“Get this wound sealed and stabilized.  Tag him for recovery care.”  The focused face of Captain Hella “Helena” Dread was a thing to behold.  The medical teams around her on the deck of the Galor class vessel were listening and moving according to her her commands.  She kept moving with the trauma and triage team medical tricorders out and scanning, “Evaluate those four down that hallway – they’re the only ones alive.”  Three officers pealed off and hustled down the hallway carrying bags and equipment.  “Let’s keep moving – the bridge is ahead.”  The Olympic had arrived at the six remaining ships and immediately began transporting medical and engineering teams as the reality of the state of the ships became clear.  Dread stepped aside as the security officers worked on the door and stepped through when they had confirmed it was clear.  Bodies splayed in various positions as she wordlessly motioned her team to the various parts of the room.   She counted the signals from each group.  Three were dead, four critical, and one serious.  Dread ordered, “Get them triaged and transported.”

“Captain, here’s the latest from the other ships.”  

Hella accepted the PADD and clicked her tongue as she read, “Damn. 40 dead. 110 critical. 60 serious.  They got their teeth kicked in..several times.  Thank you, Ensign.”  The officer moved down the line as she returned her attention to her PADD.  They’d activated the triage area onboard the Olympic as well as surgery and recovery.  Her badge chirped.

“Crawford to Doc Dread.”

She sighed, but it was with a smile.  “Doc here, Crawford.”

“Our engineering teams are reporting they can only do so much…they’ve reached out to the Mackenzie for more specialized help.  They think we can get the Cardassian ships back to full strength inside of a week…maybe sooner.”

She replied, “I think we can get most of the injured back on their feet in the same amount of time.  I’m concerned about whoever hit them coming back to finish the job.”

A pause on the channel before he agreed, “I’ve asked our science teams to retask some of our sensors to take a look around and beyond.  I’d like us closer to the Mack.”

She fully agreed with him, “I’m working on getting our people and patients moved to Olympic quickly.  There are enough crews on the Galors to pilot them nearer the Mackenzie as well.”  He acknowledged and closed the channel.  Dread hit her badge and ordered her crews to double-time their efforts.  Medical ship or not – they were still a target.

Greer Alexandra Moore was running, and on her heels was a group of engineers as the deck shook beneath them. How they kept their balance as they chased after the Olympic’s Chief Engineer was a miracle.  That was the first miracle.  The second miracle was that the Galor class ship hadn’t blown apart.  Greer and her crew had been making their way around the fleet from ship to ship, inspecting the damage done by the Dominion forces, and they’d arrived on the fifth ship only to find the matter-antimatter warp core suddenly going critical once they took a step into the corridors.  Now it was a race against time down the last hallway to the engineering doors.  Greer burst through the door and quickly spread the rest of the group out with scanners.

Crewman Roberts shouted, “Stabilizers are failing – that’s part of it.  Attempting to compensate.”  He glanced at his tricorder and then at the console he was working on.

Ensign Palmetto shook his head as he examined the core, the tricorder readings redlining and making some very angry noises, “Chief, I don’t think this core is going to be able to be stabilized.”  He tossed his tricorder to Greer, who changed places with him as the deck shuddered again.  

She grimaced as she ran a few scenarios through the tricorder and her mind.  Palmetto wasn’t wrong.  The newly minted chief didn’t like to fail or give up, yet she was facing the reality that they weren’t going to save this one.  The core unlock and eject mechanism was part of the massive damage to the ship.  Greer tossed the tricorder back to Palmetto, “Find me another way.”  She tapped her badge, “Chief Greer to Olympic – we’ve got a core going critical and not many ways to stop it.  You need to get everyone off this ship except for us.”

The voice of her new captain broke through, “Chief – I’d rather lose the ship than you.  Our readings give you maybe a minute to come up with a miracle; then we’re pulling you kicking or screaming.”

Greer felt a smile tugging at her lips as Palmetto showed her a few ideas the team had come up with, and she gave them an appreciative look while she replied to Captain Crawford, “Or both, sir…probably both.”  She swore she could hear him sigh over the channel.  She’d found him a pretty straight edge and had been doing her level best to bend him a little.  She’d had mild success.  Lots of sighing, though.  Lots of that, she chuckled to herself.

He reminded her on the open channel, “45 seconds, Chief.  We’re moving the other ships away from you if this goes how we think it is. Olympic out.”

She pointed at Palmetto – “Let’s try the audacity of hope play you’ve outlined.”  She jumped to a console, “Reversing the polarity of their power conduits.”

Roberts shook his head in amazement.  Their new chief had redlined the meter since stepping aboard the Olympic, and she hadn’t stopped in her pursuit just a little bit more on that metaphorical meter.  He went to work on the core console, “Bleeding off the unstable energy into the conduits.”  The deck shuddered again, but he held on.  “Core stability holding at 25%.”

Greer moved to another console, “That’s not going to hold for….” A nearby console exploded, sending debris and fire into the air.  Smoke began filling the room as the core casing started to spark.  She stared at the core.  “You’re just not going to give up, are you?  Damn you and damn your self-destructive ways!”  She wanted to kick it but knew that would be a terrible idea.  The power conduits started to spark themselves, and fire exploded from others.  She threw up her hands, “You win this time…bastard.”  She motioned her team over, “Chief to Olympic, get us home.”

They vanished into the brightness of the transporter, and fifteen seconds later, the engine room erupted into a firestorm that spread up and through the rest of the ship until the unstable energy consumed the ship the inside out, exploding in a final abrupt fireball that held in space.

Greer stepped off the transporter pad, looking down at her sweat-stained uniform that held evidence of their work.  She took a deep breath and glanced at the transporter officer, “Come to engineering.  We got great workouts.”  She smiled and cackled before returning to the pad, “We’ve got one more to go.  Let’s try and save this one, y’all.  Energize.”