"Great - stuck down here with no way out." Sharpe demanded.

Lieutenant Commander Aurora Doucette looked over towards her commanding officer from where she had just set up a four-part transporter enhancer field. "Don't worry, sir! I'm sure I can get that shuttlecraft home again... if I can just get into an EV suit long enough to fix it."

"That was a really rough landing," Sharpe continued. They had come down inside what appeared to be a cargo bay, with netting strung on every wall. Their boarding shuttle was docked to the exterior, and they had made their way into the ship's interior without a shot being fired yet. Sharpe, Zed, Aurora and a team of three Starfleet marines from the Bonaventure fanned out into a defensive position around the shield generator, phaser rifles at the ready.

"I'm reading humanoid lifesigns in both directions," medic Zed reported. "No Starfleet commbadges yet, though."

Aurora looked up from checking her rifle to be sure the safety was off. "They're probably Hirogen trackers. They have shrouding capabilities, like the Jem'Hadar." Sharpe gave her a surprised look. "I read up on them before we engaged them in combat." She shrugged. "Figured it couldn't hurt."

"Good job. Let's keep quiet and alert. Didaggo, keep trying to raise the Hazard teams."

"Aye, sir."

"Scan for weapons fire and other signs of struggle as well."

Aurora looked up at the bones and skulls hanging from every wall, column and railing. "Lots of that around here, sir."

"No kidding," Zed affirmed.

An expansive room laid out before them, with a central walkway towards the centre. On the various walls were a series of hooks and spikes, with whole skeletons suspended in place, their connections and attachments still in place. From the rooftop dangled bags of bones in cargo netting, and along the far wall, a series of eight glowing white consoles, and the sounds of boiling water. Inside bobbed and fell a few examples of the kinds of remains which decorated the walls.

"Charming place they've got here," Sharpe commented.

"Not really a look I can appreciate," Zed added.

"Let's patrol. Each of you marines, pair off with one of us. Stay in contact."

"Sir, I recommend we stay together," Aurora objected. "We're stronger in numbers."

"I don't disagree with you, but we need to establish a command post and get in contact with both our teams and the pirate crew. And we can't do that until we know what's around us." He pointed towards the ranking marine. "You're with me. Move out."

Aurora tapped a young Andorian marine on the shoulder and gestured in the opposite direction. Zed paired up with a nervous-looking Rigelian marine and followed, then separated at the junction at the far end of the room.

"Shields at forty-seven percent," Octavia reported as the bridge of the Bonaventure was .

"I'm reading two more heavy escorts," Morl added. "That makes four, along with two battlecruisers."

"Signal the Starfleet forces beyond the system perimeter. Code word 'bluebell'."

"Did you say 'bluebell', ma'am?"

"Yes, 'bluebell'. Do it!"

"On the way."


"All flights down or re-loading," Lio'wan growled. "The Hirogen seem to be taking them down faster than they can launch. Orders?"

"Hold launches until further notice," Tw'eak said with a frown. "Best to conserve-"

Another burst of tetryon energy caused a shower of sparks to issue forth from a burst EPS conduit.

"Shields are buckling - now at twenty-nine percent!"

"Stral - I need more shield power!"

The Vulcan shield distribution officer did not look up from his console. "I am attempting to compensate." He worked at his task determinedly.

Tw'eak remembered her conversation with Dashii. "Don't use lateral flow," she instructed. Stral looked up at her, astonished. "Go with it. Like a plasmonic sculpture." She fanned her fingers out wide and brought them around into a clasping motion, as though ready to play volleyball.

"I... understand." Stral went back to his work, one eyebrow elevated.

Two bursts in rapid succession struck the ship. "They seem to be focusing on us!" Morl exclaimed.

"O'Leary - stay evasive. Turn into the attack - into it!"

"Trying!" the young helmsman shouted in reply.

"Octavia, our shields?"

"All but gone now, ma'am."

"Emergency power!"

"Already there."

Tw'eak gripped the arm rests of her chair. "Morl, target the lead Hirogen ship. O'Leary - collision course."

O'Leary looked up.

"We're not going to hit them, let's just throw them off. Hard over and right at them - make them react to us for once."

"Playing chicken?"

Tw'eak nodded. "I was going to say 'turkey'. But it's 'chicken'. Thank you."

"Coming about."

The Bonaventure spun hard about its z-axis, turning its nose to face the Hirogen ships. It burst past them as its shields finally died, throwing off their pursuit for a few moments. They, too, were able to spin rapidly and pursue, which led the Bonaventure to double back upon them, then once around an Apex battlecruiser. At that point, having just completed an attack run on that target, the K'Tinga class pirate vessel came up behind both Bonaventure and its Hirogen pursuers, and targeted one, firing its disruptors and drawing it off the chase.

"One of the Hirogen ships has broken off and is being pursued by the K'Tinga," Octavia reported.

"Lio'wan - do we have flights ready?"

"Delta flight bombed up and ready for a run."

"Launch. Pursuit on escort behind us. Transphasic torpedo attack run. Can they tractor beam it for us?"

"Yes indeed!" the big Caitian confirmed.

"As soon as you can."

The Hirogen ship opened fire with its tetryon cannons, perforating the surface of the dorsal saucer section in three places as it did. The Bonaventure continued to maneuver as this happened, resulting in one of the shots landing squarely upon the bridge dome. The tetryon energy carried away a piece of the reinforced surface, making a massive mess of the bridge beneath it. Wires, cords and chunks of bulkhead tumbled from above, raining down upon Tw'eak and her officers. Some of the larger debris fell on the deck around the helm position and tactical position, injuring Morl, Stral, Dazz and O'Leary in the process.

"Medical team to the bridge!" Tw'eak ordered as she smacked her commbadge. She rushed over to check on Dazz, whose acidic Bolian blood stained the console in several places, but she raised a hand and kept working. Stral did not appear injured, but O'Leary was unconscious and Morl staggered back to his feet, his forehead covered in blood.

"I have helm control," Octavia said quickly, adapting to the situation without a moment's loss. "I can also initiate tactical."

"No," Morl replied. "I'm fine."

Tw'eak looked up appreciatively at her stubborn Tellarite tactical officer. Pig-headed, Dashii had called the Tellarites. Maybe that wasn't such a bad thing after all.

"Delta flight reports multiple hits on Hirogen target. The ship is breaking off."

"One of the Apex class battlecruisers has nearly destroyed the Romulan vessel," Dazz reported.

"On screen." Tw'eak looked up to see the dull grey form of the T'liss warbird initiating a subspace jump, creating a gravity well which held the immense Hirogen vessel in place. As the Romulan vessel re-materialized, its impulse engines flashed brightly as they engaged, and the Apex's starboard warp nacelle was shorn from its housing by the impact. Amputated, it listed heavily to port, turning almost to show its belly while the T'liss exploded against it, a bright greenish-white singularity explosion that snapped the hull of the Apex almost in two. Moments after, the Apex in turn detonated, its warp core destroyed, its hull shattered by the death throes of the Romulan vessel.

"Hirogen vessel Apex-2 is destroyed," Morl advised.

The medical team fanned out from the turbolift, and Tw'eak moved towards the centre of the bridge, leaving O'Leary to the care of Doc Ellington. "Where's Apex-3?"

"It's engaging with the Gorn ship. Looks like the Gorn are getting the better of the encounter."

Tw'eak turned to Octavia. "Find the nearest escort and engage it. I want back-and-forth attack passes between escorts - just hit what's in front of us. Don't let them get into a turning fight with them."

"Confirmed."

Tw'eak saw Doc Ellington and an orderly carrying O'Leary towards the turbolift. She took a couple steps towards her, just in front. "How is he, Doc?"

"You work your miracles, Tw'eak, let me worry about mine."

"Right." She stood aside and let the medical team escort O'Leary and Morl from the bridge. "You, too?" she asked Morl.

"Won't be long." Morl looked up through a blood-veiled expression, a grim smile faintly visible.

Tw'eak patted him on the shoulder. "We'll keep them warm for you." She moved towards the tactical station and talked to Octavia. "All right, you keep us turning and sliding past them, I'll lock them up as we fly by and engage them. See if you can get the shields back up."

"I'm doing all I can. All non-essential systems are offline to shunt more power to the shields and weapons."

"Take it from phasers, too. Tell the torpedo crews that I want their best effort. Reload as quick as they can, all tubes. I'll fire them as they come online."

"Got it."

Tw'eak tapped in commands that dictated terms of launch to all torpedoes: seek and destroy, Hirogen targets only, do not engage any non-Hirogen targets, maintain seeking radius less than forty-five degrees at point of launch, maximum acceleration to target for shield penetration, no proximity detonations. Three forward tubes were loaded; two aft tubes were ready as well.

Together, Octavia and Tw'eak orchestrated a careful series of attack runs back and forth across the Hirogen formation. As the K'Tinga and Gorn ships played for time, remaining evasive and engaging as they saw opportunity, the Bonaventure sped back and forth across the action, drawing off the occasional Hirogen escort while forcing others to disengage pursuit and return to supporting others. A gravimetric disturbance appeared after the third or fourth run, tying down three of the Hirogen vessels, and the Bonaventure's torpedoes (along with those from its Bravo flight vessels) were able to destroy two of them, heavily damaging a third which was between those two as they detonated. The debris was crushed in the gravity disturbance, and the runabouts had to be careful to avoid its effects during their runs.

"Good, now we're getting somewhere. Maneuver tightly on Apex-3."

Octavia nodded her compliance, and the Bonaventure's nose turned towards the last operational Hirogen battlecruiser. Torpedoes launched towards the target, homing in on the target, their explosive effect narrowed by their velocity to provide penetration towards the hull. The shear of the impact caused the Apex to roll slightly as it tried to bring its forward guns to bear against the Bonaventure. It was about fifteen degrees removed from being able to do so as the Bonaventure zoomed over it, launching its aft torpedoes with similar effect in the process. Simultaneously, strikes from the runabouts' torpedoes had a similar effect on the other side, and the big battlecruiser found itself turning the wrong way to pursue.

"Now back to those escorts."

"Two of them are moving to attack the Gorn vessel," Dazz advised.

"Let's see if we can't stop them." Tw'eak looked down at the display in front of her, showing the shield distribution to be weakest on the port and upper quadrants. "Stral? Can we get the shields a little more even?"

"I am continuing to balance our shields with as much power as is available."

"Keep it up." Tw'eak looked towards Lio'wan. "Can we launch anyone else?"

"We haven't got enough runabouts left," Lio'wan responded. "I've got search-and-rescue out, they've picked up a couple more pilots, but we're short of flight-ready runabouts to launch."

"How many do we have?"

"Two, maybe three."

"Get 'em out there. Tell them to form up with Delta."

Lio'wan nodded and pursed his lips. "All right."

"Targets ahead," Octavia mentioned.

"Let's take the one on the left. Give me phaser power."

"Moving into position. Phaser power... now."

As the Bonaventure's phaser beams tore through space around the Hirogen left-hand vessel, the right-hand one broke off and its tetryon cannons blasted towards the Bonaventure. The impact weakened the forward shield and obliterated the top one, causing the overall shield energy to buckle. The Hirogen vessel continued to fire, closing in on the Bonaventure and holding a steady rate of fire. As it passed over the Bonaventure, four hits fell heavily upon the hull - two of them upon the port-side support connecting the warp nacelle to the hull, one striking the saucer section to starboard, and the fourth impacting directly upon the bridge module, in the same place where the reinforcement had fallen before.

The bridge atmosphere was pierced, a hull breach sucking the viewscreen and the upper portion of the ceiling into space. Had O'Leary remained at his station, he doubtless would have been sucked into space. Tw'eak herself, had she been in her captain's chair, would have struggled to hang on. As it was, Stral had wrapped an arm around his console, positioning his legs so that his body was braced to hold tight against the suction. Dazz, however, in a seated position, found herself being pulled into space. Tw'eak watched from the tactical station, braced against it in much the way Stral was against his station. She had seen hull breaches before, sometimes just as up-close and personal, but she had never been witness to an officer fighting a losing battle against the vacuum of space. She watched as Dazz gripped desperately onto the underside of her sensor console, her bloodied hands slipping and losing their hold. Tw'eak saw the Bolian begin to be drawn upwards, her legs now fully extended towards the breach, and decided to make a desperate move.

Vaulting over the tactical station, Tw'eak was drawn upwards towards the breach. She managed to get her right hand onto the sensor station, and her body turned upwards in much the same angle and pull as Dazz - but Dazz had already let go. Tw'eak turned her head and extended her left arm to try to save her, but as she did, the Bolian sensors officer with whom she had served for nearly a year was drawn off into the vacuum of space, her arms clawing in Tw'eak's direction as the emergency force field finally activated, leaving Tw'eak's fingers just inches from the shield as it sprang to life. Tw'eak crumpled across the console, her uniform becoming stained with Bolian blood in the process, and immediately sprang to her feet, tapping her commbadge.

"Emergency transport, crew in space! Get her back NOW!"

Tw'eak looked up and Dazz hung there, being drawn outwards, with her mouth and eyes wide open. The explosive effects of decompression began to take hold, but as they did, she began to sparkle a bright blue, and was then no more. The transporter beam had retrieved her - for once a good thing that the ship's shields were inoperative and providing no resistance to transporter energy - and Dazz became another of Doc Ellington's miracles to be worked.

For her part, Tw'eak continued to extend her reach upwards for a moment longer, her gloves and uniform streaked with purplish-blue blood, before she collapsed and to the floor of the bridge, beneath and to one side of the sensors station, rolling slightly, in agony.

Octavia struck her commbadge. "Medical team to the bridge!" She looked down at her console, which showed several new sensor contacts. "There's another- no, three- make that five more ships coming in. The lead ship is the Belfast. They're hailing us."

"On scr-" Tw'eak caught herself. There was no viewscreen upon which to put the message. "Audio."

"- repeat, this is Captain Va'kel Shon of the Belfast." Of course, Tw'eak thought to herself. It has to be him riding to the rescue, doesn't it? "Bonaventure, come in."

Tw'eak sank to the floor and tapped her commbadge. "Sh'abbas here, Belfast."

"Tw'eak!" Shon's voice was astonished. "Are you all right?"

Tw'eak kept staring starkly upwards, through the breach in her bridge module. "Feeling a little... spacy at the moment. How are you?"

"We have orders for you to disengage. We've got your back."

"Okay. Don't-" Her eyes resumed their focus momentarily. "Shon, don't shoot anyone who isn't Hirogen."

"Confirmed. We got your coded message. We're taking it to the Hirogen."

Still looking into the bulkhead, Tw'eak watched through the blown-out section of the bridge as a Defiant-class starship, USS BELFAST visible along its nacelle, streaked past overhead. It has to be him, she thought to herself again.

"Go get 'em, Shon. Bonaventure out."

She tried to sit up, but her legs struggled against the enormity of it. Once again the turbolift door opened, this time to admit two more orderlies. She made to move away from them but merely succeeded in rolling onto her stomach. After an unexpectedly difficult effort, she rose to a crawling position, her body aching.

"It's all right, ma'am," Lio'wan said, suddenly beside her. "I've got tactical."

"And I can handle the withdrawal order," Octavia added. The two of them were lifting her up, and she was powerless to stop them or get away. "Go on, ma'am."

"No, just- just get me back to that chair." She meant to point towards the command chair, but raising her arm proved impossible. Her finger pointed towards the ground instead, and as she tried to take another step, she faltered again, unable to discern why she had such trouble moving.

Orderlies appeared on either side of Tw'eak, to whom Lio'wan and Octavia handed her over, as though she was a cargo container. She felt her head swim, then she crumpled into their arms, quite unlike a captain should behave, she thought to herself. As she was carried off her bridge, tears began to issue from her eyes, another breach of proper captaincy and conduct. Her antennae more or less flopped with gravity, her body nearly lifeless, she lost consciousness in the orderlies' arms as though the turbolift's movement carried her away. Her last thought was of what Shon would think if he were to see her in such an undignified state on her own bridge.