“Captain...” Ezra suddenly exclaimed, his expression dark with horror before the gambler's inscrutable facade fell over his face again.  “It appears one of the warbirds are firing photon torpedoes!”

“Evasive action Vin!” Chris nearly shouted. “Ezra, countermeasures now!”

“Deploying phaser countermeasures!” The Security Chief declared, fingers working furiously over the console as he directed the phasers to target the torpedoes, in the hopes of scrambling their targeting systems.  Ezra didn’t voice how difficult this was going to be over such a short distance from the Maverick. Normally, countermeasures like this would be employed when the torpedo was fired from suitable distance between two ships, not at this close range where the firing ship could cripple themselves in the process.

Then again, Ezra had remembered what he’d seen in Riga 3, the horrific menagerie of cadavers left behind after Lorral had conducted her experiments. The woman was homicidally ruthless. Sacrificing one ship to get the Maverick was definitely something she was more than capable of.

“Captain,” Alex spoke up. “The other three ships are withdrawing to minimum safe distance.”

“No surprise,” Chris remarked, remaining calm even though the tension on the bridge was so thick, it could be cut through with a knife. “They’re going to close in after she cripples us.”

Chris watched through the view screen as Ezra’s countermeasures streaked across space towards the trio of greenish orbs, hurtling across the dark canvas towards the Maverick, growing larger as they closed the gap. Two of the torpedoes flashed as the phaser struck them in mid-flight, flaring brightly against the screen, overloading their eyes with white-hot brilliance they could see if not feel. The third, however, disappeared out of view.

Vin made a valiant effort to evade the third torpedo but he was only able to do so partially, even though he was zigzagging through the expanse of space, banking hard and sending the great ship into a barrel roll, more appropriate for shuttles and runabouts. While he remained perfectly still at the Conn, bracing himself against the consoles, everyone else staggered and tried to maintain their footing. Around them, the Maverick shuddered and groaned at the manoeuvre, protesting the aerial artistry performed at high warp.

It was a prelude to the chaos that came when the torpedo hit.

Everything that was not bolted down, went flying. Chris saw Mary covering JD, already injured to keep him still against the ground, instead of rolling across the floor. He himself clung to the armrest of his command chair, somehow remaining on his feet, while Buck dropped onto one knee and groaned in pain. Alex and Ezra braced themselves against the security and tactical station. The jolt that shook the ship violently was almost deafening once the impact passed through the outer hull into the Maverick.

“Damage report!”

Buck made it to his console and reviewed the reports flooding into his screen like blinking emergency lights. “We’ve sustained damage to the secondary hull, with breaches on Decks 5, 9 and 12!”

“Captain, our shield strength is down to 60 per cent,” Ezra reported grimly but had no more time to gain a response when his eyes widened. “They’re firing again!”

“Engineering, we need more power to the shield...” Chris started to demand when the Maverick shook again, this time more violently.  Lights across the bridge flickered on and off for a brief second, indicating possible damage to main power. Chris's stomach hollowed at the possibility of what that could mean as he spied consoles illuminating once more after briefly turning dark.  It was not lost upon him that only half of them came back to life.

Almost on cue, Ezra’s voice cut through his thoughts. “Shields down to 30 per cent!”

“Return fire, full spread!” Chris barked, wanting badly to give the order to lob a few photon torpedoes at the enemy but with shield strength down and their proximity to the Romulans well beyond safety limits, he knew doing so would subject the Maverick to greater harm. A surge of anger filled him at the battering his ship was taking and knew increased hull breaches were imminent.

“Engineering,” he repeated himself, “We need more power to the shields!”

There was no answer and Chris exchanged a glance with Buck and Ezra, knowing the reason for the silence could only mean Julia Pemberton was attempting to deal with the chaos that had to be taking place in Engineering. Considering the barrage, the Maverick was being subjected to and the number of reports flooding the First Officer’s console, engineering had their hands full.

“Enemy ship is damaged,” Alex announced, her expression grim despite that snippet of positive news. “Our phasers combined with the proximity of their photon torpedo detonation has caused damage to their forward shields and their primary hull.”

Good, Chris thought snidely, before responding. “Lay continuous fire Ezra, all phasers. Target their deflectors. If we can damage their shields, that might make them rethink firing torpedoes at us.”

“Delighted to oblige Captain,” Ezra answered and did just that, laying down another barrage of phaser fire and hoping it was enough.

Multiple phaser banks spewed a powerful beam of amber energy, crossing the seemingly narrow distance between the two ships to penetrate the unseen shields of the Romulan ship. Energy crackled across the impressive warbird a little closer to the hull then simply dispersed harmlessly into space. Similar alerts of warning were screaming throughout the former imperial warbird.

Chris studied the lead ship on the viewscreen, offering him a panoramic view of the enemy strike. The warbird was bearing the brunt of their assault while the second warbird held back just far enough to remain out of their targeting range. The third and fourth warbirds were continuing to flank them at a distance. While the duo still lagged, they were content to let the lead ship chip away at the Maverick’s dwindling advantage.

Why not? He thought bitterly. At this point, all they had to do was sacrifice one warbird to significantly damage the Maverick enough to slow it down.

“Vin whatever you do, keep us ahead of them,” Chris said quietly, standing next to the helmsman. If they slowed down long enough to allow the flanking warbirds to catch up, the Maverick would never survive the united assault.

“I’ll get it done Chris,” Vin answered calmly and Chris wondered how the man could look so unflappable when the shit was literally hitting the fan around them.

Vin knew exactly how bad their situation was but the only way he knew how to deal with it was to focus on the job at hand.  Being a Vulcan without the disciplines of Surak, he knew just how volatile his emotions could be if he allowed them to get the better of him. Surrendering to the urgency of their situation or allowing himself to think what might happen if the Maverick lost their one remaining advantage, would get them all killed.

“Engineering here!” Julia’s voice finally came through the bridge. As her face appeared on the viewscreen, it was apparent that the engineering deck was suffering troubles of their own. She was struggling to be heard over the voices chattering loudly in the background.  Engineering was in chaos with technicians running back and forth, trying to seal off leaks and attend to damaged systems as smoke hissed into the deck, live wires and conduits dangled from the exposed ceiling and wall panels sparking dangerously.

“Report!” Chris barked but it was a foregone conclusion from what he was seeing behind her. The Maverick was shaking hard, each blast becoming more and more violent until it felt like the ship was gripped in the midst of a lightning storm. The lead warbird was alternating between firing torpedoes and disruptors, the effect of which was tearing his ship apart.

“We’ve sustained damage to one of the starboard couplings and we’ve lost at least one containment field generator, with fluctuations to two more!”

Shit, Chris swore inwardly. If there was damage to the antimatter containment field which was vital to the functioning of the warp engines, their problems were going to be a great deal worse than the Romulan strike force.  They would literally become an antimatter bomb in space.

“Julia, can we get more power to the shields?” Chris asked, even though instinct told him the woman was having trouble enough maintaining power to the warp core.

“Not without reducing phaser power and propulsion systems! Captain, I’ve already diverted every spare gigawatt of power I can to reinforce the shields!”

EMERGENCY. CONTAINMENT FIELD GENERATOR 2 IS OFFLINE.

Chris heard the automated warning being issued throughout engineering with Julia turning around sharply to face the warp core before looking at Chris again. She turned back to him, her eyes filled with impatience because she needed to go deal with this new crisis. Chris let her off the hook before she could speak.

 “Go!”

Relief and gratitude flooded her lovely features and she nodded before hurrying away from the screen, prompting the image of Engineering to flicker off, to be replaced by the previous view of the warbirds behind them.

“If we lose antimatter containment we’re screwed...” Buck met Chris's eyes and they both knew this was a fight they may not be able to survive. Nevertheless, neither man was prepared to surrender and however this ended, they were going to go down fighting. As it was, Buck was already barking orders to the damage control crews, sending them across the ship to deal with the numerous wounds the photon torpedoes were inflicting upon the Maverick.

“Captain, the second warbird is moving in!” Alex declared, her gaze meeting Chris as she delivered her grim news.  “They’re firing torpedoes! Full spread!”

This time, there was no avoiding them. Ezra was fast but the Maverick’s phaser banks were already engaged targeting the first warbird, giving the Security Chief no time to initiate the countermeasures needed to prevent the barrage from reaching them. The shields would keep the Maverick from being obliterated but this time, they were going to feel the devastating impact of those torpedoes.

Chris watched them closing in on the viewscreen and shouted. “Vin, hard port course 1.4207!”

Vin’s fingers were flying across the helm controls console even before Chris finished the sentence. The Maverick veered sharply to the left, allowing one of the three torpedoes to streak past them, continuing forward into space. The second clipped the edge of the Maverick’s right warp nacelle, rupturing the hull and causing a thread of green plasma to leak into space.  The main engines faltered for a second, like a runner succumbing momentarily to fatigue before regaining their breath, when someone at Engineering, most likely Julia rerouted power flow to the remaining warp coil.  The disruption to the engines lasted but a second but it was enough to cost the Maverick dearly.

The third torpedo struck the stardrive section and any chance they had of reaching the Vikaris Quasar ended right there even if they were still moving at high warp.

The impact felt as if a giant hand had swatted the Maverick aside. The great ship was flung sideways at a near 90-degree angle, upending anything that wasn’t bolted down throughout the ship. On the bridge, emergency klaxons screamed even more violently, muting the sound of frightened cries and pained screams of pain. Several decks were exposed to the vacuum of space as hull plating tumbled away from the ship, including the helpless personnel in those areas, unable to be saved before emergency force fields came into effect.

Everyone on the bridge went flying as the deck dipped violently beneath their feet, propelling them across the floor.  The backup stations behind tactical and security exploded spectacularly, a spray of sparks erupting from the ruin consoles from live conduits and relays.  Ezra and Alex were flung against the side wall before the deadly barrage of glass and energy reached them, covering the tactical and security consoles instead with flaming fragments.  Ezra landed hard against Alex when they both came to a stop.

Chris saw Mary and JD, already on the floor, rolling out of control across the carpet but could offer her no help himself because he was flung against the side wall.  He felt ribs crack as he landed, his head taking a fair whack against a display panel, leaving a crack across the dark glass.  Dazed, he had presence of mind to seek out Mary, only to see a ceiling panel breaking free above her.

“Mary!” He shouted but the protocol officer recovered faster than he gave her credit. She dragged JD beneath the cover of his destroyed navigation station, shielding them both. The panelling struck the floor inches away from her while wires dangled precariously from the exposed duct.

“We’re okay!” She called back, reassuring him.

Vin was also thrown but he was scrambling to his feet almost as soon as he was dislodged from his seat. He landed a little further along the wall from Chris, his Vulcan physiology allowing him to recover faster than the humans he was sharing the bridge with. Fighting the instinct to go to Alex, he saw her raise her head once Ezra rolled off her. She appeared disorientated but had presence of mind to seek him out. When their eyes met, Vin saw a bruise on her cheek and felt his gut clench when Alex winked and blew him a kiss, an indication he was not to worry about her so he could get back to the Conn.

Once seated at the helm controls, Vin regained control of the ship, correcting its trajectory and resuming their race to the Vikaris Quasar.

The information console next to the first officer’s seat had kept Buck from being thrown against the wall like Chris and Vin, though his shoulder ached from where he’d landed on it. The station was still functional, allowing him to view the state of the ship when he finally clambered back into his chair.

“Damage report!” Chris demanded as he returned to his command chair, the view screen showing the warbirds attempting to converge on them.

“We have hull breaches in the secondary hull from decks 39 to 42! Our navigational sensor array is also gone.” Buck reported.

“What about shields?” He looked at Ezra who scrambling back to the tactical station, with Alex still getting to her feet to join him.

It took but a second for Ezra to respond. "I’m afraid our shield strength has been depleted after that last assault. We have fifteen per cent shield power remaining Captain.” A shrill beep emitted from his console and Chris saw him tensing. “They’re firing again!”

Chris's eyes flew to the still functioning view screen and he saw the streak of disruptor fire about to reach the Maverick. “Evasive pattern sierra!” 

“Already on it!” Vin declared, forcing the Maverick into a steep climb when suddenly, the ship was rocked with another violent jolt.

The torpedo, fired by the lead Romulan warbird, though crippled, penetrated the underside of the saucer section even as Vin Tanner was attempting to evade the disruptor fire. It penetrated twenty-three decks of the galaxy class starship before rupturing debris, oxygen and lives into the vacuum of space.

Even if they were prepared for it, the violence of the blast still shook all of them. Half the consoles on the bridge had gone dark in the aftermath and as Ezra scanned flickering reading at the tactical station, he raised his eyes to Chris. “Our shields have buckled Captain. I’m afraid that last torpedo...”

“Captain!” Julia’s face appeared on the viewer screen in front all of them. “We have a serious problem.”

******

If the situation on the bridge had been bad, then it was worse in Engineering.

From the onset of the battle, Julia had been marshalling every iota of spare power to be had on the Maverick, in accordance with the Captain’s instructions and using her own initiatives, to reinforce the deflector shields while maintaining the ship’s ability to reach Warp 9.9. Painfully aware their survival depended on maintaining a slim lead on the four warbirds, Julia had made a valiant effort to ensure the Maverick could fight back. However, the instant the stardrive had been breached, she was faced with an even greater problem than being destroyed by the enemy.

As it was, engineering was in total pandemonium, with overloads and system failures rife throughout the deck. There were mini eruptions, cascade failures and outright explosions flaring at frightening frequency throughout her normally orderly bastion.  She had been working at her station when Chanu had pulled Julia away from it, seconds before the entire wall exploded.

Both were covered in shrapnel and debris, wearing minor cuts on their faces as the wall erupted into fire.  This prompted the Maverick’s internal fire suppression systems to kick into gear once the smoke was detected. Yet the flames were the least of her concerns in the aftermath of that catastrophe, it was the unsteady pulse of the warp core that had Julia getting to her feet and running towards the main reaction chamber.

The tall column of antimatter energy and its surrounding containment casing, which stood in the middle of engineering like the totem pole around which they worshipped, was pulsing erratically. She could see the patterns of energy swirling beneath the translucent casing in a manner that gave her alarm. Julia had spent hours with the warp core, she knew it as intimately as she knew the hum made by a defective manifold in the EPS conduits.  Just studying it for a moment, without knowing the cause for certain, told her something was wrong.

By the time the next photon torpedo struck the ship, something wrong had degenerated into something catastrophic. Smoke was filling up the main reaction chamber due to the short circuits as the containment generator couplings began to fail. With each burnt outcoupling, another generator failed and with each failing generator, the magnetic containment field began to weaken.

“Get some stabilisers in here!” Julia ordered Chanu as she regarded the destabilising of the antimatter reaction within the casing becoming more critical by the second. “We need to reinforce the starboard interlock and reroute main power through the secondary coupling until we can stabilise the reaction!”

No sooner than she had said those words, another explosion rocked the ship and its effect on the warp core was dire.  Julia was thrown against the wall, feeling her back flare in pain because the panel she landed on cracked under her weight. Pushing herself away from it, she hurried to the warp core console and studied the readings in horror.  Another coupling had gone and with it the last working containment generator.

As she looked up, the seams along the column began to rupture and what poured out of it was no longer smoke it was coolant. As the highly toxic gas began to fill up the warp chamber, Julia realised there was no stopping what was going to happen next.

“EVERYBODY OUT!” She shouted, her heart sinking as she ushered her engineering team out of the area and activated the emergency containment procedures.  Tapping her com badge, she didn’t waste time going to a view screen.

“Captain!” Julia’s face appeared on the viewer screen in front all of them. “We have a serious problem. We’ve lost antimatter containment. We’re going to have a core breach in seven minutes.”

Seven minutes.

That’s all they had until a core breach. Even with the continued bombardment of disruptor fire by the enemy warbirds, the entire bridge fell silent with Julia’s statement. No one could speak as they reeled in shock at how their time on the Maverick could end so abruptly with that one announcement. The violent shaking and shuddering of the ship seemed distant as Chris was faced with this reality and the anguish at losing this ship and possibly this crew, tore at him.

His ice blue stare met Mary’s who looked back at him in similar pain, feeling the same loss. Until this moment, he had not realised just how much the Maverick had come to mean to him. It was his first command and the crew on it had become his family.

From Buck Wilmington who saved him after Sarah and Adam had died, only to do it again after Q’s enigmatic inference they’d been murdered to Vin Tanner, who stood by him, no matter how much of an ass he’d been to everyone, including Mary who loved him. Ezra Standish who even now, was trawling through reports and rumours, seeking the truth for him while Josiah listened to his frustrations, giving him back the father he’d lost so long ago. There were the others, Nathan, Casey, Alex and Julia, they weren’t just people he served with, they had become his family.

If the Maverick was destroyed today, he’d not just be losing a ship, there was every chance they’d be scattered to the winds and the breaking of this fellowship was one Chris was not prepared to face, under any circumstances. But they couldn’t win this one. Not if there was a warp core breach. Closing his eyes, Chris Larabee searched himself and looked at all the possibilities, ignoring the noise of Vin Tanner cursing that the main engines were losing power or Ezra’s declarations that there were hull breaches. He even ignored Buck’s voice asking him to give the evacuation order.

None of it penetrated because Chris Larabee was working the problem.

And just like that, it came to him. Once he banished all the distractions around him and considered the situation, weighing in all the fact, the solution presented itself. Even if it was risky and dangerous, it was a chance of survival and a slim chance was better than none at all. Like Caesar at the Rubicon, Chris was going to roll the dice.

Exhaling as if he’d just emerged from a session of meditation, Chris turned to Buck and spoke with the same laconic drawl, as when he delivered his orders on the holodeck, in the persona of the Man in Black.

“Buck, give the order to evacuate all crew to the saucer section.”

The protest came immediately from Buck. “The saucer section? Chris if we have a core breach, we need to get off the ship!”

Chris shot him a patented Larabee glare, telling him in no uncertain terms to do as he was told. He understood Buck’s ambivalence but Chris knew what he was doing. “We’re not giving up the ship Buck,” his voice was almost serene. “Carry out the order.”

Buck almost opened his mouth to respond but decided against it. Suddenly, he had an idea that despite the fact the ship was shuddering violently around them, suffering new wounds with each blast of Romulan disruptors, Chris Larabee had a plan. Buck had no idea what it was, but his captain and oldest friend was wearing the look of a man who was about to pull a rabbit out of his hat.

Without question, Buck tapped his com badge.

“All hands, this is Commander Wilmington, evacuate to the saucer section immediately. Repeat, all hands evacuate to the saucer section immediately.” He leaned over the controls on his chair and activated the evacuation alert throughout the ship. A new whine screamed shrilly throughout the Maverick, reinforcing his order in no uncertain terms.

Mary stayed where she was. JD was in so much pain, the young man could do nothing but stay put because moving aggravated the severe burns she could see across his body. With all the damage done to the ship, it was likely Nathan was unable to reach the bridge. She wanted to ask Buck if the Jefferies tubes were still functioning but decided against it. Instead, she got to her feet and approached the compartment where she knew an emergency medkit was stored. As a protocol officer, she could do little to aid their current situation but she could make sure JD was taken care of.

Glancing as Chris, who seemed above all the chaos around him, Mary could see the familiar gleam in his eyes that told her he was about to do something insane, which she knew from experience could end up saving them all.

Whether he was aware what was on Mary’s mind, Chris forged ahead with the idea forming in his head and issued his next order, delivered with the maddeningly calm of a man standing in the eye of the storm. “Alex, I need you to scan the immediate vicinity and find me an M-Class planet we can get to on impulse speed.”

The order shook the remnant of her earlier fall from Alex’s consciousness. She blinked it away, staring at her captain at the order for but a second before complying.

“Scanning now.”

Chris Larabee had earned her undying loyalty in the past year. He’d taken on a troubled Science Officer, offering her every consideration while she struggled through the recovery of her ordeal by the Cardassians. Even when she tested those limits after Gul Lemar, her rapist turned up on board the Maverick, the Captain had still stood by her. More recently, he’d supported her solution to cure Vin’s bout of Pon Farr, even though every logical instinct should have had him refuse her. If he wanted her to scan the territory all the way to Perdition’s Fire as Ezra was so fond of saying, Alex would do it willingly.

In any case, the request made sense considering the news they were suffering a core breach. While she had no idea how they’d reach any M-Class planet with four warbirds in pursuit, that Chris Larabee had asked it of her was enough. 

Like Buck, Ezra Standish knew his captain and Chris had the look of a man who held all the cards and was about to play a winning hand. How in God’s name that could be when around them, more and more systems were sparking and overloading, the ship was being rocked by disruptor fire at shorter intervals and a core breach was imminent, was beyond Ezra. By now, even the Romulans knew the Maverick was mortally wounded as they dispensed with photon torpedo bombardment and used disruptors only.

Maintaining a grip of his tactical console as another violent jolt threatened to make him stumble, Ezra regarded the Captain. “Captain, you have the look of a man with an ace up your sleeve.”

“Maybe one or two,” Chris remarked. “Ezra, I want you to reconfigure our tractor beam and turn it into a repulsor. Make sure you draw power from our stardrive, not the warp core. Can you do it?”

“Easily,” Ezra replied, recalling a report he read in recent years from a Lt Tasha Yar outlining a procedure to carry out the task without weeks of laying out new circuitry. “I merely need to reverse the tractor beam power lead through the force activator but why....” he was in mid-sentence before it dawned on him. “Captain...”

“...that’s pretty damn vicious Chris,” Vin who was still at the helm, pushing the Maverick as much as he could with the dwindling power to the propulsions systems in light of the core breach, threw his best friend a grin, guessing quickly what was in the man’s mind as soon as he ordered the evacuation to the saucer section. It had taken Vin a second to work out the details of Chris’ plan but then again, he always seemed to catch on quicker than most what was on the Captain’s mind.

“You’re damn right it is.” Chris sneered with menace.

“Shall I slow down and let them catch up a bit, Pard?” Vin looked at him.

WARNING. CORE BREACH IN SIX MINUTES.

“Not yet,” Chris answered ignoring the computer’s warning. “We’ll only have impulse and we have to get to minimum safe distance.”

Mary who was kneeling next to JD with a medkit splayed open next to her was using the dermal regenerator on the injured ensign’s shoulder after administering painkillers with a hypospray. “What are you planning Chris?”

“In a minute Mary,” he gave her a quick glance before tapping his combadge. “Engineering come in!”

“We’re a little busy down here Captain,” Julia Pemberton replied, sounding a little harried as she directed Engineering’s evacuation from the deck. “Trying to pack the good china and my grandma’s hope chest to get to the saucer section in one piece!”

Chris tossed a glance at Ezra behind him and shared the Security Chief’s dimpled grin at her response. Smirking, despite the urgency of the situation, Chris remarked. "Let Chanu handle that Lieutenant. I need you to eject the warp core on my mark.”

There was silence and Chris took some satisfaction in being able to silence her usual flippancy.

“Captain, that’s almost cruel.” Julia returned after a moment. He couldn’t see her face but Chris was certain she was smiling.

“Yeah but those sons of bitches have it coming,” Chris growled with clear anger in his voice, as he felt shaken by another powerful shudder around him.

“No argument from me,” she shouted as the pandemonium of evacuation continued around her. “I’ll get things ready down here Captain,” she assured him. “I’ll be ready on your mark.”

“Excellent Lieutenant,” he returned, feeling a surge of fondness for the young woman, remembering a similar conversation with her when she’d stepped up to take charge of Rutherford’s engineering section during the Battle of Sector 001. When all hell was breaking loose in their battle with the Borg, Julia had held the ship together, allowing Chris to help Jean-Luc Picard deal the killing blow to the Collective, thus saving the Earth. When the choice of Chief Engineer for his new command had been put to him, there was only one person he wanted. “Standby for my orders.”

WARNING. WARP CORE BREACH IN FIVE MINUTES.

“Captain,” Alex spoke up no sooner than he’d concluded giving his orders to Julia. “On full impulse, we can reach Loren III within the hour. She’s an uninhabited M-Class planet.”

Loren III. Chris knew of it. It was along the trajectory towards the Kurlan system when they were racing to rescue the Columbus. With a surge of anger, he knew it was likely, the crew of the Columbus were dead. If Lorral was prepared to destroy a Federation warship, she would have barely given a thought to killing a handful of surveyors who’d never done anything to anyone.

“Alright,” Chris spoke up, addressing his bridge crew because it was time to unveil his plan, though some of them would have guessed it by now. “Julia, when Vin slows down to Warp 9.7, I want you to eject the warp core. Ezra, the minute she does it, send that thing straight at the Romulans with the repulsor and Vin, hit full impulse power. We’ve got to clear minimum safe distance.”

“Chris, will that be enough to destroy four warships? Even with shields?” Mary asked, unfamiliar with the explosive yield of a warp core breach.

“Of a galaxy class starship?” Ezra answered for Chris. “Absolutely Lieutenant.”

“Goddamn Chris,” Buck shook his head, glad to see his faith in his old friend and captain was justified once again. “However, it turns out, it’s a hell of a gamble.”

“I do believe games of chance are our specialty,” Ezra remarked. “Repulsor ready Captain.”

“Okay,” Chris sucked in his breath and swept his gaze across the faces of his bridge crew, taking the sight of them in and committing them to memory, leaving Mary for the last. However, this went, he regretted nothing. The last year and a half had been the best he’d known since Sarah and Adam were in his life. “Let’s do this.”

Chris only had to nod before Vin immediately acted, tapping the smooth, illuminated surface of the helm console. Even as the Maverick continued to be wracked by jolts from disruptor fire, the hum of the warp engines seemed to lower a pitch and Chris watched the warbirds, previously distant in the view screen, grow fractionally larger.

“NOW!”

“Ejecting warp core!” Julia’s voice answered automatically.

WARNING! WARP CORE HAS BEEN EJECTED.

“Get to the saucer section Lieutenant!” Buck ordered Julia as around them, the hum of the warp engines went silent and the ship seemed to skip a heartbeat for a moment. The pause was only brief because no sooner than the Maverick had lost access to the warp core, the stardrive powering the impulse engines took up the duty of keeping the ship in flight.

“Activating repulsor beam!” Ezra announced as they watched the iridescent column hurtle towards the approaching Romulan warbirds. It wasn’t so much a beam, Ezra thought as he activated the repulsor, but more of a pulse. The energy beam struck the detached warp core, causing it to pick up speed as it tumbled towards the Romulan ships, now in close proximity.

“FULL IMPULSE VIN!”

Vin didn’t need to be told. The instant Ezra had made his announcement, he was already preparing to get the Maverick the hell out of the area. While impulse speed meant the nearest starbase was years away, at least it would get them to Loren III where they could wait for a rescue or figure something else out. However, all of that hinged on him getting the Maverick out of here right now.

The Maverick surged forward. In the viewscreen, they could see the Romulan ships growing distant, albeit not as quickly as it would if the ship were under warp, but enough so that a sizeable gap appeared between themselves and the discarded antimatter column As the stars rushed past them, there was a moment of absolute silence where the constant bombardment of disruptors ceased and there was only the sight of the warp core continuing to hurl towards the enemy ship, like a baton being passed.

Every corner of space behind them flared with a light so brilliant and white, it felt as if the universe was being born again. The warbirds vanished in the bright glare, forcing everyone to look away from the view screen as the bridge of the Maverick was bathed in the blinding illumination. While the vacuum of space did not allow them to hear the explosion, they certainly felt the resulting shockwave once the antimatter detonated.

“All hands brace for impact!” Chris warned as they saw the resulting shockwave emerging from the source of the blast once the initial flare had contracted. It spread outwards in an expanding ring of energy, like a great storm rushing outward in all directions. The wave of iridescent blue looked almost like an ocean swell, except this was a maelstrom of deadly radiation, dispersing antimatter particles and gravimetric forces rivalling the collapse of a neutron star. Under normal circumstances, the Maverick would have weathered the wave with only a hint of turbulence.

If they still had shields.

Chris lowered himself into his chair, gripping the hand rests and holding on for dear life, while Buck sat next to him and did the same. Alex and Ezra braced themselves against the tactical and security station while Mary helped JD beneath his navigational station, before returning to her own seat next to Chris because they both wouldn’t fit. As she sat down, Chris took her hand in his and they met each other’s eyes briefly, exchanging their regard for each other.

Vin had the hardest task of all because somehow, he’d have to ride the wave instead of letting it rip them apart as it might do, due to their lack of shields.

When the wave struck, the Maverick was swept upwards from the stern with the saucer section angled at a forty-five-degree slant. Within the ship, those not prepared for it were flung from one end of their present location to the other. The force of the wave crumpled the damaged right nacelle completely, disintegrating it utterly until the Maverick appeared as if it had suffered a crude amputation. Plasma, oxygen and debris vanished into the deadly cloud, as the crippled continued forward.

Across the Maverick, the ship was being shaken like a child’s toy, with anything not secured, smashing against walls, turning into deadly projectiles. Nearly every glass surface, save the Plexiglas windows on the outer hull cracked and fissure, some outright shattering. Like a shaken snow globe, the chaos was total until even the emergency klaxons had fallen silent in surrender. Screams and cries of fright echoed through hallways while Josiah Sanchez and Nathan Jackson, the two senior officers who had taken charge of the evacuation, tried to maintain calm despite the calamity around them.

On the bridge of the Maverick, Chris had let go of Mary’s arm as she wrapped both limbs around the information console and kept from being thrown out of her chair. Chris was similarly clinging to his armrests while Buck braced a leg against his console to keep from tumbling out of his chair. JD was lodged even more securely under his station. The sedatives Mary had given him had made his burns easier to manage and he seemed content to remain where he was. Both Alex and Ezra were pressed hard against the tactical station, keeping them from being thrown over the console into the view screen.

Displays cracked and shattered, spraying the carpeted deck with fragments of dark glass. Panels came loose, while some stations exploded, sending sparks in all direction while conduits and wiring tumbled from exposed walls and the ceiling. A spidery fissure ran along the edge of the view screen, blue sparks spitting from the crack. The bridge was bathed in red, almost symbolic of their current situation.

Vin Tanner could feel the edge of his helm station digging into his stomach but he ignored the discomfort as he was too busy manoeuvring the Maverick into the wave, taking advantage of the tremendous velocity to give it the acceleration necessary to reach Loren, even faster than impulse speed was capable. He had to angle the ship just right or it was very possible the Maverick could break apart under the pressure. No one would survive such a disaster.

Finally, the shuddering and shaking began to ease off and the few emergency klaxons still blaring piercingly in the background fell into silence. Even though it lasted no more than a few minutes, their journey through the wave felt much longer. The view screen was still functioning and the slightly distorted image revealed nothing but empty space staring back at them indifferently.

“Everyone okay?” Chris was the first to speak, his eyes immediately shifting to Mary.

Strands of golden hair covered her face, which Mary quickly brushed aside with her fingers. “Let’s not do that again.”

“Hell,” Buck grumbled, standing up and dusting himself off. “How about never?”

“Are you alright?” Chris asked Mary, needing to hear it from her lips. She looked shaken but none worse for wear. His fingers brushed her velvet cheek, grateful he was still alive to savour the silkiness of it against his skin.

“I’m okay,” she offered him a smile. “Although I no longer feel I need to yell at my mother for staying on board.”

Chris uttered a short laugh. While he saw her concern for Adelaide Sheridan, he also knew Nathan and Josiah would have ensured all civilians on board were taken care off during the battle. “I think this will be a learning experience for her.”

“Lieutenant Tanner,” Ezra found his voice from the tactical station. “May I say that was an impressive bit of flying. I had serious reservations whether we were going to make it through that.”

“I agree,” Chris added his voice to the Chief’s compliment. Vin’s piloting skills through all this had been nothing less than exemplary. Chris hated to imagine the outcome of their battle if the Maverick had been in the hands of a lesser pilot. “You did good Vin.”

Vin looked over his shoulder at them, appearing somewhat embarrassed by the attention. It was hard to maintain an unflappable expression in the face of their gratitude. As it was, he was just satisfied, the ship had held up and was still capable of flying.

“Thanks, Chris,” he gave the Captain that imperceptible nod only Chris Larabee seemed to understand. Never was their connection as important as it had been in the last hour when it became necessary for him to anticipate what Chris needed before the man could ask. Those precious few seconds had made all the difference.

Shifting his gaze to Alex, he was relieved to see she was unhurt. “You doing okay, Darlin’?”

“I’m okay Cowboy,” Alex said giving him a wink, using the nicknames they’d given each other from that silly holo-program he liked so much. The quick exchange was all that was needed to reassure him she was fine because they were still on duty and nowhere out of trouble.

As much as he wished they could all take a moment, Chris knew they didn’t have it to spare. Tapping his combadge, Chris was about to contact Julia when suddenly, the Maverick was rocked with another violent jolt that took them all by complete surprise.

“What the hell was that?” He demanded.

Alex quickly brushed the debris from the security console. The display was still alive and the readings made her stare at Chris grimly. “Captain, it’s a warbird.”

Once again, proximity alert klaxons resumed screaming through the air, amidst the battering thunder of disruptor fire impacting against the Maverick’s bruised hull. Across still functioning displays throughout the ship, red alert warnings began flashing again. On the bridge of the Maverick, Chris Larabee swore under his breath, his hope of saving his ship from the Romulan menace dashed, despite the sacrifice of his ship’s warp core.  

Even after succeeding in destroying three Romulan warbirds, it was still not enough. Alex’s revelation drove home to all of them, they were still going to be destroyed, out here on the edge of the Frontier.

“Shit, we missed one.”

As usual, the helmsman had not lost his knack for understatement as the warbird appeared on the slightly damaged view screen in front of them.  Even though they had felt its presence by the barrage of disruptor fire a moment ago, seeing it for themselves drove home the reality of their situation.

Chris took some comfort in knowing the last of the four warbirds had not escaped the warp core explosion unscathed. The formidable looking ship was decidedly tarnished as its emerald-hued hull was scorched black in places, while a portion of the starboard side of its shell-like wing was missing, leaving behind a ragged edge of disintegrated metal.

“We can cry about it later.” Chris snapped to attention, returning his mind to the problem at hand, not the consequences of failure. Discarding his thoughts of remaining in orbit around Loren III while they awaited rescue was wishful thinking. There was only one thing that had held any importance now - making sure his crew survive this day.  God only knows how many they had lost already. There had been no time to take account of casualties but he knew there would be a bloody tally when he finally spoke to Nathan Jackson.

“Right, initiating evasive pattern delta,” Vin announced, not waiting for Chris’s permission. That Romulan bitch was out there and they needed to keep ahead of it to stay alive. Vin supposed if there was any bright side to this, the Maverick’s lack of warp speed meant the warbird could only come at them at impulse power.  At least, in that sense, they were on a level playing field.

“That’s a start,” Chris’ replied, glad he didn’t have to tell Vin who seemed to always know what he needed.  Turning to Mary before his mind turned inwards to the problem and shut her out, he knew she could have stayed back on DS5 but chose to remain on board during this mission because she would not abandon him. For that alone, he’d spare her a moment of thought before he went back to being Captain of the Maverick, for however long it lasted.

For a second, his icy blue eyes softened as he offered the lovely protocol officer a look of apology for not delivering them out of this situation with the decisiveness he hoped. Without saying the words, he gave her a silent promise to reunite her with Billy, who was waiting for her on DS5.  In turn, Mary reached for his hand and squeezed it tight for a moment, showing her faith in him that he would make good on that vow.

“Chris, we’ve got damage to our left nacelle and at hull breaches from Decks 38 to 42. Without the warp core, we don’t have the power to erect emergency force fields,” Buck reported, unknowingly ending the tender moment between the Captain and the Protocol Officer.

“Warbird is firing again!” Ezra’s normally erudite voice declared tautly.

A fraction of a second after his exclamation, the Maverick banked sharply at Vin’s hand, once again forcing them to grab hold of something before they went sprawling as the ship avoided the blast.

“Return fire! Phasers on full!” Chris growled, fingers digging into the padding of his armrest, feeling the fury bubble in him at having to endure the further violation of the Maverick.

Ezra who did not have Vin’s uncanny ability to read the Captain, had been poised to receive the order from the captain and was ready and waiting.  “Firing all phaser banks!”

The view screen revealed the bolts of phaser energy impacting against the enemy ship, its shield shimmering briefly as it absorbed the shot.  Not to be outdone, the Romulan warbird returned fire promptly, with the Maverick performing another steep bank to avoid being hit directly. Once again, the ship groaned in protest as it was shaken apart as more and more bulkheads began to buckle. No doubt, Julia Pemberton was probably wincing at the strain she could hear in the superstructure every time the Romulan fired on them. With their stardrive section almost totally disabled without warp power, they were more or less at the mercy of one well-placed direct hit.

“Enemy ship sustained minimal damage,” Ezra declared. “Her shields are still holding. She’s firing again!”

“Damage report!”

“We have major damage to the secondary hull! I’m reading multiple hull breaches and we’re venting oxygen! Emergency force fields are offline!” Buck answered looking up from his barely functional information console. As the display flickered, the First Officer gave it a frustrated kick as if the action would be able to steady the readings. Whether in surrender or simply luck, the image held, acquiescing to Buck’s frustration.  On the viewscreen, they could see the debris of hull plating tumbling away into the darkness of space.

“All hands, evacuate outer sections of the saucer section!” The first officer ordered. “Repeat, evacuate outer sections! Chris, that warbird is going to carve us up like a Sunday roast!”

Vin forced the Maverick into a barrel roll to avoid another disruptor blast, a manoeuvre a galaxy class starship was unaccustomed to performing so abruptly in such short distance. While the anti-gravs maintained gravity on board the Maverick, there was nothing to stop them from being tossed about like pebbles inside a maraca. On the bridge, everyone was clinging to every handhold and console they could reach to keep from becoming seriously injured.

Suddenly, the distinct shrill of a communication alert cut through the cacophony of voices and alert notifications in the air. Everyone on the bridge recognised it for what it was but it took Alex to say it out loud.

“Captain, the warbird is hailing us.”

“Probably giving us a chance to surrender,” Buck scowled, his expression dark because he was studying the casualty list on his console and the number was sitting in the teens. He had yet to voice it to Chris because the burden of it would be too much for the Captain at this time.  Right now, Chris needed to focus on the crew he could save, not the ones already lost.

Mary saw Chris stiffen in distaste and knew him well enough to know he would never accept surrender under any circumstances. Neither would his crew, she thought resolutely.  

“Put it through,” Chris said coldly, his expression becoming one of ice as he waited to face his enemy.  

No one was surprised when Lorral’s face appeared on the view screen. Judging by the state of the Romulan bridge, with is shattered displays, hanging wall panels and sparking wires from exposed conduits, to say nothing of the veneer of smoke drifting through the room, the warbird had not emerged from their battle without damage. Whether it was from the Maverick’s phasers or warp core explosion, Chris could not say but it gave him a measure of satisfaction to know her ship was as wounded as his.

For a moment, neither of them spoke. They merely regarded each other across the expanse of space, their confrontation made possible through the trickery of technology. Two chess players waiting for each other to make the first move.

“Captain Larabee,” Lorral spoke, her lovely features barely concealed the fury she was feeling. No doubt she was smarting over the loss of three warbirds. If nothing else, her anger was equal to his satisfaction.

Staring at her, Chris wondered how many men had been captivated by her, unaware beneath the veneer of beauty existed nothing less than a monster. He read Ezra’s reports of the poor Jem’Hadar soldiers trapped in her laboratory, subject to horrific experimentation. Like Josef Mengele of the 20th Century, Lorral was the modern-day equivalent of the Angel of Death and cemented Chris’s determination he was never surrendering his crew to her.  

“Commander Lorral,” Chris replied, his expression betraying nothing, “or shall I say Ruling Queen? That’s what you were aiming for, wasn’t it?”

“It’s where I will be,” she said firmly, a smile curled the corner of her lips. “Do not ever doubt that.”

“Kind of hard to rule with one ship?” Chris drawled. “Sounds like delusions of grandeur.”

Clever, Mary thought silently as she sat next to Chris, realising he wasn’t baiting Lorral for the sake of it but was trying to goad the woman into providing him valuable intelligence about the Vriha’s numbers.  After being his protocol officer for more than a year, one thing Mary had learned about Chris, despite her personal feelings for him, Ezra Standish had nothing on Chris Larabee when it came to displaying a poker face.

Her indigo eyes flashed but she maintained her mask of calm.

“Rest assured, my new empire is more than four ships. You may have depleted my fleet with your desperate attack but you have certainly not defeated it. I blame myself, of course, I was under the impression your strategy had some elegance to it. I didn’t expect the panicked fright you’ve displayed.”

Bitch, Mary thought, bristling at the insult to Chris. Her skin crawled at how a creature like Lorral could exist. How a scientist of all people, could possess such intelligence and a black void of callousness at the same time.

“And I don’t get insulted by little girls trying to play war with soldiers. If my one ship can take out three of your warbirds, what do you think a fleet of starships is going to do to your little splinter group when they get here?”

A low whistle was heard from somewhere on the bridge. Chris did not move his eyes off Lorral but he guessed it might have come from Buck. Sneering when he saw her lips thin with indignant fury, Chris was certain if hatred could be projected through the view screen, he would have been incinerated in his chair by hers.

Leaning over to Alex’s ear, Ezra whispered with a smug smile. "I think the lady is going to take exception to that little comment.”

“No kidding,” Alex kept her smirk hidden but her eyes were dancing in admiration for her captain.

As anticipated, Lorral’s reaction was extreme. Behind her, Chris could see the expressions of her crew staring at her, their outrage mounting because splinter group or not, these were Romulans. They were still arrogant bastards whose pride would not allow his insult to go unpunished. If Lorral intended to rule them as she claimed, she would have to pick up the gauntlet he just threw in front of her. And she would, Chris knew it in his gut.

To prove herself, she would have to show them she could beat Starfleet at their own game.

If she were facing any other Captain, she might have had a shot but today, Lorral was shit out of luck. Not only had she violated Federation territory, but also murdered the innocents on board the Columbus, and possibly crippled the Maverick for good, she’d plain pissed him off.

And when Chris Larabee was good and mad, he usually came up with a plan.

As he just had in the last few seconds.

When he made his last remark to Lorral, he wasn’t playing to any misogynistic streak. Not at all.  In the words of Ezra, he was playing a long game. He knew the Maverick could not survive long enough for a rescue with this warbird around. It had to be taken out and Chris had an idea how. It was dangerous and insane as hell, but Chris was starting to get the idea those two qualities tended to work for him best when things were going to hell.

“I was going to offer you one last chance to surrender but I don’t think I’m going to waste the time. Goodbye Captain Larabee. Die knowing you were the cause of your ship and your crew’s disintegration!”

With that, the view screen went dead abruptly but Chris was ready for that. In fact, he expected it and quickly barked at Vin, prepared for the next onslaught of disruptor fire.

“Vin, hard forward at course 2.578335!”

Despite their almost symbiotic relationship, this time Vin had to look over his shoulder at his captain to make sure he heard right. “2.578335?”

“You heard me at full impulse.”  Chris’s voice was calm even though what he was asking was next to goddamn insane but that’s all he had right now if he was going to save them all.

“Chris...what the hell?” Buck demanded, understanding full well where that course would take them before Ezra’s voice silenced the ensuing conversation.

“The Ruling Queen is firing!”  Ezra declared, since it seemed as good a name as any for a Romulan warbird being commanded by a psychopathic scientist with dreams of becoming the empress of the known universe.

“Carrying out evasive manoeuvres!” Vin shouted, saving Chris the time of giving him the inevitable order.

Despite Vin’s expert skills as the Officer of the Conn, every miss of disruptor fire sent shockwaves through the vacuum of space, its vibrations reverberating through the hull of the Maverick due to their lack of shields.  Nevertheless, the helmsman’s fingers flew over the controls at lightning speed, determine that his ship take no more fire as he flew the Maverick along the course set out by the Captain.

The view screen no longer showed the image of the Ruling Queen but instead provided their first glimpse of the planet known as Loren III. She hung in space, covered in dull, mustard coloured clouds, with patches that allowed the blue of oceans to be seen from space, waiting indifferently for their arrival.  

“Chris,” Buck started to speak again, returning to what he had been about to voice before Ezra interrupted, “you can’t seriously be considering this. That warbird will shoot us down before we even get halfway through the atmosphere!”

“Through the atmosphere?” Mary’s eyes widened. “We’re taking the ship into the atmosphere?

While she may not be an engineer of Julia’s calibre or even familiar with battle tactics but even Mary knew a galaxy class ship could not make a terrestrial landing. It was simply too large and lacking the support struts that some of the intrepid class ships possessed. Any landing on the surface of Loren III was going to be a hard one.

“Not all of it,” Chris returned smoothly. “Commander Wilmington, I need you to prepare for emergency saucer separation.”

Buck gaped at Chris and then thanked God Chris Larabee was his captain because damn if Buck just figure out what the man had in mind. “You’re crazy, you know that? You’re goddamn crazy!” Nevertheless, a slow grin was stealing across his face.

“We’re not getting out of this playing it sane Buck,” Chris gave his friend a smile. “Get to it we don’t have a lot of time. That planet’s getting awful close.”

“Right,” Buck nodded and hurried to the nearest unmanned station that was still operation and began to prepare for emergency saucer separation.

As he did so, Chris turned to Mary because he needed all hands to pull off this plan. “Mary, get on the comms, let Julia know we’re preparing for saucer separation and notify the crew we will be performing an atmospheric entry. Everyone should be ready to assume crash position.”

Grateful for something to do, Mary nodded in answer, hiding her fear at the urgency of the situation under the tough glacial mask, shaken temporarily during Adelaide Sheridan’s visit. “Of course.”  She smiled at him, Buck’s reaction proving her faith in him was justified as always.

With that, Chris turned his attention to Alex and Ezra, the final component in this Hail Mary pass he was about to throw to get them out of this mess with his crew and his ship intact.

“Chief Standish, Commander Styles,” Chris said to Ezra and Alex, “how would you two like to blow that psychotic bitch out of the sky?”

“Captain,” Ezra gave him a reproachful look. “I would never use such language to describe any lady, no matter how homicidal she might be. However, under the circumstances, what do you have in mind?”

“We still have runabouts in the shuttle bay,” Chris told them both. “Ezra, you feel like flying one of them close enough to that warbird and then lower the anti-matter containment field?”

Ezra’s eyes widened at the suggestion, out of disbelief and the sheer balls out audacity of the plan. While nowhere equal to the blast that had taken out three warbirds, a core breach of a runabout in close proximity to an enemy ship would be more than enough to cause considerable damage to its shields.  The Romulans would never see it coming.

“Captain, that sounds utterly delightful.” Ezra grinned. “I trust that Commander Styles will be piloting a second roundabout to make sure I do not leave Huxley an orphan?”

Chris hid a smirk, thinking about the hated cat Julia Pemberton made Ezra buy in an effort to begin their journey to eventual cohabitation. Even in the 24th century, Cosmo was a worse menace to man than the Borg.

“You’ll be riding shotgun with me before that candle goes up,” Alex assured him, more than assured him really, she made Ezra a silent promise on that. Alex was not going to look Julia in the face and tell her friend she had lost the love of Julia’s life.

“Once the breach takes out the shields, you know what to do.” Chris said to her.

“Aye Captain,” Alex said with a gleam in her eyes she reserved only for Cardassian rapists. “I’ll shove a photon torpedo down her throat.”

“Lovely imagery Commander,” Ezra winced in distaste, although he rather liked the idea of Lorral getting her comeuppance, especially after what he had seen in Riga 3.

“Get to it,” Chris prompted, taking the security chief’s place at the tactical station.  “And good luck.”

Ezra Standish wished he had a chance to say goodbye to Julia Pemberton before he stepped on board the Danube class Runabout USS Perlman but knew ultimately it was probably best that he did not. The Maverick’s security chief did not think he could cope with seeing her dismay at the dangerous mission he was undertaking or carry her worried expression into the runabout with him.  Not if he intended to save her or her beloved ship. 

At this point, the Maverick was not yet lost. If he and Alex could pull off this bit of aerodynamic sleight of hand for the Captain, they would keep this day from becoming the Maverick’s last in space.

Sliding into the pilot’s seat within the cockpit of the Perlman, Ezra didn’t waste any time conducting the pre-flight sequence required prior to launch. As he deftly initiated the take-off procedures with hands that worked the controls as dexterously as he shuffled cards, he took a moment to peer through the window and survey briefly, the state of the shuttle bay. 

At any given time, the Maverick had a complement of ten short-ranged shuttles and two runabouts, the Perlman and the Midkiff for long-range travel.  Today, at least three of the shuttles appeared damaged, either battered from the flying debris or disruptor hits to the bay.  Everything that was not bolted down inside the main shuttle bay was scattered across the deck.  Tools, equipment, crates, pieces of panelling and the glass from broken displays.  In one section, sparks danced across the floor from overhanging wires, exposed by broken conduits.

Ezra frowned, knowing how much Julia would hate to see the condition of her shuttle bay.  The titian-haired beauty was more possessive about the Maverick than even the Captain, Ezra thought with a faint smile. Of course, he wasn’t entirely thrilled either at seeing the ship in this state.  The Maverick was the first ship he had served as Chief Security Officer and since assuming that role, protecting this ship and all those on it had been his responsibility.  Seeing her so wounded stabbed at the heart of him and filled him with a surge of anger that would not be abated until that damn Romulan warbird was nothing, but dust carried away on the solar winds.

Controls and displays came alive around him at the same time as the healthy drone of the Perlman’s engines became audible in his ears. Being inside the runabout muted the bombardment of the Ruling Queen’s disruptor fire, but Ezra could see through the mouth of the open hangar bay doors, the streaks of green crisscrossing the dark sky.  The view outside was one of chaos, with Vin’s expert flying skills being employed to their fullest to avoid being struck. Stars spun and shifted, like wind against sand, as the remained in constant motion, zigzagging and weaving to avoid disruptors as it flew towards Loren III.

“You ready Ezra?” The Chief heard Alex’s voice through the comms.

“As I ever will be, Commander,” Ezra answered and tapped the controls lightly to lift off.

The Perlman’s engines hummed louder in his ears at initialization, a split second before it hovered above the deck. Across the bay, he saw the twin nacelles of the USS Midkiff, the runabout being piloted by Alex, ignite with a magenta glow.  The two runabouts faced each other nose to nose and through his cockpit, Ezra saw the lovely Science Officer occupying the same seat in the cockpit.

Of all the women on board the Maverick, it was Alex who shared Ezra’s mindset and attitude towards the security of the ship. While he’d learned to be a cynic thanks to upbringing, it had taken her six months in Cardassian hands for them to reach the same place. When it came to the protection of the ship and the people they cared about, there were no in-betweens, it was kill or be killed.

And if their lives had to be sacrificed for that end, so be it.

Regarding each other across the narrow space between their ships, they acknowledged each other like warriors on the field, about to face an uncertain battle.

“Let’s get this done,” Alex said promptly, drawing a dimpled smile from Ezra, liking her no-nonsense attitude to this hazardous duty.  “Captain, we’re launching now.”

“Good,” Chris’s reply from the bridge was automatic. “Buck’s getting ready to perform the saucer separation.”

“We’re going to engage the warbird and give Buck some breathing room before we begin our attack run,” Alex stated, aware the procedure was hard enough already without the added complication of avoiding disruptor fire at the same time.  “Styles out.”

Danube class runabouts with the capability of attaining Warp 5, possessed phaser banks and a small number of photon torpedoes. They were a flexible, mobile defence platform capable of providing support in battlefield conditions. As one of its designers had described it, runabouts were the honey badgers of the fleet. Small, thick-skinned and possessing ferocious defensive capabilities.

Both ships lifted off the main shuttle bay floor, with the Perlman leading the way. The bullet-shaped craft rose smoothly off the deck, hovering for a second before it pivoted towards the open hangar bay doors and space beyond.  Gliding slowly across the deck, it closed the distance to the doors and was soon followed by the Midkiff, repeating the same smooth departure.

Both runabouts escaped the Maverick’s shuttle bay just as the starship was performing another 90-degree turn to avoid another blast of disruptor fire. The great ship was still trying to navigate through enemy fire to reach Loren III.  Freed from the proximity of their mothership, the runabouts flew on an intercept course towards the warbird, making no attempt to hide their presence in order to draw the enemy ship’s fire.

Simultaneously raising shields as they flew on a direct intercept course to the warbird, they made the approach firing all weapons. The warbird reacted immediately to their presence, firing disruptors at the audacity of the frontal assault. The warbird hurled so many blasts at the duo, the dark sky was lit up with the greenish glow of disruptor fire.

While neither Ezra nor Alex were the pilots Vin Tanner was, both were trained in tactical piloting and met the onslaught of energy bolts, weaving through the barrage, allowing no more than a fraction of disruptor fire to impact their shields, as they forged on ahead.  Ezra was the superior pilot having been at it longer than Alex and he performed a few impressive rolls and loops to avoid direct hits. He was determined to be as much a nuisance to the warbird as possible, so Buck could conduct the tricky manoeuvre of separating the saucer section of the Maverick from its stardrive section.

Once he was within two hundred metres of the enemy, Ezra targeted the forward disruptor banks, firing from all four of the Perlman’s phaser arrays, at the green turret on the nose of the warbird. While the shot was absorbed by the warbirds shield, the close proximity of the blast ensured the shields were weakened. Less than a hundred feet away from the shields, Ezra veered hard before the warbird could return fire. As it banked to give pursuit, the Midkiff came in from its starboard side, conducting a strafing run across its hull, phaser blast assaulting the shields once again.

“Pile on Ezra!” Alex ordered. “Let’s give these Rommie assholes something to bitch about!”

“I do like the way you think Commander,” Ezra grinned from the cockpit of the Perlman, wondering how much of Alexandra Styles was left that was human after being raised mostly Klingon. Either way, when the woman went into a fight, there was little or nothing left of the Science Officer, who could be clinically effective and composed while she dissected a two-foot slug while the rest of them were gagging.

“Commander, do you by any chance remember the rolling scissor manoeuvre?”  Ezra asked.

Even if he could not see her, he knew she was smiling.  “I’ll follow your lead Chief.”

The Perlman performed a barrel roll manoeuvre that had the runabout heading back towards the warbird, while Alex continued to circle the ship in tight loops, drawing its fire while Ezra made his approach. He came in firing, once again targeting the nose of the warbird, determined to take out its disruptor banks once and for all.  Once he’d passed the turret, he joined Alex and they both flew in the same pattern of tight loops around the warbird, passing each other within a dozen meters of the shield, as they continued to bombard the bigger ship with phaser fire.

As the Midkiff and the Perlman conducted its David and Goliath battle against the warbird, the glow of Loren III bathed the Maverick’s pigeon blue hull with colour. While not in proximity of the exosphere yet, the planet’s gravitational field was starting to tug at the great ship.  Surrounded by an atmosphere of a held breath, the saucer section pulled forward slowly from its stardrive section. At a near painful crawl, docking latches unlocked with clangs muted by the airless void but was surely felt through the hull and bulkheads. Upon unlatching, the clamps receded into their housings along the hull of the stardrive section.

The curved seam where the saucer section and the stardrive met became more visible, aided by the widening gap of stars between them. The saucer section began to pull ahead, with thrusters on the underside of the ships coming alive with bluish light. The stardrive section of the ship remained in place, abandoned for now by its occupants, watching forlornly as the saucer section left it behind and headed towards Loren III.

“They’re clear!” Alex declared.

To keep the saucer section from escaping, the warbird unleashed a trio of photon torpedoes, not caring whether or not the detonation so close, might damage itself.  Ezra and Alex watched in horror as the high yield weapons hurtled towards the fleeing saucer section and immediately broke formation, flying at top speed to effect countermeasures before any of them could hit. Even one would obliterate the Maverick in its current condition.

Ezra fired all phaser banks and managed to knock one of the cursed projectiles off trajectory, sending it out of control towards the planet and hoped wherever it detonated, there was nothing there to suffer because of it.  Alex did a little better, destroying the torpedo outright but the third in the triad continued to hurtle towards the hull of the Maverick.

“Captain! You have incoming.” Ezra warned, feeling his chest tighten.

“I got it,” Chris Larabee’s voice was just as cool as his and Ezra remembered it was the Captain who’d taken over the tactical station in his absence. No sooner than Chris’s words had reached their ears, the Maverick’s phasers fired and detonated the last torpedo short of reaching the hull.

The shockwave, however, was severe and Ezra watched with jaw tensing as the energy rushed over the Maverick, causing hairline fractures across the hull, which leaked oxygen, duranium plating and to his horror, bodies into the cold vacuum of space.

“I believe I have had just about enough of that ship,” Ezra spoke with ice in his voice.  “I think it’s time we introduce the Ruling Queen to Erebus.”

Alex had only heard his tone that cold once before, a second before he put a bullet into the brain of Silas Poplar, the Pinkerton detective who murdered Julia Pemberton in that simulated reality created by the Q entity.   “Alright then, begin your approach, I’ll keep them busy.”

The two runabouts performed a loop simultaneously with Alex taking the lead this time. Inside the Midkiff, Alex set her phaser array on continuous fire, laying down a deadly barrage of phaser fire at the Romulan warbird. Weaving from side to side as she avoided the disruptor fire attempting to shoot her down, she wished Vin was here. He was better at this than her.  She shunted aside thoughts about the Vulcan. She couldn’t think of Vin right now. As it was, she wished she had been able to say goodbye to him when she’d left the Maverick, even though there simply hadn’t been the time.

Nevertheless, if she were destroyed right now, she’d regret nothing. The last two months with him had been bliss. Three years ago, Alex could never have imagined being a wife to anyone but after meeting Vin, everything had changed. He’d given her strength and friendship at a time when she needed it most. Vin had restored the ruined fragments of her psyche into some semblance of the person she was before her terrible ordeal in that Cardassian prison.   It was why she was so willing to fight for him during the Pon Farr because she simply could not imagine her world without him.

Within twenty meters of the Romulan shields, she pulled up hard, sending the Midkiff into a steep climb as behind her, the Perlman closed in.

Whether or not the Ruling Queen noticed the second runabout, it didn’t matter. Two hundred meters short of the Romulan shields, the Perlman’s phaser array went silent while its engines disengaged. It was closing the distance to the warbird on forwarding inertia only, while inside the cockpit, Ezra was entering his command authorisation to lower the magnetic containment field of the runabout’s antimatter core.

WARNING CORE BREACH IN TEN SECONDS

The computer’s voice informed dutifully as Ezra saw the nose of the Romulan ship in front of him. Alex was continuing to bombard the ship with phaser blasts, distracting the warbird from noticing its approach. Despite the constant barrage, Lorral was relying on her shields to shake off the runabouts phaser blasts. While somewhat draining, they were causing little damage to the ship itself.

Ezra wished he could have seen her face for what came next.

“Commander, I believe I can use that lift now,” Ezra spoke into his com badge.

“About time.” She said with a sigh of relief.

Ezra watched as the warbird began to loom large in his cockpit window, overtaking the space around them. He watched the myriad lights across its greenish hull and the flare of energy from its forward turrets just as a gold shimmer appeared before his eyes and the familiar hum of a transporter beam filled his world.

******

From the bridge of the Maverick, Chris watched the Perlman reaching critical just shy of the warbird’s shields. The explosion was a smaller version of the one that had taken its three sister ships. The burst of brilliant white light and the energy spewing forward swept towards the Ruling Queen’s shields and then collapsed it. Chris almost smiled when he saw the shimmer of energy absorb the full brunt of the antimatter explosion before becoming consumed by it.

“Her shields are down!” Buck shouted from the security station Alex had occupied.  “Midkiff, you have a firing solution. Fire photon torpedoes full spread!”

“Torpedoes away!” Alex shouted, and they saw the Midkiff discharging torpedoes from both its bays. No sooner than they were fired, the runabout performed a sharp roll to put some distance between the warbird and itself before detonation. By now, the saucer section had penetrated the planet’s exosphere and was far enough away to avoid sustaining damage from the blast.

The first torpedo struck its hull, the second impacted against the aft section of the Ruling Queen. However, one was enough. Immediately the hull began to ignite, as catastrophic breaches began to appear across the ship, followed by explosive decompression that reached apogee in a brilliant orb of white like a mini sun reaching nova.  The resulting explosion was silent in space but the energy cloud that swept outward could be felt by the runabout and the Maverick.

On the bridge, Chris and Buck held fast as the force of it threw the two senior officers hard against the tactical and security station, while once again Mary clung to the information console to keep from being thrown from her chair. Vin had the benefit of the Conn to brace himself while JD, now unconscious mercifully from the sedative Mary had administered, was oblivious to it all where she’d left him under the navigation station.

Emergency klaxons still in operation whined unhappily at the latest assault and in the view screen, Loren III grew increasingly larger. 

“The warbird’s gone Chris,” Buck exclaimed scanning the area and seeing no trace of the ship. What there was in the air was one runabout and a whole lot of debris and residual radiation with decided Romulan characteristics. “They did it,” he grinned. “They took out the last ship.” 

Chris was not about to celebrate, not until his crew was safe. “Midkiff! Report!”

“We are in one piece Captain,” Ezra Standish replied with a burst of static. “Commander Styles is busy flying the runabout. We have conducted a sensor sweep of the area and have detected no sign of the Ruling Queen.”

“Any damage?”

“Nothing we shall not recover from,” Ezra explained. “Our shields suffered some loss absorbing the ferocity of that last eruption but other than that, the Midkiff is functioning fully.  What are your orders Captain? Do you wish us to return to the Maverick?” 

As the saucer section entered the atmosphere, a new kind of turbulence began to ripple through the ship. Instead of the hard, concussive blasts that had rocked the ship previously, the Maverick was shuddering and shaking continuously like a leaf in the wind. The galaxy class ship was never intended for travel within an atmosphere and never was that more apparent than at this moment, when Chris could see sunlight pouring through the window on the ceiling of the bridge.

“No,” Chris replied. “Too risky. Rendezvous with us when we’re on the ground.”

“Aye Captain, safe landing.”

Almost on cue, Chris heard Vin speak up. “Chris, it would be helpful if you can give me some landing coordinates.”

“I’m on it,” Buck replied, already scanning the surface of the planet.

Loren III was an uninhabited planet. While it had once been home to an ancient civilisation, little remained of it for Federation archaeologists to determine who they were.  They had left behind a world overgrown not so different from Earth, with plenty of water and vegetation, a world that could provide the crew of the Maverick with a refuge until they were rescued.

If they could land in one piece, that is.  Right now, that was problematic.

Well, this day had certainly not gone how he thought it would.

When Nathan Jackson had received the summons to the bridge, he had been faced with a deluge of casualties in his Sick Bay. While he monitored the situation on the bridge, his attention was soon focused on the results of the disruptor hits the Maverick was unable to stop. At first, they had trickled in when the Maverick still had its shields. The injuries ranged from breaks to lacerations, not high on the injury scale but enough to keep them busy. Emergency force fields had kept serious injuries from being sustained, even if he knew their situation was dire. Having survived the battle with the Dominion Taskforce last year, he knew the Maverick might be facing worst odds with four Romulan warbirds.

Once the shields were down, however, all bets were off.

With a hull breach on the saucer section, the evacuation of Engineering and then the entire stardrive section, things went completely to hell. They were flooding Sick Bay with everything from severe trauma to third-degree burns. So far, Nathan counted at least twenty-five dead, not all Starfleet officers. The vacuum of space did not distinguish between civilian and Starfleet when it came to a hull breach. It doubly infuriated Nathan to lose a civilian because as a Starfleet officer, dying was always a possibility.  As beautiful and wondrous as space could be, it was a damned dangerous place that could kill you in a second.  Families didn’t get that choice.

With every member of the medical team treating the injured inside Sick Bay and in the corridor outside, Nathan was once again revisited by the horror of the refugee centres shortly after the Hobus supernova.  There were so many wounded that even with Starfleet’s help, the Romulans were overwhelmed by the sheer number of the refugees. They’d turned whole decks into triage centres and looking at the hallways outside Sick Bay during this fight for their lives, Nathan had found the similarities almost too much to bear.

In all this, he had no idea where Rain was. He suspected she was probably assisting Engineering as one of the damage crews spreading throughout the saucer section, trying to hold the Maverick together while Chris Larabee thought of a way to save their asses. He was tempted to contact her on his com badge but knew he had no medical reason to and it didn’t seem right when they were in a crisis situation.  She was a department head like he was and probably busy, without needing her boyfriend, (he hadn’t proposed yet so he couldn’t be called a fiancé), checking up on her like a panicky teenager.

When Buck’s frantic demand came over the bridge that JD was hurt, Nathan thanked God that Casey was outside in the hallways, lending her assistance to the medical staff who were treating the injured there.  No matter how capable she was, Casey Wells was a young girl in love and JD was her first boyfriend. If she knew he was injured, she’d be no good to anyone and right now he needed her focussed.  With the rest of his well-trained medical team dealing with the injured in Sick Bay, Nathan had grabbed his medkit to head out when halted by Inez.

“I’ll come with you,” the sultry bartender offered.

“That’s not necessary,” Nathan declared, aware she’d been lending her assistance the same as Casey had been, playing nurse. “I can manage this myself.”

“No offence Senor,” she refused to be deterred. “At this time, I do not think any of us should be wandering about the ship alone.”  As she said that, the Maverick shuddered again, causing another ripple of frightened gasps and cries throughout the area, especially when medical displays and lights flickered briefly.  

They both paused a moment, waiting to see if things would normalise before they resumed their debate or in her mind, their agreement.

“I’m just going to the bridge,” Nathan insisted as he barked an order to Maria, his nurse before heading out the door.

Inez kept in stride with him “so we won’t have far to go.”

Deciding he didn’t have time to argue with her, especially if the concern in Buck’s voice was any indication, Nathan headed out into the corridor. He paused a second as he saw the casualties arranged haphazardly along the decks, as his medical staff worked in tandem with volunteers to treat the injuries. He could see new crewmen arriving, helping more injured people to get treatment and felt his stomach clench in anger.   A few feet away, someone had pulled a blanket over the face of a young ensign, whose entire left side was burnt so badly, he couldn’t even begin to imagine her agony before the end.

Ensign Yanek, he identified.

“Alright, come on!” Nathan said to Inez through gritted teeth. She’d been on board for a lousy month and was little more than a child.

Inez who followed his gaze, felt her eyes swim in emotion at the sight of that poor girl who only two hours ago was lamenting her fate because of some mistake she’d made with the Captain while nursing a Jovian Sunspot in Four Corners.  Blinking slowly because it reminded her again, how dangerous this life was, she spun on her heels and followed Nathan to the nearest turbo lift.  

They barely made it through the doors when the ship was pounded again, making them stumble clumsily into the turbo lift. Nathan caught her arm, keeping her from going face first into the wall as the doors closed behind them.  

“Computer - bridge,” Nathan said as Inez collected herself.

“Gracias,” she brushed a strand of dark hair out of her ears, as the turbo lift began to move, its journey through the decks, punctuated with a steady pulse of sound. “I do not remember the ship suffering this badly the last time.”

Nathan’s jaw tightened before he nodded in agreement. “The last time we still hung onto our shields and we had a warp core. Plus, we had five Cardy ships to deal with whose shield modulation frequencies we had. Romulan warbirds, the D’Deridex class were designed to take out galaxy class starships. That’s a tougher sell.”

Inez nodded. “How badly do you think JD is hurt?”

“Bad if the sound of Buck’s voice is any indication.” Nathan sighed, hoping the young man was alright.  He liked the kid, considered JD one of his friends and always enjoyed keeping his company.  Despite his inexperience, JD was a great deal smarter than he let on and was wise enough to listen and learn from his older comrades, something youth seldom did for sheer arrogance of their immortality.

At the mention of Buck’s name, he noted a slight flicker in Inez’s eyes and to his surprise, Nathan realised with a flash of insight, Inez might have been so insistent on joining him not because she was eager to help but because she might actually want to see how the First Officer was faring.

“I’m sure Buck’s fine too...” he started to say when another violent jolt made the turbolift shudder violently before plunging downwards. Internal lights and warnings screamed as the speed of their descent drove them to the floor. After ten harrowing seconds, when both of them entertained thoughts of a horrible death, the look of spam splattered against a wall and their entire lives passing by their eyes, the lift finally ground to a halt with the screech of metal that made them both wince. They folded to the floor like paper while seeing the lights blink once or twice before dying completely, leaving them in near darkness except for one length of emergency lighting which illuminated the space dully.

“Jesus,” Nathan cursed before looking at her in concern. “Are you okay?” His healer’s instinct kicked in first and foremost.

“Yes,” Inez got to her feet, a little shaken but recovering quickly.  As they both stood up, a loud groan filled the air and they exchanged anxious glances.

“I think we have a problem,” Nathan searched the lift control display and approached it gingerly, not wanting a repeat of that sound which warned all kinds of trouble.

“The safety clamps might be damaged,” she remarked, having been astute enough to study the specifications of the Maverick during the last few months following Raphael’s death, just for something to do.  

Nathan attempted to access the display panel, hoping he could get an answer but the screen remained dark, obstinately keeping its secrets to itself. “I think you may be right.”

“We can’t stay here,” she looked up at the service hatch on the ceiling. “If the safety clamps are damaged, another jolt could send us plunging to our deaths.”

Nathan looked over his shoulder. “Try not to be such a ray of sunshine.”

“Sorry,” she shrugged apologetically. “Any luck accessing the turbo lift controls?”  

“No,” Nathan frowned. “It’s completely offline. It’s possible the backup systems can’t engage because we lost the warp core.”

“What do we do?” Inez looked to him since he was the Starfleet officer. It chagrined her to no end to feel so helpless. True, she was an amazing food technician and she knew enough about the technology in Four Corners to not need Julia Pemberton to assign a technician to her every time she needed help. Yet, what she knew about starship operations was limited beyond the required reading for all civilians. Considering Raphael had been a starship captain no less, it was somewhat embarrassing.

Glancing at the hatch above their head, he said with a sigh, “we’re climbing.”

******

Five minutes later, they were climbing up the rungs along the main Jefferies tube towards the set of doors leading to the next deck. The way the ship was getting battered from disruptor fire, the turbo lift below would not be able to remain secure for long. Nathan predicted it wouldn’t take much for the last of the safety clamps to become damaged and give way. Sick Bay had been located on Deck 2 but the turbo lift had taken them just beneath Deck 18. Either way, trying to climb up eighteen decks when the ship was being bombarded was dangerous and the fall, if either of them slipped, would be fatal.

“So,” Nathan grunted as he climbed up the draughty tube, grateful his medkit came with a strap so he could sling it around his shoulder and leave his hands free. “Buck?”

Inez who was in mid-climb froze and looked up at the doctor. “I don’t know what you mean. We’re just friends.”

It was true. They were friends. Of course, he had hit on her shamelessly during the first three months of their time on the Maverick. Until then, he’d assumed her refusals to date him on any level had to do with playing hard to get. In truth, she’d kept her engagement to Raphael a secret and once he’d learned of it, had kept his distance.  Buck was personally acquainted with Raphael from their Academy days and had instantly relegated her into what he charmingly called ‘No Fly Zone’ territory.

After Raphael’s death, he’d called in to check on her and while she might have interpreted his initial overtures as some crass attempt to move in, his manner indicated it was anything but that. He had nursed the Captain through his grief and understood how badly things could go if it wasn’t mourned properly. It was well known throughout the Maverick, Chris Larabee’s presence as the captain of this ship was due to Buck Wilmington’s insistence Chris remained in the world. He’d done the same for her and even though he didn’t flirt with her as shamelessly anymore, Inez knew he cared.

So, it was entirely to her surprise when the ship came under fire, Inez’s first thought was the philandering jackass.

“Okay,” Nathan tried to hide the smile because it sure as hell didn’t sound like that.

“It is!” Inez insisted hotly.

“Inez, there’s nothing wrong for admitting you have feelings for the man,” Nathan said gently, trying to mimic the tone so often used by Josiah to great effect. “It’s been more than a year since your loss. You might just be ready to move on.”

“With Buck? The man scores more than the Galactic Parrises Square League!” Inez snorted even though she knew she was being unfair.  An instinct she could not deny told her she was more to Buck than just a conquest. She had known it from the beginning.

“Well you never know,” Nathan remarked, the phrase ‘the lady doth protest too much’ echoed in his head. “He could surprise you.”

Another sceptical snort followed.

Nathan suppressed his smile, wondering how Buck would take it if he knew of the possibility he might be in reach of the Holy Grail that was his quest to win Inez. In any case, they arrived at the doors to Deck 18 and Nathan prayed the manual release were functioning or else, he was going to have to try and pry it open with his bare hands. Not something he was willing to do when the ship was still shaking and shuddering around them.

“Okay here goes,” Nathan said and pulled down the handle with one forceful tug. The handle gave way with a loud hiss, like hydraulic gases escaping and the doors parted with a jerk, leaving a gap little over a foot wide when it stopped moving. It was a bit of a squeeze Nathan decided but they’d fit easily and be on solid ground, as much as one could be on a starship at least.

Nathan slipped through first because he was ahead of her on the ladder and helped Inez out into the empty corridor.  Due to their lack of shields, the bridge had ordered civilians and non-essential crew to remain in the areas of the ship furthest away from the outer hull in case of breaches. Having lost twenty-five people that way, Nathan could understand the reasoning.  Cargo bays took up the bulk of the space on Deck 18 and during battle stations, the place should have been devoid of personnel. Besides, Nathan knew to reserve power, life support had been shut off in some of these areas.

Inez had just slipped through the doors when the Maverick shook again. This time the violence of it threw them to the floor of the corridor, giving neither of them time to pad their landing. Down the length of the hallway, the normal illumination of the ship, turned deep red, with control panels along the wall shattering, ceiling panels tumbling to the floor around their ears and tangles of wiring and ruptured conduits dropped down through the openings, like vines and snakes dangling in a jungle.

For a few seconds, neither of them moved, too terrified to do so because there was an instant Nathan thought he and Inez were on a deck about to decompress. Images of being blown out into space filled his mind until the seconds ticked by and nothing of the sort happened. Nathan looked at Inez and saw that she was trembling a little.  She wasn’t a Starfleet Officer and had never been so close to danger until today.

“You okay Inez?”  

Inez lifted her head and he saw her nod through the tangle of her thick dark hair. “Yes,” she said breathlessly. “I’m fine. Just a little shaken.”  

“Okay,” he offered her a little smile of encouragement and got to his feet, offering her his hand. “We’ve can get to the emergency stairwell near Cargo Bay 3. That should take us right up to the bridge.”

Although seldom used, the stairwells were a safety feature built into all starships in the event of turbo lift failure.

The Maverick was continued to shake and shimmy although the intensity of the jolts felt different as if they were riding a wave of turbulence.  When Inez glanced out one of the windows, she could understand why. Pouring through the plexiglass was the natural light radiating from Loren III.

"Dios mío!” She gasped staring at the planet looming large in the window. “We’re landing!”

“Yeah that’s what we’ll be doing,” Nathan said sceptically, perfectly aware landing was probably too optimistic when one was in a Galaxy-class starship.  Then again, Vin Tanner was a hell of a pilot. If anyone could bring down the saucer section without too much damage, Nathan was confident it would be Vin.  In either case, he needed to get to his Sick Bay or the Bridge, whichever came first.

“Come on,” he prompted her to start moving, wanting to get to someplace safer than where they were when they finally reached the planet’s surface.

Inez didn’t argue when Nathan broke into a jog and sped up to keep up with him, grateful she was wearing an off the shoulder long sweater and bodysuit underneath for easy movement.  Struggling to stay on her feet as they ran down the corridor, they were passing Cargo Bay Three when its wide doors slid open and stepping out into the hallway were Romulans.

******

FIVE MINUTES EARLIER

When Lorral saw the Starfleet runabout flying towards her ship - not the Ruling Queen - but the Blood Wing, she guessed Larabee’s plan with seconds to spare.

With the runabout travelling on forward inertia only, no longer firing its phaser array like its mate, the Romulan sub-commander realised the power readings emanating from the small craft could lead to only one conclusion. Core Breach. In the aftermath, she had to give Larabee credit, his willingness to make extreme sacrifices was almost Romulan in its ruthlessness.  Lorral could well believe why Romulan High Command had deemed Chris Larabee a captain to watch, in the calibre of Picard and possibly even Kirk.

At the moment, however, there was little to be done. There was no doubt the runabout was going to destroy their shields with a core breach and even if they fired disruptors, there would be no stopping that inevitability, merely hastening the process. As it was, their shields, already half its strength and following the explosion, were completely offline.  Furthermore, the force of the blast had established the quantum singularity drive powering the Blood Wing.

Little did the humans know, they wouldn’t need a photon torpedo to finish off the warbird, the damage to the engine core would have the same result. Lorral was not about to abandon her dreams of a new empire even though there was little time to reach the escape pods or their transport bays. There was only one place to go really and Lorral gave the order with almost poetic relish.

She was still going to take Chris Larabee’s ship, just not in the way he expected.

“RUN!”

Nathan’s sharp order made as soon as it registered what they were seeing had Inez breaking into a sprint. Without needing to be told, if they did not escape immediately, the Romulans were going to kill them where they were standing.

Sure enough, no sooner than the words had left his lips, the Romulans were raising their disruptors to fire, having emerged into the hallway, expecting to encounter Starfleet personnel. Neither Nathan nor Inez could see how many of them there actually were, nor did it matter. That they were on board the Maverick was bad enough. With so many systems down across the ship and sensors either damaged or shut down to conserve what power they had due to the loss of the warp core, it was easy enough for them to transport aboard the Maverick without detection. Especially when the Maverick had no shields to prevent it.

Absurdly, Nathan thought as they ran towards the emergency stairwell, Ezra was going to be pissed.

“STOP THEM!” One of the Romulans shouted as Inez reached the doors first.

She slammed her palm against the panel along the wall amidst the low whine of a disruptor. The first discharge of the weapon sent a green bolt of energy sailing past Nathan’s shoulder, impacting against the wall before hissing into the metal. The second shot was followed less than a second later, fired by a different weapon.

The time taken for the doors to open seemed interminably long and indifferent to the urgency of their situation. Inez rushed in as soon as they parted wide enough for her to slip through when she heard Nathan utter a small cry of pain. He stumbled through the doorway, clutching his side as the second shot struck the wall at the end of the corridor. While he had been merely grazed by the discharge, it was enough to sear his flesh through his uniform. Even as he entered the stairwell with her, Inez could smell the charred skin and couldn’t even begin to imagine the pain he was fighting to keep moving.

The Romulans were right on their heels in pursuit, determined to end them before they could warn the bridge there were intruders on board the Maverick.

“COMPUTER, SEAL DECK 18 EMERGENCY STAIRWELL - COMMAND AUTHORISATION, LT. COMMANDER NATHAN JACKSON!” Nathan managed to shout.

This would only hinder the Romulans for a matter of minutes. From what he knew of Romulan disruptors, they had no stun setting and set high, they were capable of disintegration, which meant they could cut through the doors. Nathan had no idea how long it would take for that to happen but he knew he and Inez had to get away before that.

The doors slid closed just as the Romulans reached it, with one of the trio firing again. Inez let out a short cry as she pulled Nathan down to avoid it, the blast impacting on the space above her head against the stairwell wall. The Chief Medical Officer went down with a grunt, his face contorted with pain as the Romulans began to fire the weapons at the door. The tritanium alloy was formidable but Nathan did not want to gamble on how long they would hold before the enemy broke through.

“Madre de Dios!” Inez exclaimed as she saw his injury and knew he needed immediate medical attention. Unfortunately, they could not remain where they were and she hauled him to his feet, feeling her stomach clench when she heard him groan in pain. That he was barely coherent with third-degree burns this severe was a miracle in itself. She needed to get him somewhere safe where she could use his own medkit to treat him.

Around them, the ship was continuing to shake and shudder, making their advance up the stairs even slower than ever. They must be almost to the ground, Inez thought when she heard Chris Larabee’s warning echoing through all the functioning comm systems on board the Maverick.

“ALL HANDS BRACE FOR IMPACT!”

His voice prompted her to reach for Nathan’s combadge because landing on Loren III was suddenly the least of their problems.

“BRIDGE! COME IN!”

******

On the viewscreen, the bridge crew could see the stretch of beach, running for almost a hundred kilometres that would be their landing zone. With nothing but pristine white sand and flanked by vegetation typical of dry, broadleaf forests found in a tropical climate, the strip of beach would allow the Maverick to set down with minimal damage to the already wounded ship. Chris hated to think of what state it would be in after the Maverick set down, because it reminded him of the beaches he and Sarah visited during their honeymoon in the Caribbean, a lifetime ago.

Once they penetrated the odd mustard looking clouds covering Loren III, they were treated to a striking blue sky and a watery sun on a noonday stroll. The atmospheric entry had been rough, with the Maverick suffering enough turbulence for Chris to seriously consider ordering barf bags to be stored under every seat on the bridge. Despite this, Vin was proving why he was the best damn helmsman in the fleet (in Chris’s opinion) by his expert piloting skills in bringing down the saucer section for its dangerous landing, using nothing but thrusters.

Vin had levelled his descent to ensure the saucer section reached the ground with minimal damage, determined they would be able to salvage the Maverick when Starfleet arrived.

Leaving Buck at the tactical station, Chris had returned to his command chair while Mary checked on JD, making sure he remained in a state of unconsciousness she was able to use a dermal regenerator on him. Emergency klaxons had fallen strangely silent as if the ship had exhausted the number of warnings it could offer to the crew with only display panels flashing red to indicate their dire circumstances.

“ALL HANDS, BRACE FOR IMPACT!” Chris issued the warning to the rest of the ship as the ground rushed up to meet the Maverick with surprising speed. If they could just get to the ground in one piece, everything might just be alright...

He should have known he was tempting fate.

“BRIDGE COME IN!” A frantic voice cried out almost immediately after he made the announcement.

For a moment, Chris had no idea who that was, although, given the current situation, it was understandable he had difficulty recognising the voice. The shaking and shuddering the Maverick was experiencing made it difficult to hear anything clearly. Even Mary shot him a puzzled look, trying to identify the unfamiliar voice when they heard Buck exclaimed astonished behind them.

“Inez! Is that you?” He demanded, needing to hear her confirm it. In the last twelve months on board the Maverick, the woman never contacted the bridge and certainly not with panic he detected in her voice. It couldn’t just be because of their imminent rough landing.

“Buck!” The relief in her voice was apparent. “Buck, we’ve got Romulans on the ship!”

“WHAT?” Chris jumped to his feet from his chair, meeting Buck’s gaze with similar astonishment. “You’re shitting me! Romulans?”

Inez sounded as if she was on the move because they could hear her panting as she forced out the words. “Nathan and I are on Deck 18! We saw three of them! One of them shot Nathan!”

“Security,” Buck was tapping his combadge. “Get down to Deck 18! We have an intruder alert! There are Romulans on board the ship!”

Not even bothering to ask what Inez and Nathan were doing down there, Chris cursed under his breath for not anticipating the possibility. With their shields destroyed and with very little time to reach life pods on their doomed warbird, it made sense that the Romulans would use transporters to get to the nearest place of safety. Without shields, there was nothing to stop them from invading the Maverick and Chris felt a surge of fury that he was not yet done with Lorral or her splinter group because sure as hell she would be on board.

“Computer, scan ship for Romulan life signs,” Chris demanded.

“Unable to comply due to sensor malfunction below Decks 13,” the computer refused politely.

“We’ve taken a beating Chris,” Buck said scowling, “we were bound to lose some systems.”

“Uh, hate it to break to you Sirs, but you need to sit your asses down right now.” Vin suddenly spoke up from the Conn and Chris glanced at the viewscreen and saw they were about ten seconds from touching down. The coastal terrain had almost entirely taken up the space on the view screen and the white sands came into focus with extreme clarity.

“Shit!” Chris cursed out loud, knowing that their landing was about to supersede any action they could take to deal with the intruders on his ship. Sitting down in his command chair, Chris knew there was nothing to be done until they hit the ground. With any luck, the Romulans would be just as distracted by their landing as the rest of the Maverick for the next few minutes.

Mary remained on the floor next to JD, cradling the young man in her arms, the way she would hold Billy, bracing herself against the navigational console in anticipation of their landing. Buck was still standing, a look of conflict on his face. At that moment, Chris realised he was torn between his desire to go to the woman in Deck 18 and his duty to remain on the bridge.

“Inez, we’re about to land, find yourself and Nathan someplace to hunker down until security can get to you! The Romulans are going to be tossed around like the rest of us, so finding you might not be their top priority in a matter of seconds.” Buck addressed the woman finally, knowing there was nothing else he could do until they landed.

And he hated it.

******

Everything else around Vin Tanner was white noise.

Chris’s fury at Romulans on board, Buck’s concern for Inez, Mary is care of JD, even Alex and Ezra’s absence from the bridge. They existed for him as if he were a creature living a half-life, conscious and yet unconscious of their presence. Unaware he was applying the same discipline all Vulcans used to maintain their logical existence, Vin’s mind was a crucible burning away all distractions, leaving him with only one singular purpose.

Making sure his great bird landed safe.

The bond he shared with the Maverick predated his love for Alex, even his friendship with Chris. From the moment Vin became the Officer of the Conn, the Maverick had been unconditionally his. The ship gave him her trust, performed for him when Vin asked the impossible and gave him that extra bit of power when they needed it. No matter what, the Maverick had done everything he had asked of her, and now that she was broken and torn apart, he was not going to abandon her on this forgotten world on the edge of everything.

Entering the atmosphere of Loren III, Vin could feel the ship rattling around him, struggling to hold together as the planet’s gravity gripped her hard, determined to plunge the Maverick to earth in a catastrophic freefall. Using all the skill at his disposal, Vin kept the bow of the ship up, determined the saucer section would glide unto the strip of white coast they had chosen for their landing site. Every groan and heave he could hear in her tritanium superstructure made him wince, just as he felt his own skin flayed with every wound against her duranium plated hull.

Fingers moving across the controls faster than any human could manage, every neuron of his formidable Vulcan brain was focused on making their descent as smooth possible. The velocity through the oxygen-rich atmosphere had superheated the hull, even as the alien sky appeared through the window overhead. For the first time in her life, the Maverick had no need of powered lights to illuminate the bridge because daylight flooded its walls.

The viewer was showing their approach to the beach but Vin’s eyes were relying on instrumentation instead. Keeping his gaze fixed on their angle of descent, he eased off the thruster control as they neared the ground, hoping the friction of the sand beneath them would provide the ballast they needed to stop. The Maverick was shuddering even harder the closer they neared the beach. Gravity was overcoming their considerable velocity and dragging them to earth like a falling star.

When the Maverick fell to earth, the topmost edge of the bow dug into the beach, creating a tidal wave of sand twice the height of the saucer section. Vin gave one final burst of power to the forward thrusters to lift the nose up before the ship dug past the dunes into the bedrock which would almost certainly crumple the ship’s superstructure and make recovery impossible. Behind him, he could hear the breaking of glass and knew the skylight above the tactical station had shattered. He looked over his shoulder long enough to see Buck jumping clear, while Chris who must have been thrown out of his chair on landing, scrambled towards Mary as the shower of glass came down on them.

Upon levelling out against the dunes once more, Vin took the engines offline and let the Maverick’s forward momentum run its course. They had chosen this relatively flat coastline in order to avoid any collisions with topographical formations although there was little that could stand up to 4 million tonnes of starship steamrolling across it. A cloud of sand and dust formed around the ship as it continued onwards, the starboard edge of the saucer section demolishing all vegetation in its path.

The violent shudder as the Maverick tore up the beach was almost deafening, while internal wall panels, ceilings, and support beams broke free and tumbled across the bridge. Mary uttered a cry of fright, prompting Chris to throw his body over hers to shield her from flying debris. Meanwhile, Vin glimpsed new fissures forming across the view screen and knew what was coming. Before it shattered spectacularly, he dove beneath the helm station, shielding himself from the spray of deadly glass.

They lost track how long the turbulent journey took, knowing only by the time the hulk of the saucer section came to a gradual stop, it felt as if they had been shaken out of reality. The inside of the bridge, that looked pristine and so elegant little more than an hour ago, now appeared as if someone had set a phaser to overload and then sealed all the doors. There was so much damage, it would have horrified Julia Pemberton to see it. Every display, even the ones still intact was dark and inert as the Maverick came to a stop with a final heave of protest before falling silent.

For a few seconds, after they stopped moving, no one on the bridge could speak.

They were all dazed by the sudden calmness after the maelstrom they had just passed through. Sunlight was pouring in through the broken skylight window above, filtered through tufts of sparse cloud in the blue sky. A mild breeze swept into the space, carrying a hint of salt air to disarm the stench of burnt wires and smoking workstations. The ship was still creaking here and there in the aftermath, like the noises made by a house settling into place. There were other sounds too, alien when hearing it from the bridge of a starship, the sound of trees swaying and the rush of the incoming tide.

Chris lifted himself off Mary, surveying his bridge and feeling his gut knot at the damage. Wiping his chin, he winced at the cut there, the cuff of his blazer catching the smear of blood.

“Is everyone alright?” He asked, searching the wreck of his bridge for his senior officers.

“Yeah,” Buck uttered a weary sigh, emerging from the vestibule leading to the Captain’s Ready Room, having taken refuge there where the window above the tactical station had shattered. As he stepped out, he was limping a little. “Pissed off but fine.”

Who wasn’t, after seeing this? Chris thought and turned to Vin.

“Vin?” Chris searched for the Vulcan who was responsible for getting them down in one piece, somehow managing to keep the ship from breaking apart.

The crunch of debris and shifting movement beneath the Conn, saw Vin emerging into the light, wearing his trademark unflappable mask even though everything had literally fallen apart around them.

“I’m alright pard,” Vin met Chris’s gaze. “Sorry to have messed up your ship.”

“It’s okay, you can pay it off by working weekends,” Chris said with a faint smile, grateful they were still alive and not in the middle of the ocean or worse. Even if they were nowhere out of the woods yet, they were in better shape than they could have been.

Mary, who had been cradled beneath him, finally shifted out of his arms, brushing a strand of golden hair out of her face. She looked rather dishevelled and the dirt against her pale, peach-like complexion felt profane. Shaking her head as if to clear it, she blinked when she took stock of the damage and her expression of dismay mirrored his own scowl at the state of his bridge.

“Oh Chris,” she whispered.

“Yeah,” he dismissed the sentiment for now because there was still too much to do. “Are you okay?” He had to hear it from her lips for his own peace of mind. He brushed her chin in affection.

“Yes. I’m alright,” she tilted her head to plant her lips against his fingers returning his earlier gesture before she turned her attention to JD. The young man was still mercifully unconscious thanks to the hypospray she’d administer to help him cope with the third-degree burns along his arm and shoulder. The heat of it had burnt through his uniform and Chris felt his stomach hollow at the charred flesh he saw beneath it.

“I can use the dermal regenerator on him now the shaking has stopped,” Mary said seeing Chris’s concern.

“Okay,” he nodded and stood up and left her to it because they were nowhere out of trouble yet. Despite the state of his ship and the fact they were still reeling from crash landing on an alien planet, they still had the matter of Romulans to deal with. “Vin, get main power back online now that we’ve come to a stop.”

“Right,” Vin nodded, already removing his blazer to use it to protect his hand as he brushed the glass fragments off the helm station and his seat.

“Inez!” Buck was trying to contact the bartender, wanting to know where she was now that they were on the ground. Her lack of answer was almost deafening.

“Midkiff! Come in!” Chris tapped his com badge. “Status.”

“We’ve just set down 50 meters off the Maverick’s starboard bow,” Alex answered promptly. “Looks like you guys had a hell of a ride.”

Instinctively, Vin looked up from the Conn, a little smile crossing his lips at hearing her voice.

“It’s not over yet,” Chris growled, not about to underestimate how quickly Lorral could mobilise her people while running loose on his ship. “Apparently the Romulans beamed over before their ship was destroyed. They’re currently on Deck 18. We’ve sent security down there but internal sensors are malfunctioning, we can’t get a fix on how many there are.”

“Pray tell you are joking,” Ezra’s voice followed suit with horror. “Do you mean to tell me we have Romulans roaming the saucer section?”

“Yes!” Buck exclaimed, the lack of response from Inez deepening his worry. The panic in her voice before they made their crash landing was branded on his mind and he didn’t want to think what might have happened to her since. “Inez and Nathan already ran into them. Alex, use the Midkiff’s sensors and scan the ship for Romulan life signs!”

“Way ahead of you Commander,” the Science Officer returned from the cockpit of the runabout.

“Captain, I shall use the transporter on the Midkiff to beam directly to the Maverick,” Ezra declared, not wanting to be anywhere else if there were intruders on board.

“You better,” Alex’s replied soon after with a tone to her voice that sent a chill through Chris’s spine, “because I’m reading at least twenty of them.”

“.... hunker down until security can get to you! The Romulans are going to be tossed around like the rest of us, so finding you might not be their top priority in a matter of minutes.”

“That does not fill me with much confidence, Senor Wilmington,” Inez grumbled under her breath after Buck Wilmington offered her that sagely bit of advice.  It didn’t seem terribly helpful right now as she helped Nathan up the metal staircase, leading to Deck 17.

The dimly lit stairwell was seldom used because most civilians and guests preferred to use the turbo lifts while engineering and maintenance crew preferred to use the Jefferies tubes.   The switchback stairs led the way up to Deck 2 and while her first impulse was to get Nathan to his Sick Bay which was located there, she didn’t think he could stand to make the trip. As it was, she could hear his painful groans with each shudder of the ship with every step they took.  Worst of all, she was using every ounce of strength she possessed to keep him on his feet.

Despite Buck’s claims to the contrary, Inez didn’t think the Romulan would desist in their pursuit, even as the Maverick neared its landing on Loren III. Considering they beamed aboard in secret, Inez was convinced they would want to make sure she and Nathan were silenced before alerting the bridge or anyone else for that matter.  She wondered if Nathan was right and whether or not they had begun attempting to cut through the tritanium door.

“Aren’t you sorry you didn’t stay in Sick Bay now?” He managed to say as they reached the doors to Deck 17 with Inez reaching out with one hand to activate the panel.

“You needed help,” she insisted, feeling chagrined because even in their crisis situation, the excuse sounded weak.

“Oh, come on,” Nathan grumbled as the door slid open and they both stumbled in. “It’s not like you’re the first woman to fall for Buck.”

“I am not falling for Buck!” Inez snapped indignantly, even if she knew it was a little bit of a lie. Last year, he had become a good friend who helped her through her grief of losing Raphael. Of course, she would develop some affection for him but certainly not what Nathan was suggesting. “You should stop talking, save your strength.”

“I’m talking to ignore the pain,” Nathan replied before he repeated the order to seal the doors again. “Besides, you’re not just another conquest to him...”

Naturally, before Inez could ask him what he meant, the Maverick chose that moment to finally touch down.

The impact of the landing made the previous chaos pale in comparison. It felt as if they were caught in a magnitude ten earthquakes with the entire ship heaving like it was about to tear itself apart. The powerful quake was accompanied by an equally deafening roar until all other sound drained from their ears as they were both thrown forward violently.

Inez lost her grip of Nathan as she went tumbling across the floor, her mind grasping it only when she no longer felt the contact of his skin. For a moment, the world was a whirling dervish of colour before she landed hard on her shoulder, feeling the pain flare up along her arm until it resonated in her teeth. Even then, the shuddering didn’t cease, merely lessen in intensity as she lay there, dazed.  Only when she glimpsed Nathan’s body against the deck, did her senses return and she stumbled to her feet, the urgent memories crowding in on her.

Nathan needed help and the Romulans were still coming.

As the ship began its slide across the beach, the corridor rattled around them. Inez got to her feet and discarded the sweater she was wearing, feeling it cumbersome. She had a feeling with the exertions she was about to undertake, she would need the freedom of movement and the black bodysuit that ended with a tank top, would suffice. With that bit of liberation achieved, she went to get Nathan. He was a little behind her, lying on his back, his face a grimace of pain.  It was bad enough he was wounded from a disruptor beam, he didn’t need further injuries to exacerbate his condition.

“Come on Doctor,” Inez bent down to help him to his feet, “we need to keep moving. We need to find somewhere to hide before the Romulans find us.”

“No kidding,” he grunted and tried to keep up with her.

It was a struggle to remain on her feet when the ship was continuing its jerky slide across the ground.  She had no doubt that if she had regained her composure enough to move, she was certain the Romulans would be quicker to recover.  Besides, if the Romulans were anything like the Vulcans in terms in physiology, they would have stamina like Vin Tanner, which meant she had better move her ass.

“I’m slowing you down,” Nathan groaned as she took the arm of his uninjured side and hauled him to his feet again.  “You ought to leave me and find a place to hide.”

“Oh, that’s going to happen,” Inez snorted in sarcasm as she slid his arm around her shoulder and forced him to stand. “You’re not getting out of your proposal to Rain that easily. Besides, if she finds out I left you, I’ll find myself transported to the bridge, naked.”

Was it less than a day ago, they were talking about that at Four Corners, Nathan thought through the red haze of pain coursing through his body with every step he took. Romulan disruptors were serious weapons, with only one purpose, to kill.  While a high setting would have disintegrated him, a low setting was almost as bad, known to make organs explode beneath the skin before death.  Despite the agony, he was presently enduring, Nathan knew he was lucky to be alive, even after being grazed by one of those damn things. Still, his healer’s instinct overrode his own safety for hers.

“I’m not any good to you like this,” he complained, trying to use the pain to give him some clarity, even though it was so overwhelming, it threatened to take over his senses completely.  

“I am not letting anything happen to you,” Inez said resolutely, trying to remember what was on Deck 17. None of the information panels running along the length of the walls were functioning or intact for that matter.  “What’s on this deck anyway?”

“Crew quarters and the arboretum,” Nathan managed to say before he was struck with a bit of inspiration if she was so determined not to let him go.  “Get to the Arboretum!”

They were having this conversation while the ship was still making its bumpy ride across the surface of Loren III. Inez was somehow managing to keep them moving even though the ship was literally being shaken apart around them. Displays were cracking along the walls, while panelling came loose. The corridor was becoming increasingly covered with debris with each passing second. Furthermore, it seemed main power had been disengaged because the lights had dimmed with only emergency power keeping the corridors illuminated.

The size of the arboretum meant Inez saw its entrance almost immediately.  Taking Nathan’s lead because he was the Starfleet officer, she helped him to its doorway while trying to maintain her footing across the moving deck beneath her. Reaching the door, she activated the panel and stepped into the wide space of the arboretum.

The arboretum shared the entire deck with crew quarters and was large enough to be the size of a small park in any city or settlement. It came complete with simulated sunlight, a sizeable pond, real life grass and enough variety of exotic flora to occupy any botanist. Cherry trees, Antarian Willow Spreads, Klingon Fire Blooms stood majestically across the garden, inviting the crew to sit beneath their leaves under better circumstances. A section of the space was also reserved for the Life Science Department, with research areas for botany, hydroponics and geology personnel.

Sadly, like the rest of the Maverick, the arboretum was not spared the damage of their landing.  Benches were tipped over, there were fissures in the lawn, revealing soil and the deck beneath. The leaves of all trees seemed to be trembling in fright, appearing as if they might actually be torn out of the dirt and uprooted.

“Where are we headed?” Inez asked Nathan since this was his idea.

“There’s a maintenance access at that far wall,” he gestured towards the other side of the greenery where there was a three-foot-high wall of hydrangeas. “Get me there.”

“What do you want to do?” Inez asked as they took the pebbled pathway through the grass, stumbling past the pond whose normally calm waters were rippling so badly, it was splashing in all directions.

“We need to get out of sight,” Nathan remarked, beads of sweat forming on his skin not just because of their exertions but also because the environmental controls were offline and the place felt hot and humid from lack of temperature regulation. Right now, auxiliary power was being used sparingly with the emergency systems only interested in maintaining the bare minimum of life support.

As they crossed the space, the fixtures providing the artificial sunlight were shattering overhead, causing fragments to rain across the grass. The arboretum became bathed in near darkness and it was only Nathan’s memory of the ship specs that allowed him to direct her to the hatch. After that whole business with the Accrans taking over the ship, Nathan made it a point to become a bit more familiar with the Maverick’s technical aspects.

The hatch was right where he said it would be, hidden behind the Rigellian hydrangeas. Inez lowered Nathan to the floor as she went to work on getting it open. The space inside was wide enough for both of them to fit in a crouch and was a good place for them to sit out the current situation and labyrinthian enough for them to hide in it.

“Andale!” She ushered him in first once the hatch was open.

“Oh, this looks fun,” Nathan winced as he was forced into the opening, having to crawl in on his own and forced to suffer his injuries most acutely as he moved awkwardly along the length of the passage. “Every time there’s a crisis on this ship, I’m either crawling or climbing. This doesn’t feel the same without Rain. I wish she were here.”

“I wish she were here too,” Inez said rolling her eyes.

No sooner than his feet had disappeared through the opening, the ship came to an abrupt halt. It happened so quickly and suddenly, Inez stumbled backwards, falling through the hedge and getting scratched and scraped in the process by branches and twigs. Landing on the lawn on the other side, it was at that moment the door to the arboretum chose to slide open to allow the entry of a Romulan legionnaire.

Each had about a second to register each other before he raised his arm to fire his disruptor and Inez scrambled to her feet and started running. Leaping across a downed bench, she headed towards the Life Sciences Department, hoping to lead him away from Nathan. The disruptor blast struck an Australian gum tree and immediately ignited its dry leaves.

As she ran for dear life, she only hoped Nathan had sense enough to hide away.

*******

To create an empire, it was not enough to simply have a vision, one needed a plan.

For Lorral, who was first of the Tal Shiar and now poised to become the Ruling Queen of the Vriha, the plan to establish a new Romulan Empire was seeded the instant the Praetor chose to ally with the Federation to fight the Dominion. While the Praetor and the Senate considered this a necessary evil, to many of those whose family line had served the Empire since its creation, whose members had died fighting the Federation and the Klingon varools, it was inconceivable.

Cultivating their growing resentment, Lorral had been given an unexpected gift in the detonation of the Hobus star and its effects upon home territory. Broken and bleeding, what remained of the Senate had appealed to the Federation, no doubt forced to swallow whatever conditions were required to gain Starfleet’s assistance. For the ancient houses like her own, it was too much. When she told them of her intention to begin anew, as S’Task had left Vulcan nearly two millennia before, they were more than eager to follow her.

The loss of the four warbirds stung but it was merely a setback, nothing more.  The others were coming and she was not going to let the Maverick stand in their way.  

While Lorral would have preferred to arrive on board the Maverick with more of her crew than the twenty that were able to transport off the Blood Wing before that ship met its end, she was confident about their chances of taking the ship. The chess game she was playing with Chris Larabee was far from done. While the queen was on the board, there was a chance to take the game.

Lorral had survived the petty intrigues of the Romulan High Command by always planning ahead. When the facility at Riga 3 was discovered, she had not wasted time remaining behind to be the Praetor’s scapegoat.  Of course, he knew exactly what had transpired there, but he was answerable to the Senate and to save his own skin, he’d sacrificed her and the Tal Shiar. Before the Maverick had even left Romulan space, Lorral was already on a transport to Breen, safely out of reach of the purges that followed.

Although, she had to admit she would have like to have discovered who or what had torn apart her soldiers in the woods of Riga 3.

In any case, the instant the Maverick’s shields had lowered during their battle, she’d wisely ordered her trusted lieutenant to begin a comprehensive scan of the galaxy class starship. By the time she transported to it, she had committed the ship’s internal layout and schematics to memory.  Since Chris Larabee had destroyed her ship, she only felt it fitting she take his.

*******

“Commander! They’ve restored main power.” Centurion Fawlar lifted his dark eyes to her as Lorral approached him at the transporter controls in Cargo Bay 3. When transporting to the Maverick, they selected this particular cargo bay because it had a transporter pad of its own, independent from the main transport rooms throughout the rest of the ship.

“Be prepared to face resistance,” she barked at the ranking legionnaire in the group presently congregated in the corridor of Deck 18. “It is safe to assume the two who have escape have notified the bridge. Their security will be coming.”

Five legionnaires, armed with an assortment of disruptors and disruptor rifles, stood vigilant in the hallway, preparing themselves for the arrival of the Maverick’s security team.  Lorral waved the rest of them over to her and Fawlar.  They entered the cargo bay similarly armed, awaiting their next orders.  

“I have locked out bridge control to this transporter pad,” Fawlar informed her dutifully. “They’ll attempt to do the same to us, the minute we transport.”

“Good,” she nodded in approval, patting his arm in thanks. Fawlar had served with her father during his years in the Tal Shiar and had sworn fealty to her during their assignment on Riga 3. When she had fled that world following discovery, she’d ensured he was with her, saving him from the fate suffered by all other high-ranking soldiers involved with the project.  “Let us not waste any time. I want our people on their bridge, Sick Bay, shuttle bay and in their secondary engineering deck.”

“Lieutenant,” she regarded the young woman standing behind Fawlar who the newest member of their triumvirate had been, since Riga.  She was a true believer in the cause and had become something of a protege. Fiercely loyal, Selena’s ruthlessness showed great potential. Like all Romulans, the customary dark bangs were starting to grow out now they were no longer bound by the Empire’s rules. While her features were severe, she was still considered attractive with her upswept brows and indigo eyes.  

“Yes Commander,” Selena circled Fawlar to pause directly in front of Lorral.

“You will take Deck 2 where their Sick Bay is located.  No doubt, the greatest concentration of civilians will be in this area. You must do this quickly. I believe their medical facilities usually have a power system independent of the main engines, so they may be still capable of erecting emergency force fields. You must take the deck before that happens. Our ability to bargain depends on how many hostages we have. Nothing cripples Starfleet officers faster than threats to civilians. Their sentimental sense of heroics will be their undoing.”

“Send Selena’s team first,” Lorral ordered the Centurion as Selena was barking orders at the legionnaires who would be joining her in the mission to take Deck 2. Turning back to Fawlar, Lorral continued to issue orders. “You will take the bridge.  Kill the entire command staff.”

Fawlar rose a brow at that. It made sense of course.  During a battle, the entire senior staff would undoubtedly be on the bridge. Removing them from the equation made the business of negotiating a far simpler exercise. However, by the same token, the Captain could be a valuable hostage as well.

“You do not wish us to take the Captain alive?”

“No,” Lorral said firmly, her voice cold as the vacuum of space. “I will take no chances with Captain Larabee. He is proving far too dangerous to keep alive. If we plan to move in this sector, it is most likely Larabee we will have to deal with. I do not relish facing a man in possession of Starfleet idealism and Romulan ruthlessness when we build our new empire. Best to deal with him now before he impedes our plans any further.”

Fawlar could not disagree with that. He did not think it possible for any Starfleet captain to use a warp core reactor as a weapon, nor would he believe one would risk a runabout to take down the Blood Wings shields. Such extremes made for a very dangerous opponent.

“Besides,” Lorral’s eyes narrowed in clear hatred, ““he needs to be held accountable for the destruction of the Talon, S'task and the Rihan. “

Fawlar’s jaw tightened and his hawkish features showed his anger in a dark scowl. As her second, Fawlar had interacted with the sub-commanders of those ships more frequently than Lorral herself. He knew them personally and professionally, prior to their enlistment in their new cause. Losing all of them affected him greatly and while he was typically Romulan in his ability to set aside personal vengeance, it did not mean he was immune to it either. Lorral was correct, Larabee had to be made accountable for those deaths.

“It will be done.”

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