Mission Two, "To the Gates of Babylon"

[Kaylenn]

The Pathfinder's hull warped and bended, twisted and elongated. It seemed to be in the process of being ripped apart.
But something held it together, some force that physical beings still had no knowledge nor understanding of, at least, not yet.......

***

Kaylenn opened her eyes slowly, and saw the pulsing red emergency lights above. She propped herself up on one elbow, feeling the grit and debris that littered the bridge. The rail above the command center was broken and twisted. Nearby, a pneumatic pipe had fallen from its casing, and dangled, some sort of gas gushing out of it.
Kaylenn stumbled to the ops station. The LCARS board was blown out. Slumped against the door to the ready room was McKinley. Kaylenn hurried to her side and checked her pulse......good, she was only unconscious.
Next Kaylenn looked around the bridge. Agarty was leaning against one of the science consoles on the far end of the bridge, catching her breath. Carrie was climbing back into his seat at Helm. And in the center was.....
Kaylenn's breath caught in her throat as she saw Benson, who was trapped under a fallen support beam. She ran to his side, trying to lift the beam from him. But she couldn't. So she forced herself to concentrate, to reach deep within herself for the stregnth needed......
Carrie, who was closest, had started to come to her aid in freeing Benson. But he stopped when he saw her blue eyes begin to glow, and whirl slightly.
Kaylenn could no longer see with her physical eyes....but she knew that the beam was moving, was lifting away from Benson.......
With a burst of telekinetic stregnth, she made the beam move across the bridge and drop down harmlessly.
She waited for the dizziness to wear off, then knelt down beside Benson. His eyes were opening and closing, he was moaning.
She tapped her commbadge. "Kaylenn to....to any transporter room still operational...."
She was surprised slightly when there was an answer.
"Aye, Captain, Transporter Room Four is still alive and kickin'. But I don't know for how long. What is it you need?"
"Commander Benson has been injured. Please lock on and beam him to sickbay."
"Aye sir...." replied the technician as he operated the transporter controls. A moment later, Benson dissolved in a haze of blue.
Kaylenn sighed. Carrie had been watching as she lifted the beam with telekinesis, and his eyes were wide in his young face.
"I....I knew you were a telepath..." he stammered.
Kaylenn held up her hand to stop him from saying anything more. "I am also telekinetic." At his expression of concern, she hurried to reassure him. "And I'm alright. It usually causes me no pain to do something like that."
Carrie nodded, and turned away, walking up to Agarty and checking to make sure she was alright. It had been a bumpy ride, to say the least. Again, it seemed, all power and most systems were down. Kaylenn glanced about at the mess on the bridge. This would take a long time to fix without the assistance of a spacedock.........

[David Darze]

If anything would and could piss David off it would be this. His precious Engineering was a wreck. Thanks to the idiots up on the bridge when David caught hold of any of them they would pay a dear price....except the Captain of course.

When it had first happened he had checked on Darze the symbiont the first priority over anything......

((To be continued in part 2))

[David Darze]

But when he had finally felt the symbiont David knew that basically he was fine. But when he finally stood he looked at his precious Engineering, it was a wreck, a disaster. And he was the one to clean up the mess, not only here but on the ship as well.

David mumbled something about command and bridge officers, before he managed to find a spotlight, and turned it on. He was floating of course. The gravity having been knocked out along with the light; Darze hated the dark. It remembered those times it felt it was hunted...

But those times were in the past, so he went about his buiness and started checking on how badly damaged things really were.

[Kaylenn]

The bridge itself was chaos. Benson had just been beamed away, and with communications out, there was no way to check with other areas of the ship. With the grav suits, the bridge crew could at least walk along the ground. Kaylenn imagined that in parts of the ship where they hadn't passed out the suits yet it was far more difficult to get anything accomplished.
Kaylenn was confident that her crew would be able to organize themselves in a crisis situation, and pull together to get the ship back up and running. Confidence in the crew was something that Kaylenn had learned from watching Captain Janeway.....as with so many other things.....
Kaylenn turned as she heard a whoop from across the bridge. Carrie and McKinley had managed to get short-range sensors, external viewcams, and the main viewscreen back online. Now, at least, they could see what was going on out there.....
.......Kaylenn almost wished the viewscreen was still offline when she looked at it and saw a huge blue, tri-dorsaled ship looming before the Pathfinder, completely dwarfing the Akira class..............

[David Darze]

David's team had donned EVA suit and started repairs. The repair list was long and enduring. But life support was the top of the list. He sent a man to the bridge to inform the captain of the ship's perdicament. When the man returned it was shocked.

"Did you get to the bridge Jones?" David ask as he used a hyperspanner on the Life support regulators.

"Yes..yes..Chief.." Jones mumbled.

"Good.." David then took a double take, "What's wrong?"

"Sir, I'm a crewmen recruit. This is my first time out in space. And sir I've never seen the ship that was on the viewer when I arrived. It was huge sir!" Jones exclaimed.

"It was was it? David asked interestingly, then shook his head, "Tell me Jones. Did you hand the report in that I made?" David looked at Jones's PADD filled hand and sighed, "I asked you to give that to her!"

"I'm...I'm sorry sir. I ran when I saw the ship!" Jones said excitedly.

David just sighed, And said, "Hand me the PADD Jones. I'll take the PADD to the bridge." Jones handed David the PADD.

"What should I do now sir?" Jones asked.

"You can finish what I started." David said.

"Aye sir." Jones replied and started to work.

David sighed again and made his way to the bridge.

[Kaylenn]

Kaylenn stared at the massive ship for several moments. Then she turned to Carrie, whom she had put in charge of repairs on the bridge.
"Ensign, the next thing is to get communications up. We need to talk to them." She motioned at the ship on the viewscreen.
Carrie nodded and went to work, McKinley following suit.
Just then David Darze entered the bridge, and handed a padd to Kaylenn.

[David Darze]

David smiled at Kaylenn as he said, "Ma'am that's the damage report and my wish list of need to repair systems."

[Kaylenn]

Kaylenn smiled back, even though the situation wasn't exactly anything to smile about. She glanced over David's "wish list".
She nodded, tossing the padd onto her chair. "You must've read my mind Commander. Communications are being worked on right now, and after that we get back full life support, then sheilds and impulse engines, then weapons and warp. Then lastly, long-range sensors and Naquadah Warp torpedos." She glanced at the ship on the viewscreen once more. "If all the ships around here are like that one, the only defense we might have will be the NW's......."

[May Sandra]

Down in sickbay, Sandra was hovering over Benson, watching his lifesign readings closely and taking notes on a padd. Any minute now Benson would wake up......Sandra had fixed his broken leg a half-hour ago when he had been beamed from the bridge. He had been sleeping soundly since then.
Benson stirred and Sandra put away the padd and leaned down to peer into his face, as his eyes opened slowly. He winced at the residual pain in his leg. Sandra grabbed a hypospray she had placed at the ready on the small table next to the biobed and injected Benson with it. He noticably relaxed, and even tried to sit up. But with a firm hand on his chest Sandra kept him down. "You'll need about twelve more hours to finish healing up before I'm letting you go anywhere."
Benson lay back reluctantly. "I guess if it's Doctor's orders there's not much I can do." He smiled ruefully.
Sandra nodded, grinning. "If you try to leave I'll null that hypospray I just gave you....."
Sandra had him there. And she knew it.

[Kosh]

Kosh knew the Shadows were coming for her.....Kosh was the only thing standing between them and Sheriden.....
Kosh turned, and saw Morden standing there, smiling his trademark smile. The one that told of all his lies, his trickery.
Several Shadows crawled out of the shadows, across the ceiling and walls, coming in from all directions, surrounding Kosh, coming closer and closer.....
Kosh reached out to Sheriden, appearing to him as his father, to warn him....to tell him what she couldn't before....now it was almost too late......
Kosh, even while talking to Sheriden, felt the Shadows unleash tendrils of energy.....ripping open Kosh's encounter suit.....tearing her apart, peice by peice.....
Before Sheriden, Kosh doubled over in agony, qripped Sheriden by the shoulders.....told him what needed to be said.....
The Shadows were killing Kosh. Her encounter suit was melting, twisting, as they kept lashing out.....as a last ditch-effort, Kosh planted a small part of herself in Sheriden's mind....a hope for the future......
Kosh was dying. She was almost gone now......she could feel herself slipping away....fading into nothingness.....and she was afraid.....
Kosh feared Shadows.
And then.....a light....engulfed Kosh.....and she slowly felt herself starting to live again.......
"I am Drakonaii......" said a voice.....a voice out of deep in the Vorlons' past.....the voice of their ancestors.....the Drakonis......

The next thing Kosh knew, she was standing, in her whole, unmarred encounter suit, in the middle of a large room....light eminated from a large column to Kosh's left.....and before her....stood a humanoid, very similar to a Human except for the spots along his hairline.......

[David Darze]

David rubbed the spots on the side of his face lightly, as he looked at this, this creature before him. Almost a Horta on stilts.

"Hello, I'm Lt. Cmdr. David Darze." He said looking at the creature.

[Kosh]

Kosh tentatively spoke. "Who are you? Did you bring me here?" Her voice started as a tinkling, musical jumble of sound, but was quickly overlayed by words in English. Good, Kosh thought, the translator is still working.

[David Darze]

David shook his head, "I am Lt. Cmdr. David Darze Chief Engineer. You are aboard the Federation Starship Pathfinder." David replied, "And I don't know how you got here. You just appeared."

[Kosh]

Kosh looked around the room...noting her surroundings fully, taking it all in. What was this "Federation" the humanoid had mentioned? Kosh didn't recognize any of the technology in use around here.....where had she ended up? Or when?
Kosh turned once more to David Darze....
"What is the year?"

[David Darze]

David watched this thing. It was fun to look at the silly thing. But he must not look or stare to badly for this was first contact in motion.

David cleared his throat and said, "It is the year 2382"