THIS IS FOR COLIN, BUT Y’ALL MIGHT BE INTERESTED TOO.
The scene opens with a MASSIVE and obviously pristine Starfleet battleship in pursuit of a Klingon Bird of Prey that is much smaller, covered in blast scars, random dents and gaping “wounds” of battle. The smaller ship is obviously a little more limble, more manoeuvrable. But obviously in serious trouble.
INTERIOR OF STARFLEET SHIP (SF) SF CAPTAIN: (Determined, ultra confident) I want all phaser and torpedo locks on neutral targets. Neutral! Nothing remotely close to inhabitable aspects or anything that will breach hull integrity. I want this vessel to bleed from a thousand cuts. They need to live – in one shape or another (smiles). [cut to the faces of first officers who dutifully act on these commands.]
EXTERIOR (SPACE) Phasers and torpedoes going nuts. Some get contact with the pursued ship, some miss.
INTERIOR OF BIRD OF PREY (BRIDGE)
KIRK: (SCREAMING) What’s left?
(ENGINE ROOM) ENGINEER: (running his hand through his hair). Well, warp drive is damaged, not sure what it’s capable of….70% of shield batteries are fucked. (Pause) It’s *desperate*. KIRK: (shouting above din of chaotic bridge) You know that “sub-warp” you were telling me about: now’s your chance.
ENGINEER: Sub-warp? What? Oh god, dammit. [SMASHES A TOOL AGAINST A GUARD RAIL] You are such an arsehole.
ENGINEER (talking to himself amongst the chaos) Sub-fucking-warp speed. And I get to practice my sheer genius on this stupid piece-of-shit.
ENGINEER: (launching a tirade into his communicator to KIRK) It’s not gonna get us more than 20 parsecs ahead. And it’s gonna ruin the engine.
KIRK: Just give me sub-warp and hold us there. I don’t care how minimal. Just out of range.
ENGINEER: (Utterly exasperated) UGH! I hate you. [Engineer starts madly working at a console and barking orders to a sole crewmember.
EXTERIOR and INTERIOR: more shots of phaser and torpedo action and crazy spinning and dogfight action by the Bird of Prey to avoid getting hit. A young SULU at the helm. Blast hits causing damage and death and pain.
CAMERA SHAKES AHOY! INTERIOR SF RANDOM CREWPERSON: (surprised) Captain. Their warp engine is spinning up.
SF CAPTAIN: (nodding) Good. They will be more vulnerable during warp. (looking at science officer) Engage trajectory scans. (excited) They can warp all they want. They cannot outrun us.
RANDOM CREWPERSON: Their warp has engaged. The captain is excited as he observes the screen.
EXTERIOR: And so the Bird of Prey engages a “mini-warp”. It just steadily speeds ahead while pursuing phasers lose integrity and torpedoes that look like catching up slowly lose momentum and grow dull and fade away.
SF CAPTAIN: (confused, eventually looks around) What are they doing?
CREWPERSON: Captain…they appear to have engaged a warp factor below any documentation. They are out of range of phasers and torpedoes. But they are on a constant trajectory.
SF CAPTAIN: Maximum impulse engines. Prepare to warp. (The ship shakes with the effort but the Bird of prey continues to gain on them.)
SF CAPTAIN: OK. They’ve had their fun. Number 1, let’s warp.
NUMBER 1: (slightly defeated) Captain, ah…we cannot warp. Our engines are too powerful. The shortest warp we are capable of will put us a 100 lightyears ahead and out of any sub-space detection… (pause) We would simply fly past them. By the time we stopped they would be undetectable.
EXTERIOR: Bird of prey getting more and more distant.
SF CAPTAIN: (Losing it himself) WHAT? They CANNOT get away with this….How long until they are lost to our deep-space scans?
CREWPERSON: Approximately 30 minutes.
SF CAPTAIN: Can we send a probe ahead to track them?
CREWPERSON: I think the probe would run out of fuel. And I assume they plan on warping in a different trajectory as soon as they are out of our subspace range.
SCIENCE OFFICER: We have to warp. we have no choice.
SF CAPTAIN: (Stands up – head in hands) …Ok. We do this. Let them get to the very LIMIT of our radar. Then we launch a probe as full of fuel as possible. if they have to gaffa-tape an extra fuel cell on-board, so be it. So we know they are going to change course as soon as we warp. We will warp on their current track and as soon as we come out of warp, we turn around and launch as many probes as possible. We have to detect the first probe in the hope it detected them. DO IT.
EXTERIOR: these actions are done but all actions by the starfleet vessel fail. A hilarious emergency u-turn ensues. Lots of dark faces on the starfleet ship. And the bird of prey escapes, (full of quiet pride) it’s warp engine eventually dying, and they limp to a space station on impulse.
DJ GLAD RAPPA 