“Lesbos to Waihou, we’ve found the starboard airlock. Making connection now.”

“Roger that Lesbos. We’re about to pop hatch on our side. Remember to keep an eye on the clock. This barge is sinking and we don’t want to slip below our own crush depths,” said Lieutenant JG Carmichael, recently promoted after the events in Deneb.

The spatial charges launched by Atlantis had indeed pulled the gas giant creatures from the stricken Cardassian science ship. And as some had feared they had been keeping the ship buoyant in the atmosphere, releasing it to fall once more. But with no more creatures Atlantis had been able to come alongside and actually make contact with the ship’s crew. Questions could wait, all parties had agreed, survival was the order of the day. And when Atlantis went to test her transporters, it was found out that while they might have been safe for non-organic transport, there was just enough interference to make the prospect of beaming live individuals a dubious proposition at best.

And so the ship’s two Type 14 Shuttles, which had been standing by, got called up. The trip from shuttlebay to the docking hatch on the Rubic had barely taken two minutes. They had strict timelines for how long they could remain before returning to Atlantis, with a thirty per cent safety margin built in. But ideally, it wouldn’t come to that. Scientists and crew were all standing by for evacuation. Their experiments were being lifted out by transporters. It was a nice and simple plan.

With the prospect of the creatures returning, or the Breen finding them, hanging over it of course.

“And…we’re docked,” Carmichael said as indicators on this console flashed green. “You’re good to go, sir.”

“Very good Lieutenant,” Lieutenant Ch’tkk’va replied as they turned to the two other security officers on the shuttle. “Direct evacuees to the rear compartment,” they told the two, who merely nodded their heads in unison before going through the motions of opening the airlock.

Rubic’s crew was barely thirty individuals and most were waiting, ready to board the Starfleet shuttles and abandon their ship as quickly as possible. They, unlike the Cardassian military, weren’t fussy at all about who rescued them. The last man, an elderly Cardassian, pulled one of the security officers aside, having a quick word with him before being directed to Ch’tkk’va.

“A couple of my colleagues are still in a lab. They’re recovering some project work. It’s literally just up the hall, first left, first door on the right.”

“They were told,” Ch’tkk’va spoke, their voice coming across via the universal translator as very disappointed, “to leave samples to the transporters.”

“Well, these are organic samples apparently,” the Cardassian said, then shrugged before leaving to join the others. “But be my guess to abandon them if you wish. They’re both insufferable.”

Watching the man retreat, the Xindi-Insectoid chief of security followed them with their compound eyes before marching towards the airlock. “Hibert, with me.”

“Yes sir,” the young woman said as she fell in behind.

True to the man’s directions they found the lab in question on the small ship within a minute. The corridors were narrow, the ceiling low – the ship was built not for comfort but for cost and functionality. It never strayed far or long, never had crews couped up within for months or years at a time and needing that extra space to avoid snapping at each other. The lab however was a different story. It wasn’t large, or even comparable to the small labs aboard Atlantis, but it was roomier, the equipment new, and the lighting and creature comforts superior. It was built to accommodate people staying within its walls for hours, days, and even weeks while they worked, only leaving when sleep or hunger or other bodily functions compelled them.

By the door, a collection of crates had been stacked upon a grav platform, powered and ready to go. A few carry bags sat next to it on the ground, ready to be grabbed by those leaving and then some. And atop the pile sat a small Cardassian device, happily blinking away as it undertook whatever function it was designed for.

“Oh, excellent, more hands,” a middle-aged Cardassian woman said in greeting as she spotted Ch’tkk’va and Hibert, smiling before stopping in her tracks, double-taking as she registered Ch’tkk’va’s appearance. “Oh a Xindi!” the woman exclaimed before closing on the two officers. “My my, aren’t you a fascinating specimen!”

“Ma’am,” Ch’tkk’va said with the closest to a sigh they ever approximated, “you were supposed to be at the airlock awaiting evacuation. You and your colleague,” eyes searching the lab for the other person they’d been told was here,” need to come with us immediately.”

“Oh, yes, of course,” the Cardassian woman said. “We just had to secure a few of our more precious samples for transport. It’s taken longer than we thought.” She turned, collecting the device off the stack of crates and turning it off. “Those it turns out can be transported, if you could.” And then she was walking away towards the back of the lab and an open door that led into a darkened space. “T’Halla dear, we really do need to go. There are people here to fetch us.”

Ch’tkk’va didn’t need to give orders to Hibert as she contacted Atlantis and had the stack of crates and bags beamed away. They’d worked together long enough, the entire Security team working closer and closer until they were a well-oiled machine. An organised hive of individuals. Just like home before they had departed to join Starfleet.

“Relna,” said another voice from the other room, “this crate is bloody heavy. Send whichever jackbooted thug is out there to help me with it.”

“It’s a Xindi!” the Cardassian woman said as she turned back to Ch’tkk’va, waving them forward and towards the other room.

“There are five Xindi species,” said the other voice in response.

“Oh, right, yes! An Insectoid! An actual Xindi-Insectoid!” Relna wasn’t so much as looking at Ch’tkk’va, as studying their every detail as they passed, peering into the other room at first.

There, amongst a smaller lab which looked like a bomb had gone off, supplies and samples hurriedly packed with no care for not making a mess on a doomed ship, stood an older Andorian woman, hair greying around her temples from the stark white of youth. She had at her feet a large container, self-powered as evidenced by the readouts on the upper surface. She had one end lifted off the ground, both hands on the handle at her end. “Well, are you going to help or not?” the woman asked as she spotted Ch’tkk’va.

With a buzzing sound, the exasperated huffing equivalent for their species, they entered, taking up the other handle and lifting, finding the weight not that much, but the awkward sizing of the crate would have been a bit much. “I was not expecting to find an Andorian aboard a Cardassian science ship,” they said, backing out of the room with their end of the crate.

“And I wasn’t expecting to find a Xindi-Insectoid in a Starfleet uniform rescuing me from a gas giant, so we’re even,” the Andorian woman said. “Doctor T’Halla Shreln.” She offered a quick introduction, then indicated with her chin for Ch’tkk’va to keep moving. “And I’d really like to get off this ship now that you’re here.”