"We surrender." As Jeph hit the transmit button, he got an mental imprint that made no sense. He shrugged it off, and turned to the Commander. "What now?"

"Now? Now... we wait. Ensign, lower our shields." he ordered. He hit the comm button on the arm of the chair. "Attention, this is Commander Ocett. We are about to be boarded by an unknown vessel, if any of you feel that you have better chances of survival in a shuttle or lifepod, please take that action now." he released the button. "I will stay here, go down with my ship."

"Commander, there is nothing you can do." Jeph started to say.

"Computer on my command, lock out all systems. Command code Ocett Alpha 7953 Beta 2." he turned to Fairchild, "Lt., will you give your authorization code, please?"

"Computer, authorization code Fairchild Zeta 5741 Omri 5"

"Access to all systems, locked." the computer anounced.

"There commander, the LaGrange is dead metal without access to the computer, they can't do anything without that. Please sound evacuation." Jeph implored.

"No. A good Captain goes down with his ship. While Captain Ty is away, I am commanding officer of this ship, & I will not abandon it." Ocett said. "NEVER!," he screamed, "DO YOU HEAR ME? NEVER!"

The turbolift doors opened, Jeph drew his phaser. "Don't shoot! It's me! Gen!"

"What are you doing up here? I told you to stay in Affity's quarters!" Jeph asked.

She decided now wouldn't be a good time to correct him. "Yeah right! And face whatever it is that's taking the ship over? I don't think so. Where's Affinity? Why doesn't she help us?"

"She's on the surface, she can't. She probably doesn't even know what's going on up here."

"She's got that medallion. She-"

The medalion, he thought. Yeah, she showed it to me before we left Starbase 416. Can do anything. And all of a sudden that mental imprint made sense. Affity was sending him a message. "Commander, is it possible to beam anyone up or down to the surface?" Gen sat down, and started meditaing.

"No. We've already locked out all functions, and besides, we have virtually no power remaining."

The viewscreen came to life. "Federation imbesiles," came the greeting. "Who we are does not matter, do not waste our time. Prepare to be boarded."

Jeph could tell that whoever they were, used to be romulans at one time, he checked his console, "Reading transporter signatures on decks 55, 41, 29, 21, 60, and 2."

Ocett, who had been pacing the walk in front of the turbolift looked up. "Why are they avoiding the bridge?" he asked.

"I don't know sir, but Gen & I may have a plan. A way to fight these... creatures."

"And what, may I ask, is this... plan?"

"Well, Gen is contacting Doctor Affity thru telepathy, she has a Q medalion. That medalion gives her the power of the Q. She can beat this thing for us." Before he finished his sentence, someone beamed directly behind him, and shot Ocett. Jeph turned around. What he saw was unbelieveable. How could it be? he thought. "You're dead." he said, "How can you-" he was shot in the chest and fell backwards. The last image he recieved was of standing over his mother's funeral tube at Starbase 416.