They were not going to make it through this alive.
Kirk sat in his chair, listening to the growing list of damage provided by Sulu. Spock spouted off numbers, discussing probability of survival and manoeuvres that they should take. Kirk assumed the comments were directed at him, but his mind was hyper focused on the screen in front of him. Eight Klingon warbirds, and somehow, God knows how, The Enterprise had to neutralise them. Without dying in the process.
"Shields to 70%," Sulu reported back to the Captain, turning in his chair to look at Kirk. Despite Sulu's best efforts, fear was written across his face. His eyes were wide, and his face drawn. Kirk finally experienced what the Kobayashi Maru test had failed to show him. Unutterable terror. He felt his stomach sink low into his hips, his gaze darting below the ships before them.
"Shit," He murmured lightly, before leaping into Captain-Mode, and commanding his crew into a defensive position, protecting Yorktown.
Hannah walked into the room she had witnessed Kirk enter many times, barely even eliciting a response from Paris. Hannah tugged down the hem of her shirt, and pushed her hand through her hair, suddenly realising the disarray she was in. She coughed slightly, but Paris still didn't look up as her hands danced across the panel in front of her.
"Whatever it is, I do not have time for your complaint. Dismissed," Paris barked at her. Hannah folded her arms across her chest and stepped closer to the console.
"I want to help," Hannah demanded. "I don't know how, but if you can get me on to a ship, I can take it down from the inside." Paris' gaze remained on her console, but her hands paused. Behind her, the window scattered light across the transparent hull of Yorktown. Hannah's gaze was drawn to the destruction that the Klingon ships threatened, and she reached out towards the window. Then she caught herself, and shook herself back into the present. She didn't leave Paris' office.
"Ensign, listen to me. Starfleet cannot condone you getting yourself killed on board an enemy ship," Paris began, her tone motherly, her gaze softening for half a second. "However, you could always help me with tactics from here, and I'll see if someone can break through one ship's shields."
Kirk was struggling to find a way out of this. Klingon ships pressed in on all sides, and the limited defences of Yorktown were starting to crumble. The Enterprise's own shields were worryingly low, and their ammunition was becoming rapidly depleted. Evasive patterns were good and all, but The Enterprise was taking more hits than they normally would have, trying to avoid them hitting Yorktown. They had taken out one ship, that had disintegrated in a mirage of flames and exploding equipment, and the explosion had knocked another Klingon vessel sideways, damaging their hull, forcing them to withdraw from their aggressive fire. That still left 10 fully functional warbirds staring them down, promising maximum damage. Kirk bit back a retort, pulling his lower lip with his teeth as he muddled his way through defending Yorktown.
Hannah stepped on to the transporter pad, staring at the blank wall for a moment, before turning heel to face the ensign whose fingers hovered over the console. He looked across at Hannah, an unspoken question in his raised eyebrow. She nodded at him, lifting her chin and breathing in through her nose. The white wall in front of her seemed to spin as the white lights swirled around her, In the last moment before the white lights of the transporter enveloped her, Hannah suddenly realised why the ensign gave her such an odd look, why he seemed more confused than concerned. She was still only wearing Kirk's t shirt.
Well it was too late, she thought to herself, the Klingons were just about to have another surprise on their hands. The kid that had gained access to the Klingon's shield frequencies and managed to intercept them, to allow one single person to sneak on board, deserved a medal. They at least deserved a promotion. Shame they would probably get neither, that is if they lived through this.
Disorientated for less than a second, Hannah reached out for the nearest body she could reach and slammed them, head first into the ground. The Klingon slumped on to the floor, unconscious or dead, Hannah did not care which. She grabbed the knife that glinted out of the boot and threw it across the room, embedding itself into another Klingon's skull before any of the Bridge crew could even react. The room suddenly burst into life, phasers drawn against her, but Hannah dodged, grabbing the neck of the nearest Klingon, using them as a living shield. Shots fired around her, the sound of phasers hitting walls echoing through Hannah's ears. She snatched the phaser from the holster of her living shield, firing back, missing many Klingons, but hitting enough to significantly reduce the number of Klingons attacking her. Hannah threw the now dead Klingon to the ground, a clear line of sight to her remaining assailants. In rapid fire, she hit each and every one dead centre in their chests. Barely even pausing for breath, she moved to the nearest console and began tapping out a command: a command she did not fully understand. She prayed to every god and higher power that she had remembered it correctly as she punched in the final key.
"Captain, I'm picking up a transmission from one of the Klingon ships," Uhura reported, flicking a switch above her head.
"On screen." Came the order from her captain, and Uhura immediately responded, the screen bursting into life, pixelated at first, but then clearing to show Hannah's face, her mouth moving silently before the sound kicked in.
"-Dead. I am in command of this vessel, and so I would suggest you turn heel and run back home, tail between your legs," Hannah's voice was low, a dangerous snarl barely restrained within her voice. A sinister smile twitched at her mouth, before her eyes narrowed again, and she tapped out a command with her left hand. "I killed an entire ship barehanded, imagine what I can do with torpedoes at hand. Consider my proposal, and maybe I won't destroy you all. Ta, ta."
Kirk hesitated as the screen faded back out to black.
"Run life signs on the Klingon ship." No one moved. "Now," he turned around, as if to run the life signs himself. Spock glanced down at his console.
"There is only one. Human," he answered. Kirk pulled in his lower lip, biting down on it hard enough to draw blood. He swallowed difficultly, before lowering himself back into his chair.
"Forward shields to max, let's see what happens." The words seemed to stick in his throat, struggling to find their way out. The mass slaughter of hundreds of Klingons had just occurred, and Kirk felt a deep pit burrow into his stomach. The ghost of Hannah's smirk haunted his gaze, and his shoulders stiffened as he waited. Tension smothered all sound in the Enterprise, and they all sat. Silence reigned, and horror loomed behind them.
The code Hannah had plugged into the ship seemed to be working its magic as she paced the inside of the Bridge. Bodies lay scattered at her feet, causing her to dance around them, her feet nimble and anxious. Waiting made her twitchy, and so every time she thought she saw a twitch of a finger, or the lift of an eyelid, she squeezed the trigger again. After all, she couldn't have any of the Klingon's coming around and giving the command to override the dead-locked doors. Right now, she was safe inside the Bridge, but the sound of the crew outside the doors echoed around her, thumps of her heart and their fists hitting out an irregular rhythm of fear and panic. Phaser in her hand still, Hannah sank on to the captain's chair, and pressed her palms into the side of her head, focussing on how to breathe. She slowed each breath down, starting to regain control of her downwards spiral. If she overthought, she would be useless. If she didn't do this, everyone she loved would die, or worse, would become murderers themselves.
"Hail the lead Klingon ship," Kirk commanded, after the Klingon ships had held their fire. The Enterprise hovered between the attacking fleet and Yorktown, nothing firing. A tense, uncertain cloud of electricity hung in the air, destruction promised on the tongue of young woman, misplaced in time and lost in space. Uhura's gaze flickered over to Kirk for a second, concern furrowing her brow. But she held her silence, and followed the command. The screen crackled to life within the minute, and Hannah reappeared on the screen. She straightened her spine, and looked straight at Kirk.
"I had to," She began.
"You had to commit mass murder?" Kirk cut across, his incredulous horror widening his eyes. "You've killed hundreds."
Hannah's gaze dropped and she pressed the phaser into her forehead, shaking her head slightly.
"Kirk, please. Just trust me," She choked out, her voice hoarse. She lifted her gaze back up to Kirk, her mouth opening to form a new apology, but it was cut short as she was snatched down, out of shot. Kirk pushed himself, stepping towards the screen, as though he could reach her. When Hannah reappeared, it was with a knife pressed into her throat, her phaser gone. A small bead of red appeared at the tip of the knife. The Captain of the Klingon ship, Koloth, grasped her upper arm tightly.
"Kill her and you have no leverage," Kirk said quickly.
"We are not here to negotiate, Star Fleet," Koloth spat the final words out like an insult. "You threatened Qu'noS. This is war." He stared down the frozen Captain, his blade digging into Hannah's throat slightly further. Despite the growing cut on her throat, Hannah rolled her eyes, and spoke. A slight reverberation echoed in her voice which had not been there earlier.
"You done fucked up," She laughed coldly. Koloth grasped her arm tighter, dragging her backwards as if to assert his authority further. "One, your ship is going to plough through every other Klingon ship it finds, until the shields fail and we explode into beautiful little shards of metal and flesh." Kirk's eyes grew wider as Hannah spoke, a true horror building in his stomach. Behind him, Spock's eyebrow's squeezed together. His fingers flew over the keys, and the readings on the console seemed to confuse him. Koloth merely snarled at her. "And two, if you're going to hold someone at knife point…" Hannah used her free arm to pull a phaser out of his holster, and shot Koloth in the foot. He let out a primal scream and fell. Hannah kicked the knife away from Koloth's reach and placed a foot on his chest, the phaser pointed at his head. Her face was neutral, the line of red on her throat dripping down a torrential path towards her chest. Not looking away from Koloth, Hannah asked Kirk to enter a code into their systems.
"Why should I do anything you ask?" Kirk demanded, his horror etching his voice. Hannah turned her head over her shoulder and looked at him. For the first time, he could see a genuine fear in her face. Her jaw was taunt, tension held in her very soul.
"Just, just do it." Her hand twitched on the trigger, and she turned back to Koloth. She grasped the phaser firmly and swung it at his head. A loud crack resounded around the Bridge and he crumpled.
Spock convinced Kirk to act on Hannah's wishes, his calm, cold logic breaking through to Kirk. Sulu entered the code, and everyone waited for the ship to explode.
For a slight second, the lights flickered. All systems shut down, and then sprung back to life again.
Sulu blinked and tapped on the console, frowning.
"She's reconfigured our shields, and rebooted our systems, but I don't understand…" He trailed off. "They're gone."
"What." It almost wasn't a question. Kirk's voice was flat, and unemotional. Sulu frowned, his fingers flying across the screen. Spock spoke for him;
"The Klingon ships moved to warp. Their trajectory suggests they are returning to Qu'noS," He answered. Kirk sat back in his chair, and buried his face in his hands.
"Can anyone explain what happened?" He asked, his voice muffled by his hands. No one answered for a second, then Spock spoke again.
"I believe we were 'hacked'." The term seemed painful to him. Spock glanced down at the screen. "She somehow gained access to all the Klingon's ships and manipulated the sensors along with their weapons and warp cores. Which explains why we received a reading of only one life form on the ship, when she was not alone."
Kirk did not lift his head out of his hands.
"You've lost me again." He muttered, staring down at the floor. The thought of all that death spiralled around in his mind. Somehow, this seemed worse than had the Enterprise destroyed each of the ships. It seemed more personal, more cruel.
The Med Bay was greeted by a bleeding, disaster of a woman, as the lights flickered out. Hannah stumbled forwards, and grasped hold of McCoy's arm.
"Good god woman, what happened to you?" He spluttered. Hannah glanced up at him.
"I was stabbed, and I killed someone. You missed all the fun, Leonard," She answered flatly. She struggled to lower herself on to the bed, and smothered a yelp as she sat down, pulling the t-shirt over her head. A gaping wound greeted McCoy with a smile. It wasn't long, but it was very deep. He could see the blood still pushing its way out of her, her lower abdomen stained a deep crimson. Hannah pushed a hand on to the wound, trying to stem the flow of blood as her vision crumpled away to darkness at the edges. She grasped out a hand, and caught McCoy by the wrist:
"Please, don't tell Kirk that I'm here. Not yet," She begged. He stopped in his tracks, and looked back at the failing figure, struggling to stay upright. He pushed her back on to the bed, and made her the promise he knew he almost certainly would not keep. Hannah let herself sink downwards on to the bed, her vision finally caving into the blackness that threatened to engulf her whole.