Nehru Colonial Command Center, Arandis IV

Director McCullough looked up from the map-display table where she and the head of the Home-Guard were tracking the multi-pronged Cardassian advance on the colony proper. Their defenses were crumbling along the main axis of enemy advance after the Cardassian air assets had overwhelmed the colony’s defensive strongpoint at the commercial complex.

There were at least three other enemy formations advancing from other directions, but these appeared to be weaker attacks, possibly diversionary in nature. For now, their focus was on throwing as many Home-Guard, constabulary and Starfleet units as they could into the breach to slow the main Cardassian thrust.

McCullough’s eyes settled on Commander Morozov who stood a few paces away, kitted out in Starfleet away-mission uniform and cradling one of their new bulbous-nosed phaser rifles.

“Hopefully they won’t get this far, Commander,” she remarked.

“I intend to make sure of it, Director,” he replied. “There’s nothing for me to do here that you can’t do for yourselves. I’m going out there to lead my people.”

She held his gaze for a moment as she decided that arguing the point was fruitless. McCullough had no authority over Morozov or his surviving crew, and his argument was valid. He likely could do more out on the front lines than he could in the Ops Center to support their cause.

“I understand. Good luck out there.” McCullough stepped forward and extended a hand.

Morozov shook it firmly. “To us all, Director.”

He beat a hasty exit and McCullough turned her attention back to the map display. “What’s between their spearhead and our water reclamation center?” she asked.

The Home-Guard colonel nodded towards Morozov’s retreating back. “About seventy Starfleet personnel and soon to be one very determined captain.”

“Commander,’ she corrected him with a confused expression. “I thought Morozov was their first officer?”

“He took a temporary reduction in grade for this mission,” the colonel replied. McCullough remembered suddenly that the colonel had served in Starfleet as a junior officer before transferring his commission to the colonial Home-Guard when he emigrated to Arandis IV. “A ship can only have one captain.”

McCullough furrowed her brow. “I guess I don’t get the difference.”

“He’s wearing four pips now,” the colonel observed. ”And regardless of actual rank,” he added with a note of admiration in his voice, “that man is a starship captain.”

* * *​
Casualty Collection and Triage Center

Dr. Cavanaugh had, rather uncharitably, expected the emergency medical processes on this crisis-stricken colony to be chaotic and slipshod. To her surprise and appreciation, the civilian medical staff had proven professional, creative, and stalwart.

Casualties from the battlefield were transported via ambulance or other conveyance, as the colony’s transporter scattering field remained active. Once they arrived at the makeshift hospital, they were triaged and those in most critical need of emergency care were quickly seen to.

Once stabilized, the post-operative patients were moved to the colony’s hospital, a structure nearly as well shielded as one of the hardened civil shelters.

Cavanaugh stood in a pre-fab surgical module, closing a surgical incision with her protoplaser. Her patient was a constable who had taken three plasma bolts to the torso and by all rights should have died from her wounds before reaching help. However, the young woman simply refused to die, and had held on long enough to receive advanced medical care and surgical intervention from Cavanaugh.

Though the Cardassians plasma-based small-arms were technically more primitive than Starfleet’s phasers, they were rapid pulse weapons rather than firing a single columnated beam and inflicted ghastly damage to unprotected humanoid tissue.

A humanoid wounded by these weapons would experience severe systemic shock, a byproduct of the plasma burns they suffered, both external and internal. The superheated gasses that comprised the jacketed plasma bolts tended to expand once they had penetrated the body, pulverizing organs and creating cavitation effects that shattered bone and created massive internal wounds and secondary hemorrhaging.

The patient Cavanaugh had operated on immediately before the constable had been one of the cadets from Sagan, a young man that she only vaguely remembered from her brief time aboard. He had died on the table when Cavanaugh had been unable to locate a massive internal bleed that had begun as she had worked to repair horrific damage to his liver.

Cavanaugh stepped to the sterilization field at the door to the operating theater, doffing her gloves, facemask and apron as she exited, telling her chief surgical nurse, “I need a cup of coffee if I’m going to stay on my feet. Back in five. Please work with Dr. Hoang to get the next surgical patient prepped.”

As she moved towards a small portable replicator unit nearby, Cavanaugh could hear distant sounds of battle. The crackle of plasma-rifle fire provided counterpoint to the whine of small-arms phasers amid the random *crump* of explosions. People here moved with purpose, transporting wounded on litters and hauling crates of medical supplies, but nobody was panicking. Even with the fighting now on their proverbial doorstep, the colonists maintained an air of grim determination.

A hand grasped her shoulder causing her to start as she reached for the cup of coffee in the replicator’s delivery slot. Cavanaugh spun around to find Morozov staring intently at her.

“For God’s sake, Evgeni, you scared the hell out of me!”

“Forgive me,” he said breathlessly, grasping her by the shoulders. “I have to go. I’m heading out to join what’s left of our crew.”

His meaning was plain to her, but her mind was too shocked to fully accept what he was saying. Her discussion with Abidemi Tinubu about the captain’s impending death had brought Cavanaugh to tears. In this moment, however, the thought of her lover’s potential demise left her speechless.

“You… can’t,” was all she was finally able to utter.

“I have to, Carol. They’re a bunch of kids with a few junior officers commanding them. I can’t stay in a command bunker and direct them remotely. It’s not who I am.”

She took in a deep, steadying breath and gave a weak nod. “I understand. I still don’t have to like it.”

“While all of this is happening all I can think of is that farm in Alberta we talked about,” Morozov said quickly, knowing he lacked the time to say all that he needed to. “If we survive this, I’m yours. All I want is you, the farm, some animals, we’ll leave Starfleet behind us.”

“Yes,” she answered. “Yes to all of it, but first we have to make it through this mess.” Cavanaugh grabbed hold of his jacket collar and pulled the shorter man in for a brief kiss. “Go. Do what you have to out there while I do the same here. But you’d damn well better come back to me, Evgeni Vladimirovich.”

He embraced her for a fleeting moment and was then gone into the crowd.

* * *​
They rode in silence for approximately ten minutes before Lar’ragos had calmed sufficiently to be able to navigate to the coordinates of their shipmates from Sagan provided to them at the checkpoint.

“You hurt people back there,” Sandhurst finally said. “Our people.”

“They’re fools,” Lar’ragos snapped back. “They’re just lucky it was me and not the Cardassians. The Cardies would have killed them.”

“Just try to remember whose side you’re on,” Sandhurst chided him. “What will you do if we come up to another checkpoint manned by our crewmates and you find the same situation?”

Sandhurst could hear Lar’ragos’ dissatisfied exhalation at that idea. “If I have to repeat the lesson, so be it.”

“Injuring our people is counterproductive,” Votor offered from the back seat. “The ’lesson’ as you call it is delivered at the expense of our collective security.”

“I don’t remember asking your opinion,” Lar’ragos replied coldly.

Votor shifted in his seat, leaning forward and reaching for the nape of Lar’ragos’ neck with his right hand.

Lar’ragos caught the Vulcan’s hand at the wrist, bending and twisting the joint despite Votor’s superior physical strength.

There was a sharp intake of breath from Votor, but he did not cry out.

A bright flash of orange light filled the truck cab, accompanied by a high-pitched screech. Lar’ragos slumped unconscious in his seat, releasing his grip on Votor’s wrist.

Sandhurst holstered the phaser he’d drawn unobserved during the El Aurian’s brief struggle with the Vulcan.

“Are you okay?” he asked Votor.

“The injuries to my wrist appear… reasonably superficial, though I will seek medical attention at our destination to confirm that,” he replied stolidly. He then added, “Your timely intervention is appreciated.”

“You’re welcome,” Sandhurst offered unhappily.

* * *​