The bridge lights were low, the deep red feeling like it was penetrating every corner, the low hum of the engines was felt throughout the deck plating. L’rena and Tal’kor were both on Caelari Prime which meant command fell to the third officer, Drenak. He wore it the way all old warriors wore scars, as proof that the wound had closed but it was not painless.

He paced around the command chair as though preparing for a hunt, he listened to the ship breath. Fifty years in the service of the Klingon Empire had taught him the difference of a warship at ease and a warship growing careless.

“status,” he growled to the officers around him.

“Green across all sir,” replied Ka’rella at tactical. She was almost as tall as her father, Tal’kor the first officer on board, her massive hands rested lightly on the disruptor grid. “the aft emitter is a hair under peak, but still as strong as this vessel is old.”

“Engineering?” Drenak asked, clicking on comm button on the command chair.

“Primary couplers steady,” came Kaylee’s voice over the comm, cheerfully, then changed her tone, “I do think your Targ has stolen my favourite wrench though.”

Drenak’s mouth twitched, he hated being on the Bridge. He much preferred his place in engineering, fighting with the engine. It annoyed him that this young engineer was doing his job with ease. ‘What self-respecting engineer just fixes the engines without a fight!’ He thought. At lease his Targ was keeping her busy.

“Security,” he snapped.

Rin’Tal, Ka’rella’s older sister looked up from a diagnostic. “Deck patrols posted, Ka’rek and I will be running surprise drills after we eat.” She said with a smile.

“Surprise,” Ka’rek interrupted, not looking up, “means you don’t announce it.”

“I am announcing it to myself.” Rin’tal replied. “So, I can be ready!”

Drenak shook his head and was about to say something when Bow, the ships chef and medic poked his head around the door to the bridge. The smell of the meal he prepared following him.

“if you announce any drill before my blood strew thickens there’ll be a medical emergency in the galley” he said dropping a crate on the deck with a thump. “Drenak, permission to poison the crew.”

“Granted,” Drenak said, disappointed with the routine.

The doors closed but the smell hung in the air. It made Ka’rella’s stomach growl enough for the bridge crew to hear.

“A predator prepares,” she said.

Drenak noticed a change in Ka’rella’s display, nothing that an untrained eye would notice but this old engineer misses little.

Ka’rella looked down and noticed the drop too, “Aft emitter’s slight drift had just become a stumble,” she said.

“Kaylee,” Drenak said, already moving. “Report,” he commanded.

“Seeing it,” Kaylee answered. “Local to the portside relay, she’s having a little squeal.”

Drenak frowned, “what kind of a squeal?”

“The kind that could get worse if we don’t oil it” she replied, “I’ll take a look”

“Rin’Tal and Ka’rek will assist you,” Drenak said, the pair already heading toward engineering. They probably wouldn’t be much use to her. He hated to admit, but she knew the ship almost as well as he did. But all the years in service of the empire had taught him to plan for the worse.

——

Kaylee arrived at the access panel with both security officers in tow, each with a coil of cable over their shoulders. The cover came away with a reluctant jolt, warm air shot out of the access tube, metallic and faintly…. sweet?

Ka’rek wrinkled his nose and turn away from the open hatch, “that is a smell I can avoid.”

Kaylee opened pulled her tricorder from her belt, and opened the top, engaging the device. “Coating on the superconductive ribs has been chewed,” she said, “not melted.… chewed.”

Rin’tal leaned inwards to try to see through the open hatch, “By what?”

A glittering bead appeared, gliding along one of the ribs. It was small, about the size of a fingernail. Another followed, then another. They made a small sound, like they were communicating while looking for food.

“Kahless’s beard…. Coil worms!” Kaylee breathed excitedly. “I’ve only ever seen holo images.”

Rin’tal’s hand instinctively went to her dagger. Kaylee caught her wrist, “They’ll spit if you cut them, then where you had one you will have two,” she said.

Ka’rek pulled a face in disgust, “who brings those on a warship?”

“Everyone,” Kaylee replied. “They love in station ducts, hitchhike on crates and they adore the taste of any lacquer.”

“Hah, like Drenak and his bloodwine!” Ka’rek replied.

“We need to bait them,” Kaylee continued, “and make she ship taste worse than a dishonourable death.”

“bait?” Bow said, appearing behind the trio as if he’d been summoned by the smell. He carried with him a pot and ladle. “I brought Stew?”

Rin’tal turned to look at Bow, “we are not feeding our food to these vermin!”

Bow sniffed, “My warriors stew will tempt Gods, you wanted bait?”

Kaylee went over and peered into the pot. It looked alive, the heat making the stew moved around. “That might actually work,” she conceded. “give me the ladle.”

Bow held it back, “respect the ladle,” he warned. “It has served on board longer than we have.”

“It will continue to do so, now give it here,” Kaylee said pulling it out his hands. She took a scoop and smeared it along a conduit. “Now we need to flood the access tube with a small field inversion, make everything in there taste sour.”

“We can do that?” Ka’rek asked.

Kaylee grinned, “we can do anything is Drenak doesn’t tell us not to.”

——

On the Bridge Drenak listened to their conversation. He wanted to be down there, solving the problem himself. He kept quiet, knowing that this was not his moment.

Back in the access tube the coil-worms had paused in their chewing. One of them raised part of its body, stretching cautiously toward the smear of stew. Other followed its lead, then another, all seemingly abandoning the lacquer for the stew.

“Now” Kay’lee said, turning on the inverter.

A gentle ripple passed through the area of the ship. The metallic taste in the air changing. The coil-worms recoiling completely from the lacquer and took a nose dive toward the stew.

Both Rin’tal and Ka’rek pounced forwards with prepared capture sleeves, clear flexible cylinders. The worms flowed in.

Ka’rek looked especially pleased with himself, holding the container up to Bow, “hah!” he exclaimed, “prisoners!”

“Trang would call them Specimens,” Bow replied, dropping some more of his stew into another container ready to catch the next batch. “everything eats,” he said.

Kayless looked at the creatures captured so far within the containers. Their colours pulsed happily. “They’re not native to the ship,” she said. “We’ll need to scan the cargo hold to find how they got here and if they have…. Friends.”

Ka’rek tapped the container, “what do we do with them?” he asked.

Bow cleared his throat, “we could honour them?”

The trio stared at him silently for a moment.

“They attacked our ship,” Ka’rek said.

“They have reminded us to be vigilant,” Bow countered. “And they were cunning in their hunger, they may be small but they completed their hunt. I can take a refractor coil and sear a strip of Gagh over it, we will eat as they do! A ship remains strong when it remembers it has a hearth.”

Rin’tal glanced toward Kaylee who shrugged in return. “I like eating and not dying,”

Drenak had continued to listed in, hearing the plan he clicked the comm button “Bow, I will allow the hearth ceremony”

“Ha!” Bow shouted, “I will prepare it now.”

“Do not prepare anything with the actual pests,” Drenak added. “I may be an old warrior, but I am not foolish.”

——

The hot coil was prepared in the galley. It was an old refractor from a retired relay but it would today serve honourably again. Bow laid strips of Gagh across it with reverence and a little mischief. The meat hissed and the smell rolled out through the ship.

Ka’rella arrived first, drawn toward the smell while her stomach growled like a war drum. Kaylee entered next still with lacquer on her arms but she wore it like a trophy. Rin’Tal and Ka’rel entered and took opposite ends of the table.

Drenak came last, he did not sit in the captains chair, that was always reserved for L’rena who was still planet side. He took the seat that Bow shoved toward him, but also happened to be the best place to smell the victory.

Bow banged a ladle against a pan and the galley went quiet.

“We hunted an enemy today,” he said. “It was small, it was hungry, but it chose the wrong ship! We tasted steel, we fed it fire, so now….. we eat!”

The ladled the stew he prepared, slathering the plates with the prepared Gagh.

Ka’rella tore into her food with pleasure, “this is excellent,” she pronounced,

“It is…” Rin’tal agree grudgingly, which from him was the highest praise.

Ka’rek lifted his cup of bloodwine, “To Kaylee, to the stew and to the worms that dined badly!”

Laughter went up around the room, Kaylee lifted her own cup with a smile. “To Drenak,” she said, “Who let me do the thing before telling me ten ways not to!”

Drenak raised his cup in return, “A ship will teach her crew, if her crew is willing to listen. Today, we listened.”

Ka’rella wiped her fingers, “will the coil-worms ever return?”

“We will always have attempted invasions,” Kaylee said “this is why a ship needs a good crew, whether engineers, security officers or chefs. We are all warriors in the defence of this vessel.”

Bow looked to Drenak, “You have served a lifetime,” he said “Does the quietness between action ever feel like defeat?”

“Only to those who think that a song needs a drum,” Drenak replied. “Some songs are like knives being sharpened. Some are like boots that need oiling. Some… some, are a ship remembering that she is alive.”

He gestured toward the crew laughing over crumbs.

Drenak lifted his cup, “To the Y’tem,” he said, “To quiet victories, and to the taste of steel.”