"Are we there yet?" Captain Nick Oberly moaned in boredom from the starboard seat aboard the Orkney class armed launch Aegean . Even though the scout ship had been traveling for less than an hour, the other three crew members were already tired of Nick's complaining; it took all their will to resist the temptation of throwing him out the airlock.
"Doesss it LOOK like we're there?" hissed Lieutenant Vorak, the Aegean's tactical officer. Were he not on duty, the lieutenant would have taken the pleasure of dismembering the annoying human a long time ago.
Nick put his hands up in defeat. "Hey, don't get huffy at me, but this isn't exactly my idea of an ambassadorial transport."
"Sorry if we've failed to accommodate you" the commanding officer, Nauta Sinneau, squeaked as he rose from his seat and stepped over to the replicator console next to Vorak. The two officers exchanged an amused grin, and Nauta returned to his seat with a large plate of fish. He offered one to his communications officer, Ensign Riyal. She took it eagerly and smiled to Nauta as she placed it in her mouth. Riyal then repeated the offering to Nauta.
"Oh, please " Nick said in irritation as he hopped from his chair and walked towards the aft door. He stood there for several seconds while the bridge crew regarded him with perplexed eyes.
"There's nothing to do on this tin can!" he finally said, addressing the commander.
"What did you expect? A gymnasium? Or a holodeck perhaps? This isn't a cruise ship y'know!"
"Well, heck, I know that... What do you guys do for fun, anyway?"
Nauta and Riyal looked at each other, and they both squealed in self-amusement. Vorak watched with mirth, and chuckled quietly at the Cetans.
"Umm, no, I don't think that's what I had in mind at all" Nick said as he shook his head; he couldn't resist a slight smile, though.
Nauta stopped laughing long enough to hand the fish to Riyal and walk over to Nick. He put a smooth, webbed hand on Nick's shoulder. "You know, I think I have the perfect diversion for you. This way," he beckoned, exiting the bridge. Nick followed obediently.
A few meters down the central corridor, they arrived at the commanding officer's quarters (and the communication officer's as well). Nauta walked to a large set of shelves on the far wall, which were chock full of strange, multicolored boxes of varying size. The commander ran his eyes across the first few rows, until he came across what he was apparently looking for.
"Aha!" he squeaked triumphantly, handing Nick one of the 'boxes'. It was then that Nick noticed that it was not a box at all, but several hundred thin layers of some strange material bound together within a slightly thicker layer, which contained raised printing and colored graphics.
"What the heck is this?" he asked with puzzlement, flipping across the bounded layers. He noticed there was printing on each one.
"It's called a book. I honestly hope that even you would know how to read."
Nick inspected it intently. "A book?" "Is there an echo in here?" "I mean... I've never seen anything like this. Where did you get it?" "You'd be amazed what you can find in some antique shops. So, are you interested, or shall I stun and freeze you for the remainder of the voyage?" Nauta grinned widely, joking of course.
The captain didn't even hear the commander. "Mind if I read this?" he asked absently, now looking at the back cover of the 'book'.
"Of course! I'll even let you stay in my quarters if you like. It'll be nice and quiet in here, and nobody will bother you," Nauta said with just a hint of sarcasm. Of course, he could keep an eye on Nick from the bridge, to make sure he didn't stick his stubby nose where it didn't belong.
"Thanks" said Nick, and sat down on the bed, now reading the inside of the front cover.
"Of course. I'll let you know when we get there. Happy voyage!" Commander Sinneau stepped out of his quarters, and the door closed behind him.
Upon finishing the acknowledgements section, Nick looked once again at the cover, and noticed the title of the book for the first time.
"The Reality Dysfunction . Sounds like some new disease," he laughed, and dove into the first chapter.

Nauta walked back into the bridge, and sat down comfortably at the command console. Vorak looked at him for a moment, and then stuck his head out to peer down the corridor before the door closed automatically. He noted the absence of Nick.
"Ssstrange, I didn't regissster any decompresssion" the raptor grunted, with a toothy smile. Nauta grinned right back at him.
"I gave him one of my old books. I figured something that simple would distract just about any human." The whole bridge crew broke into laughter until Vorak's console emitted a shrill beep, accompanied by flashing lights visible to his eyes only.
"What- What's that noise ?" Nauta asked with distress, covering his earslits. It ended after a few seconds, and the two Cetans relaxed from the sudden acoustic blast to their sensitive hearing.
"Long range sensors have picked up a ship," the lieutenant reported, investigating the curious readings.
"Ahh, and none too soon. Riyal, open a channel and-"
"Sir, it's not registered with any know faction, allied or otherwise." There was a long silence.
"Umm... okay, Vorak, go to yellow alert, and run a standard identification scan when we're within range."
"Nauta, we're being hailed" Riyal said.
"What? How do they identify?"
"They state they're Edenist voidhawk Ilex . They demand that we establish two-way and deactivate all defense systems."
"A voidhawk? What the hell is that? Vorak?"
"I have no clue, and they're ssstill out of sssensor range." Nauta complained silently for a few moments. "Fine. Respond and open a channel. I'm not about to become the catalyst to a war with a new enemy. Nukapi knows we already have enough of those." Riyal nodded. "Channel opening."
A holographic rectangle sprung up on the forward canopy window, forming the image of a middle-aged man. Nauta knew humans to be stuck up and smug, but this guy looked like he had a six-foot pole up his rear.
As the image cleaned up to crystal-clarity, the man looked away for a moment. When he looked back, his tractor beam-tight face opened up (slightly) into an astonished gape.
"What in the name..." "My name is Nauta. What's yours?" The cetan didn't waste a moment of potential amusement with this looser.
"I... er.. um..." He cleared his throat. "I am Captain Auster of the Ilex . We have detected antimatter aboard your vessel, Captain Nauta. As you well know, antimatter is banned inside Confederation space."
Nauta Sinneau cocked his head to one side, and blinked. "What in the name of all things yiffy are you TALKING about?"
Captain Auster straightened up, and directed a cold hard gaze directly at the other commander. "According to Confederation law, I am authorized to search your vessel for antimatter. Should any be found, you will be arrested on the charge of illegally possessing antimatter. Do you copy?"
Nauta ignored most of what Auster had said; he was whispering something to Vorak.
"What is your reply, Captain Nauta?"
He suddenly looked up, and smiled deceptively. "Here is my reply."
The commander applied one smooth, gray finger to his console. An unintelligible instant later, the bridge turned a deep crimson as the ship went into battle configuration. At the same time, four torpedoes sped out of the Aegean's launcher tubes, directed at the Ilex . They easily penetrated the opposing ship's hull and exploded into a billowing cloud of fire. As the explosion subsided, a gaping hole could be seen on the port side of Ilex , reaching deep into the crew compartment.
"Direct hit!" Vorak roared in satisfaction.

Aboard the Ilex , pure chaos erupted at the same time the hull did. Captain Auster was dislodged from his acceleration couch and slammed into the ceiling with a force exceeding three gees. His nose snapped with a barely audible crack over the din of internal explosions and the cries of the ship.
AAAHHH!! Ilex screamed in pain. Edenist starships were, in every way, sentient creatures who were born, lived for a time, mated, and then died. Ilex felt as though its last moments were upon it.
Auster felt not only his own pain, but the pain of his starship as well through their affinity bond. It was how they communicated, exchanged information, and shared emotions. Sometimes, though, it was more detrimental than helpful. Like now.
Jesus, what happened? the captain queried his ship.
I- I'm not sure... My optical sensors were overloaded by the explosion. I'm blind.
Auster sighed deeply, letting a very painful emotion through to his ship and all of its crew. Those that were still alive, that is.
I have some recollection of what we just felt , Ilex said. I believe those projectiles were composed of antimatter.
"Holy shit!" Auster yelled, before realizing he had said it out loud. Looking around the bridge, he realized that nobody could have cared less  one of the remaining two bridge crew had been impaled on some ductwork in the bulkhead; the other was sandwiched between two dislodged acceleration couches.
I know. Auster felt Ilex relay the equivalent of a wince as an internal explosion jolted the ship slightly.
Did anyone survive down there? The captain didn't bother to hide his tenseness.
I do not believe so. My entire port-side hull has been vaporized. I am fortunate the incisions into my fluid network cauterized as quickly as they did.
Auster was about to ask if they could return fire, but Ilex was more important than catching some rogue criminals. They were obviously outgunned.
Ilex, send an affinity distress beacon to all the voidhawks. Get us some assistance, and relay that ship's sensevise to the rest. They're going to pay dearly for doing this.
Ilex sighed. Yes, they will.

Within seconds of the attack, Aegean was reimmersed in the relatively comforting hues of subspace. Soft pinks and blues blended together all around the vessel, creating a beautiful light show within the cockpit. However, the crew were too busy to waste time admiring the scenery.
Riyal was trying (unsuccessfully) to contact any allied starships within range to notify them of their situation; Nauta and Vorak were standing over the aft sensor reconstructive holoprojector, where a tiny transparent reproduction of the Ilex hovered in mid-air, frozen in time and space.
"I can't raise anything on local frequencies, Nauta" the female cetan said with anxiety.
The commander acknowledged her with an troubled glance. "Vorak, we know these things are vulnerable to our weapons, but we don't yet know the other side of the story. Have you any speculations?"
Vorak's reptilian eyes stared at the hologram for a few moments. "I can't sssay with much sssertainty, but from what I could get on the clossse-range ssscan just before we dessscended, there'sss nothing on that ship that our defensesss could not handle."
Nauta nodded. "I'm not terribly worried about our safety for the moment. What I am worried about is the integrity of the allied offensive. The Dominion is slipperier than a yiffed cetan; the relative vulnerability of these ships could very well be a ruse to boost our confidence." He paused. "We're less than two hundred light years from Deep Space 11. Under the circumstances, I don't think a course deviation would be criticized by the High Command. Agreed?" The other two officers nodded slowly.
"Good. I'm inputting our course for DS-11. ETA is six hours, fifteen minutes."

Badly injured and in immense pain, Ilex was escorted to Tranquility, the closest base with facilities sufficient to heal an injured voidhawk. A fleet-wide communique was broadcast across Confederation space to such an extent that practically every ship, captain, base and planet knew exactly what the Aegean looked like, her capabilities, and her incursion.
I am so sorry this happened to you, dear Ilex Captain Auster spoke as he paced the floor of the ship medical ward, where the entire port side of the voidhawk was enveloped in a cushy foam-like substance swelling from the bulkhead itself.
Do not blame yourself , Ilex spoke compassionately. Through all my travels, I have never encountered such a destructive force embodied in the form of a vessel.
No sentient species should be allowed to possess so much potential for violence. Tears brimmed from within Auster's eyes, turning the starscape outside the hangar into a watery blur.
No, they shouldn't .

"Engines back to one-quarter, prepare for ascent" ordered the commander as they neared their intended destination. Moments later, the smeared swirl of subspace stretched in all directions, dissolving rapidly to reveal the dark fabric of truespace.
"Trajectory reports normal, we're on approach" Riyal said with noted relief. She didn't yet see what sent a shiver down her consort's dorsal fin. The distinctive bicycle-wheel style of the old Cardassian space station was instead a misshapen quasi-ovoid construct with many protrusions, bulges, and a swarm of objects in orbit.
"Something tells me that's not DS-11" he said. Riyal looked up, and froze in shock.
She could muster only three words: "I think not."

At the call of alarm, Oenone was the first voidhawk out of the holding pattern, acceleration approaching three gees even before the next vessel in line swooped out of the formation to follow Oenone's lead.
Captain Syrinx lay prone on her acceleration couch, one of a dozen arranged length-wise in a circular pattern, head to the outside. Her affinity bond gave an exact representation of what Oenone saw with its own optical resolution sensors as they closed on the rogue vessel at over fifty kilometers a second.
At close range, the exotic craft seemed more like a spaceplane than any starship she'd ever seen. Its lines were not as graceful, though, and it had several vertical projections along the spine and to either side of the roof.
Weapons.
Oenone , prepare the kinetic harpoons. Match our trajectory with Udat and Nephele and fire the moment we're in range. Don't give them a second to react. Syrinx projected an image of the enemy craft exploding in a fiery blaze to stress her order.
Oenone acknowledged her request with a growing desire to avenge it's fellow voidhawk's injuries. We are in formation. Commencing attack sequence. Hold on!
Syrinx took the advice seriously as her ship twisted and dove in on the assault.

"Incoming, incoming, incoming!" Vorak roared as he dumped auxiliary generator power into the Aegean's defensive shielding. "Attack distanssse, multiple vectorsss!"
"Holy mother of pearl!" Nauta squealed in fright as a flock of roughly fifty of the voidhawk-craft approached swiftly from the front. He shoved the Aegean into a steep dive as a dozen half-meter composite spears flew at them at speeds Aegean could never hope to match. As it was, the weapons missed their aft hull by less than fifteen meters.
Their near-lightspeed acceleration was too great to allow a secondary course change to evade another barrage of the spear-like weapons. Three passed harmlessly under and to the sides of the scout ship; two penetrated the shields as easily as a pin to a soap bubble, sending shield grid panels in every direction as they sliced through the port shield array. Another spear
skewered one of the two Am-3 fighter craft carried by the Aegean , incinerating its docking clamps and most of the cockpit.
The ship rocked like a yacht caught in a powerful typhoon, tossing its passengers about. Two dozen enemy craft skirted past, blossoming outwards to come about and regroup to attack once again, giving the crew precious seconds.
"Those things are too damn fast to evade! So much for things we can't handle!" Nauta looked at Vorak with an uncharacteristically hostile scowl for a cetan. The raptor lowered his head and said nothing.
"Vorak, get that good-for-nothing human to the ISV and separate immediately. Riyal and I are going below decks to salvage the other interceptor. Now get moving before we become Swiss cheese!"
Vorak nodded briefly, and turned tail to retrieve Captain Oberly. Riyal stood up to Nauta's side as he quickly input a command into the cockpit panel and activated it. Moments later, the two officers shimmered in a glowing beam and disintegrated.
Milliseconds after the Cetans disappeared, a barrage of spears assaulted the Aegean again. One of them penetrated the canopy with a deafening explosion and sped through the ship, piercing the tactical officer's heart as he entered his personal access code into the locked Captain's quarters door, and barely slowed as it perforated the aft bulkhead.
Vorak never had time to howl in pain as his organs seared from the immense heat generated by the sheer speed of the weapon, drying his blood before it ever had a chance to run out of the wound. His heavy body hit the deck with a thunk as emergency forcefields sprang up to contain the vessel's leaking atmosphere.
The Aegean was completely silent once again.

A small craft has launched from the enemy vessel Oenone reported as the Am-3 fighter dropped from its moorings, spun around, and accelerated away from the hostile fleet.
Syrinx watched the scene through Oenone's optics as though she were ten meters away. Before she could act, the tiny craft's image wavered slightly, and then winked out in a small flash of light. Syrinx blinked.
What was that? the captain asked with bewilderment.
I am not certain. My sensors tell me that the craft has transcended some kind of dimensional barrier, though I hesitate to speculate any further.
Syrinx nodded slowly. Well, perhaps something good comes from our apparent loss. She indicated the damaged Aegean , tumbling slowly inside the circular formation taken up by the Voidhawks.
That is not all Oenone spoke.
What do you mean?
There is someone alive on that ship.

Nick Oberly felt not a thing as his carriage was assaulted by the Voidhawks, when it was towed to be secured in one of Tranquility's high-security facilities, or when he himself was carried into the safeguarded infirmary; he was sound asleep.
An attending nurse pricked a long needle into his neck, and injected a mild stimulant. The drug warmed his body as it traveled throughout his bloodstream, bringing him out of his slumber.
He regarded the nurse with drowsy eyes, speech slurred slightly. "Where- where am I?"
"You're in Tranquility's secure medical ward" she spoke without a hint of emotion.
Nick blinked inattentively, and sat up slightly. One of the five marines stationed at the door shifted his TIP carbide weapon uneasily. The captain eyed them curiously.
"What'd I get sloshed on this time, doc?" He said sarcastically. His face, out of all those in the room with him, was the only one with an expression of amusement.
"You've been arrested on possession of antimatter and attacking a Confederation voidhawk. You're facing some very serious penalties" the nurse spoke as she leaned over a counter the entire time; Nick had yet to see her face clearly.
"Antimatter? Since when is that a crime? And what the hell is a voidhawk?" He started to get out of the bed before realizing that he was stark naked. Nick quickly flipped a sheet over his lap and bit his tongue.
"And where the hell are my clothes?"

Aegean's Am-3 interceptor decelerated slowly through the magenta wisps of a nebula, where the abundance of proto-matter provided sufficient cover from sensors. Normal sensors, Nauta thought. And these ships were anything but normal. That misjudgment had cost Vorak his life.
Nauta put the craft on autopilot and brooded silently at his own incompetence. A simple transport mission for a flag captain, that's all it was supposed to be. But now his ship was lost to the hands of an unknown power, who wished nothing more than his demise; the captain of the second fleet was no better off than his ship. His tactical officer had been turned into raptor shihkabob by those blindingly fast spears as Nauta watched in horror on his short-range visual display. And he and his mate were now trapped in a tiny fighter that wasn't designed for missions longer than twenty-four Earth-hours. Four of those had already passed.
The commander looked behind him, where his mate lay quietly, sleeping. The sight of her beauty made him smile a bit, regardless of the current catastrophe on their fins. If there was one thing he would give anything for, it was her.
He came back to thinking about the current situation. All of led back to their being transported into this alternate reality (he had come to that conclusion long ago). When had it happened? He couldn't quite recall, it had been hours since. They had contacted that strange ship, the Ilex , and performed a hit-and-run escape as Federation doctrine allowed when a potential threat makes an interception. And just before then, he had been sitting quietly, sharing his favorite fish with Riyal, when that damned human started getting on his nerves...
Suddenly he remembered the book he had given Nick to keep him occupied. It had seemed strangely familiar, that starship. It was the same ship as was on the cover of the book.
Dear Kithrup, why didn't I realize it before?
He quickly accessed the Am-3's limited computer database. There had been a full personnel file on Captain Oberly when they took him aboard, and all information contained in the Aegean's computer was automatically shared with any attached vessels for backup purposes, in case something happened to the ship's own core.
And for times like this, Nauta thought, thankful for the designer's sense of redundancy. After all, the designer was a dolphin. He smiled in admiration for his species, and then found Oberly's personnel file. It appeared on the minuscule console display; the cetan had to squint to see the small text clearly:

Name: Oberly, Nicholas J.
Race: 25% Betazoid, 75% human
Born: October 18, 2360 @ Holio, Venus
Entered Academy: September 2, 2371
Graduated Academy: May 13, 2375 w/ honors
Assignments: Lt. Cmdr. USS Kasatka May 4, 2375
Commander  USS Kasatka-A October 31, 2377
Fleet Capt.  USS Maelstrom  August 8, 2401
Commendations: None outstanding
Reprimands: None outstanding

It was the racial information which caught Nauta's eye... 25% Betazoid ... Damn it! That simpleton wasn't just reading the book, he was projecting it onto everything around him! It was all an illusion!
Nauta swung the ship around so rapidly that the acceleration was enough to awaken Riyal.
"Nauta... What's going on?" She asked wearily as he punched the lightspeed drive up to maximum power.
"We're going to end Nick's little fantasy trip" he said crisply, and punched the activation control.
The fighter accelerated on a direct course to Tranquility, and then disappeared in a flash.