Flory was in the turbolift on her way to the bridge when the coils burst, she is now rolling around in it, at least there are no objects flying around in there. She manages to stabilize herself and kick the panel next to the doors, which aren't opening by themselves due to the shipwide emergency.

- "Computer bring the ship to a full stop!" - she yells as loud as she can amongst the commotion on the bridge, pads flying around everywhere, people rolling helplessly on the walls. Since nothing happens, she continues - "Override all safety protocols, authorization 88507 yellow black!"

The lateral thrusters are fired up, along with the impulse engines, suddenly ending the ship's spinning in a rather violent way, throwing everyone around once more. The alerts slowly die off as the ship comes to a complete halt. All crew falls back to the floor with hard thumps, especially those who were knocked out. Painful growls and sighs are heard across most of the ship, the engineering crews around the engine rooms, Chakotay's team in the chamber of cloaking device, other teams searching out stations equivalent to their own on Voyager. Most of them disoriented, moaning on the floor. Besides loose stuff and people getting thrown around, cracking and dislocating a few things, the ship stayed largely intact, apart from of course the #9, 10, 11-th coils of the starboard warp-nacelle, where the plasma venting system was obturated, causing the manifold to blow, effectively disabling those three coils entirely, destabilizing the warp matrix. Flory stumbles into the Captain's chair, looking at the reports slowly coming in. Unfamiliar ship or not, the Starfleet personnel are trained to handle these situations.

- "Casualties on all decks..." - Flory calls out still shell shocked - "the warp drive is shot, inertial dampeners basically offline."

Tom crawls back to the helm, breathing heavily, rubbing his hurt joints - "Those ships will reach us in 2.64 minutes..."

- "That's why I was getting up here, we have to fight!"

- "The Captain is down!" - Lieutenant Warren yells out, after he forces himself to get back up and look around.

Paris runs to her as well, checking for a pulse.

- "Tom, come on we need to leave!" - Flory insists.

- "This is Captain Janeway for God's sake!" - he yells as he is feeling her jugular. After a few seconds he sighs with relief, Kathryn is fine, and apparently no bones were broken.

The Xelth girl activates shipwide comms - "The medical bay is equipped with automated field medic bots, they won't know what you are, but they will fix broken bones and contusions by themselves!" - she switches off the comms - "Take your Captain there too!"

- "I'll take her!" - Paris calls immediately, he frequently helped out in Voyager's Sickbay after all.

- "No!" - Flory cries - "If those ships capture us this was all for nothing!"

- "What do you suggest we do?" - Warren asks trying to stay calm as possible.

- "We need another helmsman for the Cernivoore, I prepared two Interceptors in Allegthria, Tom and I can take them!"

- "I've never flown an Interceptor like that!" - Paris yells, frustrated - "They have three ships, we wo..."

- "This is a warship!" - Flory raises her voice - "Understand?! It's a ship-of-the-line! Redundant systems left and right, we CAN go to warp without three coils, just need to reinitialize the warp matrix correctly!" - she tries to be motivating, but they are heavily pressed for time - "There is an anti-transport setting in the structural integrity field, and several meters thick tritanium weave to substitute for shields!" - The officers around all try to focus, try to believe this escape won't be over before it started - "Those Enforcer ships are used to fancy and quick ships of thieves and wrecks hacked together by bandits, not full-feature war vessels specifically made for the cruel and lawless fighting the surrounding states are used to!"

The Starfleet bunch takes a few deep breaths and slow blinks. Paris and Warren share a glance.

- "Lieutenant, I hope you remember your flight squad trainings, you are taking the second Interceptor." - Tom makes the decision firmly.

- "But uh..."

- "You stay here!" - he turns to Flory - "You know the most about this ship, take command and tell everyone what to do."

The Xelth girl looks around the mess on the bridge with a different look in her eyes, the Lt. is right, she is the only one who can do this, it's just that she's never done it before...

- "Crewman, take the Captain to Sickbay!" - Paris calls out to a security officer standing nearby, as they move with Lieutenant Warren to the turbolift. He sees the pressure and anxiety suddenly falling onto to their 'Captain' - "You can do this Flory, we are the "capable crew", remember?!" - he adds with a throaty chuckle.

The girl smiles back wryly and takes her seat in the Captain's chair again.

- "Who will fly the ship?!" - Ensign Philips asks with a voice thinned out by fearfulness, since she knows the answer already.

- "You will." - The two Lieutenants bark at the same time, as the turbolift's doors swoosh shut.

The young woman takes a deep breath and swallows heavily. Flory is looking over the team that stayed on the bridge, all of them perplexed and dreaded. Glancing at her holodisplays, messages from all over the ship are converted automatically into writing, all of them awaiting orders, coordination. They have a minute and a half left until the Enforcers are here. This is it. The moment when someone needs to step up and be the shepherd. She takes a deep breath and runs her fingers over the controls for shipwide comms.

The fancy double-doors of the Dead Pool's Science Lab swoosh open as Rivenwell steps in. The geeky Pirates are hard at work, the central and the port pieces of the Gascanner mostly done, hooked onto a dizzying amount of wires in the center of the hall. Everyone straitens up for a moment when they see who entered, then Yuna greets the Captain. She walks around eyeing the brand new gadgets, looking at the main holodisplays around it.

- "Where is the other one?" - she asks, standing at the lateral array.

- "Nowhere, we haven't started it yet." - Yuna answers in such a calm way that it suggests there is good reason for that. The Xelth is tilting her head, and judging by the wrinkles appearing on her forehead, raising her brows. - "This isn't a simple draw-and-build operation, we had to screw around with this a lot" - she is tapping the device - "When this is perfected, the other one will be a breeze, since they are essentially identical."

Niryelle is nodding - "I see."

- "If we are too slow..." - the Xelth starts to shake her head apologetically - "I blame Jennifer."

The Captain stops - "Oh?"

- "Yes..." - Yuna continues playfully - "Ms. Gates /as they'd say/ was late for her duty shift this morning..." - her grin would suggest she is simply fooling around.

- "I see..." - Niryelle chuckles as she turns her gaze onto the Ensign.

She puts on a wry smile - "Ww.. I had a late night on Allegthria... I'm sorry." - she adds awkwardly.

- "If I had just a single Latinum particle..." - most of the others are grinning and chuckling - "every time I heard that excuse, I'd have had my face carved into a moon by now..."

- "We are ahead by the way" - Yuna says after she'd finished laughing - "and our new friend" - she pats Jennifer on the shoulder - "has been instrumental in getting all this done."

Rivenwell smiles at the Ensign warmly - "I'm glad to hear that." - she turns back to the Miridian girl - "Can you leave your nerds alone for a while?" - she asks playfully, although some would argue about the humour in that question - "I need you to look at your next job, we are dropping out of warp soon."

- "Sure, everything is already outlined for today." - A few of the others are nodding. - "No slacking off!" - she adds holding her index finger up, running her gaze across all of them.

They walk out of the lab, the doors slide shut behind them.

- "How did she take it?" - Niryelle asks.

- "Take what?" - Yuna looks dumbfounded.

- "That she was... 'busy', while her friends were condemned to slavery."

- "She was busy?" - the girl is still not completely following.

- "Oh come on Yuna!" - the Captain opens her arms with a chuckle - "It's one thing to not be a telepath, and another to be so blind." - she is grinning suggestively.

- "She was with somebody?"

- "Ahhh..." - the Xelth sighs - "She's all giddy, her eyes are shiny, she's practically glowing Yuna!"

- "Ah-a." - Sly responds expecting further explanation.

- "Phew..." - Niryelle is scratching her forehead while smiling - "What did she tell you about being late?" - she asks in her regular tone.

- "The same thing she told you."

- "Ye, cool, and you think that's what you look like after a 'long night' that actually ended on Allegthria?"

- "Well..." - the Captain stops walking and looks at the girl... they both start laughing - "Okay, okay, ye I get it..." - Yuna laughs - "I'm sorry I've just been out of it these past days, working on this stuff, thinking about your proposals..."

- "We have all the time in the world Sly, don't kill yourself over this stuff..."

- "Oh okay!" - the Miridian girl raises her brows happily - "I will remind you about that when you come assaulting me about why isn't everything completed yet in a few days..." - they both laugh out convivially again.

- "I will deny everything..." - Niryelle grins.

- "Exactly..." - the other chuckles - "To answer your question..." - Yuna wonders - "She asked if we were already done with everything on Allegthria... I told her we are."

- "That's it?"

- "Well she asked where are we going, I told her, then everyone started to chip in talking about why she should be looking forward to seeing Havenage, etc..." - they get in a turbolift, leaning against the walls, Yuna looks up at Niryelle - "Wouldn't your senses tell you more?"

- "The devil lies in the details, and I'm way too lazy to do a fricking 'full spectrum analysis' every time I meet someone..." - she laughs.

- "Ensign, send the ship into a slow, spinning drift which will produce a heading of 72 by 23 in exactly 75 seconds from my mark." - Flory tells Philips before she would start pressing buttons - "Quickly!" - she raises her voice as the young woman is moving rather sluggishly. - "Don't use too much power... ready?! . . . Mark!"

- "Alright, we are adrift..." - the Ensign replies while rechecking their trajectory way too many times.

- "Attention all hands!" - on shipwide comms now - "Your Captain's been injured, my name is Flory, I'm taking command." - she wants to sigh, but forces herself to continue firmly - "There are three ships on an intercept course, we will need to fight them until we can go to warp again. This is a warship, as long as you do exactly what I tell you to do, it will hold together!"

Everyone is looking at each other all over the ship, listening to the unfamiliar voice. "Some rescue this is..." - a few of them think to themselves. The girl's words still manage to inspire though, the Federation, especially humans prevailed through many wars and hardships by simply holding on to threads of hope, and hope is exactly what they've just been given.

- "The inertial dampeners are offline, so anyone sitting at a station, strap yourselves in, everyone else, work in pairs; one of you securing the other." - Flory's words are as tempered as they can be, but still not without hints of nervous turmoil - "Engineering, you have to seal the plasma leak on the blown coils, and reinitialize the warp matrix to compensate for their loss. Increase the yield on the rest and fling everything into emergency mode, the subroutines will take care of everything."

Lt. Carey (Voyager's assistant engineer) and B'Elanna (the Chief Engineer) are listening with their eyes widening. Seven of Nine was injured when the manifolds blew out, she was taken to the medical bay with severe plasma burns. The Chief Engineer throws herself at a console, checking everything Flory just said.

- "This is crazy, what if more coils blow when we increase the yield?!" - Carey protests.

B'Elanna is just smiling as she runs through the subroutines, throwing everything into emergency overdrive is just the kind of reckless "fix" she herself used a few times to keep Voyager in one piece. She's only been on this ship for a couple of minutes, but it's perfectly apparent that the Cernivoore is a sturdy construction, finesse doesn't exactly describe her systems, but she was made to last.

- "It will have to hold..." - she growls under her nose, then starts to organize the teams to get the work done as soon as possible.

- "I need a skilled tactical officer up here immediately!" - Flory continues - "Man the torpedo launchers and all three disruptors! The structural integrity grid is set to interrupt transporter beams, forget the cloak and just try to get the shield generator working first!"

- "Harry are you okay?" - Chakotay asks the bleeding Ensign worriedly, he could prove very handy in getting the shields online.

- "Yes..." - he replies while hissing with pain - "I'll be fine, Commander."

- "Tuvok I believe you are needed on the bridge, we will get to the shield matrix!" - the First Officer commands, everyone gets on their way, some running, some limping. He would really want to be more kind, but this isn't the time.

Lieutenants Paris and Warren have gone to the port belly of the ship, where the two fully loaded Vru-type Heavy Interceptors are waiting. Their design is slim and majestic, each sitting on three thin beams, one protruding from the forward bow, the other two from next to the impulse thrusters on the stern. In space, these are loaded with supercharged particles, acting as decoys and signal jammers, while also capable of firing chaff from their bases, which can cause automated missiles and torpedoes to misfire. The cockpit flows into a scaly armored engine, with two wings protruding on each side. The big ones holding smaller disruptor cannons at their peak, the other two delicate sensor arrays, to augment targeting and maneuvering systems.

Tom whistles in awe as they see the fighters.

- "They certainly look badass..." - Warren tries to hide his flustered state.

Suddenly the bay doors begin to open with loud cracks before they would enter the vessels, Gordon visibly damn near shits himself, but of course forcefields are holding the pressure.

- "Hey Warren!" - Paris sees his turmoil - "I'm sure you have done an excellent job on Voyager while I was gone, you can do this too!"

- "Voyager was captured Lieutenant..." - the man responds bitterly.

Tom turns away, trying to think of something smart to say, but before he could come up with anything, the bay's comms speakers interrupt.

- "Look alive guys, I need you out in space right now!"

The vulcan officer arrived mere seconds before the timer runs out.

- "I am Lieutenant Commander Tuvok, Voyager's Senior Tactical Officer." - he states firmly as he looks at Flory.

- "Strap yourself in Commander, prepare to fire all torpedoes." - she replies, then activates shipwide comms again - "We will be commencing battle maneuvers presently, brace yourselves!" - switching to the Interceptors - "Stay directly behind the Cernivoore, then turn after them as they pass, weapons free!" - switching the comms off - "Helm, prepare to go to full impulse when the timer is out! Any kind of command I give about flying, make sure you try to ease into it and don't blow everything full steam right away!"

- "Aye Sir!" - Ensign Philips replies, mustering all her courage to face the situation properly.

- "Are you sure it is wise to take them head-on Captain?!" - Tuvok asks in his calm and collected voice.

The Xelth girl swallows and ignores his question altogether. - "They won't be expecting us to move in, by the time they cut warp we will be very close, blast the center ship with all disruptors, target the others with 3 torpedoes each side!"

- "3 seconds!"

- "Ensign DO NOT change course under any circumstance!" - Flory adds quickly - "Ready?! . . . Engage!"

- "So these are why we went through all this trouble?" - Yuna asks, raising her brow to Niryelle.

- "All what trouble?!" - she replies snickering - "Those might be the key to our predicament."

- "Bio-neural gel packs... I expected them to be bigger." - the girl is flipping the swathe in her hands, in the chamber of Voyager's computer core.

- "They are scattered all over the ship, allowing the ship to 'think' instead of calculating every possibility out like any other computer."

- "How is this useful again?!"

- "Do I have to paint a pretty picture with crayons Yuna? ..." - Niryelle sighs in annoyance - "This is HUGE! We've never taken hold of anything like this before; that actually worked anyway. We need to figure out how to make more of these."

- "But I think these are organic... doesn't that go against the whole idea?"

- "They are interfaced with an inorganic vessel, with regular isolinear networks. They could be made of dark matter for all I care... the point is they approximate the brain of a living being waaaay better than anything we have ever come across before. And that's the point, approximate. If you distill something from elementary materials, then cultivate it with closely DNA sequenced bacteria, and put in artificial fibers, you can go ahead and call it organic if you want to, there's still nothing living about it."

- "Well.. that's true."

- "All these slots..." - she points at empty units in the central core - "are empty because they were running low on this stuff, they couldn't replicate more. Your job is to make more, and equip every single slot with them, all over the ship." - The Captain lays out firmly.

- "Okay okay... no reason to be mean." - Yuna replies warmly.

- "I thought you would be with me on this, that's all." - Niryelle is uncharacteristically touched by the topic.

- "I am with you on this Niry, I'm with you on everything..."

- "So that's why you are already trying to convince me why won't this work, huh?"

- "No.. it's just th..."

- "Remember I can see inside your head Yuna..." - the girl blinks and tilts her head awkwardly - "I wish you could see the world the way I can..." - the Captain sighs wonderingly.

- "Unfortunately, I can't."

- "You could trust me."

- "I do trust you Niryelle... you know that." - Sly caresses the Xelth's shoulder - "I just... don't want you to get your hopes up... I mean, what if this" - she waves over the bio-neural circuits - "doesn't work either?"

- "Then we continue to look for something else that will." - Rivenwell responds dryly and sharply, pulling away - "And by the way, this" - she is pointing at Yuna and where she touched her - "is not "trusting me"." - she adds scornfully.

- "Ni..."

- "Get busy Major! I want a detailed report completed for the lab on Havenage about this circuitry before we get there."

The last time the Captain addressed her by rank was a long time ago, admittedly under similar circumstances. - "Right away, Captain." - she grunts silently. She really didn't want to offend Niryelle, she just doesn't see the same thing in the Grey's secrets as her... and she hates when the Xelth tells her why that is.

Tools, pads, vent covers begin to shift and slide across the decks of Cernivoore, as the vessel starts to accelerate forward, directly toward the attacking vessels. By the time they flash out of warp, they are within a hundred kilometers.

- "Fire disruptors!" - Flory yells.

Firing first is not the Starfleet way of handling things, but Captain Janeway's last order was to assist Commander Chakotay in whatever rescue he manages to mount, and apparently, this is it. - "All cannons firing." - Tuvok responds.

- "Launch torpedoes!"

- "Torpedoes away."

- "Sir..." - Philips' thin voice is heard from the helm.

- "Keep true Ensign!" - the Xelth quickly interrupts her - "Keep firing!"

The Gzunali warship is on a direct collision course with the Enforcers' one taking central position. They expected to find the Cernivoore drifting, dead in space, instead she is coming right at them. Most of the disruptor blasts are connecting, the vessel has no way to dodge them in time. They obviously want to return fire, but the armored beast is not changing course... The leading ship is forced to turn out of the way, offering the weaker parts of its shield as target.

- "The vessel taking point sustained heavy damage to its shields, but they are holding. All six torpedoes hit their target." - the Vulcan calls out.

The lead vessel turned towards the ship on its port side, both of them entering a curve away from the path of the Cernivoore.

- "Interceptors, get after the starboard ship!" - Flory commands - "Ensign, spin us -90 degrees, then pull up to heading 170 by 5."

By twirling the vessel before turning they negate the adverse effects of the maneuver, the crew will only perceive an 'increase of gravity', not a sideways pull.

- "Captain, our Interceptors will be right in the sights of the attackers!"

- "Yes. Ensign, spin us again, 180 degrees! Train all torpedoes to the leading vessel!"

They are boosting faster than the Interceptors, as the Enforcers are finishing their curve, ready to attack, the Cernivoore is in position to block the line of fire, with her armor facing the attackers. Meanwhile Paris and Warren have been doing work on the third vessel, it is unable to cope with the rapidly changed situation, the fighters' disruptors carving through its aft shields.

- "They are about to fire..."

- "All hands, brace for impact!" - Flory yells into shipwide comms.

Gzunali warships have a non-retractable sheath of armor, it is essentially an elaborate weave of hardened tritanium strands, designed to channel the directed energy particles' power over a much larger surface, effectively reducing their disruptive power. Prolonged exposure to heavy fire is required for the strands to break, dissolving the weave. However, armor or no armor, the blasts still cause the ship to quake fiercely. The crews working on the warp systems and the shields are hanging onto latches and beams, expecting sparks to fly, but the first volley is completely absorbed by the tritanium weave.

- "Fire torpedoes!" - the Xelth girl waited until the very last moment to fire the torpedoes, not leaving any chance for the Enforcer ship to dodge them. The already strained shields of the vessel collapse after the first few hits, the rest connecting with the hull. Their hull wrecked in several spots, main power fails, propulsion and weapons completely disabled.

- "Charge the disruptors! Ensign, adjust heading to 0 by -44! Interceptors, follow the last remaining ship!" - The Cernivoore's nose is shifting downward, putting her cannons in sight of the ship their fighters were following. - "Fire!"

The Interceptors flying out of the way, the large vessel's disruptor cannons score direct hits on the Enforcer's aft shields, collapsing them entirely after being softened up. Further blasts strike at their impulse thrusters, resulting in massive plasma explosions, disabling them entirely. That ship however was equipped with missiles, 4 of them firing just as the disruptors hit.

- "Expell the chaff!" - Flory yells out sharply.

- "I can't..." - Tuvok is running his fingers through his console - "The particle emitters can't charge up, we can't fire!"

The Captain growls loudly - "Ensign, evasive maneuvers, send the ship into a tailspin! Forward thrusters, full blast!"

- "But Sir..."

- "DO IT!" - she activates shipwide comms again - "Everyone brace yourselves!"

With the inertial dampeners offline the effects of the tailspin are largely similar to what they had to endure when the warp coils burst. Now there will be missile hits added to mix. Due to the pointed bow of the Cernivoore one of the missiles miss, the next one strikes the edge of the armor. The weave is weaker against the detonating blasts of bomb-type armaments, the explosion quakes the ship brutally, breaking the tritranium threads, denting and tearing the bulkheads surrounding the foremost torpedo bay on that side. The sensors record the hull breach, previously unheard alerts go off across the vessel, as the crew are pinned down, holding onto whatever they can find to save them from getting thrown around again. The third and fourth missiles hit after the ship had time to spin around, letting the armor bare the blasts entirely. The Cernivoore is shoved hard again, the weave absorbing the explosions, although getting devastated in the process, leaving two large darkened holes, the severed ends of the alloy strands glowing brightly in the scalding heat.

Meanwhile, the Interceptors are hot on the tail of the third vessel. This one only received a few torpedo blasts to its forward shields, and their Captain seems to be on top of the situation. To counter the fighters they are deploying decoys, balls of supercharged particles reacting with a plethora of different fields and similar particles on a large spectrum, from subspace waves to electromagnetic radiation, jamming, disrupting navigation and targeting systems. Warren is flying right beyond the emitting tubes, taking a few of them head on. The high-energy clots hitting the shieldsreen, making it seeth and flicker, inside the holodisplays are cutting out and slurring into a blur, sparks fly left and right, high voltage arches are forming between different parts of the cockpit. Gordon is groaning, trying to shield himself from the chaos. After a couple of seconds the barrage is over, the particles run out of juice, absorbed in the bulkheads, but leaving much of the shuttle temporarily shorted out.

Paris fired upon the Enforcer a couple of times, then spun his ship to check on Warren, since he wasn't responding to communication, and the last thing heard from him wasn't particularly reassuring. The Interceptor seemed dead in space, drifting slowly, luckily Tom was able to see his fellow officer trying to get things working again, his flailing arms visible through the cockpit windows. With the other two attacking vessels having other things to worry about, the Cernivoore is pulling about, toward the third ship. It is turning as well, the two fighters are right between them.

- "Get out of the way!" - Flory yells through the comms.

Paris is moving his shuttle out of the way - "Warren's boat is disabled!" - he screams back.

The Xelth girl curses silently, keeping it under her nose. - "Take aim and fire the disruptors!"

- "We might hit the Interceptor, ma'am!" - Tuvok replies.

- "I'm not interested in mights Commander!" - Flory snaps back angrily - "That shuttle is much smaller than either us or the Enforcers, aim well!"

The Cernivoore begins to fire the lateral disruptor cannons, the directed energy bubbles flying by the drifting Interceptor. The enemy is returning fire, their phaser beams dangerously close to the shuttle.

- "Blow us out of this path Ensign, topside thrusters full blast! Adjust the cannons, torpedoes ready?" - as Flory finished her question the Enforcer ship fired 4 missiles, curving 'downward' their trajectory directly pointing at the underbelly of the Gzunali warship. Because of their recent maneuvers and being very close to the disabled fighter, they have no way to dodge them.

Time seems to stop on the bridge, everyone staring at the four brightly glowing bombs flying toward them. Carnivore-class warships are sandwiched between two sheaths of armor, Herbivore-class vessels like their own only have the triangular wedge topside, without shields the torpedoes' blasts will be devastating...

Tom spins his ship as fast as he can, firing at the missiles, able to destroy one of them, the blast taking out the one next to it, however the remaining two are still locked on their target, mere dozens of meters away...

.

- "Got it!" - Harry yells out of a service tube in engineering, Chakotay holding his legs to keep him in place during the trepidations.

As the officers on the bridge are wringing water from their armrests, jaws locked, eyes shut; a yellowish bubbly flash surrounds the Cernivoore. The torpedoes hit the shieldscreen immediately after. The ship quakes, but it certainly doesn't feel like they are being destroyed, Flory opens her eyes narrowly to see what happened.

- "Shields!" - she sighs gladly, then seeing how the enemy ship is dangerously close to them, and that Warren's Interceptor is finally back in action, impulse thrusters on full blast to get out of the way - "Fire everything!" - she cries out.

Tuvok of course never closed his eyes, he is immediately firing all weapon systems.

The disruptor cannons' discharges have no time to give off energy from point blank range, hitting the Enforcer's shields with full force, missiles fired from the remaining bays have barely any space to cover before connecting with their target. Two of them still miss though, especially because of the short range, but the rest score direct hits. The enemy vessel is struck hard, unable to cope with the high amount of hurt in so little time.

- "Put some distance between us, we need to regroup!" - Flory commands wisely, the other two vessels are far from being completely disabled, they might try something any moment now.

As the large warship and their two fighters are flying away in a curve, B'Elanna's voice is heard through the comms:

- "The warp matrix is initialized, I would suggest we get the hell out of here!"

The Xelth girl couldn't agree more. - "Open the bay doors!" - she barks - "Interceptors, return immediately!"

- "You are flying too fast, it isn..."

- "GET BACK INSIDE THE SHIP, NOW!" - Flory cuts Warren off, no time for perfect, textbook maneuvers. - "Maximum acceleration as soon as those doors are shut! Route everything but warp power into what's left of the dampeners!"

The Enforcer vessels are either turning after the Cernivoore or firing missiles. Tom throws his fighter into the bay from an angle, hitting the hangar sidewalls, tipping stacked barrels and boxes over, screeching as metal grazes metal. Gordon aimed for the other bay, the one that they didn't use yet, so there is an Interceptor parked directly behind the forcefield. He cuts out his shields in time, tritanium is strong enough to handle the collision, the forcefields would do more harm than good. He hangs onto the beams running up the cockpit's windows to secure himself, holding on for dear life as his shuttle is forcing its way inside through the others. Flory already started to close the bay doors as she saw the Interceptors being close enough.

- "Torpedoes less than a kilometer off the stern!" - Tuvok calls out.

- "Warp, now!" - the Captain starts yelling as the gates are still a few inches from sealing shut, by the time the Ensign presses the buttons, they are secured. - "Brace for maximum acceleration!" - she yells over shipwide comms, just in case someone would forget to hold on to something.

The attacking vessels were damaged enough so that they cannot follow immediately, and with the shields online, the cloaking device will be able to set up a stable enough dampening field around the vessel for them to quickly zap onto different courses and vanish into thin... space.

As the forces caused by the acceleration pushing them into their seats fades away, sighs of relief are heard all across the Cernivoore. There are holes in their vessel, the warp engine is far from being 'fine' but it will hold long enough... Chakotay is patting Harry on the shoulder, laughing as they are lying on the floor, enjoying the ride finally being smooth. During acceleration, tools, boxes, barrels, vessels were shifting and sliding in the hangar bays, Warren is hanging upside down, finally daring to open his eyes as everything seems to have stopped. Tom has his faced buried in his palms, chuckling as he looks out of the cockpit between his fingers, and sees the chaotic conditions... he'd very much like to be back on Voyager, but if he did this in their shuttlebay, he would never hear the end of it.

...