The Glacial Womb

William Chase was a first rate navigation officer. He would never back out of a good race. Good to the name, the boy liked to ran. Legend has it, he was born running. He was all about speed. He thirst for it, lived for it, and most of all he needed it. Without speed, Chase was an unstable man, like a beast in a cage. Chase grew up on the streets of the Titan underworld. The moon of fuel. Unlimited fuel that could be processed into H3, converted to antimatter, and powered the massive warp drives of warships all thought out the Federation. Chase never knew his parents, he grew up in an orphanage, one day the building caught fire, the kids evacuated, they could've went back, went to the authorities, but Chase knew that it would be foster home after foster home. So he walked away from the flames of the wet, cold, rainy night, and never looked back.

He spent his teenage years working retail, he worked his way up as an engine parts salesman for light personnel craft. There he learned all about starships and what it took to make them move. He would've been an engineer, he was a genius, but then one day he saw that great hyperwarp engine left towering out of the wreck of a gunship that crashed in the middle of the city. It was not uncommon, Titan was often attacked by pirates, and the Federation grew weaker every day. They had spread out thin in their bloody Campaign with the alien Empires that threatened there extra-solar colonists. Sol had become crowded, riddled with poverty, overpopulation and crime.

Chase inspected every part of the hyperwarp drive, until he grew tired slept under it, using the wreckage as shelter from the storm that followed. When the salvage crew arrived, he hid inside, he knew it was his big chance. They found him sleeping one day in the cargo hold of the salvage ship.  Refusing to return to Titan, Chase was offered a chance to join the Fenderation Galactic Navy.

Three years later, Chase was a junior navigation officer. Two years after working on a surveying ship, he was hand selected by nonother than Captain John Mautch, to be the senior officer to tactics on board an experimental starship called the frigate class FGN Lone Ranger.
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"Yes come in."
"Good evening, sir."
"How many times have I told you, I hate pleasantries, at ease lieutenant."
"Thank you sir."

He sat down on the opposite. Mautch was busy punching in some last final words in the log entry. Chase had something bothering him, he couldn't shake it off, but he was nervous about bringing up the main subject.
Mautch took a quick glance, and was clearly getting irritated.

"Well, spit it out man!"
"Sir, when are we going to use those reactionless thrusters, I've wrote so many algorithms in the simulators, they really are exciting."

Mautch stopped typing and laid down his pad.

"That's not what you came here for Chase, now spit it out, what do you want?"
He said coursely, in a very irated tone.

"Well....." He began twitiling his thumbs under the table and shaking his legs."...I've found my mother sir. She's on Virgil alpha.....and...."

"I see," responded the captain, looking down at his notes,"...yes." he said after a long pause.

Mautch noticed how Chase's face was hard and cold as a depressed marble statue. Clearly he was hopping Mautch to come up with some excuse about time is of the essence, but Mautch knew better. The man had never met her. It was time.

"Thank you sir, that's all I wanted to ask of you." Chase got up slowly and began walking towards the door never lifting his face from the ground.

"Bill, you know we'll only be in the system for a couple days for resupply. But..... according to my chief tactician, our targetting systems need a little tuning, so we might have a bit of a delay."

Chase didn't look at the captain, but smiled a little as he turned to face the hallway. Mautch knew he had made his day.
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Virgil alpha was a small planetoid, the entire planet was one big city. It laid on the outskirts of a brown dwarf approximately 10 astronomical units away. It was roughly the size of Pluto.
The LR landed on a massive floating platform that floated high above the city, it was connected to 4 other platforms via long thick masses of cables. A parking lot for starships.
Mautch and Salt accompanied Chase. They thought he could use the support.

His mother lived in an elderly home on the far side of the planet. It was supposed to be a nice place, Chase read that somewhere on a pamphlet he grabbed from one of the transfer stations. The planet was strict about manual transports, the planetary council insisted they took public transportation. In an attempt to seem inconspicuous, The men dressed as casual as possible - they even forgotten what it was like to be civilians again....perhaps it was a time to do so.

When they had arrived at the address, it was a huge old building with art decor and warm orange lights on the exterior. The building was clearly built for nostalgic reasons. The public shuttle landed on a sky walk nearby, and the trio stepped off into the square tunnel of dim lighting and red carpeting. This part of the mega city world was quiet. Nobody else left the shuttle.

Almost as if it was abandoned, they walked into a reception hall. In the corner of their eyes, they could see a the small receptionist lady, looking down on her monitor, tip tap typing away oblivious to the arriving party.

Chase stepped up, eager to find his long lost mother.

"Excuse me miss."

At first, she seemed to ignore him, but after a few seconds of pause, she raised her index finger, the one moment please gesture. Her finger fell back into the key pad she had been so busily typing away at.

They waited. And waited. Finally, she finished her sonnet of monotone key presses and looked up. With that, what are you still doing here look.

"How can a help you gentlemen?"
"We're here to find a Miss Bethany Finnegan."
"Of course, she's been expecting visitors, take the elevator down the left corridor, and get off on the 230th floor, room 230-9A."
"Thanks"

She went back to frantically typing. What could the lady be so busy about, there was not another damn living soul in the hallways, Mautch wondered.

They stepped into the elevator. Spotlessly clean and carpeted with the dim orange lighting as the rest of the place. Someone tried really hard to get this place to feel nostalgic.

All Chase could think of was what he would say to her. He was afraid of breaking into tears, wasting away the moment that he had been waiting for. To ask her so many questions, about her life, and his father. He had so many stories to tell her, so much catching up to do.

What bothered him the \most was weather she would even care at all. All these thoughts raced through his mind, he tried to drown it all out with the simple gratitude that his years in training, and breif few months in service had brought him this golden opportunity.

He was grateful for the people he worked with, especially the great invincibly luck Captain Mautch. Only five years as captain, and he's already made himself a great reputation. If it had been any body else, Chase knew he wouldn't have been so lucky.

The door opened, and the men stepped out.

"You ready?" Said Salt as he put his hand on Chase's shoulder.
"Yeah, thanks for coming with me."
"No problem."

Chase looked at Mautch, asking him a silent question with his face. Mautch understood, and nodded. Chase pressed the ringer on the door firmly.

A light lit up from the button to the center, and the door began slid open.

It was dark, a dim blue, green light took up the whole wall in front of him, and Aquarium. The dancing distortions from the waves cascaded all over the room. There was a silhouette of a woman, about 5 feet tall. Long white hair. Her pose didn't seem like she was old at all, her hair was like fine silk, no split ends or anything. If he had to guess, she wasn't old at all, her hair was just dyed white.

Chase hesitated to call her his mother, he couldn't believe a woman that appeared so young could be the woman that had given birth to him 23 years ago.

"William....I've been looking for you for a long time." She said. "I know you must be disappointed. I'm sorry."
"Who are you? I was given a message from fleet command that my mother was on this planet." He stepped forward, hoping for a profile of her face before she turned. He could see the ghostly reflection in the glass as her face was lit up by the water tinted light.

"My name is Irene. I am her clone." She turned her face slightly, and Chase could see her a little better. She was gorgeous.

"Our mother, William, was a brilliant scientist. She was one of the first volunteers of a deep space mission to find the source of life on our universe." She brushed her fingers through the hair on her shoulder, still not facing Chase fully.

Chase could recall some of the evolutionary theories on the subject from the academy. Life couldn't have begun without a special organism called the star seed. They planted life through out the galaxy. No one has ever been able to find one, because almost immediately after being exposed to a planetary atmosphere they disintegrate and reform into a form of life suited for the start of an evolutionary chain in that environment. Scientist theorize that this was the goal to true planetary teraforming. Not only could one bring the environment to a fully sustainable ecosystem, but also breed life completely unique from anywhere in the universe.

"Then why did you bring us out here?"
"If I had said I was your sister, there would've been too much explaining. And I couldn't be sure you would come at all."
"I would've come for my sister, you didn't have to lie."
"I need your help William."

She turned to face him, her face still unclear, darkened by the light from behind her. She touched her wrist, and the dim lights came on as she walked closer to him.

"We have to find her together, I need a ship that can travel into the New Greenland ice clouds. This trumps all priority, command has issued me as the lead scientist on this expedition. If you and your captain accept this mission, we'll be on our way."
"Captain Mautch, Lieutenant Salt."

The two entered the room.

"This is my....half sister Irene."
"Pleased to meet you ma'am", said Salt.
"It's very nice to meet you", the captain shook her hand next.

It wasn't much of an introduction, Chase was a little upset that his longlost sibling had lied to him on the first aquaintance. They all sat down. Chase and Salt interrogated Irene as Mautch thumbed through the orders, eyballing evry little detail.

"You're Dr. Sterling! Wow, you've got quite a reputation of extra solar explorations and research. These are orders from Admiral Johnston, how'd you convince him of this?"  said Mautch.
"One of the earlier colonist worlds were having troubles with their teraforming equipment, nature fought back, and they're now just decades away from total evacuation. The Admiral deemed that it was time to reopen the case of the missing FEV Stiletto. The reason why it was closed 20 years ago was because the ship had gone missing in a hostile environment in the middle of the neutral zone. The rescue ships never returned."

Mautch always had a soft spot for challenges, and he couldn't pass this one up.

"Tell me about mother, why did she leave us?"

Irene was clearly a few years younger than him, by about 3 exactly. She explained how his mother raised him until he was 3, gave birth to her, and was given a lead on the star seed. She sent the two home to Earth, the ship that carried the two was attacked by an enemy vessel, the entire crew died, and they were the soul survivors. Chase had no memory of it, he was badly injured, and froze in space. He was dead. But death in space wasn't so bad since it was one death that scientists had figured out a way to reverse. Chase was brought back to life, his memories of his mother and sister gone, but the pain was always there.

"So, it's up to you William."

He didn't even hesitate. "Captain, we should cut those repairs short, let's leave first thing tomorrow."

Mautch nodded, and they left. On the way out Chase asked,"Why here of all places?"

"This is our home, where mother's last residency before we left  for Earth."

Chase wanted to ask one more question, about his father, but he felt that she wasn't quite ready to share that. She didn't have a father, unless the laboratory needle counted.

They boarded the first shuttle out, returned to the Lone Ranger, and departed.

The Battle of Shadows

I remember, it was years ago, or perhaps just last year I'm not quite sure. I was playing the Federation campaign in Starfleet Commander, it was perhaps one of the most epic moments of my life. I had the game set on either Captain, or Commodore, which ever was right under Admiral - this level of difficulty was quite hard. But the following is sort of my rendition of what went down at this pivotal battle.

Bravo fleet

 Stardate 84932.4 At the edge of the Alpha Quadrant, our patrol ships have encountered what seems to be rip in space time bridging our universe with an alternate version of ourselves. Preliminary reports indicated ships and stations have been attacked by this menacing parallel fleet. We have confirmed they are fully armed and hostile since their arrival, the only thing in question is when will be able to track them down and put a stop to their crimes.

Captain John Mautch of the USS Lone Ranger has been dispatched to investigate this intrusion into Federation space. Upon doing so, he has discovered that his parallel self has been the lead on these series of gruesome attacks. Worlds, governments, entire species attribute these crimes to the Federation, and most severely of all Cpt. Mautch.

The Lone Ranger has finally cornered Para-Mautch into an isolated star system at the edge of the galaxy, Star System AZ-4432, here there are no planets, no stations, no backups, Mautch is going in alone, and it is likely that his enemy has more than one ship.

Mission briefing:

 Be prepared for whatever is on the other side.

Your primary orders are to destroy all hostile ships except for your doppelganger, you must bring him into custody alive at all costs, and clear your name.

Good luck and God speed.

Enter Mission (part 1):

"All systems report green Cap'n"
"Good, we're heading right into the eye of the storm"
"Sensors are picking up two, no three starships sir! one frigate, a heavy cruiser, and a battle cruiser class!"
"Damn, I guess it could've been worse"

The Lone Ranger began decelerating out of warp, and switched to impulse engines. The systems began to receive their divided flow of energy as the generators distributed power throughout the hull.

"Raise speed to half impulse, charge weapons to maximum, target the frigate"
"The frigate and heavy cruisers have locked on, they are charging weapons"
"Good, maintain speed until all weapons are fully charge, prepare High Energy Turn, prepare to deploy mines, bring down the speed as soon as all guns are fired, and prepare to reinforce shields on reload."
"Aye, aye sir."

Mautch was nervous, but he didn't show it. He could tell his shadow on the far side of the battle field was toying with him to see what he would do. The Lone Ranger was not a Battle Cruiser, but a Heavy Cruiser class, his opponent had bested him, at a more than 3-1 strength. That cocky fool, he thought. His enemy was had too much pride, he should've taken him out swiftly, or maybe he had something in mind- we'll see.

The two enemy ships were approaching at maximum speeds, their heavy weapons charging at half the rate of the LR, but still, they closed in on the firing range. Mautch had never been a fan of long range combat, he liked playing chicken with starships, the first to fire was usually the least to do damage, in space, and with energy powered weapons, one would have to fire at near fatal collision to get any serious hits, and of course to deal serious death blows. It was a deadly game of Russian roulette with phasers and torpedoes that each had the energy out put of a Hiroshma Bomb.

"They are in range sir, awaiting your command"
"Like always  Chase, bring her in close. You know the drill Salt, shotgun range, and ready that energy turn Miss Barto, we're gonna need every bit of those auxiliaries"
They all acknowledged swiftly.

Mautch knew that using the auxiliary power meant that there would be no hope if the main warp core was damaged or went off line. No backups, no hope. It was a gamble he was willing to make however. He needed to be decicive and take these ships down by force.

"Salt, phaser capacitor at 50 percent, aim for the frigate, and her weapons, disable her if you can, keep the engine intact. Torpedoes clear and straight through the frigate, just one. Set the other two on overload as soon as you fire, we'll come around for another pass on that enemy cruiser as soon as we're done taking care of the frigate."

The enemy were also in full view, growing larger filling the view screen as if they were giant ships about to squash the LR like a fly on a windshield.

"Forward shield! Maximum Power!"
As soon as he cried out that command, the two ships unloaded all their ammunition, in a clever ruse, Mautch was able to harden the ship just in time to absorb the impact. But it was not a light one, the forward shields collapsed instantly,

"FIRE!"

A firm order was given, Salt unloaded what he could, not too much or too little, the initial torpedo tore right through the flimsy frigate shields, and as the LR hovered over the smaller ship, she fired of the broadside phasers at every subsystem besides the engines. Quickly the ships sides burst into flames as the dazzling fireworks of  multi colored lasers tore at the sides of its hull carving a burning path as it glided along. Two mines were beamed into the path of the opposing cruiser as it moved away, the explosion lowered its shield efficiency by just 50%.
The LR now had its chance to make a counter attack, The cruiser fired of two or three more rounds of phasers as the LR made its sharp turn with all its reserves. The phasers struck a few critical subsystems causing some buckeling in the hull, The LR now faced the frigate once again.

"Energize! Get all the marines on that ship, send over Barto, get that ship up and running!"

The bridge took damage as well as the rest of the ship as the enemy cruiser started firing on it. Mautch was trying to take the frigate., shielding it with his own ship as his men did the quick work of boarding the dwarf ship.

"Fire Aft and Starboard torpedoes"

The torpedoes hurdled backwards toward the enemy frigate, taking out the rest of the shields, and causeing a direct hit in its saucer and deflector sections, the ship instant lost a quarter of its hull integrity, it was good enough to get that ship on the run, but they'd come back for another round for sure.

Mautch knew that the only way to save the frigate was to lure the cruiser away, but that would mean the battlcruiser would approach.

"Fire phasers! Take them down for a moment to charge the tractor beam, and then set a course of the approaching battle cruiser."

"The BCs weapons fully charged, shes on to us, she's going after the frigate, the Heavy Cruiser's comming back around, it looks like they're going to take down our only fighting chance" Salt knew the tables had turned, the set strategy wouldn't hold, and he could see the captain steady at the chair, knowing exactly what to be done.

"Barto reporting, we have the frigate up and running sir, we've got her secured."
"Set a collision course for the heavy cruiser."
"Already done sir."
"Beam everyone back, take prisoners as well. Salt, aim tractor beam at the frigate."
"Gladly sir."

The powerful gravitational tethers grabbed the frigate and swung it towards the approaching heavy cruiser, with out enough of a moment to react, the enemy's ship tore almost in half as the frigate collided and yellow and orange molten metal from the collision filled the battlefield as the frigate's engines exploded on contact with the Heavy Cruiser.

The LR was now head on, one-to-one with the Battle cruiser, They were outgunned, the LR's frontal shields barely holding, and she was heavily damaged as well.

"All forward weapons FIRE!"

Part 2:
The two ships had their forward shields at full power, the Lone Ranger however, raised everything she had to the front, the Battlecruiser tore straight through her shields with 5 torpedoes in a row, damaging almost every engine the LR had, along with many other systems such as sensors and nav. The LR bowed its dorsal side, gliding at almost a 45 degree angle unstopping towards the enemy.

"Minimal damage to enemy shields sir!"
Cried Salt.

"Ramming speed mister Barto", demanded the captain.
"Aye sir!"

The ship was now a hundred meters away, the enemy sent out a beam of emergency tractor beam. The LR came to slow crawl, not enough momentum would last to collide her with the enemy.

"Two mines aft side, launch!" The mines whisped out of the docking bay, "Detonate at 25 meters!"

They blew up almost instantly from launch point, Salt had been a little trigger happy, he had just about caught on with what the captain had in mind.
The blast knocked everyone back as the ship lunged forward tearing through the gravity beam repelling it, with just enough momentum, the bow of the ship skid along the bottom of the enemy ship, cracking and breaking as the two titans collided. Debris spewed in all direction as small bursts of power conduits exploded as the friction and pressure from the crash ignited the spark. The LR quickly came an abrupt stop as her bow struck deep into the belly of the battleship, the bridge directly above the engine room.

"Thrusters, full power upward mister Chase." Mautch pressed hard on the intercom button, cleared his throught, " All marines, and able crew body, non senior engineering personnel report to the bridge, prepare for boarding." The ship's front end began grinding into the beast. Emergency lights went on as the bridge began to crack, a service closet opened and all the officers put on their space suits. The hull plating for the bridge was thick, as to prevent any damage from easily destroying the most crucial part of the ship. 24 marines remained since the last assault, there were 40 before. "We're all ready captain." Said Lt. Barnes, chief of security.

"Sadly, we didn't have time to formulate who'd be leading the landing party, Barto, you're going to have to gather a few of your engineers and fix the ship up as much as you can, we'll need this ship in working order."
"Sir, we've got one more mine."
"Good, if we loose this battle, you know what to do Barto." She nodded as she climbed down the emergency shaft.

The entire crew waited below as Barto exited, everyone suddenly began rushing up in an efficient single file as soon as her foot touched the corridor floor. It had begun, she thought. They were following that mad man in to the bowels of hell.

The men climbed through the emergency opening through the ceiling of the bridge. Up top, fighting had roared out, it was too close of combat, immediately, the front line men were fired upon, given no chance to evade, they all charged against the enemy. Using their retractable bayonets on their rifles, they fought in close range. The captain held a laser pistol, along with a slick dagger in the other hand, a souvenir he had received, shorter than the bayonets, but longer than a standard military knife. He fire off at least a dozen round before facing the enemy at close range, around him his marines were doing a fine job of butting the enemy with their rifles, and shooting them to make sure they were down.

It was an insanity driven tactic, but nonetheless brilliant for a man in such a situation.
"SALT!" he cried over the bay of shouting and screaming men in the heat of battle. "Grab 3 of your best, we're taking the bridge!" They took off along the stairway that led up to the next deck. Exposed as they climbed, they were fired at from every side, with sheer luck most of the bullets and beams hit the railing, one of the men hit in the leg, fell into the mosh pit of blood and anger.

The fearless captain and his men marched down the hall way shooting everyone who emerged from shadows of the long corridor. Mautch had order two more teams of five to circle around the enemy bridge so that they may surround them.

They ran and shot for what seemed like thousand miles, the men nearly collapsing as they came to a hard sealed door. This didn't seem right to Mautch, his opponent thought like him, he wouldn't cower in the bridge. He would've anticipated this. Mautch however knew that he had been flying blind and with out a plan since the beginning of this battle, he knew that his other self would've guessed more of his moves if he had planned them out, so Mautch improvised.

"All teams back back away from the bridge! NOW!" The men dashed as fast as they could, the doors exploded, it was a trap. Dust and debris filled the corridors, and out came the enemy, rushing into the hallway. The fight was on. The majority of crew and marine had left the corridors to join the main battle in the main engineering bay, as the officers duked it out in the hallways that lead to a blown up bridge.

There he was, he stood in the collapsed doorway like the devil himself, out from it rushed his demons from the fiery alternate universe. Mautch shared a moment of stillness in front of his counterpart, as his men fought furiously in the back ground. His counterpart had the exact same set of weapons. Realizing Mautch had drained his power cells tossed aside his gun. His enemy, did just the same. Out of pride perhaps.

The two men lunged at each other like lightning, their daggers swinging, the other curiving his body out of the way, the only difference between these two were the uniforms. Every feature, every sound that they grunted were indistinguishable. The battle cruiser outnumbered Mautch's men 3-1. They were loosing this battle, and quickly.

Mautch soon found himself in a dead lock, the clashing of daggers was in a stale mate as the two locked swords, and were face to face, knowing that there were no advantages or disadvantage, this would be the ultimate fight. Mautch knew that the only way to win was to fool himself. Literally.

The dagger slipped, and in a moments noticed it broke, and flew out of his hand. Mautch grabbed the wrist of his enemy, who still held the dagger, kicked him in the stomach. His opponent being of equal intelligence, let go of the dagger and countered in a body slam move, that landed Mautch on his back. Para-Mautch landed his foot on Mautch's chest, one last thrust and it was all over.

His counterpart grinned over him, as Mautch attempted bought precious time with his hands holding up the boot of death a mere tenth of an inch from the crushing blow.

"Looks like you've lost Captain." he sneered.

"No, I win. Captain." he said in an overly aggressive tone. This was it. Mautch knew this was coming, the ship was bigger, there was never anyway of winning.

"Barto, now!" but there was a way to tie. In a confused look, the ship began to tremble violently, and a breeze could be felt as if a tornado had erupted somewhere inside the ship.

The massive gust suddenly turned into a violent hurricane sweeping all the crew off the bridge and corridor areas.

"Mine successfully detonated, sir." In a careful ruse, Mautch was able to distract the crew of the battle ship by using a boarding party as his engineers carefully planted the mine halfway between engineering and the bridge. Mautch's men stood like statues, as their gravity boots anchored to the metal floor. Mautch grabbed his counterpart by the collar of his shirt just before he could fly off with the rest. The force was a little too strong, Mautch collapsed to the floor, Para-Mautch slammed against it, and fell unconscious.
Salt quickly dove to grab him by the foot before they both flew off. It was like falling off a cliff---of waterfall.

"Are the transporters operational yet Barto?" he waited a moment for a reply.
"There' that should do it, we have just enough for two sir."
"Very good lieutenant. Men, bring aboard all prisoners. This ship is loosing oxygen. Barto beam us up."

At the moment of the blast, and the thinning oxygen levels, the fight in the engine room stopped abruptly, and the enemy crew surrendered unconditionally. The mine detonation not only took out a large chunk of the ship but also took out the life support systems. Mautch had traded torpedoes for mines just before the battle, he had picked up a few tricks from the pirates on the way to rendezvous.

The crew of the Lone Ranger had halved, but the prisoners almost doubled the population they had set off with at the beginning of the mission.

Mautch sat down on the most uncomfortable chair, the enemy prisoners were all put to deep sleep, not to awaken until the federation support freighters would arrive to aide them.

"Well done captain, that was quite something." Said the Admiral over the comms. Mautch smiled modestly, "He put up a hell of fight, and we're all ready to come home for a while."
"John, the frieghters are bringing you some engineers and parts, along with a few good men from the nearest star base. I'm sorry but we're going to have to cut your leave short."
Match's smile died quickly.
"I understand, who is it that's turned up this time?"
"It's not who Mautch, it's an entire invading fleet, their sights set on Earth. We need you to meet up with Bravo fleet immediately."
Mautch nodded. He was ready, his men was ready, this was what they lived for.