The soft hum of the Ship’s life support systems and the sound of the red alert slowly came into Sraal’s ears as the Caitian woke himself up. Groggily and aching, the Lieutenant had been thrown across the mess hall, and now laid next to Ensign M’Hark, who was still waking up.

The mess hall was, ironically, a mess. Paint had spilled all around and over the room, with chairs and food left over thrown every which way. Doctor Sullivan was already awake and tending to a groaning Commander Mikhailov, who had a laceration along his head. Once propped up, he nudged Amira and pointed to the two Caitians. As she got up and started walking over to them, Runt sat upwards with a start. He glanced around once, twice, three times before looking down at his hands.

“Oh my god did we get VOYAGERED?!” Runt cried out, standing upwards and promptly hitting his head on a table. “Oooooowww…”

“Runt, for the love of the moons, shut up.” Sraal grumbled as he stood upwards, grabbing the panicking cat by the scruff and heaving him up to his feet as well. “We’re fine.”

“No! We are not fine! Why the hell does everyone try to tell me how to feel when we’re in mortal danger?!” Runt let out a groan of frustration and skittered over to Amira. The Doctor gently grabbed the cats jaw, holding him still as she ran a tricorder over him. “Hey!”

“M’Hark, you are a gimmicky patient sometimes. Just hold still for a minute.” She spoke firmly—which got Runt to reluctantly take a breather. “All good. Sraal?” The other cat came slinking by, purposely nudging M’Hark to the side as he let the tricorder read over his vitals as well. With a ‘Tch’, Amira gave a worried look at the Lieutenant.

“That can’t be a good look.”

“It’s not. You have a fractured rib—how are you not feeling that?” Amira raised a brow. Sraal smirked.

“Adrenaline, I’d like to think.” He purred, walking past the good doctor and to one of the monitors in the mess hall. “I’m sure I’ll feel it soon.”

”Oh wooow a jerk who can’t feel any pain until laterrr how interestttinnggg..I wonder if this is reflective on his personalittyyy…” M’Hark spoke quickly, rolling his eyes, but shut his mouth when Amira glared at him.

“Ignoring the cries of a kit who’s never been properly given affection,” Sraal started.

“Excuse me?”

“We’re somewhere in the Shackleton Expanse.” The cat’s tail flicked to the side as he spoke. “But the computer can’t make heads or tails of it. Our right nacelle is completely detached power wise from us. Structural wise it’s barely hanging on. Hold on–” Sraal hastily walked over to one of the windows, looking outside of it. “I see…a planet in the distance. But that’s all.”

“How far away are we from the nearest starbase?” Sylvester groaned out as he stood up, applying pressure to his head wound. Sraal furrowed his brow as he walked back and typed a few more things into the monitor.

“Sensors are down. We have no idea.”

“Oh my god we’ve been VOYAGERED!” Runt nearly screamed, already starting to internally panic. Externally was pretty obvious too–but even then, nobody could debate this fact. Until sensors came back on, the USS Morro Bay has no idea where in the galaxy they truly are.

“We have not been Voyagered. But we should make our way to the bridge.” Sylvester muttered. “I’d like to see the Captain.” With a few more minutes of addressing wounds, the group of four slowly made their way out into the hallway–with all of them getting a uneasy reminder of the Vaadwaur attacks.

The Morro Bay wasn’t in direct disrepair or destruction internally. Crewmen were aiding one another in the hallways, running diagonistics, and it seemed like there were no major injuries. However, with the computer offline and sensors down, the crew was almost like a chicken with it’s head off. Runt let out a shudder as the group walked by the cargo bay where Sylvester was nearly killed just a little while back.

“If a wormhole opened up and sucked us in, I doubt we’d have gone super far.” Sylvester finally spoke up. When he was a little lightheaded or delirious, his accent got more prominent. “I barely stayed awake for the classes that required wormhole science, but I remember they can’t stretch across a whole galaxy without having us be ripped apart.”

“What makes you say that?” Amira raised a brow.

“No, no, he’s right.” Sraal chimed in as well. “The Morro Bay couldn’t withstand a trip that long with our hull integrity. I’m hoping we aren’t too far into the expanse.”

Runt was unnaturally quiet–glaring down at their tricorder with a puzzled expression plastered across their face. With a small nudge from Amira, the cat looked upwards and frowned. The doctor could see it; something wasn’t adding up, and M’Hark knew it.

“I know that look.” She chuckled.

“What look?” Runt glared. “What look??”

“You can’t figure out an equation.” Amira spoke plainly as the group of four got to the turbolift. “It’s not hard to read you M’Hark.”

“What???” Runt’s fur bristled. “I am too very hard to read.”

“Ehhhhh…” Sylvester gave a laugh as he shook his head. “No, no, it’s easy to read you.”

“You do this…thing when you get frustrated,” Sraal started. He walked over and ran a finger along one of the bits of bristled fur along Runt’s arm, which in return got a swat to his wrist. Bristling. All three spoke at once, nodding in agreement. After the moment of teasing, Amira spoke.

“Bridge.” She then turned to Sraal. “What else could you see on the monitor?”

“Not much else, I’m afraid. At the very least, we haven’t been attacked by anything, and we’re in a place that isn’t aggressive towards our ship.” The cat’s tail raised and wrapped around a small panel that had fallen off the wall, lifting it up to his hands. “At the very least we’ll be able to see what the hell is going on up on the bridge.”

Almost if on cue, the doors to the bridge swung open, and it was a. . . . very interesting sight to say the least. Captain Dowe groggily stood with a the rest of the bridge crew, a group of men in uniform standing there with their phasers in hand. Their skin was almost a dark red with blues and purples mixed in like a water paints cup. Bumpy, almost irregular, ridges lined along the cheeks, chins, temples, upper necks, and shoulders of the aliens. Patterns and blotches of pigments lined their faces. Each of them also had a sort of tattoo on their jaw.

Their outfits were almost militaristic–shoulder pads and protective gear draped over the copy and paste dark red military uniforms. Each wore a hexagonal patch alongside their left chestplate, with various badges on it. What could be akin to starfleets pips were the aliens’ stripes along their jaw, each a different type and with different patterns. A man who had all five filled in with a hexagon in the middle stepped forward, aiming the gun at the turbolift group, now.

“WOAH! Woah, hello-” Sylvester walked forward with his hands raised. “We mean you all no harm. Please put your guns down.”

“Who are you all? What is your buisness here? This woman is telling me she’s the Captain of this ship.” He narrowed his eyes. “Surely this is true, hm?”

“Yes, it is…” Sylvester gave an uneasy smile. “Welcome to the USS Morro Bay. I’m sure Captain Dowe has already told you our story…”

“She hit her head and is unsteady, Commander!” Hollis called from the other side of the bridge.

“Of course.” He let out a sigh. “Please, this woman right here,” He pointed to Amira. “Is our doctor. Let her by to look at our Captain.” The man let out a reluctant sigh and nodded, motioning his rifle to the side as Amira quickly skittered over. With bated breath, she gave the all clear signal to Sylvester a few moments later.

“She is fine, yes? Good. Now you can get out of here.” He glared.

“We can’t. I’m sorry. A wormhole pulled us through here and damaged our ship badly. We need to get repairs, or we aren’t going anywhere.” Sylvester muttered. When he said the word ‘wormhole’, the whole squardron turned with varying degrees of horror plastered across their faces.

“Wormhole?” One spoke up. “You don’t think–”

“There’s no other explanation.” The leader let out a heavy sigh and tapped a piece on his neck. “It’s as we suspected. Send in a reinforcements team and prepare for quarantine measures.”

“I’m sorry, quarantine?” Amira looked up. “Is there a sickness?”

“Ha! Oh, gods no. No, it’s simply a procedure we do to ensure no aggressive visitors on the rare occasion we allow them.” The man walked over to Sylvester and extended a hand, as behind them more of the aliens beamed aboard. Despite his unfriendly and uneasy look, he was still trying. “Overseer Basquar. You are in the Drekar system, governed by the Kaelthri Government. We apologize for the wormhole…that was our doing.”