Kelly was content to simply let Stephen gather himself. Something interesting must have happened. He made a mental note to spend more time at the auxiliary console on the bridge so he wouldn't miss anything else important.
Kirk let out several deep breaths before finally lifting his head again. This time, Stephen threw himself into the back of the chair and leaned his head back to the ceiling. "Oh, my gosh," he exclaimed softly as he stretched out his arms.
"I miss all the fun stuff," Tom finally commented.
"Sorry," Stephen replied, sitting back up. "I just needed a sec to take it all in."
"Sounds intense."
Kirk's eyes grew wide staring into space while he remembered the previous events. "You could say that." He took several more deep breaths. "The captain lost it on the bridge. First, he just stood there doing nothing. Then, he tried to order everyone to abandon ship. THEN, he said he was going to fly us into one of the battle cruisers."
Tom's eyes grew wide. "Wow... wait... I never heard any order to abandon ship."
"Yeah, that was weird. He actually punched some buttons on the communications console... knocked Elaine down in the process, too. I think he was trying to hit the shipwide page, but it's on the other side of the console. It was all just really strange."
Tom shook his head. "Where's the captain now?"
"He's in sickbay. The doc's looking after him. I think he was drunk."
"I didn't think you could get drunk in this day and age." Tom commented incredulously. Most of him believed what Stephen was saying. Still, there had been enough funny business recorded in other starship logs to encourage him to be cautious and gather as much information as possible.
"You gotta try pretty hard." Kirk rubbed his temples.
"Maybe I'll check on the captain later," Tom offered. Part of him really wanted to see the captain. They had their differences, but overall Tom had nothing but praise for him. The other part of him wanted to see how Stephen would react.
Stephen responded exactly the way Tom hoped he would. "Yeah, I was going to do that myself later."
"How are you holding up?" Lieutenant Kelly asked, cocking his head. He could tell Stephen was tired. Part of his doubts had eased with Kirk's reaction to Tom visiting. With that, he could tell that his crewmember, his superior officer, and his friend, was struggling
"I'm a little stressed." Stephen answered, looking Tom straight in the eye. "That was a lot of drama to go through and it's not over yet."
"Yeah, what was that all about?" Tom asked, remembering the battle. "I mean, why did that other ship leave? Why did we come out here, anyway?"
"I got a distress signal a couple of days ago while when I beamed down. I guess it was a trick. Anyway, the signal said to come out here. We did... and we got ambushed. I'm not sure why they attacked, then left like that." Stephen shook his head and stared intensely at the desktop, struggling to come up with reasons. Truth be told, he didn't understand, either. "Maybe they were supposed to ambush us... maybe just try to be a distraction... maybe just test our capabilities." He shrugged. "We didn't get a chance to ask them." He smiled weakly.
Tom smiled back. "They didn't seem a talkative bunch. So... what are you expecting back at Cardassia?"
Stephen shrugged again. "I have no idea. I've just got a really bad feeling about Picard and his group." Stephen's tone changed as he became more official. "How quickly do those regenerative shields 'regenerate'?"
Lieutenant Kelly thought a moment. "As long as the generator isn't getting pounded on, it should only take ten or twelve minutes to go from nothing to full power. It'll a lot less time than that, considering there was still some shield power left."
"Okay." Kirk was already thinking about what might be waiting for them back at Cardassia Prime. "How long before we can safely fire the port cannon?"
"Yeah, that..." The whole neutron cannon issue was still a sore spot with Tom. He almost was put on report for a problem he had nothing to do with. "Near as we can figure it takes about a half hour for the trellium plating to discharge the ionization."
Kirk blinked. "That'll be cutting it close."
Tom nodded. "You planning on going in with guns blazing?"
"I plan on going in with guns ready." Kirk answered, staring intently at his chief engineer.
"Have you contacted Starfleet yet?"
Stephen shook his head. "Not yet. If I'm right, what we just went through was just a diversion. The real story is a half hour away. Hopefully, I'm wrong... the Dominion is a fluke thing and the Cardassians will deal with it. We'll beam Admiral Picard or Admiral Callis aboard and they can temporarily take command of the ship until Captain Bolerov recovers. If I'm right..."
"If you're right," Tom interrupted, "we're flying into a hornet's nest."