Captain's log, Stardate 9515.3: Who could have thought space would be so completely and utterly boring. Captain Bowman stifled a yawn, as he paused the recording. He rubbed his eyes. "Mr. Jarrod, any contacts?"

The tactical officer, Lt. Jarrod, looked over from his station. "No sir. The Neutral Zone is clear."

Bowman sighed. "Anything of interest out there?"

LCDR Johannsen looked over from the science station. "No sir. Not even a bit of interesting space dust."

The Captain shifted in the center seat, trying to get comfortable and stay awake. "Is it almost lunch yet?"

"In forty-five minutes, Captain."

"What I wouldn't give for something to happen," Captain Bowman muttered. "Maintain course for Tarod; steady as she goes, Mr. Marx."

"Aye sir," Marx replied.

Captain Bowman stood. "I'm going below. Mr. Johannsen, you have the conn."

Shift change, a few hours later, maintained the same level of monotony that had infected the previous shift. Marx handed the helm off to his relief and retired to the officer's mess for dinner. He grabbed a quiet table in the back, and settled down to eat while enjoying an old pass time of his—people watching. Noting that there were several couples in the crew already, Marx felt a touch of homesickness for the Riyadh, and especially for Rei.

As he stood to turn his tray in, Commander MacPherson called over to him. "Lieutenant Marx."

"Sir," he asked, turning to face the executive officer and chief engineer.

"So how do ye enjoy being on a larger ship?"

"It's certainly more comfortable, Commander," Marx replied, "but it felt more like being part of an extended family on the Riyadh."

"Aye, I'm sure, lad. Fleet scuttlebutt is that Captain Satomi was having a relationship with a member of her crew."

Marx looked at the executive officer. "Commander, what ever monkey business may have been going on onboard the Riyadh stayed on the Riyadh. The whole crew, up until the mutiny, was close, sir."

"I understand, lad. We were like that in the Enterprise's engineering department, under Captain Scott, and I try to maintain that family feeling in my department as well."

"It'll just take some time for me to adjust to the rhythm and routine of a new ship, sir; that's all."

00000

Halfway across the galaxy, another officer was also adjusting to the lack of companionship. Sitting in the Riyadh's officer's mess, Captain Satomi was at a table by herself. This, until a few days ago, was a relatively unusual occurrence that was only interfered with by watch schedules. "Captain," CDR Garrovick asked, stopping by his table, "how are you holding up?" Everyone in the crew knew what was going on between the captain and the helmsman, and they all chose to turn a blind eye to their shenanigans. Even the mutineers ignored what could have been political dynamite for them, if they had chosen to expose Captain Satomi's breach of protocol.

She sighed as she gave the first officer a baleful look with her bloodshot eyes. "You know what it's like when you've spent the past three years sharing a bed with someone so your sleep pattern works around that person, and then they're suddenly gone? I'm going to go crazy, if I don't get over this."

"Why don't you go see the Doc for something to help you sleep?"

"Because I'd rather suffer sleepless nights while my body readjusts to sleeping alone, than suffer one of Doc Wilder's nasty concoctions."

Commander Garrovick nodded sagely. "I know what you mean. Going into Sickbay is like walking into Dr. Frankenstein's laboratory. I almost expect to see an assistant with a pronounced hunchback and limp working for him."

Rei chuckled lightly. "I could have sworn I'd seen a personnel request by the Doc for just such a person."

Further conversation was interrupted by the intercom. "Captain Satomi, please report to the bridge. Captain Satomi, to the bridge please."

"Well, so much for a relaxing dinner," she said, as she stood and walked out of the officer's mess.

Walking off the lift and on to the bridge, Rei looked at her science officer. "What was so important that you had to interrupt my dinner?"

Lieutenant Commander T'Sot looked up from her instruments. "Captain, we're picking up an unusual amount of neutron radiation in the vicinity of the ship."

"From us?"

"No sir," the on duty Engineering officer reported.

"Are there any ships in the sector?"

"No Captain," the tactical officer replied. "The sector's clean." As Rei moved to the center seat, the threat board lit up. "CAPTAIN! Inbound torpedo!"

"Battlestations…" the rest of her order was cut of, as the torpedo slammed into the hull of the heavy frigate. The missile penetrated the portside forward saucer, coming up from the ventral side of the ship, throwing the crew out of their seats. Rei recovered in the dim battle lighting, and grabbed her chair. "Mr. Pullings, get those shields up! Sakura, I need a damage report." Additional personnel began running to their stations from the turbolift, as the Red Alert klaxon began sounding throughout the ship. The deck of the bridge reverberated as pressure doors slammed shut throughout the ship.

"Shields not responding, Captain," Lt. Pullings reported from the tactical console. The next torpedo slammed into the roll bar-mounted torpedo tubes. Blast panels bore the brunt of the detonation as the Riyadh's complement of photon torpedoes cooked off.

"Helm, get us the hell out here; warp 9." Rei ordered, as another torpedo slammed into Shuttlebay 1."

"Captain, main energizer's out," came the call from the Engineering station, as the ship was rocked by another torpedo hit. "Warp drive's been hit!" Panels around the bridge erupted in sparks from the feedback.

"Full impulse then; take evasive action." The ship was rocked as a pair of torpedoes detonated against the ship. The bridge took on a thirty degree list to port, as the starboard warp nacelle was blown off. Portions of the ship's structure came crashing down. Lt. Pullings was crushed to death when a section of the overhead landed on him. Another torpedo hit caused the navigation console to erupt in flame, badly injuring Lts. Brown and Maturin. Commander Garrovick was thrown into a bulkhead, knocking him unconscious. Damage Control and Medical teams raced on to the bridge from the turbolift, evacuated the wounded to Sickbay, and extinguished the fires.

A final volley of torpedoes impacted along the Riyadh's impulse engine deck, creating a massive fireball that wiped out the rest of Engineering as well as Shuttlebay 2, leaving the ship adrift; a powerless wreck venting plasma and atmosphere as she drifted through the void. As quickly as the attack occurred, it was over. "Who attacked us," Rei asked rhetorically, although echoing the sentiment of the surviving crew. "And why?"

The escape hatch in the deck opened, and out came Lt. Blakesney, the senior surviving engineer. "Captain," he reported, "Engine Room's gone. All we have are left are batteries. And more than half of them were destroyed in the first attack."

Captain Satomi sat there, bathed in the pale lighting of the emergency lights, feeling her ship shudder as an overstressed plasma conduit would rupture, feeling her ship…die. Smoke and sparks added texture to create the hellish scene. "Life support?"

"At best I could give you a day and a half. That's all the survivors in a cargo bay, just sitting there, breathing and on half rations."

"Communications?"

Blakesney shook his head. "Subspace antenna's been destroyed. I could rig something up in that day and a half, but by the time rescue ships arrived, we'd be a ghost ship, Captain."

"Escape pods?"

"Destroyed, Captain. Both shuttlebays were destroyed as well. Scanners and sensors are also inoperative, Captain. We have no way of knowing if our attacker is even still in the area."

"Kuso," Rei muttered. "Sakura, launch the log buoy." There was no reply from the communications station. When Rei turned to that station, that was when she noticed that it was sparking, and Lt. Saginomiya was probably taken down to Sickbay, sometime during the attack.

Slowly, she rotated and looked around the bridge of her crippled and dying vessel. The communications station was fried, sparks occasionally sparking from the wires. The tactical station had a sheet draped over Lt. Pullings' remains. The helm and nav console was burned to a crisp. Science was dead as well and the main viewscreen was full of static. "Mr. Blakesney, can we manually launch the log buoy?"

"I'll see what I can do from below, Captain."

"Make it happen. And see if we can get some sort of long range communications going."

"Aye, aye Captain," Blakesney replied. As he turned to climb back, he shouted "Captain, on the viewscreen!" In the center of the screen, a Klingon Bird of Prey decloaked, her photon torpedo tube glowing an angry red. The scoutship began to close on the crippled Federation ship, and raked the Riyadh with both phaser and torpedo fire.

"Goodbye my love," Rei said quietly, as the bridge exploded under the onslaught of Klingon fire. A few moments later the antimatter pods' containment destabilized, allowing a few positrons to leak out. The resulting uncontrolled matter-antimatter reaction turned the Riyadh into a blaze of atomic fire.

Onboard the Klingon ship, the captain grinned ferally. "Signal the General. Advise him that the operational test was a success."

"Yes sir."

"Set course for Gorath, and engage the cloak." The Bird of Prey shimmered out of view, as she arced away from the wreckage of the Riyadh and entered warp.