Inky darkness clung to everything, its cold embrace stifling even the still flickering embers of the fires that were slowly petering out in the now ruined bridge of the USS Century. Deafening silence cast a foreboding pall over the scattered remains of the once lively command center of the ship. Sharp and sudden clangs of metal striking the devastated floor or the deck immediately below broke through the curtain of oppressive nothingness, only to be snuffed out as quickly as they came.

A ringing assaulted his mind as consciousness finally began to gain ground over the oblivion of sweet sleep. The once tranquil nothing was replaced by the jarring pain of reality as limbs were tested and the body reoriented to being under deliberate control once more. The maddening pressure of… something… pushing ever downward in a bid to win the war of mass exerting its presence at the forefront of his awareness. The stark reminder that these sensory cues meant that… he had lived.

Air filled his lungs, a painful but necessary bodily demand that brokered no refusals. Soon his muscles began to tighten and bulge against the forces seeking to crush his frame. His instincts cried out to him that he must move, lest his survival be little more than a waking nightmare before the true end. And so, struggle he did. The grating screech of metal being forced to bend and flex against its current natural position assaulted him as his body surged with purposeful action. Disparate chunks of the ceiling, floor, and other debris began to slowly cascade away from the rising form, their movement slow at first as if in protestation. A low rumble began to free itself from his chest, and it soon reached a roaring crescendo as he finally dislodged himself from prison of metal and polymers that had sought to be his burial mound just moments before.

Eyes began to search in the darkness, light receptors clinging to any stray photon that wandered by as he struggled to make sense of where he was and what had happened. The haunting silence drove him to move, seeking the outer perimeter of the space in hopes that some of the storage compartments hidden within the bulkheads had survived. Ragged claws scraped against the tattered coverings on the walls of the bridge, searching for hand holds or creating them when none present themselves willingly. Strength borne of desperation allowed him to yank free whole panels that would have been a struggle had he been more calm or less injured. Soon enough, a small flicker of light erupted from an emergency flashlight that had managed to weather the explosive storm that had upended everything on the bridge.

The small, soft-white beam brought into focus the absolute carnage that had been wrought upon the Century and her crew. The focal point of the devastation was the gaping void in the middle of the room, where his command chair once stood, leading down to the deck below where the explosives had likely been planted without the crew being cognizant of the Vaadwaur’s machinations. Visceral anger surged… primal… unyielding… a need to answer cowardice with a feral application of violence pounding in his heart.

The light darted about to places Captain Gar’rath had recalled his crew sitting or standing just before the turmoil. Bodies were not making themselves readily apparent in his search, driving him to plod his way to the clusters of debris that seemed likely to be covering his people. The first pile he set upon to clear held beneath it the figure of the young communications officer who had given up her position to wait patiently in the wings to render what assistance she might. Her fragile form, lying almost peacefully on the deck, showed no signs of suffering, pain… or life. His trembling hand reached out to her, seeking some hint that his eyes were deceitful and wrong, only for her frigid form and still arteries to prove that his sight was correct all along.

Gar’rath closed his eyes for just two heartbeats, all the time he allowed himself to mourn the young woman before he pushed himself to his feet and willed his aching body to move on to the next mound and the next discovery. Two more piles held not trapped survivors but lifeless remains. Each new revelation gnawed a little more at his already beleaguered soul. And then… a groan filled the space, pulling Gar’rath from what felt like a funeral march toward what might amount to some hope… if he was fast enough.

Purpose drove his movements, his goliath strength leveraged against the barricade of scrap and shrapnel that stood between the Gorn and someone who needed him. His pulse thudded at the periphery of his awareness as if to count the passage of time in mockery of his efforts. And when a weak hand finally cleared the debris, Gar’rath gripped it with all the gentle strength he could manage in his desperation, pulling the owner free of the rubble and gently to the cold hard floor that remained intact.

“Captain…” the weak and faltering voice of Lieutenant Commander Sorreth cut through the silence of the space around them, “It would appear… that I am… wounded…”

“You are,” the Gorn’s own voice rumbled in response, “But you live.”

The Vulcan gave his Captain the shallowest of nods, all the strength he seemed to possess encapsulated in the gesture. His breathing was labored and the amount of pale emerald blood clinging to his uniform painting a vivid picture of just how close to his end the Vulcan truly was.

A sound coming from the deck below tore the Captain’s attention away, and he moved to the chasm with deliberate caution, only to find his Security Chief standing among the wreckage below with a team of security officers mixed with what he assumed were medical staff.

“Lieutenant,” the Gorn called out, drawing the Klingon’s attention, “I have wounded up here.”

Khar nodded sharply and pointed to several of the gathered men and women, motioning for them to make the climb to the bridge, “Help is on the way, Captain!”

“Is anyone alive down there?” Gar’rath asked.

“We’ve found two that made it out alive…” Khar responded with a hint of remorse in his voice.

“Did you manage to stop them from taking out Sickbay?” the Gorn asked.

“We did,” the Lieutenant answered back firmly.

“Good…” Gar’rath said, his body slackening just slightly from the news, “Do you have any idea how many more Vaadwaur are left on board?”

“I’ve only caught fragments of reports. Engineering, at least, managed to repel the team that was trying to take out the warp core. If that is true, the only group that hasn’t been dealt with is the one who struck the computer core.”

Gar’rath’s body instantly tensed back up, “I see…”

The wave of bloodlust that erupted from the reptilian man was almost palpable to the Klingon, “Are you going after them?”

The Captain didn’t respond to the question, “Take care of anyone you can find here, Lieutenant. That is your priority… nothing else.”

Lieutenant Khar shifted uncomfortably as he wrestled with objecting to the Captain’s obvious determination to put himself in harm’s way. His sense of honor, however, and his clear understanding of the frustration and anger that must have been tearing the Gorn up inside made it impossible for him to respond any other way but with a very grudging, “Aye sir.”

Deeper in the Century, the sole survivors of the Vaadwaur incursion were making their way systematically through the ship to the transporter room they had planned to rendezvous with the other teams to make their escape when they first got sent aboard. Plans, however, had changed as resistance from the Starfleet crew has proved to be much more ardent and effective than they had been led to believe by the strategists who had explained their mission and expectations to them. And even if they did manage to escape, they hadn’t caused the complete crippling of the large vessel that they had set out to accomplish, two of the four primary targets were still functional… the two most critical of targets at that. The beast’s heart still beat and their wounded could still be cared for. It was hardly the victor they had hoped for, but they had no more explosive or time to waste, escape was their sole focus now.

Gone was the practiced clearing of rooms, the deliberate and measured advance that had served them so well. In place of it was the hurried footfalls of troops running at near full speed, taking turns around corridors that they would otherwise have never dreamed of in a raid. The promise of exfiltration tugged at their minds, driving them to a lack of caution that was reserved only for those who were supremely confident in their seizing of victory…

It would be their undoing…

A form lashed out from the darkness of a corridor, seizing the last Vaadwaur in the herd with clawed hands, flesh being torn by the unyielding enamel of predatory teeth. A muffled gargle was all that managed to escape before the corpse slumped to the ground. Further along the corridor, another body suddenly disappeared from the herd, this one being dragged through a door that hissed open without warning. By the third pair of footfalls suddenly going silent, the now half-strength team came to a stop, weapons scanning every hiding spot, every shadow, every creak, every possible place to die.

And in their panic… they failed to register the avatar of death that had crept through the shadows of an adjacent corridor that was devoid of any crimson track lighting that bathed the rest of the corridors. Violence came upon them suddenly, without fanfare or pageantry, just unbridled savagery being visited upon them from a silent assassin that felt no remorse for their screams and no guilt for the brutality that had forced those utterances.

Then… as quickly as it had come… silence once again ruled the corridors, the only marker that anything had come to pass was the three mangled bodies of the last vestiges of invasion aboard the USS Century.