“We’ve lost all deflector shields, captain,” Security Chief Ache reported.  The Osnullus officer briefly ducked behind her bridge console when an electro-plasma conduit in the overhead exploded, showering sparks on where she had been standing.  Despite that bother, Ache never took her hands off her holographic tactical controls.

“Two shield generators on the secondary hull have been completely destroyed,” Ache continued.  “Backup generators are non-responsive.”

Unphased by the rocking of the deck, Ensign Cellar Door’s anti-gravity boots allowed him a perfect hover above his flight controls.  Neither the sense of calm in his voice, nor the relative stillness of his exocomp body, were reflected in his wild piloting of Constellation through the multi-pronged attack of the Dominion battle group.  Through the viewscreen, one beetle-shaped Jem’Hadar fighter continually replaced another as Cellar Door dodged them and many of their phased polaron strikes.

“Structural integrity field is holding,” Cellar Door said in a reassuring tone.

Nova, on the other hand, was plainly speaking from her heart.  Her adjustments to the operations console were input frantically.  She wasn’t as adept as Ache at holding her attention when the bridge rocked from side to side with every strike from the Jem’Hadar attack.

“Hull breaches on deck three,” Nova said.  “And four.  And five!  Emergency forcefields have engaged.”

Seated at the forward science station, Lieutenant Nune couldn’t hide the distress in his own voice when he said, “Reports coming in of twelve casualties and, uh, two crew members unaccounted for.”

“Captain!” Ache interjected stridently.  “I recommend immediate retreat.”

Nova was quick to plead, “No-no-no, we can’t do that.”

Taking it all in, Taes rose from her command chair and took a step forward.  She vaguely heard Ache say something like, “incoming,” and a torpedo exploded in an expanding flare of light, not far beyond the transparent viewscreen.  Taes’ boot slipped and she fell to her knees, banging down the steps of the command platform.  She braced her palms on the deck, narrowly preventing her fall from resulting in her smacking her face into the deck.

“I don’t take recommendations blindly, commander,” Taes said, even before she got herself back up on her feet.  “Tactical report!”

While aiming and firing the ship’s phaser turrets, Ache said, “Two Jem’Hadar fighters are retreating from our position to– they’re– they’re headed for the Kholara Observatory.”

Sweeping an index finger at their view of the observatory through the viewscreen, Taes ordered, “Mister Door, take us within ten-thousand kilometres of the observatory.  Maintain evasive patterns; full impulse.”

There was an odd inflection in Ache’s voice when she spoke up, a hesitancy Taes wasn’t accustomed to hearing.  All six of her eyes landed on Taes for a full three seconds before Ache returned to multi-tasking with the tactical controls.

“Respectfully,” Ache said, “May I remind you, we cannot establish a transporter lock while our subspace transceivers are shut down.”

Incensed at being questioned over basic starship operations, Taes insisted, “We can buy them time!  Your orders are to destroy those fighters, commander.”

There was no hesitation.  “Quantum torpedo spread, aye,” Ache said.

Ache may have been subtly keeping watch over Taes’ responses, but Taes could see Nova shooting blatant glares in Ache’s direction.

“We’re going to bring the away team home,” Nova said.  “Right, captain?  I’m signalling shuttle bay one to prepare for emergency landing procedures.  Opening bay doors now.”

Taes stepped closer to the viewscreen, watching Constellation’s phasers deftly lashing out at the Jem’Hadar fighters.  Coming to stand behind Nune’s chair, he glanced back at her.  Despite Taes’ somewhat empathic abilities and Nune’s Betazoid telepathy, her own nervous system was too overstimulated to sense what Nune was feeling.

“We’re all alone out here,” Nune said gently.  “Bravo Fleet is spread thin across the Deneb Sector.  Fleet Intelligence confirmed our suspicions this morning: this isn’t the entirety of the lost fleet.  There are thousands more Jem’Hadar ships… somewhere.”

To Nune’s right, Cellar Door shouted out, “Look!  One of the fighters is veering off.  Cowards!  Ache took our their engines, but good.”

Her voice a hard matter-of-fact, Ache reported what was blinking on her tactical scanners.  “The observatory has raised its shields and its defence platform is cycling online.  Captain, the observatory is targeting us!”

“If we don’t locate the origin point of the lost fleet, the Dominion could unleash it upon us,” Nune said softly.  “And we’ll never find it if we’re–“

Taes whispered back, “Twelve casualties.  Two unaccounted.”

She didn’t know if Nune heard her over Ache announcing, “Captain, we can’t take much more of this assault.”

“Mister Door, set course for the Yelika system; maximum warp,” Taes said.  Turning back to the captain’s chair, Taes murmured to herself, “They have the runabout.”

Since taking command of starships, Taes had been prone to declare a whimsical, ‘Let’s find out,’ as the punctuation to her orders to set a course and go to warp.  It didn’t always make literal sense in every situation and there had been many a day she had twisted her orders into an awkward shape to deliver the ‘Let’s find out.’  Now and then, the crew seemed to chuckle even louder when she phrased the setup like a particularly befuddled Pakled.  But she wasn’t captaining a simple science ship anymore.

So, Taes said, “Engage.”