Even the Vaadwaur can fatigue. Even this foe is mortal. Charlotte MacColgan came to this conclusion after no less than four quantum torpedoes- warheads that absolutely would’ve disintegrated Oakland on the spot if they’d hit- flashed past the smoking utility cruiser and vanished into the darkness, missing. Someone was getting sloppy with their aim.

Of course, Oakland was also mortal. Mortal, larger, less maneuverable, less heavily armed, less protected. Even with one escort’s bow shattered, the other was still intact, neither of them were out of the game, and every passing moment the struggle wore on, the closer and closer that giant battlecruiser came to coming back online. And then it wouldn’t matter how fatigued the Vaadwaur escorts were. All that would matter is exactly how long it’d take to reduce ol’ 75012 down to her base molecules.

Yet still, they fought on. Polaron blasts arcing past phaser beams as Oakland and her two foes danced around the disabled cruiser, one side spraying quantum fish into the mists while the other kept her launchers quiet, save for exactly the most opportune moments. Those torpedo launchers were the only chance they’d have to do some real damage. The phaser arrays were already starting to get chewed up, their power levels dropping with every segment wiped away by a direct hit.

Charlie would never be able to say she was any prouder of her crew.

Oakland, at least in that moment, seemed almost to be actually graceful as she slid about the battlefield, Rakko and Espinoza working the helm and tactical stations as though they were suddenly of one single mind. Every maneuver lead to a perfect shot, a dodged projectile, an angling so stouter shields could protect drained ones.

And in the middle of it all did Charlie stand- stand, because the captain’s chair was now lodged by the backrest in the steel roof, because who could ever be standing in this scenario? She’d gone from the sounding board to conducting the choir, and between the three of them, Oakland sang in a way she was never meant to, never intended to, never built to. The ship’s wounded old hull creaked around them, groaning like a wounded animal backed into a corner. But it didn’t fail. It wouldn’t fail.

Failure meant the deaths of innocents. Failure was not something they could allow.

“They’re lining up for another run! Probably trying to hit us with torpedoes again!” Espinoza announced, practically hunched over her seat as the ship shuddered.

“Take us right down their bloody throat, Ensign! LT, prep fish, we’ll blunt their nose yet!” Charlie roared over the din of a console exploding behind her.

“What about theirs?”

“We’ll get too close for ’em tae launch! Damn their bloody torpedoes ‘n full speed ahead!”

Oakland jerked forward as though from a catapult, again charging right down the throat of their enemy, polaron meeting phaser, and at the last minute- photon meeting quantum.

T’Vara did not complain as Ensign Petrenko’s flashlight beam ruined her night vision. Complaining about a natural biological process was illogical, and that light was necessary right now. She would, as always, have to suck it up and deal with it.

“Hold it steady there, Ensign,” she murmured, barely audible over the groans and cries of the wounded calling out in the dark. This hallway on Deck Four was the new triage, and that meant they needed power for medical equipment. Power the entire deck did not currently have. Rather than set aside an entire engineering team from the task of making sure the ship’s weapons, shields, or engines didn’t lose power, this was a job she decided to take herself.

“Y-yes, Lieutenant.” Petrenko’s voice wavered even more than his hands did. She could hear him shifting behind her, moving to physically prop the flashlight against a heavy chunk of debris just to keep the beam on target. The target, in this case, being an entire power cable that had been broken almost in half- one of the main routes leading power up from the warp core, and the only one that hadn’t been either completely snapped in half, or simply disintegrated.

T’Vara got to work, swiftly and silently, her hands steady even as the ship shuddered, bucked, and groaned around her. Somewhere further down in the hallway came a POP and then a CLANG as a ceiling tile fell to the floor. She tried to pay it no mind, but this was a difficult task to ask when Petrenko was so startled he dropped the light.

The Vulcan paused, her irritation thick in the air for just a moment before it vanished. “Ensign, please ensure a steady grip on the light. One wrong move and we will both be subject to undoubtedly lethal amounts of electricity.”

The flashlight beam raised again, quivering. “Yes, ma’am.”

Her hands were back to working before she could physically ask them to, before the consideration she had on her mind could formulate in time. A long career as an engineer lead one’s hands to muscle memory. “T’Vara, Ensign. Just T’Vara.”

“… oh.” The beam steadied. Her calculation was correct- giving him something to think about that wasn’t imminent death by explosive decompression steadied his nerves, if only slightly. “… I’m Otto.”

“Otto.” She echoed it, even as her hands moved to swap tools. Humans have such strange names. Otto was so… simple, easy. Two letters. The same on either side. “It is of Germanic origin, is it not? Your name?”

“Yes.” Otto didn’t jump quite as much the next time the ship rocked around them. “My family is Central European, mostly.”

“Are you from Earth?”

He shook his head- she could only tell by the shadow cast on the wall. “No, Vega colony. I’ve… only been to go to Starfleet Academy.”

“I see.” T’Vara resisted the urge to glance behind her, take in the poor ensign’s face- see if what she was doing was actually working at all. It seemed that way, at least from his voice. “I would recommend Prague, when we make it out. The architecture in the old town is certainly of great interest.”

When. Not if. They were going to make it out alive. Both of them. Even if it was illogical to think so, T’Vara countered mentally that it was more illogical to believe reinforcements would not come.

“You’ve been before?” he asked, bracing against the wall as Oakland tanked another hard hit around them.

“Yes. A friend of mine from the Academy lives there.” T’Vara paused, her repairs finished, and then called down the hallway. “Commander, the conduit is fixed! You may turn on the lights!”

“You’re a lifesaver, LT!” came Shymel sh’Insynaph’s call back… and then the lights blinked back on, making both officers wince as light flooded their eyes.

Pride may be illogical… but for a moment, as the equipment powered back up, T’Vara let herself feel just a bit of it. That was her work, her doing. She turned back to the security ensign, noting the worried frown in his stubble was lessened, his dark eyes just a bit less jumpy… a strange feeling in her chest when he looked at her with palpable relief, like T’Vara had just saved his life by kicking the power back on.

“I will make you a deal, Otto,” T’Vara stated, clapping him roughly on the shoulder as she moved past. “When we are done here, if you are willing, I will show you around Prague. It is your ancestry, and thus, it is logical for you to see where you come from.”

She wasn’t quite sure what to make of the odd squeaky sound he made as she headed for the turbolift… or the chuckle that came from sh’Insynaph, barely heard before the lift doors slid shut. Thrown in with the weird fluttering inside her, and she found herself with yet another list of problems to figure out. At least that could probably wait.