On Silent Feet They Came Part III
Posted on Wed Aug 26th, 2026 @ 3:04pm by Captain Thorrin & Lieutenant Commander Tarian Aloria & Lieutenant Sivek & Lieutenant Junior Grade Talin Nira
Edited on on Wed Aug 26th, 2026 @ 3:12pm
2,550 words; about a 13 minute read
Mission:
In The Nick Of Time
Location: Bridge - Deck 1 - USS Herodotus
Timeline: MD006 1245 hrs
Nira’s eyes moved rapidly across the tactical feed, then narrowed. “Maybe,” she said, not sounding happy about the word. “Their shields dip for less than a second after each discharge. It’s not a hole, more like the grid has to breathe.” Her fingers swept across the console, marking the pattern and sending it to Tarian’s display. “If M’Ressa can keep us alive long enough for them to fire again, I can try to hit that port-side emitter during the reset. The timing will have to be very tight.”
Sivek found himself bent over the remains of his engineering station, his attention on the one working screen and console now showing him the Herodotus's current status. He remained near the ruined edge of the console, the foam from the fire suppression unit clinging to the console housing and turning hard from the heat.
"Starboard EPS junctions are offline," he reported. "All power is now flowing through port-side lines and we're experiencing a significant bottleneck." Sivek turned to Tarian.
"The damage is not localized, either. The temporal feedback from the Krenim weapon has caused a misalignment across auxiliary power relays. We are unable to transfer the power necessary to keep starboard shields online." Returning his attention to the engineering station, his eyes absorbed the information scrolling across his display.
Straightening himself, he turned to Tarian.
"Manual recalibration is necessary," he said evenly. "Request permission to return to Engineering, Commander."
Sivek didn't wait. If Herodotus was going to have any chance at surviving this encounter with the Krenim ship, he needed to make sure power was ready and available.
The Vulcan hybrid disappeared into the turbolift without a word.
Tarian looked over at Sivek and said, "Yeah, go for it! Just let me know what you might need when you get down there." Tarian didn't wait to watch him leave as he said, "Okay, status report?"
The Krenim ship came about after firing the unknown weapon. They knew that they had incapacitated the Herodotus' Captain. Now it was time to destroy the vessel. Aboard the Krenim vessel a tactical officer began calculations. They would target the Herodotus and erase them from history. The ship's primary temporal core begins to charge. This was the first phase to fire. Without any warnings the timeship lets loose a full salvo of chroniton torpedoes. Twelve torpedoes launched toward the Herodotus. Twelve dots of crimson blue energy burst forth and spiraled through space. The first six torpedoes broke through the shields as if the shields were not even there. The chronal shielding kicked in and blocked the second set of six torpedoes.
Nira saw the torpedoes coming before the impact alarms caught up.
“Twelve incoming!” she called, her voice cutting through the klaxons. Her fingers moved to reinforce the forward grid, but the first six crimson-blue signatures twisted through the shield layer as if the barrier had been nothing more than fog.
The Herodotus lurched hard.
Nira was thrown sideways against the arm of her chair, one hand catching the edge of the console as the Bridge bucked beneath her. Somewhere behind her, a panel blew in a burst of white sparks and smoke, scattering glassy fragments across the deck. The lights strobed, died for half a heartbeat, then came back redder than before.
“Six torpedoes penetrated the shields,” she reported, dragging herself upright and forcing her eyes back onto the display. Her stomach had gone cold, but her hands were already moving again. “Multiple hull impacts. I’m reading pressure doors sealing on Decks Two and Three.”
The second wave hit the chronal shielding, and this time the ship answered with a deep, resonant groan that seemed to pass through the bones of the Bridge itself. The viewscreen fractured into static, then snapped back to the Krenim ship looming beyond them.
“Chronal shielding blocked the second six,” Nira said, sharper now. “But it overloaded the forward grid for a moment. Shields are holding, barely.”
She looked to Tarian, jaw set.
“They are not trying to scare us anymore.”
Tarian looked at the viewscreen at the ship that had been beating them down. Trying to get them to stop repairing the timeline to what it needed to be. As the ship lurched forward again, Tarian made his way over to where Talin was and said, "Would you be able to get someone to get some torpedos onto some of the escape pods? I've got a thought that might help us."
Nira looked up from the console, the glow of the tactical display catching along the edge of her earring.
“I can get people moving,” she said carefully, “but I need to know what I’m asking them to do before I send them into an escape pod bay with live torpedoes.”
Her fingers hovered over the internal comm controls, ready but not yet committing the order.
“Are we talking decoys, proximity mines, or something I’m going to have to apologise to **Lieutenant Sivek** for later?”
"Something we can get close enough to the enemy ship and through their shields. Something we can put like a torpedo on and blow once it gets within a certain range and that the other ship might see as an escape pod or something. I'm thinking of using a technique from Voyager when they were in the Delta Quadrant. Think you can give me something about the size of an escape pod with a charge on it or a few of them?" Tarian asked Nira, trying to get everything out without rambling too much.
Nira glanced back at the tactical display, then at the internal schematics Tarian’s idea had already pulled into her head.
“We don’t need something the size of an escape pod,” she said. “We use the escape pods.”
Her fingers moved, bringing up the nearest launch bays and their inventory.
“I can have a team gut the life-support packs from two of them and mount a photon warhead inside each hull. We leave the emergency transponders active, keep the thrusters low, and make them look like automated evacuation launches.”
She pulled the Krenim shield cycle back onto the display.
“They won’t pass through an active shield, but if we hold them close and send them in when that emitter resets, they may cross the grid before it closes. Once they’re inside the shield perimeter, we detonate them against the hull.”
Nira looked at Tarian.
“It’s crude and dangerous. But it could work.”
"Do it. I'd rather be blown up for trying than blown out of space time cause we didn't try. How long do you think it'll take for your teams to get it done?" Tarian asked Nira. "Also, would photons be better or do we have something a bit stronger? Quantums. Tri-cobalt devices. Whatever you think would make sure would knock their teeth out a bit and make sure they don't come crawling back anytime soon."
Nira opened an internal channel from the tactical console.
“Engineering teams Three and Five, escape pod bay two. Strip two pods down to thrusters, transponders and remote control. Bring two quantum warheads, but do not arm them until they’re secured. Move.”
She closed the channel and looked back at Tarian.
“Quantums,” she said. “Photons would be easier, but if we only get one chance, we need them to hurt. Tricobalt is too temperamental to start bolting into escape pods while the ship is coming apart around us.”
Acknowledgements flashed across her display.
“Four minutes. Less if my people decide they’re in a hurry.”
"Lets see if we can't light a little bit of a fire underneath their behinds. I'd like for the ship to be in as close to one piece for the away team to come back to, please," Tarian said as he went over to his own station to check on a few things and do some scans of his own as the ship rocked again from another torpedo blast.
Nira braced as the deck kicked beneath her, then brought the previous firing solution back onto the console.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
She sent a burst of phaser fire across the Krenim ship’s port-side shield grid, followed by two photon torpedoes aimed at the emitter that had faltered before. The impacts spread amber-white light across the ancient hull, forcing its shields to flare around the wounded section.
“Direct hits,” Nira reported, watching the readings fight to settle. “Still holding, but that emitter dipped again. At least we have their attention.”
"Okay, keep hitting them with as much as you can, Nira. Make sure we give them a beating they won't soon forget," Tarian said as he made it back to the Captain's chair.
The targeting arms were locked into position. The Krenim Captain sat in his chair and smiled. "Now you will not even be a footnote in history. Fire!" The tactical officer did as ordered and a sickeningly colored burst of energy came forth from the ship's temporal core, and flowed into the firing arms. Seconds later the purple green energy reached forward from the Krenim ship like tentacles. They sought to grab hold of the Herodotus and drag it out of history and existence.
In space it appeared as if the ship had entered a ballet. The Herodotus banked and rolled in various directions. The Caitian helm officer employed a number of maneuvers, both old and new and managed to avoid all the energy beams.
[Sivek to Bridge. I have stabilized the starboard EPS relays. You should have the ability to transfer auxiliary power to the systems which require it most.]
Tarian tapped his combadge and said, "Thank you, Mr. Sivek. Think you might be able to give some help to Nira and maybe those shields? We're working on a plan to maybe knock out the enemy ship, but we need to stick around long enough to make it to that point."
[I am transferring auxiliary power from the warp engines to the shields. If you require more power, we will have to draw from temporal systems. I am returning to the bridge.]
"Thank you, Mr. Sivek. Nira, what's the status of those escape pods and how soon can we launch them?" Tarian asked as he closed his comm line.
Nira’s console chirped almost on cue, an incoming report flashing across the corner of her display. She read it once, then looked towards Tarian.
“They’ve got them,” she said. “Two pods, quantum warheads secured, remote controls responding. They’re ready to launch whenever you are.”
Her fingers shifted to bring the modified pods under her control.
“I just need to know where you want them.”
Tarian thought about it for a moment and replied, "Get one on their underbelly and the second one near their weapons generator. Just somewhere we can stop them from firing on us and maybe knock them out too."
Nira nodded once and bent back over the console.
“Underbelly and weapons. Got it.”
She brought both modified escape pods onto the tactical overlay, killed anything that might make them look clever, and left only the signals an escaping crew would want another ship to see. Then she waited.
The Krenim vessel fired again.
For less than a second, the shield pattern around its port side faltered.
Nira’s fingers came down.
“Pods away.”
They shot from the Herodotus almost together, small and insignificant beside the ancient bulk of the Krenim ship. One dropped beneath the vessel, thrusters firing in short corrections as it slipped towards the armoured underside. The second climbed towards the structures surrounding the weapons array, both still broadcasting the frantic electronic signature of emergency craft.
Then the Krenim shields began to close.
“Come on…”
The first pod crossed the threshold with barely metres to spare.
Nira detonated it.
For an instant there was nothing but white.
The quantum warhead erupted beneath the Krenim ship with enough force to swallow half its underside in a boiling sphere of blue-white energy. Armour peeled outward in burning sheets. The ancient vessel pitched violently away from the blast, its shield grid rippling out of alignment as secondary explosions chased one another along the exposed lower hull.
That was all the second pod needed.
It drove through the failing shield layer and disappeared amongst the structures surrounding the weapons assembly.
Nira hit the second control.
The explosion tore through the Krenim vessel from much closer than any torpedo fired across open space ever could. Amber light vanished beneath a violent bloom of blue and violet as sections of the weapons structure simply ceased to be there. Debris spun away in every direction, some pieces still glowing as they crossed the viewscreen. The great temporal firing arms flickered once, twice, then went dark.
Nira stared at the readings as they came back through the interference.
“Their weapons just dropped off my board,” she said, almost disbelieving it herself. Another line collapsed beneath her eyes. “Shields are failing. Propulsion’s fallen right off too.”
The Krenim ship remained on the viewscreen, scarred open beneath, its once-predatory silhouette listing slowly against the stars.
Nira allowed herself the smallest breath.
“I think we knocked their teeth out.”
Aboard the Krenim ship the crew attempted to compensate for everything all at once. The attack from the enemy vessel was unexpected and they had been charging their main temporal weapon at the time. Now that very system overloaded. The Captain ordered the ship to back off so they could regroup, however, the order was too late. As the ship moved in reverse the temporal drive ruptured and all at once the vessel imploded into a temporal vortex. There was nothing left of the vessel save for the memories of the crew of the Herodotus.
Tarian was heading back to the command chair when Nira put the command into detonate the warheads. When it all worked and the ship went down, he just sat down and shielded his eyes from the blast. When Nira said it was a success, Tarian just nodded gently as he said, "Okay. Stand down to yellow alert and lets get some repairs done. But, keep a button near the button to fire. Just in case our new.....person out there decides to start messing with us again."
With that, Tarian started to coordinate with Sivek on the damage repair teams.
A Joint Post By
Captain Thorrin
Commanding Officer
USS Herodotus DTI-30656
Lieutenant Sivek
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Herodotus DTI-30656
Lieutenant Junior Grade Talin Nira
Assistant Chief Engineering Officer
USS Herodotus DTI-30656
Lieutenant Commander Tarian Aloria
Chief Temporal Operations Officer
USS Herodotus DTI-30656
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