Startrek: Keash and Derf

Chapter 7

Chapter 7: Screwed.

"I can't think of a time at which I've ever been screwed more than we are at this point" sighed Derf. Keash laughed at the remark. "I'd never thought I'd experience this moment in my life and hoped i never would but I'm unable to come up with any anecdotes of me being screwed more either" he replied, turning his gaze to the console displays across his board on the bridge.

Nothing had changed since they'd left the bridge, and Keash hadn't expected anything to have. If anything had his computer's AI would've notified him of such change.

"Alright, lets take stock of our situation, inventory our resources as figure out what the hell we're going to do next." Keash snapped, more to himself than Derf. "We can't go back to the Colony because even though the colony isn't a Federation member they do allow Starfleet to enforce their law on their turf.

As Starfleet had judged this shipment and the people involved with it important enough to send a Nova class star ship out to deal with it you can bet your life savings that every outpost, star ship, civilian transport and Starfleet officer is now in possession of any images they have of us, and standing orders to arrest us on sight.

Whatever we do, it will have to be outside of Federation territory." Keash reasoned while Derf nodded in agreement.

"On the way to the colony I've run into some pirates which, i strongly suspect, were either Orion themselves or payed by the Syndicate. The fact they were aware of the existence of the cargo, and where and when to be in order to prepare an ambush suggests that any space in which Orion Syndicate has any freedom of movement will in the best case scenario get this ship and us along with it blown into a cloud of superheated atoms.

Having had the audacity not to comply with their demand to power down and be boarded and chose to give 'em a bloody nose and run can only have made them more anxious to see this ship, and more specifically me." Keash said, his gaze staring out the cockpit view ports.

"The other corridor in and out of the colony without going through this asteroid soup leads into the Klingon Empire's territory. Most of the area to the "south" is official territory of the Klingon Empire. My relation has never been anything better than mutual disgust and at best one in which they try to kill me and me having the lousy manners to refuse to do so.

It's maybe an unprofessional thing with me but I'm ruling that course of action out of the question until its the only option left." Keash went on to say, making sure the Alien with him on the bridge understood he was serious about this.

"That leaves us with an arc of course options that looks like this on the map. He keyed a command into a console and the main windscreen lit up with a star chart of local space and the area surrounding it. A dot colored bright blue blinked inside a sphere of yellow and red specs at the center of which a green orb was grayed out.

Keash zoomed in some more reveiling the yellow and red specs were asteroids and the green globe represented the colony. The overview showed the Breda was in one of 5 circularly shaped empty rings of space that surrounded the spot at which until recently an entire planet had existed. To travel out of the asteroid cloud around the colony they would have to traverse at least two lengths in which the asteroids chaotically tumbled, collided, pulled with gravity on each other and accelerated each other to near light speed velocities.

As the Breda had come remarkably undamaged through the first, forced, track through the asteroid field which in places was more dense and chaotic than what lay ahead of them Keash had no worries about cutting through the field to get out at a spot at which no ship was expected to be able to get to without being smeared onto the surface of a large cold space rock.