"U.S.S. Lincoln to Vulpecula, the Arch-Merchant has dropped out of warp again. Let's circle back on impulse and see what's broken this time."

Second Mate Wayne "Pappy" Omthon muttered a curse and shut down the Vulpecula's warp drive. The freighter shuddered and the lights on the cramped bridge flickered as it shifted to impulse.

Pappy turned the command chair to face the sensor console and get a fix on Arch-Merchant, wincing at the chair's squeak. He'd get it oiled as soon as he had time.

The image on the screen was fuzzy, so Pappy slapped it with the flat of his pistachio-green hand, a practiced maneuver that instantly, if temporarily, cleared up the image. He'd earned the nickname "Pappy" by being far younger than the captain and most of the crew serving under him, a point he was still defensive about. But he prided himself on knowing the ship's quirks as well as any old-timer.

Arch-Merchant was venting plasma coolant. He sighed, ignoring the sensor display which had gone all fuzzy again. "That ship," he announced, without a trace of irony, "is a piece of junk." He slapped the sensor display again, then put in a call to Captain Rivers in her cabin to advise her of the situation.

Rivers was, as he'd expected, mildly drunk. The captain instructed him to use his own judgment, and not to call her again unless there was a core breach. Pappy grunted as the intercom screen went blank, then set a reverse course. It was business as usual.

Both the Vulpecula and the Arch-Merchant were privately owned freighters operating on the edge of former Cardassian space. The fall of the Cardassian Union and the aftermath of the Dominion War had thrown the region into chaos, creating lucrative new trade opportunities, and new dangers as pirates and raiders moved in.

Federation starships were spread thin and overworked, so freighters often formed small, impromptu convoys for mutual protection and safety. Pappy didn't fear the danger much, but he was just as happy when they were transporting some cargo important enough to Federation interests to warrant a starship to escort their convoy.

On this run, the two ships carried power station components, Cardassian war salvage from abandoned bases now needed to rebuild Cardassia Prime. If Pappy found it ironic that the Federation was paying to ship Cardassian war materials to restore Cardassia, he never would have said so. It was exactly the sort of situation a tramp freighter captain lived for. It was Pappy's ambition to buy the Vulpecula from Captain Rivers one of these days. His share of profits from this run would be one more step in that direction.

If they ever got to Cardassia.

"Vulpecula to Lincoln. How long are we going to be delayed this time?"

One of the secondary viewscreens cleared, and the angular features of a human Starfleet officer appeared. "This is Captain Newport. Shouldn't you be addressing that question to the Arch-Merchant?"

Pappy grinned, he hoped not too much. "Since it's my guess your engineers will be doing the repair work, I thought you'd know best."

Newport chuckled. "My chief engineer is putting together a repair party right now. We should know more after they beam over. Tell me, why is it--" He hesitated. "How to put this politely?"

"I won't make you ask the question, Captain. The Arch-Merchant is a corporate ship. She looks clean and sharp for the stockholders, but she's lucky to make it out of orbit without shedding a nacelle. We're a tramp, and independent. Our ship looks like the rattletrap she is, but we keep the important systems in top shape, appearances be damned. Most of the time, we're all we've got out here."

Newport nodded. "Well, thanks for being the less troublesome part of this mission." He glanced to one side. "Looks like the Arch-Merchant managed to plug the plasma leak on their own. Uncommonly resourceful of them. Now if we can just--"

The screen went blank. No static, no interference, no sign of a problem on the Federation ship. It just went blank. Startled, Pappy glanced up at the main viewer. He could see the Arch-Merchant's plasma cloud, a tiny smudge against the darkness, glowing in reflecting starlight, but the Lincoln was gone.

He slammed the intercom panel. "Condition red, all crew to emergency stations. Possible hostiles incoming!" Then, after a moment's hesitation, "Captain to the bridge."

He knew the result of that last command: the captain would at least attempt to sober up first. If he was lucky, he might see her on the bridge in an hour or so.

He hailed the Arch-Merchant. "Did you see what happened to the Lincoln?"

The reply was audio only and crackled with static. The voice was high, tinged with incipient panic. "No, Vulpecula, our sensors are down too. Are we under attack? We can't see anything. We're dead in space! Don't leave us!"

"I'm not leaving anybody, but I'm busy here. Save your questions and send out a distress call for me, will you?" Pappy closed the channel and turned his attention to the sensor screens. No hostiles, no radiation or debris, no cosmic storms, nothing that would account for the Lincoln's disappearance.

He reviewed his own sensor logs, replaying the event. The Lincoln vanished, without violence or explosion. He slowed down the replay, then slowed it again. He squinted. The Lincoln didn't just vanish. It was as though it had run into an invisible rift in space and been swallowed. A wormhole? He shook his head. He should have picked something up on sensors.

He heard the bridge doors slide open. The Vulpecula was highly automated, and the tiny bridge had only two stations. The second was staffed only during shift changeovers or critical operations such as docking. Or during emergencies, so he wasn't surprised to hear someone slide into the seat behind him. He was surprised to catch a strong odor of Saurian brandy.

Turning his head, he caught the captain's eye. "Carry on, Pappy. I took a handful of stims, but she's still your ship for now." She tapped the controls to activate her station. "Just tell me what you need." That explained the smell. The stims were burning the alcohol out of her system. Pappy tapped at the command console, transferring information to the secondary station.

"The point at which the Lincoln disappeared is on your sensor display. Run a detailed scan on the area in front of it. Look for anything unusual." Pappy ordered all stop, and kept his distance. If something had pulled the Lincoln in, it wouldn't do to be pulled in as well.

The secondary consoles chirped and beeped as the captain entered commands. Finally she looked up at him, her dark eyes red and tired, but sobering by the minute. "There's something out there, a discontinuity, like somebody blew an invisible bubble and the Lincoln just ran into it."

Pappy frowned, his sharp eyebrows drawing together into a vee. "How big a bubble?"

The Captain consulted her displays, rubbed her eyes, then checked them again. "I'm reading a sphere a hundred kilometers across. We just missed running into it ourselves." She sighed. "This is trouble."

"Our convoy partner is disabled, we're facing off with an invisible threat the size of a moon, one that just took out an Intrepid-class starship without firing a shot. Yeah, that would be one definition of 'trouble.'" He tapped the thruster controls.

It was the Captain's turn to frown. "What are you doing?"

"Getting in closer," he replied. "Somebody may need rescuing."