“The Captain is dead!”  The young ensign’s cry was punctuated by the explosion of the bridge’s life control console.  The bridge was being assaulted by several clashing alarms and the flickering of several small fires cast strange, eerie shadows through the smoky air.

Commander David Spencer looked up to see every remaining member of the bridge crew looking to him.  As the first officer of the USS Shapiro, Spencer was now in command.  He glanced down at the still body of the captain, sprawled across the deck next to his command chair.

“Get a medical team up here!” he yelled to the person closest to the communications station.  He looked like he was actually a security guard, but it didn’t matter at this point.

“Commander!  Here comes another one” The young girl at the helm controls seemed invigorated by the excitement.

Spencer looked up at the viewscreen as the Romulan fleet shot another plasma bolt towards them.  Compared to similar weapons, the Romulan torpedoes were agonizingly slow.  But their homing abilities had yet to be beat.  As a result, they prolonged the anticipation of doom as its target watched the gradual approach of the torpedo until it finally delivered its deadly payload.  There was no known way to evade it or outrun it.

“Engineering!” Spencer activated the com on the one remaining arm of the command chair.  “We need more shields!”

“We better not have any more of those plasma bolts coming at us, sir.  We can’t take another hit.”  The voice, belonging to Witten the Andorian engineer, sounded calm and matter-of-fact.

“Helm,” Spencer faced the plasma bolt on the viewscreen as he addressed the pilot.  “Bring us around the planet.  Two hundred kilometers from the ionosphere.”

“200 kilometers, sir?  That will place us deep within the gravity well.”  The gung-ho ensign was now starting to get nervous.  “We may not be able to…”

“Do it!  And cut our speed to half impulse.”  The Shapiro shot toward the gas giant that dominated the system, and then suddenly slowed dramatically as it dipped into the upper wisps of clouds covering the huge planet.

The sudden dip of the starship seemed to momentarily confuse the plasma bolt as it shot around the planet with a much less dramatic arc.  But once it whipped past the starship, it quickly regained its lock and swept back toward the Shapiro.

Fortunately, the guidance was confused enough to prevent a direct hit.  Instead, the plasma bolt smashed into the ship’s starboard nacelle pulverizing it instantly.  The rest of the ship continued to rock as the shards of the exploding engine blasted the remainder of the hull.

Everyone on the bridge grabbed for something to hold onto.  The viewscreen showed the planet swing wildly below them.  Suddenly the young girl at helm gasped as the remaining Romulan fleet curved into view ahead of them over the horizon of the gas giant.  Spencer stabbed the com.

“Engineering, we’re going to warp.” 

“No we’re not, Commander!  We just lost our starboard nacelle!  Our engines are way off balance!”

“No time to argue, Witten.” Spencer pointed toward the young ensign to punctuate his command.   “Helm, warp 4 now!”

“Sir, the gravity well…” The lead Romulan ship was about to fire again.

“WARP SPEED NOW!”  The force of Commander Spencer’s command made the girl slap the control before she was able to consider the consequences of what she was doing.

The USS Shapiro wobbled as it shot into warp.  Everyone held on in determined silence as they waited for the inevitable.

“Wormhole, sir.”  While she tried to be calm and resigned, the ensign’s voice cracked with tension.  As soon as the dreaded word filled the bridge, the tell tale mosaic tunnel leapt forward on the viewscreen and seemed to engulf the ship.

“Evacuate the secondary h… hull.” Commander Spencer issued the command softly but firmly.

The distortion effects of the wormhole were beginning to have its effect.  The temporal echoes seemed to amplify the damage on the bridge.

Spencer turned toward the engineering station.  No one was there.  Looking around he realized that there was no one left to man it.  The commander crossed over to it and quickly scanned the readouts.

“B… bridge, the se… secondary h… hull has been e… evacuated.”  Spencer ignored Witten’s information as he did some equations in his head.

“A… all h…hands, p… pre… pare fo… for s… saucer s… separ… ation.”  He ignored any response as he kept a mental countdown.  The temporal echoes were repeating the numbers as he counted.  He tried to keep the time in his head, but even that grew more and more difficult.  When he believed that they had arrived at the appropriate moment, his hand slapped the console and the starship broke apart at its neck.

Explosive bolts pushed the sections apart as soon as all the hatches were sealed.  Instantly the momentum of the secondary hull, still pushed by warp power, shot ahead.

On the bridge, the viewscreen showed the engineering hull, with its one remaining nacelle, push ahead of them.  As soon as the entire hull was within view, it exploded in an antimatter explosion.

The force of the blast blew apart the wormhole and the remaining saucer section of the Shapiro spun through space like a Frisbee.   Even though it was free of the wormhole, it was now badly damaged, hopelessly lost, and far from Federation territory in uncharted space….
 

Starfleet Headquarters
Present

“Commander Spencer?”

David Spencer snapped back to the present.  He was sitting in the outer office of Admiral Nogura, vice admiral of Starfleet, awaiting an appointment.

The official board of inquiry had been completed six months ago.  The blame for losing the Shapiro was placed firmly on Captain Murphy.  In fact, Commander Spencer was awarded a Starfleet Medal of Honor for his efforts bringing the surviving crewmembers home alive.

But it wasn’t an honor that Spencer felt particularly proud of.  Sixty-four people had died in that attack and it took them almost two years to get back home.  He certainly didn’t feel like a hero.

As he walked into the Admirals office, with all of the scrutiny and questioning he had been under for the last year, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was heading toward disciplinary action.  He would undoubtedly be stripped of rank, if not drummed completely out of the service with a dishonorable discharge.

However, by the time he left the admiral’s office, the vice admiral of Starfleet had promoted David Spencer to Captain and placed him in command of the Federation Starship Republic.