The surface of the large, green planet swirled with atmospheric activity, giving it the texture of marble hanging against the inky black background of space. The planet's sun glided slowly behind it as the planet continued on its orbit, seeming to eclipse the sun as the last rays of light reflected off the hull of a ship.

The majestic craft of Starship-classification, Constitution-variant sailed in orbit around the planet, duel warp engine nacelles springing out the top of a cylindrical engineering hull, slung below the saucer-shaped primary hull.

The bubble-shaped command bridge sat on the top-centre of the saucer, its interior holding a full complement of duty personnel, each sitting at their assigned stations. In the very centre of the bridge was the command chair, in which the captain was currently sitting. She was fairly young, only in her mid-30s, but in her grey eyes, one could see a great deal of experience and intelligence. She glanced towards the viewscreen, which showed the marble-green planet below them, as she punched a button on her chair's control panel.

"Captain's log, stardate 2537. The USS Endar Spire is currently in orbit of the planet Taris, near the Romulan Neutral Zone. All systems are operating normally and the new navigator we picked up at Starbase 38-"

Suddenly, the ship shook violently, and Captain Bastila Shan was cut off from finishing her log entry as she was thrown out of her seat.

"What was that?"

The science officer stumbled over to his station and glanced at his viewer. "We were hit by a plasma weapon of some kind. Our shields went down at the first hit, Captain!"

"What? Who fired?"

A switch was flipped, and the viewscreen showed the attacker; a gunmetal grey, long-necked ship, roughly the same size as the Endar Spire. "They did."

Bastila re-seated herself in her chair, quickly brushing a stray strand of brown hair behind her ear. She glanced at the orange markings on the hull of the ship.

"Romulans!"

"Five of them, Captain. We're surrounded!"

"Effect repairs to the shields and –"

The ship rocked again as it was hit by a volley of disruptor blasts. Sparks flew from several consoles on the Bridge, and casualty reports could be heard from the communications station.

Bastila shuddered. "Open hailing frequencies!" she ordered. "This is Captain Bastila Shan of the USS Endar Spire. We demand a reason for this unprovoked attack, which is in direct violation of the Romulan Peace Treaty!"

Her only response was another volley of disruptor fire.

"Send out a distress call to all Federation ships within range!" she ordered.

"No good, captain," the communications officer replied. "The Romulans are jamming all our subspace transmissions!"

Just as Captain Shan was about to reply, her chair's intercom beeped. "Engineering to bridge!"

"Shan here. Go ahead."

"Captain, both warp and impulse engines got knocked out in that last attack. We're a sitting duck!"

The captain sighed heavily. "All right," she said slowly, "It seems we have no choice." She snapped her head up towards the main control console in front of her.

"Helmsman! Lock phasers on the lead Romulan cruiser, and set them to send a volley of automatic fire every thirty seconds." As the man nodded and carried out her command, she hit the intercom button on her command chair console. "All hands, this is the captain speaking. Abandon ship. Repeat, abandon ship!"

In seconds, the bridge personnel scrambled into the turbolift and rode it to the next transporter room, except the captain and two of her senior personnel. She motioned them over to the science station, and sat down near the library computer tie-in, where Bastila hit a few buttons she thought she'd never had to.

"Computer, this is Captain Bastila Shan. Request security access." The machine beeped and acknowledged her identity.

"Working."

"Computer, destruct Sequence One, Code One, 1A." The computer tie-in screen flashed as the display changed.

The science officer was next, and wiped his brow nervously. "Computer, Lieutenant Commander Richard Hunt, science officer. Destruct Sequence Two, Code One, 1A, 2B." Again, the screen changed.

The last in the line cleared his throat. "Computer, Lieutenant Commander Carth Onasi, helmsman. Destruct Sequence Three. Code 1B, 2B, 3."

Bastila took a deep breath. "Computer, begin ten minute countdown. Code 000. Destruct. 0."

Immediately, everybody scrambled for the turbolift, except for the captain. She looked around the bridge for one last time, and brushed her finger over the dedication plaque next to the lift.

USS ENDAR SPIRE

STARSHIP CLASS

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF.

For a moment, she thought about removing the plaque and taking it with her. She shook her head at the idea and stepped into the turbolift, reaching for the handle. "Shuttle bay."

On Deck 5, the new navigator, Commander Diotima Mulgrew, was thrown out of her bunk by the first hit. She immediately knew that something was wrong. Deadly wrong. As the ship continued to be hit by disruptor fire, and the captain ordered the crew to abandon ship, she was glad for her habit of sleeping in uniform. She attached her Phaser II, communicator, and field tricorder to her pants, and ran into the next turbolift. "Transporter Room," she said to the lift.

When the turbolift doors opened, Diotima was very glad she had her phaser with her - she was face-to-face with a Romulan centurion. Apparently, the Romulans had started beaming over boarding parties after the last attack. Both were stunned for a moment, until Diotima spoke. "Deck 10, transporter room, auxiliary control, and headaches." With that, she head-butted the Romulan, and pulled her knee up into his gut. The centurion grunted as he doubled-over, and reached for his holstered disruptor. Diotima quickly drew her phaser and stunned him before he could fire.

"I have a bad feeling about this," she said to herself.

She jogged to the transporter room, where she suspected many more crewmembers would be waiting for their turn to be transported to the surface. Instead, she saw two dozen Romulans, studying the controls. "Whoops, wrong turn!" she said.

As quickly as she could, she ran back to the turbolift and grabbed the handle. "Shuttle bay."

This was turning out to be a bad day.

And it got worse. In the hallway in front of the main entrance to the shuttle bay, she noticed the pressure indicator. The bay was completely decompressed. Normally, she'd just have to wait for the shuttle bay to re-pressurize, but in this case, that time wouldn't come. Nobody was there to operate the shuttle bay controls. And that meant...

"All the shuttles are gone. I'm too late."

Diotima almost cracked. The transporter room was swarming with Romulans, and there were no shuttles left. And if Captain Shan did everything by the book, which Diotima bet she did, then the ship's auto-destruct sequence was already activated. She was stuck. Only days after being transferred, she was about to go down with the ship.

Well, at least I got around ion pod duty! At that thought, she snorted. It was a bit of an inside joke that the dangers of duty in the ion pod were not the ion storms, but a captain accidentally putting their cup of coffee on the "jettison pod" button...

Diotima froze. The ion pod. It had life support and limited manoeuvrability. Enough to get it through the atmosphere of a planet.

With renewed energy, she started running toward the ion pod...

In the corridor leading to the pod, she almost ran into another officer, who had not one but two phasers attached to his pants.

"Sorry, eh, Commander..." the man said, glancing at her rank stripes.

"Do I know you?"

The other shook his head. "Carth Onasi. And no, we didn't have the chance to meet. I'm helmsman on the Alpha Shift." His expression changed as something occurred to him. "Hey, why are you still aboard? The captain ordered everybody to abandon ship."

"No kidding. I ran into some Romulans outside the transporter room, and the shuttles are all gone."

"I know, I was the one staying behind depressurizing the bay. Sounds like the ion pod is our last chance."

Diotima grimaced. The pod was only built for one person. "What are we waiting for? Let's get going!"

They scrambled to the ion pod access hatch, and climbed down the ladder into the ion pod. Diotima, being the smaller and slimmer of the two, let Carth go first so she'd have room to sit on his lap in the cramped pod.

"Now, don't get any naughty thoughts, flyboy!" she told him. He rolled his eyes and hit the "jettison" button.