[img]https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/startrek/images/6/62/USS_Nebula_NCC_60147.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20141130140737[/img]

The Battle Bridge door opened with a soft pneumatic hiss.  Unlike the main bridge, this control center wasn't carpeted nor decorated.  It was half the size and a spartan facility with no distractions.  Hustling, the ship's first officer, Chandani Madan, passed the tactical console and swept approached the conn.  The two stations at the front of the bridge, also known as the Ops stations regulated navigation, power distribution, inertial dampening and warp field geometry.  In front of her, on the main view screen, was a wash of blackness and subtle red and orange hues.  Beyond the wash of colour was the eye of god, a stark cold darkness staring at her- unblinking -unyielding.  Black Holes did not discriminate.  They were an equal opportunity destroyer of all things.  They would swallow up her ship and the Dominion ships alike.

Behind her the turbolift hissed again but she had no time to turn and investigate.  If it was a Gem'Hadar then she was dead.  However, she was damn sure that they had handled the last of them.

"By the Goddess," a female voice behind her uttered, tinged with incredulity, "How close are we?"

Long fingers fluttering across the LCARS console, Chandani first adjusted the inertial dampeners to compensate for the relativistic effects of being so close to a black hole and breathed a quick sigh of relief for the settling of her stomach.  A black hole, like any massive object, bent the very space around it in towards itself.  This was very similar to and often interfered with the very means a starship used to surpass the speed of light.  As a result she adjusted the warp field structure to compensate for the shearing effect it was experiencing using the Enbridge theorum of quantum gravitic lensing to avoid the field's total collapse.  

"Too Close," Chandani responded to voice behind her, "Get on Helm.  We need to adjust course to compensate.  Our vector is too steep and we don't correct the spin of the singularity isn't going to compensate for escape velocity.  Main sensors are down.  Passive sensors only."

Long supple fingers, covered in a short soft fur worked her own console as a woman with a long mane of hair.  Unlike Chandani she rolled her hips and slipped into the chair even as she was working the seamless flat surface of the console.  She cursed softly at the lack of complete sensor data but saw little choice in the matter.  The console beeped softly with every frenetic touch as the pair struggled to survive.

The turbolift hissed again and again a crew member gaped in wonder at the screen.  He began to speak, then thought better of it.  The orange skinned alien stood with two arms crossed while his third arm, thrusting forth from the center of his chest over the other two stroked the long flap of skin hanging from beneath his chin.  Calmly he descended to the pair of women at their consoles and silently observed.  The Ops position was his station.  He was backup to Lieutenant Cheng who manned the ops position on the main bridge and regularly did duty on the dog watch.  He, like many of the junior officers, were engaged in damage control efforts until he was ordered here.

"Course plotted," M'Rella, the cat-woman stated.

"Adjusting Warp Field and Inertial Dampeners for your course," Chandani replied as she worked and then stood away from the console, "Mister Aurex.  Operations is yours."

The Edosian took his seat, maneuvering his three legs around and pressed several buttons, bringing up a customized operations console that best suited his three hands.

"All right you two" the first officer stated, "we've done almost all we can.  Monitor your stations and if you have gods, pray to them."

Outside the Dominion vessels watched helplessly as their prey began to distance themselves.  Their prey, the "Faith of the Heart", spilling plasma in a long trail behind it began to speed away.  Their adapted warp field and trajectory using the spin of the black hole to accelerate themselves, sling-shotting themselves in a wide arc and leaving the Dominion vessels to flounder.

Inside, on the viewer, the singularity on the right side of screen began to slip away.  The stars, which had been sliding by as strips of light growing longer and longer as they approached the left side of the screen began to be joined by additional stars on the right and suddenly, with the singularity behind them became a traditional, familiar, screen of streaming elongated pins of light.

"Something is wrong," M'Rella called out, "We're accelerating, accelerating out of control!"

Before them the stars grew longer and longer, burning brighter, and becoming more numerous until the entire screen filled with white.  The crew struggled to maintain consciousness.  Aurex struggled to collapse the warp field but nothing would work.  Inertial dampeners strained and alarms rang, lights flashed on consoles but nobody was conscious to hear them.

Across untold distance and over immeasurable time the Faith of the Heart burst into normal space.  She was bleeding and broken, a long black scrape along the top of her saucer section and a gaping, sparking hole at the end of that scrape where the bridge used to be.  It leaked plasma, a long glimmering line showing its course as it drifted quietly through the empty, lonely darkness.