Across the decks and down the corridors of the Steamrunner-class Federation starship Repulse, the klaxon sounded. This was not the 'red alert' tone that would have been a familiar noise throughout the rooms and hallways of a Federation escort in wartime. This alarm was the harbinger of impending doom.

"Prepare for core ejection!" the chief engineer, Lieutenant Commander Salvatore Benso, called out. Main Engineering was like a hive around him, with its warp core a queen in distress. Officers and enlisted personnel alike dashed about, all frenetic, yet focused as one on the task that had fallen to them. Benso ran his fingers through his thinning hair, turned and clapped his hands at a passing ensign. "Come on, Jenkins, pick it up!"

Ensign Jenkins stumbled briefly, before nearly toppling Benso's assistant chief engineer, Lieutenant Dyralxia Rau, who rushed to the console adjacent to Benso's. "Structural integrity is holding for now, the ejection pathway is secure," she declared, her voice full of a calm her Betazoid senses could tell her no one else shared in the room. "Readying primary plasma coolant for disconnect."

The three-storey engineering bay was alive with people coming and going - medical teams rushing in, engineering crews sprinting for control panels, everyone checking to be sure they were on the right side of the protective forcefield that would spring into place once the coolant lines had been disconnected.

"We'll have six seconds once the coolant's cut," Benso instructed his charges. "Six seconds before that core's gotta be gone - or we're all dead."

A number of Repulse personnel checked their step, coming to a halt as Benso spoke. It was as though the gravity of his words had caused them to decelerate, just for a moment, and grapple with the enormity of their task. Each made their reckoning swiftly, and resumed their various duties with purpose.

"Coolant lines ready for extraction," Rau said.

"Cut it, Dyra," Benso ordered.

Rau nodded, and pressed her console. The sound of a forcefield coming to life could be heard briefly, then the plasma coolant lines were no longer connected. "Core clear to eject!"

"Here we go!" Benso began programming inputs at his workstation and, as he did, the interlocks holding the titanic structure of the warp core in its usual position began to groan and click open.

But nothing happened. Despite this, the warp core held in place. Rau and the rest of the crew began to straighten up, breathing again. But Benso did not. He remained steadfast, eyes fixed on the console.

Rau stepped over to stand next to him, just as Benso raised an exultant fist in the air. "Five-point-six seconds!" he called out.

The engineers standing in their places let out a cheer. There was applause, and a sense of relief swept across the room. Benso gave an approving nod, then bumped his fist against Rau's. "Nice."

"Yeah, we nailed it!" Rau replied, exultant.

Both engineers turned to face a dark-haired Andorian woman in command uniform who was standing behind them, out of the way against a bulkhead. Out of place as she was in a room full of 'lower decks' personnel, her presence in the room towered over the scene despite her slight stature. As Benso and Rau gave her their full attention, so did everyone else in the room. "How'd you like that, Commander?" Benso asked.

Commander Twaiheak Sh'abbas nodded, her face impassive. She held out a padd, reading from it. "The simulation report counts twelve dead, forty-seven wounded, and a sixty-four percent chance of the ship having been destroyed." Tw'eak raised both eyebrows briefly. "Those aren't great odds."

"But we did it," Benso protested. "We got the core clear in time. Just like we were supposed to."

"It took you ninety-eight seconds to get to that point," Tw'eak replied flatly. "Safe-case scenario - a Steamrunner-class starship in a cascade systems failure with failing antimatter containment - safe-case in this simulation is eighty seconds or less. Anything longer and the risk of our destruction increases exponentially."

"Safe-case... what is that, anyway? Maybe that number shakes out in a holodeck, but out here for real? Come on." Benso turned his dark eyes back to Tw'eak, his face almost a snarl. "How were we supposed to get all that done - including that little stunt you included with the EPS relays - with twenty less seconds to spare?"

"You're Starfleet engineers, Commander." Tw'eak put on her most professional smile. "I'd have thought that would make you capable of handling the unexpected."

"So you admit it." Benso pointed at her. "It's impossible. See."

Tw'eak could sense that Benso wasn't about to let this go. "The EPS junction blow-out was also something that should've been anticipated. That's why you needed Thompson and Day at their respective stations."

"Both of 'em were 'injured' early in the scenario," Rau interjected.

"Redundant crew responsibilities," Tw'eak countered. "Some of your people found themselves out of position." She leaned back, looking across the deck at Ensign Jenkins' despondent face. "It'll come with practice, Ensign. That's why we do this."

"I don't get it, Commander," Benso countered, his dark eyes narrowed at her. "They make you first officer two weeks ago, and we get to run this drill five times since."

Tw'eak's antennae angled inwards, and she barely held her fury in check. "Six, Mr. Benso. At least it will be by the end of tomorrow. Fifteen-hundred. Brief your personnel and reinforce their understandings. We'll run it again until best practice becomes second nature." She took a step forward, and her voice became ice-cold. "Any further protestations you might have can be brought up with me in private, is that clear?"

Benso merely gave Tw'eak a flippant nod of the head, then turned back to his engine room. "All right, people - you've got five minutes to tell me what else we screwed up. Let's..." He glanced over his shoulder. "Let's do the impossible."

Tw'eak nodded at Rau and forced her mind clear, presciently aware as she was of the lieutenant's Betazoid heritage. Rau took the opportunity to step forward. "You think I could speak to you, Commander? For just a minute?"

"I'm due back on the bridge - would you mind if the lieutenant came with me for the moment, Commander?"

Benso shrugged. "Your ship, boss - you tell me."

Tw'eak gritted her teeth. "In that case, we can talk over here. Won't be long." Rau followed Tw'eak into a doorway alcove. "What can I help you with, Lieutenant?"

Rau took a quick peek around the edge of the alcove, spotting Benso turning his rage upon Jenkins. "Permission to be frank, ma'am."

"Of course," Tw'eak replied.

"It's about the drills, ma'am. Look, we're all glad you're taking the time to focus on efficiency - I know we haven't exactly been the finest engine room in Starfleet. We all know it."

"Honestly, Lieutenant, that's not my decision, it's the captain's. He's a former chief engineer himself, and he wants standards to be kept."

"Oh, I know. He's been down here to tell us all that a bunch of times." Rau fought the urge to roll her eyes, unsure whether Tw'eak was trustworthy. "Still, I just think maybe we could ease into this a bit more, if you know what I mean?"

"I don't." For her part, Tw'eak saw no reason to give the lieutenant the benefit of the doubt.

"We get it," Rau said plainly. "We suck. And we know it. It's not a secret. I've been trying to get people working harder - working smarter, too - but the truth is, well..."

This time, Tw'eak thought she "One of the things I've learned over the years, Lieutenant, is that you can't command through fear, only through respect."

"Good point," Rau acknowledged, glancing back at Benso as she did.

"We'll get it sorted out. This is just the beginning. But I have to at least have this to show the captain, to indicate that we're trying to resolve this." Tw'eak smiled at Rau. "For the same reason you wanted to talk to me."

"To show the chief that we're trying to resolve this."

"Exactly." Tw'eak gave a slight nod. "I appreciate the feedback, Lieutenant. The door's always open."

Unexpectedly, Rau snickered - and immediately caught herself. "Sorry, ma'am. Let's just say - never mind."

Tw'eak tilted her head slightly, curious. "No, let's not. What is it?"

"Well, what I was going to say was - is this off the record, ma'am?"

"That all depends on what you have to tell me." She glanced towards the engine room, her antennae angling downwards, an expression of her disappointment. "You'll forgive me if I'm not in the habit of having lieutenants snicker at me, but then, there are a lot of things that need to change around here, it seems."

"Oh, that did change already, though. Commander Freitag, ma'am. His 'open door policy', you see, was more open to certain crew members at all hours than others."

Tw'eak's mouth became a flat line. "Which crew members, Lieutenant?"

"The... um, the female ones, ma'am."

Tw'eak closed her eyes and fought the urge to scream.

"But I never - and everyone knew, ma'am, and we all looked out for each other, until he went, then you came in. Nothing major."

"Nothing -?" Tw'eak's antennae flared outwards. "Lieutenant, if it were my ship, he'd be out an airlock and floating his way back to Earth Spacedock for a new commission. That sort of unprofessional conduct has no place in Starfleet - or anywhere else, for that matter."

Rau nodded, her tight chestnut-coloured ponytail bobbing almost comically as she did. She seemed almost spooked by Tw'eak's candour. "No, I get it. I mean, um... is that all, ma'am?"

"Unless you have anything further, Lieutenant."

"Not at the present time, ma'am."

"Thank you again for the feedback. As you were." Tw'eak watched Rau raise her hand as if to salute, then turn and fall back out again.

Two weeks, Tw'eak thought as she left Engineering and headed for the nearest turbolift. She had only been given the full rank of Commander a month previous, and the chance for a duty posting aboard a ship like the Repulse had been too good to pass up. For a long-serving tactical officer like herself, the dream was a posting would lead to further combat experience - especially in space, where her training and aggressive mindset would hopefully be of use in the war against the Klingons. Most of her previous experience, aboard Sovereign-class starships, had been in relatively placid exploration and scientific missions, or as part of a task force under an admiral's direction. This, she thought, would be a real taste of front-line service, a chance to earn her place in the Wall of Heroes. Every Andorian child felt destined for glory, a noble life of service, honour and remembrance in death. For Tw'eak, whose family counted seven members resting there already - including one of her own fathers, a decorated Starfleet Marine who had died during the last few days of the Dominion War - there was no greater destiny than to earn her place in the Wall.

That had become a forlorn ideal. Instead, her role aboard the ship - a ship whose first duty assignment once she arrived had been to patrol the fringes of Romulan space, far from the front lines - had been more like that of a diplomat. The interpersonal factors, between the chief engineer and the captain, between the tactical officer and the helmsman, between the chief science officer and seemingly everyone else, had made this ship feel dysfunctional right across its every deck.

The ensigns and enlisted personnel she talked to handled their words as if they were made of trilithium resin, apt to cause a deadly explosion and best used sparsely. Her fellow senior officers had either avoided her altogether - she had yet to exchange more than five words with the elusive chief science officer - or, like Benso, sought to square off with her at every opportunity. There were more than enough issues already onboard without things being complicated by the knowledge that her predecessor had been the kind of officer people warned each other about.

Tw'eak rounded the corner, nearest turbolift in her sights, when the sight of a slender female figure slightly taller than her, eyes bright and intent upon their quarry, nearly made her alter course. Wearing a saffron-coloured lab coat, the chief medical officer, Dr. Mina Ogilvie aimed the padd in her hand at Tw'eak. "There you are!"

Tw'eak braced for another round of verbal sparring. "Hello, Doctor," she said, sliding to a halt. This was where it began - Dr. Ogilvie was not intimidating to Tw'eak, but her tendency to talk to people by stepping in extremely close was unnerving. It carried over into her sickbay, where she tended to prefer 'working by feel', as she called it, rather than rely upon tricorder scan or a bio-bed reading. That reflected her other tendency - confident assurance of whatever she thought, felt, or divined to be true, despite ample evidence to the contrary. Tw'eak had heard a few horror stories already during her time on board. It was something - much like Benso's poorly-run engine room, or the state of discipline among the bridge officers - which she hoped to begin to change.

An opening gambit would be required to throw her off-base. "Have you received my medical records from Starfleet yet?"

"What?" The unexpected topic of discussion startled Ogilvie. "Oh yes, they've arrived. I haven't taken a look at them yet, beyond to see that I don't need to schedule you for a medical examination for some time."

"I had one just a few months ago, not long before my promotion came through."

"Yes, well. Congratulations and all that." There was no warmth or depth of feeling in Ogilvie's voice. "I'll see if there's anything further to that later. But that's not what I wanted to discuss with you."

Tw'eak feigned surprise. "Is that so."

Ogilvie closed in so tightly to Tw'eak that her Andorian antennae were sensitive to her heartbeat. "I've been looking over your proposed changes for the shift schedule. This simply isn't going to work."

"Which part?" Tw'eak said, poker-faced.

"Well. All of it." Ogilvie held up the padd so Tw'eak could see. "You have Ensign Th'zarik, Doctor Horsell, and Lieutenant Morlack on active duty rotation. It's all wrong."

"It is?"

"I should say so! It's my sickbay. Why am I not given a place in the duty rotation?"

Tw'eak took a minor step back. "I explained this when we spoke last week - for you to be on duty at one time or another, when you're the only certified doctor aboard, is not as flexible as this arrangement."

"Flexible - I should say not." Ogilvie held up her padd. "You have Lieutenant Downie on as an alternate. But she's the ship's counselor."

"She has accreditation in advanced first aid and is a trauma specialist."

"A psychological trauma specialist." Ogilvie's eyes narrowed.

"We won't be experiencing that much trauma," Tw'eak replied with a smile. "I hope," she added quickly.

"And I don't know why you've got Herbert Horsell down for a posting when I'm not even on here at all. We're both doctors."

"That's because I thought it would be best to place him in the rotation, to ensure you have off-duty time on a regular basis."

"As chief medical officer, I don't get off-duty time," Ogilvie said flatly, almost sneering.

"Well, most humans have to sleep sometime. Having a period of time where Dr. Horsell is guaranteed to be present in the sickbay means you can get your rest."

Tw'eak was prevented from instructing the doctor on needing to get a good night's sleep by Ogilvie scuffing the padd in disgust. "And for that matter, Lieutenant Morlack is a biochemist - and is not fully qualified."

"No, but his qualifications do allow him to hold that posting."

Ogilvie rolled her eyes, irritating Tw'eak. "There's holding a posting, and then there's what you do with it."

"I had the three of them arrange the particulars of the schedule. Aside from you and Lieutenant Downie, they are the most senior officers assigned to medical duties. This is how they worked it out. Lieutenant Morlack was most comfortable with the third shift, since it's during the 'overnight' ship-time hours." Being a Benzite, Tw'eak reasoned it was possible that Horsell and Th'zarik asked for the earlier schedules, and Morlack's people-pleasing personality led him to concede to their requests.

"We're understaffed," Ogilvie declared suddenly. "That's the main problem. Two doctors and eight nurses, out of a crew of - what, ninety-six?"

"Ninety-three," Tw'eak corrected. "With four medical lab personnel and Lieutenant Downie, the counselor." She shook her head. "That's not including those who like, again, Lieutenant Downie, are qualified enough to rate a posting in medical duties." She shrugged. "You'll notice that I avoided putting engineering or tactical personnel on the duty roster, even though we have rated combat medics who could handle first point of contact."

"But should it not follow that, as this is my sickbay we're talking about, I should have first point of contact with my own patients?"

Tw'eak's smile remained in place, even though now it was there by force. "Medical care works most efficiently when the greatest care is given to those who need it most."

"Honestly, Commander, you don't need to explain my own specialty to me. But this duty roster is supposed to be your specialty, and I would like you to explain to me why it is that I have no duty posting on my own department's roster."

"You do. A permanent one."

Ogilvie backed off slightly. "Well, of course. It is my sickbay."

"And as such, you'll be contacted as required. But the duty officer will be the first point of contact. This is - I have an old friend of mine, who lives on Earth now, and she ran her sickbay this way for years."

"She did, did she. Hmm."

"She found it really made a difference in how much time she could devote to patient care, if the triage - that is what they call it, right?"

"Triage, yes," Ogilvie replied snippily.

"If the triage wasn't something she needed to be directly responsible for, all the time. That first point of contact can be made by any of your personnel, with overall supervision by the highest-ranking on duty. Counselor Downie would be available to cover if any of the senior officers can't be present, though she will have her own appointments to keep just down the hall."

"Yes," Ogilvie said impatiently.

"And in the event of serious emergencies or surgical intervention being required, that's where you would be called upon to provide whatever they can't as required. Otherwise, you'll be free to oversee logistics, intervene in patient care as you please, and so forth. There would even be time for you to pursue personal projects or research under this system - something you don't have under the current structure of the duty roster. I thought you might appreciate that."

"Oh, and I do, but... I don't know how to say this..."

Tw'eak shrugged. "I'm listening."

"Well, it just... feels like I am being undermined by this schedule." Ogilvie's eyes widened as Tw'eak raised an eyebrow in response. "Don't get me wrong, I appreciate your having consulted your friends and whoever else, but you didn't consult me."

Tw'eak gave an involuntary chuckle. "As I mentioned, we discussed this last week." Tw'eak looked upwards as if into her memory. "We were in your office, as I recall. Ensign Shorndal had just had his broken ankle repaired."

"But you told me then that you would consult with me before you made any changes!"

"I did, this is a proposal."

"A proposal." Ogilvie stammered for a moment. "Has - have you presented this to Captain Corlett?"

"It's on his desk, yes. I had discussed it with him, in principle at least, before I made up the draft for the proposal. He asked me to consult with everyone before I brought him a final plan. I did, and... here it is."

"And - but what if I refuse?"

Tw'eak held her frustrations tightly in check. "That is your right."

"Well. Then suppose instead-"

This wasn't an argument Tw'eak was willing to lose. "That being said, the captain would be within his rights to override your objections and implement that schedule regardless."

Ogilvie was struck by Tw'eak's interruption. "He - of - of course." She looked awkwardly at Tw'eak, like a stricken bird. "And would he?"

"Oh, I wouldn't want to speak for the captain. Have you discussed your objections with him at all?"

"Not - not as yet, no."

Tw'eak kept her smile from her face. There was always one senior officer at some point in the chain of command who could be sat down and badgered into deferring or halting a new way of doing things. Tw'eak didn't know Captain Avery Corlett well enough to say if he would consider Ogilvie's complaints or not, but Tw'eak's own plan spoke for itself.

"Normally," Ogilvie continued, "I would just go to Commander Freitag for whatever I needed, so I'm just not used to involving the captain in how I run my sickbay."

Tw'eak cleared her throat to conceal a sigh. "I don't think the captain has an 'open door' policy quite like the commander did." She stared hard at the doctor.

"Yes, well." There was an unspoken moment as Ogilvie seemed to reckon with what Tw'eak had said. It hadn't been hard for Tw'eak to put together. The former first officer with the 'open door' policy, the attractive, slender chief medical officer who knew how to get what she wanted... And yet, if she did acknowledge any realization of what Tw'eak had figured out, Ogilvie gave no sign of it beyond a moment's pause.

"I would recommend you arrange a time with the captain, and bring your objections to him. This way, we can both abide by his decision."

"I'll bring this to the captain, then," Ogilvie said tentatively, then hastend to add, "some time soon. Thank you, Commander." She then continued upon her way, and around another corner, before Tw'eak could reply.

Tw'eak shook her head, reminding herself that, no, it wasn't her, everyone on this ship seemed to have an opinion they regarded as fact, or a hidden agenda. Her presence would be a challenge to them - it would always be, just because she represented changes. But the more she learned, the better she understood the scale of the challenge she faced, to make those changes. Just getting a duty roster and a breach drill accomplished felt as exhausting as a week's hunt in the Northern Wastes. The full scale of changes needed kept unfolding before her, like an expanse of ice, and she had to keep moving, keep alert, ready for anything.

As the turbolift arrived, two facts occurred to her: firstly, that each new twist of fate made the odds of her success increasingly unlikely, but also, that she was Andorian, born and raised on a planet where sentient life should have been impossible. The less likely it got, the harder she would work to make it happen. That was how she had lived, and served, her whole life. It was the only thing she knew how to do. "Bridge," she said, the turbolift doors sliding shut as she did.