Prologue: Introducing Deep Space Sentinel

While James T Kirk and his crew are out in the far reaches of the universe, testing the new USS Enterprise to see if it is ready for commission, a technologically advanced Klingon Bird-of-Prey uncloaks before them. The Klingon warlord, in a show of menacing bravado, throws the gauntlet down for a race to see who has the better ship, the prize being ownership of the Enterprise when he wins. When asked what would be the prize if Kirk wins, the reply is both unexpected and shocking. The life of Ambassador Katherine Janeway, being held hostage by the Klingon onboard their ship.

Despite protestations from his crew, Kirk breaks with all Starfleet protocols and takes on the challenge, intrigued by this new alien people, and the two ships plunge headlong into a galactic chase of terrifying skill, a planet surfing, comet dodging, nebula splitting, roller-coaster of a ride. When the Bird-of-Prey cloaks and disappears, it takes the all the crew's skills to track it and follow it at warp speed into an area beyond the known star maps. When they drop out of warp, they find themselves in the middle of a war zone, a galaxy ripped apart and dying and the Bird-of-Prey waiting for them.

Ambassador Janeway, explains how the Klingon, a proud people, are dying at the hands of some unknown enemy but refuse to surrender their independence to Starfleet Command and the federation. She had been working to maintain a dialogue with the nation when a space rift opened and an unprovoked enemy attacked, ripping the galaxy apart without warning. They are in dire need of evacuation and she and the Klingon warlord had concocted the race in an effort to lure the Enterprise to the Klingon home worlds to help.

In view of the appalling devastation, the McCoy and the crew waste no time in organising a galactic evacuation, using a fleet of rescue shuttles from the Enterprise. Meanwhile the Enterprise and the Klingon Bird-of-Prey, with only a handful of crew on each, travel to the space rift in order try and evaluate this new enemy which has remained hidden in another universe. Unintentionally drawn through the rift, the two ships suddenly find themselves facing a foe beyond their worst nightmares. The whole of the universe is at risk of assimilation and all that stands between it and the space rift is the Enterprise and a Bird-of-Prey...

During all this Spock has been working on his own theory, since the death of Ambassador Spock and the close proximity of himself to himself, he believes it has caused an anomaly at a sub-atomic level in the laws of physics which keep multiple universes separate. He believes this new enemy has calculated a way to predict, model and exploit this anomaly, to create the space rift and manipulate information from its own universe to unduly influence them. He has researched Starfleet data bases and there is no reference to a Katherine Janeway, ambassador or otherwise. Which leads him to conclude she and the Klingons must exist in this alternate universe.

As the subterfuge is revealed, Kirk has to acknowledge his hasty actions and pride have put his ship and his crew aboard the shuttles in mortal danger as the remnants of the Klingon nation revert to their true form and having divided them, now try to conquer and assimilate them to turn the Enterprise and its crew aboard the shuttles into a Trojan horse they can use to move freely around this new universe. Faced with the prospect of the Enterprise falling into enemy hands, Kirk orders his crew to return and fight till there seems no other option than to self-destruct the ship and themselves in the rift in an effort the explosion will close the rift and save their own universe.

Just in the last few moments U'hura picks up a faint, coded message in an unknown language from deep within this alternate galaxy. She broadcasts ship wide and on all frequencies in the hopes either someone can translate it onboard or it acts as a distress beacon in space. It is a computer virus and it crashes all the ship's systems, including life support and the self-destruct sequence on board the Enterprise but also, more importantly, it destroys the enemy. The crew of the Enterprise have defeated them but now lie 'dead in the water' themselves and the space rift, now without the alien technology keeping it open, starts to close...

As the air supplies dwindle, Scotty, McCoy and Spock try to workout a way to save the crew by cryo-engineering a deck for stasis but the task is too complicated in the time left, meanwhile Kirk, and the flight deck crew try and work out a way to contact whoever sent the complex, coded message. When all hope is lost and they are all beginning to loose consciousness a vision appears to them all, an intense bright light which changes into some kind of angelic, alien, figure filling the empty space around them. Then a tunnel, a bright tunnel of light seems to appear and the Enterprise travels towards it. Then the crew fall into a low temperature, low oxygen coma, close to drowning, as the best hope of survival at the hands of Scotty, McCoy and Spock. They drift through the tunnel of light and into the unknown beyond.

A few weeks later, a search ship picks up the distress beacon of the USS Enterprise, and finds her seemingly drifting dead in space, near the entrance to a stable wormhole in an uncharted area of the universe. The crew is rescued and slowly revived and rehabilitated at the nearest federation space station. Kirk and his crew, while being debriefed, learn that the collapse of the space rift resulted in the creation of a stable wormhole to the alternate galaxy which must have pulled their ship back through to safety and plans were underway to create a portal station to strictly control access to and from this new universe. The station is to be named Deep Space Sentinel. There has already been diplomatic contact with people from the alternate universe and a celebration in honour of the Enterprise crew and the new diplomatic envoys has been organised.

The crew of the Enterprise discuss whether they should mention the shared vision of the 'angel' but all decide it was simply a result of oxygen deprivation. As Kirk steps forward to meet the new envoys he is in for a shock, it is none other than Ambassador Katherine Janeway and a team comprising of Klingon, Romulan and a Borg. Although he recognises Janeway, it is clear from her actions they have never met but she does reveal it was they who broadcast the computer virus on a subspace frequency as a precaution against an old foe.

Kirk is offered the post of Commander at Deep Space Sentinel but he declines, deciding instead to remain with his ship and his loyal crew as they set off to chart still unexplored sectors of the universe and make first contact with new forms of existence, in fact, to boldly go...