In Astrometrics, Captain Praxas, Neil, Eroga, Nolan, Tey'un, Tegris, and Gaimmak stood gathered around Kayuli and Veirik. The air was thick with the hum of the star map as Veirik opened the impromptu emergency briefing.
"Behold," Veirik began, gesturing to the single, high-resolution image the Nexus had managed to capture. "The Cardassian ATR-4107. Codenamed Van'ra. To the Maquis and the Federation, it is known more simply as the Cardassian Dreadnought Missile."
"That tiny thing is a missile?" Eroga blurted out, her brow furrowed in skepticism.
"Not just any missile," Veirik explained. "It's a ballistic 'smart' weapon, and apparently, no longer a prototype. Judging by its trajectory, it was likely launched by the Cardassians during the height of the Hur'q War a few years ago. Its course is set for the Hur'q homeworld, Havas-Kul. Most likely, the Central Command intended to impress their new Dominion allies by ending the Hur'q threat at the source." He looked at Anzyl. "We need to stop it before it reaches its destination, or we'll have a resumed Hur'q-Dominion conflict that will engulf the entire Khitomer Alliance."
"What are we dealing with, technically?" Anzyl asked solemnly.
"Fortunately, we have a blueprint," Veirik continued. "Thanks to the logs of the USS Voyager's B'Elanna Torres. Her crew encountered a modified version in the Delta Quadrant years ago, and she provided exhaustive details on its countermeasures."
Veirik pulled up the schematics from the Starfleet Archives. "It is a self-guided, long-range weapon of mass destruction." He shuddered slightly. "It carries a payload of one thousand kilograms of matter and another thousand of anti-matter. That's enough to vaporize a small moon or plunge a habitable planet into a permanent nuclear winter. It possesses a highly sophisticated computer system—adaptable, evasive, and armed with its own potent defensive arrays. That thing isn't just a bomb; it's a one-missile army."
The room fell into a heavy silence.
"If any ship can intercept it, it's the Nexus," Veirik added with a confident, predatory grin. "We just need to catch it and swat it with our Omni-beams. Quadrant war averted."
Captain Praxas nodded. "You heard the man. Let's get to it." He tapped his combadge. "Helm, pursuit course on that vessel. Signal the bridge when we're in firing range."
"Aye, aye, sir," Lusaalli replied, as the officers hurried out of Astrometrics.
—
Out in the void, the coffin-shaped death machine streaked through the stars. Suddenly, the gargantuan silhouette of the USS Nexus dropped out of warp directly behind it. The behemoth vessel made the anti-matter warhead look like a speck of cosmic dust.
On the bridge, the atmosphere was one of disciplined tension.
"There it is," Anzyl said, settling into his chair. "Take it out, Akiel."
"With pleasure, sir," Veirik replied. He adjusted his targeting array. "Firing a concentrated Transphasic beam. We'll disrupt its molecular cohesion and let the vacuum of space do the rest."
The pink beam lanced out, striking the missile dead-on. However, the Van'ra's shields flared a brilliant gold, absorbing the impact with startling efficiency.
Immediately, like an incensed hornet, the small vessel executed a jarring mid-warp course correction. It zipped around the Nexus in a blur of motion, its internal sensors identifying a specific structural weakness. It fired a precise burst of yellow disruptor fire. The strike was surgical, hitting the primary power coupling for the warp engines.
The Nexus rocked violently, groaning as it was torn from warp. The ship came to a dead halt in the middle of deep space. Just as quickly, the Van'ra pivoted and leaped back into warp in a completely new direction, masking its ionized wake.
The bridge crew sat in stunned, dumbfounded silence. The pride of the Khitomer Alliance had been brought to a standstill by a "fly" in comparison.
"Okay..." a startled Veirik broke the silence. "Don't underestimate the fly. Got it."
Shaking off the shock, Anzyl snapped back into command mode. "Engineering, get those engines back online! Science, find out where it went. Helm, as soon as we have a heading, I want a maximum warp intercept!"
—
Back in Astrometrics, Nolan, Kayuli, and Veirik were scanning the sector, desperate to find the "angry bee" in the vastness of space.
"I'm not picking up anything on standard sensors," Nolan said, shaking his head.
Veirik was buried in his PADD, scrolling through B'Elanna Torres's tactical report. "According to the records, the missile masks its warp trail with a randomized EM field. It's a miracle you found it the first time, Doctor." He looked at Kayuli. "The report says we can isolate it with a multiphasic sweep, but it's designed to project ghost images—decoys—up to a hundred thousand kilometers from its true location."
Veirik's eyes rolled in tactical annoyance. "We have to look for a brief surge in neutrino emissions within that radius. That's the real hull."
Nolan and Kayuli's fingers blurred over the consoles. A sensor radius swept the sector until a single, solitary red dot pulsed on the map.
"Found it!" Nolan reported. "Sector G2, Yadera Sector. It's moving fast."
"It can push Warp 9 in short bursts to evade pursuit," Veirik noted. He tapped his combadge. "Helm, we have coordinates. Intercept course, maximum warp!"
—
Once again, the Van'ra was cruising at Warp 3 when the USS Nexus surged out of the sub-space slipstream behind it.
"Engage tractor beam, and all eight beam arrays fire!" Anzyl commanded.
A massive blue cone of energy reached out, the ship's Tractor Beam ensnaring the missile in an inescapable grip. But the Van'ra wasn't done. Its computer re-modulated its shield frequencies in a chaotic pattern, creating a repulsive harmonic that allowed it to "squirm" out of the tractor beam's hold.
The small ship began zipping through space in an erratic, unpredictable pattern, zipping through the gaps in the Nexus' eight neon-colored beam arrays. It nimbly dodged every shot Veirik threw at it.
The missile banked hard, flying dangerously close to the Nexus' hull. With another sniper-precise strike, it targeted and disabled the massive cruiser's Main Deflector Dish. The primary safety feature for high-speed travel hissed and fizzled into darkness.
As the Nexus' forward sensors went blind, the Van'ra jumped to maximum warp again, disappearing into the void.
"ALL STOP!" Anzyl cried out. He slumped back in his chair, staring at the viewscreen in disbelief. "Without a deflector dish, a single speck of space dust will rip our hull apart at warp."
Veirik clenched his fist, the glass of his console creaking under his enhanced strength. "Okay... now I'm pissed."