Despite having been built within adjacent construction gantries at the ship yard and having been launched only hours apart; the two Saber-class vessels, USS da Vinci and USS Grus had led very different careers.  Their paths had certainly not crossed very often, if at all.  Now they would be working together, or at least that had been the plan; space however was having other ideas.

For Lieutenant-Commander Chance Vought, this was his first opportunity to command a ship of any size; unlike his XO, who for a period had taken charge of a small Raven-class corvette.  He like roughly a third of the Grus’s crew had been transferred from the USS Jaxartes.  Even the ships EMH had joined them. Vought wasn’t sure what to make of the corvettes crew; they were all seemingly fine hard working officers and enlisted personnel, but there was just something about that last mission of theirs that didn’t sit right.  They weren’t telling the whole truth regarding the destruction of an evil entity called Helgeshran, or the formation of a brand new star, they’d named Phoebe; after the ships civilian doctor.  That and the doctor herself; were both puzzles.

Command didn’t seem all that bothered about the whole affair.  Whilst the entity had started to become a threat; its sphere of influence had not expanded far.

Though on nowhere near the same grand scale as the anomalies referred to as the Blackout, this new star had created a change in the sectors gravitational balance; forcing several ships to recalculate their courses and headings.  It was speculated that this may have been the reason why the Blackout had taken longer to form here.  But then such was the unpredictable and seeming random nature of the situation; that facts were still in short supply.

It had just gone 4am; Chance had checked the illuminated figures of his bed side chronometer several times in the last hour.  Was it being back on a ship after what had happened that was keeping him awake?  He’d relived those moments countless times; repeated it to doctors and psychologists.  They tried to tell him they understood and sympathised, but he wasn’t sure they really did.

Like countless others, Frontier Day had been a dark and harrowing day.  He was still a Lieutenant at this point and not yet attached to the Forth Fleet.

Someone had come up with the bright idea of a fly past.  As the massed fleet of the Federations finest did their bit in space, a mixed formation of shuttles and runabouts would perform their own miniature display of close flying, at both low and high altitudes; for the crowds of on lookers below.

He was co-pilot aboard an Arrow-class runabout; though the Andorian next to him seemed perfectly capable of controlling the vessel without any assistance.  The passengers in the centre compartment; a mix of dignitaries and retired officer, who whilst important were not deemed of high enough status to warrant a front row seat to watch the main display.  It was hoped this would act as enough of a distraction to prevent them figuring out, they weren’t at the top of any lists.  They were being served drinks by the two forth year cadets.  Chance wasn’t sure handing out glasses of wine during the display was a good idea; but then who was he to argue with an Admirals bright ideas.

The shout that had sent him diving out of his seat and exiting the cockpit, had been a loud one and came across the Arrow’s internal com-system.  The sight that met him on the other side of the door was one of chaos.  Chance nearly tripped over someone seemingly lying dead on the floor; the two cadets were apparently attacking the passengers. He noted the bizarre almost grotesque look about their features as the set about killing all those around them.

Chance struck the female cadet hard across the lower left arm, in an effort to get her to at least loosen her grip around some poor guys’ throat.  She barely registered the heavy impact; as if the concept of pain no longer applied to her.  He did eventually manage to prize her fingers free; but believed he’d broken several of them in the process.  Her victim dropped to his knees, gasping and wheezing for breath.

By now three passengers were dead, the one she’d just been strangling, incapacitated and the rest all desperately trying to pin the male cadet to the floor.  They held his arms and legs, sat across his chest.  One woman dressed in a slim fitting evening gown, was even trying to smoother him with a seat cushion.

The female cadet had turned her attention to the secured locker, which contained phasers if they were required in an emergency.  She shouldn’t have known the code; even he didn’t, there was no reason to suspect any weapons would need to be used; not given the simple task they should have been performing.  But somehow the young women knew the code and opened the door.

It was a split second decision that led to Vought rugby tackling the now armed cadet.  It had either been that or witness her systematically kill everyone else onboard, including him.  They both clattered into the port hatch.  The phaser was still in her hand though; for someone of her slight frame and already having broken fingers on her other hand; displayed remarkable strength.

He was never fully clear on what he was thinking; when his fist slammed into the emergency hatch release.  Several explosive bolts performed their allotted task, creating a rapid chain of metallic thuds and the differences between the internal and external pressures; pulled the door off.

The female cadet had two choices in that split second, release the phaser and grab hold of something or attempt to shoot him.  She chose the latter and fired wildly as she went spinning and tumbling towards the ground.  Chance himself was also free falling, with only the hatch for company.  It was however acting as a makeshift wing and slowing his decent.  Not enough to survive the fall, just longer to reach the inevitable conclusion and just enough time to think about the consequences.

Death would take in this instance 53.76 second from the moment the hatch separated from the Runabout.  At 51.25 seconds the transporter completed the first stage of its sequence.

He wasn’t sure how long he’d lay there on the pad, not daring to move.  He was dead right, this was just a dream.  He’d fallen a few hundred metres, and his body was now splatted across some part of San Bruno.  There was no other explanation to it; other than that the Andorian Pilot had followed him and witnessed what had happened, then beamed the falling Lieutenant back onto the ship.  Apparently he’d been able to lock on to the combadge.  Vought later spotted the badge belonging to the female Cadet lying on pad next to where he had been.  He was thankful her body had not been attached to it.

The promotion came, not from jumping out of a moving Runabout; as both heroic and dumb as it had been.  No, so many other lives had been lost that day and officers needed to step up and fill the void.  So here he was, helping fill that void.