As the sun fell over Nasera City, its once bustling streets became a bloodsoaked warzone. Starfleet officers crouched behind destroyed vehicles and abandoned merchant carts, anything that offered a modicum of cover, as they traded shots with the Jem’Hadar. But the hardened warriors of the Dominion had the upper hand. They knew the city. They had the gift of eyesight tuned through genetic modification to work in low light. They could shroud to execute an unseen flank. And they’d trained their entire life for combat.

Moving with her officers through the streets, Allison Reyes could see the shellshock in their eyes. These were young men and women who had enlisted to explore the stars, and they’d come up in an era of Starfleet non-intervention. Most of them had never seen anything close to this outside the holodeck.

As Allison Reyes took cover behind a vegetable stand, she spotted a young Lieutenant in science teal cowering  behind a pillar. He was covering his head with the hand that held his phaser rather than using it to defend himself against the three Jem’Hadar advancing on him. He was completely overwhelmed with the situation as polaron blast after polaron blast exploded all around him. 

Reyes took careful aim and fired at the advancing soldiers. She hit one in the chest, and the other two ducked for cover as they returned fire in her direction.

The reprieve gave the Lieutenant a moment to recenter. He looked over. Was he going crazy? He was from the USS Ingenuity, so he didn’t know her well, but that shooter that had just come to his aid looked an awful lot like Fleet Admiral Reyes. She had a single pip on her collar, but even through the smoke that filled the air, he was almost certain it was her. The Lieutenant mustered what courage he could find in himself. If an admiral could fight these monsters, so could he.

The Jem’Hadar were so engaged in their duel with Admiral Reyes that they didn’t notice when the young stellar cartographer from the Ingenuity raised his phaser again. Hand trembling, he squeezed the trigger. The first shot went wide, but his second shot hit true. One of the Jem’Hadar fell. The other turned and sprayed a salvo in his direction, forcing to duck back behind the pillar, but as soon as the Jem’Hadar took his eyes off the admiral, she shot him dead. 

The pair of officers were safe, for the moment at least.

The Lieutenant rushed over to the woman. “Admiral Reyes?” he asked in shock. “Thank you.”

“Not Admiral, just Reyes for now please,” she cautioned with a stern look. Camouflaging yourself as a junior officer didn’t work if everyone called you by your real rank. “And don’t mention it. Let’s get moving.” Her eyes filled with the fire, she shouldered her rifle again and set off down the street towards the sounds of weapons fire. The battle was far from over.

The Lieutenant stood there looking dumbfounded. Just a moment ago, he’d been sure he was going to die. But then Fleet Admiral in charge of their squadron, the last person he’d ever expected to see down here, had saved him from his demise. And then she just trotted off to get back in the fight. It felt almost like a dream or, as he looked upon the remains of the three Jem’Hadar they’d just killed, a nightmare. He had never killed a living, breathing, thinking creature before.

After a moment, the stellar cartographer came to his senses. This was war, and this would not be the last life he took tonight if he wanted to stay alive. With that thought, he set off to find the squad he’d gotten separated from during the melee. 

Once the Lieutenant was safely back with his team, word spread quickly. Fleet Admiral Allison Reyes, their squadron commanding officer, was down here with them running around with a phaser rifle in the disguise of an ensign. If she could do it, so could they.

A few kilometers away, Dr. Lisa Hall sat in the governor’s mansion working over the Vorta. She’d turned their captive’s bloodstream into a wicked maelstrom of psychosis-inducing toxins. She’d started with a cocktail of anticholinergics to distort reality and weaken his inhibitions. Then she’d introduced agents to excite or sedate specific neurological functions, such as his γ-hydroxybutyrate and gamma-aminobutyric acid receptors. To avoid unfortunate side effects, she rounded her concoction off with counteragents to prevent cardiotoxicity, incapacitation and other adverse effects that would get in the way of their discussion.

“This is futile,” the Vorta insisted. The Founders had gifted him with resistance to poisoning. All that junk she’d pumped into his veins, it wouldn’t break him. His gods didn’t make such mistakes. At least that was what he thought. 

In reality, the Founders had made a mistake constructing their wicked servants from a species with the genetic root of the humanoid progenitors that had seeded most of the galaxy. Even with all the modifications they made, Vorta anatomy still had some of the same weaknesses as the many species Lisa Hall had honed her craft against. They might not break him in the same way as they broke a Klingon or a Betazoid, but they’d still soften him up. And then she’d break him down with her words.

“Just as the Dominion’s attempt to take the Alpha Quadrant was futile. You and your colleagues have been gone a long time. Almost thirty years, in fact. If the Dominion had been victorious, would we really be sitting here right now?” Dr. Hall asked.

The Vorta had no response.

“There is only one explanation,” she pressed. “The Founders failed.”

The Vorta looked shocked at the irreverence. How dare she speak of gods like that? “It is but a test of our faith,” he insisted. “They will return and reward us for our loyalty.” It was the only truth he could believe. The Founders did not make mistakes. If they did not prevail in their war with the Federation, it was because they chose not to. That was the only explanation that made sense to him.

“They might reward you if you actually succeeded. But you didn’t. You failed. Just like your siblings are failing all across the sector,” his interrogator replied with a cruel smile. “Just this evening, we destroyed your Ketracel-White facility on Saxue, and we’ll finish mopping up Izar by morning.” It was a bluff. Neither had happened yet. However, Dr. Hall had picked real targets to make it more believable. It did mean though that this Vorta could never be allowed to escape their captivity. “I hear that when Saxue fell, the Jem’Hadar chose to die by their own hands.”

The Vorta sat there stunned. If Saxue had fallen, he could believe that the Jem’Hadar might have done that. They were never all that loyal beyond the White. The fact Starfleet even knew of Saxue was a shock too. That rogue planet was a complete secret, a linchpin of their plans to take the Alpha Quadrant. That this Starfleet officer knew about Saxue helped him believe the rest. The drugs probably helped too.

Out on the streets of Nasera, the battle waged on. 

“Mind if I roll with you guys for a bit?” Allison Reyes asked as she jogged up alongside a squad that was going door to door clearing buildings.

The squad leader, an ensign in security yellow, turned to see a petite older woman standing there, adorned in command red with a single pip. Beneath her matted hair and her dirty face, he recognized her instantly. It was his Commanding Officer, Fleet Admiral Allison Reyes. “Absolutely,” he replied enthusiastically as his posture stiffened up.

Allison Reyes was not one to let others do her dirty work, and she moved straight to the front of the squad, shouting instructions as she went. “Eyes up. Windows, balconies, rooftops. Scan for threats. Rifles at the ready.” It was urban combat basics, but these officers knew little of it. The admiral made a note to work that into their exercises after this mission was complete, and she regretted she hadn’t spent more time previously preparing these kids for war. The peace of the nineties had made her complacent with their training, and that complacency, as their commanding officer, made her culpable in all the deaths they would suffer tonight.

With Admiral Reyes now at the lead, the team drew up alongside a building. She tapped her head, signaling the breacher. He came alongside her and blew the door. 

Reyes was first into the room. There was one Jem’Hadar waiting for her. Thankfully, the veteran of the Dominion War, a woman who’d killed dozens of his compatriots, was faster on the trigger than he was. She dropped him before her number two man had even stepped into the room. Reyes knew she’d gotten lucky though. If there’d been two Jem’Hadar lying in wait rather than one, she would have been dead. The number two man had moved too slow to cover her flank. These kids were novices, and that was when it sunk in just how badly tonight was going to go.

“Clear!”

Slowly, other officers filed into the building, splitting off to check the rest of the rooms. Reyes heard a polaron rifle go off nearby. It was followed by the spam of undisciplined phaser fire. And then silence.

“’Medic! Someone get a medic!” someone screamed.

Reyes rushed over. When she arrived, she first saw a Jem’Hadar soldier lying dead in the corner. Then she saw what she feared, a Chief Petty Officer lying on the ground breathing his last breaths. There was nothing a medic could do to save him. Polaron particles were savage like that. They irreversibly irradiated your organs on a clean hit. Admiral Reyes knelt down and held the young officer’s hand as he died. 

When the young man had passed beyond the veil, Admiral Reyes folded his arms on his chest and gently closed his eyelids. He couldn’t have been a day over twenty five.

Across town, Dr. Hall continued to work on their Vorta captive, while Commander Lewis and Lieutenant J.G. Jace Morgan stood watch.

“Is there such a thing as too far?” Lieutenant Morgan asked Commander Lewis they watched the counselor work. “We’re way off the reservation here.” Jace Morgan only been in Starfleet a few years, but he’d certainly never seen anything like what Dr. Hall was doing to the Vorta. At least not anywhere except in the books that covered war crimes.

The Commander was having none of that idealistic bullshit. He and the counselor were of the same mind. Against the Dominion, the ends justified any means. Starfleet Intelligence had been right to unleash a morphogenic virus upon the Founders during the war, even if it had led to a complete genocide of the Founders, and what Dr. Hall was doing now was the right choice too. The Lieutenant needed to understand that.

“Did it hurt when we lost Kora?”

Morgan’s eyes fell.

“Or when they executed Jason?”

He kept staring at the ground.

“Or how about this. They killed Brock too.”

Morgan looked up with shock and dismay. Lieutenant Commander Brock Gordon was a good man, and a good friend. He hadn’t heard Brock had died, since Lewis had taken the call on a separate line. This mission had been an absolute tragedy.

“Does it hurt Lieutenant?” Commander Lewis pressed. “Because it should. And no one else should have to go through what you’re feeling.” They looked over at the ongoing interrogation. “What Dr. Hall is doing is ensuring we don’t lose a thousand more officers tonight. Is that not a cause worth crossing some lines?” 

Lieutenant Morgan nodded. They were way over the line, but he was okay with it.