Disclaimer: Star Trek and all associated characters and situations are the property of CBS studios. Star Trek Online is the creation of Cryptic and Perfect World. All are here used by myself for entertainment purposes only, without permission or intent to profit.

The Raid

OSS Melani's Jewel, Year of Kahless 1020, Day 112, 10:45 Hours, Ter'jas Mor Time

Nita D'blae's personal messages:

Dear Momma,

Rema says the freighter we're on has just passed the Klingon border on its way to Ter'jas Mor. She says I'll like the planet, but I don't know. I've never been on a planet before, and it's so far away from Drozana Station. I wish you were here with me…but I know you'll say that's not the point. I've got to train for my future so I can be a lodubyaln like you, maybe meet people like my dad…but it's hard. I know I should be making friends, but the other girls are so dull, and they look at me funny! It's like they've never seen an Orion-Human hybrid before…

As the Orion freighter Melani's Jewel crossed the border into Klingon space, Nita D'blae sat in one of the cargo holds with over two dozen other five-year old Orion girls. The girls sat cross-legged in the plain white tunics of lodubyaln (or slave-girl) initiates and listened as Rema gave them their first lesson to prepare them for their future lives: a lesson in Klingonese.

Nita wasn't really listening, though. She'd learned Klingonese from her mother and the bar patrons on Drozana Station. By the time she was four she'd been able to carry on a conversation in Klingonese, Low Kolari, Ferengi, or English, while she bet most of these girls were still working on their native tongue. Even now she could tell that Klingonese was going to take them a while. Most of these girls were slaughtering the pronunciation of nuqDaq 'oH puch''e' so badly that they were more likely to get laughed at than shown the way to the restroom by a real Klingon.

She sighed. It was going to take them forever to get to interesting stuff like Klingon history and culture. Nita had overheard stories about them from Klingons on Drozana, but she longed to hear more. Her mother called it her explorer's appetite. "You get it from your father," she'd told Nita, proudly tapping the old Starfleet combadge her daughter wore as a necklace. "He was a starship captain, you know."

Nita had smiled then as she did now. She fished the combadge-turned-pendant out of the loose neck of her tunic and fingered it idly.

"Whatcha got there, Pinky?" whispered a larger girl to Nita's left.

Nita was startled and tried to hide the pendant again, tucking it back into her tunic.

The girl saw it, though. "Oh, a necklace! Let me see!" she whispered, reaching toward it with fat green fingers.

Nita pulled away. "No!" She looked toward Rema, but in the cargo hold full of fidgeting and chattering children, she hadn't even noticed the disturbance.

"Aww, come on, Pinky," the girl said, grabbing at Nita's tunic.

Nita managed to pull away again, though the other girl was strong. "Stop it!" she hissed. "And stop calling me Pinky!"

"But that's what you are," the girl taunted. She pointed at her own deep emerald skin. "See, I'm green, but you're pink!"

Nita looked down at her own skin, which was a very pale shade of green, with a slight rosy tint to it. "S-so?" she said, trying to make it sound like the observation didn't bother her.

"So, that means you're not really an Orion," said the girl. "My mommy says so. My mommy says there are mongrel children whose parents aren't even the same species." She smirks. "You must be one of those. You're a mongrel! I bet you never even knew your real daddy. I bet your mommy was too embarrassed to even tell you who he was!"

Nita's cheeks heated at the cruel girl's words. She felt her eyes sting with tears even as her hands curled into fists.

"Aww, even your cheeks glow pink, Pinky!" the girl taunted.

Nita couldn't stand another second of it. Without thinking, she swung her fist at the other girl's gut. Nita may have been smaller and weaker, but she knew how to put all her weight behind a punch. It was enough to bowl the bigger girl over backwards. At the same time, Nita shot to her feet and shouted, "I'm not a pinky! Stop calling me that! My daddy was a starship captain!"

Instantly, there was silence in the cargo hold. Nita realized all the other girls were staring at her, and at the larger girl, who was doubled over on the floor, crying loudly. She wondered if she shouldn't have hit her so hard.

Then Rema said, "Nita D'blae! Come here!" Her voice was as cold as ice, and it made Nita afraid to obey, afraid to be anywhere near her.

In that moment, that split-second decision of a child, her fate was decided and her life forever altered. Nita shook her head silently at the teacher's command and ran from the room.

She bolted for the nearest maintenance hatch by instinct, palming it open and crawling inside. She scrambled through the crawlway beyond, fleeing from Rema. A moment later, she heard the maintenance hatch open again and Rema shouted, "Get back here this instant!"

Nita didn't stop, but instead broke into a crouched run, ducking under cables and hopping over support beams. She heard the fumbling sounds of Rema's pursuit behind her, but she plunged onward. Children were faster than adults, especially in tight spaces. She had learned this on Drozana Station and it proved true here as well. As Nita rushed forward, the sounds of Rema's cursing and pounding pursuit faded into the distance until they were completely lost in the mechanical thrum of the ship itself.

Only then did Nita stop to see where she was. Her twisting flight had taken her to a dead end by a small unlabeled access hatch. She pressed her ear against the door. She could hear voices on the other side, adult voices. From the tone, they seemed to be deep in some serious conversation. That meant they were distracted. Nita smiled. If she was quick and quiet, she could probably get by them without them even realizing she was there!

She palmed open the access hatch and peeked through. The hatch led out onto a narrow catwalk that hung just below the ceiling and followed the perimeter of a large circular room. Below she could see half a dozen bare-chested Orion men working various consoles around the room, with one man sitting proudly in a lone central seat. Behind him stood a beautiful woman in the skimpy outfit of a fully-trained lodubyaln, and in front of him on the far wall was a large display that showed stars streaking by at what could only be warp speed.

Nita gasped. This had to be the bridge! She'd never been on the bridge of a starship before, much less one traveling at warp. She clasped a hand over her mouth to contain her own excitement, then padded out onto the catwalk on bare feet, closing the hatch quietly behind her. None of the adults below had noticed her. They were too busy with their intense conversation.

"I have visual confirmation of our initial readings: Nausicaan destroyer, Scourge-class," one of the men said.

"On screen, maximum magnification," said the man in the center seat—the Captain. The image on the viewscreen changed to show an aft view, with stars retreating away at warp. Between them a large brown ship sped, growing larger by the second. Its twin hulls were vertically stacked with aggressive curves, swept wings, and yellow running lights.

Nita realized with excitement that this was the Nausicaan ship, and that it was pursuing them. The danger and disparity of the situation did not occur to her at first, drowned out by the realization that she was about to witness her first space battle, from the bridge of an actual starship!

"They're almost in weapon's range," said the first man. "Still no sign of Klingon patrols."

The lodubyaln cast a nervous glance at the ship on the viewscreen. "Dear, don't you think we should broadcast a distress signal?"

The Captain nodded. "Do it, all frequencies!" he said tersely.

One of the men in the back scrambled to obey.

"They're entering range!" the first man warned. "They have a torpedo lock!"

"Raise shields!" said the Captain. "All hands, brace for impact!"

Everyone on the bridge grabbed onto something. Nita imitated the adults out of habit, grasping one of the catwalk's cable supports. Then her eyes went wide as a bright point of red light separated itself from the Nausicaan ship and grew larger and larger until it filled the screen. Suddenly, she was afraid.

A moment later, everything shook violently. Nita slipped from the catwalk. She hung over open air. Only her grip on the cable kept her from falling. Then something exploded right over her head in a shower of sparks. She screamed and let go reflexively. She landed on one of the consoles, and one of the men.

The Orion man gave her a startled, disbelieving look, then glanced over his shoulder, unsure what to do. "Uh, sir…?"

The Captain glanced briefly at her, sprawling dazed across one of the consoles, but he had other matters to attend to. "Get her off my bridge!" he said.

The man pushed Nita off the console and onto the deck. She managed to land on her feet and hurried away from the man into a corner of the room. The man was too busy to go after her. Around her the adults were all talking at once, and all in urgent, worried tones. This battle suddenly wasn't fun anymore. She wished she were somewhere far away, back on Drozana Station with her mother.

"Warp dirve took a direct hit from that torpedo!" one of the men warned. "We're dropping to impulse speeds."

"They're coming out of warp right on top of us!" said the man Nita had landed on. "Shields at 38%!"

"Stand by disruptors!" said the Captain.

"No, there's no way we'll penetrate their shields and armor!" said the lodubyaln. "Take evasive action!"

"They're staying with us!" warned the man at the forward console.

"Try to surrender!" the lodubyaln said.

But before anyone could respond to that, the ship shook again, harder. Nita heard the sound of a distant explosion and was knocked off her feet, landing with her back against the forward console. Then across from her, the man she'd landed on suddenly went flying as his console burst apart in flames and sparks. He hit the deck dead, covered in green blood.

It wasn't the first time Nita had seen a man die. The first was a few months ago, where a couple of thugs had tried to mug her mother in one of Drozana's isolated corridors. Still, the sight affected her. It signaled to her that the time for hiding and watching was over, that—as her mother said—it was time to either kill or be killed. She did not want to die. Instinct and her mother's basic self-defense training took over. Running away didn't even occur to her: in a space battle there was nowhere to run. She pushed herself to her feet and prepared to fight for her life.

She didn't have to wait long for an opportunity to do so. As the smoke cleared on the bridge, the men around it shouted in alarm. "Shields are down! We've got a hull breach in Cargo Bay 4!"

The lodubyaln swore. "That was one of the passenger sections. The children were in there!"

"They're gone now!" said the first man. "That whole section's open to vacuum! They never stood a chance."

Before he could even finish, another man interrupted. "Sir! We've got boarders beaming in: all decks, all sections!"

To justify his words, columns of amber transporter energy appeared around the bridge and swirled into the shapes of six muscular Nausicaans. Each was over two meters tall and wore bladed armor. They viewed the Orion crew with hungry eyes and hefted viciously serrated swords and battle axes.

Nita did not need the Captain's shouted command to know that these men were the enemies who wanted to kill her, the men she needed to fight. When her mother met the muggers on Drozana Station, Nita had been caught by surprise and her first punches had not landed until after the first man was dead and the second impaled on her mother's dance-fighting blades. But this time, Nita was prepared. She was among the first to throw herself into the fray, with the bravery that can only be mustered by those who do not fully understand the dangers of what they're doing.

She latched onto a Nausicaan's leg and punched the backside of his knee, throwing him off balance. The Nausicaan swung his sword at her, but the Orion at the forward console tackled him, going after his face with a utility knife.

Nita had already moved on. The whole bridge had become a melee and she struggled to find a target. She was not the only one fighting. She saw the lodubyaln produce a pair of thin blades seemingly from nowhere. The woman flowed from opponent to opponent in a cadence of deadly thrusts and slashes. Meanwhile the Captain drew a disruptor pistol and shot one of the Nausicaans in the chest. Nita herself ducked between legs and threw punches and kicks at Nausicaans who were distracted by the other Orions. But there were too many Nausicaans, and they were too well armed. Already the other Orions on the bridge were being cut down.

Nita slipped in a pool of green blood and fell under an overturned chair. She watched helplessly as the Captain was beheaded from behind by a Nausicaan with a battle axe.

The lodubyaln screamed and came at the Captain's killer, but another, bigger Nausicaan intercepted her. She buried her knives to the hilt in his chest, but he didn't flinch. Instead he headbutted her and she went down. Then the big Nausicaan finished her with a downward thrust of his sword. Her scream fell silent almost instantly.

Within the space of half a minute, Nita was the only living Orion on the bridge.

"Bridge is clear, Captain Majorog," one of the Nausicaans announced.

The big Nausicaan turned to survey the carnage, casually pulling the lodubyaln's knives out of his chest. They were slick with purple blood, but that didn't seem to bother him. His eyes at last landed on Nita, who was picking herself up off the deck. He glared at her. She glared at him. "You miss one, Rokek," he said and pointed a taloned finger at her. "Dispose of little rodent."

The Nausicaan who'd beheaded the Captain gurgled a laugh. "With pleasure, sir," he said. He lifted his axe and stepped toward Nita, but she dodged out of the way at the last moment. His swing buried his axe in the overturned chair instead. His comrades laughed as he struggled to extract it.

Nita knew they wouldn't stay laughing for long. Eventually, they would kill her, and with four of them on the bridge, there was no way she could escape. If she didn't fight back, she'd die. She didn't want to die. She scampered away from the struggling Nausicaan and went for the first weapon she saw: the Orion captain's disruptor pistol.

She grabbed it, rolled over, and pointed it at her Nausicaan attacker as she'd seen the Captain do. She pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.

Rokek left his axe where it was and turned on her, laughing himself now. "Poor little rodent," he mocked. "Too small to even disengage safety on pistol! Perhaps I should kill with something closer to rodent size." He drew a small curved dagger and stalked toward her.

Nita backed away until she bumped into the Captain's chair at the center of the bridge. She tried to concentrate through her fear. There was something important the Nausicaan had said, about why the pistol didn't work, something about a safety. Of course! Adults put "safety switches" on all sorts of things to keep kids from using them, she realized. It was only natural they'd do the same thing to prevent children from using weapons as well. But she realized another thing. Wherever there's a safety switch, there's a way past it, if you're clever. Nita knew that although she wasn't strong, fast, big, beautiful, or knowledgeable, she was clever.

She tried to remember exactly how the Captain's large adult hand had gripped the pistol, how he'd held it and what he'd done with his fingers. That's when she noticed the button near the top of the pistol, where his thumb had rested. It was too far from the grip for her thumb to reach, but she still had her other hand. She smashed the button down with her left thumb and pulled the trigger again.

A green beam of energy lanced out from the pistol. Rokek's head erupted in smoke and flames. His body fell to the deck with a heavy thump.

For a moment, there was stunned silence on the bridge. Then Majorog shouted, "Kill her!"

Then everything happened at once.

Author's Note: So I decided to make this update a two-parter because these chapters are so closely related, and because the first one doesn't even introduce the protagonist, Nita.

Rema was an Orion NPC running a brothel in the red light district of First City in Qo'noS, the Klingon capital, in the Star Trek Online mission "Off the Beaten Path" which was discontinued when Klingon players got a full and updated introduction to the game. Drozana Station is a neutral run-down space station between Klingon and Federation territories that serves as a meeting place for aliens from both sides and features in several Star Trek Online missions. In the game it's run by a Ferengi, and while Orion dancing girls aren't seen in the game, they would certainly fit the general atmosphere of the place.

Speaking of Orion women lodubyaln are the professional Orion seductresses that are often referred to as Orion slave girls in other cultures. As the Enterprise episode "Bound" revealed, the concept of these women as slaves is an artfully maintained deception, since in reality their powerful pheromones and skilled manipulations mean that they are the true masters of Orion society, pulling the strings of their supposed owners. According to Memory Beta they are trained in, among other things, a special form of martial arts called dance-fighting, that uses small knives concealed...somewhere...there aren't many places to hide things on those skimpy costumes they wear!

"OSS" is the STO registry for Orion ships and stands for "Orion Syndicate Ship." I previously used it in Survivors of Yamatai as the registry for the Orion-operated bird-of-prey OSS Cluros. The name Melani's Jewel is a tribute to the Emerald Empress Melani D'ian, the head of the Orion Syndicate in Star Trek Online.

The calendar and time system used here is one of my own making first used in Survivors of Yamatai, and designed to match the canon Klingon Year of Kahless dating system as closely as possible. It's worth noting that while the years are about the same length, I changed the day length to just 18 hours, based on the fact that the tutorial mission and the Hayes Owner's Manual for the B'rel-Class Bird-of-Prey (yes, it exists, and as a nerd I had to have one) both attest to dividing the work on a bird-of-prey up into three 6 hour long shifts. Thus midday is 09:00 hours, morning falls around 4:30, and evening is about 13:30. Thus, this chapter falls in the afternoon.

The Klingon language has variously been called both "Klingonese" and "Klingon." I choose to call it Klingonese as this differentiates it a little better from the people who speak it. Low Kolari is the common Orion language used by the lower classes, according to Memory Beta. English is still seen in prevalent use in the Federation, with enough direct references to it attesting to its commonality even if one dismisses the language spoken by actual characters on screen as a trick of making things more understandable to the viewer.