Chapter Text

Bottom Warp

Prologue

Space is big. Really big. So, the chances of your hyperdrive failing at the exact time and place that an interdimensional tear in the fabric of reality opens up are, well, quite small. At least a billion trillion to one. Yet here they are, tumbling through space and time in an Omicron-Class Attack Shuttle – the one in an umptillion.

Alarms were blaring all around them, tools flying uncontained, and the little lady in the flight console was begging them to “pull up” for dear life. Colours and shapes were spinning outside, dazzling all the occupants. Fortunately, a bit of turbulence made sure that the tallest one’s face was safely out of the way of an incoming torque wrench.

“TECH, WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!” he yelled as a bit of sealing tape thwacked against his forehead.

The one named Tech replied almost immediately, a rainbow of lights flashing over his face. “I am unsure, none of the instruments are responding to my control. None of these readouts make any sense either – if they are correct, then we are somehow both everywhere and nowhere at once.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Wrecker asked again from the back.

“It means hold on to something! Tight!” Hunter shouted behind him from the co-pilot seat. He heard a light clanging noise in response, and dodged out the way of the still loose torque wrench. It smashed safely into the transparisteel window in front of him instead, denting it slightly as it bounced back and landed firmly in his hand. “And can we please tell that woman to SHUT UP”

Echo was also behind them, fiddling away with the ship’s systems and seeing if the sensors could give them any more information. He switched his attention to the flight console for a second, and the incessant pleas for them to “pull up” were finally silenced. The cyborg went back to his tinkering.

It was at this point that Tech piped up: “Ah! I think I can perhaps gain control if I just…” he pressed a sequence of buttons into the console, and there was a loud thunk as the rear engine shook itself into gear. Almost as soon as they had stopped spinning, the shapes and colours outside the ship grew more and more comprehensible. Slowly but surely, they swirled around and formed a starscape – one that was unfamiliar to all of them.

Wrecker was the first to unbuckle himself and get to his feet. “What… the hell… was that…” he said between breaths.

Hunter was the first to follow, but it was Tech who spoke up. “It seems that our hyperdrive must have failed in a very peculiar way, I haven’t heard of anything like this happening before. Wherever we are, we must be very far from home.”

“Do you think we’ll be able to get back?” Omega chimed in for the first time since the ordeal started. She was already down from her perch in the gunner’s nest and comforting Gonky, their resident GNK droid, who had been swept up in a maelstrom of loose bits-and-bobs and was horribly dented from the ordeal.

“Before we can know that we first have to know where we are. Our first course of action should be to get the navigation computer functional again, only then can we plot a course home.”

Echo was still rooting around the systems, and spoke up. “Actually, the nav computer is working fine… it seems miraculously unscathed, which is something I can’t say for the rest of the ship. The hyperdrive, for one, is completely broken.”

“If it’s working, then why isn’t it telling us where we are?” Hunter asked, confused and mildly annoyed.

“Maybe we’ve somehow ended up in the unknown regions, navicomputers always go on the fritz there.” Omega suggested, still picking out pieces of shrapnel from their beloved battery on legs.

Hunter seemed to think for a second. “How would you-” he sighed, “never mind. Perhaps she’s right, and we are in the unknown regions: how do we get around it?”

“It is possible; hyperdrive malfunctions have been known to throw people wildly off course, but never this far.” Tech swung around in his chair and readjusted his glasses. “If we really are in the unknown regions, I do not think we will be able to get back unassisted.” He said, a hint of concern in his voice.

“So what, we just stick on the distress signal and wait for some Unknown Pirates to show up?” Wrecker grunted as he helped Omega with a bit of debris that was particularly stuck inside Gonky.

“That does seem our only course of action, unless one of us is secretly force sensitive and can tell the future.” Echo looked up. He had been looking back through all the sensor records of the event and found a… blip among all the nonsense, a symbol that he had not seen before: a circle with a line struck through it. He took note of this, and then disconnected from the terminal.

Tech pressed a few buttons on a console and then turned once again to the group. “So: Are we all in agreement? Should we activate the distress signal?”
A second, then nods all around. Tech turned back to the console and pressed the final button for a wide band distress signal. It began to emit a bleep, a whirr, a hum, and then it promptly blew up.

A ship, purple and like nothing they had ever seen before, screamed overhead as they went into another tailspin. Tech recovered faster this time and slammed on the throttle. Wrecker bolted towards the rear blasters and everyone else strapped themselves in for a bumpy ride. Gonky tried to make himself as small as possible in the corner.

Another explosion, this time hitting the Marauder’s left wing and tearing a massive hole through it. Echo was forcibly disconnected from the ship’s computer by the resulting jolt in the rest of the craft, causing painful feedback in his head. He gritted through and plugged himself back in, getting the shields online just in time to tank a direct hit to the main body of their shuttle. A hit that would certainly have spelled their quick deaths.

The ship in question was a mechanical wonder to the man in the pilot’s seat – such a large vehicle, and yet it could turn on such a dime. The ship’s engines were on the sides of the ship instead of the back, and the whole thing was bright purple! Speaking of its turning capabilities, it seemed to be coming around for another attack run…

Tech was on it instantly, firing everything he had at this insectoid warship coming at them. All the shots landed but none of them seemed to have any effect, the ship kept barrelling towards them seemingly not bothered at the possibility of crashing directly into them. Were they so confident in their shields that they could survive a direct collision? He dreaded to think and instead intensified his focus on the enemy, calculating its trajectory and angle of attack, concentrating on where its fore weapons were. The fighter lit up its weapons and Tech immediately threw The Marauder into a rightmost spin, narrowly dodging the also purple beams of energy as well as the incoming craft itself.

“Wrecker, my weapons appear to be useless. You’re up!” Tech yelled to the gunner’s nest, and heard the familiar blaring of ion cannons in response. He hoped that where his laser weapons had failed in damaging this warship at all, the aft’s ion weaponry would succeed in at least denting its shields.

The biggest clone tracked the swerving craft with a practised expertise, firing volley after volley of ionized bolts into whatever sort of deflector shield they had. The strange bubble around the ship that evidently formed its defence started to flicker, as if confused by the ionized particles slamming into it in rapid succession. They must be damaging it!

The speed on this warship was immense; it could shoot from being behind the marauder to being in front of it in seconds, which was exactly what it did once it realised that the aft weapons could actually do them some damage.

Although now that it was in front again, it didn’t seem to come about for another attack run. Instead it just hung there in front of them, taking all the hits from The Marauder’s laser cannons. As if to taunt them.

But it wasn’t taunting them, as Hunter could see, for a small hatch silently opened up on the underside of its belly. He knew immediately what was going on and wrenched Tech’s arms causing them to spin wildly out of the way of the incoming torpedo. It didn’t look like any of the proton torpedoes they were familiar with, but they had managed to dodge it nevertheless.

“Thank you, Hunter.” He continued his volley of fire into the rear of the ship to no avail. The shields didn’t look even a bit damaged.
Unfortunately, it was at this point that they heard a familiar “Guuuyyys?” from the gunner’s compartment; the torpedo had changed course and was following them. Figures.

Realising this, he slammed on the afterburners and went into another controlled spin. The ball of blue light flew underneath them and in front. A sigh of relief.

Until it detonated.

The Marauder’s small profile was nothing against the power of the torpedo’s blast. It was instantly thrown backwards as the ball of blinding light and fire hit them, cancelling out and reversing their inertia like a hand swatting a fly. The wings snapped off like cheap plastic. Their tiny shield generator simply couldn’t take the strain and overloaded, causing each of the shuttle’s systems to fail one by one until they were left in darkness. No life support, no stabilisers, no thrusters. They were stuck spinning out into whatever expanse they found themselves in. Surely, they would at least get the mercy of being finished off by this strange attacker. Surely, they wouldn’t be left to slowly suffocate – or freeze. Whichever cruel fate befell them first.

None of them could dare to speak, until Hunter was the first to break the silence. “Is everyone okay?” he said, clicking on the light on the bottom of his comlink. The ship was in ruins, panels on the side were blown out and debris was scattered everywhere. Tech was coming to in the pilot seat, and Wrecker was slowly climbing down from the gunner’s nest.

“Yeah, I- I think so” Wrecker strained out.

“That’s good. Tech? Echo?” and then his light fell on Omega. She was unconscious, with a large gash on her forehead. He ran over and unstrapped her from her seat, gently lowering her to the floor. Wrecker grabbed a cushion from her nest and placed it under her head.

“She needs medical attention. Soon.” The ship was still spinning, but it was somehow managing to gradually slow itself. Echo was fiddling with some circuitry, hopelessly trying to restore power in something. Anything at all.

“We are dead in the water, life support is offline, and we still don’t know where we are.” Tech stated. “The first thing we need to do is send out another distress call. And to do that, we need power.”

“You’re right, I’ll do what I can to stop the bleeding for now. Echo, any Progress?” Echo shook his head solemnly.

“Well that’s just great. We’ll suffocate out here then.” Wrecker complained, throwing his arms up in annoyance.

“Not quite. The ship still has air for another day or two, especially since Omega is unconscious. Of course, with life support offline we’ll start suffering from the effects of hypoxia sooner than that. But that’s not the real problem here.” He gestured towards his mouth: his breath was visible. With all the anxiety in the room, none of them had realised just how cold it was getting.

“We’re gonna freeze to death long before we suffocate.” Hunter realised. He gestured to Wrecker, who quickly grabbed a blanket and wrapped it around Omega.

“So did that ship forget about us or what?” Wrecker said softly, looking up and out of the window.

The Marauder’s uncontrolled spin had now come to a slow drift, the stars no longer dizzying streaks but soft reminders of just how lost they were. The enemy vessel was, fortunately or not, nowhere to be seen.

“They attacked us and then left us for dead? What the hell kind of pirates are they?!” Hunter said, confused and frustrated.

“What, would you rather they finish us off?” Echo took a pause from his tinkering to look up at them. His face solemn.

As if summoned by the hopeless thoughts running through his head, Omega suddenly groaned awake. “Whuh? Guys? What… what happened.” She tried to lean up but immediately regretted it.

“Don’t try to move, Omega. You got badly hurt in the fight.” Hunter grabbed her hand and squeezed it gently. “We’re trying to restore power, but until then we’re on our own.” He got up and walked over to Tech by the window, putting his hand on his shoulder.

The starscape before him was unfamiliar, yet somehow comforting. Even though all the stars seemed so wrong and out of place… it still felt nice, still felt right. He thought about the fate that was becoming likelier by the second, colder by the minute. Everything seemed hopeless. He turned around and smiled to Omega. At least she wasn’t dead yet, and as long as she was then he wouldn’t give up hope. None of them would, she simply wouldn’t allow it.

As much as any situation seems hopeless, there is always a way. Always the slightest chance of a miracle. As much as it seems that the universe really has it out for you, and that nothing can possibly fix the situation… but maybe, just maybe, the universe has other plans for you.

Omega managed to prop herself up on a box, and smiled back. Behind him she noticed a streak, a flash of light. The intercom sputtered to life as Echo finally let out a victory sigh.

This is Captain Sisko of the USS Defiant. Can you read me, Marauder?