“Raider 1 is mine.”

With those words, Sidda took stock one last time of the five security officers with her, nodded at the grim visage they all wore, then nodded to the poor ensign she’d roped into operating the transporter aboard AB1726. To the young man’s credit, he didn’t look worried or concerned about sending Republic’s executive officer off on a crazy mission.

If anything, he looked bored.

She’d change that by bringing him on her next away mission.

The freighter’s transporter alcove, a small divot in the main corridor with the controls built into the wall, smelled faintly of disinfectant and cleaning products. It was well lit, clearly labelled and as safe as one could get without covering everything in some form of padding to prevent even accidental bruising. But then all that safety and well thought out design work was snatched up in a brilliant swirl of blue light and humming, before it faded and everything was the antithesis of the hallways of AB1726.

The lighting on the Nausicaan ship was darker, but not absent. Dull yellows and greens illuminated just enough to let people work, but not so much as to show the grime of which they lived in. The tang of iron hung in the air; a sweet but wholly unpleasant smell accompanied it. There was a strong chemical smell mixed in as well, which Sidda always associated with lubricants, especially in the engineering spaces of the Vondem Rose and Vondem Thorn. Not the rather weaker, likely much safer smells she had noticed aboard Republic.

The iron smell extended to taste as soon as she breathed in. It wasn’t strong, but enough to tell her the ship’s life support system needed an overhaul badly. And someone had recently slaughtered something nearby, likely for a meal.

She barely had a chance to turn around and face her team before the harsh, screeching klaxon sounded, like a wailing banshee up and down the hall. “Intruder alert!” a voice then bellowed, low and raspy, with a metallic bite to each syllable.

“Hernandez, Smith, with me.” She pointed at the two of them, then flicked a thumb over her shoulder to tell them which way to start moving. She knew where they were beaming in on the Nausicaan raider, which way they’d be facing and hence which way to the bridge. “T’Kim, Ruu, get Fruit Basket to Engineering.”

“Won’t let you down, Commander,” the little exocomp announced loudly in its perpetually enthusiastic voice as the other two fell into guard around it. “Onwards!” it then declared as it started to hover down the hallway at a decent pace. “I have a date with destiny!”

“And I thought I was the dramatic one,” Sidda muttered, before turning back to her two security officers. “Ready?”

“As we’ll ever be,” Hernandez answered. “You, ma’am?”

She smiled, knowing it was growing wicked as she drew her sword out of its scabbard. It really was a fine blade, crafted out of stolen and recycled Starfleet hull plating. The blade was a dull grey-white colour hidden by the sickly lighting. But the glint was obvious as it caught the lights. Admiration was quick though as she had things to do. The sword was passed to her offhand while she reached for her disruptor, then stopped herself from drawing the weapon, merely undoing the strap that kept it in place. The phaser on her other side was then drawn, checked, then lowered to rest, confident it was on the right setting.

Shoot first, ask questions later; a clever saying and with stun settings on weapons, one that could be indulged in.

And if the Nausicaans didn’t play nice, she’d be doing just that.

“Ready,” she answered finally, then pushed past Hernandez and Smith toward the raider’s bridge.

The bridge and engineering were all they needed to take on this pathetic little ship to take control. Ten Nausicaan life signs in total had been detected, and they probably didn’t have ‘getting boarded’ on their list of activities for today, so surprise was playing on the boarding party’s side. And engineering had only shown four, so she’d taken the lion’s share of the trouble by heading for the bridge.

Like always.

A shot rang out suddenly. The whine of a discharging phaser ringing down a side corridor followed by the dull thud of a body hitting the deck. Spinning, weapon raised, Smith was slightly crouched, his own weapon before him, staring at the Nausicaan he’d just stunned.

Six on the bridge just became five.

“Nice shooting, Tex,” Hernandez said, looking over the sprawled out Nausicaan who had a small puddle of blood forming around their broken nose. “Think you might have killed him.”

A boorish snore erupted from the Nausicaan, a sound more associated with large animals or malfunctioning combustion engines. And then it was followed by another and another.

“Or not,” Hernandez corrected himself. “Still, nice shot.”

“Thanks,” Smith said.

“Come on, let’s keep going,” she said and the two men were in step behind her without another word.

The door to the bridge of the small ship was ominous as they approached. It promised them control of the ship. It promised them access to all of the ship’s secrets.

It promised them a fight.

And it was suspiciously quiet as well.

No yelling, no barking of orders. No shouted updates on what was happening. Just silence.

“Fuck,” she muttered.

“Ma’am?”

“They’re dug in. Waiting for us. They’ll have cover, we won’t. This is going to suck.”

“Least they don’t seem to be flying their ship,” Smith said, finding the silver lining to the situation.

“True,” she had to agree. “Right, either side of the door, you two. I’ll open it, dive right and hope I get some cover nice and quick.”

“Or maybe just open it and help us, ma’am?” Hernandez asked. “I just don’t want to do the paperwork if you get shot.”

“Oh, trust me, you won’t be.” She checked her phaser once more. “It’ll all be on me.”

There was no more time for arguments, no more time for thoughtful lieutenants to propose sensible and sound plans. The door button was jabbed with the end of the phaser, the metal sheets swishing away into their wall cavities and giving way to a hail of a rainbow of fire. A dark red beam slashed through the open door. A bolt of green punched through Sidda’s jacket as she dove for cover. An orange beam went wide, then up into the ceiling wildly.

She hit the floor, pain lancing through her shoulder as she scrambled to pull her feet under her, to get back on them and ready to move once more. Shrills, barks, screams and cries of weapons fire passed back and forth over her head.

The controlled fire of Hernandez and Smith clashed with the wild and chaotic fire of the Nausicaans. Some of the fire was aggressive, pouring as much at the Starfleet officers as they could, others were more controlled and somewhere just firing to make noise, as evidenced by the shower and spray of a couple of light fittings as purple energy racked across the ceiling and nowhere near anyone, Starfleet or Nausicaan alike.

“Starfleet scum!” a cry came out. Sidda looked up just in time to see a large, brutish Nausicaan looming over her, a club in both hands. “Imma kill you!” the woman yelled before the club came crashing down.

Another rapid dive to the side barely saved her from having her head caved in. Followed by another dive and some more scrabbling before she got up on her feet in a hurry, brandishing her sword and phaser against a club that looked like it came from a small ship’s landing gear.

She shrugged, raised her phaser and fired. The orange beam leaped across the distance between them, then scatted, skipped and diffused across the woman’s armoured chest.

And the Nausicaan roared defiantly, the stun blast having no effect.

“Oh shit,” Sidda muttered. In a moment of terror as the Nausicaan stormed at her, Sidda threw her phaser at them, bouncing off that same armour plate that had eaten her shot. It wasn’t any more effective. And then she was leaping to the side as the club came down again.

“Little help!” she barked.

“Busy!” Smith shouted back. Fair, but unwanted news.

“Maybe I won’t kill you,” the Nausicaan growled. “Orions sell decently well in the Empire.”

Somehow this woman’s crew had left them alone to their melee, shooting around them, or getting out of the way, not that they’d gone far. They’d just become the odd blur or indistinct shape as Sidda kept finding herself dodging and weaving. She hadn’t even tried to use the sword in her other hand. She wanted prisoners, after all, not a bunch of carved up dead raiders.

And taking prisoners was what she was supposed to do as a Starfleet officer anyway.

But then this woman had hinted at slavery. This Nausicaan had just threatened to sell her.

Blood boiled; anger swelled.

Panic evaporated.

She stopped dodging. Her right hand went to her thigh, finding her holster and what to her felt like an eternity she drew her disruptor, levelled it at the Nausicaan before her, whose words had demoted her from woman to creature, and depressed the firing stud just enough to start the weapon cycling.

“Say it again,” she growled, holding her ground as the Nausicaan took another step towards her.

“Oh fuck,” she heard someone nearby mutter. Was it right next to her, or out in the hall? She couldn’t tell over the thumping in her ears. “We’re so fucked,” it continued.

The Nausicaan woman stopped, eyes flickering from Sidda to the disruptor and back again a few times. And then she was a blur of motion, unreasonable in person so far. The club at Sidda from her left, it too a blur that seemed to drag on, much like when she had drawn her weapon. She had time to think and yet no time at all.

Before she knew what she was doing, she took a step back, raising her sword in a parry. Save she misjudged, intercepting the club her forearm instead, having not stepped back enough. The crack of bone, a scream of pain, and the clatter of her sword hitting the deck. It all seemed like it was happening to someone else.

And then she sucked in a breath, raised the disruptor one more time and fired.

The report was loud, filling the bridge, the hallway, the entire ship, or so it seemed.

It hit that armoured plate the Nausicaan woman was wearing and sent her reeling backwards into the throne-like chair in the middle of the bridge, breaking it off its post as both raider captain and chair continued on their way. Sprawling, thumping, they collected one of the other Nausicaans, only stopping when the mass of flesh and furniture slammed into a wall.

“We surrender!” came an immediate cry. Weapons clattered to the floor as two pairs of hands stuck up from behind consoles. “We surrender! Please don’t kill us!”

Nausicaans didn’t make the best of pleaders and clearly something had to have spooked them for them to reach that conclusion. And as Hernandez and Smith flowed in, checking the one they had stunned and kicking weapons away from the two still conscious, the Nausicaans kept pleading with them. “You’ll protect us from the Kingslayer, right? You’re Starfleet, you have to right?” one of them begged.

“Oh fuck you,” Sidda found herself snapping at the snivelling man. “What, this uniform is just for show?”

“They’re not dead,” Hernandez declared, standing over the large Nausicaan woman and the man she’d collected in her involuntary flight. “But they’ll wish they were after that trip.” He whistled, admiring the scorch mark on the armour plate. “Right in the centre of the plate. Nice.”

“I was aiming for her head,” Sidda growled. It was a lie, but you were always supposed to say that, right? At least all the bad holonovels told her she was.

A console on the bridge then started blurting at them, a sickening little sound that would drive a person to despair rather quickly.

“Uh, that means someone is locking weapons on us,” one of the two still standing Nausicaans said. They’d both been corralled into a corner by Smith and didn’t seem to want to try their luck.

“External comms?”

“Blue button,” the talkative one said, pointing at a console in a slow, exaggerated motion, so as not to irritate Smith.

Two steps, one more over a stunned man who was drooling into the seat of the chair he’d used as cover, and Sidda pushed the button after a brief search for it.

“Yaaaarrrrrr!” she said, dragging out the word and not able to help the smile that came with it. “I’d appreciate it kindly if you didn’t put holes in my new ship.”

And she turned to face the two Nausicaans, who looked appropriately cowed now. “Right, gentleman?”

“Right, Captain Sidda,” they both said. “Your ship.”