“He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.”
-Sun Tzu – The Art of War

The bridge fell deathly silent as all eyes present locked on to the Manasa’s weapons array glowing to life.  Swollen orbs of fury pulsed like tumors highlighted on one of Doctor T’Lan’s tricorder scans.  It was the sort of warning that nature might give before a hurricane.  Only a fool would stand in place to admire it.

“Brace for incoming!”  Lieutenant Commander Vorak’s voice dutifully called out what was blatantly obvious from Tactical.

The other ships’ polaron volley leapt forth towards the Fresno to bloody the nose of its unprotected saucer section as the blasts struck home.  Already stripped of their shields, the effect was devastating.  Michael’s bones rattled.  His teeth clacked as he accidentally bit the edge of his tongue.  One of Revek’s consoles on the back wall exploded in a shower of sparks as an EPS conduit behind it blew out.  He could hear the young Denobulan ensign cry out some sort of primal noise that was either an illegible prayer or a curse.  Michael practically snapped himself right in half as he twisted in Thalissa’s seat to make sure his communications officer wasn’t crumpled in a heap on the deck plating.

“They’re transmitting something.” The kid was saying as though he hadn’t just taken a face full of shrapnel.  He brushed the shards off of his console and rearranged things to fit on what displays he had left.  A line of blood trickled down his temple as he bore a small gash courtesy of the screen that had just exploded in his face, but he was otherwise no worse for the wear.

Still rattled from the hellish beatdown that the Underspace had handed them, Michael’s heart slammed in his chest like the damn thing wanted out.  The captain of this mysterious new ship had already made their intentions quite clear.  Michael wouldn’t need a universal translator to tell him that whatever they had to say was no peace offering.  But if listening to it would hand them even just a moment’s reprieve, then hell.  Words were better than another round of weapons fire, and he’d take this break.  Even if it were to be likely laced with poison.

“Put them on the main viewer.” He said in an icy tone.

“Um, it’s just audio only.  But I’ll put it on.”  The young Denobulan officer used a sleeve to wipe at the line of blood that was working its way down a cheek, now.  His other hand jabbed at his console.

“Your incursion has provoked the ire of the Vaadwaur Imperium.”   The voice scraped out of the comms like sandpaper down a chalkboard.  “Your presence will not be tolerated.  This space is claimed as our own.  Your worlds will burn.  The Imperium is strong once more!”  The transmission cut off as abruptly as it had been offered.

Commander Zheen turned in Michael’s chair with a blink and a dry laugh that wasn’t entirely successful at making it past her lips.  “Do we respond to that?  Or just get ready for the follow-up?”

“Oh, we’re responding.” Michael said, his words coiled as tight as his sphincter.  “By getting the hell out of here.  Rix, get us moving!  Heading of two-thirty-five!  Full impulse.”  His gaze slid behind him to Vorak with all the venom of a knife running across a throat.  “And you?”  His lips pressed against themselves in a thin line of hesitant resolve before giving his next order.  The Fresno was hardly in any fighting condition even in the best of times.  As it stood now, they didn’t have a chance in hell of surviving this fight that had unexpectedly come knocking at their door.  “Compose a fitting reply.”

The glint of something dangerous drew its self behind the Tellarite’s scowl.  It wasn’t bloodlust, not exactly.  It was more a sense of coming to terms with doing what he was built for.  “Aye, Captain.”  That brogue cut like a blade dragged in gravel.  “They’ll feel our bloody teeth as we tuck tail.”

The stars rotated on the viewscreen as the Fresno came about.  The lower drive section kicked loose three incandescent torpedoes.  They launched from their tubes with deep, percussive thuds.  Three burning fists of vengeance arcing towards their aggressor as the Fresno turned away from this fight.  Each projectile found their mark.  They detonated against a shimmering golden shell around the Manasa assault vessel as its shields held against the Fresno’s humble tide.  The resulting blaze of red and gold luminescence briefly seared against the enemy vessel like a priest bathing in the glow of a cathedral’s stained glass lit up at dusk.  The Fresno didn’t stick around to watch.  Her impulse drives lit up and she bolted like a sinner from this particular priest’s sermon.

Thalissa stabbed a blue finger at a corner of the viewscreen.  “There.  A few degrees to starboard.”  Her hand lowered and danced across the thin console built into the armrest of the seat Michael had yet to reclaim.  The main viewer zoomed in on that corner to reveal a field of asteroids churning like a pack of rabid dogs.  “I suggest we hide in that.  We stay exposed out here, and we’ll just get chewed up alive.”

Michael stared at the screen incredulously.  The asteroid field loomed as a violent mess of rock and ruin, as though the universe had decided to give birth to a beast with teeth made of stone.  Was she seriously proposing to steer into that jagged maw?  “We’re just as likely to be ground up and swallowed in there as we are staying out here.”  His eyes flickered between the maelstrom and his crew, every muscle in his face tightened to a grimace.  “Fine, the hell with it.” he growled as if this were some sick joke.  “Get us inside, miss Rix.  We’ll find our peace in there one way or another.”

As the utility cruiser kicked up its burn and fled towards the inviting jaws of this dubious salvation, the Vaadwaur ship pursued them like a dogged wasp chasing an intruder from its nest.  The glowing red vitriol it spat forth as it ran them down were hardly mere pricks and stings.  The blows shredded their way into the aft hull plating to paint charred score marks against grey paint while other sections of outer decks here and there were vented open to be completely exposed to the cold, unyielding grasp of space.  For some aboard the Fresno, they would find themselves violently expelled through gaping holes suddenly blown through the bulkhead.  As their eyes quickly clouded over and they tumbled through the void, their final glimpse of existence would be a kaleidoscope of madness.  Blazing stars, floating debris, and the soundless wail of their vessel’s flight into an apocalypse of colliding rocks.