Kirk noticed Kenyon's normally short, tight afro was flat in the front. "You, too." He countered.
"Crap," Kenyon did his best rub his fingers through the front of his head. The door opened with a hiss to reveal Lieutenant Commander T'Nia and Chief Engineer Kelly were already seated.
On the viewscreen at the far side of the table was an image of Admiral Leonard, flanked by two other admirals. One, Stephen had seen, but never met. The other, Stephen had met several times, and never wished to see again. Fleet Admiral Kanegawa sat to Leonard's left, and Admiral Wellington sat to his right. Admiral Kanegawa combed his short, white hair straight back and kept his equally white moustache equally short, just to the edges of his lips. Although the areas around his eyes were wrinkled, it was virtually impossible to tell his age. His steel gray eyes still sparkled with alertness. Wellington sat a little taller in the chair than Kanegawa with his wavy graying hair still perfectly combed backwards. Admiral Leonard sat the tallest of the three. Although Kirk normally enjoyed talking with the Scottish admiral, the grave looks on their faces indicated this conversation would anything but pleasant. Kirk and Richards sat down. "Good to see you two." Admiral Leonard offered warmly. "I trust you also slept well."
"Not nearly long enough, Admiral," Kirk commented as he sat down with a grunt. "I take it something has changed?"
Well, not so much 'changed' as 'concluded'," Leonard answered. "We need your team to confirm some information we've compiled."
"Whatever you need, Admiral," Kirk offered.
Wellington chimed in with his aged, rocky voice. "The status of your primary weapons... they can each fire once at fifty percent power, essentially per engagement, correct?"
Wellington's talking was almost like twisted pieces of metal screaming against each other to Kirk. Forcing back his desire to say something that would get him courtmartialed, he nodded. "That's correct."
"And that was part of our simulations, correct, gentlemen?" The ageless fleet admiral asked. The other two nodded their heads in agreement.
Stephen definately did not like where this meeting was going. "What's going on, Sir?" Kirk asked directly to Leonard.
Leonard held up his pointer finger to Kirk to ask him to wait a moment while the admiral shifted his gaze to T'Nia. "Lieutenant Commander T'Nia, given the sensor readings from the battlegroup around Cardassia, I need a tactical assessment. Does Warlord stand a reasonable chance of success if it engages the Dominion fleet?" Leonard's gaze on T'Nia was intense.
T'Nia returned his gaze emotionlessly as she considered his statement. Once the gravity of his request hit her, she responded the only way a true vulcan would, she raised an eyebrow. "One moment, Admiral." She spun the computer console in front of her around and began furiously pressing pads on the screen.
Kirk's eyes widened. "Will there be other ships to back us up?" He asked. Surely they weren't thinking of sending the Warlord into a badly lopsided battle without its captain when there were hostages on the surface. It would be certain death for them.
Leonard slowly shook his head. "I'm afraid the nearest ship to your position is almost two weeks away. Starfleet intelligence believes the Dominion would be too well entrenched by then."
T'Nia looked up from her panel. "A fast extrapolation of offenses versus defenses suggests we would have a sixty-one percent chance of victory."
Kirk looked over at the panel, not liking those odds. He pointed to her variables. "Don't use the basic decision system. Use the advanced. Specify that we'd concentrate our firepower on those capital ships first."
She nodded. "Yes, Sir." I should have thought of that, she thought. That was logical. After several more key presses, she looked back up. "That puts our percent of victory at eighty-one percent."
The three admirals nodded. Wellington resumed speaking. "Our simulations came up with three possible scenarios. The worst-case scenario has the battlegroup expecting you to return and planned an ambush for you. We still have the Warlord surviving with moderate damage and no more than eighty lives lost." Wellington glared at Kirk. "That is... as long as you don't screw it up."
Stephen wanted to ignore Wellington's comments, but he was right. "Admiral," Stephen appealed to Leonard, "for a plan like this, don't you want Captain Bolerov involved?"
Leonard's expression saddened deeply as he shook his head. "I'm afraid the captains problems extend much more deeply than the current incident. We were hoping he had truly recovered. I'm afraid we've decided to support the doctor's relief of duty." Stephen's heart sank. "This is your boat, Commander... for the immediate future." The only comfort to what Stephen was hearing was seeing the look of frustration and anguish on Wellington's face. Unfortunately, that wasn't much comfort right now. Every past voice of criticism and doubt came flooding back to him as small pinpricks in his head. The last time he captained the Warlord in battle eight people had lost their lives. Now... the thought of possibly losing a third of the crew was overwhelming. Silently, he tried praying for wisdom, for calm, for anything... but the other voices were too many and too loud. He couldn't finish.
"Calm your mind, Stephen." It was a woman's voice in his head. "You will not go through this alone." It was T'Nia's voice.
Confused, Stephen shook his head back to reality. At once, all the voices of doubt fled... at least, for the moment. That was when he felt it. Although T'Nia's eyes were squarely focused on the discussions with the admirals that Stephen had been missing, her hand had slowly moved from the computer terminal to hold Stephen's. She was communicating to him telepathically. He smiled and gripped her hand tightly for a moment before letting go. The last time she had done that for him was just before the Kobyashi Maru training simulation in the Academy.
Fleet Admiral Kanegawa patted his hands on the table in front of him. "Then... it is settled. Your data corroborates ours. Your mission is to return to Cardassian space immediately and eliminate the Dominion threat once and for all." His gaze became intense as he looked straight at Kirk. "Surrender will not be an option for either side."
Kirk gulped. "What about the hostages, Admiral?" He asked weakly. He already knew the answer.
Kanegawa's expression didn't change. Leonard's, however, did. "I'm afraid they are expendable. We all know the risks when we enter situations like the one they entered. Let nothing dissuade you, Commander. Your only goal is to remove the Dominion threat from the alpha quadrant by any and all means necessary. Destroy whatever needs to be destroyed."
"And what of the Cardassians?" He asked flatly.
"By any and all means necessary, Commander." Kanegawa repeated. "Their lives are expendable as well. They were on the road to a formalized peace with us. Instead, they chose to side with the Dominion once again. Good luck, Commander."
"Don't screw it up," Wellington added darkly.
Leonard shot Wellington a quick, disapproving look, then turned back to the screen. "I'm still placing my same wager, Commander," he added with a smile. "Starfleet out."
The screen went black.