“Where the fuck is the emitter?” Amber shouted as she swept her eyes over the ceiling of the corridor leading to the station’s engineering department.

“Poor vision, lack of object recognition,” the EMH drawled as it stalked down the corridor, brandishing the exaggerated scalpel menacingly in its right hand. “I’m sure I can come up with a few creative solutions to those problems.”

The corridor leading from the station’s atrium out to the module where the fusion reactors were kept wasn’t long but was perhaps the longest aboard the entire station. And right now it was a death trap with a sealed door at one end leading into Engineering and the return of the station’s malformed EMH now between them and the atrium.

“Keep looking,” Brek stated as he stepped between Amber and Rosa, absent his phaser rifle which he’d set aside only moments ago when he’d started to try and force the door open. “I’ll handle this.”

“Ahh,” the EMH smiled, “a volunteer. Superior strength and speed, but are you any challenge for a hologram my good sir?” it asked before flickering once, twice down the hall, closing the distance on Brek and reappearing in the middle of a strike, the blade coming down towards the Vulcan’s left collarbone.

Brek’s left arm swept upwards and out, catching the descending arm forearm-on-forearm and forcing the EMH’s arm wide. There was no follow-up attack, just a quick bringing of his arm back to a guard position, ready for the next attack. Again from left, but low, countered again with speed, precision and mechanical efficiency before Brek reset for the next.

Rosa blinked once, twice, then she tapped Amber on the upper arm. “Look right, I’ve got left.”

“Gotcha,” Amber responded and both women renewed their search for the missed holoemitter they as a team had missed coming down the hallway.

“I would like,” Brek said, again countering another couple of attacks but being forced to concede ground with each one, “to emphasise speed.” The famous Vulcan calm in tough situations was laced with clear signs of physical exertion as he spoke.

“Working on it,” Rosa answered back over an experimental shot at something on the ceiling, awarded with a spray of sparks and nothing else.

“I wonder,” the EMH continued, ignoring the two women as it focused on Brek, “just how well developed your ability to suppress pain actually is.” A flurry of swipes went for Brek, each blocked until one finally managed to land, deflected from his chest by his body armour but the scalpel found purchase in his left arm. “Oh dear, that must hurt.”

Brek hissed in pain momentarily, an involuntary response. “Considerably,” he answered the EMH. “Perhaps we could merely discuss this?” He turned his body slightly from the rogue hologram, shielding his left side as best as he could.

“Where is it?” Amber shouted as she too took a few more shots, blowing out an emergency light and puncturing a life support gas line briefly.

“Wait your turn dear,” the EMH directed to Amber, then returned to Brek once more. “And yes, we can discuss this, once you’re on my table and –“ It stopped, disappeared in a blink of an eye. There one moment, gleefully menacing, then simply gone.

“It’s modified the service bots,” came Mitchell’s commanding voice from the station end of the hallway as he stepped over the smoking remains of one of the station service bots that was dead in the doorway. “Put spare holoemitters on them,” he continued as he led Commander Gantzmann to the rest of the team.

In his arms was the severed plasma torch arm from an exterior repair drone, the emitter head on it faintly glowing red as it cooled after toasting the little service bot. And behind him was Gantzmann, wielding her phaser one-handed as she held a spearhead in her left hand.

“Seriously?” Rosa asked, letting Amber push past her to get to Brek. “The service bots?” She craned her head to look past at the bot behind Mitchell and Gantzmann now. “Goddesses, I couldn’t see that to save myself.”

“Hmmm.” Mitchell’s disappointment had manifested audibly. “Four, how bad is it?”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Amber cut in before Brek could answer. “Stab wound, inside upper left arm. Minimal bleeding but into muscle.”

“I’m fine,” Brek tried to answer but hesitated under Amber’s suddenly withering medical issue glare. “But I shall defer to our nurse.”

“No more fighting holograms and take it easy on your left arm,” Amber finally declared after a few more seconds of inspection and treatment. She’d pushed the wound together, thrown a slap-patch over it and then bandages wrapped around Brek’s arm, standing out against the black of his uniform.

“Besides the hologram, why aren’t you in Engineering already?” Gantzmann asked as she took a moment to look out a window.

“The door is locked and the controls on his side have been severed.” Brek started towards the door once more. “I was in the process of attempting to open it when we were ambushed.”

“Don’t bother.” Mitchell hefted the plasma torch in his arms and smiled. Actually, smiled. “Universal door opener.”

“That…works.” Brek nodded his head in agreement before he stepped aside and back to let his commander take to the door.

It took a few minutes but eventually the hallway went from being filled with the hissing roar of a plasma torch to the reverberating CLANG of the door into Engineering falling inwards, landing atop a service bot that had been attempting to weld the door in response. Heavy booted feet carried through the opening and onto the piece of door, crushing the bot underneath with a squeal of electronics as it died.

A few others turned in Engineering turned, wielding a variety of standard issue repair tools, a few additional add-ons likely selected by the Borg drone to supplement the bots and a few more with holoemitters on their tops. As the lights flickered, systems powered up, the vague outline of multiple copies of the EMH coming to life in the cramped confines of the engineering space, phaser fire erupted. Gantzmann’s controlled, precise shots as she took out the nearest service bots, Rosa’s slightly less controlled shots, but firing on the next rank along, starting with any that had holoemitters on them.

And then there was Amber, who stepped in and channelled something near-primal. She didn’t shout or challenge the service bots, but she did fire rapidly, unleashing as much phaser fire as Gantzmann and Rosa combined. She swept her weapon from one side of the room to the other and either killed, damaged or scattered the remaining bots in quick order, the survivors quickly picked off by Rosa.

“I,” Amber took in a deep breath, “hate,” another breath, “service bots.”

“Alright Rambo,” Mitchell said as he stepped through the door. “When did Stubby last get you?”

“Two days ago,” Amber answered without any hesitation. “Goddamn that was cathartic.”

“Just don’t do that if we’re fighting Breen or Cardassians. They tend to, well, fight back.” Rosa gave Amber a wink, patting her on the shoulder as she passed. “But hot damn girl, that was kickass.”

Aside from nervous banter between Amber and Rosa, silence reigned as Brek found the nearest control console and got to the work they were sent here to do. Angry beeps from the console denied him access every so often before new strategies were employed and access eventually found. A few minutes became five, then ten, then fifteen, interrupted by a singular charging service bot.

“I don’t think that one had anything on it,” Rosa said.

“I don’t care,” Amber shot back.

“We have a few problems,” Brek finally announced after another five minutes. “I can’t gain access to the power systems to try and shut them down. Not that I would want to right now.”

“Plan B it is then,” Mitchell said, patting the plasma torch he’d set down on a bench. “Was worth a try. What’s the other.”

“Others,” Brek corrected. “Atlantis is no longer near CR-718. I was able to gain access to external sensors briefly. It would appear Captain Theodoras has taken the ship into the system primary’s corona.”

“Why would she do that?” Amber asked.

“The answer to that is our third problem,” Brek continued. “There is a M3 scale flare aimed directly at this station.”

“A what?” Rosa blurted out. “Will the shields hold?”

“I do not know. But we shall shortly find out.”