"We're done here, Mister Paris - get us out of here!"

"The slipstream drive is off-line, Commander! We have warp-drive!"

"Best speed, Tom."

Commander Jadek's first command was getting closer to being his last. For the last few months, since being transferred from ISS By'Tor to the mysterious "Necronomicon Project", he had been in command of the little ship the Project staff had named Dauntless - the Empire's first transwarp vessel. In the space of a few months, he had been to locations all along the opposite side of the Imperial border on deep-penetration missions into Cardassian, Klingon and Romulan territory. Equipped with a device called an "interphase cloak", the little vessel, designated as a runabout, had entered enemy space and remained undetected - until now.

On this mission, the Dauntless had had to take an active role, revealing itself during a raid on a Romulan convoy. Transmissions had identified the convoy as "diplomatic", but Jadek, and Starfleet Intelligence, knew better, the proof now lying under guard in the rear compartment of the ship.

In response to Jadek's orders, the Dauntless jumped from two-thirds impulse straight to Warp Six in an instant. The three War-Birds, all but one of the escorting battleships, came in close pursuit, their commanders knowing the price of losing their unique cargo.

The situation was far from ideal, but the elven commander knew he had the best crew for the job. His helmsman was the best in the fleet - Lieutenant Tom Paris of Starfleet R&D, a bit of a live-wire who often struck sparks off his commanding officers, but had an inherent talent too good to waste flying routine courier shuttles. Chief Engineer Miles O'Brien was formerly of the Enterprise, but since his transfer he had proved to be an excellent, intuitive engineer in the research setting of Necronomicon, often making miracles happen. Science / tactical officer Baatel Ramied of Betazed had been handpicked from the staff of the project's commander, Admiral Westlake, and the telepath had a knack for "reading" an opponent's moves before they made them - Ramied was responsible for keeping them all alive up to this moment.

"I think I've located the problem", reported O'Brien. "The Romulan disruptors have knocked the slipstream generators out of synch, but realigning them will take just a minute or two."

"Time to earn your pay again, Mister Ramied", said Jadek, glancing towards the tactical console from his centre seat. "Give us those two minutes."

The Betazoid went to work, watching for incoming fire and telepathically relaying word to Paris, who could then react almost instantly, evading the torpedoes and disruptor beams. The transfer of information ceased abruptly, when something distracted Ramied - and Jadek felt it too.

"Are the Romulans trying to attack us telepathically?", the Commander asked Ramied, sensing a strange wave of psychic energy.

"N-negative, commander", the Betazoid reported, a little nervously. "It's coming from behind the Romulan ships..."

"Reverse angle on the viewer, Mister Ramied", ordered Jadek, swallowing down the anxiety that came over him. "I think I know what this is..."

The view-screen image switched to one where the stars streaked out into rainbow strands, stretching back to a distant vanishing point. Three sleek green Romulan warships were framed against the iridescent web, unleashing disruptor beams and torpedoes in a continued attempt to disable, rather than destroy the small but agile Imperial ship. Behind them, the star-strands were beginning to distort, twisted and thrown into impossible knots and loops by the presence of something that turned space - and sub-space - itself on its head and inside out. At the heart of the disruption was a vague shape, a strange combination of insect and exotic, lace-finned fish...

"The sensors can't make sense of it", said Ramied. "The readings change constantly. One moment, they say nothing's there, then they detect a planet...a cloud of helium nuclei...even a mass of Aldebaran cup-cake mix!"

"Now that'd be a first in Starfleet records", said Paris wryly. "ISS Dauntless - Ship lost in warp-capable cake-mix..."

Jadek was in no mood to laugh. "It's true - they can manipulate chaotic space", he murmured to himself.

The elf then addressed his bridge crew directly. "Gentlemen, we are the first Starfleet crew to witness this. We, and the Romulans, are now being pursued by a race responsible for the near-extinction of the Borg - something they may just be in the process of doing with the Romulans. Gentlemen...say hello to the H'Llarshen."

The crew had heard varying amounts about the Borg, ranging from rumour to first-hand experience in Ramied's case, when the Project recovered a crippled Borg cube. Jadek had seen the reports, studied the deciphered Borg database, and any race that could defeat that relentless force was something to be greatly feared.

For a moment, the bridge crew felt that fear as it permeated into the depths of their souls, then turned back to their consoles. Jadek had nothing to do but watch the view-screen as one of the War-Birds broke off, and turned to face the H'Llarshen ship. The Romulan vessel let loose with everything it had, but the disruptor beams and torpedoes never reached the shape inside the envelope of distorted space. The beams bounced off, or faded to nothing, whilst the torpedoes detonated harmlessly against what looked like a rippling layer of water, or penetrated, only to slow to a stop and simply vanish...

The strange ship reacted by shedding a droplet of its undulating protective layer, which quickly spread out into a sheet before striking the Romulan craft. The fragment of chaotic space flowed around the proud War-Bird, and physical laws gone mad wrenched it inside-out, then crushed it to dust.

"Quantum slipstream is back on-line!", Paris and O'Brien reported, almost simultaneously, and the helmsman did not wait for the order. The Dauntless slid out of sub-space and into the slipstream, and in seconds left the Romulans and H'Llarshen far, far behind.

Jadek and his crew breathed a collective sign of relief. "Well done, people", said the commander. "We did what we came to do..."

"But not without cost, Sir", interrupted Ramied. "The Romulans know about us now. They know we have ships capable of penetrating the defences and remaining undetected within their space."

"That doesn't worry me, Lieutenant", Jadek replied, rising from the centre seat and seeming glad to get away from that focus of responsibility for a while. "What concerns me is that the H'Llarshen know."

Jadek then went to the aft compartment, where his strike-team and their prize waited for the outcome of the pursuit. he saluted the five specially-picked Imperial Marines, then congratulated them each individually before dismissing them so that he could talk with the living legend they had snatched from the Romulans' grasp.

The tall, dark elf, not unlike Jadek himself, seemed distracted, upset - as though he had lost something important to him.

"Rayek? Are you all right?", asked Jadek.

The dusky figure, plucked straight out of elven history, did not react to his name at once. When he eventually looked up, he looked afraid.

"She's not there", he murmured. "She's gone..."

Jadek drew an uneasy breath, and held it. If this meant what he thought it meant, the mission had, in part, failed.

"Winnowill...?", the commander asked.

"She has escaped her prison", the elven legend, missing from the World of Two Moons for nearly a century, said mournfully. "But how? Where did she go?"

"We're taking you to a safe place, where hopefully we can find answers to your questions", said Jadek. "Sir, it's an honour to meet you..."

Rayek slapped away the commander's extended hand. "There's no honour in this, I assure you", he snarled. "No honour in being a prisoner."

"You were being moved under a substantial escort", informed Jadek, gulping down his intense disappointment. "For what reason? Can you - do you want to - explain?"

"They wanted me - us - to contact the ones that came after us", Rayek said bitterly. "The Romulans want to end the war before it consumes them, and their territory, but the H'Larshen will not speak to them. The Empire's old enemies will go to any lengths to ensure their survival..."

Rayek suddenly gripped Jadek's arms, and pulled the elven officer closer. "They are forming an alliance", he hissed, eyes growing wide."The Romulans, the Cardassians and the Klingons. They mean to stand against the H'Llarshen as one - and if they do, it could spell the end for all intelligent life in the galaxy."

...to be continued.