Lydana stared at the starscape on the viewscreen, sighing in exasperation as she kneaded her temples.

"What do you mean, 'there's nothing there'?"

"Just that, sir," replied the officer at the Ops station, "there isn't anything there. Just a few fragments of ship debris and some organic matter from the Romulans who were on board."

"That's it?" she snapped, storming around the bridge to Ops, "nothing else? Nothing that can tie the Romulan Star Empire to this mess, or that tells us what is actually going on here?"

"I would remind you, sir," the Ops officer said, his voice dripping with condescending scorn, "that there is generally very little left after a warp core breach."

"And I would remind you, Ensign, that regardless of your feelings on the matter I am still the senior officer and captain of this ship, and you will address me with the respect due my rank."

She knew she had to show some backbone in front of the crew, but she was always worried with how much was 'too much'. Not enough, and the crew loses faith in her ability to lead. Too much, and the crew considers her too harsh, no doubt citing her youth and inexperience as valid reasons to get her thrown off the ship. She may have been thrown into the captain's chair, but she refused to let go of it without a fight. Admiral Quinn needed her to succeed - she was determined to make sure his faith in her was not misplaced.

The Ops officer glared at her, undisguised hate burning in his eyes, and she could tell he wanted to say something more, to take the matter further.

"Sir," he growled, before diverting his attention back to the console in front of him.

Almost immediately, the console emitted a warning tone, and the officer frowned at the readout.

"I'm picking up some unusual tetryon fluctuations," he said, adding "sir" almost as an afterthought, and Lydana frowned in sympathetic confusion.

"Tetryon fluctuations?" she muttered to herself, and her eyes suddenly widened in horror.

"Oh hell...raise shields, go to red alert!"

The alert siren begun sounding at almost the exact same moment as an immense Romulan warbird shimmered into existence, a terrifyingly short distance away and appearing to stare directly at the Steadfast.

"That...is a breathtakingly large ship," Lydana said, her voice scarcely above a whisper.

"It...it's a R-Romulan..." the Ops officer cleared his throat and tried again, without looking at the massive ship ahead of them. "It's...a D'deridex-class battlecruiser, sir."

"I can see that," she muttered, by contrast not daring to look away from the huge ship. "Is it powering weapons?"

"N-not yet, sir."

"It's hailing us," the Comm officer called, and Lydana straightened up as best she could. She swallowed twice, and eventually the lump in her throat disappeared, but she knew she was bordering on having another panic attack.

"Onscreen," she said at last.

When the screen lit with the form of the Romulan ship's captain, the first thing Lydana noticed was his uniform. Unlike the plain, functional uniform worn by S'vae - and, no doubt, the rest of the Republic's soldiers - this man was wearing an ostentatious uniform, bedecked with all kinds of adornments and even a cloak of deep, arterial crimson. Although his expression seemed more amused than S'Vae's did, his eyes held none of her compassion, and the young Bajoran instantly knew this was an altogether different kind of officer.

"I am Commander Vekaan of the Imperial Romulan Warship D'kala, with whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?"

"Well he seems polite enough," murmured a familiar voice behind her, and Lydana felt vastly reassured at the renewed presence of her friend at Tactical.

"I am Lieutenant Kassai Lydana, captain of the Federation Starship Steadfast," she announced as calmly as she could, but despite her efforts her voice still trembled slightly. She was certain Vekaan smiled coldly at the tremor.

"As you will no doubt be aware, captain-" he made the title an insult, clearly dismissing her rank as little more than a joke - "a distress call was sent by one of our people from this area. Now I arrive here, and find no trace of my brothers and sisters but a Federation starship sniffing about their remains. What am I to make of that, do you think?"

His tone had been conversational, even jovial at the start, but had grown colder as he spoke. Now, Lydana was quite sure that he intended to attack, no matter what the outcome of their conversation.

"I don't know sir," she answered frankly. "We investigated the same distress call, to find Romulan officers had 'commandeered' a Federation vessel. What am I to make of that, do you think?"

All pretense of civility drained from the commander's expression, and he glared at Lydana with a look that promised violence.

"You intrude upon affairs you know nothing of, child," he sneered, and Lydana rolled her eyes. She was getting tired of being called that. "You also have one of my people prisoner. I will see him returned, or you will be destroyed."

"We are treating his injuries, commander, after which he will be taken to the nearest Federation starbase to answer for his crimes."

"You will return him to us, or your ship will take the place of the one he 'commandeered'," Vekaan demanded.

"Oh, so it was taken for a purpose then," Lydana offered, catching him off-guard. "Care to elaborate on what that purpose was?"

Vekaan's expression stiffened, and he stabbed at his console angrily, ending the transmission.

"Guess he didn't," Elisa joked, but Lydana was not in a joking mood.

"T'Vrell," she called, not looking away from the blank screen, "I need to record a message."

"To whom, sir?"

"Anyone in range," she said sadly. "Anyone who has the means to hear it."

"Ready, sir."

Lydana took a deep breath, expecting the attacks to begin at any moment, and began her message.

"This is Lieutenant Kassai Lydana, of the USS Steadfast, to any vessel in range. We are about to engage forces I believe are affiliated with the Tal Shiar, and I am requesting reinforcements. If no help reaches us in time...then I ask anyone who receives this to resume what we started. I believe the Tal Shiar are planning something, something which requires the use of a Federation vessel, and if I do not survive then it is likely they have taken mine for their purpose."

The ship shuddered violently, and Lydana heaved a heavy sigh.

"They have begun their attack. I beg you, come to our aid...or avenge our deaths."

She looked at T'Vrell, as the ship shuddered again.

"Send that along with all the sensor data we've acquired so far on this investigation," she ordered, before dropping into the captain's chair. "Anne, evasive manoeuvres. Elisa...lock phasers and return fire."


The tiny, aging little ship dodged, dove and rolled, and yet it seemed it was flying into the Warbird's shots rather than avoiding them.

A fresh salvo of emerald beams raked the Steadfast's shields, causing several power conduits to overload and tear a hole in the side of the ship.

"We've got several hull breaches, sir!" someone shouted from Ops, but Lydana was too preoccupied to see who it was. "Decks four through nine are reporting casualties, emergency force-fields are holding for now."

More shots scored hits on the ship, and a bank of consoles at the rear of the bridge blew out. She knew it was only a matter of time before her bridge was bathed in flame, but she had to make things difficult for the Romulans somehow.

"Keep firing, Elisa!" she ordered, before she was forced to shield her eyes as another shot caused the main viewscreen to explode.

"It's no good, we aren't even denting their shields!"

Lydana wiped her brow, noticing her hand was wet with blood rather than sweat.

"Keep firing, Lise. Anne, try and keep us behind the Romulans, their weapons are mainly front-facing."

"So you did listen to me all those times I talked at you about these things, huh?"

Lydana smiled at the comment, remembering the times Elisa had droned on for ages about the impressive power of such massive ships. She'd been stunned by them, from a tactical officer's point of view, whereas Lydana had other interests.

"Only when you got to the bit about their singularity cores," she told her friend. "Those things are a scientific miracle, if a little unstable."

Her eyes widened as something suddenly occurred to her, and she raced around to Elisa's side as the ship shuddered again.

"Elisa, can this ship manage a sort of..overcharged phaser shot, from both banks at once?"

"Not without blowing out the emitter arrays, and they take a long time to repair," Elisa answered, and Lydana gave a curt nod.

"It'll do. Set it up, and at the same time ready a high-yield photon torpedo, the highest yield you can manage." Without giving her time to reply, Lydana moved on to T'Vrell's position.

"T'Vrell, I need you to prepare a tachyon beam from the deflector dish, so that we can force their shields to drain at least a little."

"I can certainly do that, sir," T'Vrell stated calmly, and Lydana grinned humourlessly.

"Great. Potter, get us to their backs."

"I'm trying sir, but they're compensating with some tricky moves of their own, and-" another salvo rocked the ship, and several wall panels erupted in a shower of sparks and debris. Something in the ceiling came loose and crashed to the floor, a burning mass of cables hitting the deck and burning the crewman caught underneath it.

"Engines are offline, sir!" Anne shouted, coughing through the smoke building up in the bridge.

"Environmental systems are struggling to scrub the smoke sir, and fire suppression systems are offline!"

"Fuck it," Lydana said viciously, "we do it now. T'Vrell, tachyon beam!"

"Engaging."

As the ship fired a beam of bright blue energy from its deflector dish, the Warbird's shields began to drop suddenly, and Elisa reported the fact to Lydana.

"Elisa, overcharge the phasers, both banks!"

A pair of blazing orange beams lanced out from the Steadfast's phaser emitters, burning through the Warbird's weakened shields with ease before the phaser banks finally erupted from the stress.

"High-yield torpedo!" Lydana called, and a second later, a new star was birthed as the gleaming projectile arced towards the massive warship. It slammed into the ship's port warp nacelle, which promptly detonated in a massive release of energy.

However, as damaging as it was, the vast ship was still there, as ominous and threatening as before.

"Sir...it's turning," Elisa stated, hands dancing over her console as she attempted to get any of her weapons to work.

"Potter, get us moving!" Lydana yelled, but her other classmate shook her head in defeat.

"Engines are still offline, sir, we're...we're dead in the water."

"Elisa, torpedoes!" Lydana shouted, but it was too late.

The immense ship finally brought its weapons to bear again, and opened up with a relentless disruptor barrage. The Steadfast's already weakened shields burst under the onslaught, the beams cutting deep into the smaller ship's hull.

Lydana covered her head as everything seemed to erupt around her, the helm console exploding and throwing Anne to the deck. A cry from behind her told her that the Tactical station had detonated as well, and she ran to her friend's side just as another chunk of the ceiling caved in and crushed the captain's chair.

"Lise!" she shouted, dropping to her knees as she checked Elisa's pulse. "She's still alive, emergency medkit, now!"

She caught the slim box that Yatsai tossed to her, pulling out the medical tricorder and assessing her friend's injuries.

"I can stabilise her, but she'll need to get to sickbay for full treatment," she stated, thankful that she'd studied in science and medical.

"Well, since today was going so well, I thought I'd offer some more bad news," Yatsai said. "Our shields are down, and we've got Romulans beaming aboard."

Lydana slapped her commbadge, and was relieved it when it made its usual chirp. At least the internal comms were still working.

"Kassai to all crew, prepare to repel boarders, I repeat prepare to repel boarders."

Lydana closed her eyes, fighting back the tears and the overwhelming feeling of hopelessness. She had come so far, and she had to keep fighting - for her crew, for the Admiral...for Elisa.

She fought for breath, something which wasn't being helped by the fires burning around her.

She could hear her bridge crew speaking, but she was oblivious to the words - all she could hear was failure, child, not good enough.

She fought against those thoughts, those words, and cast them to the back of her mind. There would be time to analyse her mistakes - no doubt in great detail - once she got her crew safely back home.

She swallowed once, cleared her mind and opened her eyes.

"Yatsai, Ash, pick up Ensign Flores and come with me. Make sure you have a phaser each. T'Vrell, stay at the Comm station, I need you to let me know the minute anyone replies to us, or if anyone turns up."

"Where are we going?" Yatsai asked, gently lifting the unconscious form of Elisa with Ash's help.

"First, we're taking her to sickbay," Lydana said firmly, "then we're going to kick the Romulans off my damned ship."


A/N: Well, I for one wouldn't want to be the Tal Shiar right now - seems like they've pushed poor Lydana just a little too far now! Hope you're still enjoying the story guys (or should that be singular? Seems like I only have one fan here at the moment...) and the next piece should be up soon!