"Cadet Feldman, make your way to the underground shelters straight away. Starfleet is under attack!" I turned to face the person behind the voice that was addressing me to see a panicked looking instructor gesturing hastily for me to follow him. In spite of what seemed to be going on it seemed that his sense of urgency was thoroughly justified. I was still so stunned at what I had just witnessed that I didn't immediately head what was; under the circumstances, very sound advice. I was temporarily fixated as that incandescent shaft of lethal energy was boring down with devastating effect towards the imposing tower atop of the Daystrom building, eventually; horrifically – the lethal beam bisected the building starting fires within it, and from the melted gashes that had been created from the heat and the energy, glowing showers of luminous debris rained down from within the building. I realised in horror that some of that debris would surely be from the bodies of the unfortunates caught up in those floors struck by the attack on the building. What a truly awful way to die, I thought. I could only hope they didn't suffer for long, but still.

Somehow managing to splutter out a question to the instructor despite the shock, I said "Who's attacking us? The Dominion? Is this an invasion or something?" The instructor didn't even cast me a glance and almost shoving me along to the refuge area he said "I don't know son. I don't think any one does. Come on there's no time to hang around; we have to get to safety. Come quickly." We raced towards where the shelters were, I thought I vaguely remembered where they were, during the extensive tours we had of the campus during our probation. The beams were orangey yellow colour and didn't look at all like the Jem Hadar or Cardassian weapons I was normally familiar with. I also thought it odd that the Dominion would launch an attack or invasion on Earth. I thought they had had their hands tied what with the new front the Romulans had opened up when they joined our side in the war last year.

I wouldn't have had put it past the Dominion to launch a full scale planetary bombardment on an enemy planet, the Dominions ruthlessness and brutality was legendry, but I thought it a rather "reckless" strategy for them. Those founders were cautious and pragmatic fighters. They were calculating, almost anal in their manner. I didn't think they were ones for bold maverick strikes like this. The Cardassians might have been "Quixotic" enough to pull such a stunt, but would their Dominion masters have let them off the leash to do it? Possibly. I could have misjudged their tactics I suppose, but nonetheless I continued to run towards the shelters. The priority here I reminded myself, was to stay alive and not perform some field analysis on what the other side were up to in plain view of them raining down fire upon me. As I caught sight of the protective entrance door for the tunnel bore, I did worry what might face us when we were at last allowed to leave the shelters. Those Jem hadar were vicious sons of bitches, engineered killing machines. They didn't bother to follow trifling technicalities like rules of engagement, and not targeting civilians, or anything like that. I doubted there would be much left standing, alive or intact after their shock troops were finished. I realised in horror, that I could be witnessing the final destruction of Earth, and a large chunk of human civilisation along with her. It was a beautiful planet and humans had come so far since the dark days of the third world war. What a tragedy that it was all seemingly about to be razed to the ground in fire by our enemies.

"Who's attacking us? Those beams doesn't look like any standard Dominion firepower I recognise. What is going on here?". My desperate beseeching fell on deaf ears and we were almost at the shelters now and I could see the bunker door was wide open to allow us to enter, in the hopes for us to have some chance of surviving this onslaught. When he finally ushered me in, no almost physically shoved me in, he at last attempted to answer my questions, though I suspected he didn't know a whole lot more about what was really going on as I did. "I don't know exactly cadet; I don't think it's the Jem Hadar, something about a sneak attack I heard. Whether anywhere else has been hit again I don't have any concrete information. But what I do know is that we have to make our way to the main shelter further underground, just down this tunnel. We are still in terrible danger here. Come now!"

As we legged it down this rather ominous though reassuringly robust looking service tunnel, our boots making a muffled echoing noise that you get when your in an underground tunnel, I turned to see a stocky red headed youth with beads of sweat pouring down his face running towards us. He was panting heavily and as he doubled over to catch his breath, he held the palms of his hands to his kneecaps to try and regain his composure. It was cadet Paul Ridings, he must have bolted here at a rate of knots I thought, and he looked knackered. He eventually caught his breath enough to speak, though his voice was heavy and ragged with exhaustion and shock at what had just happened. He held his hand up to steady himself and said "I heard it was the Breen. My Dads in the diplomatic corps, and I knew that a Breen delegation had been in Sol as we speak, something about a trade delegation or something. Apparently they appeared to have made it look as they were about to depart to warp after it was wrapped up, make ity look as if it was just a regular trade expedition. But suddenly they all turn tail and attack the orbital defense network and every major city on Earth. It's only what I heard, but if its true the death toll could be in the millions. Crap what a bloody mess. Its just…."

The instructor stopped the cadet in his tracks, stared at him harshly and said "Now that's enough cadet. None of us know the full story about what has happened, and scurrilous scaremongering hurts everyone but our enemies. You will not harm the morale of everyone here with your unfounded rumours. Understood?"

"Yessir" said a sheepish, if rather put out cadet Ridings. I turned to face the instructor and said quietly to him, so the others wouldn't hear. "Cadet Ridings might be on to something sir. Now that I think about it our assailant's firepower didn't resemble anything I've ever seen the Dominion or Cardassia ever deploy. If I didn't know better I'd say Starfleet was being hit by disruptor fire. Think about it, those blasts weren't as loud as we might expect. Phasers and particle weapons create a deafening scream when they cut through the atmosphere unlike disrupters. The Breen employ disruptors, and lets be honest they seem crazy enough to pull a stunt like Ridings implied. They are enigmatic like that, and not in a good way."

The instructor just frowned and said "Your analysis is not without merit but its still just conjecture. Let's stop guessing and await further orders. It benefits no one to speculate wildly like this." Cadet Spylar, a lithe yet ethereally confident looking Vulcan freshman walked over to join us. "Permit me to interject if I may sirs. I could not help overhearing your impromptu surmising of what has taken place, and I do not want you to feel that I am eves dropping on conversations that do not concern me. However I feel I must air my own theories onto the identity of our attackers, as they do indeed correspond with that of my fellow cadets. From what little information we have garnered about the Breen, we do know that, culturally they employ codes of conduct from the long established martial traditions of their society. It is known that this extends to obligations of fealty between higher ranking Breen warlords and chieftains and those lower down on their social strata such as vassals and the lesser clan chiefs. It has been known for a lower status warlord or Thot to demonstrate allegiance and support to a more powerful one by undertaking audacious, even highly irrational and suicidal acts of military endeavor in a an attempt to pledge support and commitment in exchange for commendation and privileges from those at the top of their hierarchical structures. It is not illogical to assume that the Breen may extend this tradition even to an external agency such as the Dominion, in exchange for power and technological exchange. A highly risky attack on the heart of the Federation may be their attempt at actively proving their commitment to fealty. Delivering such a "gift" to the Dominion and cementing in fire and blood, such an alliance."

I felt a little surge of pride at having at least one of my theories being shored up by a Vulcan, they didn't always entertain such praise lightly, though I was stunned that he had overheard our hushed conversation as he had been stood well over fifteen metres away. The famous Vulcan ears were obviously not just there for decoration.

The instructor however was not as glad to have the Vulcan join in as I had been, and rolled his eyes in exasperation at all this, and said tersely "I'd have expected more from you Spylar than indulging in these guessing games. Enough all of you, it serves no productive purpose"

Superficially Spylar appeared to remain impassive over the dressing down, but I thought I could just about see the tiniest nucleus of resentment, even anger in the young Vulcans eyes, as if he wanted to point out, but couldn't …. that it was logical to try and explain the potential motives of the attack in order to try and minimise casualties if we could attempt to ascertain why they were doing what they were doing, and to what goal.

The instructors eyes suddenly turned to look down at his communicator as he realised he was receiving an emergency transmission and walked away from us so he wasn't in earshot when he took the call. Although I could hear the rushed tones of the women on the other end he was speaking to but it was too quiet to hear precisely what it was that they were saying. I only got the background murmur of urgent voices and judging by the body language of the instructor, he wasn't at all keen on what he was hearing.

He turned round to face us all and began to eye up all us cadets up as if assessing us for some strange reason, and then he turned back to speak to the women on the comm once more. He eventually said his farewell to the women and with the comm wrapped up he turned to address us.

"Right ladies and gentlemen, that was Captain Richards on the line. She has confirmed that we are under attack by what are believed to be a small squadron of vessels, almost certainly of Breen origin. Starfleet does believe the incident is an isolated one, and we are not facing a full scale invasion or planetary bombardment. Beyond that I am in the dark as to what is going on. Starfleet has deployed emergency shield generator modules around the city to shore up the planetary defenses of the surrounding area, although she informs me that the module deployed in the Berkeley district to protect that part of the city took some rogue hits and several of the crew have been incapacitated. Despite my objections about putting cadets in clear and present danger, she has asked for a volunteer to help man the module for a short while. All active officers have been deployed so she has requested that a cadet be sent to help coordinate defenses due to the shortage of available officers to act as stand ins. As I said this is voluntary and you will be recognised for what you have done after this is all over, I promise. Who feels they are qualified for this?"

Almost as soon as he asked the question Cadet Davies Roth stuck his hand excitedly in the air and with an air of defiant confidence that verged on manic bravado he said "I volunteer sir. We all have to do our bit in times of crisis, best to start now whilst the irons hot." The instructor was having none of this and frowning he said "I can't fault you for your enthusiasm and admittedly rather misplaced sense of bravery cadet, but honestly, how is your expertise in xenolinguistics really going to pay off over there." "It might." said Roth with deflated defiance. He knew today that it wouldn't be him who ended up saving the day. I briefly thought about deflating the tension by sarcastically pointing out that Roth could set the shield boosters to spell "Get lost" in Breen in really big letters, but thought better of it. I had an even sillier idea to voice. I admittedly knew little about a lot of Starfleets lines of expertise; however I did know my way around those types of shield modules Starfleet deployed better than most.

Without the fervent relish we'd seen from Roth, I stuck my hand up to sign up for what very well might be my last mission "I'll go sir. I think I can just about work my way round the systems over there."

With a sense of huge reluctance as he obviously disapproved of carrying out Richards bidding the instructor acquiesced to my offer and said sadly "Very well Feldman, we'll have you. What's this war coming to when we send cadets to danger like this. Never thought I'd see the day. Off you go son, do us proud, I'm sure you will."

Although I was moved by his sentiments, I detected he may have just been prepping me for it somewhat, rather than it actually being a genuine sign of his faith in me. I felt a bit sad when I realised that it was a rare occasion for such words of praise being directed at me and my conduct during the time I had been in the academy, but I supposed it was better late than never.

I heard a women speak form behind me and realised it was Louisa. With all the commotion going on around me I simply hadn't realised she had been in the shelter with us all this time. "I volunteer too sir. Cadet Feldman will need an extra pair of hands whilst he is there. It's a lot for an experienced officer to handle let alone a cadet."

I was a bit put out of this and I said "Sir, there isn't a need for cadet Mistry to keep an eye on me, I won't fail." Louisa instantly came back at this and said "I don't doubt you will, and I know you know your way around those systems. But I also know things could go wrong. Trust me, its better the two of us delegate this task."

Still barely able to contain my shock I said "Give me break Louisa, how do you know something will go wrong?" "How do I know, because when you shorted the power in the Robert April wing, you did it by experimenting on generators that were of the same design as these ones. Come on, let's go." Hardly able to form a comeback at this statement of fact I decided on not doing so, and Louisa and I made our way to the tunnel exit and to whatever lay in store for us in what had now become a war zone.