Chapter 09

Chapter 9

The Orion’s bridge was awash in smoke colored red from the emergency lighting. Brett waved at the smoke, covering his mouth with his other hand. He couldn’t see anyone in the gloom.

“Damage report,” Robyn’s voice called out.

“Shields are gone, forward phasers inoperable. Heavy damage to decks ten through fifteen,” a man’s voice said.

Brett reached out in front of him to grip a railing a second before the deck beneath him quaked from another hit. “Ensign Lefebreve, get us out of here,” Robyn said. “Ensign? Oh no.”

The smoke lifted for a moment so that Brett could see Robyn standing in the center of the bridge, staring at a woman slumped over the helm. As he watched, Robyn’s mouth moved but no words came out. She collapsed onto her chair. Only then did he notice Babs slumped in the captain’s chair almost identically to Ensign Lefebreve.

“Sir? Your orders?” the tactical officer said.

Robyn said nothing. She stared at the viewscreen, where as Brett had suspected, the Serparnian ship lurked. The hodgepodge warship swung its Cardassian-designed bow around, its Romulan disruptors charging.

Before he knew what he was doing, Brett sprung over the railing to land beside Robyn’s chair. He put a hand on her shoulder, looked into her eyes. “Captain Lichen, we need your orders,” he said.

“Brett? What are you doing here?”

“Come on, Robyn, we’ve got to do something.”

“I don’t know,” she said. She stared down at the deck and to his horror, she began to cry.

During the war, Brett had seen his fair share of breakdowns before, during, and after a battle. After watching two Starfleet ships in his task force get torn apart before by Dominion ships before the crews could escape, Brett had thrown up in his ready room. But a Federation captain could not cry and freeze up during the battle, not in front of her crew.

He slapped her across the face as hard as he could. “Come on, Captain, these people are counting on you!”

Robyn blinked and looked around as though seeing the Orion’s bridge for the first time. “You’re right,” she said. “We need to get out of here.”

“All right, good. I’ll take the helm.” Brett delicately said Ensign Lefebreve on the deck and took her station. Punching at the controls, he found everything inoperable. “The impulse and warp engines are offline.”

He expected Robyn to fall apart at this news, but she maintained her composure this time. “Lieutenant Ramirez, hail the enemy ship and ask their terms of surrender.”

“Sir?” Ramirez said.

“Surrender?” Brett chimed in. “Look, you can’t surrender to these people. These are rogue Serparnians. They already blew up my ship and killed my crew.”

“They wouldn’t murder a Federation crew.” Even as she said this the Serparnians opened fire again, the bridge shaking with another hit.

Brett clung to the helm until the vibrations died out. The Serparnian ship turned to the side, maneuvering for another shot. As it roared past on the viewscreen, Brett studied its unusual design. “I have an idea,” he said.

“What is it?” Robyn asked.

He didn’t have time to explain. Instead, he leapt over a pile of debris and shoved Ramirez away from the tactical station. This had to work or else they were finished.

“Brett, what are you doing?”

“Here goes nothing,” he said. The Orion’s aft phasers fired, followed by a barrage of three torpedoes after it. The phasers weakened the shields long enough for the torpedoes to slip through.

They struck the stern of the Serparnian ship one after another. The Serparnian vessel wobbled as fire mushroomed from the damaged area. For a moment Brett watched it on the tactical display, waiting to see if his gamble had paid off.

The Serparnian ship turned away, activating its impulse engines to rocket away from the Orion. “They’re leaving,” Robyn said. “I don’t understand.”

“An old friend of mine told me about a weakness in Ferenghi Marauders. You just have to know where to hit them.”

“Unbelievable,” Ramirez said.

Brett stood aside to let Ramirez have the tactical station back. He turned to Robyn. “We’d better get a medical team up here for Captain Stewart and the others.”

“It’s too late. They’re dead,” she said, her voice barely a whisper.

“Casualty reports are coming in now, sir,” Ramirez said. “Forty-four dead. One hundred wounded.”

“My God,” Robyn said. She stared down at her hands, which Brett noticed were shaking. “I don’t believe it.”

“At least most of us are still in one piece,” Brett said.

“Thanks to you,” she said. By her tone, Brett knew she really meant no thanks to her.

“Your orders, Captain?” Ramirez asked.

Robyn continued to stare at her hands. Finally she pressed them to her chest to keep them from shaking. “Begin repairs and ready a subspace message to Starfleet Command. We have to warn them about this.”

“Yes, sir.”

While Ramirez went to work, Brett climbed over the debris to make his way down to the captain’s chair. He took Babs into his arms, setting her on the deck. A piece of debris stuck out of her forehead, no doubt killing her instantly.

Though he had never gotten along with Babs on the Excalibur or any of his other run-ins with her, she didn’t deserve this. She had been a Starfleet officer on a diplomatic mission to bring peace to this system and they had ambushed her just like the Cassandra.

Whoever these Serparnians were, they had just upped the ante.