Note: This is part of a larger story, but I wanted to see how it stood on its own.

The counselor before Lahn was the quintessential Betazoid. Long, ropes of onyx hair down to the middle of her back, and a wide, honest face punctuated by apple cheeks and pitch eyes. She sat with almost a girlish air in the guest chair, while Lahn stood and paced. She watched Lahn, deep in thought move back and forth across the room. Finally she asked, "How does that make you feel?"

Lahn stopped, abruptly turn to the counselor and frowned. "I don't want to talk to you about my feelings. I want to find out who is shitting on my bed."

The counselor paled and stammered, "Of course you are upset, but perhaps we should discuss this without being crude –"

"Crude?" Lahn asked with a sarcastic air as she resumed pacing. "The entire act is crude. Someone shit on my bed. I realize this is not exactly something that went into the fabled logs of the greats like Kirk and Picard, but you can bet if someone shit on Captain's Picard's bridge –"

"Finding excrement in your personal space can be upsetting –"

Lahn stopped again, and slowly looked her up and down. She sighed. "Look, Lieutenant –" Lahn began pausing, prompting her for her name.

"Talah. Lieutenant Kay Talah." She smiled brightly, then stopped when she realize Lahn wasn't.

"Lieutenant Talah. Are you really ship's counselor? I mean, the Curare is a Mercury class, so usually too small for…"

"I'm Chief Nurse," Talah replied matter-of-factually, with a slight emphasis on 'Chief'.

"I…see," Lahn said, her brow slightly furrowed. "You didn't…" Lahn groped for words. "Did you start out as an Ensign or are you part of that program that starts out advanced Academy graduates as Lieutenant."

Talah's response was sullen. "I graduated in the top ten percent—"

"Right. Lieutenant, let me explain the semantics to you. When it's a sample in sickbay, its feces. When it's going through bio-molecular conversion, its effluent, and when it's in the fresher, its excrement. But on my bed, it's shit. Someone shit on my bed. They continue to shit on my bed, and will probably shit on my bed in the future. I want it to stop."

Lieutenant Talah flinched with each curse. "Perhaps, Captain," she said carefully, "this is something you should bring to security."

"I have. Perhaps you could review the report?"

"But Captain, I'm not sure why I—"

"Because you can't. There is none. I sent a sample down to sickbay, but, of course, they didn't get back to me. It's almost as if security is perfectly happy to let this Mad Shitter roam free."

The Counselor blinked. "Mad shi-" She started to repeat, then stopped.

"If you did a DNA analysis, you could tell me –"

"I'll take my results to security."

Lahn rolled her eyes. "Haven't you been listening? They won't do anything about it."

"I'll be happy to speak to the first officer about this."

"Happy?" Lahn asked in a clearly unconvinced tone.

Lieutenant Talah bit her lip. "I'll be relieved not to have to discuss this with you anymore."

"That's more honest. Let's go."

She looked up at Lahn, taken by surprise. "Go?"

"Let's talk to the first officer right now. Or the Captain."

"I'm not sure we should go right now. Perhaps an appointment..."

Lahn was already out the door and leaned back in to look at Lieutenant Talah. "Why, because you're worried that I'll find out the Curare has been taking a roundabout route to the Jenolean Sphere?"

Talah picked at her nails sullenly. "I'm not involved with navigation."

"Now who's hiding something? Let go."

Lahn watched Talah consider out and out refusal, but while Lahn wasn't The Captain, Lahn was a captain. Refusing without a solid reason still had repercussions, even in a depleted, desperate Starfleet and captains had to be dealt with. Her options were to deal with Lahn herself or let Captain M'Resh deal with Lahn. In these matters, the safer option was to let captains deal with captains, so she obediently followed Lahn down the hallway to the turbo lift.

Mid-way, the turbo lift lights switched to a low red.

"You're supposed to go back to your quarters," Talah said quietly. She knew she had to say it, and expected to be ignored.

Lahn held up a finger to silence her. "We just cloaked."

"How do you know?"

"The engines have a different sound. The lights mean that you stop all high energy work as well. Sensors go in passive mode. Energy emissions are minimized. Which means…" Lahn stepped into the turbo lift and barely allowed Lieutenant Talah time to get on. "M'Resh isn't just meandering, he's hunting."

As much as Lahn didn't like M'Resh, she admired the efficiency of his bridge. The stations were brisk and precise, relaying to each other in calm, even tones, even as the scene in front of them was chaos. Lahn silently left the turbo lift to get a better view. On the screen, she recognized the USS Taurus - a Jupiter Class Dreadnought, and nearly the last of her line. Its shields shimmered brilliantly as it was repeatedly hit by the four circling Quas Cruisers. For every shot the Taurus was firing, the Iconian cruisers were firing two and three back.

"The Taurus is sending a distress signal, Sir." Communications reported to M'Resh, who sat at the edge of his chair, his tail flicking with agitation.

"Sensors indicate they are down to 78% crew and have lost warp drive."

"Prepare weapons to go online, and to disengage cloak," M'Resh said.

Lahn edged closer to the command platform. She forced a clinical tone "Unfortunately Captain, there's nothing we can do here."

M'Resh slowly turned to Lahn, his fangs slightly exposed. "You're supposed to be in your quarters."

Lahn remained unmoved, her face stony. "And you're supposed to be heading to the Jenolean Sphere."

"We are rendering assistance in response to the Taurus' distress call," He said in a tone that would take no further argument.

"Those four ships are Quas cruisers. We are outnumbered and out-jouled."

"We have the element of surprise."

Lahn blurted, "We are a Mercury Class. Not only are you disregarding orders, you're committing suicide."

Despite her attempts to keep the exchange between her and M'Resh, the other stations had grown eerily quiet. The officer at tactical flicked an uncertain gaze toward Lahn. The doubt of engaging the cruisers were palpable amongst the bridge officers, clear to everyone but M'Resh.

"Sensors indicate the USS Taurus is down to 68% crew. Their shields are failing," the helmsman reported.

"Have transporter teams prepare to pick up escape pods."

Lahn clenched her jaw, watching the weapons play across the flickering shields of the Taurus. "Hit their warp core."

The tactical officer said, "The Quas cruisers have almost full shields around their warp cores."

"Not the cruisers. The Taurus."

The bridge went silent as M'Resh returned his attention to Lahn, and responded in a barely contained snarl, "You'd have us fire on our own side? What kind of —"

"They are already dead!" Lahn said, exasperated. "If you're determined to get into this fight, then that's how you win it. The warp core detonation will deplete the shields of the cruisers, and you hit the one that's weakest in the aft shields with cannons and a heavy torpedo. If you make it breach as well, you'll cripple at least two of the others. The Taurus is gone, Captain. If you are going to make it mean something, then do so." She jerked her thumb back toward the limping dreadnought and the cruisers closing in for a kill. "Look." She pointed more vehemently and said, as if the mere reception of photons to the retina wasn't enough, See!"

M'Resh snarled. "You and I have different views of victory. Nurse, since Captain Lahn will not go back to her quarters, stun her and hold her in sickbay until this is over. Mr. Talbot, prepare to de-cloak."

Lahn turned to Talah, who already had her phaser out. She looked almost apologetic as she fired.