Linna had never felt this free. Not on the Sirona. Not under her mother’s shadow. Not with the rules and protocols and constant demands of maturity.

“Tell me the plan again.”

The beat of the music reverberated through her very being, a steady rhythm that held her in a state of excited euphoria. A new constant that replaced her mother’s nagging voice and disapproving glances.

“I love your dress!”, a girl with purple hair and intricate makeup called out over the music, taking Linna’s hand and pulling her into a sudden twirl.

“Thanks!” Linna beamed, still basking in the compliment when the girl vanished in the thick crowd of sweaty bodies and unadulterated ecstasy.

“The plan, Linna.”

Next to her, people sang along, off-key yet beautiful. Individual expressions of freedom. Unique but part of a symphony. It connected them, narrowed what mattered down to this moment. This place. This song.

Linna danced, eyes closed, unembarrassed by her awkward movements as the neon lights painted her in vibrant reds and blues and greens, and everything in between. No one was watching. No one was judging.

Well, with one exception.

“I need to know that you understand what to do.”, Meran’s voice rang in her head, the words tucked into the lyrics, recurring like a refrain she had long grown tired of. A brass instrument in a string orchestra, disrupting moments of dramatic silence.

“Find a wall, turn your back to it, wait for you.”, Linna repeated to herself. It was a rehearsed performance, stuck in her mind after countless repetitions, hollow against the flood of light and sound. “We will beam back to the Sirona. Alternatively, we head to the east exit.”

But nothing would happen. And even if it did – right here, right now, she felt invincible. The breeze picked up, lifting her twirling dress just enough that her mother would have sent her to her room. It ruffled through her hair, tangling the ribbons she had so carefully woven into it, and she opened her arms like a bird taking flight.

Her mother would be appalled.

She laughed, loud and reckless, into the night.

Meran shook his head, and the crease between his eyebrows deepened. He stood not far from Linna, but tucked into a corner, hidden where the lights couldn’t reach. Apart from the crowd, like a caesura between movements of orchestral grandiosity.

His eyes only left her to scan their surroundings, but snapped upwards as the fireworks erupted above them. They illuminated the sky and bathed it in glittering gold that descended like falling embers and extinguished before they reached the crowd beneath.

The beauty of it all wasn’t lost on him, and he would have appreciated it more if it wasn’t for the sense of unease that lingered in the back of his mind, whispering quiet reminders that all was not well.

And then, behind the shimmering gold, he saw it. Heard it as the low drone that had clung to the edge of his awareness rising into a rolling thunder. A shadow in the sky, moving towards them.

Meran didn’t know what it was, but then, he didn’t need to know. He left the shadows and joined the crowd, an intruder in their revelry, forcing his path through the them until he had reached Linna.

“We are leaving. Now!” he urged.

“But… why?”, Linna asked, defiant as expected, but with an undercurrent of fear in her voice.

“Don’t look up.”, he told her, and grabbed her arm.

They hadn’t even moved out of the crowd yet when the celebratory mood of those around them seemed to shift.

“What’s that?”

“Is that part of the show?”

“Looks like a ship!”

“Keep moving.”, Meran told her. Beaming back to the Sirona in the middle of the crowd would spark a panic. He didn’t want to be the one to set it off.

But the spark came anyway.
Only seconds later when the looming silhouette erupted in fiery destruction, breaking apart, splintering into streaks of fire.

Three minutes. Two and a half, most likely. That was how much time they had until the shockwave would reach them.

Enough time to seek cover.

Or be trampled by the panicked crowd.

“Meran to Sirona, two to beam up.”, Meran barked as he tapped his badge. His grip around Linna tightened when no answer came, and he tried again.  “Sirona, respond!”

But there was nothing. Not even the affirmative beep that the connection had been established. Not that he would have heard it over the shouting that grew louder and louder, as the crowd began moving towards the east and west exit.

He shielded Linna with his body, ruthlessly pushing people to the side.

Step by step, painfully slowly, they inched towards the exit as countless bodies pressed against them, hot and frantic and overwhelming.

An animal, hot-blooded and ravenous, that was swallowing its prey.

And the music kept playing. Too loud, too steady, uncaring that the world had just ended above them.

Suddenly, the people in front of them stopped moving forward.

“Why are we stopping?”, Linna asked, her eyes fearful as she looked up at Meran. Meran craned his neck to see what was going on, while he tried to decipher the words that were being shouted.

The terrified screams rose above music and thunder. Fragments in the static. Then words. Then devastation.

“The exit is blocked!”

The men and women in front of them turned frantically and disoriented, desperate to locate the other exit, while those behind them were still pushing onward, past them, into them, forcefully enough to rip her away from her protector.

Linna opened her mouth to scream, but no sound escaped her lips as her lungs were struggling for air.

Fear and disbelief froze her in place, the well-rehearsed instructions forgotten. This was Risa. Risa was safe. She was just here to dance.

Next to her, someone stumbled and fell, reaching for Linna and almost dragging her down with him. The few steps she was able to take were enough to separate her from Meran, but not enough to spare her the sight of the fallen man’s place promptly taken by another. The first stepped over him, the second onto him. The third and fourth didn’t even notice him laying there any more.

“Meran!” When Linna finally could scream, her voice joined those of the crowd around her in a cacophony of terror that kept rising in pitch and volume, a towering wave just seconds from breaking.

“Here!”, a voice called out, and a familiar grip on her arm, dragging her into the direction of the sound towers. Meran kicked and clawed and carved their path, no longer a Starfleet Officer, just a man trying to survive.

Trying to protect her.

He had always said it, but it was the first time Linna believed it.

“Get down!”, Meran yelled, not waiting for a reaction but slamming her into the floor. “It’s happening any second now!”

“What is happening? I don’t understand!” Linna cried, but for the first time in her life, obeyed without question as he wrapped himself around her, shielding her head with one arm, and bracing himself with the other.

Mere seconds later, the shockwave hit. A deafening roar, deeper than thunder, accompanied by a crushing force that slammed into them, pressed the air out of their lungs, raining dust and debris.

The music died mid-beat, then collapsed into a static. Only a single, high-pitched, piercing sound rang through Linna’s skull. A final note, held too long, until it dissolved into nothing.