Tyler wondered if this was what it was like to ride the subways of old back on Earth. Like she imagined her ancestors may have, knowing that her Mother’s family had hailed from New York. She was dressed in civilian clothes and set out to really explore what it would be like to live on Starbase 86 assigned there as a pilot. Though she was primarily a fighter pilot she was told her unit, in particular, was also called upon to pilot other craft for more sensitive missions, and to be honest while she found flying shuttles and runabouts a lot less fun the purpose could definitely change that.

She had only been aboard the station for a little less than forty-eight hours now arriving at an odd hour that had caused issues in gaining her quarters and getting settled. It led to a lack of sleep but luckily she’d been given some time to recover from that and explore before officially beginning her duties here on the base and in the space around it.

Tyler had never served on such a large base before that had required something like a tram to transport you around and frankly she thought it was cool. Her previous flight assignment had been training, planetary based, or ship-based. She essentially figured that her duties would be much the same as they’d been when she’d been assigned to a planetary base but with the flair of sort of feeling like she was aboard a ship as well.

So far she had decided that it had not felt anything like a ship, it was too large to feel that way, instead, it felt like a small city. Perhaps a city that was on a planet not meant to hold life, a planet that required a dome, as if maybe terraforming was taking place just outside… her imagination was starting to get the best of her as she realized that she had not gotten off at her stop and the tram was now moving forward again. She sighed… once more around, she figured.

When she finally made it around in the circuit to the stop she had intended on getting off on she was sure to quickly disembark standing at the door waiting. Afraid that somehow the doors would close on her before she could get off and require yet another ride around the facility. To be honest, if that were the case she would have likely just returned to where she had started and called it a boring night. She got a few strange looks from others who saw her hasty escape from the tram. She smiled at them and then looked at some signage before selecting a direction and heading that way.

When she finally made it to one of the major promenade areas full of civilians, businesses, and few uniforms she took a breath. It was just like the air anywhere else on the station but somehow it seemed more satisfying… this would certainly be more fun than being on a ship for this reason. She liked the missions of shipboard fighter units but there was just so much you could do outside of a holodeck. Here the possibilities were much greater and she appreciated that.

Back when she was in Flight School her classmates when talking about assignments they were looking for dreamed of being on a ship with a large group. Some thought Tyler was odd that she hadn’t found that appealing but quite frankly she liked space she liked having options. She didn’t mind being on a ship but she preferred being in control. She didn’t want want to be on a bridge being told which way to turn, pushing buttons because she was ordered to, she wanted to be in control of her own craft and make her own judgment calls. She knew that eventually in her career she would be ready to move into starship operations but in a manner that would allow her to prepare for command and make those choices for an entire ship and for many people, not just her.

Seeing a business she was somewhat interested in she came to a stop to browse through the window, an item in it catching her eye, she was about to turn to walk toward it when the person walking behind her collided with her. She turned and smiled at the annoyed-looking woman who was about her height and size.

“Sorry about that,” she said, with a grin. “Newbie…”

“Well we move to the side before we just stop walking in the middle of a passageway here, got it?” she said, boldly confident.

“You bet,” Tyler said, motioning the grumpy woman past her. “After you…” Tyler followed behind her as the woman continued on to wherever her destination was. “What’s the best place around here to hang out and meet some new people?”

“Do you not know? Are you new too? Or do you not like friends?” Tyler continued on.

The woman came to a stop to turn and give Tyler the evil eye but Tyler ran straight into the back of her as she had been glancing through yet another set of windows as they walked.  She grunted when she collided with the woman and then it was her time to scowl.

“You know you should really not stop short like that, people will walk into you,” Tyler said. She watched the woman’s expression changed trying to decide if she was about to get hit, yelled at, but then she smirked as the woman shook her head and a smile appeared.

“Five doors down on the left,” the woman said, before reversing her course and going in the opposite direction of Tyler. Clearly, she wasn’t taking any chances about running into her again. Or dealing with her questions or at times overbearing personality.

Tyler watched her walk off wondering what she did on the station, would she collide with her again, and then turned to begin walking again almost colliding with someone coming out of the business. “Excuse me,” she said, blushing and she started off going to the fifth business on the left… wondering what she’d find there… and hoping to find some company.

“Ten minutes out,” Tyler’s Weapons Systems Officer announced.

“Copy,” she said, checking the screen with the position of the target.  She watched as herself, her wingman, and the other two fighters from her wing converged on the target. It was all math with speed alone they should not be able to make this match put with angles and the dimensions of space travel they would be able to make it.

“Still can’t identify what that is beyond a civilian transponder signal,” the WSO said.

“No visible contact,” Tyler added, needlessly. She felt weird maintaining silence between her and her backseat though. “The other two are even further out they won’t join us for a good fifteen minutes once we make contact.”

“The rest of the wing is heading this way also, and there are no other larger ships in the area that can divert back to us. I’ve also notified the outpost,” the WSO added.

“Good, thanks,” Tyler said. She liked her backseat he didn’t need to be told everything, he took initiative, and quite frankly he was very good at his job. She was glad that they had been paired up. “I don’t think that anyone else is going to make it in time to be helpful unless we get this vessel to stop.”

“If they stop we probably won’t need backup,” the WSO mused.

“Fair point,” Tyler said. “But better keep them coming our way anyway…”

“I’m really not counting on this being a civilian vessel, ma’am,” he added.

“Why not?” Tyler asked.

“What are the odds?” he chuckled, and shrugged his shoulders not that his boss could see him.

“Fair point again, Cabbage,” Tyler responded. “Say, how did you get that callsign anyway?”

“Top secret ma’am,” he responded quickly.

“You say that every time and I still don’t believe, also I’m sure we have at the very least the same level of clearance,” she pointed out.

“Not if you haven’t a need to know,” he countered.

Alarms suddenly sounded throughout the fighter, “what’s that?” Tyler asked, looking at something traveling toward them on her screen.

“Some sort of wave… I don’t like it,” he cringed. “I think we should turn around… it’s an energy pulse to be sure but I’m having trouble finding out more. The scanners are a bit perplexed… and I’ve lost contact with the vessel.”

“Tell the others,” Tyler ordered, as the fighter banked and they began to speed back in the direction they were coming from.

Meanwhile Sunshine and his SWO saw the same thing, “whatever that energy wave is it’s heading right toward the boss. Can you get any idea of what it is?”

“No, sir,” the WSO responded. “It’s pretty narrowly directed… It had to come from the target. Whah, it just bugged out… I’ve never seen a target move that fast before. It just hit them head on, I’m calling the outpost for help, and letting the others know to avoid the area. The transponder from LT Bardot’s fighter just went out…”

“Mayday,” Sunshine ordered.

The light was blinding as the fighter went completely dark, emergency life support kicked in. Tyler groaned and rubbed her eyes as she looked around, wondering why everything else died but life support was still working, that was lucky. She turned around in her seat to see that Cabbage looked unresponsive.

“Cabbage!” Tyler yelled.

There was no way that she was going to be able to help him from her position in the pilot’s seat. She could have checked his vital signs if anything was working besides the strange glow of the backup life-support indicator coming from below her controls around her knees someplace. It was dark except for the dull lights coming from that location in both seats.

“I hate science,” she muttered, wishing she had more of an engineering and technical understanding of why the life support would survive but nothing else. She looked around through the windows but she couldn’t see her wingman from the angle she was at.

Meanwhile the other fighters had altered course to come in from what was perceived as the safe direction to assist their wing leader.

“I’m taking command of the wing,” Sunshine announced. “We are still too far out to get a scan of the two fighters but there are no transponder signals at all.” Of course that was likely obvious to the others but sometimes announcing the obvious needed to be done.

“Fifteen more minutes,” Sunshine’s WSO announced. “The Outpost has also acknowledged and has  runabouts en route to effect a rescue.”

Tyler scrambled to find her helmet and got ready in case the onboard backup life support systems failed. She had it in her lap as she thought of her backup communications device in her pocket and pulled it out. She hit the button to activate it but nothing happened it was dead. She checked the battery and the indicator didn’t even light. She knew for a fact that it was full when she got into her fighter before departing the outpost one of the preflight checks was to insure their survival gear was good to go.

“Boss!” Cabbage called, frantically from behind.

“Get your helmet, get ready in case we need it,” Tyler ordered, “everything is dead.”

“What happened?” he demanded, rubbing his head, it ached dully.

“Helmet!” Tyler persisted.

“Right, yeah,” Cabbage said, as he began to fumble around for his gear.

“Teach and Cabbage are alive, good life signs on both,” Sunshine’s WSO announced as they were getting closer.

“Dropping from Warp,” Sunshine added as the fighter dropped in to begin to circle the two damaged.

“No life signs in the other fighter, no life support is working, not sure what happened with Teach’s fighter that it’s working,” the SWO added. “But thank God,” he muttered. “No communications signals.”

“I’ll maneuver so we can get eyes on them,” he said, maneuvering the fighter around and using thrusters only to try and make eye contact with his boss.

Tyler watched the entire maneuver, impressed, and a bit worried. She and Cabbage donned their helmets worried about a collision especially when they were incapable of doing anything at this point at all.  She waved at Sunshine who waved back and then held up his emergency communicator. She made a gesture across her throat and then shrugged.

Sunshine then maneuvered his fighter around and tractor beamed the fighter holding his wing leader and began heading back in the direction of the outpost or so Tyler assumed without instruments. The other fighters arriving tractor beamed the second fighter and the rest took up defensive and screening positions as they headed toward the outpost… waiting to meet up with runabouts that could beam the four crew members of the dead fighters aboard.

Tyler sat on the edge of the bed in the small temporary quarters she had been assigned aboard Cassiopeia Outpost she was bent forward her hands over her face. She shivered and sat back up looking directly across to a dresser with a mirror above it and sighed at the sight of herself. She had been unable to sleep she had been having nightmares at any point she could actually keep her eyes shut of her wingman and their weapons systems officer suffocating to death at the same time the overwhelming blinding light hit. She hoped greatly that they had indeed also lost consciousness as she and Cabbage had.

Tyler rose from the edge of the bed and moved to the small private head and went about straightening herself out, freshening up, and then moving back to the main part of the room for a fresh uniform. She asked for the time from the computer and mentally decided that she would have time for a caffeinated beverage in the mess before heading to her mandatory appointment with one of the counselors in sickbay. She had fought it tooth and nail but the commander of her air group had called and informed her that she no longer had a choice but was to report to the counselor or she wouldn’t be cleared for flight. Though she had not expected to be cleared at least until she returned to Starbase 86. She just hoped that that trip would be sooner rather than later. It would be bad enough that two members of her wing would be in the cargo bay of the runabout her and her WSO would be chauffeured back in.

She knew that eyes would be on her the outpost was small enough that everyone knew it all and who everyone was. Especially the outlier like her… even in her duty uniform people would know she was an outsider. She decided to stop at Cabbage’s quarters and rang the chime maybe he’d go with her and help keep her mind off the eyes.