About March 13^th, 2378

Stardate 55195

Captain’s Log, Stardate 55195.9

            While en route to Starbase 10 to discuss the past events with the Romulans, we were suddenly recalled to Sector 001.  Admiral Perkins didn’t specify why we were recalled, only that she didn’t want the information to be intercepted by anyone…and she didn’t even say why to that.

“We’re approaching Earth,” Lieutenant James Trikal reported from the helm.

Commander Chris Harriman looked up from his console and stood up slowly.  “Drop us out of warp.”  He hesitated for a moment…  “On screen…”

With a flick of the switch, there she was, dead ahead.  A huge feeling of happiness engulfed him…it was his home.  He had sworn to himself never to let himself take this sight for granted…and he wasn’t about to start now.

After a minute of staring, he finally brought himself back to the situation.  Chris tapped his comm. badge and said, “Harriman to Captain K’Taul, we’ve dropped out of warp and are approaching Earth.”

There wasn’t even a reply; instead, K’Taul walked out of the ready room and headed for the command chair, only giving Earth a sidelong glance.  It’s not his home, so of course he wouldn’t be all that happy to see it…

Chris joined him and sat in his usual chair, flipping open his panel while K’Taul closed his.

“We’re being hailed by Starfleet,” Lieutenant Commander Vendar Perkins stated.

“On screen.”

With that, the very familiar face of Rear Admiral Claire Perkins appeared on the view screen.  She smiled warmly and said, “Captain K’Taul, Commander Harriman…it’s good to see you again.”

Chris simply nodded while K’Taul responded verbally.  “Greetings, Admiral Perkins.  We have reported to Earth as ordered.”

She nodded, the smile fading while she took on a serious face.  “I still can’t tell you what’s going on, not over a subspace channel…and besides which, we’re not even sure of what we’ve seen, we need your input to see if our assumptions are correct.”  She looked off screen at something.  “According to this, the Dragon was assigned the first Delta Flyer class to be commissioned aside from the original.  Is that correct?”

Chris was curious as to why that would be important, so he listened intently.  K’Taul nodded his head in confirmation.  “That is correct.”

“Good.  In its computer database should be modification specifications for underwater operations…they were provided by the ship’s designer, Tom Paris.  You’re to implement these modifications as quickly as possible…our best guess is that it should take you under an hour to do so.  I, on the other hand, will be transporting aboard momentarily.”

“Understood,” K’Taul stated, standing up in preparation to head to the transporter room.

“Perkins out.”

The view screen changed to show the Federation emblem, followed shortly by the image of Earth…  K’Taul immediately moved around the railing behind the command area and headed for the exit.  “Commander, have Lieutenant Commander Sall make the necessary preparations to the Meridian.  You have the bridge, I’ll be with Admiral Perkins.”

As the Captain passed through the doors, Chris said over his shoulder, “Aye, sir.”

“I still would like to know why you can’t tell me why we are going down to the ocean of Earth,” K’Taul commented to Admiral Perkins.  He moved past her station at the aft of the cockpit compartment and moved next to James’s seat.  He leaned forward to get a better look at the surrounding blue skies and the ocean ahead, his short ponytail dangling over his left shoulder.

“Well, I’ll tell you what we know for now,” she stated, snagging his attention once again.  K’Taul turned around and looked at her.  “As I told you before, we’re not sure what we’ve found…all we do know is that we’ve found a ship buried in the sea recently uncovered by an unpredicted earth quake.  We’ve identified the hull as duranium and tritanium based, and we’ve uncovered about forty percent of the ship…probably more since I was last down there.  We just recently uncovered a cargo bay door that appears less corroded than the forward facing one; we can get into it and we’ve spent the past twelve hours attempting to get the water out of the cargo bay…without further damaging the ship.”

The Meridian suddenly lurched forward slightly, catching K’Taul off guard.  He looked back out the view port to see that they had just entered the water.

When he looked back to Admirals Perkins, he put on a curious face.  “I assume, then, that you at least know the class of starship…maybe even the name?”

Admiral Perkins visibly hesitated when he asked this question.  She looked down at her console for a moment, apparently trying to find the right words…before she finally looked him in the eye.

“The name of the ship was covered by some sort of coral growth…and as far as we can tell from sensor scans, the ship is old.  It’s been down there a while…dating back to some year in the BC range, though we can’t be certain yet.  We do know that the ship is…is Intrepid class, and that the last part of its NCC number…is Nine – B.”

K’Taul’s eyes went wide as he moved to her console, which was to the right of the tactical station.  “Admiral…I happen to know for a fact that the only Intrepid class starship in service that ends with Nine – B…is the Dragon.”

She looked at him morbidly.  “Precisely, Captain…”

Fear suddenly gripped him as he realized just what this could mean.  He looked back out the window to the ever-darkening surroundings as he considered it all.  What he did know was that sometime in the future, a temporal anomaly would somehow transport the Dragon to the distant past…and that the Dragon would be forced to crash land in the Pacific…

Which brought up another question.  He looked back to the Admiral and asked with a frown, “Just why would you damage a ship, even one as old as this one apparently is, from its interior being depressurized?”

She shrugged hesitantly.  “Well, we don’t know for sure whether fully depressurizing the interior would cause any damage…but the ship has been down there for, as I said, a very long time…and it’s apparently right next to the Mariana Trench…hell, we’re lucky it wasn’t in the Mariana Trench, else we might never have found it.”  She shrugged easily.  “We never really have any reasons to go down there.”

“We’re approaching the coordinates you gave me, Admiral,” James suddenly spoke up.

K’Taul spun around and moved back to stand next to the helm.  He stared hard out into the pitch-black water, the only light source coming from the powerful beam light equipped onto the Meridian.  That, however, soon changed.  Other bright light sources started to become visible…or at least, they had to be bright to cut through this dense water at this distance.

Slowly but surely, the ocean bottom started to become visible…as well as a murky shape on the bottom.  It didn’t take them long to get close enough…to easily recognize the shape.

“Well, I’ll be,” Admiral Perkins murmured.  “They’ve uncovered more than I thought.”

Without a doubt, it was an Intrepid class starship.  The port side bow of the hull was sticking out of where the ocean floor used to be…the ship appeared to be rotated fifteen to twenty degrees to its starboard as well as on its y-axis.  Several lights, however, seemed to be focused on the port side cargo bay doors, which became visible over the edge of the ‘excavation’ site.

Admiral Perkins herself opened a comm. channel.  “This is Rear Admiral Perkins to Team Leader.”

“Go ahead, Admiral,” another female voice replied.

“We’re approaching the site now, how’s work on that cargo bay going?”

“We just finished clearing all of the water out, we’re attempting to pressurize it with air now,” the other voice replied.  “If all goes well, you can transport over there in less than a minute, so get ready!”

“Understood,” she replied.  “Meridian out.”

K’Taul was definitely more than curious about this whole ordeal.  There was his ship, his first command ever, lying in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on Earth…and it was older than history itself…

He turned around to see Admiral Perkins stand up.  “We know the ship is old, but we’re assuming emergency power is still operational.  Hopefully the computer survived as well and we’ll be able to restore life support…at least, in the sections that count.”

He nodded and moved back to the aft door.  It opened at his command and allowed himself and the Admiral into the aft compartment.  They both moved to the storage compartment and began donning two environmental suites.

After a few minutes, James walked into the aft compartment.  “We’ve received word that it was a success and there’s now standard pressure inside of the cargo bay.  I’ve put the Meridian just outside of the cargo bay so that I won’t have any troubles beaming you out, should any problems arise.”

“Understood,” K’Taul said, moving to a panel on the side.  He placed his helmet on and checked to make sure there was a pressure seal.  When he and the Admiral were ready, he keyed in the command…and shortly after, they were in a mess.

That was the only way to describe the condition of Cargo Bay Two.  Crates were everywhere…but they definitely favored the forward section.  Obviously, when the Dragon hit the water, it hit it fast and hard…

K’Taul moved to one of the containers and tried to examine it…but much of the surface had been eroded, or at least, the details were.  He couldn’t tell if it was something their Dragon’s cargo bay currently contained or not…

He looked back over to find Admiral Perkins already at the panel attaching a remote power unit.

Making sure his gravity boots were on so that he wouldn’t slide down at an uncontrolled rate, he made his way to her just as she placed it on and activated it.

Immediately, the panel came to life, and displayed what it usually displayed.

“Well, the main computer appears slightly damaged…but operational,” Admiral Perkins reported.  “I’m trying to bring emergency generators online…”

“Remember to make sure life support doesn’t come on as soon as emergency power does…we don’t want to depressurize the whole ship right away, that could cause structural integrity to completely fail.”

“Yeah…hey!”  She suddenly looked at him…and he swore that the little ‘lamp’ that was at the front and top of her helmet was actually a light bulb.  “Why don’t we just establish a structural integrity field instead of life support!”

“Actually,” he suggested, “that’s a good idea, but we might as well see if we can restore both with emergency power.  After all, it is meant to power multiple systems in an emergency.”

She nodded and turned back to the console.  “True enough…”

For several minutes, she worked at the console, trying to get around broken computer relays as well as power relays…but after a while, she finally smiled.  The lights of the cargo bay suddenly sprang to life, lighting the whole bay up for all to see.

“Life support and structural integrity restored,” she stated triumphantly.  “All decks are pressurizing to standard atmospheric pressure…”  And with a smile, she removed her helmet.  “Oxygen restored to this compartment!”

Chris hated being left in the dark.  That’s why he missed being a Captain so much, he always knew what was going on with his crew…or at least, most of the time he did.  There had been no word from the Meridian yet, and he was becoming very anxious.

His anxiety wasn’t helped when an alarm on Vendar’s panel went off…he most likely visibly jumped!