Chapter Text
April 5th, 2321
Menade Station
Thaxibos Tether, in anchored geostationary orbit of Thaxibos II
Thaxidross System
Xonkinus Confederacy
The Agora Marketplex aboard the Thaxibos tether station Menade was a bustling hub of commercial and social activity around the planet’s roughly thirty-seven-hour clock. This meant that a visiting ship’s crew could find food, drink, gambling, entertainment and a host of other diversions at any time of day or night.
The Xonkinus Confederacy was the rump remnant of a once considerably larger alliance of systems that had become enfolded by and then largely absorbed by the expanding United Federation of Planets. They had stubbornly maintained their free port status, offering trade and recreation opportunities to ships representing dozens of different Alpha Quadrant governments.
The jewel of the Thaxidross system was the Thaxibos Tether, an enormous space elevator complex connecting the species’ orbital shipyard to the surface of the planet by way of a star-ladder. It was an engineering marvel, one that Federation engineers and architects had been studying for decades since First Contact with the Thaxians.
Situated along the upper length of the giant orbital lift were several space stations, each occupying a distinct orbital zone like pearls strung upon a dangling, unclasped necklace.
The Shangri-La-class starship USS Reykjavík had docked with Menade Station two days earlier, having been granted leave following an exhausting mission to escort colonization ships through a zone of pirate-infested space to their newly established colony planets in the Carina Association stellar cluster.
Menade Station was circular in overall layout, with ascending and descending tiers above and below the facility’s mid-line, extending outward from where the tether itself ran through its center. The Agora Marketplex took up a full quarter of the station’s volume, containing numerous residential districts, hotels and hostels tailored to a variety of lifeforms and environmental requirements.
The ceiling here was nearly fifty meters overhead, the cavernous space filled with shifting, shimmering holographic art, geometric designs which flexed and folded in upon themselves in a scintillating variety of colors, some of them invisible to the humanoid eye.
On one of the many tiered platforms contained within the marketplex, each rising or sinking in relation to one another at various randomized rates, was a dining area situated among several restaurants and food kiosks. Tables were interspersed among garden boxes and planters filled with exotic flora while an equally colorful panoply of humanoids and non-sapient beings ate, drank, absorbed, and socialized.
A female human approached a large table around which were gathered her fellow senior officers. The young woman wore a modern variation of a Terran summer dress with leggings underneath, giving her a festive, carefree air. She had artificially red-tinted hair that fell to below her shoulders, one of the few times her comrades hadn’t seen her with it tightly braided or arranged in a non-nonsense bun while on duty.
Ensign Rachel Garrett was the newest member of Reykjavík’s senior staff, having been poached from another ship and captain on route to her first posting just days after graduating Starfleet Academy. She was now Chief Science Officer aboard an attack cruiser, having the dubious distinction of heading up a very small, underutilized department aboard what was essentially a warship.
Garrett carried a drink carafe in one hand containing a potent admixture of Denobulan prune wine and seltzer. Though being young and on leave, Garrett was still cognizant of her status as a senior officer and thus had been carefully nursing the drink over multiple hours. She was not one typically given to overindulgence.
She called out to the others, “Okay, can someone please tell me what a ruby-fruit is, and why four separate people have asked me if I have any or if I know someone who can get them?”
Gael Jarrod, a tanned Caucasian human male sporting a rakish goatee and dressed in slacks and a stylish button up shirt laughed, raising his half-empty glass to Garrett in greeting as she approached.
“It’s their name for a pomegranate. They just encountered it for the first time a little over a year ago and the whole society’s gone mad for it,” Jarrod answered in his slightly nasal Oxonian-English accent. “They’ll pester anyone who even looks vaguely human, trying to find new sources of pomegranate to import. They’re having a devil of a time trying to arrange trade with Earth and some of its colonies where they’re grown due to our moneyless economy. Apparently, it’s hard to establish an exchange rate with people who don’t have a form of currency.”
Garrett plopped down next to Jarrod, her smile a refreshing counterpoint to her usually somber on-duty demeanor. “Well, mystery solved, then. I thought a bunch of the locals were having me on. They kept offering me things in bulk, like I was shopping for an entire ship’s crew complement or something.”
“They all just want to be the next filthy rich pomegranate baron!” roared a compact Tellarite at the other end of the table. Lieutenant Commander Glal, the ship’s first officer, was a solidly built, porcine figure of a man, coming to just over five-and-a-half feet tall. He had shoulder length hair ringing his balding pate, offset by a full, thatch-like beard through which two tusks protruded from the sides of his mouth.
Glal was dressed in a Hawaiian style shirt and Bermuda shorts, both in clashing colors and patterns which somehow accurately represented both his personality and lifestyle.
Seated next to Glal was a human woman in her mid-forties of Hispanic heritage, with an olive complexion and black hair shot-through with premature streaks of gray. She had broad, handsome features, and intense brown eyes which seemed to absorb everything in her vicinity. She was clad in a form-fitting bodysuit with a stylish belt and vest combination, sporting matching boots of faux-leather. A glass of the local variant of whisky was held lightly in one hand as she conversed with her senior officers.
Captain Nandi Trujillo looked up to fix a mischievous smile on Garrett. “How was the symposium? Aren’t you back a bit early?”
Garrett looked up from where she was conversing with Lieutenant Jarrod. “Ahh– yes, sir. The symposium ended up being a bit of a bust, unfortunately. Not a lot of genuine academic value, more an elaborate sales pitch for a Deltan company’s new sensor suite. I’m not sure who marketed this whole thing as an actual scientific exchange, but they’ve managed to irritate a bunch of people who traveled some distance to attend.”
“Caveat emptor,” Trujillo said with a laugh, shaking her head.
Dr. Lawrence Bennett, the ship’s Chief Medical Officer, looked down the length of the table at the others. He was a tall, middle-aged human of European ancestry with salt-and-pepper hair, cut mid-length, and a matching beard. “So, what’s tonight’s itinerary?” he asked.
“There’s a Bolian crystal chorus performing here tonight, and Onwah Durijma is appearing live on Goltha Station two levels up the well,” Lieutenant Arwen DeSilva offered. The stunningly beautiful Portuguese woman was a proud Lisboeta, a native of Lisbon, and served as Reykjavík‘s Operations officer. She was tall, willowy, with cascading onyx tresses that fell to beneath her waist. Her high cheekbones gracefully accented her full lips and dazzling emerald-green eyes. As usual, while on leave she was scantily clad in eye-catching colors, the crew’s designated fashionista. This ensemble came with large yellow feathers of unknown provenance.
Ensign Farouk Naifeh shook his head with a knowing smirk. “Never going to happen. The Durijma concert has been sold-out for weeks.” The youthful flight officer was dark complected, with black hair cut short and a well-kept mustache that complimented the nearly stubble-short beard that accentuated his jawline.
“We could swing by the gravity bar again,” Bennett offered. “That was a good time.”
Naifeh groaned, eliciting laughs from the others. “Too much like zero-g training for my taste. And I was the one they made wear a space-sick face-mask… for obvious reasons.”
DeSilva snorted, nearly spitting out a mouthful of her drink. “Evacuation of one’s stomach is not an accepted form of zero-g propulsion, Ensign.”
The group's collective laughter at Naifeh's expense fell away at the sound of Trujillo’s wrist-comm alerting. She tapped the device, “Go ahead.”
“Captain, we’ve received a priority alert from Command. Station DMS-0149 in the Varpathi system has reported anomalous sensor contacts in close proximity to their position. Whatever it is, the station didn’t pick up anything on approach, and now the objects are practically on top of them. We’ve been ordered to investigate.”
In response to Garrett’s questioning look, Jarrod leaned in to whisper. “It’s one of our dilithium processing stations, the only one within five sectors. For obvious reasons, they’re rather well defended and closely monitored.”
Trujillo stood, the others rising with her. “Understood. Sound a general recall to the crew. I want everybody back aboard in twenty minutes. Anyone under the influence is ordered to stop by sickbay and get sobered up before taking their posts.”
The captain closed the channel and mock-glared at Naifeh. “This is your doing, Farouk. This is the universe balancing the karmic scales for your zero-g vomit-comet hijinks!”
The ensign looked appropriately abashed, though his lingering smirk belied this.
Trujillo raised her glass in a farewell toast to their abbreviated shore leave. “Time to get back to work. What’s our motto?”
The others raised their glasses in unison, crying out, “First to advance, last to retreat!”
They downed their remaining drinks, with Trujillo uttering a definitive, “Amen.”
* * *
November 16th, 2373
Varpathi System
The Jem’Hadar shouldn’t have been able to get so close to DMS-0149 without being detected, but that was a problem they’d deal with later. Right now, the problem uppermost in Commander Diane Chester’s mind was winning that battle.
She braced herself in her seat as another shot hit the Bedivere like a hammer, and Captain Bonnie Steenburg’s clear soprano tore through the clamor of alerts and alarms. “Return fire! Get that one off the Chandigarh!”
The entire action had been a flaming mess, from the distress call coming in near the end of her shift, the hastily scrambled task force, the three extra fighters that the station scans had missed. Now, the Bedivere and the four other ships of the task force were fighting for their lives.
“Got them!” said Lieutenant J’etris, with vicious satisfaction, and the fighter in front of them went up in flames.
Chester looked down at her own tactical display. “Sir, two have broken off from the main wing.” She looked up at the viewscreen, then at Steenburg as she realized what was happening. “They’re making a run at the facility.”
“Well, that just won’t do,” said Steenburg. “Tell the task force to form up on us. We’re here to defend that station, people.”
“Chandigarh is falling behind,” said Lieutenant Commander Takahashi at Sciences. “Fluctuations in her warpfield, I think she’s going to–”
Chandigarh veered suddenly, bucking upward, and collided with a Jem’Hadar fighter just as her warp core lost containment and annihilated both ships in a flare of blue-white light. Steenburg closed her eyes and ducked her head a moment. “Status of the rest of the taskforce?”
“Holding steady. Sir, the Jem’Hadar are accelerating.”
“Target their lead ship.” But they only got one shot off before another of the fighters dropped down on them, firing. The first two shots brought down Bedivere’s weakened shields, the third shot fried the forward phaser emitters; the fourth lanced through the port nacelle, sending people lurching off their feet on the Bridge and the Bedivere into a long end over end tumble. Chester barely managed to regain her seat as the remaining ships of the task force shot past them and after the Jem’Hadar fighters already dipping down for the first strafing run on the facility. Steenburg was calling to Lt. Commander Var Bena in Engineering, estimating time to emergency power to pull them out of the tumble while Robles fought the suddenly uncooperative helm, and in between one scanning cycle and another, Chester spotted it–the failing shield on the far side of the station.
“Sir, they need to fall back,” she said, and Steenburg turned to look at her, alarmed by the edge in her voice. “The next pass, the refinery is going to blow, and if the task force is that close–”
Steenburg jerked a nod, drawing a breath to warn the task force, but it was already too late. The destruction of the Chandigarh was dwarfed by the station explosion, and the Bedivere’s superstructure groaned as the leading shockwave of the explosion did its level best to tear her apart, and the debris from the task force shredded into her hull like the claws of an outraged beast. Chester went flying from her seat for the second time in as many minutes, landing on the carpet with a force that kicked the wind out of her; the first lungful she got was filled with the stench of scorched metal and polymers. She coughed, regretted it, pushed herself up as soon as she was sure she wouldn’t drop back flat on her face.
“Damage report!” Captain Steenburg was calling, pulling the staggering officers on the smoke-filled Bridge back to their feet. How she was able to talk without coughing, Chester had no idea.
Grimly, Chester climbed the rest of the way to her feet, staggering back to her chair and calling up the interface. It sputtered and flickered under her fingers, and she thumped it with the side of her hand.
“We’ve lost main power,” said Robles from Ops. “Sensors and comms too. The warp core is offline.”
“So are shields and phasers,” said Lieutenant J’etris at Tactical.
“So we’re sensor blind, defenseless, unable to move, and unable to call for help. Did I miss anything?” Steenburg looked around, eyebrows raised, her tone more akin to someone sharing a questionable joke. “Has anyone here got good news?”
“Our automated distress signal is working,” said Takahashi, and frowned. “I think.”
“That’s something. Right,” said Steenburg. “We’ve gotten out of worse,” which was, to Chester’s fairly certain knowledge, a blatant lie, “and it’s time to get out of this. Let’s get to work, people.”
* * *