He was in the thick of the battle; weaving this way and that, climbing one second then diving the next.  Banking to port before rolling sharply to starboard.  Frantically trying to avoid incoming weapons fire whilst making sure to maintaining visual and sensor contact with the fighter craft in front.

Lieutenant Max Beaufort at the controls of his Valkyrie Mark II had already faced the Dominion once during this war, but that had been a relatively small battle as the Federation had fought to retake Atracos III and free the few thousand colonists that called the place home.  That had seemed so simple compared to the utter chaos unfolding all around him in the Deneb sector.

Another sharp turn brought him on a strafing run of a Jem’Hadar fighter; the ship in question had taken multiple hit from a Rhode Island and the first four fighters in the Sun Downer Squadron.  A pair of quantum torpedoes had just slammed into the side of the enemy vessel adding to the horrendous damage inflicted.  It was a wonder anyone was still alive on that thing, let alone actually firing back at them!

His own devastating fire and that of Echo Lima 5 ahead, only added to the catastrophic damage being caused to the Jem’Hadar fighter.  Finally its weapons feel silent and the twisted hulk ripped itself apart.  The process continued as the squadron moved on to engage another target.  By the time they attacked their fourth enemy ship; three of their number, were gone.  Two he had no idea how or when they’d been killed, for the other her voice had screamed out across the comm-link before her Valkyrie had slammed into a cruiser.  The Dominion cruiser shrugged the impact off, hardly noticing it had occurred.  It wasn’t long after that when his own ship was severely damaged; Beaufort’s Valkyrie had been too close to a vessel when it meet its own fiery end, he was right in the blast zone as the much larger vessel blew apart.  A large chunk of superstructure had hit the front of his ship, crushing the nose section.

Max didn’t feel the pain or know what had happened beyond that moment.  The sudden jarring impact had knocked him unconscious.  But somewhere amongst the mangled mess of his fighter he’d lost his right leg.  Would have lost much more than that; if it hadn’t been for the courage of a Raven Class Corvette and her crew coming to his rescue.

Max had suffered this nightmare on numerus occasions; the vivid recollection of events playing out in his mind, then total darkness.  There had been times he’d wished that this darkness had enveloped him forever. He sat bolt upright sweating profusely, breathing heavy and gasping for air. One hand automatically making a grab for his leg; the leg he knew deep down was no longer there.  A temporary prosthetic one now lay in its place. Temporary, because on board this ship right now; a new leg was been grown for him.  His hand gripped the prosthetic a little too tightly, not that the leg could feel it.  The only pain came from the hand squeezing hard.  He hated the totally unreal artificial abomination.  It was attached, but didn’t belong to him, this was someone else’s leg this was some, thing.  Though for now he couldn’t get around without it.  It just reminded him too much of the Borg; they liked substituting body parts, augmenting what was there or replacing it altogether.

He’d confronted the Borg only recently here on the USS Chapel, but not the Borg everyone knew and feared.  No, they’d turned the world upside down and turned the people you knew and trusted the person next to you; turned them into monsters.  Made them kill their own friends and colleagues in a mad quest to create a new Collective; with the Federation at its heart.

Death had looked him in the eye that day, and all he’d had to do was wait for it to claim him.  Instead he’d run; well hopped actually, with one good leg and a pair of crutches.  He was probably deemed too low a priority target to go chasing after at the time, but that didn’t stop him trying to escape.  

Beaufort had seen a lot of death and destruction in a very short space of time.  The knowledge, training, combat drills; none of it really ever prepared you for the real horrors a war threw at you.  Nothing could, he like countless others had discovered that the hard way.

After a few minutes his heart beat had settled to something closer to normal; still Max knew he wouldn’t be getting back to sleep, at least not right now.  So swinging his one real and one artificial leg round he got out of bed and replicated himself a glass of cold water.  Up to this point he hadn’t bothered with the lights, the darkness hardly bothered him, it wasn’t as if the room was pitch black; the glow of space and streaking stars created by the ship at warp, offered some light as it came in through the window.

He took a quick shower; partly to wash away the sweat and partly to clear his head.  For the most part it worked; but it could never wash away the memories.  Max had been given counselling, all the survivors had, and even the ships own counsellors had been given some, from others that had been brought aboard from Earth.  He wasn’t sure if talking to a complete stranger about the events at Deneb and Frontier Day afterwards actually helped him.  Getting a real fully functioning leg and strapping himself into the cockpit of a fighter craft and launching; that was what was going to help him. Of cause these meetings where one of the hurdles between him and his goal of returning to full active service.

For the time being he was one of four officers cleared to operate the helm.  On Frontier Day he’d been the only one in any fit state to fly the ship once the Borg influence had been neutralised.  For the first couple of days he’d had to work from a hastily set up control system on deck 3.  Max chose not to dwell on the fact it had taken that long to clean up the mess on the bridge; or that when he was able to enter it, the two sections of carpeting that had been crudely cut out and disposed of.

The bridge though didn’t hold the same sort of fear and trepidation, deck 17 did. That was the location of the ward; were he’d woken up and witnessed a world gone mad.  There Max had seen people die with his own eyes.  He couldn’t say watching a star ship being pounded and ripping to pieces, knowing that potentially hundreds of lives had been stuffed out in an instant; didn’t affect him.  But seeing someone being strangled to death and others having their heads smashed in had made a huge impact.  His other nightmare was seeing them die horribly.  The face of the Efrosian doctor still haunted him; but unlike in real life, sometimes the doctor spoke to him.  Asking to be saved and why him.  No, death was far easier to handle from a distance when it didn’t have a face or name.

Dressed in a mid-grey tracksuits, baring the Sun Downers name and logo across the back; Lieutenant Beaufort went for a walk around the ship.  He had no fixed or planned route, Max never did; he just wondered around almost aimlessly.  This early in the morning there wouldn’t be many crewmembers around either, which suited him fine.  There was one place he’d always end up at though, no matter where his journey had took him; Bio Med Lab 2.

That was where his new leg was slowly been grown.  Today it was just after half seven when he got there.  The nurse on duty greeted him with her usual warm smile; she usually took the early shift at the Lab and was therefore the one most likely to see him there. “You know keep coming to look at it won’t make the leg grow any faster.” She informed Max warmly.

“Now you know very well nurse Hayashi, I only come here to see your smile and sparkling brown eyes.” Max relied with a smile of his own.

“There green, which just shows how much attention you do pay me.” She corrected him.

Beaufort knew very well what colour Hayashi’s eyes were, he just loved teasing her.  They got on well with each other and had even shared a couple of after-shift drinks together.  She made him feel human on the day’s he wasn’t sure what he was; and being one of the new intake of staff the USS Chapel had received, she wasn’t tarnished by the memory of the Borg.

Max looked through the window to the sterile room beyond.  A lab technician in pale blue coveralls and face mask was checking over the machine linked up to the tank with Beaufort’s new leg in it.  There wasn’t much to see in the tank; the milky green liquid within virtually concealed the limb contained within it, other than a slight shadow floating in the centre. 

In eight weeks’ time he’d be having the operation with would; fingers crossed, successfully attach the leg and after that several weeks of physiotherapy; to build up the muscle strength.  It was still a long road, but Max was determined to get to the end of that journey.

“You free after four?” He asked the nurse casually.

“Such a charmer.” Hayashi smiled back. “I think I can squeeze in a drink with a gallant officer.”

Beaufort walked back to the door and as it slid open, gave her a bow. “Until we meet again madam.” Then left as he headed back to his quarters, to put on a fresh uniform and start another shift on the bridge.