The ship continued to drift in an uncontrolled state. The momentum it was under when it left the slipstream vortex had slowed but the ship continued to move through the emptiness of space. Which would be considered very lucky, for if they had been tossed out of slipstream near a planet or star, or any other space body, the ship would of certainly been destroyed.

Zane Bates pushed himself off the deck, his hand reached up and grabbed the top edge of his console as a brace. Slowly he rose to his feet and made sure he did not get up too quickly or to see if he would lose his balance from a concussion or other reason. When he felt that he was fine, he looked around the bridge and saw everyone else had slowly rose to their stations and seats.

“Is everyone all right?” Graves asked as sat into his chair and swiveled his terminal before him. Bates could see that he pressed the ‘All sections report’ button.

“I’m okay. Just. A little upset stomach.” Said Bazial as she appeared to be slouched in her chair with her hands on her abdomen.

“Helm is not responding,” said Tagg but the turn of his head and the look on his face appeared that he just realized what the first officer had asked. “I’m fine.”

“Inertial dampeners feel off,” said Maxwell. “Have you tried resetting them?”

“Ugh. Is that why I feel unwell?” Said Bazial.

Bates could see Tagg make attempts to get helm controls to respond but it appeared that nothing was working. Bates then went through several screens to gain access to the inertial dampener system and pressed the reset button. He watched as a buffer ring appeared for a split second and then the system was restored to normal. Everyone then let out a sigh of relief, Bazial inclued.

“Oh thank you, who ever did that.” She said.

“I managed to gain access and reset the system, Captain.” Bates reported. “Try a full reset of your station, Tagg.” Bates watched as Tagg did just that, his display went dark for a brief moment and then returned to him.

“Okay, now maneuvering thrusters are not responding.” Tagg said out of frustration.

“Relax, friend. Now do the same that I did with the inertial dampeners. Reset the system, give it a chance to realize what is going on.” Bates explained to him.

“Right, of course.” Tagg said with more frustration, but it seemed that it was directed more at himself. Probably for the fact that he let his emotions cloud his judgement. “There we go. Maneuvering thrusters just fired. Ship is now stabilizing back to normal.” Tagg then turned to look at the captain. “Our axis has stabilized and we’ve reached full stop, sir.”

“Excellent. Good work you two,” Maxwell directed toward both Tagg and Bates.

Bates was about to say something when his terminal began to alert him. He opened up the notification and saw that sensors detected two signals on an intercept. “Sir, we got two vessels on an intercept course to our location, at high warp.”

“Do we know who they are?” Graves asked.

“Not yet. They just entered sensor range. Once they get closer, I should be able to get a better idea.” Bates explained as he selected both targets for full complete scan. At first it was going to take a minute but as those two ships grew closer, the time to complete the scan shortened in matter of seconds. Soon as the scans were complete, he got two completely different screens with details of each ship. “This can’t be right.”

“What is it?” Graves asked.

Bates first look was the hull configuration of both ships. Sensors were able to get a detailed outline of them and both of them didn’t look right. One looked like a Galaxy-class but composition and configuration was off. The other had a Sovereign style saucer and engineering hull but the nacelles were positioned incorrectly, and it had a torpedo pod. “The sensors are picking up the normal materials used in construction of a Starfleet vessel but sensors also pick up other materials.”

“Other materials?” Maxwell asked.

Bates shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense. Duranium and tritanium alloys. But also detecting other alloys that both Romulans and Klingons use in their vessels. What’s more,” Bates stared at the power levels that the sensors detected and the emissions that came from the ships. “They’re using artificial singularity cores, much like the Romulans.”

Graves and Maxwell looked at each other. “What the hell is going on here?” Graves asked the question that was on both their minds.

“Well, we’re about to find out,” said Bates as he looked at the view screen.

“There!” Tagg pointed and they all witnessed two ships drop out of warp directly in front of the Sovereign. From their perspective of the view screen, the one to the right looked like a Galaxy-class all right, but it had hull materials of a Sovereign-class. Kind of the Ross-class but engineering hull was still very much Galaxy shaped. It also had a spinal mount, much like the Dreadnought.

Then the other one, it definitely had a Sovereign saucer and engineering hull, but the dish was pure blue, the nacelles were slanted down and it had a torpedo pod. It was like an upgraded version of the Nebula-class but in a very different direction. It too had spinal mount, but not one, two of them.

“Tactical analysis, Bates!” Maxwell ordered in a tone that sounded like he was afraid but Bates knew better. The man wanted to be prepared. And to be prepared, he needed to know what they were up against.

“Read off their registries, as well.” Graves added. Why not? Let’s find out what these ships are.

“The Galaxy looking vessel, it has fourteen phaser arrays, four heavy burst fire torpedo launchers, a spinal mount phase cannon and both primary and secondary shields. I can’t get the name or registry, they appeared to have been burned off from what looks like battle scars. The last digits that I can make out are: 37-A. Last letters are X and Y. I can’t say for certain.” Bates knew what it was, anyone who was good with puzzles could figure it out. But with an incomplete name and registry, he couldn’t log it into the system. So he just identified the vessel as ‘Weird Galaxy’.

Bates then continued, “The other one appears to have only six phaser arrays, rapid fire torpedo launcher, three burst fire torpedo launchers and one that we can obviously see is two spinal mounted phase cannons. It also boasts primary and secondary shields, much like the other. The registry is burnt off as well but not the name. TSS Ronin. Wonder what the ‘T’ stands for.”

“Battle scars? Does that mean that these ships spend more time battling than exploring? Equipped with spinal mounts as heavy weapons and artificial singularity cores for a power source?” Graves asked openly. “I don’t think they came here to lend us a hand.”

“Are our shields up?” Maxwell asked.

“Negative, sir. They did not approach us in a hostile manner. Sensors did not detect their weapons to be armed and ready, so there was nothing to trigger the automated defenses.” Bates reported.

“Then we-” Maxwell was interrupted when six red particle beams of light deposited six figures. Three had phaser compression rifles and three had type-II hand phasers. All of which were pointed at everyone. One in particular stood directly in front of Maxwell with their hand phaser pointed right at him.

“I am Lieutenant Dreven Rex. Chief Security of the Ronin. This vessel and its crew have been seized by the authority and order of the supreme leader of the Terran Imperium!” Barked the human man who wore what looked like a starfleet uniform of their current era, but everything was black, aside from thing stripes that outline the edge that separates the shoulder piece of the uniform from the rest. The man before him had a red stripe though. Red for security? Had they not had the color change? Bates had thought.

“Oh. So that’s what the T stands for,” said Graves.

Bates agreed, internally anyway. With a rifle pointed at his head, he was not certain that he wanted to speak out just yet. But there was something quite peculiar about the intruders. While he did notice that his terminal had notified him of six more intruders in main engineering, his eyes was focused on the color of their hair and eyes. Blonde and blue. All of them. What sort of hell did they end up in?