“Worf, I'm glad you are here.” Sisko said as Worf arrived on the turbolift. He looked as if he was about to give an excuse for his tardiness but Sisko cut him off by continuing. “Give me a full tactical update on the status of shields and weapons on the station.”

  “Yes sir.” Worf said as he hurried to his position at tactical.

  “Dax, I want to know exactly what we are dealing with here. And can you get it up on the main viewer?”

  “Right away Benjamin.” She said as she quickly, and dexterously began to navigate the control terminal to begin the scans whilst simultaneously putting the image she saw on the main viewer. What is revealed to the room is beyond all expectations.

  The first thing anyone on the station noticed was a ship that was so large that not a soul on the station could even call it a ship, it was practically like looking at a small moon. It dwarfed the station making the ship seem like it could easily engulf the entirety of Deep Space Nine. The designs on it were weird as well, conforming to no known design specifications of any race the federation was aware of. The entire ship was shaped like a hollow cone with golden metal making up the shell. The center of the cone was a massive crystal surrounded in the same strange metal the ship was made out of. The ship also seemed to radiate its own blue energy. On top of all of that it had no obvious means of propulsion, of course some could speculate on how it may move but at the moment it seemed just as much a mystery as everything else.

  However while this was the first thing that they noticed it was not the thing that caught their attention the longest. It was the next ship. The first thought that went through Sisko’s was the report of the Enterprise’s encounter with the spacefaring lifeform dubbed “Tin Man” or as it referred to itself Gomtuu. This vessel, if one could even consider it that, was of massive size itself dwarfing the station as well. However what caught their eye about it, and the thing that made Sisko think of Tin Man, was the fact it looked wholly organic, not a ship in the traditional sense but a living breathing creature, somehow able to maneuver and survive in space. There seemed to be no technology at all on this creature and its long, massive tendrils hung low below the belly of this beast, seemingly looking for prey. The Fleshy exterior and pulsating glow on its rear, ignited the imaginations of every Starfleet officer in Ops, though the opposite was true for every Bajoran officer there too.

  Finally there was the ship that hardly anyone noticed at first glance. It too was large, though compared to the first ship it looked tiny. Its design was a lot more recognizable though still alien with its shape resembling that of a hammerhead shark, its engines clearly on the wings. If it were to have appeared alone it would have garnered significant attention due to the irregularity of the affair and the unknown unmarked ship menacingly sitting not far from DS9. However due to the arrival of the other two ships this third one was rather easy to overlook.

  “Worf I need that tactical update.” Sisko said with a bit more urgency in his voice.

  “Shields holding stable at 97%, all photon launchers and phaser banks are charged and ready.”

  “Dax, I need that scan report now.” Sisko said simply internalizing the tactical report for the moment. Jadzia hesitated as she looked over the readings and struggled to come up with the best way to relay the information.

  “Now, old man.” Sisko said, hurriedly again.

  “The smallest of the three I was able to get scans of, crew numbers in the several thousands, no shields, heavy armor, and only minimal laser based weaponry, their main armaments are kinetic based.” Dax said just finishing her first report. There was a weird sense of relief that came with this report for Sisko. From the sounds of it the first ship was antiquated, outdated weapons from bygone eras, and they lack even basic shield technology. However his heart began to sink once Dax continued.

  “The middle ship, if you can call it that, I don’t even know what to do with these readings. There are either millions on board that thing or there is only one, scans are inconclusive. But as far as weapons go I can’t find any.” Dax finally looked up from her station to the main viewer and looked at the massive moon-like ship.

  “As for that thing the scanners can only barely penetrate its hull, I can tell you there are life forms on board but I can’t tell you how many, nor can I tell you what kind of weapons they have just that they have a lot.” Tension fills the room as silence is left to linger. Kira walks over to Sisko slowly.

  “Who do you think they are?” She asked, her voice filled with the same determination she had back when she was a freedom fighter.

  “I don’t know.” Sisko said with a slight pause before continuing. “But I intend to find out.” He walks closer to the main viewer.

  “I want you to send out all hailing frequencies on every channel, if that doesn't work try it again.” He said as he turned back around to his staff.

  “Sir.” Horner said with slight hesitation. “The station seems to be… scanning us?” He paused for a moment as he looked through the data he was getting. “The radiation beam they are sending out is not harmful but it is penetrating our hull and scanning every deck.”

  “Well, is there anything you can do to stop them?” Raynor said mildly worried.

  “No sir but… no, they’ve stopped and begun to scan the Leviathan.” Horner said as he did not take his eyes off his feed.

  “Damn, this just keeps getting stranger and stranger.” Raynor said, sitting straight up in his chair.

  Kerrigan can feel the scanning wave flow over her, it was not harmful nor was it unpleasant, from her perspective it was like a ray of light washed over her mind and body. She thought for a moment if she should take aggressive action but there were still too many unknowns. Not only was she in an unknown sector, but she was also near a Dominion and Protoss ship. For now she would bide her time and find out what this station wanted. She could, however, take solace in the fact that her control over the swarm had returned as soon as the psionic wave had left the ship. Once more she could hear the call of the swarm, and that fact, at least, felt comforting.

  “I would like to report that a low level radiation is being emitted from the station. It appears as though they are… scanning us?” Karax said over the holo monitor Artanis had. “Though the technology is primitive it has managed to penetrate our ship to an extent, though its effectiveness has dropped significantly once it got through. There’s no telling what they found out.”

  “Anything?” Sisko asked for a third time as the hailing request was once again ignored. He looked over to Dax who just shook her head.

  “Damn!” Sisko said working himself up a little. However before he can start thinking up a new plan Dax spoke up.

  “Wait, Benjamin, what if we didn't use subspace communications? If we send out a message through more… traditional means we might get a response.” Dax said, choosing the word “traditional” carefully because she remembered an earlier lifetime when using such communications was commonplace.

  “Do it, even if we have to try radiowaves I want you to give it a shot. Hell, if we gotta, poke a hole through a cup and run a string through it, whatever we have to do to get some sort of communication going.” Sisko said, a bit more hopeful at the new idea.

  “I just gotta… there!” Dax said, having just finished making the necessary changes to her station. “We are now hailing on every frequency the station will put out. Even the string in the cup.” She said with a lighthearted smile to Sisko.

  There was a long silence as everyone waited with bated breath. Ten seconds go by, then twenty, thirty, forty, as a minute hits there is a response ping.

  “Benjamin, I think we got something.” Dax said excitedly.

  “This is Captain Benjamin Sisko of the United Federation of Planets, commander of this space station. You have entered into Bajoran space, please state your intentions.” Sisko said reciting protocol. He was of course nervous about what kind of response he would get but his years at the academy taught him that in first contact it's best to run by the rule book as much as you can and after that you can improvise. Since he had been commander of this station he’s already had to put this practice to the test and so far, while it has caused some issues, it has not let him down. Besides, when in doubt, there is a Starfleet protocol to rely on, it may as well be an axiom considering how true it was.

  There was more silence for about half a minute before some static began to come through, clearing up as Dax tuned the communications equipment to the proper frequency.

  “-Dominion. Repeat this is Jim Raynor, commander of the Hyperion of the Terran Dominion. Unidentified Space station we have found ourselves lost after encountering some kind of… spatial anomaly. Do you read us?”

  “Yes Commander Raynor.” Sisko said with a sigh of relief. “We read you here.”

  “Well I’ll be damned.” Raynor said with a sigh of relief of his own. “And here I was thinking that we were gonna continue this little showdown indefinitely. It sure is good to hear someone on the other end.”

  “I assure you we feel the same here.” Sisko said with a small smile. “Do you have visual communication equipment?”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  “That we do. Do you want me to patch you to the big screen?” Raynor said sitting back into his chair, most of the tension gone from his face.

  “Our communication’s equipment seems incompatible with yours for the moment. Give our engineers a minute to recalibrate.” Sisko said before turning to look at O’Brien and nodding. Nodding back, O’Brien grabs a tool box off the wall and crawls under one of the terminals to get to work.

  “In the meantime are you familiar with the other two vessels nearby? They are not responding to our hails.”

  “Ah, that's Ol’ Arty and Kerrigan’s ships. You contacted us on an old carrier frequency that isn't something we use frequently so I think they just must have missed it. I’ll get in contact with them and set up a little pow wow between all of us, I think we all might have some questions to ask.” Raynor said as he motioned to Horner to get in contact with the other two vessels. “I’ll contact you on this same frequency when I get in touch with them.”

  “Understood Commander.” Sisko said as he closed the channel. “O’Brien, I expect to have visuals by the time Captain Raynor contacts us again.”

  “Yes sir.” O’Brien said without leaving his position on his back under the terminal. Sisko can only look back at Kira and Dax and sigh. The day had just started but it looked like it was going to be a long day.

  After about ten minutes had passed the station began to receive the signal Raynor said he would send.

  “This is Raynor, can you hear me?” Raynor said, confirming that the communications equipment on both ends is working properly.

  “Yes, I can hear you, commander.” Sisko replied.

  “Raynor will do fine captain.” Raynor said with a small laugh.

  “Understood Raynor. We are all set here with our visual display. Can you see us?

  ”Hold on a moment.” Raynor said as he swaps the com line to the visual one.

  It was then that the shock came. On both ends the people speaking were… at least visually… human? Truthfully it was more of a shock to the crew on Deep Space 9 than it was for the crew of the Hyperion, but still both were a bit surprised to see a human face. Raynor seemed to be a 30 something looking man with a gruff beard and leather jacket over top a white shirt and several bandoliers, while he himself looked young the way he carried himself gave one the impression of experience beyond his years. However, as much as his gut told him that Raynor, and presumably his crew, were genuine humans, he had met enough human-similar species, even in the academy, to know not to question it. At least not right now, he had more important things to talk about first.

  “Were you able to get in contact with the other two vessels, Raynor?” Sisko said almost excited to meet even more mysterious captains.

  “I was, hang on a moment, I'll get them on the line.” Raynor said, nodding to his man on comms. There are a few moments with just Raynor on screen looking off at his man sitting outside of view before two other people join the call. One is a dark skinned woman with hair that could only be described as… bonelike? Coming out of her head. Furthermore, although it is cut off by the perspective on screen it is clear she has some kind of wings coming out of her back that also look like bones at first glance. Her chest and upper body, as much as they could see of it, looked more insect-like with an exoskeleton surrounding it. However her face was humanoid, and might be mistaken for such at a glance if not for her piercing eyes that glowed a bright purple.

  On the other screen a man that seemed to be wearing some elaborate kind of clothing and headdress, perhaps armor, stood staring at them with his own piercing blue eyes. However while the insect-like woman could pass off as a human in very specific scenarios, this man could not. His face had no orifices, no mouth or nose, and he was a pale white, however due to the elaborate clothing he wore nothing more could be discerned about his features.

  “I am the Queen of Blades, leader of the Swarm, you may call me Kerrigan.” The insect lady said taking a neutral stance to the situation, while she trusted Raynor’s gut feeling about these people she had her own brood to think about and couldn’t just blindly trust him.

  “I am Hierarch Artanis, Leader of the Daelaam, on board the Spear of Adun.” The pale man said with a slight nod to indicate his sincerity. “If I may be so bold as to cut to the chase, my ship's instruments are reading different star formations than anything on board our vessel. Can you tell us where we are?”

  “You have entered the Bajoran system near the wormhole to the Gamma Quadrant. Where do your instruments say that you are Hierarch?” Sisko said turning the question around in the hopes he can get some answers himself.

  “Artanis will do, captain. And that is just it, our instruments do not seem to be able to tell us where we are at all.” Artanis looked off to the side for a moment seeming to confirm something and collect his thoughts. “Our phase-smiths told us that the same psionic wave that brought us here took us not only out of the Koprulu sector but out of our universe.” This took the other three in the call by surprise, no one truly had a good way of responding to that. Sisko looked over at Dax for confirmation but she had as little idea about it as he did, Kerrigan looked in almost disbelief, however Raynor was the first to speak up.

  “Artanis, you saying we were flung not out of the sector but out of the Universe?”

  “That is indeed what I am saying, friend Raynor.” Artanis replies back.

  “That is not possible. I will contact that swarm on Char and confirm that…” However Kerrigan went silent as she seemed to stare off into space. Moments of silence followed only broken by Kerrigan finally speaking up.

  “I… can’t contact any of my swarm outside the ones on the Leviathan right now. It’s like I’m cut off.” Kerrigan looked far more distraught now than she did before.

  “If I may be so bold as to ask.” Stukov, a human looking man with pale-white skin, glowing orange eyes, and a massive tumor growing over his entire left arm that seemed to have grown over top of his jet black uniform said. Kerrigan shot him an angry look but said nothing. “You are Terrans, correct?”

  “Our species is known as Human, but we are aware of another species who share our genealogy who call themselves Terran, however they too are from another universe.” Sisko said, hoping he’s catching on to a lead. “Tell me does the Terran Empire ring a bell? Or how about the Alliance? Are Terrans treated as slaves by other races in your universe?” The other three look at each other in confusion.

  “I guess that's a no.” Sisko said with a short laugh. “Our only encounter with another universe is one we refer to as the mirror universe; it is similar to ours but wholly different at the same time. It would take too long to explain and I doubt any of you want to hear such a story right now.”

  “I hate to interrupt this brainstorming session but my chief engineer is telling me that the engine is completely shot and we can’t do much more than thrusters right now, any chance you might be willing to lend us a hand at repairs, we’d gladly compensate ya for your trouble.” Raynor said, not wanting to end the conversation as is but realizing he might have a bigger issue with his engine if he doesn't address it now.

  “Of course, we’d be glad to help.” Sisko said, almost glad that engine troubles are pushing away the current issue. Not only was there nothing he could do immediately to help with their “out of universe” experience, but repair and maintenance is often the best way to bridge cultural gaps and create trust, besides he had a chief of operations who would probably love to see how something that archaic actually ran.

  “We can beam aboard a repair crew to look over the damage if you’d like or if you want you can maneuver your ship to dock at upper pylon three.”

  “Beam?” Raynor said quizzically for a moment before he seemed to understand what he meant. “No, I'll just take my ship and dock at your station. I prefer my meetings to be face to face anyway.” Raynor said as he motioned to his helm to take them towards the station.

  “As do I.” Sisko said with his best smile on. “The same offer extends to both of you as well, though I doubt either of your ships will be able to successfully dock with the station.”

  “I shall accept your invitation then.” Artanis said as he looked at his bridge crew. “If you would be so kind as to allow us to project a power field onto your station we can warp in right away.” Sisko looked at Artanis confused for a bit before responding.

  “A power field?”

  “Yes?” Artanis said back almost as confused as Sisko is. “In order for us to be able to warp over to your station a stable power field must be erected. It is not harmful nor will it damage your station. The Spear of Adun is capable of creating powerfields anywhere without the assistance of pylons.”

  Sisko just looked over to O’Brien for confirmation of this but O’Brien seemed to understand as little as he did. He was beginning to understand that this was one of those days that he would just have to take everything on the cuff.

  “Understood you are cleared to make use of Cargo Bay 5, it's empty right now and should be able to… accept your powerfield.” Sisko said trying his best to adapt his terminology.

  “Much appreciated captain, I shall make the preparations right away and…” Artanis said before his is cut off by another voice off screen that is too inaudible to be heard. There is a look of confusion? Worry? Apprehension? On Artanis’ face before he turned back and continued.

  “If you might excuse me for asking, my chief phase-smith would prefer to be brought to your station via your own teleportation array, if that is not asking too much.” Artanis said, afraid he might be overstepping his bounds just to please Karax.

  “That can be arranged, but you will need to drop your shields for us to beam him over.” Sisko said as he motioned for someone to get to the transporter controls. There is a serious look of worry on Artanis’ face after Sisko mentioned dropping their shields.

  “Do not worry we intend no harm, but our transporters are unable to work properly through shielding.” Sisko said, trying to assuage his fears. There are several moments of hesitation as Artanis said nothing before he motions to someone off screen.

  “Understood I will make the arrangements as well as send you our phase-smith’s coordinates in a moment.” Artanis said, nodding politely and turning off communication.

  “I shall board your station as well, but I will need some time to have Abathur modify one of our overlords to transport me to your station.” Kerrigan said as she too turned off the communication.

  “I’m about to dock with your upper pylon, it looks like it’ll be a tight fit but my helmsman said he can wrangle it. It’ll be a pleasure to meet you soon, captain.” Raynor said with a smile.

  “I look forward to it as well, Raynor.” Sisko said before Raynor turned off his communicator as well. Sisko turned around to face his officers.

  “Kira, Dax, with me.” He then taps his comm badge and continues. “Sisko to Odo.”

  “Odo here, what do you need, captain?” Odo responded in his usual manner.

  “We will be receiving a lot of guests shortly.” Sisko began, pausing for a moment to collect his thoughts, however Odo took the hesitation as an invitation to speak.

  “Do you want me to beef up security on the station?” Odo said assuming the “guests” either mean hostiles or the rowdy types.

  “No, just have your teams aware that the visitors might not know the rules around here so try to cut them some slack.” There was some hesitation from Odo before he spoke up.

  “Understood captain, Odo out.” Sisko was about to leave with Kira and Dax but then turned back around.

  “Chief, I want you to come with us too, we will meet up with Commander Raynor and then you can head on in to see what kind of repairs need to be done. Also will someone tell the Doctor to be ready to Triage if needed, they didn't ask for it but it's possible they may need some medical assistance.” Sisko said before turning back around and heading to the turbolift.

  “Right away sir.” O’Brien responded quickly following him onto the turbo lift.