0434 hours
“Attention, a ship-wide red alert has been issued. All personnel report to your duty stations. Attention, a ship-wide red alert has been issued. All personnel report to your duty stations immediately.”
Srena’s eyes sprang wide open upon hearing the computer voice. Her green eyes wandered towards the chronometer even though she had tried to train herself not to do that anymore.
It was still hours until her shift was due to start. The damn Jem’Hadar simply didn’t have the slightest sense of timing.
The young Andorian ensign let out a small sigh. This was not why she had joined Starfleet just about three years ago. Had it only been three years? It felt like a lifetime ago now. And so did the Academy. This was of course ironic considering that she had spent less than three years on Earth to train to be a Starfleet officer. After the war had broken out and Starfleet had decided to graduate her and thousands of other cadets early, she had seen it as her first step of the great adventure she had embarked upon. And why not? That was why she had joined. To be the best pilot the fleet had ever known and to steer a starship to places nobody had ever seen before.
Back then she hadn’t really imagined that the war would last very long or even considered that Starfleet’s decision to not allow her and her fellow cadets a full four years at the Academy had been an action born out of desperation.
She had soon learned the hard way that this was not the adventure she’d hoped for. She had seen friends and colleagues being killed in front of her eyes and had come herself close to such a fate on numerous occasions.
Her only blessing was that she usually didn’t have the time or the energy to think about the war and how badly it was going for the Federation.
This was one of those times.
She jumped out of her bed and found her uniform shirt exactly where she’d left it the night before. On the floor, next to her bed.
As the beta shift flight controller her station during a red alert was on the bridge, regardless what time or shift it was. Protocol demanded that she’d make it up there within two minutes of the red alert being called.
The only problem? She really needed to go somewhere else first.
She rushed out of her bedroom and across the lounge and towards the washroom she shared with her roommate. And found the doors closed.
She could hear the sonic shower running.
“By Uzaveh, you gotta be kidding me, Mikki? It’s a red alert, there is no time for a shower.”
Her response coming out of the washroom was unintelligible however. She was cleaning her teeth at the same time.
Srena banged against the doors one more time and then gave up. Mikaela Besson had a thing about personal hygiene which was perfectly fine. But she didn’t seem to understand that in certain situations it simply had to take a backseat. For example when the lives of everybody on the ship were at stake.
It didn’t help that as a science officer, Srena’s roommate had completely different priorities and duties than she did.
She bit her lips, trying hard not to focus on the urgent reason she had needed to use the washroom. She just had to cope, she finally decided and then grabbed the rest of her uniform and rushed out of her quarters.
She would have to have a talk with Mikaela once this crisis was over.
0441 hours
When she arrived on the bridge she noticed that all senior and alpha shift officers were already at their stations which technically meant that she was late. Probably by a half a minute or so.
It wasn’t that she was required to take the helm, that duty had fallen to Eagle’s primary flight controller, the silver-haired Krellonian, Lif Culsten. She had to be on the bridge as a stand-by and as such she quickly headed for one of the aft bridge stations where she would monitor sensor data and ship logs at Science II until or if she was needed to take the helm.
Everybody was too focused on their stations and their own duties to notice that she had arrived late. Everyone but Commander Tazla Star.
The Trill first officer shot her a disapproving glare before she returned her attention back towards the view screen.
Srena’s antennae drooped slightly before she focused on her own station. Star had it out for her, she was convinced of that. Since she had come aboard as Eagle’s new executive officer she had quickly and deservedly gained the reputation as a hard-ass. She was worse than Lieutenant Commander Xylion, the Vulcan science officer who had temporarily held that position before her and she was in a completely different universe than the late Commander Gene Edison who had been Eagle’s original and much beloved first officer.
Most people speculated that Star was so tough on the crew because she had something to prove. After all she had a rather questionable past, including a stint at the Starfleet stockade after losing her own command and rumor had it that she had come aboard Eagle under false pretenses initially and that she had been involved in numerous illicit affairs.
And yet the captain had decided to keep her on board even if most believed that he didn’t trust the shady Trill one bit and preferred to keep her on a short leash.
Srena didn’t care much for rumors and she had liked Star well enough, especially during those few times she had worked with her in which she had demonstrated a skill for unconventional if not risky tactics. All that had changed after she had been made permanent and now it seemed she was riding her harder than any other officer on board.
The mood on the bridge was tense. The light levels had been dimmed and the obnoxiously flashing red alert strobes reminded everyone that danger could be imminent.
How imminent however nobody seemed to know for certain.
Eagle had been patrolling this sector of space for over a week. During that time they had run into the Jem’Hadar exactly once but Srena had lost count how many times the ship had gone to red alert due to a supposed sensor contact.
And even though they had gone through this exact same routine over and over again it was no different than the previous times.
Commander Xylion was sitting in front of his science station, analyzing every iota of information the sensors were feeding him and trying to get an exact location on the threat. So’Dan Leva, their half-Romulan tactical officer was entirely focused on his weapons systems, standing by to unleash deadly volleys of phaser fire and quantum torpedoes at a moment’s notice. The beautiful Tenarian, DeMara Deen at ops, kept her eyes peeled on ship resources as well as sensors while Lif Culsten made sure the ship maintained optimal maneuverability in case they needed to quickly change course or implement defensive maneuvers.
Her gaze lingered on the helmsman for a moment. Another reason why she hated being on stand-by duty was that she was only really needed if something bad happened to Culsten. She hated the idea of having to replace him in an emergency.
Captain Michael Owens sat in his chair at the center of the bridge, asking for status reports and ship conditions every fifteen minutes or so. She was thankful for that as she feared that the silence and the waiting would drive her crazy.
Srena was not the only one who had noticed that Owens had taken on a tendency to micromanage ship operations over the last few months. Tasks he had usually left to his second-in-command he now, more often than not, took on himself.
The reason for that was apparent.
If Tazla Star was bothered by this clear vote of no confidence in her abilities, she didn’t let it show. At least not in front of the captain. Instead she paced the bridge, making sure to stop by at every station to keep an eye on the instruments.
When the red-headed Trill decided to check on Srena, she quickly turned back towards her station, squared her shoulders and took a small breath.
She could sense the much taller woman step up right behind her where she remained for a few moments.
Srena tried hard to focus on her screens and spot any discrepancies there that may have been the cause for the first officer’s interest. As much as she tried, she couldn’t find anything wrong. Of course Star was not making it easy for her to concentrate while breathing down her neck.
“Are you experiencing a problem, Ensign?” she said just quietly enough to make sure that Srena could hear her while not distracting the other officers on the bridge.
She hadn’t expected to be addressed and now scrambled her brains for an answer.
“I asked you a question.”
“No, ma’am,” she said quickly, keeping her eyes on her console.
“Good. You were late on the bridge. Make sure that doesn’t happen again,” said Star and then quickly moved on to the next station.
Srena exhaled and then looked after the first officer who didn’t grace her with another glance.
Just as Star returned to the command area at the center of the bridge, Captain Owens stood. “I think this has gone on just about long enough,” he said. “Stand down from red alert.”
The flashing red lights ceased immediately and the bridge illumination returned to is normal levels.
“Commander, I’m getting sick entirely of these sensor echoes. This is the third night in a row we went through this. Get this taken care of,” he said, hardly giving Star a chance to formulate a response of her own and then strode towards the turbolift.
Srena noticed the slightly irritated expression on her face. No doubt she felt as if Owens blamed her for Eagle’s recent sensor trouble.
A few minutes later the regular duty shift returned to the bridge and Srena beat a quick retreat, not wanting to be in Star’s immediate vicinity when she began to grill the crew to get to the root of this problem.
0721 hours
The red alert situation had lasted nearly three hours during which time she had been forced to stay on the bridge. Srena couldn’t get back to her quarters quickly enough.
She ignored her roommate who was already napping on the couch and rushed into the washroom.
She felt icky, tired and hungry.
Taking a quick sonic shower wasn’t a difficult choice and once she was done and changed into a clean uniform she was looking forward to a bite to eat and then maybe follow Mikki’s example and try to get some more sleep.
She got as far as the replicator.
“Flight Ops to Ensign Srena, report to the main hangar deck for an immediate ESO.”
She hit her combadge with a sigh. “This is Srena, acknowledged. I’m on my way.”
An ESO or an emergency shuttle ops meant that she was needed to get to the hangar bay without delay and prep a shuttle for immediate take-off. With ESOs she wouldn’t learn the ins and outs of the mission usually until well after the shuttle had launched.
She found the timing odd, after all she had only just arrived from the bridge and at the time there had been no indication that a shuttle mission would be required anytime soon. Of course during a war this meant nothing. She had since learned that any situation could change in a heartbeat.
She shot a quick and longing look at the replicator, then at her roommate, once again asking herself why she hadn’t decided to pursue a science track instead before she half ran out of the door.
0742 hours
She managed to get from her quarters on deck twenty-five to the main hangar on deck six in just under two minutes.
Even though Srena was a passionate pilot the main hanger on Eagle was one of her least favorite places on the ship. The massive cavernous deck right underneath the main shuttle bay was filled with rows of shuttles of various size and configuration, ranging from the Nebuchadrezzar, the Danube-class runabout, all the way down to an array of workbees, the one-seater maintenance crafts.
And unless Eagle was in the middle of a major shuttle operation, the hangar was poorly lit, casting huge shadows across the deck. The fact that her footsteps reverberated loudly made this place downright spooky.
Her standard vehicle for an ESO was the Osiris, a bulky, Type-8 medium-sized shuttlecraft. Unless Flight Ops told her otherwise, she needed to proceed immediately to the Osiris and get her ready to launch within three minutes.
She found the craft with practiced ease.
The shuttle appeared to be in immaculate condition and showed no signs of the crash landing she’d had to make a few months earlier when she had been shot down over an urban area during a rescue mission. Srena hadn’t piloted her and thankfully Ensign Michael Lely and his co-pilot had survived the crash. The fact that the small vessel didn’t need to be replaced was a testament to the efficiency of the engineering crew which had managed to fix her up like new.
There was no deck crew required for take-off. The processes were nearly entirely automated and as the stand-by vessel, it was kept always ready to go.
Srena ran her palm along the white hull of the ship as she headed for the ramp at the back, she liked the feel of the cool duranium against her skin.
She was not surprised to see that her co-pilot hadn’t arrived yet.
She didn’t let that slow her down. Instead she jumped into the pilot seat and began to run through the pre-launch sequence.
Run start-up diagnostic, check. Engage main power, check. Confirm structural integrity at operational levels, check. Activate impulse engines and thrusters, check. Life support systems, check. All systems check: Go for launch.
She was ready. The only problem: Unless it was a dire emergency, she was not allowed to take off without her co-pilot.
That’s when Crewman First Class Dinkins finally showed up.
“Come on, Darren, hustle.”
But Dinkins barely seemed in a hurry at all as he took the co-pilots chair. Dinkins was a tall, dark-skinned, broad-shouldered - some would have said, slightly intimidating - enlisted man. He was at least five years older than Srena which usually wasn’t much of a problem. But he was also the kind of person who wasn’t particularly interested in what people thought about him.
“Relax, Blue,” he said. “I’m here. Let’s get this started.”
She rolled her eyes. She didn’t particularly care for the nickname he had decided to give her.
“Ready for pre-flight check?”
“Already done,” she said and stabbed a panel on her control station, causing the ramp to close.
Another few taps activated the elevator and opened the ceiling to the bay above. Srena thought that they were being lifted into take-off position far too slowly. She was tempted to speed things up by activating her vertical thrusters early. An urge she wisely suppressed. Flight Ops would have ground her for life for trying a stunt like that.
“My, aren’t we an impatient one today. You do know what’s going to happen, Blue.”
She also suppressed a sigh. Her stomach was rumbling and she didn’t want to have this conversation now.
Then the lift finally positioned them in the almost entirely empty shuttle bay which easily rivaled the below hangar deck in size. The huge space door was beginning to rise, accompanied by a warning siren.
“Osiris to Flight Ops, we are ready for immediate take-off and clearing of Eagle airspace, flying straight out,” said Srena.
“Flight Ops, Osiris. Acknowledged. You are cleared for Eagle airspace, straight out departure. Stand by for take-off clearance.”
The Andorian ensign was impatiently tapping her fingers close to the controls which would engage the thrusters. She ignored the look and the knowing smile on Dinkins’ face.
“Flight Ops, Osiris.Please be advised that this has been an exercise.”
“You know I hate to say I told you so,” said Dinkins.
Srena buried her face in her hands.
“Flight Ops, Osiris. Please acknowledge my last.”
Dinkins activated the comm. “Osiris to Flight Ops, this is Crewman Dinkins, we acknowledge. Powering down and returning to parking. Catch you guys next time. Dinkins out.”
The rating was already on his feet. He gave Srena a clasp on her back and headed for the ramp which was beginning to come down again. “Don’t worry, Blue, I’m sure one of these days we actually get to fly this bucket.”
Srena turned around. “Is it too much to ask for you to try and make it here in time?”
He shrugged. “What’s the point? It’s always an exercise.”
“Next time it may not be one. Besides we get graded on our times and right now we don’t look so good.”
He seemed to consider that for a moment. “Always the ambitious officer, huh? Straight out of the Academy and already looking for those lieutenant pips. I wouldn’t worry my pretty little head, Blue. To me you always look great,” he said and then jumped out of the shuttle, not even waiting for it to be lowered back to its parking spot.
Srena uttered a heavy sigh. Her stomach was killing her but before she could even think about her first meal of the day, she needed to make sure the shuttle was back in the same place where she had found it.
1054 hours
She hadn’t gotten the chance to grab that much desired meal.
In fact Srena hadn’t gotten a chance to do much of anything after the shuttle exercise had ended.
And now that she sat on the floor, leaning against a bulkhead in one of Eagle’s countless corridors, she wasn’t quite sure if she ever would.
She gripped her phaser rifle tighter and looked over the faces of the dozen or so crewmembers who were looking at her for leadership.
Like Dinkins, they were all enlisted personnel which wasn’t a big surprise. The majority of Eagle’s crew consisted out of enlisted men and since the war had started the number of officers had decreased while the number of ratings had gone up sharply. But unlike her mouthy co-pilot, these crewmembers were young, inexperienced and impossibly greener than herself. Most of them had only just completed a few months of basic training.
The flashing red lights that lit up the corridors reminded her that they were still in danger. They couldn’t stay here long, they’d be easy prey for the Jem’Hadar who had boarded Eagle a few hours earlier and were now running around the ship almost unrestricted, causing death and destruction in the process.
Srena wasn’t the person in charge. She had to look for leadership somewhere else herself. Usually that would have been a relief, had it not been for the fact that Mikaela Besson was in command of their little group of novices. Her roommate.
As it so happened she and Mikaela were the only two officers in the bunch and the blonde-haired human technically had seniority. Besson had actually enjoyed a full four years at the Academy, to Srena’s three and had been in rank almost eighteen months longer.
Srena adored her roommate. She was a great friend, an occasionally smart girl and apparently quite gifted in the field of exobiology. She had however a lousy tactical sense and no skills whatsoever in fighting an enemy with the kind of training and purpose as the Jem’Hadar.
“Damn it, Mikki, we have to move.”
But the human woman didn’t seem of the same mind. She was sitting up against the opposite side of the hallway and kept looking up and down the corridors as if she wasn’t quite sure which way to go.
They had been stuck in this position for nearly ten minutes, ever since they had barely escaped a Jem’Hadar boarding party which had taken over the transporter rooms and were now threatening to take control of the rest of the deck. Everybody knew that it be suicide to try and fight them off, they were far larger in number and much better armed.
“We need to head to the rallying point,” said Besson finally. “It’s just a few sections down this corridor. I think.”
But Srena shook her head. “We need to get off this deck and regroup with security or the Marines on nineteen. If we stay here, we’re dead.”
The human shot her an angry glare. “I’m in charge here, Srena. I say we head for the rallying point. It says so right there in the ship’s operational manual. Have you ever actually read the thing?”
The Andorian rolled her eyes. “I know about the rallying point but if we follow the book on this one, we’ll walk right into the Jem’Hadar. Use your head.”
“I am. And I say we head for the rallying point. Now,” she said and got onto her feet.
“Mikki, this is a mistake, just trust me on that.”
But Besson didn’t want to listen and took a few steps down the corridor.
Half of the crewmembers hiding out in the corridor got onto their feet to follow Mikaela while the other half looked at Srena.
“Come on,” she told the group.
But before she could make another move or say another word, her eyes went wide.
Srena didn’t understand immediately why, only that she must have seen something disturbing down an intersecting corridor.
“Mikki, what -”
And then the shooting started.
The young human ensign was directly in the line of fire.
She went down hard even before she could try and defend herself.
“Mikki!” Srena cried and tried to get to her prone form which was now sprawled out in the middle of the corridor a few feet away.
But she didn’t answer.
Srena didn’t make the same mistake as her roommate and instead pushed her back against the wall, trying to spy around the corner.
The poloran blasts nearly took off her head.
And the Jem’Hadar were already moving down the corridor.
She took a deep breath, brought up her rifle and squeeze off a few shots towards the approaching enemy. It did not have the intended effect. If anything, it only made them madder.
“Mikki, can you hear me?” she shouted.
But her body simply refused to move.
Srena looked back at the rest of the group which had wisely decided to move away from the corridor. Most of them were not even armed. One of them, a male Grazerite wearing a blue uniform was holding a medical tricorder which he had pointed towards Mikaela’s motionless body. He looked up at Srena and shook his head slightly.
The ensign immediately understood what this meant.
She fired a few more rounds by sticking out the rifle passed the bend of the corner and then hastily gestured the group to retreat.
Srena allowed herself one last look back at Mikaela’s lifeless body before she quickly followed suit.
The turbolifts had been deactivated in order to slow down the intruders but Srena managed to lead her team without further incident, or enemy encounter, to one of the Jeffries tube access points.
She ensured everyone was through before she went in herself and then quickly took the lead in climbing upwards.
She knew that they were exposed in the cramped space if the Jem’Hadar decided to target them. There was little opportunity for cover here and a single, well-placed shot could have taken out her entire team. They needed to move fast and Srena made every effort to spur her people on.
Climbing up six decks as quickly as possible without even having had a chance to get some breakfast wasn’t an easy task for her either. But Srena hadn’t been a two-time All-Federation track athlete for nothing.
A thick layer of sweat covered her face when she finally reached her destination and just as she was about to open the hatch to lead her onto deck nineteen, somebody on the other side removed it for her.
She instinctively grabbed her phaser rifle and pointed it towards the opening.
But instead of the pebbled, reptilian face of a Jem’Hadar, Srena was relieved to see a smooth, blue visage of a fellow Andorian looking down at her.
He held out his hand and lifted the short ensign almost effortlessly out of the Jeffries tube. She didn’t know the man by name but she was scarcely surprised to find him wearing a Marines uniform. Her people had a deserved reputation as a warrior race, maybe even more so than any other member of the Federation. And while she had never truly felt the kind of aggressive urges of many of her kinsmen and had found a different calling in being a pilot, she knew that many Andorians preferred to work in security or join the Marines.
Her rescuer was not alone and the rest of his outfit quickly helped the other crewmembers out of the maintenance hatch.
“Am I glad to see you guys,” she said and turned to the highest ranking Marine she could find, an Efrosian sergeant. “Deck twenty-five has been taken over completely by Jem’Hadar. We didn’t all make it out.”
The sergeant nodded. “Understood. We’re here to escort you to the checkpoint, ma’am.”
“Thanks,” she said and let herself slide down a bulkhead to wait until they were ready to move out again. Track star or not, she was exhausted from the power climb she had been forced to endure. She quietly counted down all the crewmembers which had followed her as they were helped out of the Jeffries tube.
They were all there. All but Mikaela.
She didn’t get the chance to rest for long.
The shooting started so suddenly, she couldn’t even find where she had put her phaser rifle. A handful of Marines who had stood guard went down immediately.
Srena tried to jump on her feet but instead clumsily ran into another crewmember.
It was then that she saw the Jem’Hadar. They were approaching from both sides, with her and her people and the Marines trapped in the middle.
She heard orders being shouted but it seemed a futile effort as most of the Marines weren’t even able to get off a single shot before they went down.
By the time she had finally found her footing and had her phaser out of the holster, the Jem’Hadar were already practically on top of her. She managed to squeeze out one shot, neutralizing an opponent before he had a chance to dissect a crewmember with his polearm but then felt a large hand grip her shoulder.
She was spun around and pushed painfully back into a bulkhead. The large Jem’Hadar who had her pinned was not going to let go and his dark, empty eyes were looking down at her with merciless determination.
She wasn’t strong enough to free herself. Nor could she stop the razor-sharp blade that he was driving into her chest.