Burden of Choice - part two
Title: Burden of Choice: Part Two
Author: weaselett
Fandom: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Characters: Leslie Crusher, Data, Beverly Crusher, William Riker, OCs
Warnings: Mention of violence
Word Count: c.16000
Summary: During a rescue mission lives hang in the balance and Leslie Crusher is led to seriously consider whether she still wants to go to the academy.
part one
They were still making their way down the corridor towards the command centre when the whole ship seemed to shake, the emergency lighting seeming to fail completely for a moment before coming back up. Suddenly, the dusty air seemed even staler than before.
“What was that?” Alyssa asked, her voice barely more than a whisper as her grip on her tricorder tightened.
Beverly shook her head, lips thinning, “Whatever it was, it isn’t a good sign.”
“Everyone alright?” Will appeared out of the darkness, holding his torch up in the air and looking to each of his people in turn as they answered him. None of them was hurt, and thankfully the corridor had held up.
“What was that?” Beverly questioned softly, taking a step closer to Will, her tricorder cradled against her stomach.
He shook his head, “I don’t know, but whatever it was, it can’t be good.” He hit his comm badge, straightening a little as he did so, “Riker to Enterprise, what just happened? We just has a bit of an earthquake over here.”
He waited a beat before he tried again, “Riker to Data.” He sighed, shaking his head and turning back to Beverly, his frustration clear, “It looks like we’re stuck here for now.”
She nodded, glancing back down the corridor, eyeing the debris that they had already made their way through. They’d managed to get two of the Canmore’s surviving crew to sickbay and they’d found one dead body, which considering the damage they’d seen, wasn’t too bad.
“We should keep on to the command centre; it’s the best bet for some answers.” Riker decided, motioning for them all to follow him as he started off again, his pace a little faster than before.
-
The first shot from the ship hit the Canmore, the freighter jolting a little under the renewed fire, almost at the same time as Leslie’s heart flew into her throat. She had to force herself to stay seated, and silent. Getting upset or panicking wasn’t going to help her mom, or anyone else for that matter.
“Ensign Pincent, fire phasers at the ship, a warning shot.” Data ordered.
“Aye sir.” Pincent’s shot hit the mystery ship's shields, which held, but the action had the desired effect; the ship ceased firing on the Canmore. Leslie swallowed hard, but she kept calm, her hands posed and ready should Data order her to move the ship, even if they were shaking. Just a little.
"What is the status of the Canmore?"
"There's a second hull breach in the aft section, on the other side of the ship from the away team's last known location. It's unlikely the Canmore will be able to take much more before most of its systems fail." Hyrok provided.
"Ensign Crusher, manoeuvre us into a position to protect the Canmore from the ship’s fire."
Leslie entered the commands quickly, edging the Enterprise in between the Canmore and the mystery ship, turning the Enterprise to cover as much of the Canmore as possible while leaving some distance between them, just in case either ship took too much damage.
“What is the status of the unidentified ship?” Data questioned as the Enterprise took up her new position with the Canmore at her back.
“Weapons are still charged, and their shields are at ninety five percent. They have yet to respond to our hails.” Pincent reported, his voice tainted with nervousness. Leslie was beginning to wonder at the wisdom of allowing the night watch to be composed of so many junior officers. She knew that there were a good number of experienced junior officers, but she also knew that the majority were new, young and inexperienced. Then again, she supposed, there was nothing stopping Data from ordering more senior personnel from their beds, other than the knowledge that inexperienced or not every officer on the Enterprise would do their best under any circumstance.
“Continue hailing them and be prepared to return fire if they should attack ourselves or the Canmore.”
There was a short pause before Pincent spoke, somewhat hesitantly, “Sir, aren’t we going to do anything?”
“We are going to wait Ensign Pincent.” Data replied, the way that her voice carried letting Leslie know that the android had turned to face the ensign on tactical, though it remained as perfectly calm as ever, “While it seems that we now know that this is the ship that attacked the Canmore, we do not yet know their reasons why, nor do we know who they are. We will not make any further aggressive moves until they give us reason to act to defend ourselves or the Canmore.”
“Understood sir.”
Leslie winced, that was definitely the voice of someone with their tail between their legs, though not literally in this case. She could see his point though, just sitting there, even with their shields up and knowing that the Enterprise was the federation flag ship for a reason, was hard when the evidence of the ship’s intent lay just off their port side. Plus there was the fact that the ship still hadn’t answered any of their hails. It felt wrong to just sit, waiting for the other side to make their move, but it was procedure and they really didn’t have any idea what would happen if they opened fire.
As frustrating as it was, waiting really was the best move.
-
The ship's emergency lighting seemed to be growing dimmer the closer they came to the Canmore's command center. Or at least that was how it seemed to Beverly. She quickened her pace to catch up to Will, keeping pace with him as they approached a set of doors.
“Doesn't look like they're expecting guests.” Will commented dryly as the door mechanism failed to open the door, “It looks like I'm going to have to do this the hard way.” He knelt, pulling the cover from the wall below the mechanism, exposing the ship's internal workings. "Ok, hopefully..." He pulled one of the isolinear chips out of the board, grinning as the doors slid partway open before sticking.
Tarrin moved forward as Will replaced the cover, placing a hand on either door and pushing, creating an opening big enough for them all to get through. Tarrin took the lead, closely followed by Riker then Beverly, who stayed by the doors until the other three had all joined them.
The command centre was an expansive space, subdivided by sets of columns with consoles set into alcoves in the walls. There was no sign of any of the life signs that they had been detecting while on the Enterprise, though in the dim lighting it was difficult to make out very much detail.
Beverly opened her tricorder, scanning the area and moving in the direction it indicated. It seemed that the crew members in the command centre had grouped together at one end of the room, as far from the doors through which the Enterprise away team had entered as possible.
Beverly looked up as a hand touched her elbow, holding her back, finding herself motioned backwards by Will as he started to move, his torch in one hand while his other rested on his phaser, prepared for whatever might be waiting. She stepped back, allowing Will to take the lead without complaint.
She was aware of the remainder of the team following at her back, but she was focused on their surroundings, ducking the occasional hanging wires. She had been on a few ships in worse state than the Canmore, but in most of those cases she had known much more about the situation that she was getting herself into.
They rounded the last of the columns, a large viewscreen becoming visible on the wall as they approached the life signs, which seemed to be located behind the low consoles between them and the viewscreen.
"Hello?" Will called, as he raised his torch a little higher, his pace slowed as he approached the consoles. He motioned with his free hand for Beverly to stay back while Tarrin moved forwards, his phaser drawn.
Beverly clenched her teeth, resisting the urge to tell him to put his phaser away, reminding herself that they still had no idea what had happened, or whether the people they were approaching would react well or not.
"Hello? I'm Commander William Riker, from the USS Enterprise. We're here to help." Will continued moving as he spoke, sidestepping the consoles and edging into the space between them and the viewscreen. He stilled, eyes widening a little before he looked up at Beverly, "Doctor."
She moved quickly, drawing Alyssa along with her and ignoring the security team. Her patients came first, no matter what.
-
For over thirty minutes the ship had just sat there, not moving, it’s weapons charged and shields up, not answering any of the Enterprise’s hails. It was starting to make Leslie feel a little on edge.
“Still no answer from the away team or the ship.” Pincent gave his ten minute report, but this time Leslie thought she could hear an edge of frustration to the words. At some point, if the man actually let his emotions show, Data would have to call him on it.
“Continue broadcasting on all frequencies.” There was a pause before Data activated her comm., “Data to engineering, what have you learned from your scans of the ship?”
”It seems to be using a Romulan cloaking device, it has three banks of phasers, but no photon torpedoes and the shields look like they will be able to withstand at least one barrage of our phasers at full power.” Assistant Chief Engineer Nola’s voice came through the comm system, the Androian’s voice even as she listed off each feature of the ship, “I can’t tell you who built the ship for certain, it’s such a mix of parts. I managed to ID a few of the parts as having been stolen from one of the federation depots in the system, but there’s nothing in the report to suggest what the ship that took them looked like. If I had to guess, I’d say it was built by Orions, but I can’t tell you who is on board it now. I’m afraid that’s all I can tell you until they either drop their shields or answer our hails.”
“Understood, have you made on progress on disrupting the signal that is preventing us from making contact with the away team?”
”Not as yet, but we’re working on it. It seems to be connected to their cloaking technology somehow. I’d say that if they were to raise their cloak again the signal would stop, it’s defiantly going to be taking a lot of power from other key systems, considering the range its covering.”
“Thank you Lieutenant. Keep me informed on any progress, Data out.”
Leslie shifted her weight in her chair a little, flicking through her various screens once more, wishing for something more constructive to do even as she calculated the time left until the next shift came on. Data would be staying, that much she knew, but the rest of them would be sent off to eat and get some sleep. Which meant, as soon as Leslie was out of her seat, she wouldn’t be allowed near the bridge for hours. Hours that she would end up spending either pacing the quarters that she shared with her mother, hanging around in Ten Forward talking to Guinan, or loitering in engineering until someone threw her out. She sighed softly, mentally correcting herself, the only way she’d be permitted into engineering was if there was something that they needed extra hands for, and so far, thankfully, nothing had come up.
She was just starting into creating a mental list of the places on the ship that she would be able to see the Canmore from when the ship seemed to shake a little and a figure seemed to shimmer into existence between the viewscreen and her console.
“Computer activate red alert and lock out all command functions, authorisation Data Alpha Omega One Five Delta.” Data spoke so fast that Leslie could only just make out the words, but she was aware of the sound of Data’s fingers entering a series of commands into the console on the arm of the captain’s chair.
“All hands, be advised we have been boarded.” Ensign Pincent’s voice rang out clear, just as the red wall lights started to flash, casting a strange light onto the bridge’s newest occupants. Leslie looked around in time to see Pincent lunge at the nearest intruder, only to be thrown over his console to land heavily on the floor just a few short feet from Leslie. The ‘man’ standing to one side of the command chairs then fired his weapon at the ensign, not seeming to care that the man had already been knocked unconscious by his companion.
Data was the next to take a hit, the ‘man’ shooting her as she moved to Pincent’s side, her verbal challenge to the intruders cutting off abruptly. Only, unlike other times when Data had been fired on, the ‘man’s’ weapon actually had an effect on the android.
Leslie watched dumbly as Data fell, yellow eyes staring blankly upwards, body stiff. She couldn’t move, it felt like she’d merged with the chair and all she could think was ’oh god, Data’.
This was different, so different, from the other times stuff like this had happened, but it shouldn’t be.
Leslie swallowed hard, forcing herself to move, turning to tap at the board in front of her, just out of sight of their ‘guests’, to make sure that Data had managed to lock out the computer before they’d gotten to her. The negative beep was a partial reassurance at least, no one but Data would be able to break the code, anyone else would have to spend hours trying to find a back door in.
One of the ‘men’ yelled something incomprehensible, slamming his hand down onto her board, barely missing her face, green eyes bright with anger. Leslie raised her hands slowly, she might not understand what was being said, but the emotion and the two still bodies lying on the floor got the message across just as well.
The ‘man’ motioned with his weapon, pointing her towards the side of the bridge, opposite the door through to the captain’s ready room, where the rest of the uninjured bridge staff had already been herded. Leslie stood slowly, biting the inside of her cheek as she stumbled, her feet brushing the side of one of Data’s legs, before she forced herself to move, dropping to her knees beside the others. She wasn’t going to think about the bodies, she couldn’t afford to, she had to keep her head.
She had to stay calm, there was no other choice. She could fall apart later, when there wasn’t a weapon being pointed at her head.
-
Beverly lent back against one of the consoles as her last patient managed to pull herself upright, a human woman, Anna Yeoman the Canmore’s second in command was the most seriously injured of the three crew members that they had thus far found in the command centre. Not that the woman was about to admit it, or even surrender to Beverly’s care until she was sure that her ship and its crew were safe.
“I have no idea who they are.” Anna said in reply to Will’s question, hiding a wince as she carefully shifted her broken leg. Thankfully it was a clean break; otherwise Beverly would have been having words with the woman about moving it, regardless of what the people around them might think. It was bad enough that Anna had refused treatment until she had answered Will’s questions and of course the two men with her had had to be treated first. Tarrin had taken one of the other security officers to explore the rest of the command centre in search of more survivors. They’d found one dead so far, which still left two unaccounted for.
“What exactly happened?” Will asked, his hands resting fisted against his legs as he watched Anna rearrange herself into a more comfortable position.
“They just appeared and opened fire on us. No warning shot, no communication, we didn’t even detect a scan. They just attacked us and then, just when we thought we were goners, they vanished again.” Anna shook her head, “If they wanted our cargo they would have beamed it out, or made demands. It’s happened to us before, normally it’s Ferengi. The only time I’ve heard of anything like this happening has been when a ship’s captain has pissed off the wrong people, or is siding with a particular side during a conflict.”
“Your captain have any enemies?” Will questioned, grinning when Anna glared at him.
“No, Captain Salik hasn’t got any enemies. Not that I know of at least, besides, he’s a Vulcan, how many Vulcans do you know that have gone out of their way to make an enemy that would be likely to kill them?”
“Where were you headed?” Will pressed, exploring the second possibility she had cited, despite the fact that she had made it clear that neither were likely.
“One of the colonies by the Cardassian border, we were carrying food and medical supplies mostly.” She held up a hand before Will could say anything, “If that ship had looked even vaguely Cardassian I might think it was them trying to stop us getting to our destination, but it didn’t. Plus, we’re still quite a way from the border, I can’t see them coming out this far just to stop a ship from delivering some medical supplies to a federation colony.”
“We have to consider all of the possibilities.” Will pointed out.
“Besides the Cardassians like you to know that they’re the ones about to kill you,” the Bajoran crew member, Alaj Karg, commented dryly, pulling away from Alyssa’s hand as she pressed a finger against one of the bruises mottling the side of his face. “Ouch.”
“So you have no idea why you were attacked.” Will repeated.
“No, I think we just established that.” Anna said before she winced, her expression turning apologetic, “Sorry, it’s been a long day and I’ve still not gotten over being shot at.”
“Can I look at that leg now?” Beverly jumped in before Will could say anything else, fishing around in her bag for the equipment she would need to stabilise the leg until they could get Anna to sickbay.
“Sure, Malik if you can get the sensors back up I’m sure Commander Riker would be as grateful as me. Karg, seen as you seem to be feeling well enough to make sarcastic comments, see if you can find a way of getting in contact with their ship. I don’t like not knowing what’s going on out there.” She rattled off the orders, waiting for the two men to move off before she nodded to Beverly and closed her eyes.
“One last question, then I promise I’ll leave you to Doctor Crusher’s tender administrations.” Will stood over the two of them, not reacting to the glare that Beverly gave him. He continued once Anna had nodded her permission, “Your captain, where was he when you were attacked, and have you heard from him since?”
“He was in his quarters, and no, we haven’t heard from him since the attack started. Our comm system was the first thing to go down.”
Will exchanged a look with Beverly, both of them calculating the odds that one of the two life signs that the Enterprise had detected in quarters was the Canmore’s captain.
The odds weren’t good.
-
There were five of them in total, all wearing identical clothing and all about the same height with the same green eyes and dark hair. It was only after ten minutes of observation that Leslie was starting to see the little differences.
The one who was busy working at one of the back consoles was the technical minded one, he’d been ordered to figure out a way into the ship’s systems, or at least that was Leslie’s guess. None of them seemed to speak English, or any of the other languages that Ensign Monroe, the petite redhead who had been the second officer manning the aft consoles alongside Ensign Ramamurthy, had tried until one of the ‘men’ had made his displeasure clear.
The other four were spread around the bridge. The apparent leader was sitting in the captain’s seat, clearly enjoying himself. The arm console still sparked occasionally, he’d shot it not long after discovering that it refused to accept any of his commands. Pincent and Data lay unmoving at his feet, neither showing any sign of life, though Leslie was hoping that they were still alive, she didn’t know what she’d do if either were dead. One ‘man’ was standing guard over the prisoners, and he was the one who had backhanded Monroe, and had screamed some harsh sounding words at both Leslie herself and Ramamurthy when they had tried to help the other woman. Hyrok on the other hand had been permitted to help Monroe, with only a few muttered comments when he’d been too slow. It didn’t suggest good things considering that Hyrok was the only remaining male crew member on the bridge in any state to make a move on their captors.
The other two ‘men’ were attempting to get one of the turbolifts open, something that Leslie found oddly reassuring, even though she had no idea whether their guests had any friends elsewhere on the ship. What she didn’t understand was why they hadn’t just beamed themselves to another part of the ship; clearly they had the ability to beam through shields so that couldn’t be the issue.
“So, sexist, unintelligible, aggressive, not of a species I recognise aliens have invaded. Any one got any ideas as to what we do about it?” Monroe kept her voice low as she spoke, pausing for a moment to spit blood onto the floor midway through. Rhiannon Monroe was the only one of Leslie’s three companions that she knew from past meetings; she was also the most senior of the four of them.
“Nope, besides not upsetting these guys anymore than we already have.” Hyrok said, his eyes narrowing as the leader glanced up at them, green eyes angry.
“What do you sense from them?” Leslie questioned him, dropping her voice so as to be barely audible, watching their captors for any signs that they were going to punish her. None of them seemed to notice though, which backed up her suspicion that they didn’t have the best hearing. None of them had reacted to Monroe’s rather colourful swearing after she’d been hit after all, and most of that had been hissed under her breath.
“Lots of anger.” Hyrok replied.
“Kinda got that already.” Monroe commented, gingerly poking at her jaw as she spoke.
“Stop doing that,” Ramamurthy hissed, pulling Monroe’s hand away from her face, “it’s not going to help.”
“Focus.” Leslie scolded, blushing when the two women stared at her, both clearly surprised that she had spoken as she had.
Monroe grinned after a moment, “Oh yeah, I remember your trial by fire.” Leslie rolled her eyes, remembering with a shudder the mission that Monroe was referring to. It really hadn’t been any fun. She really hoped that next time she was put in charge of a team she would outrank at least one of them.
“What else?” Leslie pressed Hyrok, stubbornly not responding to Monroe’s comment.
Hyrok sighed, turning back towards their captors, his eyes narrowing as he examined each one in turn. “Frustration, arrogance. They really didn’t like it when Rhi tried talking to them, and from the way that that guy,” he nodded towards the leader, “keeps kicking the commander, I don’t think they’re impressed by the idea of women in command.”
“I look forward to the day when I finally get to meet a society that treats men the way that people like these guys do women.” Monroe muttered, “They didn’t recognise any of the languages I tried, I got that much through the offence at a woman speaking to them, but I don’t recognise their language, not even as being similar to any I know.”
“Commander Data would know.” Ramamurthy whispered, worried brown eyes drifting to the still form of the ship’s second in command just in time to watch the leader give Data a particularly violent kick. She smiled a little as the man cursed, pulling his foot back and cradling it between his hands, clearly in pain. “Serves you right.”
“She managed to lock out all of the command functions, there’s no way they’re going to be able to break the encryption anytime soon, and Pincent managed to lock down the bridge.” Leslie provided, glancing in the direction of the science stations and the increasingly frustrated alien.
“Yeah, maybe if they’d showed a bit more understanding of our systems I’d give them five hours, but the way that guy’s stabbing the controls, our systems don’t even vaguely resemble anything they know.” Monroe agreed.
“So what, we just sit here and wait for the Captain to get someone up here?” Ramamurthy questioned, sounding doubtful.
“We could do that, but I’d rather try something.” Monroe said, shifting her weight a little, her gaze moving around the bridge eyeing each of their captors in turn. “There’s four of us, five of them. We’re unarmed, they’re all armed, but we know the ship and they don’t.”
“At some point they’re going to give up trying to find a way into our system and they’ll make one of us show them how.” Leslie pointed out. “The only problem is, they’ll probably pick Hyrok.”
“And hold their weapons on us as incentive.” Monroe agreed, ignoring the way Ramamurthy’s eyes widened at the suggestion.
Leslie nodded. “We stand a better chance of taking them before then, while they’re split up.”
“You know the ship’s systems better than any of us.” Monroe commented, eying Leslie speculatively.
“Which is kind of scary considering you’re just an acting ensign,” Hyrok commented, “no offence.”
Leslie smiled, “None taken, I get that a lot.” She did, there were plenty of people on the ship who either disliked her or questioned the sense of allowing a teenager who hadn’t even been to the academy yet to work in engineering or man the conn. She’d proved herself plenty of times, but still that opinion continued, though she hadn’t heard it first hand. Barclay’s holodeck version of her had been a rather apt combination of the various opinions that existed she knew, despite what Geordi and Data had said. She glanced unconsciously towards her friend’s body, swallowing hard.
She really needed to make more friends outside of the command staff, preferably among the civilians on board. It was very unlikely that any of them would get injured or die any time soon.
“Okay so, what should we do? It’s not like any of us can break Data’s encryption fast enough, besides which I don’t think we want to, not until we get rid of our unexpected guests.” Monroe questioned Leslie directly, drawing Leslie back to the problem at hand.
Leslie chewed on her bottom lip, considering for a moment and avoiding looking towards the leader and what lay at his feet. She was not going to let herself get distracted by anything, getting them out of the situation they were in was more important and needed all of her attention. She took a deep breath before turning to Monroe, “I have an idea. It’s a little crazy, but it might work.”
-
It took ten minutes for Tarrin to return from his exploration of the command centre, during which time Beverly had managed to stabilise Anna’s leg and Malik had managed to pull up the sensor records of the ship that had attacked the Canmore. The problem was neither the sensors nor communications were working.
They had accounted for all of the life signs that the Enterprise had detected, bringing the final injured crew member over to join her colleagues and covering the two dead. Beverly couldn’t help but feel bad for not having been able to reach the bridge in time to save the one crew member who had bled out just minutes before the away team had reached him. She hated losing people.
“It’s not a ship that I recognise.” Will commented, eying the sensor readings critically, “It doesn’t even seem to resemble any of the typical classes of ship.”
“Our readings suggested it was more of a combination of various different crafts.” Malik agreed, “It is more heavily armed than many of the ships that we encounter normally, and it didn’t respond to any of our hails, through whether that is because they did not understand, or because they did not wish to respond, I can not say.”
“Our communications should be working.” Karg spoke up as he stood, brushing himself down. He had spent much of his time examining the inner circuits of his console during the time it had taken Beverly to finish treating Anna. “There’s nothing wrong with the circuits, they must be blocking us somehow.”
“That would explain the fact that we haven’t been able to get in contact with the Enterprise.” Beverly commented before standing and stretching her legs gingerly.
“That would mean that the ship that attacked us is still here.” Anna said, looking up at them all from her position prone on the floor.
Beverly and Will exchanged a look, “Which means that that jolt we felt back in the corridor….” Beverly began.
“…was the ship taking another hit from this mysterious attacker.” Will finished, looking grim, “It fits, and we lost contact with the Enterprise at about the same time.”
“If they detected the Enterprise approaching it is possible that they cloaked and waited to see what we did.” Tarrin said.
“So they never left.” Will finished grimly, his mouth drawing into a thin line.
“We need working sensors.” Anna said, determination strengthening her voice, “and more importantly, working shields.”
Will nodded, eying the people around him critically for a moment before he spoke. “Ok, which of you is the best engineer?” He asked the members of the Canmore’s crew that were present.
“Karg.” Anna answered, “but Malik should go with you as well, he knows the systems almost as well and the more hands the better.”
Will nodded, “Ok, Karg, Malik, Tarrin, Doctor Crusher, you’re with me. The rest of you stay here and do what you can.”
Beverly gave Alyssa’s arm a reassuring squeeze before following after Will as he headed back out of the command centre, taking the second set of doors as Karg and Malik explained that it would be the quicker route. There were still at least fifteen crew members unaccounted for, including the chief engineer and the captain.
-
Ramamurthy and Monroe arranged themselves carefully so that they blocked their captors’ view of the wall panel behind them. It wasn’t an issue yet, all five of the aliens were facing away from the Enterprise crew members, but at some point they were sure to turn towards them.
Leslie knelt next to the open panel, eying the circuitry critically; searching for the clump of wiring that she knew was there somewhere. Hyrok knelt on the other side, rearranging the isolinar chips as Leslie had instructed. Hopefully this would work and not backfire spectacularly.
She finally found what she was looking for and drew out the wiring gently, careful not to touch the live ends as she disconnected them from their sockets, grinning as the lightening dimmed even further, dropping the bridge into near darkness, leaving only the red alert lighting offering any real illumination.
Their captors cursed loudly as the lighting dropped, the guard lunging at Leslie only to go down hard as his bare skin made contact with the ends of the wires she was holding. Hyrok grabbed the fallen man’s weapon and hauled Monroe to her feet, pulling her towards the door to the briefing room as Ramamurthy stayed back with Leslie, moving the final isolinar chip into position and triggering the conference room doors to open before she and Leslie made a run for it.
Hyrok fired on the leader as he attempted to charge them, but only managed to clip the man on the shoulder, but it was enough to allow the four of them time to get through the doors before they sealed again, shutting them into the conference room.
“Ok, so that worked, what now?” Monroe questioned as she collapsed into one of the chairs.
“Now,” Leslie opened a wall panel, exposing a hidden compartment in which two phasers were stored, along with a tricorder and a hypospray. It was a well kept secret that Leslie was only aware of because she had heard Worf mention it to one of his new security personal once. “We come up with a plan to retake the bridge.”
-
Beverly followed a few steps behind Will as the two Canmore crewmen lead them towards engineering, all too aware of Tarrin’s presence at her back. Each corridor that they passed through remained as dimly lit as the last, a constant reminder of the fact that they were on a ship that had been the victim of an apparently unprovoked attack, and that at any moment that attack could begin again.
They had found the bodies of two more crew members and had run into three more walking wounded between the command centre and engineering, but they hadn’t found the captain or the chief engineer, and Beverly was still trying to decide whether that was a good or a bad thing as Will and Malik worked on getting the door into the engine room open. They still only had half of the Canmore’s crew accounted for, and though thankfully the majority were still alive, there had still been a lot of fatalities. It was a testament to the ship’s construction that it was still largely in one piece, despite the structural damage that it had taken.
The doors rumbled open as Malik manipulated the controls, the smell of burnt flesh escaping as they opened, making both Will and Beverly take a step back. That wasn’t good, thought it also wasn’t surprising. Beverly had seen enough burn injuries caused by incidents in engineering to know that it was the most common injury.
Tarrin took the lead this time, his phaser drawn despite objections from Karg, with Will bringing up the rear. A few small plasma fires continued to burn in a few places around the room and the emergency bulkhead between the warp core and the main section was down. Beverly closed her eyes for a moment automatically, wondering how many of the ship’s crew had been on the other side of the bulkhead when it had dropped.
Malik and Karg both paused at the same time, staring at the bulk head for a moment before Karg shook his head and moved towards a bank of monitors that seemed the least damaged, his hands moving across the controls while Malik knelt down and pulled the covers off the panels beneath, ready to do whatever work Karg might need. “I should be able to get the internal sensors working at least,” Karg said after a few moments, “then possibly the shields, but the external sensors are in a bad way.”
“Shields and internal sensors are better than nothing.” Will commented, stepping up beside Karg and eying the consoles while Tarrin kept his distance, phaser still in hand. Beverly sighed, looking around the room, searching for any sigh of survivors that needed her attention. She froze squinting into the murk for a moment before moving away from the men, her gaze fixed on the leg that she could just see poking out of the entrance to a maintenance tunnel.
She flipped her tricorder open, eying the reading critically and frowning as the instrument failed to give a clear reading. Flipping it shut again she pushed it into it’s holder on her hip and edged closer to the tunnel, reaching out to touch the leg gently, only to find herself thrown to the floor as the owner of the leg dived out of the tunnel, a flash of something metallic in their hand.
Beverly was only half aware of someone yelling before she felt a sharp pain in her stomach and everything went dark.
-
“We ready?” Hyrok questioned as he stood by the door opening mechanism, mirroring Leslie’s pose at the other door, his phaser gripped in his other hand.
“As I’ll ever be.” Ramamurthy answered, glancing behind herself at Monroe, who was still seated at the conference table. They’d decided that as they only had the three weapons and Monroe was clearly suffering the effects of a bad concussion, it was best if she stayed behind while the others made their attempt on the bridge.
Leslie nodded her own confirmation, not trusting her voice. They’d been in the conference room for almost thirty minutes, during which they’d done very little other than discuss what they were going to do next and the odds of anything they did succeeding. She’d had far too much time to think about what might be happening to the Canmore and her mom, not to mention all of the mentions of Data and Pincent during the numerous revisions of their plan.
In the end through it had come down to this, as close to a full out assault as they could come with only three people, two phasers and an alien weapon. It had taken them ten minutes to figure out the alien weapon’s settings, but they had managed to find a setting that closely resembled the high stun setting that they had set the phasers to.
“Three, two, one.” Hyrok counted down until he triggered his set of doors, Leslie copying his movements at the same time, both sets of doors swishing open together. Ramamurthy had paired with Hyrok to attack the top of the bridge, where the larger number of aliens were, while Leslie took the lower section and the leader, firing almost blindly towards the Captain’s chair, hoping that the man hadn’t moved.
The near darkness of the bridge made it difficult for Leslie to make out very much as she dived for the conn, knowing that it was the closest piece of cover to her position. She ducked as she felt the space above her head heat, biting her lip to keep from cursing and giving her position away.
She let out a breath in relief as she made the cover of the familiar console, taking a second before she peered out to gauge the situation. She had heard at least four separate shots, mostly from the aliens weapons, but she hadn’t heard anyone fall, focused as she had been on making cover.
She kept her breathing slow, remembering the few things that Worf had taught her during the few self defence lessons that her mom had dragged her along to, waiting for her eyes to become accustomed to the dim lighting of the bridge. Part of her regretted her earlier actions, it would have been so much easier for them to act if they could see, but the same held true for their captors.
Leslie spotted an extra figure slumped on the floor between her position and the captain’s chair and felt a moment of elation, she had managed to take down her target, that was one less alien to deal with. She looked up towards the rear of the bridge, searching for any sign of Ramamurthy and Hyrok, or the other four aliens, but it was hard to tell one figure from another in the near darkness.
There were two still forms on the floor, one either side of the tactical station, with three figures spaced out around the room. Leslie watched carefully for a moment, waiting for any signs of movement from any of the figures, dread building in the pit of her stomach as she realised that one of the incapacitated figures, namely the one closest to the doors that Hyrok and Ramamurthy has entered the bridge through, was distinctly female.
She watched the figure crouched down at the end of the tactical console, just a few feet from Ramammurthy’s still form, just barely managing to make out the gold Starfleet uniform in the limited light available. Which meant that it was now two against three, though considering the lack of a body laying by the still open panel from earlier, she was guessing that one of the three had to be in worse condition than the others. Unless that particular alien was the same one that was lying on the other side of the tactical console.
Leslie shook her head, mentally scolding herself and reminding herself that she needed to focus on what she was sure of, there was no time for speculation. She shifted carefully, taking aim at the closer of the two aliens sheltered behind the far side of the tactical console and firing. The alien slumped to one side and Leslie ducked quickly, just avoiding being hit by the other alien’s return shot.
She flinched unconsciously as another shot was fired before she remembered that Hyrok was armed with exactly the same weapon as the aliens. Or at least, he had been last she knew, it was possible that he had managed to get a hold of Ramamurthy’s phaser after the woman had gone down. Leslie counted to ten under her breathe before she risked sticking her head out again, taking in the situation. Only one alien was still moving easily, but Hyrok was now slumped against the tactical console and the other alien was still capable of firing his weapon, even if his aim was greatly diminished.
Leslie sighted on the uninjured alien who was crouched behind the tactical console itself, angled in such a way that it would be impossible for Hyrok to get a clear shot unless he moved out from his cover. She would deal with the injured alien later, first she needed to disable the one real remaining threat. She took her time aiming, firing as soon as she was sure that her shot would hit its intended target and ducking back down behind the conn, just in case either alien fired at her. When nothing happened she gave it a minute before she peered over the conn once more, surprised to find all of the aliens now slumped in various states of unconsciousness.
She gave it a moment, watching each one in turn before she edged out from behind the conn and made her way over to Pincent’s prone form, carefully side stepping Data. She would see to her friend later, first she needed to check on Pincent, Hyrok and Ramamurthy, as unlike Data, their conditions could worsen the longer she left them unchecked.
Leslie knelt down next to Pincent, reaching out with a shaking hand to feel for a pulse, sagging with relief when she found one. She ran her hands over each of his limbs gently, mentally noting each of his apparent injuries, before she stood and started to move towards Hyrok, aware of his eyes on her.
She froze when his eyes moved from her to something behind her, widening in a way that made it very clear how much trouble she was in. If she survived this, there was going to be a long serious of lectures from various senior staff about checking that an enemy was down before turning your back on them.
Leslie turned with her phaser raised just in time to watch as the alien collapsed to the floor once more, the man’s weapon falling from his lax hand, an unsteady looking Data standing over the body. “Data.”
-
“Damnit.” Will cursed, pulling his uniform top off and wadding it up to press against the wound in Beverly’s stomach, continuing to mentally curse himself for not checking the rest of engineering before starting to work on the systems that they so badly needed. He knew better.
Tarrin reappeared at Will’s side much sooner than expected, holstering his phaser so that he could pick up Beverly’s discarded tricorder and run it over the doctor. Will watched the Vulcan’s expression carefully, his blood running cold when Tarrin’s face became somehow even more solemn. “She needs to be treated as soon as possible.”
Will bit back his automatic response, now wasn’t the time to lose it, “What happened to her attacker?”
“I was unable to catch the woman before she shut herself in one of the storerooms, I was however able to ensure that the room will remain sealed until we are able to deal with her.” Tarrin replied.
“Her?” Will repeated, using the information to take his mind off the fact that his uniform shirt was all too quickly becoming saturated with blood. He glanced towards the two Canmore crew men who were still working on the ship’s systems, fighting not to flinch when Karg shook his shook in answer to Will’s unspoken question. Communications weren’t going to be fixed on time, if they ever were.
“Yes, Doctor Crusher’s assailant was a female of a humanoid species I have not previously encountered.”
Will grit his teeth, remembering what Data had told him about the Canmore’s crew. It seemed unlikely that this woman was one of them, more like a stowaway, or maybe even one of the crew of the ship that had attacked the Canmore.
He tapped his comm badge, determined to at least try despite the fact that it was highly unlikely that this would be the time when they suddenly regained contact with the Enterprise. “Riker to Enterprise, come in please.”
There a moment, when the only answer to his call was static before a familiar voice suddenly came through, sounding only slightly distorted. ”Stand by Commander.”
Will blinked looking up at Tarrin who looked as surprised as a Vulcan was capable of looking, “Was that…?”
Tarrin nodded, “it did sound somewhat like Lieutenant Worf yes.”
Will shook his head, hesitating for a moment before glancing down at Beverly, taking in her unnaturally pale appearance, even in the dim emergency lighting. He couldn’t’ really afford to wait for Worf to get back to him. “Worf, Doctor Crusher has been seriously injured, if she doesn’t get to sickbay soon I don’t know if she’ll make it.”
There was a long pause, seeming longer because of the life hanging in the balance, before another voice came through the communication system.
”Understood Number One, we’ve locked on to Doctor Crusher’s comm. badge and will beam her to sickbay momentarily.”
Will slumped a little with relief at the sound of the Captain’s voice, while at the same time realizing that despite everything that had happened, night watch could have only just recently ended. Of course, he had no idea what had been happening on the Enterprise during the time that he and the away team had been stuck on board the Canmore. For all he knew the Captain could have been awake all along.
A moment later his hands were hovering in mid air, over the space that Beverly had been occupying, and he allowed himself a moment to recover, closing his eyes and pressing his head against his upper arm, careful to avoid the blood that coated much of his hands. He really needed to find somewhere to wash them.
”Picard to Riker.” The Captain’s voice summoned Will out of his half daze and he forced himself to focus. There was still a job to be done.
“Riker here.”
”How are things on the Canmore?”
Will hesitated for a moment before he answered, considering the best way to describe the situation, “We have half of the crew accounted for and life support is still functioning, but that’s about all the good news there is. Doctor Crusher was attacked by a woman who doesn’t seem to be a member of the crew, but so far she’s the only hostile we’ve encountered. If we’re going to cover the rest of the ship, we’re going to need more people. How are things with you?”
”Mister Worf is arranging two more away teams as we speak, they should be joining you within the hour. It was touch and go for a moment here, but we have the ship that attacked the Canmore in custody.”
“That’s good to hear sir.”
part three
Author: weaselett
Fandom: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Characters: Leslie Crusher, Data, Beverly Crusher, William Riker, OCs
Warnings: Mention of violence
Word Count: c.16000
Summary: During a rescue mission lives hang in the balance and Leslie Crusher is led to seriously consider whether she still wants to go to the academy.
part one
They were still making their way down the corridor towards the command centre when the whole ship seemed to shake, the emergency lighting seeming to fail completely for a moment before coming back up. Suddenly, the dusty air seemed even staler than before.
“What was that?” Alyssa asked, her voice barely more than a whisper as her grip on her tricorder tightened.
Beverly shook her head, lips thinning, “Whatever it was, it isn’t a good sign.”
“Everyone alright?” Will appeared out of the darkness, holding his torch up in the air and looking to each of his people in turn as they answered him. None of them was hurt, and thankfully the corridor had held up.
“What was that?” Beverly questioned softly, taking a step closer to Will, her tricorder cradled against her stomach.
He shook his head, “I don’t know, but whatever it was, it can’t be good.” He hit his comm badge, straightening a little as he did so, “Riker to Enterprise, what just happened? We just has a bit of an earthquake over here.”
He waited a beat before he tried again, “Riker to Data.” He sighed, shaking his head and turning back to Beverly, his frustration clear, “It looks like we’re stuck here for now.”
She nodded, glancing back down the corridor, eyeing the debris that they had already made their way through. They’d managed to get two of the Canmore’s surviving crew to sickbay and they’d found one dead body, which considering the damage they’d seen, wasn’t too bad.
“We should keep on to the command centre; it’s the best bet for some answers.” Riker decided, motioning for them all to follow him as he started off again, his pace a little faster than before.
-
The first shot from the ship hit the Canmore, the freighter jolting a little under the renewed fire, almost at the same time as Leslie’s heart flew into her throat. She had to force herself to stay seated, and silent. Getting upset or panicking wasn’t going to help her mom, or anyone else for that matter.
“Ensign Pincent, fire phasers at the ship, a warning shot.” Data ordered.
“Aye sir.” Pincent’s shot hit the mystery ship's shields, which held, but the action had the desired effect; the ship ceased firing on the Canmore. Leslie swallowed hard, but she kept calm, her hands posed and ready should Data order her to move the ship, even if they were shaking. Just a little.
"What is the status of the Canmore?"
"There's a second hull breach in the aft section, on the other side of the ship from the away team's last known location. It's unlikely the Canmore will be able to take much more before most of its systems fail." Hyrok provided.
"Ensign Crusher, manoeuvre us into a position to protect the Canmore from the ship’s fire."
Leslie entered the commands quickly, edging the Enterprise in between the Canmore and the mystery ship, turning the Enterprise to cover as much of the Canmore as possible while leaving some distance between them, just in case either ship took too much damage.
“What is the status of the unidentified ship?” Data questioned as the Enterprise took up her new position with the Canmore at her back.
“Weapons are still charged, and their shields are at ninety five percent. They have yet to respond to our hails.” Pincent reported, his voice tainted with nervousness. Leslie was beginning to wonder at the wisdom of allowing the night watch to be composed of so many junior officers. She knew that there were a good number of experienced junior officers, but she also knew that the majority were new, young and inexperienced. Then again, she supposed, there was nothing stopping Data from ordering more senior personnel from their beds, other than the knowledge that inexperienced or not every officer on the Enterprise would do their best under any circumstance.
“Continue hailing them and be prepared to return fire if they should attack ourselves or the Canmore.”
There was a short pause before Pincent spoke, somewhat hesitantly, “Sir, aren’t we going to do anything?”
“We are going to wait Ensign Pincent.” Data replied, the way that her voice carried letting Leslie know that the android had turned to face the ensign on tactical, though it remained as perfectly calm as ever, “While it seems that we now know that this is the ship that attacked the Canmore, we do not yet know their reasons why, nor do we know who they are. We will not make any further aggressive moves until they give us reason to act to defend ourselves or the Canmore.”
“Understood sir.”
Leslie winced, that was definitely the voice of someone with their tail between their legs, though not literally in this case. She could see his point though, just sitting there, even with their shields up and knowing that the Enterprise was the federation flag ship for a reason, was hard when the evidence of the ship’s intent lay just off their port side. Plus there was the fact that the ship still hadn’t answered any of their hails. It felt wrong to just sit, waiting for the other side to make their move, but it was procedure and they really didn’t have any idea what would happen if they opened fire.
As frustrating as it was, waiting really was the best move.
-
The ship's emergency lighting seemed to be growing dimmer the closer they came to the Canmore's command center. Or at least that was how it seemed to Beverly. She quickened her pace to catch up to Will, keeping pace with him as they approached a set of doors.
“Doesn't look like they're expecting guests.” Will commented dryly as the door mechanism failed to open the door, “It looks like I'm going to have to do this the hard way.” He knelt, pulling the cover from the wall below the mechanism, exposing the ship's internal workings. "Ok, hopefully..." He pulled one of the isolinear chips out of the board, grinning as the doors slid partway open before sticking.
Tarrin moved forward as Will replaced the cover, placing a hand on either door and pushing, creating an opening big enough for them all to get through. Tarrin took the lead, closely followed by Riker then Beverly, who stayed by the doors until the other three had all joined them.
The command centre was an expansive space, subdivided by sets of columns with consoles set into alcoves in the walls. There was no sign of any of the life signs that they had been detecting while on the Enterprise, though in the dim lighting it was difficult to make out very much detail.
Beverly opened her tricorder, scanning the area and moving in the direction it indicated. It seemed that the crew members in the command centre had grouped together at one end of the room, as far from the doors through which the Enterprise away team had entered as possible.
Beverly looked up as a hand touched her elbow, holding her back, finding herself motioned backwards by Will as he started to move, his torch in one hand while his other rested on his phaser, prepared for whatever might be waiting. She stepped back, allowing Will to take the lead without complaint.
She was aware of the remainder of the team following at her back, but she was focused on their surroundings, ducking the occasional hanging wires. She had been on a few ships in worse state than the Canmore, but in most of those cases she had known much more about the situation that she was getting herself into.
They rounded the last of the columns, a large viewscreen becoming visible on the wall as they approached the life signs, which seemed to be located behind the low consoles between them and the viewscreen.
"Hello?" Will called, as he raised his torch a little higher, his pace slowed as he approached the consoles. He motioned with his free hand for Beverly to stay back while Tarrin moved forwards, his phaser drawn.
Beverly clenched her teeth, resisting the urge to tell him to put his phaser away, reminding herself that they still had no idea what had happened, or whether the people they were approaching would react well or not.
"Hello? I'm Commander William Riker, from the USS Enterprise. We're here to help." Will continued moving as he spoke, sidestepping the consoles and edging into the space between them and the viewscreen. He stilled, eyes widening a little before he looked up at Beverly, "Doctor."
She moved quickly, drawing Alyssa along with her and ignoring the security team. Her patients came first, no matter what.
-
For over thirty minutes the ship had just sat there, not moving, it’s weapons charged and shields up, not answering any of the Enterprise’s hails. It was starting to make Leslie feel a little on edge.
“Still no answer from the away team or the ship.” Pincent gave his ten minute report, but this time Leslie thought she could hear an edge of frustration to the words. At some point, if the man actually let his emotions show, Data would have to call him on it.
“Continue broadcasting on all frequencies.” There was a pause before Data activated her comm., “Data to engineering, what have you learned from your scans of the ship?”
”It seems to be using a Romulan cloaking device, it has three banks of phasers, but no photon torpedoes and the shields look like they will be able to withstand at least one barrage of our phasers at full power.” Assistant Chief Engineer Nola’s voice came through the comm system, the Androian’s voice even as she listed off each feature of the ship, “I can’t tell you who built the ship for certain, it’s such a mix of parts. I managed to ID a few of the parts as having been stolen from one of the federation depots in the system, but there’s nothing in the report to suggest what the ship that took them looked like. If I had to guess, I’d say it was built by Orions, but I can’t tell you who is on board it now. I’m afraid that’s all I can tell you until they either drop their shields or answer our hails.”
“Understood, have you made on progress on disrupting the signal that is preventing us from making contact with the away team?”
”Not as yet, but we’re working on it. It seems to be connected to their cloaking technology somehow. I’d say that if they were to raise their cloak again the signal would stop, it’s defiantly going to be taking a lot of power from other key systems, considering the range its covering.”
“Thank you Lieutenant. Keep me informed on any progress, Data out.”
Leslie shifted her weight in her chair a little, flicking through her various screens once more, wishing for something more constructive to do even as she calculated the time left until the next shift came on. Data would be staying, that much she knew, but the rest of them would be sent off to eat and get some sleep. Which meant, as soon as Leslie was out of her seat, she wouldn’t be allowed near the bridge for hours. Hours that she would end up spending either pacing the quarters that she shared with her mother, hanging around in Ten Forward talking to Guinan, or loitering in engineering until someone threw her out. She sighed softly, mentally correcting herself, the only way she’d be permitted into engineering was if there was something that they needed extra hands for, and so far, thankfully, nothing had come up.
She was just starting into creating a mental list of the places on the ship that she would be able to see the Canmore from when the ship seemed to shake a little and a figure seemed to shimmer into existence between the viewscreen and her console.
“Computer activate red alert and lock out all command functions, authorisation Data Alpha Omega One Five Delta.” Data spoke so fast that Leslie could only just make out the words, but she was aware of the sound of Data’s fingers entering a series of commands into the console on the arm of the captain’s chair.
“All hands, be advised we have been boarded.” Ensign Pincent’s voice rang out clear, just as the red wall lights started to flash, casting a strange light onto the bridge’s newest occupants. Leslie looked around in time to see Pincent lunge at the nearest intruder, only to be thrown over his console to land heavily on the floor just a few short feet from Leslie. The ‘man’ standing to one side of the command chairs then fired his weapon at the ensign, not seeming to care that the man had already been knocked unconscious by his companion.
Data was the next to take a hit, the ‘man’ shooting her as she moved to Pincent’s side, her verbal challenge to the intruders cutting off abruptly. Only, unlike other times when Data had been fired on, the ‘man’s’ weapon actually had an effect on the android.
Leslie watched dumbly as Data fell, yellow eyes staring blankly upwards, body stiff. She couldn’t move, it felt like she’d merged with the chair and all she could think was ’oh god, Data’.
This was different, so different, from the other times stuff like this had happened, but it shouldn’t be.
Leslie swallowed hard, forcing herself to move, turning to tap at the board in front of her, just out of sight of their ‘guests’, to make sure that Data had managed to lock out the computer before they’d gotten to her. The negative beep was a partial reassurance at least, no one but Data would be able to break the code, anyone else would have to spend hours trying to find a back door in.
One of the ‘men’ yelled something incomprehensible, slamming his hand down onto her board, barely missing her face, green eyes bright with anger. Leslie raised her hands slowly, she might not understand what was being said, but the emotion and the two still bodies lying on the floor got the message across just as well.
The ‘man’ motioned with his weapon, pointing her towards the side of the bridge, opposite the door through to the captain’s ready room, where the rest of the uninjured bridge staff had already been herded. Leslie stood slowly, biting the inside of her cheek as she stumbled, her feet brushing the side of one of Data’s legs, before she forced herself to move, dropping to her knees beside the others. She wasn’t going to think about the bodies, she couldn’t afford to, she had to keep her head.
She had to stay calm, there was no other choice. She could fall apart later, when there wasn’t a weapon being pointed at her head.
-
Beverly lent back against one of the consoles as her last patient managed to pull herself upright, a human woman, Anna Yeoman the Canmore’s second in command was the most seriously injured of the three crew members that they had thus far found in the command centre. Not that the woman was about to admit it, or even surrender to Beverly’s care until she was sure that her ship and its crew were safe.
“I have no idea who they are.” Anna said in reply to Will’s question, hiding a wince as she carefully shifted her broken leg. Thankfully it was a clean break; otherwise Beverly would have been having words with the woman about moving it, regardless of what the people around them might think. It was bad enough that Anna had refused treatment until she had answered Will’s questions and of course the two men with her had had to be treated first. Tarrin had taken one of the other security officers to explore the rest of the command centre in search of more survivors. They’d found one dead so far, which still left two unaccounted for.
“What exactly happened?” Will asked, his hands resting fisted against his legs as he watched Anna rearrange herself into a more comfortable position.
“They just appeared and opened fire on us. No warning shot, no communication, we didn’t even detect a scan. They just attacked us and then, just when we thought we were goners, they vanished again.” Anna shook her head, “If they wanted our cargo they would have beamed it out, or made demands. It’s happened to us before, normally it’s Ferengi. The only time I’ve heard of anything like this happening has been when a ship’s captain has pissed off the wrong people, or is siding with a particular side during a conflict.”
“Your captain have any enemies?” Will questioned, grinning when Anna glared at him.
“No, Captain Salik hasn’t got any enemies. Not that I know of at least, besides, he’s a Vulcan, how many Vulcans do you know that have gone out of their way to make an enemy that would be likely to kill them?”
“Where were you headed?” Will pressed, exploring the second possibility she had cited, despite the fact that she had made it clear that neither were likely.
“One of the colonies by the Cardassian border, we were carrying food and medical supplies mostly.” She held up a hand before Will could say anything, “If that ship had looked even vaguely Cardassian I might think it was them trying to stop us getting to our destination, but it didn’t. Plus, we’re still quite a way from the border, I can’t see them coming out this far just to stop a ship from delivering some medical supplies to a federation colony.”
“We have to consider all of the possibilities.” Will pointed out.
“Besides the Cardassians like you to know that they’re the ones about to kill you,” the Bajoran crew member, Alaj Karg, commented dryly, pulling away from Alyssa’s hand as she pressed a finger against one of the bruises mottling the side of his face. “Ouch.”
“So you have no idea why you were attacked.” Will repeated.
“No, I think we just established that.” Anna said before she winced, her expression turning apologetic, “Sorry, it’s been a long day and I’ve still not gotten over being shot at.”
“Can I look at that leg now?” Beverly jumped in before Will could say anything else, fishing around in her bag for the equipment she would need to stabilise the leg until they could get Anna to sickbay.
“Sure, Malik if you can get the sensors back up I’m sure Commander Riker would be as grateful as me. Karg, seen as you seem to be feeling well enough to make sarcastic comments, see if you can find a way of getting in contact with their ship. I don’t like not knowing what’s going on out there.” She rattled off the orders, waiting for the two men to move off before she nodded to Beverly and closed her eyes.
“One last question, then I promise I’ll leave you to Doctor Crusher’s tender administrations.” Will stood over the two of them, not reacting to the glare that Beverly gave him. He continued once Anna had nodded her permission, “Your captain, where was he when you were attacked, and have you heard from him since?”
“He was in his quarters, and no, we haven’t heard from him since the attack started. Our comm system was the first thing to go down.”
Will exchanged a look with Beverly, both of them calculating the odds that one of the two life signs that the Enterprise had detected in quarters was the Canmore’s captain.
The odds weren’t good.
-
There were five of them in total, all wearing identical clothing and all about the same height with the same green eyes and dark hair. It was only after ten minutes of observation that Leslie was starting to see the little differences.
The one who was busy working at one of the back consoles was the technical minded one, he’d been ordered to figure out a way into the ship’s systems, or at least that was Leslie’s guess. None of them seemed to speak English, or any of the other languages that Ensign Monroe, the petite redhead who had been the second officer manning the aft consoles alongside Ensign Ramamurthy, had tried until one of the ‘men’ had made his displeasure clear.
The other four were spread around the bridge. The apparent leader was sitting in the captain’s seat, clearly enjoying himself. The arm console still sparked occasionally, he’d shot it not long after discovering that it refused to accept any of his commands. Pincent and Data lay unmoving at his feet, neither showing any sign of life, though Leslie was hoping that they were still alive, she didn’t know what she’d do if either were dead. One ‘man’ was standing guard over the prisoners, and he was the one who had backhanded Monroe, and had screamed some harsh sounding words at both Leslie herself and Ramamurthy when they had tried to help the other woman. Hyrok on the other hand had been permitted to help Monroe, with only a few muttered comments when he’d been too slow. It didn’t suggest good things considering that Hyrok was the only remaining male crew member on the bridge in any state to make a move on their captors.
The other two ‘men’ were attempting to get one of the turbolifts open, something that Leslie found oddly reassuring, even though she had no idea whether their guests had any friends elsewhere on the ship. What she didn’t understand was why they hadn’t just beamed themselves to another part of the ship; clearly they had the ability to beam through shields so that couldn’t be the issue.
“So, sexist, unintelligible, aggressive, not of a species I recognise aliens have invaded. Any one got any ideas as to what we do about it?” Monroe kept her voice low as she spoke, pausing for a moment to spit blood onto the floor midway through. Rhiannon Monroe was the only one of Leslie’s three companions that she knew from past meetings; she was also the most senior of the four of them.
“Nope, besides not upsetting these guys anymore than we already have.” Hyrok said, his eyes narrowing as the leader glanced up at them, green eyes angry.
“What do you sense from them?” Leslie questioned him, dropping her voice so as to be barely audible, watching their captors for any signs that they were going to punish her. None of them seemed to notice though, which backed up her suspicion that they didn’t have the best hearing. None of them had reacted to Monroe’s rather colourful swearing after she’d been hit after all, and most of that had been hissed under her breath.
“Lots of anger.” Hyrok replied.
“Kinda got that already.” Monroe commented, gingerly poking at her jaw as she spoke.
“Stop doing that,” Ramamurthy hissed, pulling Monroe’s hand away from her face, “it’s not going to help.”
“Focus.” Leslie scolded, blushing when the two women stared at her, both clearly surprised that she had spoken as she had.
Monroe grinned after a moment, “Oh yeah, I remember your trial by fire.” Leslie rolled her eyes, remembering with a shudder the mission that Monroe was referring to. It really hadn’t been any fun. She really hoped that next time she was put in charge of a team she would outrank at least one of them.
“What else?” Leslie pressed Hyrok, stubbornly not responding to Monroe’s comment.
Hyrok sighed, turning back towards their captors, his eyes narrowing as he examined each one in turn. “Frustration, arrogance. They really didn’t like it when Rhi tried talking to them, and from the way that that guy,” he nodded towards the leader, “keeps kicking the commander, I don’t think they’re impressed by the idea of women in command.”
“I look forward to the day when I finally get to meet a society that treats men the way that people like these guys do women.” Monroe muttered, “They didn’t recognise any of the languages I tried, I got that much through the offence at a woman speaking to them, but I don’t recognise their language, not even as being similar to any I know.”
“Commander Data would know.” Ramamurthy whispered, worried brown eyes drifting to the still form of the ship’s second in command just in time to watch the leader give Data a particularly violent kick. She smiled a little as the man cursed, pulling his foot back and cradling it between his hands, clearly in pain. “Serves you right.”
“She managed to lock out all of the command functions, there’s no way they’re going to be able to break the encryption anytime soon, and Pincent managed to lock down the bridge.” Leslie provided, glancing in the direction of the science stations and the increasingly frustrated alien.
“Yeah, maybe if they’d showed a bit more understanding of our systems I’d give them five hours, but the way that guy’s stabbing the controls, our systems don’t even vaguely resemble anything they know.” Monroe agreed.
“So what, we just sit here and wait for the Captain to get someone up here?” Ramamurthy questioned, sounding doubtful.
“We could do that, but I’d rather try something.” Monroe said, shifting her weight a little, her gaze moving around the bridge eyeing each of their captors in turn. “There’s four of us, five of them. We’re unarmed, they’re all armed, but we know the ship and they don’t.”
“At some point they’re going to give up trying to find a way into our system and they’ll make one of us show them how.” Leslie pointed out. “The only problem is, they’ll probably pick Hyrok.”
“And hold their weapons on us as incentive.” Monroe agreed, ignoring the way Ramamurthy’s eyes widened at the suggestion.
Leslie nodded. “We stand a better chance of taking them before then, while they’re split up.”
“You know the ship’s systems better than any of us.” Monroe commented, eying Leslie speculatively.
“Which is kind of scary considering you’re just an acting ensign,” Hyrok commented, “no offence.”
Leslie smiled, “None taken, I get that a lot.” She did, there were plenty of people on the ship who either disliked her or questioned the sense of allowing a teenager who hadn’t even been to the academy yet to work in engineering or man the conn. She’d proved herself plenty of times, but still that opinion continued, though she hadn’t heard it first hand. Barclay’s holodeck version of her had been a rather apt combination of the various opinions that existed she knew, despite what Geordi and Data had said. She glanced unconsciously towards her friend’s body, swallowing hard.
She really needed to make more friends outside of the command staff, preferably among the civilians on board. It was very unlikely that any of them would get injured or die any time soon.
“Okay so, what should we do? It’s not like any of us can break Data’s encryption fast enough, besides which I don’t think we want to, not until we get rid of our unexpected guests.” Monroe questioned Leslie directly, drawing Leslie back to the problem at hand.
Leslie chewed on her bottom lip, considering for a moment and avoiding looking towards the leader and what lay at his feet. She was not going to let herself get distracted by anything, getting them out of the situation they were in was more important and needed all of her attention. She took a deep breath before turning to Monroe, “I have an idea. It’s a little crazy, but it might work.”
-
It took ten minutes for Tarrin to return from his exploration of the command centre, during which time Beverly had managed to stabilise Anna’s leg and Malik had managed to pull up the sensor records of the ship that had attacked the Canmore. The problem was neither the sensors nor communications were working.
They had accounted for all of the life signs that the Enterprise had detected, bringing the final injured crew member over to join her colleagues and covering the two dead. Beverly couldn’t help but feel bad for not having been able to reach the bridge in time to save the one crew member who had bled out just minutes before the away team had reached him. She hated losing people.
“It’s not a ship that I recognise.” Will commented, eying the sensor readings critically, “It doesn’t even seem to resemble any of the typical classes of ship.”
“Our readings suggested it was more of a combination of various different crafts.” Malik agreed, “It is more heavily armed than many of the ships that we encounter normally, and it didn’t respond to any of our hails, through whether that is because they did not understand, or because they did not wish to respond, I can not say.”
“Our communications should be working.” Karg spoke up as he stood, brushing himself down. He had spent much of his time examining the inner circuits of his console during the time it had taken Beverly to finish treating Anna. “There’s nothing wrong with the circuits, they must be blocking us somehow.”
“That would explain the fact that we haven’t been able to get in contact with the Enterprise.” Beverly commented before standing and stretching her legs gingerly.
“That would mean that the ship that attacked us is still here.” Anna said, looking up at them all from her position prone on the floor.
Beverly and Will exchanged a look, “Which means that that jolt we felt back in the corridor….” Beverly began.
“…was the ship taking another hit from this mysterious attacker.” Will finished, looking grim, “It fits, and we lost contact with the Enterprise at about the same time.”
“If they detected the Enterprise approaching it is possible that they cloaked and waited to see what we did.” Tarrin said.
“So they never left.” Will finished grimly, his mouth drawing into a thin line.
“We need working sensors.” Anna said, determination strengthening her voice, “and more importantly, working shields.”
Will nodded, eying the people around him critically for a moment before he spoke. “Ok, which of you is the best engineer?” He asked the members of the Canmore’s crew that were present.
“Karg.” Anna answered, “but Malik should go with you as well, he knows the systems almost as well and the more hands the better.”
Will nodded, “Ok, Karg, Malik, Tarrin, Doctor Crusher, you’re with me. The rest of you stay here and do what you can.”
Beverly gave Alyssa’s arm a reassuring squeeze before following after Will as he headed back out of the command centre, taking the second set of doors as Karg and Malik explained that it would be the quicker route. There were still at least fifteen crew members unaccounted for, including the chief engineer and the captain.
-
Ramamurthy and Monroe arranged themselves carefully so that they blocked their captors’ view of the wall panel behind them. It wasn’t an issue yet, all five of the aliens were facing away from the Enterprise crew members, but at some point they were sure to turn towards them.
Leslie knelt next to the open panel, eying the circuitry critically; searching for the clump of wiring that she knew was there somewhere. Hyrok knelt on the other side, rearranging the isolinar chips as Leslie had instructed. Hopefully this would work and not backfire spectacularly.
She finally found what she was looking for and drew out the wiring gently, careful not to touch the live ends as she disconnected them from their sockets, grinning as the lightening dimmed even further, dropping the bridge into near darkness, leaving only the red alert lighting offering any real illumination.
Their captors cursed loudly as the lighting dropped, the guard lunging at Leslie only to go down hard as his bare skin made contact with the ends of the wires she was holding. Hyrok grabbed the fallen man’s weapon and hauled Monroe to her feet, pulling her towards the door to the briefing room as Ramamurthy stayed back with Leslie, moving the final isolinar chip into position and triggering the conference room doors to open before she and Leslie made a run for it.
Hyrok fired on the leader as he attempted to charge them, but only managed to clip the man on the shoulder, but it was enough to allow the four of them time to get through the doors before they sealed again, shutting them into the conference room.
“Ok, so that worked, what now?” Monroe questioned as she collapsed into one of the chairs.
“Now,” Leslie opened a wall panel, exposing a hidden compartment in which two phasers were stored, along with a tricorder and a hypospray. It was a well kept secret that Leslie was only aware of because she had heard Worf mention it to one of his new security personal once. “We come up with a plan to retake the bridge.”
-
Beverly followed a few steps behind Will as the two Canmore crewmen lead them towards engineering, all too aware of Tarrin’s presence at her back. Each corridor that they passed through remained as dimly lit as the last, a constant reminder of the fact that they were on a ship that had been the victim of an apparently unprovoked attack, and that at any moment that attack could begin again.
They had found the bodies of two more crew members and had run into three more walking wounded between the command centre and engineering, but they hadn’t found the captain or the chief engineer, and Beverly was still trying to decide whether that was a good or a bad thing as Will and Malik worked on getting the door into the engine room open. They still only had half of the Canmore’s crew accounted for, and though thankfully the majority were still alive, there had still been a lot of fatalities. It was a testament to the ship’s construction that it was still largely in one piece, despite the structural damage that it had taken.
The doors rumbled open as Malik manipulated the controls, the smell of burnt flesh escaping as they opened, making both Will and Beverly take a step back. That wasn’t good, thought it also wasn’t surprising. Beverly had seen enough burn injuries caused by incidents in engineering to know that it was the most common injury.
Tarrin took the lead this time, his phaser drawn despite objections from Karg, with Will bringing up the rear. A few small plasma fires continued to burn in a few places around the room and the emergency bulkhead between the warp core and the main section was down. Beverly closed her eyes for a moment automatically, wondering how many of the ship’s crew had been on the other side of the bulkhead when it had dropped.
Malik and Karg both paused at the same time, staring at the bulk head for a moment before Karg shook his head and moved towards a bank of monitors that seemed the least damaged, his hands moving across the controls while Malik knelt down and pulled the covers off the panels beneath, ready to do whatever work Karg might need. “I should be able to get the internal sensors working at least,” Karg said after a few moments, “then possibly the shields, but the external sensors are in a bad way.”
“Shields and internal sensors are better than nothing.” Will commented, stepping up beside Karg and eying the consoles while Tarrin kept his distance, phaser still in hand. Beverly sighed, looking around the room, searching for any sigh of survivors that needed her attention. She froze squinting into the murk for a moment before moving away from the men, her gaze fixed on the leg that she could just see poking out of the entrance to a maintenance tunnel.
She flipped her tricorder open, eying the reading critically and frowning as the instrument failed to give a clear reading. Flipping it shut again she pushed it into it’s holder on her hip and edged closer to the tunnel, reaching out to touch the leg gently, only to find herself thrown to the floor as the owner of the leg dived out of the tunnel, a flash of something metallic in their hand.
Beverly was only half aware of someone yelling before she felt a sharp pain in her stomach and everything went dark.
-
“We ready?” Hyrok questioned as he stood by the door opening mechanism, mirroring Leslie’s pose at the other door, his phaser gripped in his other hand.
“As I’ll ever be.” Ramamurthy answered, glancing behind herself at Monroe, who was still seated at the conference table. They’d decided that as they only had the three weapons and Monroe was clearly suffering the effects of a bad concussion, it was best if she stayed behind while the others made their attempt on the bridge.
Leslie nodded her own confirmation, not trusting her voice. They’d been in the conference room for almost thirty minutes, during which they’d done very little other than discuss what they were going to do next and the odds of anything they did succeeding. She’d had far too much time to think about what might be happening to the Canmore and her mom, not to mention all of the mentions of Data and Pincent during the numerous revisions of their plan.
In the end through it had come down to this, as close to a full out assault as they could come with only three people, two phasers and an alien weapon. It had taken them ten minutes to figure out the alien weapon’s settings, but they had managed to find a setting that closely resembled the high stun setting that they had set the phasers to.
“Three, two, one.” Hyrok counted down until he triggered his set of doors, Leslie copying his movements at the same time, both sets of doors swishing open together. Ramamurthy had paired with Hyrok to attack the top of the bridge, where the larger number of aliens were, while Leslie took the lower section and the leader, firing almost blindly towards the Captain’s chair, hoping that the man hadn’t moved.
The near darkness of the bridge made it difficult for Leslie to make out very much as she dived for the conn, knowing that it was the closest piece of cover to her position. She ducked as she felt the space above her head heat, biting her lip to keep from cursing and giving her position away.
She let out a breath in relief as she made the cover of the familiar console, taking a second before she peered out to gauge the situation. She had heard at least four separate shots, mostly from the aliens weapons, but she hadn’t heard anyone fall, focused as she had been on making cover.
She kept her breathing slow, remembering the few things that Worf had taught her during the few self defence lessons that her mom had dragged her along to, waiting for her eyes to become accustomed to the dim lighting of the bridge. Part of her regretted her earlier actions, it would have been so much easier for them to act if they could see, but the same held true for their captors.
Leslie spotted an extra figure slumped on the floor between her position and the captain’s chair and felt a moment of elation, she had managed to take down her target, that was one less alien to deal with. She looked up towards the rear of the bridge, searching for any sign of Ramamurthy and Hyrok, or the other four aliens, but it was hard to tell one figure from another in the near darkness.
There were two still forms on the floor, one either side of the tactical station, with three figures spaced out around the room. Leslie watched carefully for a moment, waiting for any signs of movement from any of the figures, dread building in the pit of her stomach as she realised that one of the incapacitated figures, namely the one closest to the doors that Hyrok and Ramamurthy has entered the bridge through, was distinctly female.
She watched the figure crouched down at the end of the tactical console, just a few feet from Ramammurthy’s still form, just barely managing to make out the gold Starfleet uniform in the limited light available. Which meant that it was now two against three, though considering the lack of a body laying by the still open panel from earlier, she was guessing that one of the three had to be in worse condition than the others. Unless that particular alien was the same one that was lying on the other side of the tactical console.
Leslie shook her head, mentally scolding herself and reminding herself that she needed to focus on what she was sure of, there was no time for speculation. She shifted carefully, taking aim at the closer of the two aliens sheltered behind the far side of the tactical console and firing. The alien slumped to one side and Leslie ducked quickly, just avoiding being hit by the other alien’s return shot.
She flinched unconsciously as another shot was fired before she remembered that Hyrok was armed with exactly the same weapon as the aliens. Or at least, he had been last she knew, it was possible that he had managed to get a hold of Ramamurthy’s phaser after the woman had gone down. Leslie counted to ten under her breathe before she risked sticking her head out again, taking in the situation. Only one alien was still moving easily, but Hyrok was now slumped against the tactical console and the other alien was still capable of firing his weapon, even if his aim was greatly diminished.
Leslie sighted on the uninjured alien who was crouched behind the tactical console itself, angled in such a way that it would be impossible for Hyrok to get a clear shot unless he moved out from his cover. She would deal with the injured alien later, first she needed to disable the one real remaining threat. She took her time aiming, firing as soon as she was sure that her shot would hit its intended target and ducking back down behind the conn, just in case either alien fired at her. When nothing happened she gave it a minute before she peered over the conn once more, surprised to find all of the aliens now slumped in various states of unconsciousness.
She gave it a moment, watching each one in turn before she edged out from behind the conn and made her way over to Pincent’s prone form, carefully side stepping Data. She would see to her friend later, first she needed to check on Pincent, Hyrok and Ramamurthy, as unlike Data, their conditions could worsen the longer she left them unchecked.
Leslie knelt down next to Pincent, reaching out with a shaking hand to feel for a pulse, sagging with relief when she found one. She ran her hands over each of his limbs gently, mentally noting each of his apparent injuries, before she stood and started to move towards Hyrok, aware of his eyes on her.
She froze when his eyes moved from her to something behind her, widening in a way that made it very clear how much trouble she was in. If she survived this, there was going to be a long serious of lectures from various senior staff about checking that an enemy was down before turning your back on them.
Leslie turned with her phaser raised just in time to watch as the alien collapsed to the floor once more, the man’s weapon falling from his lax hand, an unsteady looking Data standing over the body. “Data.”
-
“Damnit.” Will cursed, pulling his uniform top off and wadding it up to press against the wound in Beverly’s stomach, continuing to mentally curse himself for not checking the rest of engineering before starting to work on the systems that they so badly needed. He knew better.
Tarrin reappeared at Will’s side much sooner than expected, holstering his phaser so that he could pick up Beverly’s discarded tricorder and run it over the doctor. Will watched the Vulcan’s expression carefully, his blood running cold when Tarrin’s face became somehow even more solemn. “She needs to be treated as soon as possible.”
Will bit back his automatic response, now wasn’t the time to lose it, “What happened to her attacker?”
“I was unable to catch the woman before she shut herself in one of the storerooms, I was however able to ensure that the room will remain sealed until we are able to deal with her.” Tarrin replied.
“Her?” Will repeated, using the information to take his mind off the fact that his uniform shirt was all too quickly becoming saturated with blood. He glanced towards the two Canmore crew men who were still working on the ship’s systems, fighting not to flinch when Karg shook his shook in answer to Will’s unspoken question. Communications weren’t going to be fixed on time, if they ever were.
“Yes, Doctor Crusher’s assailant was a female of a humanoid species I have not previously encountered.”
Will grit his teeth, remembering what Data had told him about the Canmore’s crew. It seemed unlikely that this woman was one of them, more like a stowaway, or maybe even one of the crew of the ship that had attacked the Canmore.
He tapped his comm badge, determined to at least try despite the fact that it was highly unlikely that this would be the time when they suddenly regained contact with the Enterprise. “Riker to Enterprise, come in please.”
There a moment, when the only answer to his call was static before a familiar voice suddenly came through, sounding only slightly distorted. ”Stand by Commander.”
Will blinked looking up at Tarrin who looked as surprised as a Vulcan was capable of looking, “Was that…?”
Tarrin nodded, “it did sound somewhat like Lieutenant Worf yes.”
Will shook his head, hesitating for a moment before glancing down at Beverly, taking in her unnaturally pale appearance, even in the dim emergency lighting. He couldn’t’ really afford to wait for Worf to get back to him. “Worf, Doctor Crusher has been seriously injured, if she doesn’t get to sickbay soon I don’t know if she’ll make it.”
There was a long pause, seeming longer because of the life hanging in the balance, before another voice came through the communication system.
”Understood Number One, we’ve locked on to Doctor Crusher’s comm. badge and will beam her to sickbay momentarily.”
Will slumped a little with relief at the sound of the Captain’s voice, while at the same time realizing that despite everything that had happened, night watch could have only just recently ended. Of course, he had no idea what had been happening on the Enterprise during the time that he and the away team had been stuck on board the Canmore. For all he knew the Captain could have been awake all along.
A moment later his hands were hovering in mid air, over the space that Beverly had been occupying, and he allowed himself a moment to recover, closing his eyes and pressing his head against his upper arm, careful to avoid the blood that coated much of his hands. He really needed to find somewhere to wash them.
”Picard to Riker.” The Captain’s voice summoned Will out of his half daze and he forced himself to focus. There was still a job to be done.
“Riker here.”
”How are things on the Canmore?”
Will hesitated for a moment before he answered, considering the best way to describe the situation, “We have half of the crew accounted for and life support is still functioning, but that’s about all the good news there is. Doctor Crusher was attacked by a woman who doesn’t seem to be a member of the crew, but so far she’s the only hostile we’ve encountered. If we’re going to cover the rest of the ship, we’re going to need more people. How are things with you?”
”Mister Worf is arranging two more away teams as we speak, they should be joining you within the hour. It was touch and go for a moment here, but we have the ship that attacked the Canmore in custody.”
“That’s good to hear sir.”
part three