USS Culver City was on her way back to Duwalla from the Tisalfa System when she received the news, relayed from IKS Slivin: her sister, USS Blythe, had been downed by the Ferengi.  When Lieutenant (jg) Tiza finished reading the message from the Slivin, which had managed to guide Blythe to a controlled crash-landing on Derganix, the bridge of the Culver City was so silent that one could have heard a heartbeat from the other side of the room.

That silence was broken as Lieutenant Commander Varyn K’lev, the ship’s commanding officer, stood suddenly and moved back to the auxiliary console along the bridge’s back wall.  He called up the sensor telemetry that the B’rel-class bird of prey had relayed, showing Blythe’s present situation, reviewing it for a moment before a low growl rumbled in his throat and he punched the console’s wall-mounted display hard enough to crack the glass; the report of the cracking glass caused several of the bridge crew to jump suddenly.

“Sir?” Lieutenant Ophelia Lotharys asked.

K’lev turned around, ignoring the throbbing pain in his right hand – he’d cracked two bones in his fingers with that punch – and looked around the bridge, his eyes flashing, though it was hard to tell if it was because of anger, a sudden feeling of vulnerability, or both, or perhaps some other feeling.  “Tyrisa, take us to red alert.  All hands to battle stations; raise shields, charge phasers, and load torpedoes.  Ari, get us to Derganix; increase to warp 8, I wanna be there yesterday.  Tiza, tell Slivin we’re coming fast, and ask them to keep Blythe covered until we arrive.”

The bridge crew nodded, jumping to their duties.  The ship’s overhead lighting dimmed as her red alert lights began pulsing.  “We’ll be there in a couple of hours,” Lieutenant (jg) Ari Phillips said from the helm.

K’lev nodded, holding his injured right hand in his left as he walked back to his chair and sat; as he walked by, Lotharys looked at him with concern in her eyes, quietly sending a message to Lieutenant (jg) Hilava in sickbay: Please send a tech to the bridge, with a medkit.  Meanwhile, K’lev activated an intercom channel from his chair’s armrest console.  “Bridge to Engineering.”

“What is it?” came Lieutenant Pelix’s response.

“Blythe’s been downed; some Ferengi shuttle with an energy dissipater installed.  Get a repair team together; we’ll be sending them down to see if we can patch her up and get her airborne again.”

There was a pause over the intercom before Pelix replied.  “We’ll get right on it,” he said, clearly understanding the gravity of the moment.

“Thank you, Pelix.  Bridge out,” K’lev answered, then closed the channel.

A couple of minutes later, the turbolift doors opened and a medtech appeared, carrying a medkit.  Lotharys nodded towards K’lev, wordlessly sending the tech over; a brief examination of his hand confirmed the cracked bones, which the osteoregenerator was easily able to fix.  The medtech’s work done, they returned to the turbolift, leaving the bridge.

K’lev flexed his now-repaired fingers; as he did so, Lieutenant (jg) Tyrisa sh’Livo spoke up from tactical.  “Sir?  What should we do; about the Ferengi, that is?”

K’lev considered the streaking starfield on the main viewscreen, remembering Chief Bong’s advice to always at least seem like he had a plan.  “First thing’s first, we secure Blythe and make sure her crew’s okay.  After that, we make sure they don’t try it twice.”

Perhaps he said that last bit with a little too much edge in his voice, or perhaps his eyes flashed a little too much, but whatever it was, it caused Lotharys to look over in concern.  She remembered how he’d reacted when his old classmate T’Rin had been falsely accused of plagiarism at the Academy; her old friend had always taken a dim view of people being mistreated or targeted for things they didn’t do, so his anger here at this unprovoked and unjustified attack was not unsurprising.  And Culver City had worked quite well with her sister Blythe during the Rhontaka incident, so that she’d been downed definitely felt personal to all on the former’s bridge.  But that also made it more of a worry for her that he might be – at least at this moment in time – a little more interested in vengeance than in fair-handed justice, so in that moment Lotharys resolved to keep an eye on him and try to steady him if he slipped.

The minutes ticked by tensely, Phillips counting down on the quarter-hour as Culver City sped towards her sister’s aid as fast as her old engines could safely carry her.  Otherwise, the bridge was largely silent as the seriousness of the situation set in.  Fortunately, data from Slivin had confirmed that most, if not all, of Blythe’s crew had successfully evacuated before she crashed, but that didn’t make it any less of an issue that the attack had happened at all.

Around two hours after she set off, Culver City dropped out of warp, arcing towards orbit of Derganix at full impulse.  “Show her onscreen,” K’lev said; there was no need to clarify what he meant by “her.”

Tiza called up the Blythe’s crash site on the  main viewscreen.  She had gone down – seemingly somewhat under control, though in the moment it was as hard to say if that was her own power or guided by Slivin’s tractor beam – in a park just outside of the capital city of Derganix.  Her escape pods had been launched, and Culver City’s sensors could readily detect a number of non-Dergan life signs around the ship, clear evidence that at least some of her surviving crew had landed and returned to their ship.

“She doesn’t look too bad, all things considered,” Tiza mused from Ops.  “Maybe we can get her back up on her own power?”

K’lev shrugged.  “Maybe, but even if we can she’ll still need help lifting off; these Californias weren’t built for atmospheric operations.  Doesn’t hurt to hope, though.”

In that moment, a sound came from the Ops console, drawing Tiza’s gaze.  “We’ve got a message coming in, from the shuttlecraft Hoffmeister.” He paused, then looked up.  “It’s Captain Tyler, sir.”