"Fleet Action: The stinger gets Stung"

RHS Slarrardo

Romulus orbit

"Ventral shields Collapsing my Lord!" honked the Tactical officer through his fat slug-like mouth. "Federation Sloop on attack vector!"

The sparks from damaged display terminals threw strange shadows across the purple methane clouds of the R.H.S. Slarrardo's primary Attack bridge.

Griping his plush Command couch tightly with all three of his hands, Prince Thufi XXXIV gritted his teeth as the hammer-like blows of the USS Sao Paolo's Quantum torpedos struck home.

She may only be a Sloop, but she had teeth aplenty, and a manuverability that exceeded the Hydran Light Cruisers.

"Roll Starboard and invert the Ship." The Prince lispsed, bring point defence to bear and ready primary fusion cannon."

Outside the Defiant class Escourt continued to blaze away as the sleek blue hull of the Slarrardo twisted in space to bring stronger shields to bear.

From the light Cruisers aft quarter, a trio of point defence 'gatling' phasers roared to life in a frenzy of white hot phaser fire. Each bolt was less powerful than a standard phaser, but between the three cannons, they managed to register over a dozen hits on the Sao Paolo in a matter of seconds shaking her badly.

It was like being stabbed with a thousand needles of hot light.

Fortuantely for the Federation ship, the follow-up blast from the Slarrardo's massive fusion cannon missed badly, but even so, its powerful discharge rocked the boat from a kilometer away.

Slarrardo had bigger guns and more of them, but the Sao Paolo was much quicker.....that and the fact that the USS Galaxy was still in the area, and quite angry convinced Prince Thufi that it was time to make a brief tactical withdrawal.......for the moment.

Burping out orders to his flight officers he wheeled his ship about concealing it behind a tornado of gatling phaser fire.

As Sao Paolo turned to pursue, a trio of Hydran fighters swarmed into view peppering the Defiant class ship with harrasing fire.

As manuverable as it was, the Sao Paolo couldnt out-turn the tiny craft.......it was like having its own game played against

it.

Still......as one of the three fighters exploded under the Federation ships own point defence it was clear that the battle was far from over.....

"Recall fighters...." Thufi blubbered, "Continue point defence fire and drop static transporter mines.....put some distance between us and

that sloop!"

"Death Sentence"

Lieutenant Erastus Ampete

Assistant Chief of Science - USS Miranda

=====================================

A hospital, somewhere outside Ra'tleihfi, Romulus

=====================================

Tir'len had been hoping to catch some sleep on this rotation, and after handing out the meals had a nice nap of about forty minutes before he was awoken to find the image of the woman from last night standing there. Well, at least she seemed more relaxed and quiet today. It was time to start collecting the empty trays anyway... he better get to it.

Era had just finished her pasta and was sipping her juice box when the figure of the doctor from before appeared. She smiled at him with something approaching confidence. Now that she could understand what was being said to her, they could actually carry on a conversation.

"Doctor!" she waved him over to her as he began to move along the line, picking up the trays.

Tir'len was caught off guard by the greeting, though he gave a weary smile in her direction. "You look to be doing much better."

"As I keep trying to tell you, I'm fine. Now, can you let me go? I don't have a lot of time to waste."

"The computer database containing all medical records are down, and I can't release you without knowing why you were admitted in the first place." He sat down in a chair next to Era. "It will take some time to get the database up and running, until then..."

"Now look, I've told you I don't belong here. I've told you I'm a Starfleet officer. You've run a scan on me - you must know I'm healthy. You can't keep me prisoner!"

She did seem much more coherent now that she was apparently able to understand them. "I am responsible for the care of everyone in this facility. There is a 'war' outside... even 'if' I had hard evidence that what you were saying is true I couldn't just let you stroll out of here in good conscious... and I don't have any evidence that what you're saying is true. You're not being kept as a prisoner, but your actions have been erratic and irrational... and you pose an ongoing danger to yourself and others if not supervised."

"There's a war going on and I'm supposed to be over there. Up there!

Not stuck in here. I swear to you, I am on 'very' good terms with the commander of a Starfleet vessel and he 'will' have your hide if you keep me here!" Okay, so there was a bit of a white lie in that statement, but it made it sound more impressive.

Tir'len sighed... she was still having delusions wasn't she? "I'm sure your 'Captain' will understand the precautions in place that are designed to protect you."

"Don't take that tone of voice with me," she growled at him.

And exactly what tone was he 'supposed' to take with a mad woman? "I'm sorry, but you simply cannot leave the hospital at this time."

"Just try and stop me," she muttered darkly. "Nobody here is sick. I could get them to all follow me. I'll have this place reported if you don't let me go."

She was 'really' starting to become irritating, and although it wasn't the best move he ever made, he couldn't help but mockingly ask "So you're a psychiatrist on that fancy starship of yours?"

"I'm a scientist. Assistant chief of the department," she responded with equal scorn. She was gaining an intense dislike for this doctor, and all Romulans just for their sheer stupidity in letting him exist and be in charge of people.

"Ahhh." Tir'len nodded. "So do you 'honestly' believe all illnesses are visible?" He blinked for a moment, deciding to prove his point against better judgment. "Bas'an suffers from untreatable delayed neurological development.

Chasa over there..." he pointed to a fairly young Romulan woman. "Suffers from atypical post traumatic stress disorder. That patient is being treated for multiple psychoses."

Era tried to wrap her head around the words. "So they are unstable?

Why don't you kill them?"

Now that left Tir'len completely breathless. "Excuse me?"

"Assist them with their suicide," she explained. She remembered her mother telling her about why Sinara had stopped coming to school when she was five years old. Some people reached 60 faster than others.

She swore up and down she wasn't crazy... yet she was displaying behaviors that one would almost certainly attribute to insanity of some kind. She did seem capable of retaining knowledge however, so maybe talking, socializing, might be beneficial to the healing process. Who knows, maybe she was savable.

"That's not the way we do things here. Being disabled is in no way a death sentence, and they deserve a chance to live as much as anyone."

"But what use are they? You're at war, they're a drain on your resources, aren't they?"

"A war is a unique circumstance. Just because they can't contribute on the battle front doesn't mean they don't contribute to the society as a whole.

Some of our patients occupy themselves with basic jobs. Those that can't no less deserve a chance to try and recover, and enjoy something close to a normal life."

"But they're not 'useful'," Era persisted. "Physical handicap - fine.

People can heal. There are prosthetics. But this neurodamage you're talking about, that's nonsense. Kill it before it spreads." As soon as the words were out, Era jumped to her feet in horror, clapping a hand over her mouth. If the chair hadn't been nailed down, it would've toppled over. "You're going to make me sick, locking me in here with them!"

So much for moments of lucidity. Tir'len jumped to his feet in turn, placing his hands against her arms with the same practiced gentle but firm grasp. He had to try and calm her down in some fashion, even if her words did anger him to no small degree. "Calm yourself. There aren't any contagious conditions among the patients here. You're perfectly fine, and it's perfectly safe, much safer than it is outside. All right?"

Era got a hold of herself. They wouldn't intentionally contaminate others, even if they were Romulans. Slowly, her hand slipped down from her mouth. "You don't need to keep holding me."

Yeah, after the last time where she slugged him? It was a bit of an effort, but finally he pulled away. She did seem to relax somewhat. "Okay... umm...

I'm sorry. Why not try and relax until everything is over, all right?" He noticed she didn't particularly care for the entree. "Is there anything you'd prefer to eat instead?"

Era looked down at the mostly empty plate, a few lifeless strings of spaghetti left wallowing in the runny sauce. "No." In her head, Era opened a book - a manual, really - on how to deal with captors when you found yourself to be the captive. She found the chapter she

wanted: Noncooperation 101.

"As you wish." Tir'len placed her tray on the cart, to be reclaimed later.

"I'll be by to check on you later."

Era didn't answer. She'd try her luck with the nurses next. Maybe one of them would be more sympathetic.

"Life on the Inside"

Lieutenant Erastus Ampete

Assistant Chief of Science - USS Miranda

=====================================

A mental hospital, somewhere outside Ra'tleihfi, Romulus

=====================================

Erastus Ampete had spent four years living as a part of the Federation, interacting with races and experiencing life styles she had never imagined. But even if she had twice as much multi-cultural time beneath her belt, it is doubtful it would have helped her current predicament.

Era grew up on Kaelon II, a planet known best to the rest of the quadrant as: "Oh, that one - with the dying sun and everyone killing themselves at 60." On a dying world, the ritual suicide of the elderly had a very practical component: preserve the resources and energy for the future, for the productive. What is less well known about Era's homeworld is that the sexagenarians were not the only ones to be a drain. Era had matured in a world devoid of debilitating handicaps. A deaf-mute wasn't just not heard from, but unheard of; not because they weren't born, but because they didn't survive. Quadriplegics, the terminally ill were never seen. It was an accepted part of her universe.

At the Academy, Erastus had undergone severe culture shock. Physical disability did not disqualify people automatically.

Yet there was another disability that Era never saw - mental illness.

Starfleet bred and catered to its own brand of mental instability, such that Era had come to think of people exhibiting the signs as possessing "quirks" and "idiosyncrasies." As a scientist, to whom the universe was largely comprehensible, thoughts of a chaotic mind never disturbed her.

And certainly, her lexicon lacked an entry for "insane asylum."

The new clothes she'd bought had been taken from her. In exchange she had been given, more like forced into, a pair of grey sweatpants and a tshirt. It was her second day "inside" and all the patients had been ushered into a large, airy room for lunch. The architect had certainly read a lot of design theory. A tall, domed ceiling towered above the hunched shoulders. A multitude of small, high windows bathed the hall in natural light without permitting a glimpse of the outside world. The walls had been painted in colours carefully chosen for their emotional neutrality - with the result that they made a prolonged looker nauseated or despairing, or most often: both. Metal tables and chairs had been bolted to the floor, undoubtedly to prevent their use as convenient weapons. The distance between chair and table had been calculated to be the average space the typical person needed. Of course, the tests likely involved someone sitting down for two seconds, long enough to say "Yep, this feels right," before getting on with the more pressing concerns of being anywhere else. Not to mention the oversight involved in considering "average" and "typical"

suitable measures for the intended users.

Much theory had been poured into the hospital, but from a long way away, while sitting in a comfortable orthopedic chair, at a fine wooden desk with ample knee and foot space, and surrounded by eggshell walls accented by paintings of demure young women and sailing vessels, all lit by a sumptuous bay window.

Era had an instant dislike for whomever had sat at that desk.

Outside, the fighting continued. People fought and bled and died.

Somewhere up above, the Miranda fought too. Era's short tenure on board had been enough to teach her the Mir could never stay out of trouble long. It was like an overgrown kid drawn to a mud puddle.

Outside, the world moved.

Inside, time and change were relative concerns, probably because to most of the people within, they were irrelevant. What did it matter if the present world was breaking apart when in your mind you lived three centuries ago?

For Era, whose mind was quite solidly attached to the here and now, the chance to observe the strange creatures who populated the hospital's halls proved fascinating - providing she forgot she was trapped with them - and a ready-made distraction from the growing frustration she felt at being cut off from her ship in a time of war.

At lunch, Era had made what at first turned out to be a very good and productive trade: her dessert for another patient's UT. When the majority of your companions are muttering their own variety of gibberish - no matter how well-articulated in some cases - the device did little good, however. As for the nurses, they tried to have as few conversations with the patients as possible. On all three occasions Era had tried, she had been given, in order, a colouring book, wooden blocks, and a pair of dolls. When Era had attempted to ram a doll's head down an orderly's throat, she had been restrained and medicated.

Life on the inside was getting to her.

The drugs made her brain feel fuzzy, and each thought took an eon to arrive, as though a glacier had slid over her mind and now synapses were being terraformed back into shape. Yet the slowed cogitation put her in an excellent position to observe.

***

There is a woman over to my left. I have been watching her for...for...a while. There is no clock in this room. There is no sense of time, sense of.. of.. sense in this room. But where was I? The woman. She is very large. Fat. Obese. Like most everyone here, she is Romulan. Her head, her hair, has been shaved, but that's not why I watch her. She has rolled up her shirt, revealing everything. She wears no bra and her pendulous breasts... the aureoles are discoloured. They're the size of my fist. Her breasts sit on top of her enormous belly. The nipples are distended. They mark the separation between rolls of stomach and mammary glands. Her pudgy fingers are kneading the fat of her abdomen. She squishes it together from the side, creating an even larger bulge, then pushes down with her shoulders and, how does she do it? she pushes with her breasts.

Mine can't do that. Is that a Romulan trick? She does this several times, making "Ooh"ing noises, then stops and pulls back the waistband of her pants. She doesn't care if anyone is watching. I am watching.

I can't look away. One hand reaches in and she begins groping. The look of fevered expectation on her face dwindles to disappointment.

"It won't come out" I hear her say. Moan. Cry. I can't register volume. My ears don't work. But the UT does. It translates for me. It translates stupid things, but it won't tell me how to get out. The nurses don't mind her when she goes back to pounding her insides.

It is so hard not to stare, even if everyone stares in this place. A young man is standing in a corner, staring. Another man, his tongue gripped tightly between his teeth, spins him round. The first man continues to stare. I wonder if he blinks when his back is to me.

Nothing here makes sense.

My mouth tastes funny. Why does it taste funny? I don't remember eating. Food. There's something important about food. It's making my mouth water. I had dessert. That's one of those funny words. So close to "desert." Why make them the same? Who decided that? How do we make words? Words words words. I'm so sick of words... Wasn't that from a song? Hmm hmm hmmmm... I can't remember the...the.. thingie. Harmony?

Something like that. It has eighths in it.

My head hurts.

“Ungrounded”

Ensign Keldan, Operations Officer, USS Galaxy

Crew Quarters, Deck 14

Keldan stared at his reflection in the mirror. His hair and beard were frizzy and with the dark circles under his eyes, he looked like a Talarian *vjornas*. He'd have to make an appointment with the ship's barber to try to get his mane under control. It had taken five sonic showers and three aquatic ones, but at least he'd finally been able to get the smell of Romulan blood out of his hair.

There were, of course, more important things to be worrying about, like the fact that there was a good chance that the Galaxy would come out less than unscathed from the battle about to erupt between the Hydran and Federation fleets. But he rarely worried about such things, since the ‘big picture' was so often out of his hands. All he need do was focus on doing his own small part quickly, quietly, and efficiently. If everyone else did the same, then the Galaxy and all aboard her would survive the day.

He looked at the chronometer next to the wash basin. The order should come any minute now. He was going mad here, confined to his quarters, with nothing else to do but wait. The light exercise routine he had just completed left his muscles pliant and ready. The cold shower had left his mind equally alert.

When would the order would come? Not that he had any particular death wish; it simply was he couldn't stand being confined. ‘Restricted duty?'

Might as well have thrown him in the brig; he'd have gone equally stir crazy.

McDowell had not suffered the same fate, which was good. Of course, McDowell hadn't killed a Romulan in what at first glance appeared to be in cold blood. And of course, the engineering specialist had not insinuated that the lieutenant commander from Temporal Affairs who was debriefing them via subspace over the whole assassination incident was an idiot. But the man *was* an idiot. Even Keldan knew more about temporal mechanics than this fool who kept trying to needle them about information with which they might some how incriminate themselves in some way. Keldan wondered if everyone in the Temporal Affairs division of Starfleet was as equally high-brow and stiff-collared. Before the debriefing, the Talarian had assumed the man would be possessed of some scientific expertise and provide some explanations for everything that McDowell and he had experienced. As it turned out, the redshirt was no more than another tight-assed legal semantics whore.

Still, asking if personnel from temporal mechanics actually had any actual knowledge in the field had bordered on insubordination. Actually, it erased the border completely, but given the seriousness of the events that had led up to their interview, some leeway and flexibility could be expected. Keldan had skirted that border numerous times and he quietly wondered how many times his mouth had gotten in the way of a promotion.

He walked back and sat on the edge of his bed, his toes twitching. The rest of his duty uniform already in place, he pulled on his socks and boots, carefully and methodically tightening each lace. Finishing, he sat back and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath.

=/\= All hands to battle stations, all non-combatants to the battle shelters. I'ts time to take up the sword.” =/\-

Captain M'Kantu's voice came over the comm loud and clear and the red alert klaxon began to wail. Keldan stood, heading for the door. It was crazy, he knew, to be looking forward to a battle where the lives of millions hung in the balance. But he also knew from bitter experience that among the moments in life that you feel the most alive are the ones where you dangle precariously between life and death.

Keldan took one last deep breath, left his quarters and turned down the corridor, heading for Operations.

"Running away…" Part One

(Set directly after "The things that go unsaid between blood", half an hour before contact with the Hydran.)

Lieutenant Kimberly Burton, Chief Medical Officer

Lieutenant Dhanishta Eshe, Assistant Chief of Engineering

Sara-Jayne Agathon, Civilian

***Location: USS Galaxy, crew quarters***

"I never understood why you wear the skirt as part of the uniform anyway!" Sara queried, "I mean, almost no one else does!"

"Well I do!" Kimberly retorted, tossing clothes out of the closet onto the bed randomly, "It's not like I have to worry too much about hand to hand aboard ship, and it's my choice anyway." Cursing slightly she muttered dark thoughts until she spied what she was looking for at the back of the closet on the floor. Pulling the trousers out with a small exclamation of triumph she slipped them on as Sara stood in the doorway, a strange look on her face.

"What?" she asked as she got ready for the impending chaos.

"Are you scared?" Sara-Jayne asked, a trace of something in her voice.

"I'm always scared when a fight starts, its part of being human." Kimberly muttered as she sat down to pull on her boots.

"Is that why you don't fight then? You're scared?"

Pausing with her second boot only half on Kimberly looked up at the face of the teenager, there was no anger or reproach in her tone, only curiosity, "No, that's not why," she said calmly as she finished pulling her other boot on, "I choose not to fight because it's what I believe and because it's part of the oath I took as a physician."

"But, as an officer…" Sara started to object mildly, looking a little confused now.

"As an officer," Kimberly interrupted as she stood, "I have an obligation to obey the oaths I have sworn and chief amongst them is 'First do no harm!', you can't get much clearer that that," she said simply, "now you have to get to the shelter, there's trouble heading our way and I need to know you're safe. Clear."

Nodding Sara turned to go, picking up a small bag as she passed through the main room she paused and looked back to Kimberly with a worried look, "What if..?" She started only to be interrupted again.

"Then do as the shelter leader says, or hit your comm and beam to the KittyKat, don't worry about me," she instructed, knowing what was on the mind of the teenager, not wanting to worry her unduly, "but it won't come to that! Now scoot!" she ordered.

Watching the young girl leave she sighed and ran her hands through her hair, thinking for a moment she headed out and to the nearest turbolift, "Engineering," Kimberly called as she got on. Cocking her head she listened as the Captains voice came from the speakers on the lift. Listening to his words she found her mind fixing on one portion of his speech, 'In times of peace we are explorers, in times like this we are the sword and the shield, the defenders..' Letting the words float around her head she recalled an event not to distant in the past where even she had…

Shaking her head that the thought she felt her stomach heave a little at the memory, still fresh after this time, "Dren!" she muttered as the lift stopped, walking down to Engineering she entered and looked around amidst the scurrying engineers for Dhanishta.

****Deck 36, Main Engineering***

Her head rested in the crook of her elbow upon the desk. The fingers of her right hand continued to trace lines in the static on the screen. She had sat there listening to the sounds of Main Engineering beyond the door, tears silently rolling down her cheeks, for the last five minuets.

War was fast approaching. She knew it. For what else could it be? The Hydran had assaulted them before, and now they were coming for Romulus, and anything that stood in the way. And as usual the Federation had to be the big brother for the Quadrant standing up to the bully.

Though the question that played upon her mind was 'where were the Romulans during the beginning of the Dominion War'? Had they not sat back and waited until the Dominion had crossed them? All the while letting the Jem'Hadar through their space so that they could pound upon the citizens of the Federation?

And if it hadn't been for the simple fact that the Jem'Hadar had killed one of their senators, they would never have joined the war.

So why the hell were the Federation jumping into the fray so soon? Why were they putting themselves on the line, the lives of good people; people that only wanted to make a life for themselves, people that didn't deserve to die so soon, so young. Why were they the ones that had to put their families at risk, their home in the firing line - literally?

It wasn't fair. It wasn't right.

"Computer, save recording." Dhanishta mumbled into her sleeve, "File under 'letters home'. Instructions; to be opened upon the death of Dhanishta Eshe, by immediate family only. Please record the next of kin as one Tanson Eshe, Kerenza Eshe of unknown location and one Chandrakala Lakishmi Eshe serving on the Klingon Bird of Prey 'T'Kengra'."

Tugging the cuffs of her sleeve down she promptly wiped her eyes, although it seemed that her cuffs alone weren't going to hold up to that job. Pushing herself away from the desk she got up and entered the rest room. Sighing heavily with each step she took.

It was the waiting that killed you. That took everything you had, all the strength and patience, made it crumble away like dried mud on a hot day. Made you feel hollow and drained of energy.

There were things to do, last system checks, the tests on the new shield grid and the pulse cannon, but she knew that everyone was on top of it. There was nothing she could do out there now except fret and worry. And that was best done in here, away from them. They were all stressed out enough as it was, they didn't need her flapping as well.

She stared at herself in the mirror. Her blood shot eyes were a dead give away. ~wonder if the Doc has anything to clear that up~ Dhani mused to herself as she splashed cold water on to her reddening cheeks.

Nodding politely to a few passing engineers Kimberly stepped this way and that to avoid the scurrying techs, who all looked like a team of ants frantically performing the bidding of their Queen and mistress, ~I wonder if Dhani would appreciate that analogy? ~ she wondered as she stepped into the small office in engineering, "Dhani?" she called out softly, "you in here?"

Dhani jumped, she hadn't expected anyone to call for her, well not until after the klaxons started. "Yeah." she called out as she patted her face dry, "be out in a sec."

A frantic moment ensued as Dhani did her best to cover up the fact that she had been crying. Using the palms of her hands to smooth down her hair, wipe the bits off her uniform, tug it down into position, once more smooth her hair, and for a few seconds stare at herself in the mirror, checking from all angles that she looked presentable.

Shrugging at her image she turned from the mirror and stepped out of the rest room. "Hey," she smiled pleasantly, "what can I do for you?" she questioned as she returned to hover by the desk, torn between hugging Burton and hiding the fact that she was a wimp.

Perching on the desk near Dhani Kimberly looked out into engineering for a moment, "You all ready down here then?" she asked in a tone that managed to somehow convey disinterest and curiosity at the same time.

Dhani's gaze followed Burtons out into the hub of the Galaxy's core. She smiled slightly as she watched them, the heart of the ship. Those people out there made this thing work, kept her home afloat, patched her up when she needed and so on. Her stomach turned to think that not all of them would see tomorrow.

"We are as ready as we are ever going to be." she replied as positively as she could.

"Are you scared?" Kimberly asked, echoing Sara's earlier question.

"Slap Happy"

Ensign Faylin McAlister USS Galaxy-A Security/JAG

Pilot Paulo DiMillo, Vanguard Intelligence Liaison/AWACS Pilot, USS Galaxy-A ________________________________________________________________

Slowly waking, Faylin waved her hand back and forth. "Grim reaper and death...you have some bad morning breath. Um...where's your hand Paulo?"

Paulo yawned as he was broken out of his sleep. "My what?" He asked sleepily.

"Uh, your hand."

He squeezed it and felt a flesh substance. Felt nice, wasn't to firm, not to soft. He opened his eyes and looked where his hand was.

Planted and squeezing one of her breasts. "Oh Shit!" He said as he pulled his hand away. "Sorry about that."

Faylin arched a single eyebrow, rolling over and standing. Grabbing her rifle, McAlister tossed her tasseled hair back. The picture of a Marine pin up girl if ever there was one. Using the butt end of the rifle, she scratched her shoulder as she peeked out from behind the viney entrance. Eyes popping wide open, she turned. "We've got company....and Sohre's dead."

Paulo stood up in alarm and took a peak around and quickly pulled his head back. "Fuck," he said quietly. "You think they know we are here?"

"Uh. Yes?" Raising her rifle, she began to fire.

They were surrounded by Hydrans. Faylin, steadied her gaze as she dug into her pocked, extracting a small, yet sharp knife. Bringing her index finger up as she was backing up, she drew a thin line across the padd of her finger. No pain, just warm fluid dripped freely from the deep cut. Still backing up, she said nothing as she stole a glance at Paulo. Curiosity bit at her, why hadn't they killed them yet? There weapons were drawn, however, the Hydrans were acting strangely. Either way, she continued to back up until the back of her hand hit the wall corridor. Bringing her bleeding finger up, she wrote three small letters on the wall with her blood. It would give a hint to anyone that happened along the scene, what exactly had taken place. POW.

This wasn't good for them. The Hydrans never took POWs unless they wanted a guinnie pigs. He watched as Faylin wrote up POW on the wall though wondered if it was going to help them any, or just get them killed if the calvary tried to run in and save them. "This isn't like them, at least as far as I have seen."

'They want something from us.' Reaching into her pocket one more time, she dropped her id. Just something that would help identify who was here. It was something, Faylin thought. As she was ordered to turn around, some sort of binder was placed on her wrists. Moving just slightly, she winced as a small shock was felt shooting up both of her arms. Fear glossed over her features as Faylin took in the smells and autosphere around them. If someone came, would they be able to locate the hints that would lead them to where they were being taken? Glancing to the left, she located the black sear marks that were made by the phasers. Out side of the cave, a dead person lie, with Starfleet markings on his outfit, they were sure to know that he was supposed to be gaurding the people inside the cave.

Just inside, there would be their personal belongings that rested on the right side of the cave wall. The blanket, the backpack....hints thrown all over the place. Where she stood, the id rested, as well as the dripping POW letters on the wall. Glancing over to the side, she was forced forward by something being pointed at her back.

Paulo felt the restraints go on a weapon barrel in the lower part of his back. "Hey," Paulo yelled. "I don't do it that rough on the first date!"

Faylin quickly glanced back at the wall, then shot Paulo another look of disdain as she was poked from behind yet again.

They exited the cave and headed south or their current location.

Turning over slightly, Faylin stole the blanket yet again, causing her companion to groan.

"Paulo?"

He just groaned as he stayed mostly asleep.

"You would not believe the dream I just had......."

"What dream?" He asked groggily. "Nothing to worry about, go back to sleep."

"Get your hand off of my.........." The next noise was crisp, flesh on flesh as it echoed through the cavern. A smack for retribution for a male touching her without permission gave Faylin some sort of twisted satisfaction.

Now he woke up. "What!?" He yelled as he looked down where his hand was and removed it. "Sorry about that," he told her as he sat up a little. "What dream?"

"You need a girlfriend....badly." Faylin paused. "I had a dream we were captured by the Hydrans."

"I do... kinda," he said. "And share, its cold!"

"Your supposed to be a man, stop complaining about the blanket Paulo, and let's get out of here."

"Fine," he said getting up. "Lead on."

"En Garde"

Principal Characters

Captain Daren M'Kantu

Lt. Commander Tarin Iniara

Lt. Commander MacKenzie Todd

Lieutenant Michael Jameson

Lieutenant 8-Ball Hunter

Lieutenant Raven Darkstar

Lieutenant Ella Grey

Lieutenant Valieria zh'Thane, Communications

****

USS Galaxy

Deck 1

Bridge

The decision to fight his ship wasn't a difficult one for Daren - if his oath required him to be a warrior, then that's what he would be - but the decision of where he should fight his ship *from* had been difficult. There were clear advantages to fighting the battle from the Galaxy's Battle Bridge, he'd done it at the Battle of Havras for many of those reasons, but this time... this time it hadn't felt right, and he'd decided to listen to that feeling. This time, he would fight his ship from the Main Bridge.

Captains that never learned to listen to their inner voice weren't the ones that the history books wrote about, for good or ill. That didn't make them wrong in some way, but it was the inner voice, the ability to take a hunch or a gut feeling and follow it, even in the face of reason, that marked the line between the good captains and the great ones. Daren didn't think of himself as great, that was too much hubris for him to allow himself, but he believed in hunches - and this was where his hunch said that he had to be.

"Time to first engagement?" he asked Tactical without looking around.

"Approximately four minutes to firing range and counting sir,"

MacKenzie Todd said from the tactical station.

"Are they still ignoring us?"

"They're fully powered, and making a show of it," she said, "but it looks like their attention is focused on our Romulan companions. The Hydrans don't seem to be taking us too seriously."

"They do expect us to run, then," Daren nodded. "Or they're expecting their pet to screen us off. Keep your subspace scans running, Ms.

Hunter, I want as much warning as possible when they decide to call their little friend in."

8-Ball nodded in reply, and stared at her screen. What was she doing here again? It was just like Havras, where people were all talking about fighting and maybe dying in the grasp of a giant monster's freaking tentacles so calmly, like they were discussing having a drink after work - and not even a real drink followed by alcohol-induced flirting and a night full of steamy sex, but a quiet, sip-it-slowly drink followed by going home alone to do paperwork.

She wanted a drink, a real one, followed by sex so good it left her unable to walk the next day, not this calm conversation. They might die, she might die, and there were so many things she hadn't done, so many drinks to have, so many men - and the occasional woman - to make love to. A smile slipped onto her face then as she realized that she could still have those drinks, could still know all those men and women - all she had to do was make certain that the Hydrans and their monster died first. She wasn't sure about the whole 'right thing to do' speech, but for that, for wine, men, and sex. she could kill the Hydrans for that. "I'm on it, sir," she said crisply.

Daren was silent for a minute, studying the approaching fleet as the glimmerings of an idea danced in the back of his mind. "Mr. Darkstar, how is your manual piloting certification - up-to-date? Ms. Todd, what's your manual firing certification like?"

"Top notch and current, Captain," she said, "I wouldn't keep it any other way."

"I am ready," Darkstar said from the Navigation Dome in the Nav offices. He tightened the straps on his gyroscope like control chair and keyed in control of the ships helm to his control console.

Dobryin and Walker would be at their stations on both the main bridge and Battle Bridge in moments. Until then, the Indian preferred to guide the ship.

The room's holographic emitters projected the dizzying view of space around the ship. Off in the distance, he could see the Hydran armada closing in on their position.

"What're you thinking, Sir?"

"If I were the Hydrans," Daren explained, "I'd have put some effort into finding a way to knock out computer-assisted flight control and fire control systems. They're better than anything the Hydrans have - much better - and they know it after Havras. I'm thinking that they'll assume that's why they lost, and discount the individuals actually doing the flying and the shooting. Let's be ready for them if they have found that way, shall we?"

The Indian simply nodded and with a deft flick of his wrist, the Galaxy slowly changed her position.

A thousand cliches regarding her knack for being ready ran through MacKenzie's mind. "Two minutes, sir."

"Communications," Daren said leaning forward. "Give me a channel to Miranda as soon as Chris is through trying to talk the Hydrans out of this, and get me Lieutenant Grey in Engineering while we wait."

"Aye, Captain." the prim-looking Andorian woman - zhen, really - replied. She and two of her bondmates were in Starfleet. Her ch'te, Morva served in Security. Her sh'za, Duna, she served in the sciences.

Their th'za, Gallen, he had remained with the children on Deep Space Five. It was not an auspicious beginning to their new assignment, but posts for all three of them aboard a ship like Galaxy had been hard to come by. Hopefully they would all return home - she feared for Gallen if three-quarters of their bondgroup never returned to him.

"Grey here, Sir." The mechanical voice of the engineer came over the line.

"Lieutenant," Daren said, still trying to get all of the idea to fully form. "I expect that the Hydrans will try and knock out ship's systems

- particularly the computerized portions of Flight Control and Fire Control. Be on the lookout for some kind of electromagnetic or subspace interference attacks aimed at that."

"Yes, Captain."

Daren frowned, struck by the realization that he didn't know why his Chief Engineer chose to speak with a voice that was less human than the one the ship's computer used. "All right, Lieutenant. If you need the shield modulation changed to assist in defeating that, contact Commander Todd at Tactical."

"Understood. Grey out."

"Number One," Daren turned to his XO. "Would you take command of the Battle Bridge, please? I'll be fighting the Galaxy from here today."

"Sir?" Iniara turned, giving M'Kantu an inquisitive look. She was about to question his decision to command from the Main Bridge-there was a reason they called it the Battle Bridge, after all. But the look in his eyes, coupled with his surface thoughts, gave her all the answer she needed.

Daren M'Kantu had a plan.

Iniara set her jaw, inwardly reminding herself that Daren M'Kantu always had a plan. She only hoped that she would be able to follow along. "Shall I prepare for saucer separation?"

"We did that last time we fought the Hydrans, Number One," Daren smiled. "I expect that they'll be looking for it this time, probably planning to try and isolate the Saucer section and destroy it since it will carry lighter shields and less firepower than the Secondary Hull does. so let's surprise them and not do it unless there's a real reason to."

He looked at the oncoming fleet for a moment, and then continued.

"This is going to be a knife fight, Number One. I know that you and Mr. Darkstar know what that means, but for the e benefit of the rest of you it means that we're going to go in close to the Hydran fleet - very close. So close that when they bring their little friend out of subspace to play with us, they'll be hampered by the fact that it won't be able to tell us apart. Getting in that close means, like a knife fight, that we're going to get cut - it's a forgone conclusion, one that you have to accept walking into a fight like that."

"The trick here, is that once we get in that close, even if they don't have a gimmick to interfere with our flight control and fire control systems, there's going to be too much going on for one person to keep track of, even with computer assist; we'll be in danger of getting overwhelmed and stabbed in the back." He turned and looked at Iniara.

"But if, say, we had a second pair of hands wielding a second knife and watching our back. then that wouldn't happen, now would it?"

"No sir, it wouldn't. But that would mean we'd both be..." She trailed off, visualizing the setup.

"That's right, Number One: we're *both* going to fight the ship. I'll take the forward 180 degree arc, and you'll take the aft 180 degree arc, splitting the zone amidships. If there's a question of whose arc an opponent is in, then we both take it, just to be safe. And if fire control goes down, then we'll already be set up to handle that." He nodded towards the Hydrans on the screen. "They don't think like that, you know, not based on what we know of them. They're all about centralized command and control, top-down leadership, and the like. A parallel command track, two minds fighting them simultaneously instead of one? It's the last thing they'll be looking for - so that's what we're going to give them."

"And give it to them we shall," Iniara replied, a slight grin passing over her features. Oh, to hear the Hydrans' thoughts when they figured out what was going on...

"Monitoring a communication from the Miranda to the Hydran flagship, Captain. They've answered Miranda's hail, and ignored the Romulans'"

zh'Thane reported. "The Hydrans have declined to retreat."

"What did they say, exactly?"

"They said "no."" the Andorian replied.

"Looks like Captain Summers didn't take that too well." someone on the bridge observed as the view screen shifted, showing the Miranda's phaser cannon lancing out at a Hydran carrier, and launching the first salvo of the Battle of Romulus.

"Get a move on, Commander."

"Yes sir." Iniara gave the Captain a respectful nod before heading for the emergency turbolift that would take her directly to the Battle Bridge. She was quickly making a mental list of officers she felt would operate best in this situation. By the time the turbolift doors closed she was already making calls, issuing orders.

"Delusional"

Lieutenant Erastus Ampete

Assistant Chief of Science - USS Miranda

=====================================

A mental hospital, somewhere outside Ra'tleihfi, Romulus

=====================================

"No, no, no!" a rather aggravated, exhausted, and honestly terrified orderly shouted at Bas'an. He was obviously scared of him, and crying over the abuse that was heading his way. The orderly had hit him, not just dusting like one might scorn a child, but the same kind of punching and kicking one would expect to find at a bar brawl. Bas'an was on the ground, practically pleading as the boot struck him once more in the stomach.

Era had been rather listlessly using finger paints. Normally, she enjoyed painting, and happened to think herself to be rather good at it. But she always preferred the paint to be on the end of a brush, not her hands. When the yelling began, it didn't take much to pull her away from her "me-time activity." It took her less than a second to locate the source of the trouble. What kind of hospital was this that helped by hurting?

On her feet, Era hurdled over the tables and patients that separated her from the orderly. "Stop it!" she ordered firmly.

Bas'an lay on the floor rather badly injured, the orderly on the other hand, rather than getting ahold of himself, attacked Era next, taking a swing at her face.

Era ducked easily, bringing her fist solidly into his gut. "Fucking Rommie, I said stop!"

The commotion stirred Tir'len once more... he was never going to get sleep at this rate. Forcing himself onto his unsteady legs, the doctor walked down the corridor, to find Era standing over an orderly and a patient.

"I need help!" He called out towards the other employees, before pulling over a med cart and looking for a hypo.

Era dropped to a knee. That knee landed on the orderly's shoulder. One hand balled into a fist, she gripped his collar with the other, hauling him up to look at her even as she pinned him. "What the 'hell'

were you doing?"

The orderly cursed, obviously in pain, shouting back to the doctor, "She's attacking!"

Tir'len could see that, and had jumped to that conclusion himself.

God damnit, he just wanted to sleep, now because they were out of even the most basic freakin' medications it seemed he was going to have to get involved in a fight? He was hating this job at the moment. "Let him go!"

"Not until he answers me," Era snarled. Years of cultural understanding disappeared in that minute. It was her against the world

- and that world was full of Romulans. Her fist tightened.

Tir'len went to grab her, trying at the same time not to hurt her, but to handle her with enough force to pry her away. "This 'isn't' the way to settle arguments, let him go!"

Era ignored him, lowering her face to right in front of the orderly's.

"Why'd you kick him?" She didn't really know Bas'an, but he was her roommate after a fashion and they'd made a fair trade the other day.

It was strange how bonds could form over the smallest things.

Wait, that didn't make any sense. Tir'len pulled back, finally getting her off of him, the pair falling back against the ground, though the Romulan buffeted the Kaelian's impact. "Stop it, please!"

"You're crazy!" The orderly accused, getting up.

Era struggled. "Lemme go. I swear I'll impale you all on Gal Gath'thong's spires!"

"Calm yourself!" Tir'len squeezed harder, there wasn't anything like a sense of self-preservation to make one hold on for dear life. "What is going on here?!"

"She attacked this patient, and then me when I intervened!"

Bas'an was still crying, unable really to reply coherently.

"Liar!" Era snarled, thrashing out with a foot in an attempt to kick the bastard. Her roving, maddened eyes fell on the nurses who were helping the orderly to his feet. "Why don't you assholes help the damn patient? What kind of doctors are you?"

Tir'len was still holding on, pretty sure she'd kill someone if he let go.

One of the nurses went to Bas'an's side. "Doctor, we have to get him to the medical bay, he has a cracked rib."

"I have my hands full, would you handle it, 'please'?" There was no mistaking the question for an order.

Era had stopped her struggling to watch as they lifted Bas'an onto an antigrav stretcher. She seemed to deflate once she saw that he was being treated with care and consideration.

Tir'len let her go... in stages really. He didn't know what happened, but she 'had' an aggressive past. "There, it's over now. Let's get you back to your room."

"What about him?" she nodded to the orderly, who'd wisely edged out of her swing radius.

"What about him?" Tir'len repeated the question, getting to his feet before offering her a hand. "You can't blame your actions on others if you're going to make any progress."

"They weren't my actions," she answered, slapping his hand away, the anger rising again. She'd never thought of herself as having a short fuse, but apparently it had been clipped upon walking through the hospital's doors. "I stopped him from kicking that patient."

"She's obviously delusional." The orderly, who had access to Tir'len's own reports, tried reinforcing the Romulan's own pre-conceived notions.

It worked apparently. Tir'len helped Era to her feet. "Come on."

"Pointy eared bastard, why don't you listen for once?" she resisted every step of the way.

Now it was time for Tir'len to snap. "Why?! You really want to 'know' why?! You've proven time and time again that you 'can't' be listened to! You're delusional! A Starfleet officer without a uniform or insignia, constantly making wild gestures, your botched escape attempt through 'creative' means, your assault on the orderly, not to mention how many times you've gone after me! Exactly 'why'

should I listen to you, eh?!"

"Because I'm telling the truth!"

"Everyone says they're telling the truth! Where's the evidence? If you really 'were' from a ship, why didn't they pull you out before the war started, eh? Now are you going back to your room, or do I have to have you drugged?" He didn't have the drugs to pull it off, but hopefully she didn't know.

Era glared at him, but she knew any threat she made would only be proven empty. "I'll go." She tried to ignore the nagging concerns his astute questions raised.

"The ChuWaWa's Play On"

Vaebn (NPC)

RNI Operative

****

Ra'tleihfi

ch'Rihan

****

Pausing to let his azure eyes adapt to the lack of any decent amount of light, he withdrew the disruptor and scanned his immediate perimeter. He stood in a small antechamber, a set of winding stairs on the right lead down into the establishment, while a small viewing platform overlooked the main dance floor. Walking over there, he took a look and balked. There were more bodies, all looking like they had been killed the same way, scattered on the dance floor. The corpse of a barmaid lay over the lip of the bar, her long dark locks mostly blowing in the gentle breeze afforded by an open fridge as a small section of hair lay spattered against the bar, covered in what looked, from a distance, to be her own blood.. It was surreal, to say the least.

Taking the steps slowly, Vaebn descended into the chaos that was the bar he had often frequented in the past. The smell inside wasn't as bad as outside, though Vaebn attributed that to the heat of the sun baking the two bouncers' corpses. Walking over to the bar, he looked over it, attempting to see if anyone had been hiding behind the large wooden benchtop. Broken bottles and a dead barman could be seen. He turned to the macabre scene of dead Rihanna patrons, and the occasional off-worlder that lay scattered on the dance floor, their blood having mixed into a cacophony of purple hued colors, as he tried to locate his friend, the owner.

Nothing.

His eyes turned next to the band, the ChuWaWa's. A tear formed at the corner of his left eye, which he promptly wiped off, as he remembered that he had been to see these guys in concert not six months before, when they had last been here visiting. And now they were dead. His eyes fell on the large Klingon that lay at the front, the obviously fatal damage to his chest visible. His voice had been an amazing thing to experience, with such a range and the skills of a pro vocalist, and Vaebn had to pause to reflect on the amazing voice he had had.

The two Andorians, one, the Bass Guitarist, a thaan and the drummer, a zhen, were the most skilled musicians that Vaebn had ever heard. He had had every album they had ever released at one point at home, but that had all been lost in the fire that had taken his family. The last member was the lead guitarist, a Klingon named K'regic who dazzled audiences with his solo performances at every chance he got. They were all there, the five of them, all dead. Vaebn shook his head. There had never been five members of the band. Only ever four. Looking over at the other guitarist, Vaebn shook his head at the Rihanna that lay, blue blood covering his chest, guitar in hand. For such a smart business man, his friend was pretty stupid.

"You do realize that you're covered in *blue* blood, Branak?" He called out to his old mate.

"Old friend," He called back as he got up from next to the body of K'regic. "I heard someone coming and did what I had to." Wiping as much of the blood off as he could, which just smeared his shirt even more, he took a few steps over to Vaebn. "It's been too long, Vaebn. How are you?"

"As well as can be expected, given the circumstances." Vaebn replied, not wanting to give away too much of what he'd been doing for the past couple of months. "Was this the Hydrans? What happened here?" he waved his hand around, indicating the dead Rihanna.

Branak nodded. "Sadly yes. And it's a long story."

"Healing Hand"

Lieutenant Kimberly Burton

Chief Medical Officer,

USS Galaxy

Second Lieutenant Steven Jonas

CO - Second Platoon,

Furies 188th Detachment, USS Galaxy

(Occurs just prior to the Hydran attack)

****

Main Sickbay

USS Galaxy

****

Steven entered the sickbay with a steadfast determination. The Hydrans were less than an hour away and this was his last chance to get down to the planet. He hoped, seeing him in full armor might prove to them that he was ready for action and grant him leave to head down. It was going to be a long shot. Looking around, he spotted Kimberly chatting to one of her nurses, so he made his way over to her.

He saw the nurse give the slightest of nods in his direction, no doubt notifying Dr Burton to his presence. "Hi." Steven said as she turned in his direction.

Turning to face the Lieutenant, Kimberly smiled, "Lieutenant, what can we do for you?" she asked, her mind on a dozen things at once.

"I wanted to let you know that I'm ready for duty. See!" He held his arms up, showing that he was fine. He felt anything but fine, but that wasn't the point.

"Mind if I be the judge of that?" she asked with a smile, "job security and all that," she quipped as she indicated a nearby biobed, "hop up and take off your shell if you would."

"I don't see why I need to do this." Steven said as he took off the armor as she had directed. He jumped up onto the biobed, careful not to show the sudden sharp pain he experienced when he did so.

"Because how would it look if I let you go out half healed, I'd get accused of sloppy work," offering the small joke with a smile she raised a tricorder and scanned his torso with a few quick passes of the scanner. Frowning she ran the scanner over him again, "Raise your arms if you would please?" she asked politely, watching his face and the tricorder as best she could to gauge the reaction on both.

Steven clenched his teeth together as he raised his arms, hoping to get through the feeling of pain he knew he'd get when he raised his arms above his chest.

"Any discomfort? Pain?" she asked, not entirely accepting his stoicism.

"Not at all. I feel fine." He replied, a forced smile appearing on his face.

"Really?" she asked, gently pressing a part of his back and watching him jump slightly with a small measure of triumph, "and that is?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Okay, okay. I admit it. It does hurt a little. But I can handle it. I've had worse before. I just really want to go down to ch'Rihan." He said, admitting defeat.

Checking her tricorder Kimberly shook her head, "Lieutenant, in your condition I shouldn't be letting you on 'duty', let alone down into a combat zone," she admitted softly.

"There are people down there that need me. I can't, I will not, let them down. I owe them that." Perhaps appealing to her compassionate side might get him a pass. Though somehow, Steven doubted that it would happen.

"I have no doubt that they need you, however, in your condition will you be helping them? Or adding to their burdens as a someone they'll have to keep an eye on because he can't keep up?" she offered bluntly, "No Lieutenant, here you stay this time I'm afraid."

His shoulders slumped at the news, as he felt his heart skip a beat. "There's no way to change your mind?"

Shaking her head she slipped her tricorder into a pocket and contemplated the Lieutenant before her, "I am sorry," she offered, "but I can't recommend you go planet side, your spine is still healing from the damage you took a little while back, any undue stress could cause permanent impairment either now or later in life. Might I suggest you log in with the duty security officer, see if perhaps you can assist with ship board operations since you're going to be aboard? Something not physically taxing," she suggested.

Steven nodded. "I guess I can do that. Got anything for the pain?"

Nodding she tapped the bed controls, "I can give you a very mild pain killer, something to take the edge of the pain but i don't want to take the pain entirely. You need to know right now when you are over taxing yourself, plus, a strong pain killer will dull your reflexes slightly, something I'm sure you don't want," picking a phial from the small transporter dispenser by the bed she offered it to him, "This'll fit in the medkit in your shell," indicating the armor by the bed, "but try to use it sparingly okay, there's only a couple of doses in here."

Steven nodded. "Thanks."

"When this is all done, make an appointment to see me, we'll run you through some regen therapy and try and get you back on duty as quickly as we can," she offered.

"Sounds like fun." Steven replied, half smiling. He wasn't sure if Kimberly knew of his dislike of sickbays, but either way, the thought of spending more time in one just didn't appeal to Steven.

"Oh, and when you talk to the duty security officer," she asked as she watched him dress, "ask him to send the guards I asked for, I've heard Hydrans like to be different, so I'd rather not share the ward with any rampaging Hydrans if I can help it."

"I can do that. Though I don't know if they have anyone to spare. Some were sent down to the planet to assist the Marines and Hazard teams."

"I know," ~ Goddess protect them! ~ she thought to herself, "let's just hope we don't need anyone here."

"When this is all over, we should get another poker night going. I need to win back all those chips you took from me last time." He grinned.

"That sounds like a plan," she agreed with a small grin, "once things get settled you're more than welcome to try, you'd better get down to security, things'll be starting soon I imagine."

"I would prefer to be able to head down, but thanks for this." He tapped his hand over where the medkit was resting in his armor.

"Just be careful, no heavy lifting if you can so use an antigrav" she cautioned him sternly, "and if you have to go running around, something I have to admit is possible just watch yourself, if your back aches too much think about what you're doing. Okay."

"Thanks." He smiled, and jumped off the biobed and headed for the door. "Take care." He called out as he turned back to Dr. Burton. They were all going to need some luck to stay alive with what it seemed was about to occur.

"Stretching"

Lieutenant Savant, USS Galaxy Fleet Logistics Officer

Klaxons wailed and lights dimmed as the red alert was sounded, and the Captain's tone came across the intercom system. Savant smiled lightly to herself in her office as the cool blue was dominated by red. It had been awhile since she'd been in such a situation, and for some reason she always enjoyed it. She took after the beliefs of several warrior cultures - the moment before death was always the brightest. Skirting the line that demarcated eternity always woke up something within her.

Nothing primal - Savant had no primal instinct to speak of. It was something else, something deeply philosophical and transcendent.

She sat back in the chair and let the logistics work around her fall aside - no need to concern herself with the movement of cargo when the fleet itself was in jeopardy. She herself was perfectly safe - the majority of her processes were running on Deep Space Five. It freed her to embrace the danger and the death fully. She hoped that if death did come, she'd have time to send off one last burst to the Station, so that she could perhaps skirt a little bit closer to knowing what lay within the last moments of life.

Logistics ground to a halt as her crew made their way to emergency shelters. Her office wasn't one, but she didn't need an emergency shelter - she was immune to the hazards of vacuum and temperature. This only made her smile more. She would be able to stretch a little, reach out. It was difficult being stuck in this office as she was; Savant was more used to being within a command and control centre, at the hub of the situation where her network could be put to best use. She was a master of co-ordination and, at least with Coronado, Savant had always been an invaluable tool in ensuring that fleet engagements went off without a problem. Here that ability was brushed aside.

That didn't absolve her of her duties, however. Savant felt bound to aide the Federation, and by extension this Fleet and the ships of which it was composed. There were things she could do. After all, she processed upon the rumbling sheathed core of the Galaxy's computer system, along with dozens of other subprocessing stations. It wasn't much of a stretch to reach a little further.

Savant sat up straight and removed her double-breasted uniform jacket in a calm, formalized manner as she thought. The slow and machinelike motions were less from any amount of care as they were from absent-mindedness. She gave the android a few commands and set her mind to other things while it did its work. It was an important task, for beneath the uniform was no regulation tunic. It had an appropriate collar and was made of the proper material, but was entirely backless - she hadn't gotten any trouble for the lack of protocol, and she hoped that no one would notice.

A back upon her tunic would get in the way, you see. With a silent urging, the androids' back split open upon hidden seams, revealing gleaming antennae and porcelain-white receivers. The splay of flesh tone that made up the slivers of her back formed a pinwheel behind her while the spars stretched upwards, their tips beginning to glow a subtle blue.

Savant sat back in her chair again, the smile still on her face. It was nice to stretch a little bit and use something closer to her full abilities. She had a surprising amount of processing power at her disposal, and it would be nice to use some of it.

It didn't take much effort to stretch into Galaxy's sensor arrays - Savant wanted to see outside. She was a passive observer, watching the battle unfold from an abstracted position. On the other ships that she operated upon, the same happened - changing a few threads was all it took, something trivial for a lifeform which lived and breathed them.

That would allow her to watch and maybe push the battle this way or that in what direction she thought best. Biont reaction time often left much to be desired. If something needed a quicker reaction, she would be ready to pick up the slack. Until then, she settled in place and contented herself to watch the fleet do its brutal work.

"Common Ground"

ooc: follows immediately upon "Delusional"

Lieutenant Erastus Ampete

Assistant Chief of Science - USS Miranda

=====================================

A mental hospital, somewhere outside Ra'tleihfi, Romulus

=====================================

"Everyone says they're telling the truth! Where's the evidence? If you really 'were' from a ship, why didn't they pull you out before the war started, eh? Now are you going back to your room, or do I have to have you drugged?" He didn't have the drugs to pull it off, but hopefully she didn't know.

Era glared at him, but she knew any threat she made would only be proven empty. "I'll go." She tried to ignore the nagging concerns his astute questions raised.

It was enough to get him to calm down. "Thank you. I'll walk with you." He turned back to the orderly. "Go to the medical bay. The doctor there will see to you." Without paying him a second regard he began escorting the strange woman who seemed to jump from passive to aggressive at the drop of a hat. "Are you injured in any way?"

"No." Era ran a hand through her hair, trying to regain some composure. She was more than a little surprised at herself and how erratic her behaviour had become under the conditions. "Are you?"

He almost stopped in his tracks... patients didn't typically ask that kind of question. When one had the kind of mental deficiencies they were here to treat, the perspective of the patient was simply how things influenced them, their world shrunk to a 'me' mentality...

me-ntality if you would. "No, no I'm fine. Do you know... I mean do you recall, what it was you were diagnosed with?"

"I haven't been diagnosed with anything. Nothing's wrong with me."

They'd arrived at Era's cell and she stepped inside, sitting heavily on her bed. She was glad to see the nurses hadn't simply dumped Bas'an back on his bunk - his side of the room was still empty.

Tir'len stepped inside, taking a seat on the chair. Something was bothering him. "How can that 'be'?" For a moment, he allowed himself to believe she was logical, normal. "Where is the evidence of everything you say?"

Era stretched out full-length on the bed. Her feet stuck out over the edge. "I told you. I left my bag in the cemetery. It has my comm badge. If you'd just gone out to look, you would have found it."

And there she went with the crazy talk again. "Who the hell hangs out in a cemetery?! And how do you expect me to go out there with a war raging? You think if I asked nicely the phaser beams would ignore me?"

Era decided it wasn't in her best interests to say she was particularly curious about death in different cultures. "Look, I was never admitted to this hospital. I just walked in the front door, with a wounded boy."

Tir'len bit his lip... that was at least something which they should be able to verify with the medical ward. "What was the boy's name?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know." He sighed, rubbing his face in frustrated exhaustion. "Okay, what 'day' did you come in with him?"

Era shut her eyes, her lips moving silently as she counted backward.

Time worked funnily inside these walls. "Three days ago? Four? It was when the fighting started. The night I met you was the same one I brought him in. I think." How long had she slept, after all?

"Crap... what day was that." She was obviously not the only one having difficulty recalling things. "What did he look like? Do you remember that?"

"He was heavy. Maybe nine or ten years old." Era opened her eyes, rolling over on her side to look at him. It was occurring to her that he wasn't dismissing what she was saying. She had to struggle to reign in the excitement in her voice. "He'd been beaten really badly."

"Okay." It was a very rough description at best, but one that he could at least check up on... if he was so moved to. God damnit, he was so tired, and so damned, well, there wasn't a word to explain it really, that he didn't want to chase ghosts.

"When was the last time you got some sleep?"

"It's been a while." Why was she caring? "Before the fight broke out I'd just knocked off. It's kind of difficult to sleep with shots ringing out everywhere and people demanding help... and with the computer and automated systems still off line it's just that much worse." He'd said enough, and offered a polite smile. "Are you on any distinguishing medication?"

"You'd have fewer people in need of help if your nurses didn't beat them."

"The man was an orderly." Tir'len shied away, for the first time having to consider one of his staff as suspect for maltreatment. It wasn't anything he'd handled before.

"He was in a position of power and he abused it. How is that supposed to help people? You tell me that they are still of worth - well I ask you," she swung her legs over the side of the bed and sat up, "where's 'your' evidence?"

"'If' your allegations are true, and I'm not saying they are, what he did certainly isn't allowed, and he'll be dealt with for it."

Stifling a yawn, he folded his hands together in his lap. "You were the one, if your story is true, that saved that patient's life. If he weren't worth it, why did you?"

Era opened her mouth, then shut it again. She didn't have an answer to that question. A look of intense confusion settled over her features.

"What is it?"

"I.. He was hurting him."

"He was hurting him... one person, hurting another. Now, if you consider him a person, and you consider killing people wrong, then how could you in good conscience propose killing people off simply because they have different needs than yours?"

Era shook her head, slowly. "No, it's not about needs of the individual. It's what they contribute to society." There was doubt in her voice, as though she were reciting by rote.

"All these people here are someone's brother or sister, or loved one in some capacity. Here, they typically find security and comfort in the knowledge that their loved ones will be cared for as well as possible. Don't you think that increases their ability to contribute to society, not having to worry about the fate of their family?"

Tir'len's eyes were growing heavier, he probably shouldn't be sitting.

Era, lost in her own thoughts, missed the signs of exhaustion on his face. "But wouldn't they -" She shook her head once, emphatically.

"No. I left that." Her hands gripped her temples as she tried to make sense of a universe that had just become a lot more complicated.

It didn't take a doctor to see she was troubled by something. "Why don't I let you get some rest. We'll talk more tomorrow."

Era nodded. "All right. Get some rest yourself."

He laughed. "Sure, I'll try. Sleep well." He forced himself up and closed the door behind him. There were a couple of things he wanted to check before trying to get another nap.

“Blackhawk Down!”

With Ensign Soval, Interrogations Specialist USS MIRANDA and “Captain” Leo Streely, USS GALAXY.

Location: The Miranda shuttle BLACKHAWK

****************************************************************

Previously: Shortly after the Star Fleet battle group rendezvoused with the USS GALAXY, currently orbiting Romulus, Leo Streely sent word to the MIRANDA that he wanted to come aboard and settle an old score with a competitor, Lt. Janos Kett. Captain Summers ordered Ensign Soval to escort the little man over in the runabout BLACKHAWK. The runabout suffered mechanical failures and crashed on the surface of Romulus.

******************************************************************

“I haven't had…my world rocked like that…. since that four hundred pound …Bolian woman Price introduced me to at his…. welcome home party.” Leo said, spitting blood.

He had bitten the side of his tongue when the runabout - BLACKHAWK - lost power and spun wildly out of control, smashing through buildings and living quarters in the rural area of C'chon, one of the principal cities on Romulus, before finally coming to rest on it's side in the middle of town square.

“That was…. THE last time…I did him a favor, I tell you that.”

Leo inhaled and thick, acrid smoke filled his lungs. He coughed and glanced around the shuttle and screamed like a schoolgirl when he saw flames leaping from one of the consoles to his left, catching a fiery foothold on his pant leg.

“HHHEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLPPPPPPPPP!!!” he cried out, flapping his arms like a newborn bird trying to take flight for the first time.

Suddenly giant white foam covered his legs. Leaning against a bulkhead, Soval dropped the now lifeless fire extinguisher to the floor. He could feel bruising and what could possibly be a cracked rib or two from the seat belt constricting as the shuttle crashed, but for the most part, the Vulcan Security officer was functional.

“MY BOYS!!! MY BOYS!!! CHECK AND SEE IF THEY ARE ALL RIGHT!!!” Streely bellowed in a clear panic.

Soval however was the picture of disinterested tranquility.

“I have no way of knowing if your offspring are safe at this point in time. Assuming they are not stowed away in this ship's glove compartment, I am inclined to believe they are in no immediate danger.”

“IM TALKING ABOUT MY NUTS!!! CHECK MY NUTS!!!”

“I do not have access to your refrigeration unit to see if you have nuts. Replicators would be able to assist you should you need a snack, although this is a very illogical time to be contemplating snacking notions.”

Leo shook his head in frustration, tears beginning to well up in his eyes. “MY BALLS!!!! CHECK MY BALLS!!!”

“Very well. In which compartment do you have your gym equipment?” Soval asked.

“YOU DUMB ASSED, GREEN BLOODED, LOGIC HOUND!!!! I AM ORDERING YOU TO CHECK MY TESTICALS!!!!”

The Vulcan looked around and removed a scalpel from the first aid kit.

He moved towards Streely whose eyes were now round with terror and with a quick flip of the wrist, he expertly sliced open the crotch of Leo's trousers. Using the tip of the instrument, he pulled aside the fabric and looked inside.

“Your testicals appear to be unmolested.”

“YOU ALMOST CUT MY COIN PURSE CLEAN OFF!!!!?”

“I missed your scrotum by at least 3/8ths of an inch. Assuming your wallet was in your back pocket, I missed your back pocket by 9 inches. Your panic is illogical. Right now you have more pressing issues to worry about.”

“YOU TRY TO MAKE ANY CREEPY MOVES ON ME AND MY PAL RAVEN WILL TURN YOU INSIDE OUT!!!” Leo said cupping his nether region.

“I assure you there is a zero percent chance that I will press unwanted sexual advances upon you. Or wanted sexual advances for that matter.” the Vulcan said. “When I say that you have more pressing issues to worry about, I am referring to that.”

He pointed out of the windshield where Romulan rioters could be seen advancing on the shuttle. They were screaming in their native tongue. Some were waving homemade weapons while others brandished phasers.

“Look, I know that you have this age old feud between you Vulcans and the Romulans, but can you at least try not to think with your underdeveloped, prejudiced addled frontal lobe? God, your narrow mind limits your sex life, pal. Some of the best ass I ever had wasn't even human. Now did it ever occur to you that maybe they are here to help us?”

“The probabilities of that are .5645965.” Soval calculated.

At that point the Romulans began to pelt the shuttle with rocks and debris.

“I revise my projection to 0.00” the Vulcan said matter of factly.

“NOW WHAT DO WE DO?!?! WAIT!!! WHERE ARE YOU GOING?!?!?”

“What you don't do is panic.” Soval said, prying open one of the runabout's side storage panels.

“I don't panic?!?! Don't you mean we don't panic?!” Leo asked.

“I am incapable of panic. I am Romulan. Do you know how to use this adequately?” he asked, tossing a phaser rifle in the little man's lap.

“WHAT YOU THING WE ARE GOING TO HAVE TO SHOOT OUR WAY OUT?!?!” Leo asked, looking at the weapon in his lap.

Then Romulan phaser fire assaulted the runabout.

"Signed in the Book of Life"

Lieutenant Saul Bental

Chief of Intelligence, USS Galaxy

"That's right, Number One: we're *both* going to fight the ship. I'll take the forward 180 degree arc, and you'll take the aft 180 degree arc, splitting the zone amidships.", said Captain M'Kantu.

On the sidelines of the Galaxy's bridge, the man occupying the often vacant intelligence post smiled solemnly to himself. Two years ago, at Havras, Commander Henderson made the same request from a newcomer called Saul Bental.

Saul was quite startled to be given such a responsibility, especially since he wasn't a Tactical Officer. Henderson must've thought that the Dutchman had a knack for phasers, since a year and so later he handed him the Chief Tactical Officer position.

Normally someone who preferred to take his fate in his own hands, Saul was relived that he wasn't asked to man the weapons for this battle. He was a man who was aware of his strengths and weaknesses, and after his term in Tactical he could say for sure that there were at least a dozen officers on board more skilled to do the job than him.

Instead, he sat at the intelligence post.

The main role of the intelligence officer during battle was this: Staying out of the way.

The exact job description was to coordinate intelligence coming from the fleet and the Galaxy's own CIC, and relaying it to relevant officers on the bridge without delay. Short circuits, in the professional jargon. However, since the said officers were busy fighting for their lives – and Saul's – he knew that he should disturb them only if it was absolutely necessary.

Saul winced slightly as the Captain's words about knife brawls rang in his ears.

Did the Captain ever actually SEE a knife fight? Ever got involved in one?

Saul could answer both questions for himself. The answers were:

A – Plenty of times.

B – Zero.

Saul thought knife fights were a foolish ordeal. Even those who were talented with a knife could make the wrong move, and find a blade buried in their lung or kidney. On Utrecht III, medical help wasn't available like it probably was on the core worlds. There were no emergency beam-ups to nice sterile infirmaries, and the local police force would arrive only after you bled to death, if they would arrive at all.

Chava, that slender fiend, didn't share his opinion. Oh well. The girl was playing with fire, and she was very close to burning on Vaden. If Saul had any hopes that she would take the reasonable route, they vanished after Cheron.

However, Saul did think that given the Starbeast, the Captain's tactic was probably the second best course.

The best course of action was, much like in a knife brawl, not being there in the first place.

Despite the Captain's speech, Saul maintained his opinion. The fleet was placed on the altar of righteousness for nothing. The battle WILL be lost, if to judge from what is known of the various Galaes' defeats. The question as far as Saul was concerned was whether Starfleet will still have over a dozen of its foremost starships to use another day or not.

Saul doubted that.

And since he didn't consider himself expandable, his survivor instinct kicked in. The same instinct that drew him all those years ago to leave Utrecht III, the same instinct that saved him and risked that final mission on the Special Observations program.

As Victor Krieghoff would probably put it, Saul was a sheep he didn't go with the herd.

So what he did after leaving Veronica Nila's quarters the other day, was to plan an escape route.

He calculated the fastest way from the bridge to the shuttle bay, where an unused shuttle pod was marked 'for intelligence usage' for the duration of the week. He considered several scenarios and alternative based on possible damage to the turbolift system, the shuttle bay, or the various sections he had to go through during his escape.

He also determined what kind of damage level would be bad enough for him to bail, but still left him enough time to flee. A small rectangle on the top-left corner of his display currently showed the damage levels as seen on the Operations panel across the bridge. At the moment it was all green, but Saul already knew at which level he was going to fake an injury and get himself off the bridge and to his escape route.

Saul Bental was committed to his ship, as much as he was committed to anything. But if the Galaxy went down, he did not intend to die like poor Audris Schneider. His life, his survival, was still his top priority.

'What a messed up Rosh Hashana'. He thought.

Grand space battles always happened to take place near Jewish holidays, it seemed. The battle of Havras for example took place slightly before or after Yom Kippur. The ten days between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur were the days

According to the Jewish tradition, during those ten days god calculated the good and bad deeds of each person, ultimately determining whether that person's name will be written in the book of life, and will see the next year through.

Saul, being an atheist, was always amused by the downgrading of the all mighty to a simple accountant. As the battle of ch'Rihan was about to commence, however, Saul sure hoped that if indeed god existed, he didn't forget to write the name 'Saul Bental' on the right book.

"Home Movies"

Aerv Laehval tr'Ahalaen

Rihannsu Ambassador

= dohhae Ahalaen =

= Romulus =

"You are, without question, the most arrogant and incorrigible idiot on the planet."

There were only a handful of individuals in the universe who had the license to speak to tr'Ahalaen in that manner in his own home.

khre'Arrain Mnheia t'Aieme of the Tal Shiar was one of them. It was not her position that earned her Aerv's indulgence and affection though

- it was her blood.

"Only the planet? Really, cousin, the fact that you underestimate me so cuts me to the quick."

t'Aieme sighed dramatically but walked up to embrace him...then stopped, realizing that he was covered in blood, still fresh from the battle outside the gates. Instead, she simply nodded and said, "Jolan Tru, Aerv."

"Jolan Tru," the Ambassador replied with a wearly smile.

"You look horrid."

Aerv gave Mnheia - one of the few childhood friends he was allowed to have - a sly glance. His obsession with appearances had always irritated t'Aieme to no end, probably because she was rather plain at best. "Enjoy it while you can, khre'Arrain. It may never happen again."

"Are you hurt?"

"Not badly," tr'Ahalaen answered, "Though perhaps with a little help from the Tal Shiar, I might not have been hurt at all."

"Against those odds...that was an incredibly stupid fight."

"So you were there."

"The Tal Shiar is always there."

Aerv shook his head as a servant walked up to him with a drink. "That much I have never had reason to doubt."

There was an uncomfortable silence. Neither cousin was willing to broach that topic again. As much as t'Aieme believed in, indeed worshipped the Tal Shiar, the agency had tr'Ahalaen's contempt. That had been a bone of contention between them for many years. In fact, Aerv had rather disappointed his cousin when he had decided to go first to the Galae, and then into diplomacy, when the Tal Shiar was an option. She considered it a waste, and Aerv only pointed out that it was, at the very least, a beautiful waste.

Mnheia disapproved of Aerv almost entirely - his habits, his tastes, his beliefs...and despite all that, she managed to love him. As is always the case with unconditional love though, it was best not to think about it too much. The mind always asked for reasons that the heart was unable to give....

"You could have died."

Aerv shrugged, "Of course. And you could have fought."

"That would have served no purpose."

"Is that so?"

Mnheia sighed, "I have no time for this...I am here as an agent of the Tal Shiar."

"Even so, you are welcome. Tell me what I can do for you?"

"Come with me."

tr'Ahalaen raised an eyebrow in a classically Vulcan gesture that always irritated Mnheia to no end. She, unlike him, had never quite gotten used to stigma of the subdued foreheads of their family, or the taunts of having weaker or hybrid blood. Then again, in her line of work, such accusations could be particularly dangerous. "Where?"

"We recorded this battle."

"The Tal Shiar lets you spend your time making home movies?"

t'Aieme ignored the comment. "It is broadcasting on all channels - on every network that is still working. Things are going badly, Aerv...especially in the capital. What you and your farmers did out there - that was huge. The Rihannsu need to know that victories such as those are possible, that we are still a chosen people...that there is hope."

"I thought you said it was a stupid fight."

"It may have been a stupid fight...but it was a glorious victory. Come with me to the capital. Do what you do best, Aerv - be a symbol. And join the battle...be a warrior again."

"And who will stand here, khre'Arrain, outside the walls of my home?"

"The Tal Shiar."

"Is that supposed to inspire confidence?"

"Careful, damn you. Men have died for saying less, Aerv."

"You know as well as I do, my dear, that I will not abandon my belief in my own immortality until after I am presented with hard evidence to the contrary." He paused, "Very well...I will leave my home, but only upon your word that it will be protected."

t'Aieme nodded. "I will die, tr'Ahalaen, if these walls should fall."

"Yes," Aerv agreed softly, his voice weary and sad, "You will."

= End Log =

"Appearances"

Aerv Laehval tr'Ahalaen
Rihannsu Ambassador

Ensign Faylin McAlister
Security Galaxy

= Romulus =

The road less traveled. Actually, it was more like a small path through a dense forest that coincided with the city that she was attempting to locate. Faylin's attempt at arriving at some sort of civilized place on this planet of turmoil was not occurring. It was causing much frustration within her. This whole situation was so, unbecoming of one side of McAlister. She longed for a warm bath, opera streaming through her quarters, a glass of chilled wine, and a willing, yet experienced lover. Looking over at her right, she thought she saw something moving. Curiosity urged her to raise her weapon as she focused with a hawk like intensity. Squinting her eyes, attempting to sharpen her vision, it was only then that a familiar form made himself known to her.

"Ensign McAlister," Aerv tr'Ahalaen declared, probably for the benefit of the three Tal Shiar agents accompanying him, who had their weapons trained on her, "It is good to see you. You look...adequate." Somehow he appeared to have survived the war unscathed, looking weary but still quite stylish. He had obviously arrived in the capital recently.

Without waiting for a response from her, he turned to his companions, "You may lower your weapons. She is harmless - well, more or less.

Actually, she's an attorney from the USS Galaxy."

One of the women with tr'Ahalaen stepped forward and eyed McAlister with distrust. "They're going to try to bore the Hydrans off the planet?"

"Ensign," Aerv said with a small smile, "May I introduce khre'Arrain Mnheia t'Aieme, Tal Shiar."

Faylin lowered her weapon, eyeing the woman suspiciously. She sequestered her comments for the time being as she turned her gaze to Aerv for a quick moment. Turning back to the woman, she nodded.

"Pleased to make your acquaintance." That was it, that was all she said. No curt or rude comments, no threatening with her rifle, nothing. She felt somewhat bothered by the fact that Aerv, for the most part, looked more than adequate. They were fighting a damn war, for his home planet none the less, and he just looked like he stepped out of a hot shower. "Aerv, I am elated to find you well." Somewhere, from deep inside, Faylin found her manners. For what reason, she did not know. However, viewing Aerv for the first time since her world went into a tail spin, gave her some comfort.

tr'Ahalaen nodded slightly, "Yes...well, I was never in any danger, being immortal and all," he paused long enough to let Mnheia roll her eyes, "It is good to see that you are in one piece as well. Are you with a landing party?"

"Thank you. I am alone. Fortune has not smiled upon me recently.

However, I will not bore you with the details until a later time. May I ask, where are you and your 'party' headed?" Bringing her hand up, she attempted to wipe away some of the dirt that had found a home on her forehead. She, looked like the epitome of the war she was a part of. An outsider, Faylin felt like it, and looked like it among the lavishly dressed others. What were they going to fight the war with, their statements of fashion? Knitting her eyebrows, she was not sure of what to say. 'Hey....I'll accompany you? But, beware, with my luck you'll be dead by sunset.' Uh, no.

khre'Arrain t'Aieme stepped forward and scowled, obviously indicating that she believed that this was her party, not tr'Ahalaen's. "Out latest intelligence indicates that the situation in the capital is grim. We are escorting the Ambassador to join the main force."

"You should join us, Ensign," tr'Ahalaen offered, "It will be safer than traveling alone."

t'Aieme gave the Ambassador a withering stare, but nodded at Faylin.

"You may join us...if you wish."

McAlister leaned back a tad, swallowing yet another comment that would have sent the woman to her knees. Knowing full well that Aerv could see right through her flakiness, Faylin nodded. "Thank you." She watched as the others went ahead, leaving her and Aerv to follow them.

Arrogant woman! Faylin thought. It took all she had not to introduce the end of her phaser rifle to the woman's forehead. Yet, that would not be exhibiting the mannerisms that a proper lady would execute. Her eyes followed the hemline of Aerv's clothing, finally settling on the side of his face. "Are you okay? Really?"

tr'Ahalaen looked at her for a long moment and then nodded, giving her a small smile. Despite his own personal ego, he was very much Rihannsu, very much a part of this world. "Yes...and even if I were not, what does it matter now?"

Those eyes got her every time. Their intensity, the loyalty that was captured in the dark color drew her in against her will. Remembering how she looked, she recoiled somewhat. He likely found her rather repulsive at this meeting. Scratches, bruises, and lacerations littered her face and arms, making her feel vastly in superior to her female counterparts.

"At least you are well - there is some solace in that."

Her eyes misted slightly as the pain of the question went barreling through her with the strength of a photon torpedo. Closing her eyes for a second, she opened them to reveal to Aerv just a hint of the turmoil she was facing. "Your attempt at protecting me did not work, as much as it was welcomed. My judgment was clouded at the time Aerv.

It was shrouded with anger and frustration, and I owe you an apology for that. I am sorry."

"That was an unfortuante business all around," tr'Ahalaen replied carefully, raising an eyebrow at her formality but too absorbed in the turmoil of his own world, and the exhaustion from his last battle, to explore her reaction further. "Many of the mistakes were mine."

"May I suggest, *Ambassador*," t'Aieme interrupted, "That we concentrate on battling the invasion of our world."

"Of course, Mnheia," Aerv responded mildly, apparently quite bemused.

Snap, that did it. All form of manners flew out the window as Faylin sharply turned to the 'snot' of a woman. "Yes, let's concentrate on battling the invasion of your world for a moment. What in the hell do you think I've been doing on this god forsaken planet? Polishing my toe nails? While you were finishing that nasty excuse for a hair style, I was phasering two Hydrans. While you were putting on your lipstick, I was pulling a phaser rifle from the cold, dead hands of my commrade who was fighting for your people. As you were drinking wine, I was crawling out from underneath a heap of rubble from a building that was bombed by your opposition. As you were walking along, contemplating the meaning of life, I was getting plastered with weapons fire, stuck in a god damn cave protecting a pilot that had his shuttle blown up by, yet again, your enemy. I have had a mild concussion, a compound fracture of my arm, a broken rib, a bruised rib, and a torn ligament in my neck. So, back off bitch! If I want to talk to the 'ambassador', I will do it!"

Mnheia ignored Faylin completely and turned instead to tr'Ahalaen.

"Are all humans this explosive and wilfull, cousin?"

"Some are better than others," Aerv deadpanned.

"Well then it is no wonder you like them," the Tal Shiar agent said as she began to walk away, "I'll let you speak with this...female further.... Let me know when you are ready to resume the war."

"As you wish," tr'Ahalaen replied with a straight-face, before turning to Faylin, "You will have to forgive Mnheia. She rather disapproves of me."

"I see." She turned to look at him yet again. Faylin sighed, wanting to up date him on her situation that was back on the Galaxy. With all this death and destruction, what's one more death? "Olivia's dead Aerv. She was poisoned."

"I'm so sorry, Faylin," Aerv whispered, the rare break in his proper speech conveying his shock. For a man obsessed with forms, the simple use of a contraction spoke volumes. He touched her arm lightly, "I grieve with thee."

"It's as if a part of me was ripped out. So, again I apology for my brashness. It's how I deal with the pain of the situation."

"Please think nothing of it - I imagine Mnheia is quite used to it....

But what are you doing here? You should really be aboard the Galaxy."

"I switched departments to help out with the war." Her eyes searched his for some sort of recognition. "It's been like putting a bull in a china shop I'm afraid. I long for the protection and comfort of home.

If this was Earth, and I was experiencing my home being torn apart, I would be beside myself. Your resolve and calmness says quite a lot about you Aerv. It is to be commended."

tr'Ahalaen laughed softly, "I have built my life around appearances. I am fortunate that they have not deserted me...and yet never before have I been aware that things are not always what they seem."

"Well, when all this is over, would you like to get together for a glass of Hauterive Dufouleur?" She whispered, knowing that the 'cousin' would be listening in. Yes, she knew that it was not the most appropriate time to ask Aerv for some time, but, maybe it would give her something to focus on other than Hydrans for a second.

Aerv smiled at the optimism inherent in the question. It assumed that this conflict would end favorably for them. "It would be my pleasure, I am sure."

"Good." A light smile crossed her mouth. "Anything that pleasures you, pleasures me as well." Her eyes grew wide as she silently chastized herself. Flirting with him, again. Shaking her head, she bit her inner lip from chuckling at herself.

It appeared that that particular line had pushed t'Aieme's patience too far. "tr'Ahalaen?"

Aerv turned from Faylin and regarded the younger woman fondly, "Yes, khre'Arrain?"

"If you are done with your conversation, may we continue with this war?"

tr'Ahalaen smiled and nodded towards Faylin, "At your leisure, Ensign."

"Thank you Ambassador." Raising her head slightly, she caught his gaze, winking before she focused on the task now at hand.

= End Log =

"Full Court Press"

Captain Christopher Summers

Cmdr. Jaal Jaxom

Lt. Colonel Alex McKeon

Lt. Colonel Rae Weber

Lt. Commander Erigone Aello

Lt. Commander Cernu K'rn

Lieutenant John Ramirez

Lieutenant Shiarrael t'Khnialmnae

-----------------------------

Bridge, Deck One,

USS Miranda

-----------------------------

"Do not go gentle into that good night, rage, rage, rage against the dying of the light." Christopher Summers whispered quietly as the ship shook from the latest blast of a patented Hydran Hellbore cannon.

"Murdock, with a motto like that, I'm damn glad you built this ship to take a hit."

"Those things do pack a punch, don't they?" Alex McKeon replied from the Strategic Ops station, where he was assisting with Fleet Coordination while Rae managed the Intelligence station.

"Yes they do, Mr. McKeon." The Captain replied. "Mr. K'rn, any sign of that Starbeast on scanners anywhere?" he asked, addressing the alien at the sciences station.

~Negative~ Cernu's telepathic voice murmured ~Interestingly, something that large…~

"Is it cloaked?" The Captain asked again, gripping the sides of his seat as the ship was fired upon, and Lieutenant t'Khianalmae returned fire from behind him.

~It seems likely~ Cernu replied, scrutinizing the sensor readings as the pure math scrolled past. It had discovered in the two years since it had served on a Starfleet vessel, that converting the readouts to mathematical data-strings, it could interpret them easier. It also changed the contact labels to Q'lrn hieroglyphs and viola, as humans said, it works.

"Well, keep at it. We're doing this damned suicidal offense to save ourselves from that Star Beast of theirs. It's pretty stupid if the things not going to show," he ordered and returned view to his Tactical plot.

~I believe you will not be disappointed sir~ he advised and after a brief pause added ~I have added Vr'lu's sensor net as well. Since it is based on organic principles and is designed to detect cloaked bodies, we may have a slight edge~

"Guns," he said, using the old off-hand slang term for a Tac officer.

"Keep targeting the carriers. We take out their fighter support and that'll give our flyboys a big advantage." The ship rocked again, and Chris had to repeat his order to make sure it was heard. Shia acknowledged and he addressed the Helm even as he turned towards Jaxom. "Ramirez. Bring us in a tight loop over that lead carrier and take us around to their backside. Signal the D'Decius and the D'rexia to assist," he ordered, naming the two closest warbirds.

"Tight loop, Aye" Ramirez replied, repeating the Captains order. Johns hands seemingly danced over the console, as he carried out his orders, the engines powering the Massive Starship forward. Dipping the Miranda, before bringing her up, above and over the Carrier in question. At the apex of the loop, John brought the Pathfinder Class starship back through, putting them exactly where Miranda should be.

"Galaxy's matching maneuver's as well." Aello reported.

That would put the Miranda in position to open fire on three different carriers. And with Galaxy and the two warbirds, they could catch them in a crossfire. The ship rattled from fire again, and a crewman back at the Engineering station was knocked down by an exploding terminal.

"And get a medic up here!" he ordered someone. "Mr. Jaxom."

"Captain?" replied while still keeping a close eye on his own display and the ship's progress as the battle raged on.

"Get on the horn with CIC. I need real-time analysis and projection of how this battle's going. Let's try to know if we're doing something stupid before we do it."

"Aye sir." Jaal keyed the ship's intercom so everyone on the bridge could hear. "Mister K'aa, Captain Summers wants a real-time analysis and projection of how things are going."

Admittedly, Jaal wanted to see it also. Things seemed to be going almost too easy at this point and the Trill was highly suspicious that something was being missed somewhere. It made his stomach twist.

[K'aa here Commander], a basso voice crackled over the intercom. [The information is being routed to your workstation now on three displaysss - the firssst the hilighting capital ship activity, the sssecond all fighter and sssmall-craft activity, the third a register of tac ssscanner readingsss for organic matierial in the sssystem; ssso far, the only biolgical readingsss are coming from the biosssphere of ch'Rihan. We're alssso monitoring the major troop activity on the planet for when you and the Captain have more time to persssue it.]

"Excellent work. Thank you." Jaal replied as he and Captain Summers started reviewing the information.

"Good work, Lieutenant." Summers replied almost absently as his attention was diverted to the new material. He shunted aside the fighter data - he couldn't possibly hope to manage the battle on that scale, and CIC would be handling the grunt work for that anyway. It was a combination fighter control and tactical analysis center, after all.

[We'll do our bessst], the reptile hissed. [K'aa out.]

"This is going almost too easy," Jaal mentioned out loud to Chris.

Three Hellbore blasts - and a couple of those gattling phasers, too, it felt like - rocked the Miranda then. Chris noted Aello giving Jaxom one hell of a dirty look just as lights began to flicker and panels exploded as the ship shook rather violently. Chris narrowly avoided being tossed to the deck, though several of the crew weren't so lucky.

"Aello, damage report." Summers called out, coughing through the smoke. The bridge's fire-suppression system seemed to be offline. "And someone put out that fire!"

Jaal grabbed a fire extinguisher and put out the small blaze efficiently. The whole time he was thinking, 'Me and my big mouth.

That should teach me.' Once the fire was out he double checked the automated fire suppression control on the bridge. The display showed it was operating normally even though it hadn't. Then the diagnostic showed short in the system. He bent over and popped open an access panel in an attempt to fix the small problem. "I got it Captain," the Trill called.

"Remember that Festival of Lights?" Aello's hands smacked across the board. "It's smoking now. I'm reporting widespread power outages across the ship. Fires reported in the engineering levels and throughout decks seven through nineteen. Damage control teams are reporting success fighting the fires they can get to, but they can't be everywhere. Dispatching. . ."

She jumped back from her board as electricity arced away from the panel.

"And my board just blew," she added with no little irony. "Switching to library station," she stated calmly as she smoothly switched chairs. "Dispatching secondary teams now, Captain."

"Great." the Captain replied, muttering a curse. "Lieutenant t'Khianalmae, let's let the bastards who just hit us know exactly what we think of that, shall we?"

"With pleasure," Shiarrael replied, picking herself up from the deck.

Thankfully she'd be suffering from little more than a few bruises. So far. "All weapons free?"

"All weapons free." The Captain confirmed. "Quantum torpedoes, full spread. Use the pulse phasers, too. Full court press." Summers said, starting to slip into his sports analogies - a habit he'd thought he'd broken thirty years ago.

"Aye Boss: Alpha Strike." It took an agonizing few seconds for everything to sync up and come to full loads, during which yet another helbore blasted into their shields. Thus far Summers had declined to order the Ablaitive Armor Matrix engaged. When her consol indicated that all was ready, Shiarrael initiated the salvo. "Weapons away."

Five quantum torpedoes shot out in rapid succession from the turret slung underneath the Miranda's saucer, speeding towards the object of her crew's wrath. Successive bursts from the pulse phasers led the way for them, traveling at a faster speed. To many individuals, the scant seconds of flight appeared obscured, such a paltry offering considering what had been handed out. Shiarrael had precision in mind when she had set up this firing order: As soon as the launcher indicated it had recycled and carried another full load, they blasted out again, and at approximately the same time, a number of other events occurred, in approximately the following sequence.

The first two torpedoes of the initial quantum salvo impacted.

The type XX phaser cannon fired, striking at the same point and time as the third quantum torpedo.

The dorsal and ventral phaser arrays fired, impacting with the fourth and fifth quantum torpedoes, respectively.

Seconds later, the second volley of quantum torpedoes slammed home into the unshielded hull of the Hydran vessel, punching deep bleeding scars into the hull. Miranda's phaser cannon fired once again, and the enemy's fate was sealed.

Retaliation from the Hydrans wasn't far in coming.

"War is Hell"

Second Lieutenant Steven Jonas

CO - Second Platoon,

Furies 188th Detachment, USS Galaxy

****

Hallway

Deck 11

USS Galaxy

****

The ship shook violently as another blast hit it. The third blast in as many minutes. Steven picked himself off the floor, having just been knocked down by the concussion blast of the nearby hit. He wondered just how many shots like that the ship could take before it keeled over. He hoped that the number was fairly large, but wasn't going to hedge any bets on that.

Steven could feel the engines strain at the extra workload they were being placed under as the ship ducked and weaved, as best a huge Galaxy class ship could, trying to avoid the enemy fire. Already in the short time since the space battle had been joined, he had seen several Engineers running past his patrolling feet, bound for some unknown objective to repair something.

That had been a few minutes ago and Steven had seen hide nor hair of them since. Not that he was worried. There were a great number of places on the deck he was currently on where they could be working. Still, he was going to keep his ears pricked for any sign of them. They might need help, though Steven couldn't fathom what he could do to help.

He was outside Science Lab Seven, - at least he assumed that it was based on the designation on the door - when he heard a noise coming from within.

With his rifle at the ready, he approached the door, letting it slide open before him as he reached it's sensor proximity. Having been in only one Science Lab, and briefly at that, since joining the crew of the Galaxy, Steven didn't know what to expect. So it was quite a surprise when the door opened to reveal a scene very similar to the Science paper he had taken as an optional during is Marine Academy days.

Benches, and pieces of equipment, flasks of strange liquids, and all sorts of fascinating, at least to Science geeks anyway, bits and pieces lay scattered throughout the room. And over in one corner, a Vulcan male stood peering into a microscope or some such device that Steven didn't know.

"Excuse me." Steven called out to gain the Vulcan's attention.

The Vulcan turned, and Steven could swear that the Vulcan's face held some anger towards the interruption, though it was gone so fast that he couldn't be sure.

"Can I help you... Lieutenant?" He asked with a voice that was the epitome of calmness that his species was known for.

"Who are you and what do you think you are doing here?" Steven asked, noting that his rank was that of an Ensign.

"I am Ensign Strom and what I am doing does not concern you."

Typical Vulcan... Thinking he was better than everyone else. "Excuse me? You do realize that we are in the middle of a battle with a large Hydran fleet?"

"I am well aware of that, soldier," he replied, noticing the uniform Steven was wearing, "But I am in the middle of an important experiment and can not be disturbed."

Steven shook his head in frustration. "Does Lieutenant Hunter know you are here, now, working on this project of yours?"

"Lieutenant Hunter assigned this project to me."

"Yes, I realize that, but you didn't answer my question. Does Lieutenant Hunter know that you are working on this project right now, even as we are fighting for our lives?"

He nodded, but remained stoic. "No, she does not. However, once I started the experiment, I can not abandon it for anything. It is a time critical experiment to determine the correlation between the use of Phosphorus Nitrate and Heavy Water with regards to the Rigellian Dung Beetle. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have work to do!" His voice raised slightly but hardly enough for Steven to notice.

Steven nodded. "I should report this to Lieutenant Hunter, but she is likely on the bridge and disturbing her isn't something I want to do right now. I do have one question for you though."

"Oh... And what, pray tell, is that?" He replied, raising an eyebrow?

Steven rubbed the back of his neck. "The Hydrans are a Methane breathing species right?"

"That is affirmative." He replied.

"Is there anything that we could, say, beam over to their ship, that might neutralize the Methane or turn it into something else, like Oxygen?"

The Vulcan scratched at his chin for a moment, deep in thought. "There is one possible option, but it depends on whether they have a different form of Methane that is common on Terra. If we..."

At that point the ship shook again and an almighty explosion hit the hull right next to the Science Lab, sending debris flying. Pieces of the hull ripped off and floated away as the oxygen in the room was sucked out into space, along with anything not screwed down. And that included the Vulcan and Steven.

Holding on for dear life to the edge of a work bench, for what seem like ages, but was infact a fraction of a second, his fingers slowly loosened their grip, despite his determination to hold on and he tumbled towards the vast vacuum of space outside.

"Oaths"

Elaithin Jii
K. Jordan Elaithin
Kerec
The unconscious body of Johnathan Keller

------------------

Unidentified Safehouse

Ki Baratan, Romulus

-----------------------

"Shit." Elaithin Jii muttered under his breath, looking out the fourth-floor window. In the dawn's early light, Romulus was falling.

As far as he could see across Ki Baratan - Captiol of ch'Rihan, Jewel of the Empire - fires burned and energy weapons flashed. He saw distinct tones of red, green, and purple in the weaponry, identifying Starfleet, Romulan, and Hydran forces.

There was a lot more purple than anything else.

He laid a comforting hand on Kerec's tense shoulders, who silently brushed it off. The Romulan man was quiet - stoic. Jii didn't know that there was any other way the man could handle what he was seeing.

"There's nothing we can do," Jordan's soft voice said from the place in the corner of the room, where she'd been sitting for the past forty five minutes or so, more or less unmoving. Johnathan Keller's interrogation had not gone well thus far. He'd gotten violent.

Jordan had gotten angry and a little more... violent than Jii had ever seen her. Keller had been out for almost an hour. "Nothing we're meant to."

"Don't have much choice, if we want to get off this planet and do anything about the information we got from Keller." Jii said darkly.

Damon would have already bugged out - Jii had explicitly (and

repeatedly) told him to get the hell out of dodge if things got too hairy.

And this.. well, this was the very definition of hairy.

Still, Keller's information.. the idea that there was another player on the field, with everything else that was going on..

Well, frankly, it wasn't surprising. This was Romulus, after all.

Wheels within wheels.

A part of Jii, in the back of his mind, knew he should have a problem with the way they'd extracted the information from Keller, in this apartment "safehouse" (Like anywhere on this planet was safe?). But then, a much larger part remembered that the death and destruction going on outside could be laid squarely at the feet of the traitor and his masters - those men and women who'd wanted a short, victorious war.

Fools, all of them.

As he stared out at the carnage, Elaithin Jii made a decision. Jordan could see it in the way his body language changed, in the look he gave her before turning to Kerec. The spy was gone. The soldier - the Captain - had returned. "Kerec. I need you to put me in touch with the resistance."

"There is no resistance!" Kerec exploded. "My world is falling, Bajoran, for the first time in it's history!"

"Yes," Jii said quietly. "There is. The Unificationists. They're already set up in the right structure. Now we just need to expand on it. And if there's not a resistance yet, then by the Prophets, there will be one soon."

"Jii," Jordan said, shaking her head softly, resting her elbow on her knee, her fingers scratched through her hair as it fell over her shoulders. She looked tired, pale. "We should stay out of it, as it is. This is not our place."

"Our place is where we make it." he replied quietly, meeting her eyes.

"And I'm not standing by while these people die. I won't do it. I can't. These people have no idea how to fight a resistance. They're already conquered - whether they know it or not. You can help me, Jordan, or don't. But I'm doing this."

"I know," she whispered, glancing at the traitor laying on the floor against the wall. "Kerec. Do what you want with him." She pushed herself up and moved toward the door. "We're not getting anything else. I don't care." The door opened and she slipped out into the hall, the door closing behind her. She closed her eyes a moment and listened to the noise outside.

Kerec faced the unconscious Keller. It was tempting.. so very tempting.. to avenge his people on the man. But he'd heard what the traitor had said, as well. They needed him alive, if his masters were to pay for what they'd done.

Then there was the Bajoran's request - demand, really. And so he came to a decision, as well. If these people were going to fight to free his home, how could he not? "Gather him." he finally replied, and Jii lifted the smaller human over his shoulder. It'd be slow going, carrying him, but it'd have to be that way. "And I will help."

"All right then." Jii said firmly, his mind already turning to the best ways to organize this. Seeing Jordan standing outside the room, Jii laid Keller back down, and motioned to Kerec to go on ahead, in order to give him a moment with his wife. Then he patiently put an arm around her, and spoke quietly. "You all right?"

She looked at him. "No," she stated flatly.

"We don't help them, Jordan, we don't get off this planet, either." he reminded her. "And you heard Keller. We have to find those men, and they're here. You know the stakes."

"I know," she whispered, her eyes tilting up to look at him, exhausted and knowing. "There are many other people participating. What can we do that the millions of others who are fighting this can't?"

He shrugged. "Maybe nothing. Maybe everything."

"Jii..." she said. "You need to listen to me. We don't know the consequences."

"Then that makes us just like everyone else, doesn't it?" he asked. "I know one thing. We don't help, and we will both regret it the rest of our lives. I know you're not ready for this kind of thing, Jordan. And I wish to the Prophets that we could have stayed on Bajor and worked through everything. But we can't. "

"And I can't walk away. I did that, once, when you died. I don't like the person I became, then. My crew's up there fighting this thing. I don't know how many are down here. Even if I could turn my back on the Romulans, I can't turn my back on them. Not again."

A tear dropped down her cheek. "It... it isn't like everyone else.

You... you know... you have to know." She looked down, her forehead resting against his chest. "Jii... they don't know you're down here.

We're...