The sprint to the distress signal’s coordinates didn’t feel like fifteen minutes. Song felt like she’d spent easily three hours watching stars fly by the viewscreen. Once upon a time, she’d found them fascinating- thinking about how those little dots of light had been travelling through that great interstellar void for years, decades, centuries, maybe even millennia, just to smash headlong into a little starship that could fit in someone’s decently large backyard, blitzing through the nothingness at speeds orders of magnitude beyond even what those little photons could do.

Now, each dot trailing past the screen reminded her that, maybe a few years ago, there were other ships transiting these same stars, harassed and debased by the same Draxans, and most of them almost certainly didn’t have Wasp‘s sting to protect them. A few years ago, when those photons were first radiated by their stars, maybe someone else had called out into the void and received no reply.

Some say that the aftermath of a rescue mission is the worst part, coming face-to-face with what is left behind, the guilt of what you could and couldn’t save eating at your soul. Song would argue it’s the run to the rescue mission that’s worse. At least after it’s all said and done, you know if you were too late. On the way there, all you could do was watch echoes from years past and hope against hope.

Everyone else must’ve been feeling the same way, because M’Rakko’s announcement made Song, Azestra, and Rainet all jump in their seats, the silence that had permeated the bridge now shattered like glass under a sledgehammer. “We’re here- dropping us out of warp.”

Song simply nodded, and the stars stopped blurring. The view outside was now truly dark- other than the distant galactic core looming hundreds of light-years away, there was little but the occasional spot of light to break the black. Little at all… other than the flashes of energy weapons lancing outward.

“Sitrep, Az?”

The Betazoid was quick to respond, as always. “Two Draxan frigates are engaging an unknown vessel, and our two friends from Nareen have just arrived. Unknown has limited shields and doesn’t appear to be armed- judging by the large amount of empty space, I think she’s a cargo ship.”

“Lifesigns, Rain?” Song’s attention snapped to the science officer.

“86, none familiar to Federation databanks.” Her eyebrows shot up. “Hell of a first contact scenario.”

The Korean woman’s teeth gritted, jaw tense. Eighty people, on an unarmed freighter, being torn apart by a squadron of Draxan warships… “And Mok’tal?”

“Just dropped in-”

-and before Az could finish, the distinct and recognizable green blue of a Bird of Prey rocketed over Wasp in a mad sprint towards the fight, wings already locked in attack position.

“… Klingons’re really spoiling for a fight,” Rakko commented.

“And for once, they’ve got the right idea.” Song could already feel her nerves steeling, jaw setting, a sort of determination crawling up to the surface. As much as she loathed fighting newcomers on the galactic stage, it was exactly this sort of fight that she rose for. “Those people are asking for help, and they’re not going to get it if we’re sitting around on our asses. Red alert, shields at maximum, damage control teams on standby. Tactical, weapons free. Helm, not to steal from your old CO, but Pattern Maising One- hit it!”

She could’ve sworn that, even though he didn’t reply aloud, Rakko’s sudden grin was so powerful she could feel it even from behind him.

There weren’t many Dominion War veteran Defiant-class starships in the Fourth Fleet. The war was half their oldest ships’ intended lifespan ago, fierce and deadly enough that several had been lost outright, others suffering from chronic damage that worsened over time and lead to others being written off as constrictive total losses later in the century. Defiant-class ships old enough to have seen combat in the War were usually hard-driven and worn out, their hulls stressed and strained in ways post-war ships of the class usually weren’t. A ship like USS Wasp, so old she was just four ships behind the famous Defiant herself, to still be in a condition for active service while nearing her 30th birthday, with every major battle from Torros III to Cardassia under her belt, was a rarity.

And sure, she’d just put her name on an important scientific discovery, gained the honor of having found the waypoint with her humble little sensors before even a big science ship like Hypatia. Sure, she’d spent most of the last few years running more search-and-rescue missions and quiet patrols than outside combat.

But this was what this tough little ship was made for. And one could feel the enthusiasm coursing through Wasp‘s old bones- a sensation that almost made the ship feel alive beneath one’s feet. The way her engines roared as they cranked up to full power- not grumbled, not groaned, roared like a lion charging into battle. The way she bucked forward like a racehorse at the starting gun’s report. The ease with which she barrel-rolled and dove down into the fight, standing on her starboard engine for a moment like an edge-on coin in equilibrium before her nose came downwards towards her target. The way she thrummed as the quad phaser cannons really cut loose, the subtle dual thump-thump of the two torpedo tubes pumping out a quantum warhead each.

USS Wasp was a vessel of one singular purpose- defense of others through combat. And for the first time in far too long, she was in her element.

The last time this maneuver had been pulled, it’d been with an old California-class utility cruiser, never meant for this sort of fight, squaring off with six times her firepower in defense of a Klingon world. But Wasp was a far cry from Oakland, and the very people she’d defended now turned over with her, side by side, and repaid their debt. Oakland had done little more than scratch her target’s paint and cause a temporary power outage. Wasp and Mok’tal‘s combined firepower, on the other hand, tore the Draxan vessel asunder with a horrible ease- phaser and disruptor bursts ripping her dorsal shields open, spraying fragments of superheated hull out into space, before Wasp‘s pair of quantum torpedoes buried themselves in her back and snapped her apart like a tree branch in a storm.

Draxan fire was already splitting space around the two escorts as they dove past the dying frigate, but the score was already open, the silent declaration made. If the Draxans wanted these people dead so badly, they’d have to fight their way through two Dominion War veterans first.