***
Something in the vents was burning. Smoke was gathering on the bridge, bringing with it the smell of melted insulation, along with something far worse. Sitting on the edge of what remained of his command podium, Kran watched the smoke drift above his head, slowing moving towards the jagged holes where the viewscreen had once been.
Most of his crew were too shocked by the recent turn of events to notice and understand that detail, but the Alpha found it nearly impossible to ignore. The atmospheric shielding over the hull breaches wasn't working properly, slowly but steadily losing strength. Soon it would likely fail completely, exposing everyone inside to the vacuum beyond.
He had no idea how many of his crew were still alive. Internal communications were supposedly online, but he had yet to hear from anyone that wasn't on the bridge. He'd sent a team down to check on Engineering, but none had returned with news yet. And Kran wasn't entirely sure if it was a possible concussion interfering with his perceptions, but he had the oddest sensation that he was lighter then he should be. If that was true, then the ships gravity was starting to fail as well.
As much as he hated to admit it, even to himself, he simply could not deny the truth. His ship was dead. Despite his confidence in his crews skill and the power of Hirogen technology, the Jeff Wayne, a single ship, had crippled and destroyed every single vessel his Pack commanded. His legacy, all the stories of his Hunt, wiped away in minutes.
Soon, the survivors around him would realize this, and in their fear and anger, there would be only one possible response. Careful to make certain no one was looking at him, Kran reached down and checked that his sidearm was still in its holster, charged and ready. His index finger slid along the power selector along the side, shifting it to maximum power, enough to destroy even Hirogen body armor.
"Something’s happening with Starfleet ship!" The cry came from the young man operating what was left of the external sensors, and Kran quickly pulled his hand away from his sidearm. Stepping over to the mans station, he watched as the youth adjusted the remaining cameras, zooming in as far as he could. A small shuttle, smooth and sleek, its nacelles part of the vehicles hull despite the usual Starfleet style, emerged from the escorts hanger bay, quickly pulling away from its mothership.
“A boarding party,” muttered one of the other men that had come over to investigate the welcome distraction. It took Kran a moment to put a name to the face. Malec, one of the youths gifted to him a year ago by the Novera Pack. Aggressive, always testing the limits his betters set, and perceptive. And right now, with Hakket off the ship and out of contact, he was likely the biggest threat to Kran out of the surviving crew. "We must have damaged their transporters,” the youth mused with a thoughtful frown. "I wonder how close they'll have to get for that tiny thing to cut through our inhibitors? If we can get a beam array online-"
Kran interrupted him before he could complete the thought. “They would detect it and destroy us with a single broadside. A swift death with nothing gained for it. There are better ways to exploit such an opportunity.” Pausing for a moment, he considered the shuttle. “Although, in this case, I very much doubt that we are their target.” His subordinates expression made it clear he disagreed, but before he could speak, the shuttle accelerated to warp and vanished. “They’re going to the freighter,” Kran explained, in response to the other mans confused look. “Starfleet has a philosophy built around the protection of those that lack the will to fight themselves. It’s common in many Prey species, especially in this region of the galaxy. Pitiful, really.”
Turning away from the sensor station, the younger Hirogen met his Alphas confident expression with an angry glare. “Pitiful?” he growled, the aggression in his voice undeniable. Everyone else on the bridge stopped what they were doing, turning towards the pair. Malec stepped towards Kran, his eyes meeting the Alphas in clear challenge. “Maybe you weren’t paying attention, Alpha,” he continued, placing impressive mockery into Krans title, “but that Prey you’re so quick to call pitiful destroyed one of our ships, and crippled the rest of us!”
Forcing himself to keep his muscles relaxed, Kran met that glare with a smile. “Yes, she did. This Captain Hanagawa has a skill and instinct we’ve never seen in any of the Starfleet ships we’ve hunted before. Even knowing her record, even with her boast and challenge, I never truly believed it.” His admission caught Malec off guard, and Kran continued on before he could recover. “And she exploited it brilliantly. She destroyed the Crippling Blade. The Silent Watcher is crippled. And then, there is us. Well…” Waving a hand towards the viewscreen, he let the damage speak for itself. “And yet, here we are. Instead of boarding us, instead of pressing their advantage, they hesitate. Aliens can be strange sometimes.”
“Then we attack!” Malec shot back. “We end this Hunt, one way or another!”
In the blink of an eye, Krans hand was wrapped around the younger mans throat. Malec gasped in shock as he was lifted up off the deck. “And in so doing, you end our Pack!” the Alpha roared, his formerly pleasant nature gone as if it never existed. “The stories of our Hunt will go unheard and forgotten in pointless death!” His grip on the younger mans throat tightened, drawing a pained gasp from him, before the Alpha forced himself to relax slightly, dropping Malec back to the deck. He gave the man time to catch his breath, then continued, his voice almost unnaturally calm. “Too many of our kin have died today, because I underestimated Hanagawa. I will not make that mistake again. And I will not allow you to do so either.”
Growling, Malec pulled himself up to a crouch, and for a moment, it seemed he was preparing to attack the Alpha. But before he could do so, a new voice entered the conversation. High, feminine, almost musical, it grabbed the attention of every Hirogen on the bridge instantly. “My, my, my. Should I come back later?” Captain Hanagawa asked from where she was standing next to the command podium, hands on her hips, a playful smirk on her face. For several seconds, everyone else on the bridge stared at her in disbelief. She ignored the crew, her gaze focused on Kran. Disbelief faded from his face, replaced first by curiosity, and then amused understanding.
There was no curiosity or amusement on Malec’s face however. Presented with his enemy only a few meters away, he responded in the only way he understood. Snarling a challenge, he sprang to his feet and charged, drawing a large blade from his belt as he closed in. Hanagawa glanced at him for a moment, then ignoring him, returning her attention to Kran. Her reasons became obvious a second later, when the young hunters blade met nothing but air and photons. Thrown off balance by the lack of resistance, Malec kept moving through the hologram, before tripping over the projector that had been quietly beamed over from the Jeff Wayne, and landing on the deck with a cry of mixed surprise and pain. Hanagawa smirked slightly as Kran managed to suppress his laughter. The coughing from certain corners of the bridge indicated that not all of the witnesses were able to do the same.
Stepping towards the Orion woman, Kran considered her thoughtfully. By Hirogen standards, she was impossibly tiny, barely five feet even in heels. Despite that, she still seemed to have the soft curves that so many lesser species seemed to prize in their females, and the black and red uniform she wore seemed designed to point that out to anyone that looked. When he’d first seen her on his viewscreen, he’d dismissed it as another sign of a weak Prey species, a body built for pleasure. But after what she’d done to his ships, he made himself dismiss that and look again.
Under the curves, there was muscle. The uniform was tailored to look appealing, but also allow her a good deal of movement. Her stance was rather casual, but that was because she had no immediate threat to fear. But most of all, he found himself considering her eyes. There was a steel in them he’d failed to recognize earlier, a fire that reminded him of some of the most dangerous Hirogen he’d hunted with over the years.
Now, perhaps far too late, he recognized the scale of his mistake. He’d believed he was hunting a Mistcat, only to see the Hexapuma he’d angered once it was too late. “Captain Hanagawa,” he said, keeping his voice level, polite. “A clever solution to our communications problem.”
While he had been studying her, Hanagawa had clearly been doing the same in return, although he could only imagine what she saw. “Alpha Kran. I believe I owe you an apology.” Her tone of voice was far more formal than when she’d revealed her pseudo-presence. “You proved me wrong today. You and your Pack truly are Hirogen.”
“And you and your crew are no mere Prey,” he replied, before taking a breath. He knew now what he had to do, if he and his people were to survive. “Today, you were the Hunter. I underestimated you. I misjudged you. I led my Pack into the shadows… and I made us your Prey.” Those words, spoken with quiet formality, sent an audible wave of shock through his surviving Pack. It was not just an admission of defeat, but of surrender. But at the same time, he made it clear to all that witnessed this that the dishonor was his, and his alone.
While Kran dared not look away from the woman in front of him, out of the corner of his eye, he could see several of his Pack, their expressions a heartbreaking mixture of horror and respect as they understood. Even if he lived, this was where his legacy would end, in failure and shame. If Hanagawa understood the context of what he had just done, she gave no sign. Instead, she held a hand out in front of her, palm up. Before he could wonder why, another hologram appeared above it. A wireframe schematic of a ship, this ship. Kran studied it for a moment, then failed to suppress a wince as he realised it was even worse than he feared. “She will never hunt again,” Hanagawa said quietly, her own eyes on the schematic. “Even trying to move her would likely break her in half. My chief engineer estimates that you have less than twenty minutes before you lose even emergency power, at which point the hull breaches will kill you all.” She closed her hand into a fist, and the schematic vanished. Looking back up, Hanagawa met his eyes again. “You and your men don’t deserve that end,” she said. “But you know what it will require of you.”
Nodding slightly, Kran managed to keep the despair from his face and voice. “My surrender. You can hardly rescue us from the Void if we’re doing our best to kill you, after all,” he added, managing a faint smile. The Starfleet Captain returned his nod, and Kran took a breath before pressing a button on his wrist comm. “Laurent.”
“Alpha,” came the reply. “We have been delayed by damage, but are almost to engineering-”
“Return to the bridge,” the Alpha interrupted, before switching the transmission to all decks. “This is the Alpha. The Starfleet ship has contacted us. There is no doubt now that we have been defeated. Our ship is dying, and for the survival of my people, I am surrendering to Captain Hanagawa.” For a long moment, there was silence, both on the bridge and several decks below. “All other options kill all of you, for no reason or gain, and I have killed enough of you today. This is my final order as your Alpha, and I expect it to be obeyed.”
For an impossibly long moment, the Hirogens entire world was focused on the silence, as the men several decks below tried to process this new development. “Your Will be done, Alpha,” Laurent replied at last, his voice quiet but accepting. “We are returning now.”
Closing the channel, Kran turned his attention back to Hanagawa. “It is done,” he said, shoulders slumping visibly. “Our ship is yours Captain.”
She didn’t reply immediately, instead turning to look across the bridge and the men that stood there, watching the conversation. “They’re a fine crew,” she said, turning back to Kran. “You should be proud of them.”
Removing his pistol from its holster, Kran thumbed the safety on, then placed it on the command podiums twisted railing. “I always have been. They deserved a better fate then the one I’ve given them today.”
“A wise man once said, where there is life, hope remains.” Hanagawas smile was softer now, almost friendly. “They’ll have a future, as will you. We’ll speak again soon,” she said, before her image began to fade, leaving Kran looking across the now empty space to a disbelieving Malec.
Before the younger Hirogen could speak however, there was a new noise that filled the utterly silent bridge. The humming of transporters. Everyone turned to see a dozen well armed figures in Starfleet uniforms appear across the bridge, carefully positioned to cover the majority of the rooms inhabitants. As the light show faded, Kran held back a smile. Even now, Captain Hanagawas cunning was impressive. The holoprojector had let her speak to him and accept his surrender, but also let her people survey the bridge and determine their exact beam-in locations, and then distracted his people to further reduce the odds that any of them would try something foolish.
Even as the boarding party covered his crew, Kran felt the churning guilt in his stomach diminish slightly. Perhaps Hanagawa was right again. Perhaps there was a future.
One of the officers, a stocky, square jawed human woman with a wide-beam phaser rifle in her hands, stepped forward. “Alpha Kran? Lieutenant Commander Shinko, USS Thunderchild. I have orders to take your people into custody and evacuate them from this ship,” she stated, her voice and body language making it clear that, surrender or no, she was more than happy to use force.
Raising his hands into the air, Kran met her glare with a polite smile. “Well then Lieutenant Commander, we are at your disposal.”
***
Something in the vents was burning. Smoke was gathering on the bridge, bringing with it the smell of melted insulation, along with something far worse. Sitting on the edge of what remained of his command podium, Kran watched the smoke drift above his head, slowing moving towards the jagged holes where the viewscreen had once been.
Most of his crew were too shocked by the recent turn of events to notice and understand that detail, but the Alpha found it nearly impossible to ignore. The atmospheric shielding over the hull breaches wasn't working properly, slowly but steadily losing strength. Soon it would likely fail completely, exposing everyone inside to the vacuum beyond.
He had no idea how many of his crew were still alive. Internal communications were supposedly online, but he had yet to hear from anyone that wasn't on the bridge. He'd sent a team down to check on Engineering, but none had returned with news yet. And Kran wasn't entirely sure if it was a possible concussion interfering with his perceptions, but he had the oddest sensation that he was lighter then he should be. If that was true, then the ships gravity was starting to fail as well.
As much as he hated to admit it, even to himself, he simply could not deny the truth. His ship was dead. Despite his confidence in his crews skill and the power of Hirogen technology, the Jeff Wayne, a single ship, had crippled and destroyed every single vessel his Pack commanded. His legacy, all the stories of his Hunt, wiped away in minutes.
Soon, the survivors around him would realize this, and in their fear and anger, there would be only one possible response. Careful to make certain no one was looking at him, Kran reached down and checked that his sidearm was still in its holster, charged and ready. His index finger slid along the power selector along the side, shifting it to maximum power, enough to destroy even Hirogen body armor.
"Something’s happening with Starfleet ship!" The cry came from the young man operating what was left of the external sensors, and Kran quickly pulled his hand away from his sidearm. Stepping over to the mans station, he watched as the youth adjusted the remaining cameras, zooming in as far as he could. A small shuttle, smooth and sleek, its nacelles part of the vehicles hull despite the usual Starfleet style, emerged from the escorts hanger bay, quickly pulling away from its mothership.
“A boarding party,” muttered one of the other men that had come over to investigate the welcome distraction. It took Kran a moment to put a name to the face. Malec, one of the youths gifted to him a year ago by the Novera Pack. Aggressive, always testing the limits his betters set, and perceptive. And right now, with Hakket off the ship and out of contact, he was likely the biggest threat to Kran out of the surviving crew. "We must have damaged their transporters,” the youth mused with a thoughtful frown. "I wonder how close they'll have to get for that tiny thing to cut through our inhibitors? If we can get a beam array online-"
Kran interrupted him before he could complete the thought. “They would detect it and destroy us with a single broadside. A swift death with nothing gained for it. There are better ways to exploit such an opportunity.” Pausing for a moment, he considered the shuttle. “Although, in this case, I very much doubt that we are their target.” His subordinates expression made it clear he disagreed, but before he could speak, the shuttle accelerated to warp and vanished. “They’re going to the freighter,” Kran explained, in response to the other mans confused look. “Starfleet has a philosophy built around the protection of those that lack the will to fight themselves. It’s common in many Prey species, especially in this region of the galaxy. Pitiful, really.”
Turning away from the sensor station, the younger Hirogen met his Alphas confident expression with an angry glare. “Pitiful?” he growled, the aggression in his voice undeniable. Everyone else on the bridge stopped what they were doing, turning towards the pair. Malec stepped towards Kran, his eyes meeting the Alphas in clear challenge. “Maybe you weren’t paying attention, Alpha,” he continued, placing impressive mockery into Krans title, “but that Prey you’re so quick to call pitiful destroyed one of our ships, and crippled the rest of us!”
Forcing himself to keep his muscles relaxed, Kran met that glare with a smile. “Yes, she did. This Captain Hanagawa has a skill and instinct we’ve never seen in any of the Starfleet ships we’ve hunted before. Even knowing her record, even with her boast and challenge, I never truly believed it.” His admission caught Malec off guard, and Kran continued on before he could recover. “And she exploited it brilliantly. She destroyed the Crippling Blade. The Silent Watcher is crippled. And then, there is us. Well…” Waving a hand towards the viewscreen, he let the damage speak for itself. “And yet, here we are. Instead of boarding us, instead of pressing their advantage, they hesitate. Aliens can be strange sometimes.”
“Then we attack!” Malec shot back. “We end this Hunt, one way or another!”
In the blink of an eye, Krans hand was wrapped around the younger mans throat. Malec gasped in shock as he was lifted up off the deck. “And in so doing, you end our Pack!” the Alpha roared, his formerly pleasant nature gone as if it never existed. “The stories of our Hunt will go unheard and forgotten in pointless death!” His grip on the younger mans throat tightened, drawing a pained gasp from him, before the Alpha forced himself to relax slightly, dropping Malec back to the deck. He gave the man time to catch his breath, then continued, his voice almost unnaturally calm. “Too many of our kin have died today, because I underestimated Hanagawa. I will not make that mistake again. And I will not allow you to do so either.”
Growling, Malec pulled himself up to a crouch, and for a moment, it seemed he was preparing to attack the Alpha. But before he could do so, a new voice entered the conversation. High, feminine, almost musical, it grabbed the attention of every Hirogen on the bridge instantly. “My, my, my. Should I come back later?” Captain Hanagawa asked from where she was standing next to the command podium, hands on her hips, a playful smirk on her face. For several seconds, everyone else on the bridge stared at her in disbelief. She ignored the crew, her gaze focused on Kran. Disbelief faded from his face, replaced first by curiosity, and then amused understanding.
There was no curiosity or amusement on Malec’s face however. Presented with his enemy only a few meters away, he responded in the only way he understood. Snarling a challenge, he sprang to his feet and charged, drawing a large blade from his belt as he closed in. Hanagawa glanced at him for a moment, then ignoring him, returning her attention to Kran. Her reasons became obvious a second later, when the young hunters blade met nothing but air and photons. Thrown off balance by the lack of resistance, Malec kept moving through the hologram, before tripping over the projector that had been quietly beamed over from the Jeff Wayne, and landing on the deck with a cry of mixed surprise and pain. Hanagawa smirked slightly as Kran managed to suppress his laughter. The coughing from certain corners of the bridge indicated that not all of the witnesses were able to do the same.
Stepping towards the Orion woman, Kran considered her thoughtfully. By Hirogen standards, she was impossibly tiny, barely five feet even in heels. Despite that, she still seemed to have the soft curves that so many lesser species seemed to prize in their females, and the black and red uniform she wore seemed designed to point that out to anyone that looked. When he’d first seen her on his viewscreen, he’d dismissed it as another sign of a weak Prey species, a body built for pleasure. But after what she’d done to his ships, he made himself dismiss that and look again.
Under the curves, there was muscle. The uniform was tailored to look appealing, but also allow her a good deal of movement. Her stance was rather casual, but that was because she had no immediate threat to fear. But most of all, he found himself considering her eyes. There was a steel in them he’d failed to recognize earlier, a fire that reminded him of some of the most dangerous Hirogen he’d hunted with over the years.
Now, perhaps far too late, he recognized the scale of his mistake. He’d believed he was hunting a Mistcat, only to see the Hexapuma he’d angered once it was too late. “Captain Hanagawa,” he said, keeping his voice level, polite. “A clever solution to our communications problem.”
While he had been studying her, Hanagawa had clearly been doing the same in return, although he could only imagine what she saw. “Alpha Kran. I believe I owe you an apology.” Her tone of voice was far more formal than when she’d revealed her pseudo-presence. “You proved me wrong today. You and your Pack truly are Hirogen.”
“And you and your crew are no mere Prey,” he replied, before taking a breath. He knew now what he had to do, if he and his people were to survive. “Today, you were the Hunter. I underestimated you. I misjudged you. I led my Pack into the shadows… and I made us your Prey.” Those words, spoken with quiet formality, sent an audible wave of shock through his surviving Pack. It was not just an admission of defeat, but of surrender. But at the same time, he made it clear to all that witnessed this that the dishonor was his, and his alone.
While Kran dared not look away from the woman in front of him, out of the corner of his eye, he could see several of his Pack, their expressions a heartbreaking mixture of horror and respect as they understood. Even if he lived, this was where his legacy would end, in failure and shame. If Hanagawa understood the context of what he had just done, she gave no sign. Instead, she held a hand out in front of her, palm up. Before he could wonder why, another hologram appeared above it. A wireframe schematic of a ship, this ship. Kran studied it for a moment, then failed to suppress a wince as he realised it was even worse than he feared. “She will never hunt again,” Hanagawa said quietly, her own eyes on the schematic. “Even trying to move her would likely break her in half. My chief engineer estimates that you have less than twenty minutes before you lose even emergency power, at which point the hull breaches will kill you all.” She closed her hand into a fist, and the schematic vanished. Looking back up, Hanagawa met his eyes again. “You and your men don’t deserve that end,” she said. “But you know what it will require of you.”
Nodding slightly, Kran managed to keep the despair from his face and voice. “My surrender. You can hardly rescue us from the Void if we’re doing our best to kill you, after all,” he added, managing a faint smile. The Starfleet Captain returned his nod, and Kran took a breath before pressing a button on his wrist comm. “Laurent.”
“Alpha,” came the reply. “We have been delayed by damage, but are almost to engineering-”
“Return to the bridge,” the Alpha interrupted, before switching the transmission to all decks. “This is the Alpha. The Starfleet ship has contacted us. There is no doubt now that we have been defeated. Our ship is dying, and for the survival of my people, I am surrendering to Captain Hanagawa.” For a long moment, there was silence, both on the bridge and several decks below. “All other options kill all of you, for no reason or gain, and I have killed enough of you today. This is my final order as your Alpha, and I expect it to be obeyed.”
For an impossibly long moment, the Hirogens entire world was focused on the silence, as the men several decks below tried to process this new development. “Your Will be done, Alpha,” Laurent replied at last, his voice quiet but accepting. “We are returning now.”
Closing the channel, Kran turned his attention back to Hanagawa. “It is done,” he said, shoulders slumping visibly. “Our ship is yours Captain.”
She didn’t reply immediately, instead turning to look across the bridge and the men that stood there, watching the conversation. “They’re a fine crew,” she said, turning back to Kran. “You should be proud of them.”
Removing his pistol from its holster, Kran thumbed the safety on, then placed it on the command podiums twisted railing. “I always have been. They deserved a better fate then the one I’ve given them today.”
“A wise man once said, where there is life, hope remains.” Hanagawas smile was softer now, almost friendly. “They’ll have a future, as will you. We’ll speak again soon,” she said, before her image began to fade, leaving Kran looking across the now empty space to a disbelieving Malec.
Before the younger Hirogen could speak however, there was a new noise that filled the utterly silent bridge. The humming of transporters. Everyone turned to see a dozen well armed figures in Starfleet uniforms appear across the bridge, carefully positioned to cover the majority of the rooms inhabitants. As the light show faded, Kran held back a smile. Even now, Captain Hanagawas cunning was impressive. The holoprojector had let her speak to him and accept his surrender, but also let her people survey the bridge and determine their exact beam-in locations, and then distracted his people to further reduce the odds that any of them would try something foolish.
Even as the boarding party covered his crew, Kran felt the churning guilt in his stomach diminish slightly. Perhaps Hanagawa was right again. Perhaps there was a future.
One of the officers, a stocky, square jawed human woman with a wide-beam phaser rifle in her hands, stepped forward. “Alpha Kran? Lieutenant Commander Shinko, USS Thunderchild. I have orders to take your people into custody and evacuate them from this ship,” she stated, her voice and body language making it clear that, surrender or no, she was more than happy to use force.
Raising his hands into the air, Kran met her glare with a polite smile. “Well then Lieutenant Commander, we are at your disposal.”
***