
"Silent running."
The lighting levels faded; everything faded. Half of the bridge consoles went black. And throughout the ship, everything was powered down to essentials only, from the galley to the heads to the ship's weapons. Outside, her running lamps turned off; no port or starboard lights, no hull illumination. The Enterprise became a shadow.
Every bit of power drawn was one more bit of a signature for sensors to read. And Scotty was well aware of just how good the sensors were on Constitution-class starships. The Potemkin might still see them. The biggest draw and therefore signature was the Enterprise's warp drive, but he didn't order it shut down, just idled. A calculated risk; he wanted to be able to run, if he had to run.
Playing cat and mouse with two starships was a dicey proposition. Evenly matched adversaries, with trained crews. There were, overall, a number of Connies in service and they were stocked with the very best and brightest of Starfleet. Scotty knew better than to underestimate the Potemkin; she was, in both crew and equipment, a very fine ship.
The Enterprise was finer, of course, but she was operating without any backup, a rogue ship being commanded by a rogue engineer, and only half her usual crew compliment. Scotty wasn't the tactical genius Kirk was; what he knew of tactics came from some outside-the-box thinking, and a good number of years observing and learning from far more tactically-talented commanders.
The trick he stole now, though, wasn't learned on a starship, but at sea. He just put it into four-dimensions and accounted for having a lot more mass, speed and potential to screw it up.
Part one had been to lay a thick, hard trail at maximum warp. Scotty had asked more of the Enterprise than even he liked to; they had screamed through space at warp 9.5, all but hurtling the ship in a very specific direction.
Part two: Give the Potemkin something to do. There was a nebula of decent density in that particular direction. Scotty had barely ordered the Enterprise slowed down before they raised shields and shoved in. It wasn't a lot of fun; the sheer turbulence from that had sent more'n a few people sprawling. Once deep inside, he ordered all engines cut and allowed the Enterprise to drift right through to the other side...
...almost bow-first into a planet.
"Port side thrusters, full!" he'd barked, and thanked whatever higher power there might be that his crew didn't lock up and panic when faced with the proposition of running smack into a planet. And the Enterprise herself groaned loud and hard at being asked to essentially pivot against the forces of momentum and gravity; luckily (and tactically) they had come out of the nebula not dead-on, but offsides the dense world.
In other words, Scotty was basically tacking a starship about like he would a schooner, and it was a wee bit clever and somewhat unorthodox and definitely crazy.
He felt as much as watched as the world swung away; they hit the upper atmosphere, and before they could be either drawn down or glanced off, he ordered, "Starboard thrusters half and aft thrusters full, fire."
Thrusters were very weak; they were usually only used for maneuvering in dry dock, or at .1 impulse. They were not propulsion units so much as steering units, and he was asking an extraordinary amount of work out of them. But they held; they strained, but they held. The upside of pushing them so hard was that by the time the Potemkin caught up, any signatures they left would have dissipated into nothing.
"Orbit achieved," Osborne had said, voice shaking hard.
"Not for long," Scotty had replied. "Ready for maneuvers; tell me we're comin' up on the axis."
He could almost hear the ship and all aboard her holding their collective breaths. He also thanked whatever higher power that he'd been gifted with talented, capable people, who really wanted to get their commanding officers back badly enough to go through with all of this.
"Axis in ten... nine... eight..."
"Ready port thrusters and impulse."
"...six... five..."
"Port thrusters full, hard about!" And the Enterprise had screamed again, fighting her own momentum, gravity, physics and everything else. The stars came back bright across the viewscreen.
"...two..."
"Full impulse, one second burst, mark!"
It was a jolt, but in that second, the Enterprise essentially shoved hard off of the planet behind her, breaking free and flying on momentum and some maneuvering alone towards the next planet in the system. The crew breathed out. Scotty chanced a look at them; they were all white knuckling their consoles, and a few were close to a panic attack.
He had took a breath himself, letting it out and he was not particularly shocked at how shaky it was. "All done fer now. At ease, just let her coast."
With any luck, the lack of an easy trail would convince the Potemkin that the Enterprise was hiding in the nebula. Even if it didn't, though, they'd have a hard time finding her trail again. He fully intended to coast her across this system, firing impulse only in small bursts when they had to break orbit, using the planets to maneuver, and thrusters like sails on a ship at sea. Once they reached the other side, hopefully having shaken off the pursuit, then they could head for the rift again.
It was in the darkness, coasting between planets in a system and trying to gain some sea room that he ordered silent running.