“Bored,” Tikva announced as she gently tossed the PADD onto her desk, leaned back in her chair and kicked her feet up onto the desk. “I am for the first time since Deneb ahead on reports,” she continued to the only other occupant of her ready room.

“Did you finish reading Commander MacIntyre, Lieutenant Rrr’mmm’bal’rrr and Doctor Pisani’s recommendations?” Lin asked, not even looking up from the PADD she was reading from. She was in full ‘Commander Gantzmann’ mode, being utterly professional while on duty. It had taken, many months ago now, about fifteen minutes of observation by Counsellor Hu before he signed off on letting them both work on the same shift together and it all came down to Lin’s steadfast adherence to professionalism.

And an agreement to maintain their regular couples counselling sessions.

“I have,” she answered. “I’m just not sure how well a request to have Fleet Formation removed from our ship is going to fly. A cut-off for accidental activations like we had last night isn’t beyond the pale though.”

“I would like to add tactically wise as well,” Lin said. “Imagine if an enemy was able to trigger false starts in the system and disable us during a firefight.”

“That’s,” Tikva started, then stopped, then thought for a brief moment, “a damn good point. A bad actor within a starship as well could trigger it and cause all sorts of mayhem until Command overrides came downstream to take back the ships. Cripes, imagine if everyone had it at Deneb and a Founder was on the bridge of any of the Admiralty ships.”

“Which is why it should require no one be at the commands of a ship for it to activate. Ensign Last-man-standing is going to have some issues if someone on another ship decides to hijack her controls and use her ship as a battering ram.” Lin finished with her PADD and set it on the desk as well, pushing it towards her captain. “My formal recommendations regarding Fleet Formation.”

With a stretch, Tikva was able to grab the PADD and pull it close to look it over. “Removal of the system from all front-line explorers, disengagement in all vessels until control issues resolved, return to the drawing board,” Tikva said as she skimmed over the letter, mainly catching the headlines. “This is…going to cause a stir.”

“I am aware.”

“You know this is Fleet Admiral Shelby’s pet project, right?” Tikva asked.

“And you’re one of the heroes of Deneb. Your recommendation would lend considerable weight to Commander MacIntyre’s and my own letters about the system.”

Being called a hero had bit Tikva somewhat oddly. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Her feet slid off the desk and she sat up, the lend forward over her desk slightly, elbows resting just on the edge. “Are people really saying that?” she asked.

“Found allies when no one else could, led an assault on enemy lines to open a new front, had her bridge blown up around her and then raced back to Deneb in one of the greatest cavalry charges in modern history. And apparently Mars, Bringer of War is charting on a few music services.” Lin smiled as she finished. “It slipped who ordered us to go find allies and I’ve heard the phrase Beckett’s Backhander a few times.”

“That is totally not what happened!” Tikva protested. “I mean, sure, we got allies, but we got lucky at Leonis. And we had to be towed to Deneb. Hells, we lost the entire weapons array for ten whole minutes during the battle.”

“Some of the best commanders coast on nothing but luck,” Lin reassured her. “And seems people have forgotten we had to be dragged to the battle. All accounts I heard amongst the fleet at Avalon while we were getting repaired is Atlantis led the charge with all weapons firing as we crashed into the Dominion ranks, only stopping when we burned out the emitters from overuse. Dominion ships crashed against us, their broken hulls pushed aside by our indomitable hull plates. The Klingons may have taken it upon themselves to do our storytelling for us.”

“Fuck me,” Tikva spat out as she threw herself backwards in her chair. Then arched an eyebrow at Lin, whose expression was passive and still professional, if not the thoughts running through her head. “I heard that.”

“No you didn’t,” Lin said.

“Fine, I got the very distinct impression, Commander Gantzmann,” Tikva spat out, unable to stop the smile from spreading on her face. “But if I ever hear the phrase Beckett’s Backhander uttered ever again on my ship, I’m spacing whoever said it and blaming it on Admiral Beckett. I am not his fetch-quest monkey.”

“Fetch quest?” Lin asked.

An answer to that question was interrupted however by the door chime and Tikva’s permission for whoever was on the other side of the door to enter. “We’ve found them,” Samantha Michaels said from the door to the bridge. “But we’ve got a small problem.”

“Jellyfish?” Tikva asked.

“A whole lot of jellyfish,” Sam confirmed.

Stepping onto the bridge, keys returned to Tikva’s possession, the viewscreen gave the situation away. There was no visual present, for outside was just a soup of gases swirling about the ship. Instead, a sensor readout was present, with Atlantis at the heart and concentric rings expanding outward. And just ahead, right on the edge of their sensors, a mass of contacts hovered. “Rubic is right in the middle of a swarm of these creatures,” Sam clarified.

“Positive?” Lin asked.

“As best as can be,” Sam answered. “Sensors are getting a refined dilithium signature in the centre of that mass. Fifteen kilograms of dilithium crystal if the readings are right. About on par with what we know of the Rubic from our Cardassian friends.” The way she said ‘friends’ though hinted at some biases Sam wasn’t hiding as well as she likely thought.

“What danger can those things pose to Rubic?” Tikv asked.

“If they keep their shields up, not much,” Lin answered. “I’d imagine though if they swarm the ship it would make it difficult for them to move, or climb out of the gravity well.”

“That’s about the gist of it,” Sam concurred. “That they aren’t continuing to sink means it’s likely they’ve repaired their engines. But…”

“But what Lieutenant?” Tikva asked.

“It could just as easily be the creatures have swarmed Rubic for one reason or another and are keeping her buoyant.”

Tikva sighed, rubbing at the bridge of her nose. “We don’t want to get caught like them, so we have to scare them off. But if we do, there’s a chance they drop Rubic and we have to play catch.” She shook her head, weighing up options in her head. “Okay, so, what are the options for scaring these things away? Or luring them away?”

“Well they haven’t responded to probes trying to spoof Atlantis’ EM signature, so a lure is unlikely.” Sam shrugged in apology. “So we’re looking at scaring them off.”

“Spatial charges,” Lin said. “Easy enough to fabricate, use them as stand-off weapons. Not as powerful as a photon torpedo but will be loud and flashy.”

“So we go with some sort of predatory display and spook them into leaving their dinner for us?” Tikva nodded her head a few times. “I like it. How long until we could fire a handful?”

“Twenty minutes,” Lin answered, departing the bridge in quick order once given permission to get started.

“And as for you Lieutenant Michaels, wake Ch’tkk’va, tell them to get a team ready just in case we need to board the Rubic as part of our rescue efforts.”

“Aye ma’am,” Sam said. “I’ll also –“ She was interrupted by chirping from Ops and with a few steps was at her console, checking the notification that was demanding attention. “What the?” she said out loud, then looked at the relief officer at the helm. “Hard to port!”

Tikva had to give the young woman credit; she was starting to gain a ‘command voice’. The ensign, likely hoping for a nice easy shift of flying Atlantis in straight search pattern lines, threw the ship into a sharp turn and bank, shaping the ship’s course quicker than a ship their size had any right to do. The sensor displays on the main screen showed a mass appearing, growing and closing on Atlantis. But just before impact, Sam switched the viewscreen to an external feed as the withered remains of one of the jellyfish fell past Atlantis. There were holes throughout the colony’s mass, clear signs of energy weapons fire. Enough of the thing’s gas sacs had been breached and gravity was winning over what was left even as it struggled.

“Disruptor fire,” Sam announced as she sat herself down at her station, pouring over the sensor readings. “Best reads we’ve gotten so far…Breen. Breen disruptors.”

“Well, they were the best contenders,” Tikva said. “Not a fan of their approach I have to say.”

“It’s certainly one way to scare the locals off,” Sam said. “Not that I’m a fan either, just saying, ma’am.”

“It’s fine Lieutenant. Now, wake Ch’tkk’va. If the Breen are shooting down these jellyfish colony creature things, it means they’re down here with us now. Once we fire off those spatial charges they’ll have a damn good idea of where we are. We get to the Rubic and either tow them out or beam everyone off and beat a retreat.”

“Retreat?” Sam asked. “The Deneb Dominator?”

“Oh gods,” Tikva groaned. “How many other nicknames do we have?”

“At least five more I know off ma’am,” Sam said with a smile.

“Why am I not surprised?” Tikva asked as she took the centre seat, a glance to the bridge roof and whatever capricious deity lay beyond. “Why am I not surprised?”