Stardate 52020.6

     Captain Ashley Johnson of the U.S.S. Achilles sat in the captain's chair 
for the first time in nearly a month.   Her chief engineer, Lieutenant 
Commander Horton, had informed her that the space-time inversion field was 
operational again, and that the ship, with luck, would make it back to 
federation space using the pocket wormhole the ship could create.  They would 
definitely need luck, because so far on the mission she hadn't had any.
     More than three weeks ago, on the launch of her new ship, the Achilles had
been sabotaged in the process of opening a pocket wormhole.  The ship had been 
sent careening thirty-thousand light years into the Beta Quadrant, and quickly
met with enemies.  The Yet-yek-yen, a hostile force with technology rivaling 
the Federation's, had taken the ship and stranded eighty percent of the 
Achilles crew on the Planet Tibro.  The saboteur, along with a surviving nurse,
and several other officers left on the ship during the alien occupation, had 
retaken the ship, with the help of several advanced warships on the planet's 
surface, hidden for a century.
     "We're ready, Captain," Lt. Hague said from his operations console.  "The
inverter is online and will be initialized on your command."
     "Do it," She said, and the young Lt. pressed the necessary controls and 
the ship began to generate the inversion field.
     The area around the ship danced with colors as a beam looking somewhat 
like a tractor began to paint the stars amazing colors.  Johnson barely had 
time to admire the beauty of it before the ship was swept into the vortex.
     Lieutenant Hague watched his console carefully, looking for any stray 
particles or radiation that could cause the ship to be thrown off course.  He 
was usually easygoing, always hitting on the female crewmen, who nearly always
seemed to accept his invitation to dinner, and usually to go back to his 
quarters.  That was his style, but now, after what had happened, he was much 
more serious about his readings.  He would be as careful as possible.
     Thankfully, they had enough luck to get back, but it wasn't where they had
planned.  The ship came out of the vortex between three ships, two of them 
damaged, and a runabout floating in space on standby.  The Achilles was only in
space for milliseconds, when the Cardasian ship fired a chroniton weapon.  It 
hit the Achilles and all Hague saw was a bright light, and then was slammed 
into a bulkhead, knocking him unconscious.
     Hague pulled himself up to his feet, noting that the rest of the bridge 
crew where still unconscious.   When he looked at the chronometer he noticed he
had been down for only a few nanoseconds, but he knew that wasn't right.  The 
ships systems were in ruin, and he furiously manipulated the controls, trying 
to get the ship in somewhat of a working order.
     When he got the viewscreen operational, he was amazed at what he saw.  It 
was like a transwarp conduit, or a wormhole, but it was space-time itself.  He 
pushed a button to put the sensors to work, but that caused the ship to fall
out of the conduit of time itself.
     Johnson snapped conscious, and looked out the viewscreen, they were coming
out of another wormhole.  The exit was quick, and when they came out of the 
conduit, they were traveling at incredible speeds.  She saw a ship with the 
markings "U.S.S. Valiant, and realized the imminent collision, "Shields Up!" 
She yelled, seconds before the collision.