Mellin rubbed his forehead and closed his eyes, hunched slightly over in the captain's chair.
"Tell me, slowly, exactly what happened."
"Well, we-"
"I meant her," he said, cutting Lt. Speld abruptly off and nodding at Eden.
Speld nodded and looked down and Eden could see that she was chewing the inside of her cheek to keep from speaking.
"We, uh, went down to engineering," Eden said. "and the comms were malfunctioning, but the engine systems seemed fine. So we tried to find the escape pod."
"And was it there?" the captain asked.
She nodded.
"Yes, sir. It was stuck in dock, like we thought, but the damage was worse that my scan showed. The top third of the pod had been completely destroyed."
"And the systems lieutenant?"
"He's dead, sir."
The captain sighed and rubbed his eye with the ball of his hand.
"It's too early for this. Okay, what's medical saying?"
A vulcan woman in the blue uniform of the science division stepped forward from where she was waiting and joined the circle.
"Initial autopsy shows that Lieutenant Cohen died from exposure to extreme temperature rather than trauma to the head, so it is our estimate that the pod sustained its primary damage after its airlock failed."
"So you're saying the pod, what, opened somehow, before it was hit?"
"We cannot be sure without inspecting the pod more closely," the vulcan woman said.
"When can you do that?"
"I am a medical officer; I am not trained in the design of escape pods."
He turned to look at Eden, raising an eyebrow.
"What about you? You're systems and engineering, right?"
"Yes, sir."
"Great," he said. "head back down to the pod. Look it over, do what you can without removing it. Let me know what you find. Take the doctor with you."
She nodded and he waved a hand at the table.
"Dismissed."
They all stood and Eden started toward the turbolift, joined by the vulcan woman from across the room. She'd always favored engineering over the monotony of the bridge, but going as a command officer took a little of the pleasure out of it.
"I'm Eden," she said to the doctor as the door to the turbolift closed. "Or, Lieutenant Seif." She knew Vulcans preferred to use titles rather than first names.
"I am Dr. T'Lel."
"Nice to meet you."
"It is pleasant to meet you as well."
The ride over was silent and Eden closed her eyes for a minute, resting her hand on the bar on the side of the wall to keep her balance. She'd known Vulcans before; she enjoyed their company. Most of them shared her exhaustion for pointless conversation. They preferred to do, rather than to say. She'd never met a Vulcan that didn't despise small talk.
They left the lift and Eden led the doctor silently down the steps to the escape hall, taking a few minutes to follow the path to pod 387. The pod itself was still in place, although the contents had been emptied. There was no body, but Eden kept her eyes down anyway. She crouched by the door and opened the control hatch at the base of the pod, holding up her scanner. She listened to the steady beeping and waited for a reading to come in, watching the grid slowly appear on the small screen. The results blinked in the corner of the scanner and she frowned, reloading it.
"It says the back hatch was opened."
"Why would it have opened?" the vulcan doctor asked. "Could Lieutenant Cohen have activated it?"
"It's designed never to open while still in dock on the ship. The only way would be for someone to open it manually from outside."
"Could it be a reading mistake? Your conclusion seems unlikely."
"Yea, I'll run it again."
She reset her scanner and waited, an abrupt bang startling her from her left.
They stared down the hall for a few seconds before the same noise made Eden stand up.
"Something is approaching us," Dr. T'Lel said, Eden taking a half-step back.
Eden concentrated and listened, turning her head slightly.
"I know what that is," she said, walking quickly towards it.
"I do not think it is wise…" Dr. T'Lel said quietly, following her after a moment of hesitation.
They turned the curve and saw what Eden had expected: the convection vents lining the rail were opening, stiff streams of air shooting up a few yards away.
"What is that?" Dr. T'Lel asked.
"The vents are opening," she said, shaking her head. "It only happens when there's an engine overload, but this engine shouldn't be operating at all. Come on, we have to get to the operating room."
They walked quickly, then ran down the hallway, past the columns of steam that made Eden sweat if she strayed too close to them. She turned a corner and they arrived at one of the control rooms, the door refusing to open.
Eden craned her neck and looked through the small window, blinking in disbelief. A short woman was standing at the central panel, opening the control hatches one by one.
"What do you see?" T'Lel asked, clearly reluctant to squeeze her face into the window beside Eden.
"It's someone from engineering."
"She must be trying to deactivate the engine."
Eden shook her head. The wall panels above her were all blank, but they weren't engine controls.
"She's turning off the stabilizers."
"What will that do?"
"Bad things. It'll overload. We have to stop her."
"The door will not open," T'Lel said, the wall controls not responding. "It has been deadlocked."
The woman turned suddenly and met eyes with Eden, straightening up from the panel.
"What are you doing?" Eden tried to shout through the door at her.
The woman pulled a phaser from her hip and pointed it toward the door, Eden shrieking as she tried to shoot the window.
"Go, go!" she yelled, pushing the doctor away from the door and scrambling down the hallway. They passed the destroyed pod and Eden faintly heard the sound of footsteps behind them, running faster. They tried to go back the way they'd come, but the vents in front of them had opened too quickly and the hallway was blocked by a wall of thick steam, the heat palpable from several feet away. The noise increased as the air shot higher from the grids around them and Eden saw the doctor covering her ears with the balls of her hands.
"What can we do?" she asked loudly, struggling to be heard over the noise.
Eden took out her comm and shook her head.
"Communication's been cut off!" she shouted over the vents. "I can only see private signals!"
She scrolled and landed on the only security code she had, selecting it.
"Who is this?"
"It's Seif!" she said loudly into her comm.
"What?"
"Speld! It's Lieutenant Seif!" she yelled, the signal faint. "We're stuck in engineering!"
"Enginee-"
The call ended abruptly and Eden cursed, looking up to see the doctor standing against the pods, trying to save her overly sensitive alien ears from the intense noise.
She opened her scanner and thrust her arm over the vents, holding it there as long as she could before the heat became too much and she pulled it back, shaking her head at the results.
"The engine is overheating!" she shouted behind her, her voice sore. "We have to move!"
"There is no safe passage!"
"We don't have a choice!"
Eden waved at her and braced herself, running through the steam and climbing quickly over the descended vent. She clenched her teeth as it burned her hands but continued to run, the Vulcan woman close behind her. They reached the top of the metal stairs but the passageway had closed, bright alarm lights flashing at the top of its threshold.
"Shit," she said to herself. "Go!"
She ushered the doctor back down the steps, sheltering in the small enclave of pods at the foot of the steps.
"What can we do?" Dr. T'Lel asked loudly, her voice barely discernable through the noise.
Eden looked around, pulling at her hair in panic. To their left was a rail over the depths of the starboard engine, to the right, a closed escape ship. There was nowhere to go.
"I don't know!"
A loud creak joined the cacophony of other noises and Eden watched the rail bend forward toward them, Eden stepping back toward the small jet. The pressure regulator was failing. She looked around again and an idea struck her.
"Get in the pod!"
"We cannot-"
"Get in it!" she yelled louder, pointing aggressively at the wall. "The pressurizers are failing; we'll be crushed if we don't move!"
The Vulcan woman ran into it and sat in one of the seats and Eden's hands flew over the controls, setting up support as quickly as she could.
"Lieutenant, turn!"
Eden looked behind her to see the short woman from the control room, a phaser pointed at her. She shot again and Eden screamed and ducked, the blast hitting the panel a few feet above her head. The Vulcan woman yanked her behind the console and heard the woman shoot around her, staring at the scorched damage on the wall of a phaser set to kill.
She heard indiscernible yells from across the room and the shots resumed, but Eden couldn't see where they were being directed. She heard a high-pitched shriek and felt a dull thump on the floor somewhere. Someone yelled again, but Eden couldn't hear who it was. Heavy footsteps approached them and Eden held her breath, a face appearing on their side of the console. Eden felt a smile spread on her face as the security guard pulled her to her feet, the ground shaking beneath them.
Eden tried to say something but the noise was too loud and she couldn't hear herself, struggling to remain upright as the movement increased. The guard motioned something and pushed Eden into the nearest seat, seeing the Vulcan doctor sit quickly beside her. The straps shot over her chest and she felt them lock into place, looking up to see the short woman unconscious in the middle of the floor, her phaser nowhere to be seen. The security officer was at the control station, slamming her hand down to close the door. She straightened up and turned to look at Eden. Eden tried to yell at her but her words were lost in the chaos and she saw something shift outside the pod, the guard flipping another switch and running to sit in one of the seats.
There was a deafening noise and something seemed to wrench Eden forward against the straps in her seat, light exploding outside her window view. Her eyes closed and she saw the orange skin of her eyelids, the roar outside turning to a high-pitched whistle. The light gave suddenly out and she opened her eyes to see the ship shrinking in front of her. She watched it for a few moments before there was another flash and she saw the left jet of the ship rip open, light taking over the window again. She tried to close her eyes, but they wouldn't listen to her.
Something jerked her violently back and she felt something hit the back of her neck and then darkness blinded her.