Forest sat gloomily on the bridge of the USS Ptolemy, watching the screen as the minutes ticked down to the moment when he'd have to order the destruction of one of Starfleet's finest ships; along with any and all survivors still aboard.

He wondered if he'd end up being court martialed for it. And if he'd ever be able to sleep again.

"Five minutes, Sir."

"Thank you Mr Grant. Progress on retrieval of our crew?"

"Almost complete. No response from Mr Sotar to hails, and we're having trouble getting a lock on his com badge." Grant's voice was steady and impassive. At this point, no one doubted that they had no choice but to destroy the Higgs. Seven minutes, and she'd hit and probably destroy DS6. When he'd spoken to Martin a few minutes ago, it was only Forest's assurance that he'd act without hesitation that stopped Martin from ordering DS6 to open fire immediately.

"Life signs still aboard, Mr Grant?"

"Just over one hundred confirmed."

I'm about to murder a hundred people. "Thank you Mr Grant." Forest steeled himself. Then he stood and moved over to the tactical station. He wasn't about to order anyone else to do the deed. The lieutenant manning the console stood aside for him. Damn. I don't even remember his name. Too many crew changes recently, I can't keep up any more. Pashzto was still dealing with the alien nanite situation, which made things easier. If he knew her, she'd have insisted on sharing the responsibility.

It had been a long time since he'd manned a tactical station, but nothing had really changed. Review potential targets, select intended target, review nearby masses and their trajectories, confirm nothing will intersect the phaser shot... He noticed that the Recidivist was moving close above the Higgs' dorsal surface. There was something unsettling about the way it moved, as if thrust and inertia were irrelevant, as if it was tumbling in free-fall toward a gravity well that was always one step ahead of it. And maybe that was literally how their drive worked. Ensure shields are raised, balance shield and phaser power, double-check...

A brilliant blue flare erupted from the ventral surface of the Higgs, pulsing and flashing erratically.

"Sir! Higgs warp core ejected, impulse drive has shut down..."

It's tumbling. It must have fouled the ejection channel. It'll never reach safe distance before breaching. "Helm! Get us between the Higgs and her core immediately!" He was barely aware of diverting all the power he could to shields and inertial dampers. Without prompting Grant sounded an alert, and his voice sounded over ships comm; "Brace! Brace! Brace!"

On the viewscreen the Higgs seemed to hurtle toward them, and Forest had to grip the tactical console for support as the inertial dampers struggled to compensate for the aggressive acceleration. Then the blast from the exploding warp core hit. For a moment he was sure he'd be sent flying, as his head was pushed one way and his feet another. The tactical officer was knocked sideways and hit the deck, tucking into a ball and rolling. We've all had to learn how to survive rough manoeuvring. Too many fights gone bad. Forest could hear the helmsman swearing in a low-key litany as his fingers danced across his console, trying to stop the Ptolemy from being thrown against the Higgs. And then... everything went quiet. Gravity settled down, the various squeals of system alerts died down, and all he could hear was the quiet hum and subdued beeps of normal operation.

A second later everyone on the bridge started breathing again, and the normal soft murmur of crew managing the ship returned.

Forest glanced at the tactical console. Shields were at thirty percent. He nodded to the tactical officer, who was ruefully rubbing his shoulder. "Do you need medical attention?"

"No Sir, just a bruise."

"Very good." Forest returned to his command chair. "Status report, Mr Grant?"

"Reports coming through... Multiple reports of minor injuries, no reports of severe injuries... correction, medical status of several survivors from the Higgs have been downgraded to 'severe' or 'critical'. Minor damage reports, no critical systems."

"Thank you. Get a tractor beam on the Higgs, bring her into DS6, and re-dispatch first responder teams. And try to raise Commander Sotar."

"Yes sir. Ah. Signal received from Commander Sotar requesting he and one other be beamed directly to medical."

"Do so." Forest practically jumped to his feet. "Mr Grant, you have the bridge, I'll be in Medical."

"Aye Sir."

'In medical', as Forest soon found, had become a rather vague term. As he stepped out of the turbolift, he very nearly trod on a someone laying on a thin mattress in the corridor.

Given the survivors retrieved from the Higgs, as few as they were, outnumbered the crew of the Ptolemy more than three to one, space was a real problem, compounded by the need to quarantine those survivors contaminated with nanites, as the only place on the ship that could be shielded securely enough was the shuttle bay.

Did I over react to that? No. No, that was the right thing to do. Even if those nanites are designed to be harmless, who knows what they might do if they got into someone from a race they aren't designed for. No, best to keep them quarantined until we know what we're dealing with.

Forest cautiously picked his way between the patients laying on the floor towards Medical, trying to avoid the nurses and medical orderlies scurrying from patient to patient. At last he reached Medical itself and found it to be a scene of controlled chaos. The sound of a dozen urgent conversations, with the occasional shouts for emergency assistance, the squealing of alarms and beeping of equipment created a confusing cacophony.

Over the hubbub he heard "Calling it, time of death 15:12." He glanced that way, and with a sense of dread saw a small group clustered around a diagnostic table with a blue-skinned figure lying on it. Then, as they dispersed, he felt a sense of guilty relief as he saw it was an elderly male Andorian. A big man with a scarred face, in a nurse's uniform, carefully gathered the Andorian into his arms and carried him out of Medical.

For a couple of minutes Forest stood and watched the medical crew as they rushed about, before realising that the captain of the ship just didn't cross their threshold of matters important enough to require attention. He watched for a moment more, identified someone who seemed to be moving with a bit less urgency, and intercepted the orderly.

"Orderly... Frost. Status and location of Commander Sotar and Lieutenant Trathal?"

"Oh! Err..." She glanced at her pad. "Lieutenant Trathal has received treatment and is heavily sedated in recovery and observation on this deck in corridor two section D. Commander Sotar is... just a moment... receiving treatment in the dressing station on deck three, corridor four section A. Is that all?"

As the orderly was already sidling away, glancing anxiously at a doctor who was glaring at her, Forest nodded and let her go.

He went to check on Trathal as she was closest, but regretted doing so. The gravity in the corridor she was in had been turned as low as possible without interfering with the work of the medical team. At first he couldn't see Trathal, and had to cast about checking names that had been hastily scrawled, with medical notes, on the walls above each patient. When he did find her, her realised he'd already passed her twice. She was almost unrecognisable. Her skin was puffy and several shades darker than it should have been, with mottled blotches. Her eyes, lips and nose were swollen, as if she'd been brutally beaten to within an inch of her life. The note on the wall, along with a string of medical observation readings and medications given, was "Spacial distortion injury. Systemic contusions incl. cerebral. 5 min obs, incl. Brain funct'n. Maintain sedation."

Forest stood over her helplessly until a nurse came over and started doing observations. "Will she be alright?"

The nurse looked up at him, then shrugged. "She should be. No more violent manoeuvres would help." She turned back to her work. Forest turned away miserably.

It's true what they say. There's no situation so horrible that you can't add some guilt to it to make it even worse. He knew that wasn't really the case, but as the captain of the ship, it usually felt that way. He went off to find Commander Sotar.

"And turn your head. Hm. Not too bad. Might need a bit of work to make that ear pretty again."

"The aesthetic qualities of my ears are of no consequence."

"Riiight. And hold your hand out, fingers spread... now palm up..."

Forest found Sotar seated on a stool with his shirt off. He appeared to have extensive angry red patches on his arms and the sides of his head which a nurse, who appeared to be Vulcan, was carefully spraying with a layer of clear fluid that dried to form a shiny protective layer. Some large patches of Sotar's hair had been lost or removed.

"Commander! Are your injuries severe?!"

Sotar started to turn his head toward him and the nurse snapped. "Keep still, I'm not finished!"

She glanced over at Forest with a disapproving expression, then went back to treating Sotar. "He's got an electrical burn on his scalp from climbing through a turbolift shaft while there was still live charge, and a gash on his arm from falling down the shaft when a ladder collapsed. He's got extensive shallow superficial burns from rushing into a hostile environment before it was made safe, and limited second degree burns from carrying two casualties who were wearing scalding-hot body armour. Oh, and the damn fool's also got a radiation dose." She glanced at her pad, and said, "Speaking of which, time for your next dose. Stand up and drop them."

Forest stared at her. She looked Vulcan, but she certainly didn't act it. She... she can't be Romulan. Can she?

Sotar stood and lowered his trousers to mid thigh, and the nurse quickly applied a hypospray to his buttock. "Ok, all done."

"Ahem. Will he be alright?"

"Oh, he'll be fine. The radiation might kill a human, but being a full Vulcan he'd probably shrug it off even without treatment. Best to be sure, though." She handed a couple of disposable hyposprays to Sotar. "Alright, you can go back to your quarters. Use these after sixty and one twenty minutes, and rest for the next twelve hours. Come back to see a doctor before resuming your duties."

That was for my benefit. Sotar would probably be back in engineering within the hour if it was up to him. "Thank you, Nurse...?"

"Kelly."

"Err... really?"

She rolled her eyes. "Nurse Susan Kelly of the USS Higgs. One quarter Vulcan, three quarters Human, and no patience for the whole self-flagellating repression thing Vulcans have going on."

Sotar's (rather singed) eyebrows dropped fractionally. He clearly disapproved. "It would be highly advisable if you were to..."

"Strongly disagree. Captain, please order him to rest." Her comm badge started chiming urgently. "Sorry, got to go, emergency!" She bustled off.

Sotar turned to him, wincing slightly. "Captain, I assure you that I am fit for light duties."

Forest smiled wryly. "Sorry, I must abide by the medical advice you've been given. You're to rest. I'll accompany to your quarters to make sure you actually go there." He glanced round to make sure the redoubtable Nurse Kelly was out of earshot. "And on the way you can tell me what happened on the Higgs."

As it was, they hadn't even reached the turbolift when Forest's own comm badge chimed.

"Forest here."

"Captain, Doctor Mathis here. Captain Chen of the USS Higgs has recovered consciousness and is asking to speak to you immediately. I think this is important, he insists he must speak directly to you. He's in main Medical."

"On my way." Forest looked at Sotar. "I'm sorry, your account will have to wait. But tell me, do you know what became of Commander Shepard and her people?"

"The Commander, her XO and her chief engineer were also injured when the Higgs' warp core was ejected, due to failure of the safety fields. However, they were recovering rapidly and declined to be beamed off. They were going to try and locate a shuttle and a crew-member who could pilot it to the ARS Recidivist."

Forest pulled a face. Of course they were recovering. They're probably swimming in nanites! "Very good. Thank you Mr Sotar. Return to your quarters and rest, that's an order."

"An order you have already given me. To repeat it is merely inefficient..."

Forest hurried off without bothering to respond.

"Captain Chen?"

The captain of the Higgs seemed to be soundly asleep, despite the noisy activity around him, but when Forest said his name his eye's fluttered open. For a moment he seemed to have difficulty focusing on Forest's face – then Forest realised he was checking his pips. He smiled and closed his eyes, then spoke.

"Captain. Thank you for coming to our aid. Forgive me for not standing."

"That's quite all right. You asked to see me?"

"Mm. We need privacy for this."

Forest looked round helplessly at the medics hurrying about all around them, sometimes little more than inches away. "Ah. I'll see what I can do..." He caught an orderly's attention. "Can Captain Chen be moved somewhere quieter?"

The orderly looked slightly panicky, and glanced toward Mathis who, looking up from the ensign he was operating on, shook his head. "I'm sorry Sir, we need to keep him here for close monitoring."

"I understand. Please set up an audio isolation field then."

"Err... yes Captain. I'll just check... um. Aye Sir."

The orderly looked around, hurried over to a technician and, after a brief conversation between them, the sound around Chen's biobed muted to a distant murmur.

Forest looked back at Chen, who seemed to have fallen asleep. "Er... Captain?"

Chen's eyes opened slowly again. He looked at Forest vaguely. "Where...? Ah. Sorry. Thank you for coming, Captain. Are..." He looked around, starting to seem a little more alert. "Do we have privacy?"

"I've had an audio isolation field set up. It's the best we can do for now."

"I understand. Captain, I'm having difficulty concentrating. Please bear with me, and listen carefully."

Chen fell silent for a moment, and Forest was afraid he had drifted off again, but then he started speaking slowly and carefully.

"I was in command of the USS Higgs. We had sustained minor damage, and were heading to... I forget. A low rated repair facility... Ah. No. To Deep Space 6, a neutral zone monitoring station refitted for minor repairs.

"Our long range scanners detected a significant Dominion attack force. A Dominion battleship with seven support fighters. They were on a direct course to DS6." He paused, frowning slightly. "I decided... ah. Yes. They were at low warp, masking their warp signatures. I decided that if we signalled DS6 they would simply go to full warp. We wouldn't be able to intercept. We approached at high warp, using the..." He paused again, sighed. "Using the emissions of a... protostar?"

"That sounds right, if you were in the Corynix nebula."

Chen looked relieved. "Thank you. Yes. Using a protostar to mask our approach. We engaged, then broke off. Headed deeper into the nebula. I hoped..." He sighed again. "I hoped to draw them away from DS6, then lose them. I was a fool."

"Not a fool, Captain!" Forest protested. "That was a sound plan."

Chen looked at him with an expression of dull anger. "Don't patronise me. I should have known..." He lifted a trembling hand and passed it wearily over his face. "They had spread out wide to avoid detection. There were other fighters already deeper in the nebula. They intercepted us. We took damage, our communications knocked out. We couldn't shake them, and the battleship was closing. I ordered my First officer to the battle bridge, in case... In case the main bridge took a hit."

He stared up at the ceiling, tears slowly leaking from the corners of his eyes.

"That's all I remember. Please leave. I'm very... No. Wait. If DS6 hasn't already been attacked, it soon will be. Please try and warn them. They may be able to evacuate. At least some people."

Forest stared at him in silent dismay. He doesn't know where we are. Chen suddenly looked at him anxiously, and the steady beeping from the monitors on his biobed began to sound faster and higher pitched. "Captain. Please. Tell me DS6 hasn't already been destroyed!"

"It's alright. I was in contact with them... not long ago. I will certainly send them an urgent warning."

Chen slowly relaxed. "Thank you. I... I need to rest." He closed his eyes.

Forest moved out of the isolation field, caught Mathis' eye and nodded, then headed back to the bridge. As soon as he was in the comparative privacy of the turbolift, he called Grant.

"Mr. Grant, patch me through to DS6 urgently. We have an emergency situation."

"Another one Sir?"

"Yes. Another one."

"Well what a jolly time we're having today!"

Martin leant back in his chair and looked around the rest of them with a bright, sarcastic smile on his face.

Forest suppressed a grimace. Martin's always difficult when he gets in these moods. He tapped on the conference room table to get Martin's attention. "So it's true?"

"Oh, absolutely. We redirected our passive sensor array, didn't want to give the game away by active scanning them, and there they are! One Jem'Hadar battleship with a twelve strong fighter escort."

"How long?" Xah's tone was clipped and her expression tense.

Martin glanced down at his pad, tapped it, then looked up brightly. "At their full speed, about... ooh, ten minutes?"

"What?!"

"Probably a lot less, in reality, We've only seen their battleships doing warp four point seven, but I'm betting they can go faster if they really want to. Oh, at the moment they're pootling along at minimum, barely warp two, trying to sneak up on us. It would have worked, too, if it hadn't been for Captain Chen's warning. At their present speed they're about four hours away. A bit more. But the moment they decide they're close enough to catch us flat footed, or spot something that tells them we've seen them..." Martin spread his hands helplessly.

"But we can evacuate, surely?" The DS6 chief engineer, Johansson, was pale and sweaty.

Forest shook his head. "The Ptolemy life support is already under strain with the evacuees from the Higgs. I had expected we would offload most of them here. Even between ourselves and the Zhang Qian, I doubt we could take off more than... a third of the DS6 personnel?" He looked enquiringly at Captain Nachanda of the Zhang Qian.

Nachanda pursed her lips thoughtfully, then slowly shook her head. "A little more, maybe. We are under our usual complement. But only a little." She looked around, assessing everyone's expressions. "I think we have no choice but to try and defend..."

There was a loud bang as Martin slammed his hand on the table. "Of course you have a choice!" He wasn't looking sarcastically amused now; he was seething with anger. "You and Rupert pile as many people on your ships as you can fit and then you run for it!" He subsided a little, then said in lower tones; "The rest of us will defend as long as we can, then self destruct."

"No! Martin, I can't abandon the better part of five hundred people to die!"

"Of course you can." That bright, brittle, dangerous smile was suddenly back on Martin's face. "I can talk you through the process if you want."

"What process is that?"

Forest hadn't even noticed the door slide open. He turned and stared as Shepard walked (a little stiffly) into the room, followed by her XO. Her face looked bruised and battered, but as if she'd been injured a week ago, not a few hours.

Martin's lips moved in a silent obscenity, then he stood. "Commander, didn't you get my message?"

"Yes. 'Retrieve your crew, shut off scanners, depart immediately at full speed to these coordinates.'" She lowered herself carefully onto a chair. "Clear as mud. Why?"

"Well? Commander?" Carew was looking at her with undisguised impatience. Shepard decided she preferred this side of him. The bland, slightly oily manner he'd mostly shown so far was gone. His summary of their situation had been almost brutally blunt.

# Dorot → Shepard # Would that work?

+ Shepard + It should. If the Dominion are passive scanning, the only thing they'll detect at that range are subspace fields. If we keep that FTL sensor grid offline, they'll never even see us leave.

# Dorot # And we won't see them until they hit us. We can't run fast enough. Those Federation ships will run, or be destroyed, and leave us standing. The Dominion will start active scanning, and we won't get past the Oort cloud.

"Commander, we should fight."

She twisted toward Dorot, staring at him in surprise. At what he'd said, and that he'd said it aloud. Is he trying to railroad me?

+ Shepard + Dorot, have you gone mad?

# Dorot # No, Commander. We have a chance. But not on our own. Not if we run.

+ Shepard + A chance. Against a ship that could shred an entire fleet in seconds. Never mind those fighters.

# Dorot # Now our Blackstar cannon is working, and we've got FTL scanners and torpedoes... Yes. A chance. But we've got to have those Federation ships fighting too.

"Commander, you're not seriously thinking of fighting, are you? Your shields are garbage and you know it!" In their previous meetings Carew had tactfully waited during her QEC discussions with her crew. Tact was clearly the last thing on his mind right now.

+ Shepard + And the first hit on us and we're finished!

# Dorot # They've got to hit us first.

+ Shepard + … You've worked this out with Reci?

# Dorot # I'm your tactical officer. That's my job.

+ Shepard + Fine. I'm going to trust you on this. Don't get us killed.

"Commander!" Carew looked as if he was about to explode, and the others were just staring blankly.

Shepard studied Forest and the captain of the Zhang Qian. Which way will they jump? She took a breath, tried to speak firmly and calmly. "Yes. We'll fight. Running isn't an option, not for us; not with so little warning. My Tactical Officer thinks we have a chance, and I trust his judgement. We'll offload our marines, they can help if the Dominion try to board this station."

"I agree." Ok, so Forest's an idiot. Good. What about that black skinned woman?

After a few seconds, the captain of the Zhang Qian nodded deliberately. "Agreed. The Zhang Qian will fight."

Carew looked round with a strange mixture of gratitude, exasperation and contempt. "Oh wonderful. So now everybody dies."

Dorot made a low, rumbling noise like a volcano about to erupt. It made Shepard's skin crawl, and she knew him. From their faces, it had more effect on the others. "I lived through the Reaper war, when the enemy was burning entire worlds. I intend to live through this."

His words seemed to have an oddly calming effect on Carew, who sat down. "Fine. Any suggestions on how we pull off this miracle?"

Forest leaned forward. "Is there any way we can use the Higgs?"

"What, to evacuate people?" Johansson had had his face in his hands for a while, but now he straightened up. He looked terrified, but resolved. "No. It's a deathtrap. I wouldn't even trust basic life support, and if we tried to restart the fusion reactors for impulse drive on the saucer they'd probably just explode."

"I was thinking as a distraction, something to draw the Dominion's fire. Or a fireship."

Carew looked thoughtful, though Shepard thought there was something... off about his expression. "Hmm. Interesting idea. I suppose that if we rigged the remaining antimatter pods to rupture on command, then used the DS6 tractor beams to push it in the Dominion's general direction, then maybe, just maybe, some of them would laugh themselves to death!"

Shepard knew it would upset Forest, but she couldn't help letting out a short bark of laughter, and even Dorot chuckled softly.

Carew looked surprised, then smiled thinly (while Forest just looked faintly peeved). "Any other suggestions?"

"You are certain of that?"

"Yes Captain. The nanites are not self replicating, and in all but the most severely injured patients they're are already migrating to the gut, breaking themselves down and being defecated."

Forest knew this was a conversation he should have been having in his ready room, but in the last minutes before they engaged the enemy there wasn't time.

"Thank you Doctor. Please inform Captain Carew, and if he agrees commence offloading those patients as well."

"Very good. Ah, Captain, some of those crew, and others who are mostly fit, have asked if they can be of use aboard."

"I'm sorry, but we don't have time to find roles for them." Forest paused, thinking of Nurse Kelly. "If you have any medical staff from the Higgs who can be of use without training or familiarisation, feel free to keep them. Otherwise transfer continues."

"Aye aye. Mathis out."

Forest glanced at the viewscreen, which was showing the feed from DS6's passive sensor array. The approaching Dominion ships showed up as simple glowing blobs, but there was no mistaking the battleship. And the fighters were drifting closer to it, forming up for the assault ahead. He could only pray they wouldn't attack before the defence was ready.

"Mr Grant, any change?"

"No Sir, the enemy remain at warp two, ETA twenty five minutes."

"Progress on offloading casualties from the Higgs to DS6?"

"Ninety five percent complete."

"Thank you." They'll be safer on DS6. It's shields are Galaxy class equivalent. For what that's worth... "Open channel to the Zhang Qian, Recidivist and DS6."

"Channel open."

"Captain Nachanda, is the Zhang Qian ready?"

"As we'll ever be."

"Commander Shepard?"

"Of course."

"Captain Carew?"

"Ready."

"Offloading complete, Captain."

"Very good. Captain Nachanda, on my mark, undock, lock tractors on the ARS Recidivist, and proceed in tandem at warp two to intercept co-ordinates."

"Confirmed."

"Helm, on my mark, undock, lock tractors on the ARS Recidivist, and proceed in tandem with the Zhang Qian at warp two to intercept co-ordinates."

"Sir."

"Recidivist, do you confirm?"

Forest thought he heard a weary, impatient sigh, then "Recidivist confirms."

Martin's voice cut in. "DS6 will raise shields and send out a distress call as soon as you're clear. No ships anywhere close, but might as well tick all the boxes."

"Understood." Forest dragged his sleeve across his forehead. Always sweat like a pig before combat. Can't look good to the crew. Oh well, it's now or never. "And... Mark!"

There was a soft clunk, a barely perceptible tremor as the Ptolemy disengaged from the station.

"Tractor beams engaged..." The Ptolemy started trembling faintly, a tremble that grew to a slow shudder. "... Sir, we're getting feedback on the tractor beam, amplitude increasing. Disengage?"

Damn! It's their element zero, it has to be! "Not yet. Engineering!"

"Commander Sotar here."

"Can you stabilise the tractor beam?"

"One moment Sir... Compensating."

The shuddering faded back to an uneasy tremble. Forest felt a vague sense of guilty relief. Sotar had been right, of course. He ought to be resting, but in combat, they had to operate at maximum capability, and he wasn't chief engineer for his man management skills.

"Thank you. Captain Nachanda, are you getting feedback on your tractor beam?"

"Yes, we should have it fixed soon... All good."

"Mr Sotar, are we safe to go to warp two?"

"Unknown. But worth the risk in the circumstances."

"Commander Shepard..."

"What's the delay, never had a rough ride before?"

"... Very well. Helm, synchronise with Zhang Qian and..."

"Captain!" That was Grant. "Dominion fighters have gone to high warp, battleship..."

"Helm, now! Mr Grant, scanners to full active mode."

"... is at warp 5."

The Ptolemy groaned as, along with the Zhang Qian, it tried to tow the Recidivist at warp speed. Only a second, that's all we need. The plan was to force the Dominion to engage at the limit of DS6's phaser range, let DS6 do as much damage as possible before the Dominion fighters got within range to return fire. Otherwise the fighters would keep DS6 from targeting the battleship, and once that came within range it would all be over. But if they could bring down the numbers of fighters...

Oh, who am I kidding. Martin's right, they'll go through us like meteors through cobwebs. The fighters alone will swarm us and DS6, they won't even need the battleship to catch up.

The shuddering groan died away as they reached the intercept point and cut tractor beams.

"Oof! Well that was exciting!" Shepard sounded as if she was enjoying herself.

"Mr Grant, ETA!"

"Five seconds."

Then something bizarre occurred.

As agreed, the Recidivist launched torpedoes, two waves of four. Shepard had been vague about their capability. Even when Johansson had told her that a head on torpedo attack against ships at warp would fail because the ships' navigational deflectors would just sweep them aside, she'd just looked at her XO for a few moments, then shrugged and said "That won't be a problem."

Now Forest began to get an inkling of how strange their technology was; and how much they'd kept hidden.

An instant after the torpedoes launched, already at a low warp speed, the brilliant flares of plasma thrusters appeared. Then, even as they accelerated to higher warp speeds, they did something that Forest thought was impossible. They began to spiral. It wasn't a neat, predictable spiral either, but an erratic course, constantly shifting in pitch and radius.

Polaron beams began stabbing out from the fighters, trying to destroy the torpedoes. Trying, but repeatedly missing. Their targeting systems can't cope. Nothing manoeuvres like that at warp. Still, the sheer number of beams from the twelve fighters did take down two of the torpedoes, even as the remainder began to swing wide, evading the fighters' navigational deflectors. Half the fighters dropped from warp and began to scatter, while the remainder pushed on.

Pashzto snapped "In range!"

"Tactical, target bearing 004 mark 01, fire phasers."

Their phasers stabbed out, hitting the fighter cleanly. "Target shields at..."

Then a torpedo found its mark. Forest came to his feet, staring as three closely grouped fighters were ripped to shreds, to confetti, burning away in a shower of brilliant sparks as fragments of matter met antimatter from the pulverised antimatter pods.

Pashzto missed a beat, then; "...at forty percent."

Forest dropped back into his seat, and then there was no time to react, no time to think. He'd been in enough fights that his commands, and the rapid flow of information from his crew, were unthinking and automatic.

"Helm, bearing 020 mark 05. Tactical, target bearing 037 mark 270, fire."

"Target crippled."

The ship shuddered. "Port shields at thirty percent." At least we got our shields upgraded for polaron weapons. Still weak, though.

He shuddered at the memory of the early months of the war, when they might as well have not had shields for all the good they did against the Dominion's polaron beams. Engagements with the Dominion then had been a matter of firing every photon torpedo they had, then desperately trying to engage at the very limits of their phaser range. No one went into a close quarters engagement with the Dominion even hoping to survive.

"Divert power from aft shields. Helm, bearing 195 mark 06. Target bearing 003 mark 20, fire."

"Sir, battleship destroyed!"

"What?! Never mind, I heard you."

The Ptolemy shuddered again, and Forest heard a crackling bang from behind him, and smelt burning. Someone called "Fire suppression active, no injuries, non-critical system."

"Helm, bearing 025 mark 80. Tactical..."

"Forward shields at fifteen..."

"FUUUCK!" The helmsman practically screamed as a fighter appeared filling the viewscreen, and the Ptolemy heaved as he simultaneously sent the ship in a hard pitch-and-turn, and used the navigational deflectors to try and shunt the fighter aside.

That wasn't ramming, what the hell just...

Then the Recidivist whirled past. It was sliding sideways, it's low power beam weapons firing continuously, tracking the fighter that had just blundered across the Ptolemy's path. The Recidivist's weapons may have been weak, but against an enemy whose shields were as good as down, they were enough. The fighter was pierced through, and then sliced almost in half. It exploded an instant later.

Was that fighter..? No. Jem'Hadar don't panic!

"Sir, Zhang Qian is taking damage!"

"Helm, bearing 172 mark 140. Tactical, target... 163 mark 102."

Even as the Ptolemy turned onto her new heading, Pashzto was firing on one of the fighters swarming the Zhang Qian. Then Forest wondered if the Jem'Hadar had been panicking. The Recidivist was moving fast! It was, just barely, over light speed much of the time, but even then it was manoeuvring... wildly. Forest had never seen anything like it. It didn't move like a starship, but like a twig in a tornado, spinning end over end regardless of it's heading, which itself looped and swerved unpredictably, or swinging around one of its ends like a pendulum. Or a club.

That erratic movement was the only reason they were still intact. Even as the Ptolemy headed toward the Zhang Qian, firing upon her attackers, Forest saw one of the fighters land a barely glancing shot on the Recidivist, more by accident than design. It may even have been a near miss, but as the polaron beam was spread and scattered by the Recidivist's shields (Barriers. They call them barriers) a swath of it's hull plating practically boiled away.

Then the Recidivist finished rotating so that it's length pointed straight at the Dominion ship, and an incandescent, actinic blue spark leapt across the gap between them.

The fighter exploded.

"A singularity!" Grant was practically shouting. "Captain, the Recidivist is firing singularities!"

Forest grunted. This is too much to think about. "Tactical, target bearing 018 mark..."

Another fighter exploded, the Recidivist's singularity going through its shields as if they weren't there. Serves them right, see how they like it!

"Belay that! Bearing 094 mark 110. Fire. Helm, bearing 021 mark..."

The Ptolemy heaved, and alarms started sounding.

"Aft shields are down!"

"Damage reports across all decks, non-critical."

"Helm, belay that! Bearing 101 mark 07! Tactical, divert all power to starboard shields! Target bearing 093 mark 02, fire!"

The Ptolemy's phasers hit the fighter cleanly. It's port shields must have failed, or nearly so, because it rotated on it's axis to show its starboard as it pitched hard and pulled away. Then Forest saw the Recidivist rotating to target the fighter. The fighter momentarily jumped to warp, leaping away from the Recidivist's line of fire.

That was a mistake, it's moved too far from us...

The fighter was hit by a long range shot from DS6, which punched straight through it.

That's at least seven fighters destroyed... Five left? Fewer?

"Captain, the Dominion forces are... withdrawing? Yes, they're withdrawing."

More Dominion fighters must have been destroyed than Forest had kept track of, because the viewscreen showed only two fighters retreating.

The helmsman half-turned toward Forest. "Sir, do we pursue?"

They're escaping to report. We should stop them... "Mr Grant, what state is the Zhang Qian in?"

"Zhang Qian is showing a hull breach, sealed by atmosphere fields; fires on three decks; loss of manoeuvrability..."

"Helm, hold position. Mr Grant, signal the Zhang Qian and find out... Bloody hell!"

As the escaping Dominion fighters approached the cloud of debris that must have been the destroyed battleship, a sudden flare of a plasma thruster emerged from the debris, cutting them off, spiralling toward them. An instant later one fighter was torn apart and the other went tumbling, its back broken, atmosphere and plasma boiling out of it.

Damn. Recidivist left a torpedo out there to stop them getting away. That's... brutal.

Forest stared at the image of the stricken fighter on the viewscreen. If they're not dead already they soon will be. He swallowed, suppressed the sudden urge to whoop in triumph. "Mr Grant, signal the Zhang Qian and ask what assistance they need."

We... won? Two light cruisers and a... whatever the Recidivist is... destroyed an entire Dominion attack force?

This is a dream. It must be. When do I wake up?

"Signals from Captain Nachanda... and Recidivist."

"Put Captain Nachanda on the main screen, tell Recidivist I'll speak to them shortly."

When Nachanda appeared on the screen, despite the evident damage to her bridge in the background, and the trickle of blood running down her face from a cut eyebrow, she was grinning like an idiot. "Forest! Tell me, did this really happen?"

Forest couldn't help letting a little of his own, rather hysterical relief show, starting to grin back at her. "I don't know. If I wake up tomorrow and I'm alive, I'll get back to you."

"Damn right!"

He pulled himself together. "Ahem. You've taken damage..."

"Yes, if you can beam over any medical and damage control crew you can spare I'd be in your debt."

"At once. Forest out." The viewscreen switched back to a view of stars. "Mr Grant, what is our own status?"

"Minor damage reports, no critical or structural damage. Minor injuries, nothing serious."

"Thank you. Arrange for Doctor Mathis and any medics he needs to beam over to the Zhang Qian, along with... two damage control teams. And please put the signal from the Recidivist through to my ready room. Commander Pashzto, you have the bridge."

Forest stood, and headed for his ready room. His legs felt rubbery, and he hoped he wasn't noticeably staggering. He paused, and looked back at the helmsman.

"Ensign Oesterreicher?

"Sir?"

"Good work. But please moderate your language on the bridge."

"Yes Sir. Sorry Sir."

Once in his ready room, Forest headed straight for the head and started retching violently. After a minute of dry heaves that left him with a headache and a sour taste in his mouth, he lurched to the sink and looked at himself in the mirror. Face grey and shiny with sweat, damp patches on his shirt. I'm a mess. Every time. I'm never getting used to combat. What must my officers think of me?

Wearily he got a clean shirt from the replicator, then sat down at his desk to speak to Shepard.

"Oof! Well that was exciting!"

Being towed into combat wasn't something Shepard was keen to do again. She used a biotic lift to sweep her spilled coffee into a waste chute and grabbed another from the dispenser on her desk. Ah, the privilege of command. A cup of shit coffee whenever I want. "Is everyone ok?"

"No injuries." Orilai's voice sounded flat and dreary.

Probably fretting over that little Andorian. She needs to get laid, if she can't concentrate on her job. And so what if she does get knocked up? It'd only be forty years max before she can be back in space. Not allowed to say any of that, of course, it would be 'insensitive'. Well I'm a military commander! Insensitive should be part of the job description! "Thank you, Chief. That includes Reci?"

"He shouldn't overuse his Blackstar cannon, there are some timing issues between first and second stages. We'll probably know more after a couple of test shots."

"We're going into live combat, Orilai..."

"Then he can do a couple of test shots at live targets. Reci, just keep the yield low and a full ten second delay between shots to clear residual charge."

Recidivist sighed heavily. "Yes, motherrr. Torpedoes away, and... second group, running them by remote on evasion courses... Hey, this is fun!"

Dorot's level voice cut in. "First wave for the fighters. Second for the battleship."

Shepard sat back and sipped her coffee, listening to the steady back and forth between Dorot and Recidivist. She always felt rather useless in ship combat. Once the fighting actually started, it was Dorot in charge; she just had to oversee, give Dorot any larger strategic instructions. And in a simple 'kill or be killed' fight, there weren't many of those.

Still, when one of the disruptor torpedoes took out three fighters in one go, she interrupted. "Reci, if you don't need all the torpedoes to take out the battleship, park any survivors in the debris field. Might be able surprise any rearguard coming to back them up."

"Hehe. Sneaky. I like!"

"Two fighters on the Ptolemy." Dorot made a vague 'tutting' sound. "The Federation ships might be tough, but they're as nimble as Elcor. Get... that one."

"Right! They won't know what hit 'em." A brief rising, pulsating groan throbbed through Recidivist, sounding as much through the structure as through the air, and then a heavy thud as the Blackstar cannon fired. "Bollocks! My cannon glitched!"

Orilai spoke up. Her earlier morose tone had disappeared, and her voice was sharp and focused. "On it. Don't fire again until I say."

"Beni, I promise, this has never happened to me before!"

"Don't worry, it happens to lots of ships."

Dorot grunted. "You took their shields down. Finish them off with point defence."

"Right! Hah, look at him run. I fucking love these FTL sensors, who needs boring old straight line plotters..."

"Back off, you're chasing them right into...!"

"Got him!"

Shepard started breathing again. "Recidivist, focus! You nearly took out the Ptolemy!"

"Er, oops."

Dorot sighed wearily. "The Zhang Qian's getting pasted, get over there. Take out... either of those two."

"Right. Heehee! Chief, that tickles!"

"Oh grow up. Right, you can try the Blackstar again."

"Thank youaarrGHH! OH YOU FUCKING SHIT! EAT THIS!...Ohhh yeaahhh, that's the good stuff!"

Shepard bit her tongue. Let Dorot handle this. Dorot's low growl left no doubt what he thought of Recidivist's performance. "What did I tell you ten minutes ago?"

Recidivist sounded embarrassed and sulky. "My barriers are garbage and I know it."

"So?"

"So I mustn't get hit."

"Then Don't. Get. HIT!"

There was a long pause while Recidivist silently took out another fighter.

Shepard frowned. "Dorot, did those last two have low shields?"

"Hm. No. Almost full."

"Huh. Okay. Orilai, is Reci badly damaged?"

"He's lost some ablative armour. But I'm afraid his ego may need a complete overhaul."

Shepard tried to ignore Orilai's muffled laughter and Recidivist's sotto voce grumbling. "Not my fault... can't magic myself out of the way..."

Oh goddess, I'm not commanding a military unit, it's a fucking clown car!

For a moment a fighter jumped to a stupidly high FTL as Recidivist targeted it, and was almost instantly destroyed by the station.

Dorot muttered "They're learning. You can use this, disrupt their formations by targeting them."

"Yeah, yeah, 'an assist is as valuable as a kill' and other crap... Oh. They're running. Hah! They're running! Suck my dick, you fucking cowards! Hey, Beni, I've still got a torpedo out there, where you said. Can I...?"

"Yeah, we don't want them reporting what happened here."

"Heee! And... Gotcha! Ahhh, that feels gooood."

Shepard looked over at Dorot, who rolled his eyes. She shrugged helplessly. At least he's better than I used to be. He's an arrogant, vain sociopath with almost zero respect for authority, but at least he isn't spending all his time trying to destroy himself and everyone around him.

She stretched. "Ok, that went better than I thought it would. And my coffee isn't even cold! Thanks Dorot, you were right. Orilai, nice work on the cannon, thanks to you and your team.

"Reci, not bad, but you need to calm down and concentrate. You got lucky."

"... yeah. Sorry. Thanks, Chief. Dorot."

Shepard finished her coffee and tossed the cup in the trash. "Take us back to DS6, I'm not going to have them haul us there. Ptolemy can help out the Zhang Qian. Ah, but put me through to Forest." She grinned. "I want to see his face when he has to admit we saved their collective asses."

Codex

Blackstar

The Blackstar weapon technology was first encountered in the form of a battlefield weapon during the Reaper war, although it proved beyond the capability of the galactic civilisations to reproduce.

Later analysis of Reaper technology, specifically singularity power systems, showed that the Blackstar weapon relied on singularitys' conservation of mass, charge, spin and mass effect.

While reproducing the subtleties of the battlefield scale weapon continues to elude Asari Republic scientists, a highly simplified ship mounted cannon has been successfully created. By highly charging an element zero projectile, and then using it's own and externally applied mass effect fields to compress it below the Schwarzschild radius, it is possible to create a singularity with a mass of as little as four kilogrammes.

While the conserved mass effect field will, to some extent, stabilise the singularity, nevertheless the Hawking radiation emitted by such a low mass singularity will lead to an exponential decrease in mass and increase in released energy. By carefully tuning the mass of the singularity, it's charge (and hence conserved mass effect), and it's launch velocity (typically at near light speed), it is possible to ensure that the final, maximum release of energy will occur at the point of impact with the target.

A major weakness of the weapon is that the element zero used to form the projectile is irretrievably lost, converted to gamma radiation. Therefore, use of Blackstar cannons on frontline ships is deprecated due to the need to maintain munitions supply lines, and the destruction of a scarce and highly valuable resource with each shot fired. Blackstar cannons are typically only used in large dreadnoughts dedicated to defence of Thessia and her major colonies.

Multi-Core Asymmetrical Drive

An advancement on the Tantalus drive that was developed by the Turian Hierarchy at the start of the Reaper war, the MCA drive system (also known as the bootstrap drive, though the origin of the phrase is uncertain) dispenses with the need for reaction mass by using element zero drive cores to create offset gravitational wells that a ship 'falls' toward.

A single primary drive core provides FTL drive, while small secondary cores act as manoeuvring 'thrusters'.

While these drives have the great advantage of removing the need for reaction mass, essential in long range courier and front-line combat vessels, and (when controlled by a sufficiently skilled AIDAN system) offer unparalleled manoeuvrability in close combat, they are not capable of the high acceleration in FTL that standard reaction drives offer.

System defence vessels which can rely on secure supply lines typically use a hybrid system, with a principle drive core combined with reaction thrusters to reach a point of engagement with minimum delay, and manoeuvring cores to provide agility when the enemy is engaged.