"You must be Ensign Sterner" a tall Lt. Commander greeted him. "I'm Lt. Commander Shelby and this is the rest of our away team for the mission."

He quickly introduced Ensign Sterner to the other officers.

"Ok listen all" Shelby said as everyone in the room became quiet.

"As soon as the bombardment ends we will beam up to the USS Hydden,into the engineering section.Our mission is to save any crewmen or civilians that are not in the control of the parasites.We will split into 2 groups : team A and team B.

Team A : Shelby, Waugh and Sterner.
Team B : Jamson, Capizzi and Mulich.

I will lead team A and Jamson will lead Team B, I want radio silence unless you have something important to say. So set your phasers on kill and get ready."

Ensign Sterner
USS Galaxy NCC-70637

Ensign Christian Waugh walked over to where Commander Shelby had stationed them for the time-being. He kept his tricorder to maximum range and a general gain, they needed to know if something was coming at them, not necessarily what it was exactly. He noticed some odd energy disruption build-up. "I think..." The door Capizzi had been working on swooshed open very quickly, with super-charged phaser blasts to accompany it. What the!?!?

"It must be a gauntlet!" someone had yelled. Waugh felt a slight agreement in the darkest recesses in his mind, since he was beginning to already react to the weapons fire. He quickly snapped his tricorder shut while holstering it, and raised his standard type II phaser. A blast shimmered by him, intensifying the local heat...Waugh fired through what he thought was the door frame. He heard some officers in major commotion but continued an unrelentless phaser barrage with the security officers and Capizzi before Shelby got hit. Waugh hestitated. He almost paid the price...

"For God's sakes, WATCH IT!" said one of the security guards as a phaser beam singed Waugh across his arm.

"I am, and I WILL," Ensign Waugh replied, all the while maintaining his position and engaging in another phaser assault. He wondered when it would end.

"...emergency transport for Commander Shelby!" he heard. Then he heard some more commotion, and his phaser blast hit something solid. The door! It had been sealed again. He put away his phaser and quickly began scans of the region with detailed scanning patterns from the tricorder. He thought he heard something about Jamson being in command now...

"Commander Jamson, tricorder readings aren't conclusive at this time. It could be from flooded radiation that passed through here once and hasn't degraded...the tricorder doesn't seem to be at maximum efficiency right now. I'm continuing the scans however on vary--" Waugh followed Jamson as he was moving towards the door. Ensign Waugh sighed and waited to be heard.

The situation on the Hydden was getting worse every minute as Ensign T'Lein sat at the Helm console staring at the viewscreen in the same manner as Captain Price. The small crew on the bridge seemed to be tense and on edge as the silence lingered. Ensign Freeman, sitting at the Ops console across from T'Lein, was hard at work punching in commands in the hope of trying to get more information on the situation over on the Hydden...so far, there was little. Lt. Coe, at the tatical station, stood in his usual posture occassionally glanced down from the viewscreen to the console fore of him to see if there was any information favorable to the Galaxy...so far, there was none. The small bridge crew try to remain as calm as possible as the situation progresses...

Ensign Stovok T'Lein
Chief Helmsman
U.S.S. Galaxy NCC-70637

Captain Price stared at the main view screen at the drifting USS Hydden as Jamson's message was transmitted. The away team was under phaser fire and Lt.Commander Shelby had been injured.

"I'm going to beam you out of there right now!" The Captain shouted. He'd already lost his First officer, he didn't want to loose any one else.

"No Captain, wait!" Lt.Commander Jamson countered. Lieutenant Capizzi managed to reverse the polarity on the pressure doors, and once again the main corridor was sealed as Commander Jamson dragged Commander Shelby out of the way. "We are all right Captain, Capizzi has sealed the environmental doors. Shelby's unconscious. He was his by falling debris. I think he could have a concussion. I think you should beam him back to medical sir."

Captain Price hesitated. Counselor Shivok could sense the Captain's gut feeling told him to bring his men home now. But Price decides to trust his crews judgment. "Okay Commander, I will have the transporter beam him over. You have command of the away team Jamson. Get everyone out you can. And bring 'em home in one piece 'mate."

"Aye Sir. Jamson out."

"I hope he is ok...." Jamson thought to himself and turned around to the away team

"Report everyone!"

Noam Brosh aka Lt.Cmd Michael Jamson

While the away team was over on the Hydden, Lt JG Kane wasn't doing much. The Torpedo Bay had been fixed -- a fried circuit was to blame.

There wasn't much for engineering to do during the assault, so Kane decided to tackle the sensor penetration problem. The barium bombardment had failed to remove most of the nebula, so there was no real way to obtain sensor readings.

"If we can't dislodge the nebula," Kane began to theorise, "then there might be some way to destroy it." Kane moved over to a LCARS terminal and accessed the information about the thickness of the Hydden's main hull. The computer told him that the main hull was 1.6 metres thick. This had possibilities.

With the Hydden's shields down, the transporter had easy access. After all, the away team had beamed over, hadn't they? Kane began to theorise that they could transport a very small quantity of antimatter and place it next to the hull. While there was no telling how big the explosion would be, antimatter would have to be placed on every square centimetre of the hull. It was too time consuming to even consider as a viable option. However, a bigger antimatter blast would cover more surface area. But with no shields, the blast would easily penetrate the hull...

"No shields... Computer: given our current distance to the Hydden and our deflector generator functionality, is it possible to project a shield inside the Hydden's main hull?"

After a couple of seconds, the computer responded with a few beeps and: "The Galaxy is capable of generating a shield inside the Hydden's hull, but the shield would instantly try to destroy the hull. Given the distance between the Galaxy and the Hydden, our deflector generator's would fail irrepairably."

"DAMN!" yelled Kane, while smashing his fist into the nearest bulkhead. His outburst attracted the attention of a few, who quickly got back to work. All could understand the stress of being in a command position, in a red alert situation. However Kane's theory was valid...

"Computer: Could we try my last idea with a subspace field?"

The computer's reply was quicker this time: "Yes. The subspace field would contain an antimatter blast and not affect the hull."

Kane had found a way to eliminate the nebula. However, the subspace fields could not be generated on such a magnitude with the main deflector. Engineering would need to reconfigure the warp engines. Once reconfigured, the warp drive would no longer be available as the ship's drive. It was risky, no escape at warp would be possible, as it would take at least 15 minutes to configure the engines, and at least another 15 to revert them to their drive capability. This was something Kane needed the Captain's permission for. Kane slapped his communicator.

"Kane to Price."

"Price here."

"I believe I have come up with a way to eliminate the negative sensor effect of the nebula. However, to do so, I must reconfigure the warp drive to generate powerful subspace fields. The warp engines will no longer function as the ship drive. Should an emergency arise, it will take me at least 15 minutes to reconfigure the warp drives to their working state. We would be no longer able to retreat at warp speed."

** End of Part 1 **
Julian King (a.k.a. Lt. JG Kane)
king@fl.net.au

Captain Price and the rest of the bridge crew sat around in tense silence. The Away Team had encountered troubles, but their mission was still important. Rescue all survivors they could from the USS Hydden.

Ensign T'Nevin's bombardment of the Hydden with Barium particles had effectively washed away portions of the Nebula particles that were blocking the Galaxy's scanners, but there were still portions of the ship that were unscanable.

The comm channel chirped out.

"Captain. This is Lieutenant Kane in engineering. I think I have come up with a way to totally clear away the Nebula particles from the USS Hydden's hull, but I will need to take the warp engines off line to do so." Kane sounded excited and eager to begin work.

The Captain frowned. Mr. Shivok, the 1/2 Vulcan, 1/2 Betazoid Ship's Counselor couldn't help but hear the Captain's thoughts. "Commander Gael's Symbiot has to reach the Trill home world in 38 hours or it will Die. I've promised Doctor Rousseau we'd make it. There's no way I can allow the Warp engines taken offline." After a long pause, the Comm line chirped again.

"Captain? Did you hear me?"

"I heard you Lieutenant. I am afraid I can not allow you to take the Warp engines off-line. We will need them shortly for the maximum warp voyage to Trill." The Captain had reservations. Full sensor sweeps of the Hydden would offer the Away Team added security, but the Captain had given his word. They were going to make it to Trill before his First Officer's symbiot died.

Lt.jg Kane offered a response. "Captain, the modifications should only take fifteen minutes to complete. I can have the engines back on-line in a half hour tops."

Captain Price glanced at Counselor Shivok. The Counselor just made a gesture with his eyes indicating it is the Captain's choice. Arguments could be made for both not taking warp power off-line and keeping it on-line. Price thought a minute.

"If you make these modifications Lieutenant, and then bring warp power back on-line, will we then be able to get maximum warp speed.... Sustained maximum warp speeds out of them immediately?"

The comm channel chirped happily. "Oh yes Captain. I simply need to tap into the warp power generators in the nacelles. After I'm done I can undo the configuration and reestablish warp drive control to the bridge."

The Captain thought about it. He remembered how long it took Dr. Leah Brahms' team of engineers to realign the warp fields on the Galaxy after the refitting at Utopia Planitia Ship yards on Mars. But Lieutenant Kane seemed secure in his ability to have them back on line and ready for maximum warp speeds.

"Okay Lieutenant. Proceed. I am counting on full Warp Drive capabilities in 30 minutes. Don't let me down 'mate."

"Aye Captain. And don't worry, I won't disappoint you Sir. Kane out."

** Main Engineering **

Kane, also being Australian, could only smile at Captain Price's use of Australian humour. He got up from the engineering console and shouted across Main Engineering to Ensigns Robert Hoyt and Glenn Lopson.

"You and you, come over here, please. We've got some modifications to do."

"Computer..." Kane rolled his sleeves up, "prepare to take the warp core offline."

*16 minutes later*

"Done! That should do it!" muttered Kane, signaling to Ensigns Hoyt and Lopson that they were free to leave. "Computer: put the warp core online."

The warp core powered up, confirming that the modifications were successful.

"Kane to Price."

"Price here. Have you finished the modifications?"

"Yes, sir. Should I begin the sequence?"

"Go ahead. Price out."

Whilst the conversations was quite abrupt, Kane knew that Captain Price was busy. Kane moved over to an engineering console and punched the appropriate buttons. The computer put the subspace field in place (millimetres below the surface of the Hydden's hull), and the computer launched two photon torpedoes at the Hydden.

** Bridge **

Lt. Coe's head snapped up from his tactical console. "Captain Price: we just launched two photon torpedoes at the Hydden. I did not give authorization for their launch. Should I detonate them?"

"Don't worry," replied the Captain. "I gave the authorization. Time to impact?"

"But Sir!! We have people still over there!!"

"Just watch and see, Lieutenant. Engineering really does have some magicians."

"Time to impact: 4.... 3.... 2.... 1.... Impact."

The viewscreen registered the changes, as everyone on the bridge could see.

"Kane to Bridge" came the voice over the speakers.

"Price here. Was the seqence successful?"

"I believe so, Captain. I successfully vaporised the outer 6 milimetres of the Hydden's hull, without damaging anything internally. Is Ops there?"

"Yes?"

"I believe you should try to rescan the Hydden. Kane out."

Moments later, Ops reported "Captain, I have almost 100% sensor capability to scan the Hydden. Reports coming in now... Though I am unable to determine the number of lifesigns onboard, I can easily see that the Hydden's crew have engaged in a massive internal war. Several decks have been sealed off due to conduit fractures. Hydden's life support is at 72% and falling steadily, at the rate of 6% per hour. Sir, may I inquire? How did engineering eliminate the nebula particles?"

Captain Price could only smile. "A little miracle. I'm sure Lt. JG Kane will explain to you later."

Julian King (a.k.a. Lt. JG Kane)
king@fl.net.au

"You worry about the Symbiot."

"She is not just a Symbiot, she's my first officer, Cmdr. Gael. The Doctor said, the Trill needed a new body within the next 38 hours, so we have to be on Trill in 35 hours. But this is not my only concern"

"I see. You believe we will not end our mission here in time. Maybe it's not the right time to raise that question, but don't you see the paradoxon of our situation?"

Price looked puzzled at him. "What are you referring to, Counselor?"

"What's the difference between Cmdr. Gael and the Intruders? Both represent a symbiotic life form, but we want kill the last and he want to save the life of the first. The later may be aggressive, as their recent actions have shown, but so were the Trills at their early stage of their development, so were the humans, and so were the Vulcans. We have to get to know more about their motives, before we can judge on their actions. Of course, Cmdr Gael is a member of your crew, and you feel responsible for her life, but on the other hand we oppose a life form, who represent a highly potential thread to the Federation in general. We know they came from the Romulan sector, so how far have they already spread there? What if the Romulan senate is already taken over by this life form? "

Lt.Cmdr. Shivok
Counselor
USS Galaxy

Captain Price thought about what the Counselor had said. He was right, of course. The Trill symbiot Gael was in many ways similar to these "parasitic" life forms that were controling the crew of the Hydden.

"The Trill Symbiot coexists with the host body it occupies Counselor. These.... creatures appear to be totally controling the humanoids they attach to." The Captain paused for a moment as Counselor Shivok listened to what he had to say. "I am not an expert on Symbiosis, or parsitic life forms either for that matter. But you say that Trill had a hostile period. All I know is these creatures, whatever they are, appear to have a hostile intent. No matter what form or name we choose to call them. If that was a ship full of hostile, phaser toating, Joined Trill soldiers, I think I would still say that the best course of action would be to defend our ship, and our crew."

The Counselor turned away and gave a slight nod as he some times does. It's Shivok's "I don't completely agree with you, but I can see your point." sort of nod. It prods the Captain to continue.

"Once we have secured the Hydden, and those crew members that called for our help, I would be more than happy to open a line of communications with these... things if they so wish. It's just kind of hard establishing 'good faith' relations with someone who is always firing a phaser at you 'mate!"

Even the 1/2 Vulcan, 1/2 Betazoid Counselor had to smile slightly at the Captain's point.

T'Nevin has successfully completed the bombardment of the Hydden. He observes the gathering and planning of the away team that will be transporting to the Hydden. He then sits back and contemplates his presence on the away team: whether or not he should volunteer. After a few minutes of setting his priorities, he decides that he will head down to his science lab to check on his cultures.

"Sir, if I may step off of the bridge." T'Nevin stands and addresses the command figure.

"Certainly, Lieutenant. Going to science division?"

"Yes sir. I have a few things that I need to check on." T'Nevin exits the bridge, grabbing his PADD on the way out. "T'Nevin to K'saol."

"This is K'saol."

"Meet me in science lab on deck 12."

"No problem."

***Turbolift en route to deck 12***

T'Nevin taps on his PADD, checking through messages. He then accesses the file that was a response folder for his recent general post. A list of names appear:

Tsura Regixx
Linda Lockett
Susan Darma
Tul Maray

T'Nevin frowns.

Lt. jg T'Nevin, acting CSO
USS Galaxy NCC-70637

Lt. Coe rested his eyes on his console as he studied it once more. There was little he could do in a situation such as this and he felt uneasy as he stood at his station, aimlessly as the rest of the bridge crew hurried about their business. After Lt. Kane had found a way to penetrate the Hydden's hull, the Galaxy had been able to scan the inside of the ship and detect lifeforms. However Ensign Freeman had not yet been able to distinguish the infected lifeforms to that of the normal lifeforms. Lt. Coe had been alarmed before when 2 Photon torpedoes had been launched from the ship without his knowledge or authorization, however it had all been part of the plan created by Lt. Kane.

He made a mental note to have a little "talk" to Lt. Kane about the incident and to also see the doctor about his dangerously high blood pressure at the time!

Lt. Coe sighed heavily, It had been a long day, before returning to his duties and awaiting the return of the away team.

"We need to find a way to regain control on the ship. Now...we can't go through the main corridor...so any suggestions?" he asked , but for a moment there was no comment.

Noam Brosh aka Michael Jamson
OPS
USS GALAXY

Jamson had Lieutenant Commander Shelby transported back to the USS Galaxy. He also wanted to get as many of the USS Hydden's unaffected crew members transported back to the ship as soon as possible.

"Ensign Sterner, Ensign Mulich, gather up the crewmen here and have them transported back to the ship."

The two security officers each nodded and exchanged "Aye Sir"s before they began to round everyone up.

Ensign Sterner walked near the engineering station where Lieutenant jg Steve Capizzi, Chief Engineer on the USS Galaxy, was accessing the Hydden's database with the aid of one of the crewmen.

"Sir. Lieutenant Commander Jamson has ordered all of the Hydden personnel transported back to the Galaxy. If you are through here?" Joerg was talking to Capizzi, but the Hydden crewman, John DeLandon interrupted.

"You can't transport out of here yet! we still haven't recovered the rest of the engineers from the port engineering section!" the crewman was very upset, and very loud. He got the attention of Lt.Commander Jamson who walked over.

"What is that you said? There are more crewman still alive?"

"Yes. Or at least they were. The comm circuits were blown out in all of the phaser fire, but we were able to communicate using those fiber optics and morris code." DeLandon pointed to an open panel beneath the comm station, exposed fiber optics everywhere. "They were pretty much in the same situation as us. Pinned into the port warp nacelle access room. But they stopped answering our messages about an hour ago."

Jamson took out his tricorder and began scanning the bulkhead closest to the port warp nacelle room. "Damn! There is still too much interference. There could be a plasma leak scrambling the tricorder's signals, or it might still be that blasted Romulan Nebula."

Jamson looked at Capizzi, Sterner and DeLandon. "Ensign, please continue evacuating the Hydden personnel."

Jamson turned to DeLandon. "We will check on your friends before we leave, but right now you need to go with Ensign Sterner here so we can transport you to safety." Jamson really stepped up to the challenges of command. DeLandon just nodded and went with the Security officer.

Jamson turned to the Chief Engineer, Capizzi. "Well? any ideas?"

Ensign Sterner was quickly following Lieutenant Commander Jameson's orders. "We must bring these people to the Galaxy so that we can try to rescue the rest of the uneffected crewmen aboard the Hydden." he thought.

"Each crewmember of the USS Hydden please come with me." he said to the people standing around him. "We'll beam you all over to the USS Galaxy where your wounds will be treated and you'll be save." After a few moments all survivors of this engineering section followed Ensign Sterner to a free spot, where they could be easily locked on by the Galaxy's transporter officer.

"Sir, we can now beam over the survivors." he told the new leader of the away team, Lieutenant Commander Jameson. "Well done, Ensign." he added and tapped his communicator.

"Lieutenant Commander Jameson to Galaxy."

[Captain Price here.]

"Sir, we are ready to evacuate the engineering crew from this engineering section. But I was told, that there are possibly some more survivors in the port engineering section. I'm just working on a rescue plan for them."

[Ok 'mate, but you better hurry. We have not much time left. Keep me informed. Price out.]

"Lieutenant Commander Jameson to Transporter Room 1."

[Streb here, sir.]

"We have some survivors from the USS Hydden here. Beam them over immediately. Jameson out."

After that the crewmen start to dematerize until only the away team remains in the engineering section. Lieutenant Commander Jameson turned to his team.

"Any suggestions?"

Ensign Mulich was the first to respond. "Couldn't we just climb through one of the Jeffries tubes connecting the warp nacelles?"

Ensign Sterner brought in his idea of freeing possible survivors on the port section of engineering. "What about flooding the main corridor with some kind of gas, so that this gauntlet no longer puts a threat to us?."

Ensign Joerg Sterner
USS Galaxy NCC-70637

As Kane had nothing really to do (he let the computer automatically manage the warp core, matter-antimatter reaction assembly and fusion reactors, which it could do, because they were not fighting a high-powered battle.

After his idea worked, the majority of the nebula destroyed, he had monitored communications between people on the Hydden, so that he could try and help. After hearing Ensign Mulich mention using the Jeffries tubes, and Ensign Sterner mention flooding the gauntlet with gas, he called the bridge.

"Kane to Bridge"

A familiar, well-defined Australian accent came back: "Price here."

"Sir, I have been monitoring communications traffic on the Hydden, and two possibilites are now presented to us to rescue the surviving engineers in the port nacelle. We could either crawl through the Jeffries tube or we could flood the gauntlet with gas.

If we decided to crawl through the Jeffries tubes, we could become victim to either radiation or the hull breach. With so much plasma around, we can't scan the bulkhead in front of us. Our lives would be determined by luck."

"I don't like it," said Price. "Next option."

"If we flooded the corridors with anesthezine gas, then we would put our attackers to sleep. In theory, it is pretty easy to flood the corridor. We just need to activate the security mode of the vessel. Just send the Hydden the security bypass code, and the whole ship will be asleep. However, the away team would have to beam back beforehand, and all recieve hypos of an anesthezine antagonist, so that they would be immune to the effects. Your call, Captain."

Julian King (aka Lt. JG Kane)
king@fl.net.au

The Captain smiled as Lieutenant jg Kane explained his idea of flooding the Hydden with Anesthezine Gas. The young officer spoke with such enthusiasm and energy. A sign of a new, eager officer.

"That sounds like a reasonable idea Lieutenant. However, the Hydden is a transport vessle not a Starship. She doesn't carry any Anesthezine Gas. You'll have to transport several canisters of Anesthezine to Lieutenant Capizzi. It won't be enough to flood the whole ship, but they may be able to take out the men in the main engineering coridoor. Be sure to transport a hypo-spray with the antagonist too. We don't have time to transport the away team back and forth. Coordinate your efforts with Commander Jamson and Chief Engineer Capizzi. They may have more input to provide."

"Aye Sir!" Lieutenant Kane was ready to get started.

"Be sure to keep me informed 'mate. Price out."