A great orchid of flame blossomed and unfurled viciously from the tall storage containers of Outpost 291, turning the rusted red pillars into furnaces as the fire raced through the flammable stores within. Super condensed hydrogen and oxygen that once fuelled the vital, life-giving systems of the tall Regula-type base now turned into food for a cruel and vicious monster that danced across the hull of the old station, screeching a miserable cacophony against the hull. The wide circular relaxation deck, once the venue for hundreds of cherished moments; a child’s dream of the edge of the universe, a stolen first kiss, a couples last journey, now played host to a thousand contorted shadows as the explosion bathed the room in profane light. Silent voices exclaimed in confusion as the raging inferno began to batter against the wide windows, great fists of flame and fury scraped across transparent aluminium more suited to the impossibly cold stellar void. As the windows began to twist and warp a harsh claxon began to scream out in a desperate announcement “All hands to upper decks, evacuate to upper decks immediately.”

The face of a worried young trill woman hovered, bodiless, round the corner of the wide open doors of Daedalus’s shuttle bay, glancing in panic down the short corridor and back into the bay. Her long spots stretching out from the portal, giraffelike, she waited impatiently for the welcome sound of boots against the deck. The delta shift was normally the quietest aboard ship, most of the crew were asleep or relaxing and only the minimum staffing was deployed in each station. Ensign Mara regularly requested this shift and when she got assigned to minor engineering detail in the shuttle bay, she cherished the quiet time, usually alone, where she could achieve small victories like cleaning and tidying kit lockers, shuttle maintenance and cargo inventory. Some nights she would even crack the shuttle bay doors open, just enough to glimpse the stars beyond as they raced by, reminding her of days sailing on Trill’s many seas, her father’s rugged, reassuring palm resting upon hers at the tiller. Naturally it was against dozens of regulations to have an open portal to the stars but over the years she had found that non-replicated muffins went a long way to making small pleasures achievable. 

Her fitful sentry was finally interrupted by the quick footsteps coming down the corridor. She turned, panicked that she might see her shift manager or worse, the frosty security chief, Lieutenant Bahir appear on the deck, making one of his surprise late night security inspections. As the tall figure of Zaya, clad in a pale wafting duster swept elegantly toward the young ensign, she released a grateful sigh. Moving with a graceful purpose the older Cardassian woman quickly closed the gap and taking the young engineer by the arms swung them both into the bay allowing the doors to quietly hiss closed. 

“Is everything alright Mara?” Zaya asked in hushed whispers. 

“Yes. I didn’t know who else to call Lieutenant.” Mara responded in a similarly conspiratorial whisper. 

“Zaya, please.” She pointed to the wide open clavicle, absent of the golden pips she was only just becoming accustomed to wearing.

“Sorry Lieu… Zaya. I thought about Commander Bib but…” Mara tilted her head with a small shrug of hesitation. 

“No, No. That probably would have ended with an explosive decompression.” Zaya rubbed the Trills arms in motherly comfort. Zaya had long ago accepted that children were not in the Tongo cards for her, instead she often found herself acting as surrogate mother to younger crewmates; many were far from home needing a kind ear and a hot drink. “Why don’t you head up to the mess and grab a drink? I’ll sort this.”

A mountain range of confused peaks emerged across Mara’s face. “Are you sure?” She whispered. 

“Absolutely.” Zaya sighed heavily as a she pressed a smile onto her face. Hopefully this young woman would never understand why this was happening. “Where is he?”

“Over there” she said, pointing with one delicate finger to the hunched shadow across the bay, silhouetted against the starlight that creeped through the half open bay doors. Half buried in one of Daedalus’s shuttlecraft, panels and parts laid out in a sprawling mandala around him, was the pale frantic figure of Jacob Maine, Theta Squad’s ex-commander. 

Once grey, inoffensive corridors were now bathed in infernal red lights as impish shadows leapt over fractured bulkheads, dancing to the rhythm of weapons fire against the outer hull. The calm voice of the computer recited her announcements unbothered by the furious torrent of phaser fire against the aged hull. The deck plates lamented and structural members wailed as the last of the base’s shields collapsed and the metallic skin of the base took the full fury of the aggressors. As the world rocked again the hand of a young man reached out from beneath the remnants of a smashed wall console. Pushing the sparking metal aside Maine scrabbled free from the durasteel pile that was almost his tomb and stumbled towards the large window at the corner of the corridor, desperately pulling at the tight golden undershirt that felt like a crushing hand around his neck. His face resting against the cool transparent aluminium he took deep gulping breaths as beyond the window the conflict continued to unfurl. The familiar tan hull of Cardassian strike vessels whipped around the base, lashing out with their small phaser arrays against the white hull of the outpost, each another tally mark in a million cuts against the floating sanctuary. The blast marked hull of Earl of Wessex, the bases equally aged Miranda class protector, arched after the small craft as nimble arrows of orange phaser fire reached out, attempting to draw the attention of the cruel wasps. As the melee swung out of sight, twisting around the upper dome of the base, Maine took another breath and scrabbled over more fallen wall panels towards the Operations Centre. 

“Jacob, is everything alright?” Zaya had waited several minutes knelt at the edge of the mechanical Mandela laid out around the man, waiting for a recognition of her presence. When none came, she decided to make the first offering. 

Only the quiet mumbles of a frantic mind responded to her as Maine lifted an ODN matrix out of the hull structure and carefully laid it on the cold grey deck. 

“Are you looking for something Jacob?” 

More mumbles. Straining to hear the specifics she placed a hand on the deck and accidently knocked a meticulously placed retention bolt, which rolled a few inches to the right with a barely audible grind. 

Twisting his head inhumanly towards the woman, his face as gaunt and sallow as a starved man, Maine snapped, “Don’t touch anything. I’m working.”

“On what Maine?” Zaya asked. A response was a good first step she thought as she carefully returned the bolt to its previous position. 

“The warp activation matrix. It’s too slow, I’m sure I can make it faster.” Maine replied, his head returning to the panel where his arms were enmeshed with the various cabling trunks. “It needs to be faster.”

“I’m not sure you can make it faster Maine. The ODN network transmits data at almost the speed of light. It’s literally nano-seconds.” Zaya leaned back onto her heels as she watched him wrestle with another piece of equipment. 

“It’s not the ODN network that’s the issue. The warp coil control needs to generate the field faster, it should be instantaneous. I’ve done the maths, just needs to be faster.” Maine responded, nodding to a discarded padd on the floor covered in mathematical calculations. 

“And you’re going to do that in a class 9 shuttle?” Zaya asked, she was beginning to understand the man’s drive to this late night sojourn into the shuttle bay. Their latest mission against the Breen base had cost the life of their small family’s pilot. Maine had taken the loss hard, both professionally and personally. Now the conflict was over and the mission had turned out to be fruitless, the vein loss had become too much for the man to bear. A lifetime of life & death choices had crushed the man who now clung onto this desperate solution to a situation that had already passed beyond his control. 

“It needs to be faster, Zaya. It needs to be faster so he can escape.” Maine whispered, tears rolling down his face, draining him of what little he had left. 

Pushing aside a fallen door, the young Maine entered into the shattered remains of the base’s operations centre. The still forms of both civilian and Starfleet staff lay draped over dimly flashing consoles and reclined in broken chairs in a twisted mockery of a Delacroix painting. Caught in the moment of their last desperate defence the limp bodies seemed almost transcendent in the dim light of the emergency bulkheads, each suspended endlessly at their station. The chilling voice of the final Cardassian transmission continued unbroken in the background ‘This station is an offense to the true Cardassia. You will be destroyed. There will be no mercy. This is the True Way.’ On the large rectangular screen a strategic map flickered in and out of existence, intermittently reporting on the ongoing battle outside the base. The red dots that had raced around the base causing such destruction were now focused on the Wessex, previously 3 in number, only two craft now harried the old ship. Amongst the broken bodies and consoles Maine begged for the ship to strike down the attackers; grasping the flickering console he let out a cruel prayer, to any deity that would give them the strength to exact revenge. 

Another voice broke through the repeating cycle of the Cardassian judgement. ‘Wessex to Base. The Cardassians are retreating. We are pursuing? Is anyone hearing this?’ Glancing down to the terminal, the young lieutenant could see a small group of civilians and scientists in one of the research pods arrayed round the circular station. They were cut off from the escape pods and would likely lose integrity soon. ‘More casualties of the Cardassian attack’, Maine thought to himself. If he did nothing Wessex would continue chasing the attackers, some of those on the base would survive but the culprits would be brought to justice. His finger hovered over a small orange button that glowed on the cracked panel, with one press he could summon the ship back to the base and save what was left of the contingent. An eternity passed between his breaths as he felt the hate rise in his veins. His blood boiled as the faces of his crewmates gasped back with empty eyes from their Baroque tableaux. The screen flashed with a warning, ‘Structural Integrity failing’. He pressed the button. 

Some early birds of Alpha shift, eager to make a good impression on their boss, were watching from the wide door as Zaya lifted the unconscious body of Maine from his nest of cabling inside the panel of the shuttlecraft. The blue skinned figure of Ole crossed the decking to lift the emaciated human from her arms, looking like a babe swaddled in Zaya’s soft jacket, he now lay secure in the Bolian’s giant arms. Her hand clasping Maine’s limp hand, scarred with cuts and scrapes from his frantic attempts to improve the shuttle, she led the pair out of the shuttlebay toward the turbolift and upwards toward the sickbay. Before the turbolift doors had closed the deck crew was already silently beginning their day, taking care not to disturb the parts arrayed on the floor, a testament to their newest family member’s ongoing battle.