The USS Olympic screamed through space at a blazing warp 9.6 as the creative engineering team worked to find ways to redline the meters to push them just a little faster.  Lieutenant Juliet Woodward sat strapped into the center chair, her eyes staring at the viewscreen.  The long-range sensors had told them enough, and as they grew closer and closer to Janoor III, the true scope of the destruction was becoming clear.  She glanced at the chief science officer, “Time to intercept?”

Fowler swallowed hard as she worked the sensors, “Three minutes, thirty seconds.”  She couldn’t maintain eye contact with Woodward – it was like a direct shot from a high-powered phaser burning into her.

Woodward slapped at the arm of her chair, “Engineering – it’s time to get out and push.”

Greer had stayed aboard down in engineering to help round up the remaining crew.  She worked endlessly over the last two hours to get just one more click on the warp scale.  They’d pushed every conceivable variable to its limit and were still loping along at 9.6.  She groused, “Juliet, Olympic class ships aren’t known for their ability to redline the engineering meter.”

The interim CO snapped back, “Well, maybe it’s time they are, Lieutenant.  Give us everything you got…Janoor III needs us.”  A sigh was her answer, and the channel closed.  Juliet had been given the CONN since most of the senior staff had remained behind.  As the attack unfolded, she realized that her belief in a strong victory had been misplaced.  They were headed straight into the mouth of hell as the fires burned out of control.

Prentice spoke up as the Olympic pushed forward just a little more, “Warp 9.7!”   The deck beneath them rumbled everywhere, and a few klaxon alarms beeped from consoles as Woodward wavered them off.  Will reported, “Arrival in one minute.”

Juliet sat forward, “Give Chief Greer my thanks.  All hands to Medical Emergency Stations. Launch shuttles and runabouts when the sector is secure. Transporter rooms be ready to activate at will.”  A klaxon similar to a red alert signaled throughout the ship, and the bridge lights brightened. Officers moved into positions, and the shuttle operations crew made last-second checks as crews were already loaded into the vessels.  The bridge stations were fully manned, and earpieces slipped into the ears of each officer, watching the viewscreen as the countdown clock neared the end.  The stars slowed as the Olympic slowed to a halt.  There were audible gasps across the bridge, and Juliet stared at the destruction before her.  Her previous command, the Mackenzie floated limply in orbit; her burns and scars made it hard to look for too long.

Fowler had difficulty reading the damage report, “Multiple decks have collapsed…reading at least one hull breach on the lower decks.  Additional buckling of exterior hull plating and interior deck platings…her warp core is offline, and impulse is barely functional.  Shields are at 5% and failing.  No response on communications.”  She switched over to Janoor III and found herself unable to read the cruel details.  Tears filled her eyes, and she turned away from the display, her heart broken.  

Prentice stood, and an officer took his place; he sat down next to Sadie and understood immediately as his eyes read the report.  He tapped at the console and read haltingly, “The city of Polaris is…leveled.  There are a few outlying neighborhoods, but the capital took the brunt of a crash landing of a Jem’Hadar cruiser.”  Will took a deep breath before reading, “Sensors are identifying casualties in the city…current estimates are upwards of three thousand.”

Juliet fell back in the center chair, “Three…thousand?”  Her throat tightened.  “There were five thousand people in that city….”  She tried to wrap her head around that kind of loss but failed.  She whispered, “That’s…sixty percent of the city…gone.”  No one on the bridge said anything.  They had arrived hoping to save people but instead had arrived at a tomb piled high with bodies.  Woodward tried to find her focus.  It took her a full minute to get her mind back into the present and what they needed to do, “Find any Starfleet badge or signal…and find out how bad things are on the….”

Atega’s hands shook as she had listened to the report of the atrocity, and her eyes darted to her console as a signal came in, “Woodward, I have a signal from Captain Dread!”

Juliet felt a jolt shake her loose, and she stood, “On speakers.”  The rest of the bridge crew pushed their grief and sadness to the side and listened.

“I need a security team down here…NOW!  We are under attack from all sides.  Twenty Jem’Hadar are pushing in on our location.  Captain Crawford and I are injured…GET SOMEON…”  

The channel fizzled short, and Woodward snapped, “Dispatch security teams to their locations, weapons hot and loose!  Go!”

Dread slumped behind a concrete barrier as the Jem’Hadar plasma fire whipped over her head.  The pain nearly blinded her after crashing off the wooden plank when the attackers had ambushed them on the streets as they stumbled along.  She’d tried to hold a phaser rifle but had lasted thirty seconds before her body’s injuries crippled her.

Crawford’s arm limply lay at his side while he fired one-handed the phaser rifle into the growing crowd of Jem’Hadar from cover.  He kept his eye on Helena a few feet away, remembering his promise.  He ducked when plasma fire skittered across his cover.  Hasara had found a small group of Cardassians to help him carry Dread, and they constituted their defense.  They fought hard under the Gul’s booming orders as he stood with them as they blasted at the horde of attackers that was slowly gaining ground and inching closer and closer. A few fell, but the advance of a Jem’Hadar platoon was something you faced with a fully equipped and healthy group of Starfleet Security officers.  Crawford continued to fire and duck from cover as best as he could.  The reality of their situation was taking a darker turn than he had hoped for, and there was nothing to be done about it.  They’d have to pile all their phaser grenades and wait until the Jem’Hadar were close enough.  Victory is life was their only option.

He turned to tell the officer to his side of the plan as a plasma blast caught the man center mass, sending him sprawling.  Peter spun around to face of advancing  Jem’Hadar, who aimed…and shouted as a high-powered phaser blast pounded him into the ground with a wheeze as his last word.  The air was filled with the distinctive whine of phaser rifles and shouts of security officers coordinating as they moved.  Twenty Jem’Hadar lay dead within a minute, smoking from repeated blasts to ensure they were no longer a threat.  Crawford struggled to stand and gave a nod to his rescuers, “Good to see you all.”  A moment later, a medical team hustled through the broiling black smoke from the city fires and went to work on Captain Dread.

The young man stood at attention, “Ensign Clemente, sir.  We have orders to get you and Captain Dread back to the Olympic.”

Pete gestured to Dread, “Get her back on board and in sickbay.”  He held his arm, “I know you can get someone down here with equipment to fix this, Ensign.  We’ve still got pockets of Jem’Hadar in the city on top of the search and rescue operations we’re going to need to run.  Someone has to command things down here.”  He avoided talking about the losses of his crew he had endured.  

Clemente sighed.  He’d known the captain a short time but knew his reputation.  There was no chance he would get this man back to the ship without a fight…which the old man might win, even with an arm down.  He tapped his badge, “I need a trauma team down here to facilitate a broken arm for Captain Crawford.”  He held the captain’s gaze, “I’m putting someone on your tail, sir.  Please don’t fight me on that one.”

Pete smiled a sad smile, “I accept my tail, Clemente.  Has Catari made it down yet?”  He nodded and pointed her out, already setting up a patrol and search grid.  “Good.  I’m putting you on her tail, ensign.  Buddy system from here on out – nobody travels alone.  Jem’Hadar are tricky bastards, and they do not fight fair.”  The young ensign thanked his CO and jogged off to work with Catari.

Gul Hasara stood above the three Cardassian bodies, his heart heavy. They had survived the ship’s crash and had valiantly fought with them block by block as they carried Helena Dread foot by foot to where they were attacked.  They hadn’t surrendered.  They’d kept fighting, even taking several hits that didn’t take them down.  They fired until the last moment and fell to the ground with eyes wide.

“They were some of the best.”  Hasara looked to find Peter Crawford walking up to him; his arm encased in a portable bone reconstruction unit.

The Cardassian said, “They were all the best, Captain.  Yours, mine…they stood in the middle of this and fought on. Each of them ran into the violence, hoping to stem the bleeding or save the condemned.”  He looked around, “This is what comes of war.  A smoking shell of death containing the ashes of life.”  Hasara kicked at the ground, “What fools these mortals be.”

Crawford frowned, “You’re quoting Shakespeare?”

Hasara shook his head, “The meaning is not contextual, captain.  It is…as you humans say, apocryphal.  We Cardassians used it in reference to you humans and your foolish belief in the Federation…and all that it stands for.”  He gestured to the destruction that burned around them, “You sacrifice for an idea in the face of something that is wholly committed to nothing short of its extinction.”

Pete gave the Gul an odd look, “Do you still believe that?”

Another shake of the head, “Perhaps I’ve spent too much time with you humans…or perhaps I’m getting, as you would say, too old for this shit.”  He smiled at the use of the explicit use of human language.  “Or perhaps it is both, Captain Crawford.  What I do know is that I do not wish to return to Cardassia ever again.  I’ve found my home, and laugh if you must…but my people as well.”

Crawford extended his hand, “No laughing here, Gul.”  It was odd to shake the hand of someone who, 25 years ago, would have just killed him instead of greeting him. Pete had learned that life was full of surprises.  Stranger things had happened.

Hasara grasped his hand in the Starfleet captain’s, “A veteran of the Dominion War and a Cardassian meet up on a planet invaded by Jem’Hadar…progress is a beautiful thing, captain.”  Crawford didn’t disagree.

“How bad?”  Wren sat in her command chair, sore and in pain, as the lights flickered back on and the swarming medical crew from the Olympic continued to work on the bridge crew.  Longfellow returned from main sickbay with his PADD and sat on the burned chair to her right.  His uniform was splattered with dark stains of red, and his arms evidenced the battlefield medicine he’d been practicing.

“Fatalities are at thirty, but we’ve still got decks sealed from breaches and buckling.”  He looked her in the eye, “That number is going to go up as my crews and the Olympic’s teams go deck by deck with damage control operations.”  He tapped at his PADD, “We’ve got two hundred injured in various statuses…but that number is going to climb as we move through the ship.”  He leaned towards her, “We were lucky, captain.”

Walton shook her head listlessly, “Six percent is not lucky.  It’s cursed.”  She glanced up and stared into his eyes, “What’s the word from Janoor III?”  He gently gave her the current estimates of over three thousand.  She swallowed a gasp and held her tears at the edge of her eyes.  The breadth and width of the loss were unthinkable to her.  How did you keep swinging when the bodies piled and piled up around you as you battled away in the ring?

Longfellow read her the latest from engineering, and she stared ahead, nodding as the Mackenzie’s wounds were detailed.  She was nearly broken, and it was going to take around-the-clock work to get her ready to face whatever was next.

Wren blinked and snapped her focus back to him, “Whatever is next?”

A shrug from her chief medical officer, “We haven’t picked up anything…but it’s something everyone’s wondering about…if they’re done with us or not.”

Walton shook her head, “Would it matter to them if I told them I was done with them?” Longfellow let out a dry chuckle as he stood and left the bridge.  Wren considered how much violence they’d had forced down their metaphorical throats.  She wasn’t sure she could take much more.