Uhura sighed and set the tea cup down on the doctor's desk. Sickbay was quiet, it was late and the minimal night shift was restocking supplies and filling up the hours until they could return to their rooms and their off-duty lives.

"That was a big sigh," said Dr. Chapel with a grin. "All this peace and quiet getting to you?"

Uhura pushed her slightly silver hair away from her unlined face and smiled. "When I took this 'temporary' assignment as acting captain of a scout ship, I didn't realize how far it was between planets."

Christine Chapel laughed. "Remember on the Enterprise when it seemed like something new was happening every week?"

The coffee and cream complexioned woman's eyes lit up in fond memory. "Yes, and there were so many onboard that even when we weren't encountering new lifeforms, we were doing something exciting."

The chief medical officer arched her eyebrows, "There were all kinds of rumors about your doing something exciting,
usually when you and the captain were off the bridge."

Uhura looked shocked. "Well, I have two words to say to you, noble healer--poltoc soup!" Their laughter was cut short by the sound of  the communicator beeping for their attention.

"Captain Uhura to the bridge, please." Lieutenant T'Sue's even voice rang through the quiet sickbay. "Captain Uhura to the bridge."

Uhura pressed her elegant fingers against the comm button.  "Uhura here, Lieutenant, what is it?"

"Unknown, Captain," came the quick response. "Our sensors are picking up a large object ahead of us, not on any of our charts."

Uhura knew the young Vulcan scientist well enough to know a wandering asteroid would not have warranted a call to the captain during her off-duty time. Unfortunately, Vulcan science officers were notorious for not making a definitive assumption without proof.

"I'm on my way," Uhura said, already standing and adjusting her tunic. She turned to her old friend. "Care for a late night stroll, Doctor?"

"I wouldn't miss it," she said, happy to leave sickbay to the nightshift. When Uhura had first assumed command
of the USS Marco Polo, Dr. Chapel had pulled double duty as the senior science officer and chief medical officer. Since Lieutenant T'Sue's arrival and the onboard first contact teams' need for more medical attention, she'd not spent as much time on the bridge.  Besides, she had no trouble making educated guesses, with or without scientific basis. As she walked out of sickbay with her captain, she realized that she was getting to be more like Dr. McCoy every year.

Lieutenant T'Sue vacated the captain's chair as Uhura and the doctor exited the turbolift. The small bridge was compact, a circular arrangement of consoles around the captain's chair. Like the rest of the scoutship, the bridge was designed for maximum function in minimum space. The viewscreen showed the familiar star pattern, but T'Sue had overlain science data onto the screen.

"It IS big," commented Dr. Chapel. "Fifty times larger than the Marco Polo."  The size and composition figures cycled onto the screen.

"How far away?" asked Uhura as she took her seat.

The Vulcan woman turned from her science console. "As soon as it was detected, we dropped us out of warp drive.
We should reach it in five minutes at impulse speed."

"Magnify," ordered Uhura. "We should be able to see it by now."

"Normally, yes," agreed Dr. Chapel, still reading the onscreen analysis, "however, it seems to be composed of light-absorbing materials."

"Manufactured, light-refracting materials," added T'Sue.

Uhura frowned at the thought of a man-made artifact designed to be unseen in space. "Slow to half impulse," she instructed the night navigator before turning to the communications officer. "Mr. McDill, get the command staff up here." They hadn't been off duty for very long, but she needed them.  Something about this thing made her uneasy.

Her first officer, Commander Greyhawk, entered the bridge in a fresh uniform with a wet head. Uhura suspected she'd interrupted him during a wrestling bout with some of his first contact team troops. When he wasn't running ship security, he was supervising the fifty troopers trained in the first contact protocols. Tall and imposing, he strode to a terminal behind Uhura and relieved the night security position. He waited for the others to arrive so the captain would not have to repeat the briefing.

Chief Engineer Howard hadn't changed her uniform. She'd probably been in Engineering fine-tuning her transwarp drive as usual. With her came Lieutenant Heisenberg, the cocky communications officer, and Ensign T'Challa, the somber navigator/helmsman, apparently interrupted during dinner. Uhura waited for everyone to take their stations.

"We've encountered, or are about to encounter, a large, artificial object designed not to be easily detected. Let's see if we can figure out what it is."

Heisenberg removed a napkin from around his neck and smiled at the captain. "Aye, aye, sir."  He grimaced as his earpiece picked up something unexpected. "I've never heard anything like this."  His long fingers danced over the keys, trying to strengthen the signal.

"On speakers," instructed Uhura.  Instantly an abrasive, pulsating tone filled the bridge, and Heisenberg quickly reduced the volume.

"What is that?" T'Challa asked.

"The universal translator can't decipher it," reported Heisenberg. "It almost sounds like telemetry or some machine language."

"Whatever it is," decided Uhura, "it's not the inert artifact it would have us believe."

Heisenberg spun around in his chair. "Captain, all this racket is on the old radio bands, there's nothing on subspace."

"Nothing on subspace? But that's imp--"

"Captain," T'Sue interrupted, "if we could get the object between us and a light source, we might use its outline to identify it."

Uhura nodded. "T'Challa, find us a sun or nebula in the vicinity and plot a course that puts it, us, and that object in a straight line." T'Challa pretended he wasn't being given a basic astronavigation order, and did as he was told.  Why did spatially challenged people always have to spell things out if infants were flying the ship. Why couldn't she say, "T'Challa, our most excellent navigator, occult that object?" He didn't say it aloud; being under-appreciated was a helmsman's lot in life.

"Object occulted," he simply reported.

"Maximum magnification," report T'Sue.

"What is that?" Lieutenant Commander Howard asked. On the screen was what appeared to be an oddly organic spaceship, huge and menacing, with spindly black arms that seemed to reach out for them.

"Full stop!" Uhura commanded. "If that thing's not made for offense, I don't know what is."  Its dark skin seemed to glisten, but it made no move toward the little scoutship.

"Sensors cannot penetrate the outer skin," reported T'Sue. "It has made no movement since our approach."

"It's almost like it's waiting for something," suggested Greyhawk.

"Maybe we're too small a fly for the big old spider to notice," said Uhura.  "T'Challa, plot us a course around that thing. I doubt a dreadnought class ship could defend itself against that."

"Captain!" Heisenberg exclaimed, "that electronic tone is getting stronger."

The science officer continued the report, "And I've got an extremely large space/time disruption on the far sensors. It wasn't there a moment ago."

"Disruption?" asked Uhura, "what kind of disrupt--" The ship's inertial dampers screamed in reaction to a sudden change in the gravity. The red alert klaxon came on automatically.

"It's an artificial wormhole!" exclaimed Chapel, holding onto Uhura's chair and watching the viewscreen. A large red and orange spiral opened in space, sending blazing tendrils of plasma in all directions.

"Full shields," shouted Uhura, "and get some distance between us and that thing."  As she spoke, a large object appeared in the middle of the spiral, surrounded by small dart-like ships.  The spidery ship sprang to life and headed for the emerging ship.  As if in slow motion, the dark ship swooped in and fired on the large cylindrical vessel.

"What is going on?" demanded Uhura.

"All decks reported in," replied Greyhawk. "Minor damage in hold 3."

Heisenberg looked at Uhura with a stunned look on his face. "Captain!  The large vessel is broadcasting in English!"

"English? Are you sure?"

"Yes, sir! The transponder ID is Babylon 4, apparently an Earth ship."

T'Sue added her sensor input, "It's been hit.  The dark vessel is coming around again.  Babylon 4 is attempting to open another wormhole."

"We've got to help them," said Uhura. "The first ship was obviously waiting to ambush the Earth ship."

"Well, without subspace capability, it didn't warp its way here," remarked Chapel. "They must use some other technology."

"Maybe it can create it's own wormhole, too," suggested T'Challa.

"I don't care how it got here," Uhura told him. "I just want to stop it."

"Babylon 4 has taken another hit," T'Sue reported. "The smaller ships are trying to defend the larger one, but the black ship is too fast.  Babylon 4 cannot take much more."

"If they can't defeat it, how can we?" inquired Heisenberg. "Our photons and phasers would have less effect than the other ships' weaponry," answered Howard, "because the black ship's shields are energy absorbing.  If we could get through the shields, we might be able to damage it, even if it fifty times bigger than we are."

Uhura tapped her fingertips together impatiently. "Okay, no subspace capability means no warp drive, no subspace
communications, and no..."

"Transporter technology!" finished Chapel. "Without a subspace carrier wave, they can't have transporter capability. It's unlikely they would shield against something they don't know exists."

Uhura smiled. "Now how do we transport something nasty onto a moving target in the next sixty seconds?"

T'Sue shook her head. "Without being able to scan their ship internally, we cannot lock transporters."

"Microprobes," suggested the chief engineer. "We could use the transporter to scatter microprobes throughout the area and when one contacts the black ship, we teleport an explosive device to that point instantly."

"Do it," ordered Uhura. "Use the sensors to activate only if they encounter the black ship." She turned to her first officer. "Commander, do you think your first contact team can get a matter/antimatter explosive ready in the next thirty seconds?"

Without replying, he spoke urgently into his security console comm panel. "They'll be ready when you are, Captain, or they'll hand deliver it."

Uhura nodded. "T'Challa, get us in closer."

"Captain, the other ships," T'Sue pointed out, "are firing light amplification beams that can damage us."

"We've got to get as close as possible if we're going to help them. T'Challa, take us to within 5,000 kilometers and use evasive maneuvers. Commander Howard, fire those microprobes when ready."

"Probes away," reported the young engineer.

"Explosive device standing by,'' added Greyhawk. Suddenly another percussion wave struck the Marco Polo.

T'Sue grabbed onto her science station. "The smaller ships are trying to open the new gate while they protect Babylon 4. It's too much.  The gate is in danger of collapsing."

Uhura looked at her engineer. "Commander, I need a fix on that vessel if I'm going to help these people."

"The enemy vessel is covering too much area; I can't send out enough probes to intercept it."

"Can we make them go to the enemy ship?" asked Chapel, fully in her science officer mode. "Is its signature distinctive enough for the probes to home in on?"

T'Sue quickly checked her scans. "The light absorbing property of the ship seems to come from its organic skin, a skin containing high levels of carbon and titanium.  If we set the microprobes to search for high concentrates of those materials, it may work. The other ships have minimal titanium signatures."

Uhura allowed herself a brief smile at the Vulcan's unusually insecure response.  But right now she needed results.  She watched as Lieutenant Commander Howard reconfigured the probes, ignoring Greyhawk's look of trapped impatience and T'Challa's effort as he continued valiantly to evade crossfire. The ship rocked with near misses and inadvertent hits.

"Fires on deck 3 and 4," Heisenberg reported. "Fire control is on it." That was a report Lieutenant Commander Howard would have made normally, but she had her hands full trying to predict which way the black ship would leap next.  On the main viewscreen, the strange ship called Babylon 4 was in obvious distress.  The shadowy attacker seemed to slip between the silvery protectors and slice at will.  The original gate had closed, and the new one grew and shrank spasmodically.

"Standby!" Howard shouted above the alarms. Greyhawk stood at his station's transporter controls, already locked onto the engineer's panel.  The second the microprobe touched the black ship, the explosive would materialize and detonate.

"Captain, the new gate is closing!" T'Sue reported, her usually calm voice tinged with excitement.

"T'Challa," Uhura instructed, "the second the explosive is away, get us out of here!"

When it happened, it occurred so fast that no one had time to warn anyone else. Howard's face had a sudden look of surprise, followed soon after by Greyhawk's exclamation as the device teleported away. On the viewscreen, a bright sun appeared and just as quickly disappeared.

"Vessel destroyed," Greyhawk and Howard reported in unison. T'Challa took that as an instruction to get the battered scoutship out of the battle zone. The chief engineer immediately moved on to taking care of her own vessel and used Greyhawk's people as well as her own to begin shipwide repairs.

T'Sue reported on the fate of Babylon 4. "They have stabilized the exit gate. They're going through. There is no sign of the attacking vessel."

"Good job, people," Uhura said with a relieved smile. "I just hope Babylon 4 isn't a pirate ship and the spidery thing the local constable."

"That is possible," reported T'Sue. "There is no record of an Earth ship named Babylon 4."

"I don't care," Dr. Chapel said. "They needed our help and we answered the call."

"They probably didn't even know we were here," Uhura admitted. "We're just silent unsung heroes."

"Not entirely, Captain," Heisenberg said with his usual grin. "Just before they disappeared through the gate, there was a brief message on the old radio band from someone named Vaden."

Uhura raised her eyebrow. "What did he say?"

"It was strange. He said, 'With our gratitude, may you always stand between the darkness and the light.' What do you suppose that means?"

"Hell if I know, Lieutenant, hell if I know.  I'm going to bed.  Someone get me damage reports and send for the night shift. And, Doctor--"

"Yes, Captain?"

"The next time I complain about the long, boring distances between planets, remind me what a good thing that is."

"Aye, Captain," she said with a smile, hoping their next opportunity to stand between the darkness and the light was at least eight sleep-filled hours away.

THE END                                                                        August 1998                                                Unpublished