“Commandant,” one of the operators said, breaking the stunned silence of the control.

Not ten seconds ago the Commandant and the Major had been yelling at each other, the elder demanding the Major stand down, that the depot would hunker down and wait, the younger demanding a more aggressive and decisive plan of action. The argument had started in the Commandant’s office but had spilt out into the control room, stunning all there into silence as two normally rational and amiable men were at each other’s throats.

The fight had ended when the Major challenged the Commandant’s right to command and the elder man’s response had been swift and decisive. With a quick and unexpected action, he drew his sidearm from his holster and shot the major in the chest, sending him to the floor dead as evidenced by the smoking hole in his chest.

While the yelling had sent everyone back to their stations, professionally ignoring the argument to the best of their ability, weapons fire had simply stunned almost everyone. They weren’t doing their jobs; they were busy trying to look like they hadn’t seen anything at all. Yes, the mood of the room had changed over the last hour, but no one was going to get snippy with a man wielding a weapon and unafraid to use it.

But one man, a lieutenant by the beading on his uniform sash, obviously saw a moment to impress his commander and spoke up, pointing at the camera display that had garnered his attention. The green-skinned woman whom they had been watching lying on top of an air intake on the environmental building was now outside the doors of the admin block, by herself, waving at the camera. He could make out the weapon holster on her right thigh and an actual sword scabbard on her left hip.

“Let me hear it,” the Commandant said, emphasising the last word in reference to the creature on his screen.

“…discuss surrender,” the creature said. “I want this over as much as you do.”

Silence once more settled over the control room as the Commandant stared at the screen, considering his options. There were so many things he could do. Open the doors and kill this gaharey scum, keep the doors shut and wait for reinforcements he knew were coming, or drag that thing inside and force her to her knees and admit the superiority of the Devore. And right now, he needed to reassert control, to show everyone he was in command here.

Demonstrating that one more of his incompetent and useless staff would undermine what control he did have. But a gaharey willingly surrendering presented an option. Cruelty to an alien wasn’t real. But would show his people his resolve.

“Send six soldiers, bring that thing to me now,” he grumbled.

“At once Commandant.”

“So, her plan is to get captured by a bunch of intoxicated xenophobic fascists, then rely on wits, guile and some sort of super-pheromones to get them to all start fighting each other over her and use the distraction to somehow turn off their transporter inhibitor?”

Trid couldn’t believe the plan that she just summed up. It was ridiculous and insane. Not least of all no single Orion produced pheromones in such quantities to cause that sort of chaos, that she knew of at least. Most she knew wouldn’t give anyone a slight buzz unless in extremely close proximity for an extended period. Even on a starship, renowned for closed-loop life support, the life support systems would filter the pheromones out of the air so quickly as to not be an issue.

“That’s what I’ve gathered. I’m not sure how this whole pheromone thing works, but Doc Ward signed off on it, so if the Doc thinks it’s a thing, then I’m happy with it.” Deidrick shrugged as he spoke, his body language communicating his lack of understanding of the science, but his willingness to just accept it and go with it.

All of them had moved up from the environmental facility, now occupying a few side alleys closer to the admin building, ready to move in if need be, or cut down rallying defenders if they had to. And waiting left time for catching up and speculation. Speculation that was fuelled by a lack of information as what was planetside right now was the best of the Rose’s grunts, not a scientist or a doctor amongst them.

Orin was opposite them in the alley and looked up from his weapon to Trid, reading the questioning look on her face. His weapon was settled against his bulk, the strap over his shoulder and neck keeping it close by as his hands came up. ‘You can ask Sidda herself when she returns, but you will not get an answer from her. She won’t talk about it,’ he signed.

“I’ll talk to Ward then when I get back to the ship,” Trid replied.

“Doctor/patient confidentiality is a thing you know,” Deidrick countered. “Just let it be and if you’re so damn curious, look it up when we get back to the Federation.”

“Signal from the ground forces,” the human relief officer said at Ops. “The captain has entered the bunker.”

Orelia had been pacing the bridge like a caged tiger, wanting, needing to do something, anything. But she’d been entrusted with the Vondem Rose and so she did what was asked of her. Didn’t mean she had to like it. But this update had finally given her at least a little something to do.

“Stupid plan,” she growled, then stepped up to the command chair, a small and pathetic thing compared to the last one that dominated the bridge. A finger jammed on the control panel. “Bridge to all transporter rooms. Standby to commence rescue operations. Prisoners first to the cargo bays before we get our people out.”

That done, she then paced directly over to the meagre little science station. “Well, how’s it looking?”

“The transport inhibitor is still active, but otherwise no change on the surface. I am detecting a handful of sensor echoes on long-range scans that may or may not be ships moving at warp speed.” Tavol’s manner was exceedingly Vulcan – calm, nearly perfectly monotonal, not hinting of anything the man might be thinking personally.

Or the troubles he might be experiencing thanks to the apparently very potent refined blood dilithium on the planet below.

“Best guess?” she asked.

“Three Devore warships moving at warp eight. Two days away at their present speed.” He hadn’t tried to insist he wouldn’t guess, or that he lacked sufficient data to guess, just went right to presenting the most likely scenario with the data at hand.

“Worst case?”

“Cloaked Borg armada that is moving to invade the Devore Imperium.” He paused, then turned his chair to face her. “You did ask for the worst case.”

“He’s still working on humour,” Lewis chipped in from the helm. “We’ll get you there yet buddy. Remember, make it believable. The Borg don’t use cloaking devices.”

Tavol’s expression said enough to Orelia, the slight eye roll as he returned to his work was just him making it obvious to her what he was thinking.

“Let me know if anything changes.”

“Orelia to Deidrick,” burst forth from Deidrick’s communicator, drawing everyone’s attention in this particular alley. While the other side of the road had a handful of Rose crew discussing something, over here it was silence contemplation, now broken.

“Deidrick here,” he said after a moment and a tap on the device. “I’ve got Gaeda with me too.”

“Good. Gaeda, you can be Sidda’s XO again. She’s insane.”

“Yeah, but you love her,” Gaeda said loud enough for the communicator to pick up. His comment drew a slight chuckle from the others assembled around them. “What’s up Orelia?”

“The inhibitor field just went down. We’re running the transporter at full tilt grabbing as many of the prisoners as we can. I’ve got Kevak and Bones leading the welcome operations in the cargo bays right now but we’re going to be packing the Rose to the frame members.”

“We knew that coming down here,” Deidrick said. “If the inhibitor is down, then the boss has done her part. Do we wait for her to come out, storm the place, or get the transporters to snatch her out?”

“You could just ask me,” Sidda then said as she stepped into the mouth of the alleyway. Her sword was drawn, blood still on the blade, her disruptor was long gone, her left shoulder looked like she’d taken a grazing shot and her face now bore a few scratches and bruises from someone getting personal with her.

“Oh fuck off,” Gaeda exclaimed. “How long have you been waiting around the corner?”

“Minute or so. Orin saw me and I told him to tell everyone over there to keep quiet.” Now she was grinning, looking a lot more like her old self. Like someone who had once more pulled through a tight spot. She turned, gave a sharp whistle to the other day and waited for them, taking the time to clean her sword on her already ruined shirt before sheathing it once more. “I’m done with this planet. I’ve got my people back, I’ve liberated a bunch of prisoners, I’ve killed a bunch of assholes and left the rest fighting amongst themselves. And I stole the last bit of data from the commandant’s computer about Devore outpost locations.” She produced a data rod of alien manufacture and handed it over to Gaeda.

“Got any good places to take all the prisoners?”

“Refugees now,” she corrected Gaeda. “Markonian Outpost? It’s on the way back to the Barzan Wormhole, it’s a freeport so should be able to find some help getting to where they want.” With no objections, she pulled out her own communicator and flipped it out. She’d defended her choice of a retro-style communicator many times already. “Sidda to Rose, can I get off this rock please?”

“Two minutes,” Orelia responded. “And I mean two minutes.”

It turned out to be much longer than two minutes before they got beamed up. And longer still before Sidda was able to walk onto her bridge. Someone had ambushed her at the transporter and given her a message from Bones to see her at once. And ignoring doctor’s orders was a hobby of hers, but she still wasn’t sure if Bones had drugged her that one time or not, so it would be best not to anger the older woman.

Complaints about the state of the prisoners being brought up, about the living arrangements, about how long they’d be on the ship. All while giving Sidda a once over with a scanner, then complaining about Sidda’s own physical state, prescribing bed rest and then administering a much lower-grade stimulant to give her an hour or so before she would crash out.

Long enough for Sidda to step onto her own bridge and give a few orders. “Orin, let Telin have control of the weapons for a moment, will you?” she asked and the larger of the two large men stepped up to the controls as Orin made room for his larger brother.

“Orders?” Telin growled. She hadn’t missed that, but at the same time, she had. Having the band back together in one place was nice. At least they had more room on the Rose, or would once they offload some people.

“There’s dilithium stockpile in the depot. Target it and prepare two torpedoes, maximum yield.”

Telin’s grin was downright predatory as he made sure to very carefully go through the steps, not wanting to miss a single beat. “Target locked.”

“Aren’t there still Devore down there?” Orelia chimed in.

“Eighty-seven lifeforms in the admin building.” Tavol then turned away from his readings. “The building is hardened, so there is a high likelihood it will survive, if barely.”

“They made their bed,” Sidda said, then looked to Gaeda, who was standing beside her new command chair. He’d been there when they stole it from the Endeavour’s carcass, the old Endeavour that is. He’d even been there when it was installed, but had yet to sit in it. “Mr Ruiz, I understand we have two torpedoes armed and ready to fire. You have the conn.” And with that she turned and started to walk away, but stopped beside Orelia, nudging her cousin with her shoulder.

Gaeda wasted little time, spinning the chair about by its headrest before sitting in it. Then did a full spin in it, grinning with joy. “Okay, that’s much nicer.” The moment had, the enjoyment noted, he turned back to the viewscreen. “Put the depot on screen.” It took a moment before an orbital view came up.

“Telin, please render those torpedoes you prepared safe by throwing them overboard,” Gaeda ordered and the deck plating of the bridge thumped twice in quick succession as the torpedo launcher barked out both weapons.

It would take a few seconds for the torpedoes to close on the depot and the bridge went silent to watch. The first hit, a fireball engulfing the entire prison as a massive thermonuclear explosion took place, matter and antimatter unleashing their fury on one another. Then the second torpedo arrived and the subsequent explosion didn’t double the first or extend the fireball’s life – it magnified it by many, many orders of magnitude.

“Santa Maria,” Gaeda exclaimed briefly. “Shields up! Lewis, full impulse, get us away from the planet.”

Despite turning and running as fast as they could as soon as people started to notice something was wrong, the Rose still got outpaced by the subspace shockwave from the dilithium explosion on the planet below. The ship was sent tumbling through space, inertial compensators barely stopping passengers and crew alike from being tossed like corks. And when it was all over and they had a chance to look back at the planet from their new perspective, it looked like an asteroid had hit the planet.

The island was gone, vaporised in the explosion. The seas were still rushing away from the epicentre, tsunamis bound to devastate coastlines far away in a few hours. The seafloor was visible, water hadn’t yet started to pour back in. Rock, now glowing white was still arcing upwards, away from the planet, before gravity would pull them back down in their own devastating impacts.

Whatever happened, it was at least quick.

“Fucking hell,” Sidda said from the back of the bridge. “I said blow up the depot, not half a planet.”

“Go big or go home,” Telin said in his defence as he stepped away from the weapons controls.

“Indeed,” Tavol quipped. “I’ll look over the sensor logs and see what happened.”

“Tell someone who cares,” Sidda said. “Sorry, I meant, I’ll read it once I’ve had some sleep and Bones clears me. Gaeda, Telin, go see Bones as well. Orelia, you okay to get us to Markonian?”

“Lewis, set course one six five mark zero one zero, maximum warp,” Orelia said as her reply. “Engage when ready.”