sir?” The officer asked reluctantly.

The Titan would be defenseless in terms of weapons. Ward thought for a moment. The ship may have been over thirty years old, but she still had some old tricks up her sleeve. “Mr. Rollins, slow us to one quarter impulse. Make it seem like we’ve been disabled. Lieutenant Holland, at the same time, eject the plasma from our warp nacelles. Most likely our enemies will fire on us. As soon as it seems like they are going to fire again, unleash the favor on them first. Two Photons and One Quantum torpedo for each. On my order.”

“Dropping us to one quarter impulse power Captain.” Rollins called out.

“Holland, release the plasma.”

Soon enough, Lieutenant Holland released the warp plasma. “Sir the Heralds and firing their weapons again!”

“Fire.” He said simply.

As the enemy fired their weapons, the Titan fired her own, disabling one ship and destroying the other. The disabled ship became caught in Earth's gravity resulting in the vessel being finished off in Earth’s atmosphere. However, the Titan had suffered even more damage and was rendered defenseless, and the Battle for Earth was still going on.

“Damage report!”

“Hull breaches on Decks Ten through Seventeen, as well as Decks A and B. Main power is offline.”

“Captain, we have lost all control of the Titan.” Added the Helm Officer. “And from the looks of it we are being pulled into Earth’s gravity ourselves. There is no escaping it.”

He sighed. He didn’t want the Titan to go down like this. If they had shields, they could possibly crash safely on Earth, and salvage the Titan later. But they would suffer the same fate as one of the Herald Vessels. There was no time. They had to abandon the Titan before she entered the atmosphere. He’d have to make an order he didn’t want to make.

Thomas rose up from his chair but kept his eyes on the viewscreen. “Abandon ship.” He said quietly, but loud enough so his officers could hear him give out the evacuation order. The evacuation klaxons began to sound. The Titan would likely be remembered and replaced. The Titan had a good run, with many remarkable Commanding Officers.

The bridge crew were the last officers to escape. Captain Ward insisted on being the last off. He remained for a few seconds to look over the bridge one final time. It was a sad fate. But one for history to remember. He stepped into one of the final pods to leave the ship. As the pod left the ship the Starfleet Captain watched his first Command disintegrate into shambles on the Titan’s re-entry into the atmosphere. Then there was another loud blaring sound.

The loud sound was his alarm set for 0400 hours. He sat up on the side of his bed and spent some time thinking. It had been nearly a year since the Battle of Earth. However, he kept reliving the Titan’s destruction. These nightmares had been occurring for a while. They had been occurring less so in the past few months. Most likely so since he was busy with overseeing the construction of the new Titan.

After waiting for a few moments, he got up and went to his replicator in his kitchen and made some coffee. It was raining on that dark morning in northern Maine. Many argued that it was more logical to utilize his quarters on the Titan, but he wanted to make the most of whatever time he had left in his Cabin. Then he heard a beeping sound coming from his PADD. He didn’t really have any meetings for today, aside from a few updates from certain personnel from the Titan’s temporary skeleton crew. But then it dawned on him. It was March 1st.

Ward groaned realising why his PADD was essentially blowing up. He was one year older. He picked up his PADD and made the decision to scroll through whatever messages he got. He wasn’t opposed to the day. However, he liked to keep things more lowkey. As he was scrolling, he stopped on one that was rather important. It was from William T. Riker. They had only had basic conversation, and in passing, but nevertheless, it was nice getting a message from one of Starfleet’s greatest, especially since Captain Riker used to command the former ship to bear the name Titan

After he finished his coffee, he went to his room and put on his uniform and got ready for another long day preparing the Titan for her estimated launch date, which was already nearly a month away. Since it was nearing the time he usually went on-duty, he quickly grabbed his PADD and went outside. He quickly paged the Titan to beam him up so he could begin his day.