The gravity plating beneath Captain Day Renora’s feet vibrated as the Vallejo’s failing systems sputtered, the flickering red emergency lighting casting jagged shadows across the bridge. The klaxon of the red alert was gone now, silenced by the devastating efficiency of the Kaela Orin’s assault. Sparks crackled from damaged consoles, the acrid stench of burnt circuitry filling the air. The air on the bridge was thick and cloying with smoke and haze.

Day clenched her fists as she watched the bridge displays flicker uselessly. The Vallejo had been crippled almost instantly. The enhanced Cardassian technology wielded against them had overwhelmed the ship’s defenses with brutal precision. They knew just where to hit them… Their tactics were surgical, practiced.

Lieutenant Loran’s voice was tight as he reported from Ops, blood seeping from a cut above his temple. Tapping controls on his half-functioning console. “Multiple hull breaches. Most of our systems are failing. Casualties reported on decks six, seven, and eight. They’re flooding the lower decks with dampening fields. Transporters are compromised.”

Day turned back to her Ops Officer, her jaw tightening. “How many troops are we looking at?”

“Hideki-class ships can carry up to seventy troops,” Loran replied grimly. “That’s over two hundred trained Obsidian Order operatives against our three hundred crew.”

The numbers sank in. The Vallejo was outgunned, outmatched, and about to be overrun.

“Arm all security teams,” Day ordered opening a ship-wide channel, her voice steady despite the turmoil churning in her gut. “Set phasers to maximum stun. If they want this ship, they’re going to have to fight for it.”

__________________________________

Crew members scrambled to fortify their positions below decks. Security teams sealed critical access points, engineering staff barricaded the warp core chamber, and medical personnel hurried to set up emergency triage stations.

—

In Sickbay on Deck 8, Dr. Pell moved swiftly between biobeds, her stocky Tellarite frame a blur of motion as she barked orders to her team, her gruff voice cutting through the chaos. Her bristly features were set in determination as she stabilized the latest influx of wounded. The room was filled with the hum of medical instruments and the occasional sharp cry of pain.

Beside her, Torel Sh’kivis, a young Andorian nurse, adjusted the cortical stimulator on a fallen officer, his antennae twitching as he monitored the erratic readings on the biobed display. “He’s stabilizing, Doctor, but we need to reroute more power to the Sickbay. These biofunctions are fluctuating from the dampening fields.”

Pell barely nodded as she pressed a hypospray to another patient’s neck. “Tell Engineering to prioritize us or we’ll be treating bodies instead of injuries.”

—

Down at the Back 9, the ship’s main lounge, Chef Dante Amodio worked feverishly to treat the wounded with the limited supplies on hand, cursing under his breath in Italian. The usual lively establishment was eerily silent, its rows of tables dimly illuminated by flickering emergency lights. With the ship’s power failing, the holographic waiters and bartenders had vanished, leaving only Dante and the handful of off-duty crew members who had been grabbing a meal between shifts. He tore a strip from his apron to bind the leg wound of a young ensign, his hands steady despite the chaos outside. Nearby, a junior officer armed with a phaser rifle stood watch at the entrance. Dante, never one to shy away from a fight, reached for the knife holstered at his belt. “If they come through that door,” he muttered, glancing at the others, “we make sure they regret it.”

—

Lieutenant Jorath, the ship’s Deltan Crew Relations Officer, checked the power levels of his phaser rifle, then glanced at the officers gathered around him in Junction C. His immediate superior, Counselor Marin, chose to remain in his quarters. Jorath could only respect Marin’s Halkan pacifist stance, but he wished he had another phaser at his side. Of the nine crewmembers in this junction he was of the highest rank, so technically he was in charge. “Make every shot count. They won’t be expecting resistance from a California-class crew.” ‘Let alone a counselor’ he thought to himself.

Ensign Melendez, gripping her own rifle, exhaled sharply. “The Obsidian Order is trained for subterfuge, intelligence work… not frontline combat. That gives us an edge.”

“Let’s hope you’re right Ensign,” Jorath muttered. “Stay sharp.”

__________________________________

In the transporter room, Chief Anari worked feverishly at the console. “They’re using some kind of inverse neutrino cascade to scramble our transporters,” she called to Lieutenant Vex. “We won’t be able to beam them off the ship.”

Vex narrowed her emerald eyes. “Then we’ll just have to contain them the old-fashioned way,” she said as she retrieved a hand phaser from the transporter room’s weapons locker, taking a second for Anari.

__________________________________

The first wave of boarding parties hit. The corridors shuddered as Cardassian shock troopers blasted through bulkheads with molecular disruptors—smaller than standard phasers but packing twice the power. The Obsidian Order operatives were clad in jet-black, flexible armor, designed to resist kinetic and thermal damage. Their helmets were fitted with built-in HUD interfaces, allowing them to track movement in low-light conditions.

The first firefight erupted on deck 3, Junction B, where a dozen Vallejo officers had taken defensive positions. Phaser fire crackled through the corridor as the ship’s crew held their ground, forcing the Cardassians to fall back, at least for now.

__________________________________

On the Tecumseh, Commander Rax and the away team moved cautiously through the seemingly derelict corridors. The ship’s battered hull and darkened systems told a story of prolonged decay, but something felt off.

“This damage is too… intentional,” Lieutenant Valis observed with a raised eyebrow, running a tricorder over a breached power conduit. “These ruptures are consistent with controlled detonations, not combat damage.”

Asha Kellan frowned, kneeling beside a flickering console. “This ship wasn’t disabled. It was staged to look that way.”

Ra Kyong cursed under his breath. “Ssi-Bal… It’s a trap.”

Before Rax could issue a new order, the comms crackled. “Commander Rax…” It was Captain Day’s voice, but the transmission was faint. “Vallejo… boarded… tactical withdrawal…”

The transmission cut out as a golden-hued transporter beam enveloped them.

__________________________________

Back aboard the Vallejo, Day found herself shoved to the deck as armed Cardassian officers secured the bridge. Across from her, Lieutenant Loran sat against his console, restrained by two operatives. Ensign Renn Tanara knelt beside him, her face bruised but defiant. She had put up a hell of a fight, and Day couldn’t help but be proud of her fellow Bajoran.

At the center of the chaos, a woman stepped forward… Kaela Orin.

Day’s breath hitched as she took in the sight of her captor. Orin’s dark uniform bore the sigil of the Obsidian Order, its polished insignia catching the dim light of the bridge. Orin was… human? Her jet-black hair was tied in a severe braid, her piercing gaze exuding control, a cruel grin on her face.

“You seem surprised, Captain,” Orin said smoothly.

Day forced herself to hold the woman’s gaze. “I’ve had enough run-ins with your kind to know how you operate. I don’t really care if you’re Cardassian, human, or Ferengi.”

Orin smirked; her hands clasped behind her back. “Oh, I’m Cardassian. You should know that resistance was a waste of time. We should have exterminated your species when we had the chance.”

Day’s jaw clenched. “The Obsidian Order was destroyed, Cardassia was left in ruins because of the Dominion, and yet you’re using their weapons, their technology.”

“—Their efficiency,” Orin interjected. “Unlike the Central Command or pathetic Detapa Council, I do not waste opportunities.”

Day narrowed her eyes. “You’re after more than just my ship.”

Orin’s smirk deepened but she did not answer. Instead, she gestured to her troops. “Take them to the holding area. Watch them… especially the Bajorans.”

__________________________________

The transporter room was eerily quiet, with the occasional yell or sound of phasers and disrupters heard in the corridors. Chief Anari moved quickly, her fingers flying across the control panel. Her brow furrowed with concentration. She glanced over at Lieutenant Vex, who stood silently beside her, scanning the dimly lit room for any sign of danger. The plan was in motion, but there was no guarantee they would be able to pull it off.

“We can’t beam anyone on or off the ship right now, not with the dampening field in place,” Anari muttered, her voice steady but strained. “Not unless we want to be detected. But I can store our transporter patterns in the buffer, keep us hidden until it’s safe to rematerialize.”

Vex nodded, her expression hard as she waited for the operation to begin. She didn’t need to ask how risky this was, she knew it was their only chance. That or be captured or worse like the rest of the crew.

Anari quickly worked through the system’s interface, isolating the transporter’s functions from the rest of the ship’s network. The recent upgrades to the power relay provided a temporary solution, but the transporter system was still unstable. She needed to be precise.

“I’ll reroute our patterns into the buffer,” Anari explained, her fingers moving deftly. “I’ll have to store them without transmitting. If the Cardassians scan the buffer, they’ll think we’ve been vaporized or lost in a transporter malfunction.”

Vex’s gaze shifted toward the entrance, her sharp senses on alert. “How long can we stay like this?”

Anari hesitated for a fraction of a second, considering the limits of the system. “We’ve got about five hours before the power relay starts to destabilize and the buffer starts to degrade. We’ll need to be out before then.”

Vex looked down at her own communicator and then back at Anari. “Understood.”

With a final adjustment to the console, Anari initiated the sequence. The transporter pad’s lights flickered, and the familiar Hum ramped up.

As the transporter energy cocooned them, Anari glanced at Vex one last time. “Five hours. We stay hidden. And then we make our move.”

Vex nodded, her calm demeanor indicating no anxiety. The energy fields shimmered around them, and in an instant, they were gone, leaving only their transporter patterns. Just as the door opened, three Cardassian troops entered with disruptors.

__________________________________

On the shuttle Sequoia, Cadet Jeremy Ryan tapped his fingers against the console. “Something’s wrong.”

“They left a probe. It told us to wait,” Amir reminded him.

“That was two days ago. Time was up three hours ago,” Ryan shot back. “We can’t even trace their warp trail, subspace radiation in the area scrambled the signal.”

Mehta exhaled sharply. “We can’t just sit here hoping for another message. Set a course back to Deep Space 47. We have our orders.”

Ryan and Amir shared a glance, both seeing they didn’t want to follow that particular order and abandon their ship.

Ryan’s fingers twitched against the console, his mind racing. He began to plot their new course, waiting for the final order to be given to engage. If only they could track the Vallejo…

Then it hit him. “Wait, Commander. The Vallejo’s shields would have ionized the local charged particles when they passed through. If we scan for residual polarization decay in the gamma radiation field, we might be able to trace where they went.”

Mehta turned to face him fully, considering. “That’s a long shot, Cadet.”

Ryan shrugged. “So is waiting here for the Vallejo to come back. What if they are stuck in some gravitational phenomena or worse?”

Amir leaned forward, scanning the readings. “He’s onto something there Commander. The polarization decay would dissipate quickly, we’d only have a few days at most, but if we act fast…”

Mehta nodded slowly. “Alright, Cadet. Run the scan. If we find a trail, we follow it.”

Ryan’s hands flew over the controls, eyes locked on the readout as the shuttle’s sensors swept through the void. “Come on, come on…”

A faint reading blinked onto the display. Ryan grinned. “Got it.”

Mehta’s expression hardened. “Ok, set a course. We follow their trail. Full continuous sensor sweep. Eyes wide open Cadet.”