“A Warrior does not go into battle without knowing the limitations of his ally.”

Paulo Coelho, (1988)

It is when things are at their worst that we are at our best.

Like a diamond forged under extreme pressure over time, so the human experience is focused and clarified when our very lives and those that we hold dear are imperiled by the pressures of extreme circumstance or hostile intent.

For Ensign Jasmine Hunter, this was one such moment.

Despite her relative youth and inexperience, the young Starfleet pilot possessed two core attributes that were essential to the success of an effective starship helmsman, situation – awareness and good intuition.

Unlike combat between adversaries within the gravity well of a planetary atmosphere, space combat was a multivector theatre of engagement prosecuted in three dimensions with thrust and positioning the dominant factors of success, rather than aerodynamic lift and angle of attack.

The ability to anticipate the intent of your target and intuit their next move was a factor common to both interface and extraplanetary tactical engagement, but to the starship pilot the thin red line that separated victory from ignominious death relied upon familiarity with your own vessel’s capabilities and guessing what limiting factors belonged to the vessel you were facing off against and being able to leverage an advantage against that supposition in a vanishingly closing window of time.

For her own part, the USS Kirk was heavily damaged with limited defensive capabilities in her shields and the majority of her offensive armaments also badly damaged. That left Jasmine with the one determining factor that their adversary, the hulking D’deridex class Romulan Free States Warbird RFSV – Rihanhansu.

Speed and agility.

Hunter put the tiny, but fleet – footed Shran-class Escort through her paces as the space above the Hellworld Hectate#7b flashed and flared with the powerful fury of the massed disruptor fire from the venerable Romulan warship. The sleek manta – like hull of the agile Starfleet ship born testament to the extreme damage and duress that the vessel and her crew had suffered during the last 8 days since they were bested by the Free States ship during their first, near-fatal encounter when they had been ambushed in orbit whilst searching for the RFSN – Selquar (which had suffered a similar fate).

Lieutenant Bohrigm Nil gripped the edge of his console and Ensign Hunter threw the ship through a particular stomach-churning barrel role to avoid the flashing progress of a Romulan torpedo salvo, that came uncomfortably-close to achieving it tactical goal and then grimaced as the confident young pilot swiftly pulled the Kirk into a classic “Immelmann” maneuver to reverse direction through a half loop and half role.

With the vessel suddenly facing their enemy, Jasmine gunned the impulse engines and the view forward light up and Ensign Kuta opened up with the forward – facing Photon cannons, raking the powerful shields of the Warbird in an attempt to wear their shield generator down and hoping to score a hit on her hull and superstructure that might make a difference to this mismatched face off.

Shields that stubbornly refused all attempts to be breached. The D’deridex was just a foe too powerful for the Shran to hope to take on by herself, even if she was fighting fit and in her prime. It was just a question of scale and the USS Kirk was already punching well outside of its weight class.

Bohrigm didn’t need to glance down at the tactical evaluation algorithm that he was running on his console to see that they were in trouble and knew that, if something didn’t happen very soon to redress the tactical imbalance between the tow vessels, that paucity would see the Romulan finish what they started over a week ago and they would all be sucking vacuum and going to meet their respective makers.

He looked over to where his best friend and commanding officer sat on the raised dais in her command – chair, Lane’s face set with a grim expression and faintly illuminated from the twinned holo – displays that flanked her seat and he called out dryly.

“Well, if your intention was to get their attention, I think we can say that that was a resounding success.” The stout Tellarite quipped lightly as the bridge shuddered as another salvo from the Rihanhansu found their mark and degraded just a little more of their precious and dwindling shield integrity. They were no Defiant-class and lacked the advantage of ablative hull-plating. When her shields were gone and stripped away, then the Romulan assaults would start to move on to more vital systems and strip the Kirk of any hope of survival.

“I’m intrigued; did your plan progress any further than kicking the hornet’s nest and trying to see what happened when you pissed them off?”

The USS Kirk was a small vessel with a tight – kinit crew and CO and XO had known each other since their days together at the Academy and had been inseparable since. This level of familiarity would almost certainly be frowned upon aboard a larger vessel with a more orthodox command – structure, but Hanley actually encouraged the fraternity that persisted aboard her ship, knowing that the trust and closeness of the relationships that formed in the confines of the smaller Escort was the glue that held them together at times like this.

Lieutenant – Commander Lane Hanley did not take offense at being spoken to so, by her friend and confidence but, in reality Bo’ had framed the predicament perfectly and hit the rather problematic nail, that their situation presently encompassed, on the head with the metaphorical – hammer and drove it 3 decks deep.

“It’s more of a ‘work-in-progress’.” Lane smiled thinly and replied in a terse tone as she gripped the hand rests of her chair and the deck canted and Jasmine slammed the ship suddenly to starboard and the jade – green hull of the D’deridex flashed past beneath them on the main viewscreen, uncomfortably close but comfortably fast.

“That’s incredibly reassuring,” Bo ‘muttered, but not with ill-intent as he looked back to his board and continued to assist both pilot and tactical officer in ensuring that the tactical feeds that they were receiving were optimized to ensure that their situational awareness was as accurate and up-to-date in real time as possible.

“Do be sure to let us know when inspiration strikes?”

Bo’ was right, they couldn’t keep this up. At some point their evasion would be confounded and their chances of survival would focus into a rapidly diminishing cone of opportunity until it vanished. She had to think of something and think fast.

“Operations!” Hanley called out. Her voice calm and assured, a stark contrast to the rising well of panic she felt within. “Are we able to get a broadcast out of the system yet?”

It was a thin hope and probably one that would only benefit Starfleet in possibly being able to counter and intercept their opponent and the precious military secrets that the Repository held, once they themselves were dead. Yet it would still be a victory of a sorts, Lane thought morosely.

“Negative, Ma’am.” Ensign Gaca responded, the Ferengi’s face intent on the feed from the battered comms – array. She had spent long hours coaxing the subspace communicator transmitter back to life as the Kirk had languished at the bottom of a lake of sulfuric – acid, yet the hope that they could somehow let Starfleet know what treachery had transpired here, still did not help their immediate problem.

“The Romulan’s are still blocking our signal.” Gaca sounded apologetic.

Lane knew that it was better for the crew to remain occupied, rather than focus on the reality of imminent-death, so she ordered the tiny Ferengi officer, “Very good Ensign. Keep at it.”

“Aye Captain.” Gaca nodded and went about her task.

Above, open space. Below, the Hellworld and, in the middle the thin red-line of orbit where Hanley and her crew must somehow ensure that the Romulan Warbird was unable to depart with its dangerous prize.

Normally known for thinking outside the box, the ordeal of the last 8 days had taken their toll on Lane Hanley. Sat in the same battered EVA suit that had carried her from equator to pole on a nightmarish odyssey across the Hellworld (and now kept her broken arm immobilized) and suffering from extreme exhaustion and the onset of radiation sickness, she was a woman beyond the frontier of her physical and mental endurance.

Yet, as she struggled in vain to come up with some ingenious eleventh – hour scheme or stratagem that would become the limiting factor that would save the day, Lane found that she could conjure up no such inspiration.

The bridge shuddered again as the ship withstood yet another well placed volley from the Rihanhansu’s disruptor arrays lashed the Kirk and Ensign Kuta called out in his same, sure unhurried tones, “Sheilds at 6 percent and falling, Captain.”

Lane grimaced as Ensign Hunter banked the ship away from the D’deridex at a sharp angle and the massive Romulan ship (larger still than a Galaxy-class) began to slowly turn to port to bring her main armaments to bear.

This was likely to be her last salvo. All was lost.

With a deep breath, Hanley resolved to do the one last thing that still remained within her power to ensure that the Romulan Free State never got to leverage the terrible power of the information contained within the Repository.

“All hands prepare to abandon ship.” Lane ordered, opening up an entry in the ship’s official log.

“Captain! No!” Bohrigm tried to rise from his seat in protestation, but the hip brace he was wearing made this act difficult.

Undeterred, Lieutenant – Commander Hanley persisted to issue her fateful order.

“Ensign Hunter, you will transfer helm controls to my station. Lieutenant Nil, you are to ensure that all other crewmembers report immediately to their assigned emergency muster stations and man the lifeboats for immediate evacuation. When you have reached a minimum safe distance, I will reverse course to intercept the Warbird and scuttle the warp core. Hopefully, at that distance, it will be sufficient to ensure that they are destroyed. I am entering these orders in the ships official logs and transmitting a copy to your lifeboat.”

Lieutenant Bohrigm Nil struggled to his feet as the more junior bridge officers looked around at each other with uncertainty and the barrel chested little Tellarite made his way over to the command dais and gripped the edge of one of her Holo-rails, his bearded face a mask of conflicted anguish.

“Captain! Lane! You cannot do this!” Bohrigm persisted stubbornly. “There has to be another way!”

Lane smiled sadly at her friend and absently brushed a lock of blonde hair away from her face and regarded him with regretful, grey eyes.

“Bo’, I wish that there was another way, but there’s just not.” Lane spoke softly and sought to assure her companion with a reassuring squeeze of his shoulder. “The ship is dying. I know it. You know it. But I’m not going to let my crew die with it. We need to stop that ship, Bo’. Our duty is clear on that.”

Bohrigm angrily brushed her hand aside and raged impotently.

“Fuck duty Lane!” He seethed. “This is about your Father and his impossible bloody legacy and you know it! Do you think that by laying down your life, sacrificing yourself and your ship in some bloody vainglorious effort to save your crew just like he did at Wolf 359, will somehow balance the scales and make you feel his equal!”

Lane was taken aback, she had never seen her old friend so angry as he continued, undeterred.

“You’re a bloody fool, Lane Belle Hanley!” Nil jabbed a finger at her accusingly, using her full name. “A pig-headed, ignorant, arrogant, brilliant, stupid bloody – FOOL! You’re so mired in your father’s impossible legacy that you fail to appreciate the legacy that you’ve carved out here. On this ship, with these people! With ME! You’re more than equal to the old – man’s memory, but that is all that it is – can’t you see?”

“The Admiral is gone, he’s a memory Lane, but you’re not…we’re not. Not yet!! You’re an outstanding officer and an even better friend, but you need to step out of his shadow once and for all and lead these people. You need to accept the woman that you are now is not chained to the past forever. You need to fight!”

Lane blinked as her friend stood before her, his soul bared and shoulders shaking from the effort and she whispered sadly.

“Oh Bo’! The day is lost, what would you have me do? Ride to glory on broken wings and sacrifice the entire crew? I’m sorry my friend, but that’s a futile gesture and, as much as I value your friendship and take onboard your words, this isn’t about my father. Not in the way that you think. This is about Command, Bo’ and the weight of the obligation that I took on when I accepted this seat. In that, at least, I actually do feel a little closer to the Admiral in this moment. It’s a decision that I don’t want to have to make, but it’s once that I must make because that’s what sitting in this chair really means.”

Bitter tears of denial rimmed Bohrigm’s eyes and he found that he couldn’t speak.

Lane reached over and squeezed his hand and spoke from her heart.

“Bohrigm Nil. You have been the best, most constant force for good in my life, even if you are also the most willfully annoying one in it too. I’ve always trusted you and your unfailingly good judgement. Most of all I value your honesty. Look into your heart Bo’, you know that this is the only way anyone wins out of this terrible mess. I need to you to trust me, one last time, and get our people to safety and get them home.”

The bridge rocked to another salvo and in the red emergency – light, everything looked hellish and dire.

“Shields have failed, Captain.” Ensign Kuta reported. Voice somehow still calm.

Bohrigm’s face was grave, his eyes hopeless and wounded. With a small nod and tight voice, he squeezed her hand back hard and said, “Very well, Captain. Well, I’ll see you in hell I guess?”

Lane squeezed back, her smile sad and blinked back the tears.

“Been there already, but I’ll save you a seat.”

Bohrigm let go of her hand regretfully and gathered himself, reaching over Lane’s command console and keying open a ship wide comm.

“All hands. This is the Executive Officer. Make your way to your designated muster point and prepare to abandon ship. This is not a drill. I repeat, Prepare to abandon ship.”

He sighed as a smoke haze filled the damaged bridge and the crew began to rise from their seats to comply with the order.

Suddenly the viewscreen came alive with the tell – tale phototrophic effect of another vessel dropping the pretense of its cloaking field and materializing back into the visible spectrum.

“New contact decloaking off the port bow, Captain, Range 5,000 meters.” Ensign Kuta reported, possibly with a note of something more approaching excitement, but still not quite there yet.

Lane’s heart sank. The Warbird had obviously had ample time to call for re-enforcements, although at this late stage it was rather like putting a spear on the tip of a photon – torpedo. Their fate was obviously sealed.

“Identify.” Bohrigm demanded.

“It’s Klingon, Sir!” Now Kutka did sound surprised, “Brell-class Bird of Prey. IFF Telemetry confirms the IKN-D’rath!!”

Lieutenant Bohrigm Nil frowned. The same ship that had stubbornly refused to give way to the USS Kirk, as she patrolled the Outer Operating Area at Framheim nearly two weeks previously.

“The Klingon vessel is hailing us, Captain!” Ensign Gaca clearly had no issues with sounding elated.

Daring to hope for the first time in a long time, Lane let out a breath of relief and ordered urgently.

“Onscreen!”

The crenulated features of Lieutenant Commander Chon’igi Vogh of House d’Ghesht, ally to the Federation, filled the bridge with an indolent sneer.

“Predictably, you struggle against the loathsome Romulans like a newborn Procyonid, Starfleet.” She smiled her sharp, toothed smile as she sprawled easily in her command chair, one hook – booted leg hung over its arm.

“We were all having bets on how much longer you’d survive but got bored at such poor sport, so decided to step in to hasten the odds to conclusion. This place bores me. So, if you’re done ineffectually venting warp plasma and would like to do something of note, maybe you’d like to join us and take the fight to this green – blooded, back stabbing baktag!? The Klingon commander grinned wolfishly.

As welcome as the sight of the D’rath was, Lane knew that a single Bird of Prey and one almost- ruined Starfleet escort was still insufficient to tip the balance of the scales and win out the day.

The Limiting Factor still came down to numbers.

“More contacts decloaking, Captain!” Now Kutka sounded elated, as the Tactical officer confirmed one, two, three, no four more Brell-class Birds of Prey decloaking in the immediate volume, surrounding the looming Rihanhansu & leaving the Warbird no clear path of retreat.

Bohrigm Nil laughed out loud. Never having been so glad in his life to see a Klingon.

A thin smile creased Lieutenant Commander Lane Hanley’s smooth features, as the commanding officer of the USS Kirk nodded,

“We’d be delighted to join you Commander. The glory of the hunt is yours!!!”

She turned to Jasmine and ordered with fresh resolve in her voice.

“Ensign Hunter! Bring us about and take up a position trailing the lead Klingon vessel.”

Jasmine smiled, her smooth brown hands already flowing over the controls of the helm.

“Aye, aye, Ma’am. Coming about.”

“Mr Kuta. Target the Romulan Warbird. Targets of opportunity only, we don’t want to deny our Klingon friends the fruits of their labors.” Lane settled into her seat, a sense of relief flooding every corner of her being.

“With considerable pleasure, Captain. Re-energizing the forward cannons.” The tall, pinkish Saurian smiled as he re-acquired the Romulan vessel and locked on target.

“Let’s stop that vessel and get ourselves home, people.” Hanley ordered with a smile that was more than a little bit predatory.

Commander Navain of the Romulan Free States Warbird RFSV – Rihanhansu did what any self – respecting Romulan would in similar circumstances and tried to raise his own cloak and flee in the face of such insurmountable odds but the Klingons, no stranger themselves to cloaking technology, had anticipated such a cowardly action and had prioritized the D’deridex’s own cloaking generator as their first target and swiftly clipped the Warbird’s wings with their murderous fire.

Suddenly bereft of the opportunity to flee and fully aware that his betrayal and murder of Major Silak would inevitably signal his own death, once the Tal Shiar became aware of his treachery, Commander Navain resolved to fight to the death, rather than surrender.

The space above the Hellworld erupted into a riot of searing green disruptor fire, punctuated by bright laces of photon torpedo volleys as the Klingon Bird’s of Prey harried their much larger quarry in a ballet of rapacious destruction. The Rihanhansu gave a good account of herself, destroying one encroaching Klingon warship and significantly disabling another but, as the USS Kirk darked in and out of contact between the sinister green hulls of the elegant craft laying down punishing fire with her forward phase cannons, the hunter had now become the hunted and her own fate was sealed.

It was just a matter of time.

Ultimately Navain decided to scuttle the quantum singularity that lay at the heart of the D’deridex, when it was clear that he was fighting a losing battle with no hope of victory. Rather than being taken alive, the Free States Commander elected to destroy his vessel along with the prize of the Repository.

Those Romulans still alive aboard the Rihanhansu, joined the memory engrams that were all that remained of the long dead Garsedi Northern Compact High Command as they (and the terrible tactics and designs of eternal warfare they hoarded) were once more drawn back to the darkness of oblivion as the singularity suddenly collapsed, greedily sucking all available matter available to it as it collapsed back into itself and formed a brief, but voracious black hole singularity.

The raging maw of the event horizon howled with the fury of impossible energy as the D’deridex was crushed and consumed by the tiny, localized tear in space/time and as its hunger demanded satisfaction, it gathered up the crippled Klingon vessel, but Lieutenant Commander Vogh had anticipated this cowardly tactic and had time to beam the crippled-ship’s crew aboard the IKN-D’rath and was already powering away from the point of detonation.

The USS Kirk, her own impulse engines straining to the red-line, was also able to escape the incandescent gravitational forces of the singularity collapse and escaped a similar fate largely because she had been wisely keeping to the peripheries of the short, violent engagement due to having no shield protection to speak of (and also because its not wise to interrupt Klingon Birds of Prey when they are feeding).

The Hawking Radiation of the rapidly collapsing singularity began to flare in a massive release of particle collapse and the night-black skies around Hecate#9b flared with the death of a tiny star and the short-lived accretion disk around the event-horizon collapsed in a blinding flare of superdense matter.

The Hellworld persisted, no more broken than it already was.

The crew of the Shran-class escort were thrown around the bridge like ragdolls, such was the force of the gravitational wave that rode out before the collapse, but gradually Ensign Hunter was able to restore control to the ship.

In the stunned silence that followed the storm, Lieutenant Bohrigm Nil turned to his CO and best friend and spoke.

“Lane, what I said earlier, about your father….” He began abashed.

“Was fair and in some parts true, Bo’” Lieutenant – Commander smiled at her friend. “As was the part about you being annoying.”

Bohrigm laughed at that and shrugged. “I’ll take that.” As he looked around the chaos of the bridge he added,

“The old girl really took a beating this time.”

Hanley winced as the pain of her broken arm began to persist now she was free of anesthetic and adrenaline, she put her hand to the throbbing limb and agreed.

“I sincerely hope that your referring to the ship and not me.”

Her friend looked at her and grinned impishly from beneath his unruly thatch of beard, “You’re going to need a hell of a lot more than a quick tow back to Framheim from a friendly California – class to sort out the many, many things that are wrong with you Lane Hanley, but you’d better get yourself down to sickbay before Dr Voe loses patience with his patient and breaks your other arm.”

Lane nodded, the ordeal of the past few days had taken their toll and she looked worn out and far older than her 35 years allowed.

“You know, you can say some quite sweet things when the moment takes you.” Hanley grimaced as she rose from the captain’s chair to relinquish command to her Executive Officer.

Bohrigm settled his own healing hips into the Big Chair with a wince and muttered.

“I was under considerable pressure at the time and the drugs this thing is pumping into me probably make me overemotional. Don’t worry, I’m not making a habit of it.”

Lieutenant – Commander Lane Hanley rested an affectionate hand on her old friend’s shoulder and smiled.

“See that you don’t. I prefer grumpy you.”

The Tellarite grunted and nodded at that.

“So, call for a ride and then home?” Lieutenant Nil asked.

“You know that.” Hanley agreed with some enthusiasm, although as she looked at the brunt – sepia ruin of the Hellworld of Hecate7#b and the rusted band of the remains of the circle-city that ringed its equator, she added in a curious tone.

“But first, when Six has got the transporters back up and running, we’ve got one last stop to make before we leave.”