Time had run out.
Radiological alarms were sounding throughout the ship, there were reports of hull breaches on nearly every deck, and Lieutenant Commander Kelby was fighting a losing battle in Engineering. Enterprise was dying.
And it was all Commander Tucker's fault.
From the damage control station on the bridge, Chief Petty Officer Mikhail Rostov had a bird's eye view of the ship's impending demise. In the minutes before they entered the asteroid belt, the Romulans had unleashed an unprecedented assault, blasting away with their disruptor cannons and staggering their torpedo runs so it seemed that there was always an incoming warhead. Lieutenants Mayweather and Sato did the best they could, dodging or jamming the torps, even as Lieutenant Commander Reed tried to keep the Romulans off of them with weapons fire. So far, it had worked.
So far.
But it was still Tucker's fault they were all going to die.
Logically, Rostov knew it didn't make any sense to blame someone who wasn't even aboard - let alone someone who may or may not be dead - but the superstitious Russian in him insisted on pointing to the two hundred plus years of family precedence. An immutable law had been passed down through the generations since the first Rostov sailor shipped off to the Russo-Sino War: no one is safe if the engineer is absent.
It sounded like a bunch of nonsense to those who had not grown up with the stories, those that didn't know about the Rostov who survived the destruction of the Krazny Oktyabr because the engineer sacrificed himself, or the Rostov who perished with all hands aboard the Alexsandr Kerensky because the engineer was summoned to Moscow, or the Rostov who narrowly survived when Khan Noonian Singh seized the Botany Bay, again thanks to the efforts of the engineer.Anna had laughed at him when he tried to explain it to her years ago, had told him to stop being such a gloomy Russian pessimist, and he'd dropped it for her sake. Hess still teased him about it in their infrequent correspondence even though he hadn't mentioned it for a very long time.
That didn't stop him from believing it.
"Evasive pattern delta!" Captain Archer snapped and Michael - he preferred that to his birth name - felt the deck shift under him;Enterprise began spinning along its horizontal axis as she dove deeper into the field. The hollow clang of small rocks impacting along the hull rang throughout the ship and something - a torpedo, it looked like - streaked past the saucer section, smashing into a large asteroid with a titanic explosion that shattered the stellar rock. Impossibly, Mayweather aimed Enterprise at that very spot; only a completely insane pilot - or a Boomer, which was to same the same thing - would even try to squeeze a ship the size of Enterprise through such a tiny (in a galactic sense) space. Rostov felt himself tensing for the inevitable crunch of metal against rock, waited for the sudden hiss that would precede explosive decompression.
"Chyort voz'mi," he muttered in his native tongue, wincing as Enterprise slipped between the cracks of the fracturing stellar rock. Collision alarms didn't sound, the hull didn't snap under the pressure, Mayweather didn't even scrape the paint - what little of it remained. They were alive.
For now.
He knew that he should be amazed at his complete lack of fear, his lack of concern about the miserable death that was sure to come, but something he had heard once kept drifting into his memory: "Fear accompanies the possibility of death; calm shepherds its certainty." And Michael was certain that he was going to die.
Because the damned Chief Engineer wasn't aboard.
"Got you!" Commander Reed suddenly snarled and stabbed his finger at his console. Rostov felt Enterprise shudder with the distinctive feel of torpedoes being launched. On the viewscreen, he could see the result of the British tactical officer's shot: the torpedoes flashed into the asteroid field, seemingly aimed at nothing, until one of the Romulan ships suddenly appeared from behind a hulking asteroid, clearly maneuvering to flank Enterprise. The first of the torps was a direct hit, smashing into what appeared to be a nacelle with a fierce flash that shredded armor and power plant alike; the second warhead hammered into the asteroid itself, detonating with horrific force. Huge chunks of debris were sent flying into the already wounded craft, punching into the hull and sending the smaller craft tumbling into another of the immense rocks. It was instantly consumed by a brilliant fireball.
Michael drew a deep breath and waited for the other shoe to drop.
The other two Romulan ships retaliated almost at once, diving forward with disruptor cannons barking fire before again slipping behind cover. With jarring force, the attacks slammed into the hull plating of the saucer section, melting through the protective armor and puncturing the superstructure. Even as the hull breach alarms were sounding yet again and Rostov was calmly directing damage control parties to the appropriate locations, he heard a sound on the bridge that was out of place. It was a hum that was rapidly growing louder, an electrical hum that sounded suspiciously like...
Captain Archer moved before Michael had fully comprehended what the sound was, lunging across the bridge in three rapid leaping steps to seize the oblivious Lieutenant Sato and pull her from the Science board; completely focused on her sensor viewfinder, she momentarily resisted, startled at his unexpected action.
A fraction of a second after the captain grabbed her, the panels behind the Science board exploded.
It threw them both across the bridge: Archer hit the rail behind his command chair with bone crushing force, knocking it free from the deck with his impact, even as Sato was sent spinning over the Science board itself. Both crumpled into unmoving heaps and for a single, extended moment, silence reigned over the bridge.
The other shoe had officially dropped.
Lieutenant Mayweather had already started to move from his console when Reed's voice cracked over him like a whip, froze him in place.
"Stop!" Mayweather shot him a stunned look. "Stay at your station, Lieutenant!" The tactical officer's voice was stern, demanding absolute obedience.
"But sir-"
"Full evasive; take us deeper into the field!" Reed's eyes touched the unmoving bodies of the two officers for the briefest of seconds and Rostov could almost see the hint of regret lurking there before his officer's mask of absolute control fell into place. "You have your orders, Lieutenant!" With the flick of his wrist, Michael changed the frequency of his board's comm from Damage Control to Sickbay.
"Medical emergency on the bridge." The comm chirped, indicating Phlox's acknowledgment of the summons and Commander Reed gave Rostov a tight smile, his eyes never wavering from his board even as he triggered another burst of phase cannon fire. It was a perfectly placed shot, missing the Romulan craft by mere meters but burning into a nearby asteroid with impressively subtle results; debris exploded outward and the ship went into a steep dive to avoid the sudden danger of tumbling rocks.
The Romulan didn't see the torpedo before smashed into its aft.
It was a thing of sublime beauty, like making an impossible quadruple bank shot that culminated in sinking the eight ball in the corner pocket. The fire that bloomed around the engine of the Romulan craft was immediately gratifying, a sudden eruption of flame and atmosphere that sent the smaller ship reeling away from Enterprise.
As the wounded craft began limping away - on maneuvering thrusters alone it appeared - the fourth Romulan roared back into view. Dipping up and over an immense asteroid pockmarked with impact craters, it spat fire; sizzling streams of pure energy lanced out, carving a jagged scar across Enterprise's hull. Each blast was precisely aimed, slashing through phase cannon ports or searing into missile tubes; explosions ravaged Enterprise as a torpedo - loaded and armed - prematurely detonated, its warhead ignited by the scorching heat of the disruptor beams. Like a wounded bird, the Starfleet vessel shuddered and spiraled deeper into the field; damaged maneuvering jets functioned erratically or not at all as Lieutenant Mayweather struggled with his console, fought to regain control. Sensing their distress, the Romulan once more abandoned cover long enough to fire another photonic torpedo. The warhead streaked through the asteroid belt toward Enterprise and Rostov knew it wouldn't miss; from Commander Reed's shout into the intraship comms, he knew it too.
"Brace for impact!"
Unerringly accurate, the incoming torpedo smashed into the already damaged port nacelle. It exploded instantly, a violent eruption of searing fire that ignited the already leaking warp plasma and tore the nacelle apart with an even brighter detonation. Huge chunks of polarized metal were sent spinning off into the darkness, some still alight and burning as they tumbled into the stellar rock of the asteroid belt or into Enterprise herself. Mayweather snarled a curse as the already difficult task of regaining control became a nearly impossible one. The bridge was suddenly alight with alarms and explosions and fires as systems failed catastrophically.
A flashed blinded Rostov and something suddenly crashed against him, hammering into his body like the fist of God itself and hurling him backwards. He felt himself hit something hard and the bridge tilted around wildly, as if it were spinning like a merry-go-round or one of those Ferris wheels that Hess liked so much. His vision swam out of focus as he felt the impact of hitting the deck; oblivion surged up around him but he tried to fight it, struggled to cling to consciousness even as he felt himself sliding away. This is all Tucker's fault, a strangely lucid part of his mind whispered as he fell into darkness.
In that hazy moment before he lost all reason, he wondered if he would ever wake.
