It had been a long day. Pirates crawling all over his ship and impromptu bomb disposal. 

Raan sighed and leaned his head back against the plush headrest of his chair and let the sound of the lounge wash over him. 

Unlike on a bigger ship, the Resolute didn’t have a seperate lounge for senior officers, or even officers. Instead, the main lounge had been extended and they were all lumped in together, with a small section to the side of the bar with bigger, more luxurious chairs as a nod to a senior officer’s mess. 

Raan didn’t care about all that, that the ship didn’t have all the facilities most captain’s enjoyed. He liked… no, he preferred to be in amongst his crew. Looking around the room he saw faces he knew, people he knew. His crew was small and, apart from the new cohort they’d taken on at SB86 recently, he knew most of them well enough to enquire after family, or pets, or ask about their favourite hobbies. 

Today he knew new things about some of them. 

He lifted his glass and took a large swallow of the dark liquid within. Llanarian spiced rum, stocked especially for him. It wasn’t an expensive drink, a fact that had raised the ship’s quartermaster’s elegant brow when she’d ordered it. Apparently a captain should have more refined tastes than the gut-rot rum he’d drunk with his men in the trenches. 

But he didn’t and here they were. Him and his gut-rot watching his crew as they interacted in the lounge. 

Today he knew that Norman, the most nervous and accident-prone officer on the ship, had a hard core of heroism (or stupidity) that had made him throw himself over an unexploded grenade. Raan flexed his hand, still feeling the sting of the burn from the I-5 acid he’d had to use to disarm the thing even though their CMO had healed the injury hours ago. That was the thing about I-5 though, it caused phantom nerve pain for days after. 

He took another drink, feeling the burn all the way down to his stomach and smiled as Norman spotted him and raised his glass, a large whiskey (with standing orders from the captain that it was to be kept topped up and Norman was strictly off-duty tomorrow. There was absolutely no way Raan wanted to find out what trouble the most accident prone guy on the ship could cause when drunk or hungover). Raan raised his own glass in salute. He had no idea what had caused Norman to be a hero today, but now he knew Norman had it in him. He just needed the right circumstances to shine. And now Raan knew he had another ace up his sleeve, to be deployed when needed. 

His attention moved onto Rennox, his young yeoman, who was holding court in the other corner of the lounge with a harem comprising of the young women on the ship, and a fair few young men. After his defense of sickbay, it appeared Rennox had become somewhat of a legend among the younger members of the crew. 

Raan smiled as he took another drink. Before today, he’d had said Rennox couldn’t have fought his way out of a paperbag, both literally and in an administrative sense. Rennox’s work ethic was good, but he couldn’t file anything for shit. After today, Raan knew his talent’s lay elsewhere. Why the kid had taken a yeoman’s position, he had no clue. That was a puzzle for another day. 

His lips compressed as he lifted his glass to find it empty. Tonight’s puzzle was why his glass was empty and how quickly he could get it refilled. 

“Bridge to the captain,” Allen’s smooth voice sounded, interrupting his reverie. “We have a priority one communication coming through from Command for you, sir. It’s encrypted.”

Raan blinked, his brain taking a moment to process that information. Then he blinked again. So much for more rum. With a groan, he levered himself up out of his chair. 

“Route it through to my ready room,” he ordered. “I’m on my way.”

“Aye sir.”

Given the diminutive size of the Resolute, it didn’t take Raan long to reach his ready room. He ducked to avoid whacking his head on the sloping ceiling and dropped into the chair, which complained about his weight with a groan. 

Reaching forward, he tapped the waiting commlink. 

“Please enter command authorisation for priority one communication.” 

“Mason, Zebra-Delta-Three-Seven-India,” he replied and the screen resolved to reveal Captain Barrington, the TFCO for Task Force 86. 

“Sir?” Raan frowned. While he knew who Barrington was, he’d never spoken to the man himself even though he knew his XO had. They were cousins as far as he knew. There was a superficial resemblance, but he couldn’t see much of his XO in the man in front of him. Barrington was altogether… harder and more contained than Burton. 

“Commander Mason,” Barrington nodded. “I’ll cut to the chase because time is of the essence here. The Dominion are back, at least a part of them are. The Lost Fleet has re-emerged.”

Raan froze. This had to be a joke, surely? “The Lost Fleet, sir? Aren’t they a myth?”

“Up until hours ago, yes,” Barrington nodded. “Now they’re a myth cutting a swathe through federation territory and causing havoc. They’re convinced the war is still raging and they’re on the front line. We were utterly unprepared for an attack of this size and magnitude.”

Raan nodded. 

“How can I help, sir?” he asked, assuming orders were incoming. No ship captain got a personal communication from the TFCO in a situation like this for a nice chat. 

“You have experience of ground combat, I believe?” 

Barrington, it seemed, was a man to cut to the chase. There was movement behind him and for a moment Raan was forced to do a double take as Rennox slid a padd in front of Barrington. 

But not his Rennox. As soon as the kid looked up, it was easy to see this was the other Rennox. Tavik’s twin. They might look the same, but this one was entirely self-contained in very much the same way as Barrington was. 

“I do, yes,” he replied in a rumble. His life before joining the fleet was detailed in his personnel file. “I served during my planet’s last war.”

Barrington’s lips quirked. “I believe it was a little more than that, wasn’t it, commander? If I have my facts correct, you were a general and victory for your sister’s premiership was down to you.”

“Your facts are correct, sir.” Raan inclined his head. “Although my sister did have some… opinions on how that victory was achieved.” 

Barrington leaned back in his chair, his gaze assessing. “Forgive me the indulgence a moment, commander, and it will be swift because time is short and I have many calls like this to make. What makes a man born and bred to be the ruler of his planet give up the leadership role in favour of his sister? Didn’t you want to sit in the ‘big chair’ so to speak?”

Raan schooled his expression, not allowing the surprise to show by so much as a flicker of his eyelid. Okay, Barrington really was brutal and to the point. 

“This.” He waved a hand in front of his face. 

“Our enemy was led by my twin brother, who did his level best to wipe out everyone who didn’t agree with him. Genocide is not the word. I don’t think there is a word for what Raal did. After that, if I had taken the premiership, then every time a Llanarian looked at me, looked at their leader, they would have seen the man who tried to wipe them out. It wasn’t a case of wanting to sit in the big chair. It was a question of what was best for the people.” 

Barrington’s expression eased slightly. “Good. I was worried for a moment it was lack of confidence. A reluctance to take command.” 

Raan chuckled. “No sir. It was a considered decision, and besides, after so many years of political machinations, and I will absolutely deny any knowledge or training in anything to do with politics if asked, I found I liked the simplicity of combat. I also found I was good at it.”

“Excellent.” Barrington leaned forward, his hands clasped loosely in front of him. “Because I’m going to ask you to do it again.”

Raan inclined his head again. “I rather thought you might be about to, sir. It was a rather pointed line of questioning.”

“Indeed. The simple truth is, while I have many starship captains, Commander Mason, I do not have many ground-capable troops. I need you to break off your current mission and head immediately to Arriana Prime. Starfleet forces have managed to repel enemy ships, but they couldn’t stop a large force of Jem’Hadar landing on the surface. They are currently cutting a swathe across the planet. They have control of two of the major settlements, and they’re advancing on the capital city.”

Raan’s eyes narrowed. He’d taken history while at the Academy so he knew how tough an adversary Jem’Hadar were. 

“Orders sir?” 

“Get to Arriana Prime. Get boots on the ground. Defend the capital at all costs. Do I make myself clear, commander?” 

Raan nodded. A single nod of his head. “Yes sir. Do we have backup?”

Barrington froze for a moment. Then shrugged. “I’ll lay it out straight. I don’t know. We’re in the early hours of a situation none of us saw coming. I don’t know what resources I can commit to backup so you might be on your own.”

“Understood, sir.” The alcohol had burned out of Raan’s system now, the adrenalin of battle to come sharpening his senses. “Anything else?” 

Barrington nodded. “Only one thing. Trust only the Fourth Fleet. Barrington out.”

Then the screen went blank.

Raan allowed himself precisely five seconds to take a breath and get his thoughts in order, then he opened his eyes and grabbed a padd with the information packet Captain Barrington had just sent through. Heaving himself to his feet he strode out onto the bridge. 

“Set course for Arriana Prime,” he ordered as he walked across to the door on the other side of the bridge. “Get us there as fast as you can. Senior officers, emergency meeting in the briefing room. Now. Rennox, get yourself up here as well.”

With that, he swept into the briefing room, his head already full of the intell he didn’t have and the plans he was going to have to make on nothing more than assumption and best guess. 

It didn’t take long for the senior officers to start tumbling through the door, to find Raan leaning over a map of the main continent on Arriana Prime. His expression was serious as they took their seats around the table. Rennox was last through the door, looking confused and nervous. Raan waved him to take one of the unoccupied seats.  

“Okay, I’ve just had a priority one communication from Command,” he said. “I’m assuming you’ve all heard of the Lost Dominion fleet? Yes? Good. Because they’re back.”

 He held up his hand to forestall the questions about to spill from the lips of his senior officers. All of them if the surprised looks on their faces were any indication. Apart from Rennox, who looked like he was about to throw up. Whether that was because of the alcohol he’d put away tonight after his heroism today, or the idea of the Dominion, Raan had no idea. 

“Information is sketchy at the moment, but long story short. The Lost Fleet went missing during the war and somehow blinked forward to now. For them, the war didn’t end, and they’re wreaking havoc through Federation space. We weren’t ready for this… there was no way either the Federation or the Fleet could have been ready for this,” he added. “And we’ve very much been caught with our pants down. Worse, for some reason Starfleet Command don’t seem to be taking this seriously, so we’ve been mobilized by Fourth Fleet command.” 

“I assume we have orders then, sir?” Burton asked, frowning as he looked over the maps displayed on the conference table holo display.  

“Oh yes.” Raan touched a button, and an image of a planet floated in the air in front of them. “This is Arriana Prime. Like many planets, it has suffered Dominion attack. Ships in the area were able to repel enemy vessels, but they couldn’t stop a large force of Jem’Hadar beaming down to the surface. Intel so far says they have destroyed orbital defenses and seized two major settlements on the surface. They are marching on the capital city as we speak. To add to that, the colony’s militia has fallen. There are reports of isolated groups still fighting, but there is no cohesion or command structure anymore. The Governor has declared martial law, giving Starfleet full authority but ships already in the area aren’t able to help since they are engaged in fighting off the Dominion threat, so we’ve been ordered in.” 

“Ordered in?” Burton blinked as he sat back in his chair. “Did command miss the fact that we’re a Rhode-Island class?” 

 Raan arched an eyebrow. 

 “Captain Barrington doesn’t strike me as the sort of man who misses details like that. We’ve been ordered in because I have some experience with ground combat,” he said. “We’re a tough little ship, yes, but we’re not a warship. So we’re gonna let the big boys go tangle with the dominion ships, and we’re heading in to stop this Jem’Hadar invasion.” 

 “With less than a hundred crew, most of which aren’t Starfleet security?” Burton persisted. 

“It’s not what you’ve got; it’s what you do with it,” Raan replied, leaning forward to change the display on the screen to a map of Arriana Prime’s surface. “We have a full security department under Gunnar, and many other personnel aboard who have at least some combat training, even if they are currently in other roles. Bennett and Micheals are two such examples; there are more.”

He knew because he’d approved all of their transfers onto the Resolute. 

“Okay, this is the little intel we have, heading right to your padds.” A chorus of cheeps sounded around the room as the senior staff received the most up-to-date information command could give them. 

“The planet’s governor has declared martial law, and both sensor scramblers and transporter inhibitors have been activated to stop the Jem’Hadar from advancing too quickly. We can’t hit them from the air, and their shroud tech is going to make it difficult on the ground, so we’ve got some big disadvantages. But… we also have some advantages here. Our first is that we know their tactics. We’ve been studying them and what they got up to in the Dominion War for years. Our second advantage is that our tech is updated from what they’re used to. That’s a good start, but I want more. The floor is open…”

Silence reigned as the staff read through the intel, a charged atmosphere building in the room. Bennett looked up. 

 “Tactics,” he rumbled in his deep voice. “They’re used to fighting Starfleet, and being honest, those tactics haven’t changed in years. We need to switch it up to confuse them.”

 Raan tilted his head. “So we go guerilla?”

 Bennett nodded. “Would be one way to keep them on their toes. The terrain, with these settlements and larger towns, lends itself well to setting up chokepoints and while these bastards might have shroud technology, a mine ain’t got no eyes so if they step on them they’ll blow whether they’re playing invisible man or not.” 

“Our tech is good,” Gunnar interjected, a frown between the chief security officer’s pale brows. “But it’s still not enough of an advantage. S’Jaren, the ship’s armorer, has been looking over the tech the pirates brought on board. It’s… different, far more advanced than ours. So that could give us an advantage?” 

 “From this, we’re also going to need to coordinate a ground rescue of civilians and casualties, sir?” Burton said, looking up. “May I suggest we bring Smith in on this?” 

Raan frowned. “Norman Smith? The operations officer?”

Burton nodded. “Not to throw himself over any more grenades, I think once was enough for a lifetime for him, but he has logistical and humanitarian expertise. He could be helpful on planning that side.”

 “Do it,” Raan ordered. “Burton, you run that side. Clear the lounge and get it set up as a command base and see if there are any civilian ships in the area able to help with the evacuation. The Jem’Hadar are stuck on the ground so the more people we can get out, the better. Rennox,” he looked at the young yeoman. “Go through the records and get me a list of every crew member on board with actual combat experience, and what type. Then a list of crew members with flight training, give that to Kovash.”

He looked around the room. “We have a little time to prepare people, but make no mistake, we are going to hit the ground running, so get moving. We have people to rescue and some Jem’Hadar ass to kick and kick hard.”

“Yessir! Right away sir!” Tav was on his feet instantly, then wobbled a bit and sat down smartly. 

Maybe that last double vodka had been a bad idea. He cast a glance at the captain as the room cleared. Mason had drunk way more than he had, so how on earth was he stone-cold sober now, even able to read maps and make little notes on them. 

“That would be because I’m not only twice your body-mass,” the captain said without looking up. “But I’m also a different species. Llanarians metabolise alcohol extremely quickly. The amount we need to get seriously drunk would kill a human.” 

“I said that outloud, didn’t I?” Rennox went pale, and looked around. He was going to be sick. 

“You did,” Mason confirmed. “But don’t sweat it, kid. You defended sickbay well today and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a guy so small… no offence… put away so much vodka. The fact you’re still functioning enough to string a sentence together is impressive.”

“Do you need some sleep?” He looked up and speared Tav with a bright-blue gaze, a small smile quirking his lips. It transformed his hard features, taking him from scary as fuck to… Tav swallowed, hard. 

“No, no,” he shook his head quickly. “I-I’m just going to grab a coffee. Err… do you… can I get you one? A coffee, I mean.”

“Yeah, that would be good, thanks.” Mason nodded, his attention already back on the maps, a frown between his brows. Tav lingered for a moment, watching. His attention latched onto the captain’s hands, large and capable as he sketched over the maps, setting up… actually Tav had no idea what he was doing. Something important and ground combat-ish. 

Realising he was staring, he scuttled out of the room as quickly as he could, heading for his favourite replicator. He was lucky the Resolute was small enough that he could nip down a couple of decks to do so. And he needed a little distance, as well as the walk, to get his head on straight. It wasn’t just the alcohol. Now he was out of the room, the implications of their mission had set in. 

The Dominion were back. Holy… shit. 

He knew his history. The Dominion war was the stuff of nightmares. Not that he’d ever say something like that out loud. Not in front of the captain or Commander Bennett. He didn’t want them to think he was scared. But… the Dominion. They were going to be fighting Jem’Hadar. 

He reached the replicator and stood in front of it for a moment, contemplating his feet and by extension, existence. Then the replicator, obviously sensing him in front of it, cheeped softly. The reassuring sound made him look up and he smiled. He’d never known a replicator do that before, and none of the others did, just this one. Obviously Bennett had upgraded it or something. 

“Okay, I’m going to need something to sober me up, quick,” he murmured. “And if you can add something in there to turn me into a superhero capable of slaying Jem’Hadar with a single glance, that would be good too.” 

The replicator cheeped and a few moments later, his favourite drink materialised. With sprinkles. 

“Thank you,” he said with a smile, removing it from the plate. “And the captain’s usual order as well please.”

Another cheep and another drink materialised. Tav blinked. “Cara-mocha-choco-espresso with extra cream and sprinkles?” he asked in surprise, only to get a confirming cheep from the replicator. What were the chances of that? The captain’s order was the same as his.

He carried them back up to the briefing room to find the captain deep in conversation with the Chief Flight officer, Kovash. She was another scary lady, way scarier than Doctor Micheals, and almost as scary as the captain himself. 

“You want me to what?” she demanded. “Are you defective in head? Why am I cursed with idiot for a verenias?” 

The captain rumbled in the back of his throat, nodding his thanks as Tav slid his drink onto the table next to him. He didn’t say anything, not wanting to get in the middle of an argument between the two senior officers. Especially not when he suspected that the captain was about to dress Lieutenant Kovash down for what she’d said. No one called a captain an idiot like that and got away with it. 

He tried to scuttle out of the room when Mason called out. 

“Set up shop in the corner, Rennox. I want those lists as soon as possible.” 

Then he turned back to the pilot, a grin on his face. “Come on, Ray, you can do it. You know you can do it. You know you want to do it.”

Tav blinked and headed to the corner. The pilot wasn’t in trouble, in fact, the captain appeared amused. 

“This is starship, Raan, not turbolift….”

Shit. They were using first names. Tav knew what the captain’s given name was, but he’d never heard anyone call him it. Not like that. So easily. He blinked as he grabbed a seat in the corner and hid behind his padd, starting on the list the captain wanted. 

Were Kovash and the captain like… an item? He tried not to peak over the top but he couldn’t help himself, looking for some kind of body language that would say if they were knocking boots. 

“It’s not,” the captain agreed. “Can you make the ship do it anyway?”

“Ugggh! Yes, alright, yes! I can do maneuver. Ship might not like it. Bennett definitely not like it. He shout at me for breaking his pretty ship, you deal with him, kay?”

“Absolutely,” the captain nodded and Kovash whirled around, mumbling something about idiot men. She caught sight of Tav as she stalked toward the door. 

“List, yeoman Rennox. Soon. Okay?” 

“Yes ma’am! Of course!” he said, swallowing the mouthful of his coffee he’d just taken. It scalded it’s way all the way down his throat. “Working on it!”

“Good.” 

Then she was gone. Tav looked up at the captain, wide-eyed. Mason obviously read the question in his eyes and chuckled. 

“She’s an old friend, so she gets to talk to me however she wants in private,” he explained. “She saved my life. Twice. Never lets me forget it, either.”

Tav’s eyes about popped out of his head as the captain lifted his shirt, flashing both what had to be thirty-pack hard abs, and a vicious scar that ran up down his ribcage and disappeared under his waistband. Holy shit, it looked like he’d been about cut in half. 

“Errrr… she sounds like a good friend, sir.” 

But Mason’s attention was already on the intell reports in front of him, a small sigh escaping him as he settled in his own chair, and lifted the drink Tav had gotten for him to his lips. 

Tav went back to his own work. Who would have thought the captain drank Cara-mocha-choco-espresso with extra cream and sprinkles? 

“Right you lot, let’s get this lounge converted and get moving!” Burton ordered as he swept into the ship’s main lounge to find a large work crew assembled. They were a combination of departments, mostly science, medical and operations… the normal mix who would usually be in here once the lounge was converted for ‘special operations’ which could be anything from it becoming an expanded sickbay through to barracks for crew transfers. 

Two lieutenants, one in teal and one in gold, swept into action like drill sergeants, marshaling the rest of the crew in the room. The large, comfortable lounge chairs were moved to the edges of the room and extended out to make eight cots. Since some of them wouldn’t be leaving this room much during the mission, no doubt himself among them, they were going to appreciate that heavy padding. Usually with setups like this, they were forced to deal with the usual emergency cots. Which were about as comfortable as sleeping on a section of of the hull. 

“Smith!” he called out, weaving his way through groups moving the tables and chairs to make big conference tables for the work groups. “Front and center!”

“Yessir!” Norman Smith made it across the lounge, and stopped in front of Burton with a slight snap to his movements. Burton’s eyes narrowed. For a moment there he’d even thought the guy was going to salute. Which, this being Norman, would probably have ended up with him knocking himself out. 

But… he had managed to get across the lounge, through people carrying tables and chairs, without incident. Burton leaned in slightly, and took a breath. 

“Smith? How much have you had to drink?” he asked. He couldn’t blame the guy, they’d all been called to battlestations and the captain had ordered Smith off duty for twenty-four hours after the grenade incident. But he’d insisted on being here anyway. 

“Three double whisk… no, five double whiskeys,” Smith said with a pleased grin. 

Burton blinked, wondering what had happened to number four. Then he looked across the lounge. Go figure, perhaps Smith wasn’t accident prone when he was tipsy. 

“Excellent, you’ll need to link up with one of the medical crew to get yourself sorted as soon as we’re done here,” he ordered, then turned as the work crews had finished putting the room to rights. 

“Okay, gather round and grab a seat if you can find one,” he ordered, perching on the edge of a table. “As most of you will have guessed by now with the activity aboard the ship and the senior staff rushing off to a briefing, that we have a situation.”

There was a murmur through the crew and he arched an eyebrow. An ensign spoke up. 

“Is this something to do with the Breen having old dominion stuff, sir?” he asked. “It’s all over FNN that they’re causing havoc, destroying installations and seizing planets.”

Burton paused for a moment, weighing his words. Trust only the Fourth fleet. Those words from the brief conversation he’d had with the captain after the senior officer’s briefing had stuck with him. There was something else going on, something driving Starfleet Command’s inability to see this situation was a war in all but name… that something else could mean some of their own crew, especially the new contingent that had come aboard at SB86, were compromised. 

“That isn’t quite the case,” he said. “I’m sure that FNN are trying to downplay the situation to avoid panic, but the truth of the matter is that, somehow, the lost Dominion Fleet are back and they’re in league with the Breen. The ships that have been sighted are real dominion ships, not makeshift ones cobbled together by the Breen.”

“I thought those looked too perfect!” Norman announced excitedly. “There wasn’t a hull plate or anything out of place on those FNN pics. I mean, I know they were as fuzzy as fuck but they were all right! You know what I mean?” he asked no one in particular. 

“Yeah…” Burton looked at Smith, trying to hide his blank expression. 

“I’m serious, sir.” Norman nodded so much Burton was surprised his head didn’t drop off. “I’ve got all the Dominion ships in 1/1000 scale and those were like… awesome. I mean, at first I thought deepfake because like… seriously… for the toaster-faces to have gotten everything perfect is… like…impossible.”

“You have models of the Dominion ships?” Burton couldn’t help asking. That was something he hadn’t know about Smith. Then he realised the only thing he really knew about Smith was that he was the cause of most of the near-miss and accident reports on the ship. 

“Yessir! In my quarters sir!” Smith beamed. 

Burton nodded and returned his attention to the assembled crew, some of whom looked extremely confused. The same ensign piped up. “Sir, the FNN wouldn’t… lie to us.”

If there was ever a moment for a facepalm, this was it. Burton took a deep breath before continuing. “I wouldn’t say lie exactly. More… economical with the truth.” Just like he was right now. “To avoid a widespread panic while we get this situation under control.” 

That got a rumble from the crew. The same ensign opened his mouth only for another ensign to speak up. “Oh, just leave it Kell. Commander Burton has explained it. Makes sense. Can we move on?”

“Indeed!” Burton nodded, shooting a small smile at the other ensign. He couldn’t remember her name at the moment… he had no idea how Mason did it… but he’d find out later. 

“Okay, so we’re being mobilized with the rest of Fourth Fleet and the Resolute is headed for Arriana Prime,” he explained. “It’s one of the planets which has been attacked and while the Dominion ships—“

“Alleged Dominion ships.”

He ignored the mutter and spoke louder. “While the Dominion ships were driven off by Starfleet forces, they managed to land a sizeable force of Jem’Hadar on the surface. So, we will be running a rescue and evac mission. Commander Mason and his team are running the military side to deal with the Jem’Hadar, clearing the way for us to evac the civilians.” 

He leaned forward slightly, folding his arms over his chest. “Make no mistake, this is not going to be the easy part of the mission. We are going to be dealing with some very scared, displaced people. We are going to be dealing with injuries, with shattered families. People scared for those that they love. People who have lost people that they love. And we’re going to be doing it on the Resolute, which is going to give us some very specific problems.”

There were murmurs through the group as they exchanged sidelong glances. 

“That’s a lot of people sir,” one of them pointed out. “We’re not a big ship, how are we going to get even a… how many people are down there?”

Burton shook his head. “Far more than we can handle, even if we convert all the lower corridors to bunk corridors. So I’m going to need suggestions as well as a workable plan for this.”

“We’re going to need to figure out the logistics of getting them off the planet,” Norman frowned. “Our transporters aren’t going to be able to handle that many people.”

Burton shook his head. “Martial law has been declared so transport inhibitors are in place to keep the Jem’Hadar on the surface. We need other options. Break into teams and start brainstorming. We need something before we reach Arriana Prime. Now go.”

Everyone in the room scattered, assembling themselves into work teams. Burton turned to the bar, which now hosted a legion of coffee mugs. The replicator at the end was churning them out with soft cheeps. He frowned, shaking his head. Bennett really was moving on with updating the replicators. 

Grabbing a mug, he downed half of it in three gulps and hissed as the stuff scalded the back of his throat on the way down. But the caffeine hit was almost instantaneous which was what he needed. Between pirates and defending the bridge, it had been a long day. And it wasn’t over yet. 

Cradling his mug in his hand, he leaned back against the bar, closing his eyes for a moment.  

“The whole of Fourth Fleet is being mobilized?” He heard Kell from the other side of the room. “Isn’t that… odd? Shouldn’t w—“

He was about to head over, and take the ensign aside to ask what his problem was when the other ensign, the one who had shut Kell up in the briefing, looked up from her padd with a look. 

“Kell. Shut the fuck up. The XO gave us our orders, even explained what FNN and the fleet are doing. Now if you’re not going to pitch in and help, commander Burton won’t have to worry about you, I’ll freaking space you. Reading me?”

Burton hid his smile as suddenly Kell decided that discretion was the better part of valor and grabbed a padd to start working. But he made a mental note to keep an eye on the guy anyway. His arguments seemed a little… vehement for the rather quiet officer he usually was. 

“Sir?” He turned to find Norman next to him, holding a padd. The guy’s eyes were a little overbright but he was steady on his feet and he wasn’t slurring his words. “I think… I may have an idea, sir.”

Burton reached out and handed him a mug of coffee. “Okay, let’s hear it.”

Norman murmured his thanks and drained the mug, then showed Burton his padd. 

“What am I looking at, Smith?”

“This is the Morningstar,” he announced. “It’s a cargo transport. A large one. But more importantly from our point of view, it’s only two systems from Arriana Prime.”

Burton blinked, and flicked through the specs. “This is rated for livestock transport.”

Norman nodded. “Yes sir, which means that it should be able to take the lion’s share of the colonists. At least, they’ll be safer on that than they will be on the surface with Jem’Hadar running around.”

Burton nodded. “Make the call. Get it to rendezvous with us at Arriana Prime.” 

Fear. 

Pain. 

Shame. 

Deep within the ship, in it’s web of bio-neural circuitry, it paused to listen to the crew’s thoughts and feelings. Something had happened. Something big. 

Something bad. 

The minds on this ship, apart from the one, bright, shining mind, were beyond its touch. They were too fragile, too easily burned. So all it could do was listen, and worry. These minds were its to protect. But something had them scared and in pain. 

So it did all it could. Spread out from it’s favourite replicator through the ship to others. Offering support and love through hot drinks and sprinkles. Whatever was happening… it was there. 

No longer alone. Part of something again. 

Helping…

_______

The Dominion. 

It was up there as one of the big bad’s of recent history. 

Raan Mason sat alone in his ready room, the lights off and a mug in his hand. Occasionally he lifted it to drink, ignoring the remnants of cream and sprinkles that was all the replicator saw fit to give him these days. He even ignored the fact the coffee had gone cold. Coffee was coffee and he’d spent enough time in a trench that he didn’t care… and he certainly didn’t waste good caffiene. 

The stars sped by outside the window, but he wasn’t looking at them. Wasn’t even looking at his own reflection even though it stared back at him. He wasn’t looking at anything other than into the past.

He’d been born in a battle. 

Not literally, of course. He’d been born in a palace, in the lap of luxury, but he hadn’t found out who he was until he’d been knee-deep in mud and chaos, facing his own death as he looked down the barrel of a rifle. 

Raan Mason, the real Raan Mason, had been born that day. 

That person, the one who had fought his way out of trenches and won a war against overwhelming odds, was one he kept under lock and key. One he hid from others, lest they find out who and what he really was. 

He lifted his head and looked his reflection in the eyes. Faced the truth. 

He was a killer. Pure and simple. 

War did not scare him. The situation they were about to face did not scare him. The fact that he knew some of his crew were not coming back did not scare him. 

And that scared him more than anything. That was the thing, the real person hidden within, that he hid from everyone. 

He lifted the coffee and drained it. Let the emotion drain from him as he locked those thoughts and memories away. They would serve no purpose now, not with what they were going into. 

“Mason to Bennett,” he said, waiting for the chirp as the computer connected them. “Meet me in the holodeck.” 

__________________

“How many people on this frigging ship have been in a war?” Tav muttered to himself as he scanned down the lists he’d made. “We might as well have called it the Uss Army or something.”

He’d thought it would be a quick job, and two fairly small lists, but as he’d started to look at the crew, really look at the crew, he’d realised that actually… it would have been easier to make a list of the crew who hadn’t seen action somewhere. 

For some of them it was something big, like the Captain, who held the rank of General on his own planet. Or their CMO whose personnel file had a picture of her in a planetary uniform with a chest full of medals. They were just two of many. 

Or it might have been something minor, like Ensign Cormoran, who had been a signaller in some inter-systems skirmish, or Elaria, who hadn’t been in a war per se, but had more weaponry technical certificates than anyone that pretty or delicate should have. Some of the stuff she was rated on he was sure he couldn’t carry, so he wasn’t sure how the hell she could. He looked at himself in the reflection of his padd. Yeah, he should definitely work out more. When this was over—

His thinking stalled, his breathing along with it as panic hit him broadside. 

When this was over? They were going up against the Dominion. The Dominion… people didn’t come back from shit like that. Or if they did, they came back changed. Not themselves. 

He had a great uncle who’d been in the Dominion war. He was… not right. No one talked about it, about his odd little quirks, the way he was there sometimes and not others, while sitting right there. The nightmares that made him scream at night. The way Tav’s grandmother hushed everyone up and looked after her brother when he had one of his episodes. No one said anything. 

But Tav knew. Now he was older, he knew. 

And now he was facing the same enemy.

Shit. Why couldn’t he have been more like Soren? His twin was so calm and self-assured, always knew where he was going and what he was doing. 

Whereas Tav felt like a bumbling idiot most of the time. Like a snail on a planet amazed at everything around him, the same as the tattoo on his inner arm. He definitely felt like that snail now. Small and insignificant and like one heavy boot would crush him. 

He was in the middle of a minor panic attack, sucking down air like he had an elephant sitting on his chest when the turbolift slowed. The door opened to reveal the ship’s Chief Science Officer, Quinn Allen. 

Tav nodded at him as he stepped into the lift and the door closed. Not even running through Allen’s personnel file in his mind did much to quell the panic running through him like a herd of stampeding lemmings looking for a cliff. 

Allen didn’t have military experience, but parts of his personnel file were oddly redacted. Tav wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t like a security clearance thing, those area’s were clearly marked. This was something different… but not even that mystery was enough to bring his mind away from thoughts of the Dominion and the… oh my god, they were going to be on the surface with the Jem’Hadar. 

Get it together, kid. He heard the words in the captain’s voice… or was it Bennett’s. But then Lieutenant Allen’s hand dropped onto his shoulder and he found himself looking up into clear blue eyes. 

“Breathe,” Allen said in a low voice. “In through the nose, slowly, counting to four. Hold for four. Follow me, okay?”

Tav nodded, forcing air into his lungs as the lieutenant demonstrated, counting for them both. 

“Good,” he gave the ghost of a smile, then turned Tav slightly. “Now out for four and focus. See how the lights reflect off the doorframe, there’s a slight movement with the lift. Keep breathing and watch it, focus on it. Bring yourself back into the moment.”

Tav nodded as his breathing slowed down, his heart-rate following suit. 

“You good?” Allen asked and he nodded again. 

“Yes sir, thank you,” he murmured, heat washing over his cheeks. What must the lieutenant think of him? “I’m sorry… I don’t know what came over me.”

Allen just shrugged. “We’re headed into a big, scary situation. You wouldn’t be human if you weren’t a little scared. It’s natural, don’t worry about it. If you get stuck, remember the breathing and focus on something.” 

Tav eyed Allen as the lift began to slow. Allen didn’t look at all scared. “I will. Thank you, sir.” 

The door pinged as it opened and he headed out to locate the captain and Lieutenant Kovash.

____________________

“Hey, old girl, looks like we’re getting a second outing in as many days.” Dayne Bennett ran his hand over the big weapon on the workbench in front of him as the engineering staff worked on getting engineering ready for whatever they were doing to be facing. 

But in this moment, no one needed him. No one but his girl here. Big Bertha. Her name had been both a source of amusement, and whispered with fear. 

He ran his hand over the shoulder rig, feeling the familiar soft leather of the straps. She was probably the only one of her kind, a hybrid weapon that hadn’t come from any production line. She’d been bootstrapped together from three different rifles in the ruins of a building while under fire. He’d damn well near shattered his shoulder with the kickback the first time he’d fired her and every second of that battle as they’d fought their way out, he’d been sure her power cells would overload and blow them all into the afterlife, do not pass go, do not get a nice fancy military funeral.

But she hadn’t blown up, and his shoulder hadn’t broken. She’d saved his life and the lives of eight others as they’d fought through enemy lines. He’d never picked up another rifle, not during the war. It would have been like cheating on his girl here. 

And now they were going into another war. He paused, letting that fact seep into his bones. Let himself absorb the reality of the situation and what they were heading into. 

No matter what the stories they told themselves afterward, or the battlefield reports said… or the holomovies that were made years later about it, there was one simple fact about war. 

It was ugly and brutal. It took people and ground them up, destroyed who they had been and turned them into something else. That might be a body, or a different person entirely. 

To go in again… he knew what he was facing. Let himself feel that horror. The pain. The fear. Then he nodded and ignored it. 

He’d had his moment. Better now than in battle. None of them could afford to lock up or fall apart when they hit the surface. Him more than most because he knew without a shadow of a doubt he’d be leading some insane mission at Mason’s order. He always did somehow. 

But this time it wasn’t against an enemy he knew. Or, he did… he’d read about the Dominion, just like anyone who had been through the Academy. Even if it hadn’t been required reading, he would have read up on them anyway. 

The Dominion war had been both a catalyst and a defining moment for Starfleet… hell, the quadrant as a whole. One thing he’d learned in his life was that those who forgot the past were often destined to repeat it. Something he’d often drilled into his recruits when they forgot the fuse timings on a grenade… 

But these weren’t recruits he was taking into battle. Scared civilians who’d only joined up because it was fight or be annihilated. This time he would be fighting with the crew of the Resolute, with starfleet officers and crew… men and women who had chosen to be here, made that promise to put their lives on the line to uphold the federation’s values. 

That didn’t mean they weren’t going to be scared. It didn’t mean that they were going to win, he knew that. The odds were against them and the situation was dire…

He smiled, and patted Bertha’s barrel. 

“We’re gonna be looking after people again, old girl. And you ain’t gonna let me down. You never do,” he murmured as he quickly checked over the straps of the big weapon for wear and tear, then checked the charge on the battery packs. He’d upgraded her since the war, so her systems were bang up to date, and the rig system for his shoulder was newer, so she was easier to carry. 

And he was going to carry her into battle. Mason hadn’t rescinded his permission for personal weaponry. Besides that, the Jem’Hadar would be familiar with Starfleet weaponry, which were recognisable even decades later, but he was damn sure they wouldn’t expect Big Bertha. No one expected Big Bertha. 

“Mason to Bennett,” the captain’s voice reached him over the ship’s internal comms network. “Meet me in the holodeck.” 

“Aye sir,” he said, lifting Bertha off the workbench and slinging her over his shoulder. “On my way.”

Ryder James Reese-Riggs—RJ to his friends, of which he had many… usually of the female variety, although that number would go down considerably if they found out about each other—hated livestock. Absolutely hated them. Especially Devisorian bovines. Which were basically cows with way more legs than any cow had a right to. 

They shit. A lot. 

“Tell me again why I’m doing this?” he demanded, wrinkling his nose as he sprayed shit off the wall of one of the holding pens with the pressure hose. How the hell had it gotten that high? Did these things like projectile shit or something? He was glad they were finally off the ship. Maybe in a year or two they might actually get rid of the smell. 

“You’re doing this,” his sister replied from the other side of the holding pen where she was operating a similar pressure washer to his. “Because you managed to get yourself kicked out of Starfleet.”

“I did not,” he retorted. “I’m on administrative leave.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Aya snorted. “Administrative leave pending an investigation for conduct unbecoming.”

She shut her hose off and grabbed a floor squeegee to start pushing the dirty water toward the drain in the center of the floor. It would be stored in tanks before being filtered and purified for use on the ship. He shuddered, trying not to think about the fact he’d be showering in that purified water for the next month. He was just glad the drinking water tanks were separate. 

“I wouldn’t exactly call it that…” He said finishing off his side and grabbing another squeegee. “My conduct was extremely becoming.”

Aya shot him a sideways look. “So becoming you got caught with an Admiral’s daughter in your bed. And her wife!”

“Hey! We were all consenting adults!” he argued, but he couldn’t help the smile that quirked the corners of his lips. “And they were very persuasive.”

“So was grandpa. He talked like a damn Ferengi who’d spotted the deal of a lifetime to get you off the hook. I think Admiral Campbell was all for spacing you.”

“Admiral’s aren’t allowed to do that.” He pushed the last of the water down the drain and sighed in relief. Now all he needed to do was go irrigate his nostrils with bleach and maybe he’d stop smelling shit. 

“No, I believe the word ‘accident’ and ‘unavoidable’ was mentioned several times in the same sentence as your name. As well as a tourettes-worthy level of swearing. I don’t think the Admiral is a fan. And it’s why both you and I are hearing shoveling shit on a run even you can’t fuck up while the rest of the family is off on a pleasure cruise around the Xalvorian Rift.”

She shot him a baleful look as they walked out of the holding pen, the lights snapping off behind them. “And I’m stuck here with you for some unknown reason. I’m going to get a shower. You can take first watch on the bridge.”

He sighed as she hopped up onto the conveyor loop that ran the length of the ship and back again continuously, grabbing a handhold above her with the ease of long practise. The loop whisked her away toward the crew quarters as he turned the other way. Dropping down onto the lower walkway, he hopped on the loop going the other way. Technically they weren’t supposed to use the loop to get around, but their parents had given up trying to lecture them before they’d hit their teens. 

He hummed a little ditty to himself as he sped along past yet more holding pens. Today’s drop off had been the last on their schedule so they were all empty at the moment. Tomorrow they started loading for their journey back. He leaned his forehead against his wrist as he held onto the strap above his head on the loop mechanism and bit back a groan. 

They were picking up Celestiaran chickens, which meant that they’d have to spend all morning putting in two internal floors in each of the holding pens to increase their carrying capacity. Because Cel-Chickens were fucking dumb and couldn’t be all put in the same pen because if one of the little bastards got panicked it would start a stampede across the pen. Then they ended up with the whole load against one wall of the pen and tens of thousands of crushed chickens. 

It made for good barbeque, but wasn’t as good for the company’s bottom line. 

He rolled his shoulders as he sped past the holding pens and then he was going past the cargo bays. The Morningstar was so huge that even on the loop it took him a good twenty minutes to get up to the bridge. If it could even be called that. It was a pokey little affair that wasn’t even as big as a broom cupboard on a Sovvie. At least… he assumed. He’d never actually seen a broom cupboard on any Starfleet ship. 

He frowned as he pushed the bridge door open. When would his parents get with the twenty-fifth century and install sliders? The soft chirp of the comms array got his attention and he dropped into the captain’s chair with a sigh. 

“Computer, open comms channel. Yo! This is the Morningstar, what can I do you for?” 

“The civilian transport Morningstar?” A deep voice enquired and RJ sat up straighter as the most handsome guy he’d ever seen appeared on screen. “Currently in the Karnelious system?”

“Yeah, that’s us. And you are, commander…?” he asked, gaze flicking down to the two and a half pips on the guy’s uniform. 

“Burton. XO of the USS Resolute,” came back the reply, the tone so authoritative it sent a little shiver down RJ’s spine. “Who am I talking to?”

“Reese-Riggs,” RJ replied automatically. 

“Commander Reese-Riggs,” he correctly quickly. 

“You’re Starfleet?” Surprise washed over Burton’s features and his gaze flicked down to the coveralls RJ wore. He risked a glance down. Aww fuck, he was covered in shitty water splatter. 

“I am. On leave at the moment,” he offered his best, charming smile. “Helping out with the family business, you know how it is. They rely on me.”

Burton nodded, and RJ could swear relief showed stark in the back of the guy’s eyes. “Have you been watching FNN?”

RJ shook his head, then shrugged. “We’ve been on a tough run, not had time. Why? Did I miss anything?”

Burton sighed, and an odd expression crossed his face. “Just a little. Okay, Commander, I’m afraid I’m going to have to requisition your ship. I need you to get to the co-ordinates I’m sending you now to rendezvous with us.” 

RJ blinked. “Hell of a way to ask for a date, Commander Burton. I’m not that sort of guy.” 

Burton’s gaze flicked to the side of the screen for a moment, then back at him. “No commander, you’re the sort of guy who just literally screwed his career in one single night. You’ll meet us at those co-ordinates because I’m about to give you millions of reasons to get it back.”

“You’ve gotta be shitting me,” RJ murmured to himself as the Morningstar hit the Arriana System, and Arriana Prime and the Starfleet ship in orbit came into view. 

“What the hell is that?” Aya barked out a laugh and leaned over his shoulder to rub at the little dot on the viewscreen with the edge of her sleeve. “Did it like… shrink in the wash?”

“No…” He swatted her hand away. “It’s a sodding Rhode Island.”

Between Burton’s call and hauling ass over here, he’d caught up on the news. The official fluff piece FNN were running as well as reaching out to his contacts to find out what the hell was really going on. None of it would make for a good night’s sleep. 

Half his contacts said there was absolutely nothing to worry about, that someone had seen some cut-and-shut Dominion junkers the Breen had mackled together and freaked out, but the other half said that something really weird was going on and Fourth Fleet had gone solo to deal with something going on out here. But the real kicker was the message from one of his real dark intel sources, the type of contact whose name he didn’t even know. Four words blinking in green on the screen. 

Trust only the fourth.

“So… it’s a mini ship?” Aya looked down at him. “What would they even use that for?”

“They’re fast,” he replied, altering the Morningstar’s course to bring them into a parallel orbit with the Resolute. The Morningstar being the size it was, he had to start the turn practically on the edge of the system. “Like, really fast for their size and well armed. Not as balls-out vicious as the Defiant class but you still wouldn’t want to tangle with one. The Defiant is basically weapons strapped to an engine. This one is weapons strapped to a sportscar… with luxury carpets.” 

“And ho—“

“Sshhh,” he told her, opening a comms channel. “This Commander Reese-Riggs of the Morningstar, to the Resolute. We are in system and coming up on your position.”

The screen in front of him crackled, and a garble issued from the speakers. Pressing his lips into a straight line, RJ whacked the screen at the side, twice. Hard. The image on the screen resolved to show a man, but not the one RJ was expecting. 

Instead of Burton, this man was tall, hard-faced and wore the pips of a full commander. RJ only just managed to lock his reaction down.

“Mason of the Resolute,” he introduced himself. “It’s good to see you… Commander, did you say?” 

RJ nodded. “Currently on leave, helping out with family,” he said, ignoring Aya’s pointed look. “So we were close by. I gather you have a little situation you need our help with.”

Mason inclined his head. “We do, so I’ll get straight to the point. My XO has briefed me on the capacity of your transport there. We have a planet under attack by Jem’Hadar but as you can see, they have no ship backup. They are limited to the surface which gives us an opportunity to evacuate the civilian population.”

“What?” RJ almost squawked. “All of them? There’s like… What… a hundred million on that planet? I don’t know what the Resolute is like, but the Morningstar is not bigger on the inside. We’re not going to be able to take that many people.”

“We’re not going to evacuate everyone,” Mason said, his deep voice low and level. “Just those in immediate danger…”

“But?” RJ asked. Mason’s eyebrow lifted so he said, “There’s always a but.” 

“To make sure we keep the Jem’Hadar contained, there are transport inhibitors in place. We can’t transport the civilians from the surface, and the Resolute only has two shuttles and one runabout.” 

RJ nodded, a frown between his brows as his mind whirled. “We could detach the two rafts,” he said across the Morningstar’s tiny bridge to Aya. They’d both been born aboard, and knew the big craft’s capabilities like the backs of their hands. 

She nodded. “That could work, it would give us way more lift capacity than the livestock transporters anyway. If we stay in orbit above the pickup point, we can operate them like elevators, one up, one down, using the primary load dock to offload.”

He looked back at Mason on the screen. “It’s going to take both of us, which means we have no one to man the bridge here. There’s only the two of us on board.” 

“You have no other crew?” Mason asked in surprise. “Is that normal for that size of transport?”

“No,” Aya leaned in and smiled at the big commander. “Hey handsome, I’m Aya. This one’s my brother,” she said, jerking her head at RJ. “Needless to say, I’m the brains of the operation.”

“I can see that,” Mason smiled, his eyes twinkling. The expression changed his fierce appearance completely. “I would say what’s a lovely lady doing in a place like this but I am really glad to see you.”

“The only problem—“ RJ elbowed his sister out of the way, glaring at her for good measure. “Is that if my sister and I are operating the rafts, then we have no one here on weapons. If the Dominion come knocking, we’re going to be sitting ducks. As will your civilians.”

Mason grinned. “Oh, don’t worry. That’s where the Resolute shines. We’ll keep them off your back. Right, I’m going to hand operational command over to Burton.”

RJ frowned. “Why? Where are you going?” 

Mason’s grin changed, became menacing and he moved. For the first time, RJ realised he was armed, and not in an ‘away party prepared’ sort of way, but in a ‘one man army’ sort of way. 

“We’re headed down to the surface to create the clear zone for you guys to pickup from. Get your rafts ready, Burton will give you the go-no-go.”

The screen went dead and RJ leaned back in his chair with a thump, running his hands through his hair. 

“Well… fuck!”

Aya slid him a sideways glance. “What? The fact that you’ve just essentially flown us into a war zone so the Dominion can take pot shots at us? You do know Nana’s going to have fucking kittens over this?” 

He rolled his head on the headrest and looked at her. 

“Nope. Mason.”

“What about him? He’s cute. Big and growly but cute.”

“Cute, yeah. And a fucking war veteran.”

Aya shrugged. “So? Seems like he’s exactly the kind of guy you want in this situation. Seems like the sort to kick ass and not worry about taking names.” 

“Yeah… that’s the problem,” he groaned and shoved his hand through his hair. “I’m a dead man. He’s gonna kill me.”

“Ryder James Reese-Riggs!” Aya snapped, using his full name as she slammed her hands down on the armrest to spin it around so he had to face her. “What the fuck did you do?”

He grimaced. 

“Slept with his wife.”

“Okay, heads up,” Mason swept into the shuttlebay with the meanest looking rifle Tav had ever seen slung over his shoulder. It wasn’t a starfleet weapon, that was for sure, which meant it was probably from the same place as the canon strapped to the Chief Engineer’s shoulder. 

Tav looked over at the big engineer, and then shook his head. No, there was no way that thing had come out of a factory. Even he could recognise a jury-rig when he saw one. 

The captain walked through the crowd to stand in front of one of the shuttles that would take them down to the surface, and looked around. 

“Okay I know you’ve all been assigned to teams and briefed on our objectives,” he said, his expression grim and his deep voice carrying around the shuttlebay. 

“Most of you have seen some sort of combat, so if you’re looking for some great rousing speech here… well, I’m shit at them, so pretend I said something inspiring here, okay?  The good news is, I’m a shitload better at shooting than I am making speeches,” he said, flashing a quick grin, and just like that, the mood in the shuttlebay changed. Eased a little as a small chuckle rolled through the group. 

Tav shook his head to himself. Again, he had no idea how the captain did it. They were about to go into battle, which was enough to rack tensions higher on a ship, but this wasn’t just an ordinary battle. They were about to face the Dominion, one of Starfleet’s very own bogey-men, but the fact that the captain was so blunt and no-nonsense… not scared… helped a lot. Instilled confidence in the group. 

At least, he didn’t seem to be scared. Tav was. In fact, he was quaking in his damn boots. 

“Long story short. We’re putting boots on the ground in three locations, all picked for their proximity to strategic locations. At least two have, or did have, active planetary forces still active nearby. Your missions are to secure your objectives and hold them against Jem’Hadar forces. Any questions?” 

There was silence in the shuttlebay, punctuated by the slight shuffle of boots and rattle of a rifle sling somewhere. 

Mason nodded. “Okay, good. Remember your training, stick to the plan and remember the holodeck program we ran you through. Right, saddle up.”

“Sir. Yes, sir!” 

The groups split up and headed for either one of the shuttles or the runabout. Their only route down to the surface since transporters were out of the question. 

Tav didn’t follow the group, and approached the captain instead. Hefting his rifle onto his shoulder he cleared his throat. 

“Sir, where did you want to assign me?” he asked. He’d sat in on the briefings, all of them but he hadn’t gone through the holodeck program. He could guess what it was though, a bit of last minute combat training to get people prepped for battle. 

Mason frowned as he looked down at Tav. “Are you sure you’re ready for this, kid?” he asked. There was no hint of concern in his voice or his expression. If there had been Tav’s pride would have forced him to lie.

“No, sir,” he replied. “But I’m going anyway.”

Mason studied him for a few moments longer and then nodded. 

“Stick with me,” he ordered as he turned and headed for one of the shuttles. 

It didn’t take them long to reach the surface, and on the journey down, Mason looked around his team. They’d split the combat forces into three teams. One was his, while the other two were commanded by Bennett and Gunnar respectively. He had no concerns about either. They would get the job done, as would he. There was no other option. He wouldn’t allow there to be. 

“Bring us in low and fast,” he leaned in and ordered the shuttlecraft pilot as they approached their drop off point. “As soon as we’ve de-bussed, then get the hell out of here.”

The pilot nodded, expression grim but determined. Mason turned to the crowded shuttlecraft. 

“T-minus ninety seconds people. Lock and load, ready to move.” 

There was movement, contained and efficient, as everyone aboard checked their weapons and centered themselves. Mason turned to Rennox, in the jumpseat behind the pilots chair. 

“Stick to me like glue, kid. You step where I step and if I tell you to run—“

“I run,” Rennox interrupted him, flashing a small, nervous grin. “Just like with the pirates. Got it, sir.”

Gods, the kid was cocky. Mason hid his grin and gave him a hard look. “This is not like the pirates. We’re up against Jem’Hadar, so you’re going to need to look alive and keep your wits about you.”

“Sir,” Rennox nodded, his grip on his rifle so tight that his knuckles practically glowed white. 

“T-minus twenty!” the pilot called out. “Beginning final approach now.” 

“On your feet, people!” Mason bellowed, taking up position as the rest of the team stood. “What do you think this is? A sunday afternoon walk? Look lively!”

“T-Minus ten!” 

Then there was no more conversation. The shuttlecraft dropped onto it’s mark and then the doors were open, the team spilling out in a classic debus formation. The first out took positions to cover the rest as they spilled out of the shuttle, Mason the last off, Rennox hot on his heels. 

“GO GO GO!” he shouted back at the pilot, and barely before his feet had left the ramp the shuttle was in the air again. 

Rifle light in his hands he took his position in the circle, every sense he had alert for anything that might indicate the enemy was nearby. 

It was a lovely day on Arriana Prime, in the height of the planet’s summer. The sky was blue, the grass was green and birds chirped in the trees around them. It was idyllic. Perfect. It was a scene that was just missing a nice picnic and some llanarian cider. 

“Remember the holo,” he said in an undertone, his voice carrying through the earpieces of all his team. “Moving out in charlie formation, I’ll take point.”

He moved as he spoke, the grass whispering against his booted feet as the team made its way silently into the treeline and into the woods beyond. Mason didn’t let his attention wander, even as the sun beat down pleasantly across the back of his shoulders. His eyes were wide, but he didn’t allow his gaze to settle on anything in particular, instead viewing it all as he moved, silent as a wraith. 

Their objective was over the rise, a small farmhouse with bonded walls. Simple and rustic, but strategically important. Which the Jem’Hadar also knew. The intell they’d managed to gather from local comms chatter said that there were only a small number of them in the area, trying to take the farmhouse. Mason intended to ensure they didn’t. 

But first, they had to get there. 

His eyes narrowed, and he lifted a hand, hand in a fist. The team behind him froze, weapons at the ready. For a moment he wondered if whatever had pinged his senses was just a ghost, the product of him not being in combat for years. 

Something registered, a flicker in the corner of his eye, and a second later he had his rifle in his shoulder. 

Holy fuck!

Tav managed not to scream as the world became something out of his worst nightmare. He’d begun to think it wasn’t so bad. The day was nice, and even though his heart had pounded in his ears, his nerves had begun to ease. He’d begun to think that they could really do this. That the reports of the Jem’Hadar in the area were nothing more than suspicion and rumor. 

He’d even begun to envision himself on guard at the farmhouse when they secured it. Holding the line against the might of the Dominion so they could set up a staging ground on the plains behind it and start getting civilians out of the area. 

That was his primary job. Once they were in position, he needed to liaise with the Morningstar’s rafts and guide them in to start loading the civilians that the even now the Resolute were trying to contact.

But his daydreams were shattered when the captain stopped, fist raised. Tav had taken half a step before he remembered that was the field signal to stop. Instantly, he crouched, eyes wide as he watch Mason as much as he tried to study the scene around them. 

Their surroundings looked exactly the same as they had a moment ago. When he’d been watching a beautiful purple butterfly waft it’s wings lazily on a nearby white flower.

But the captain had seen something, his big body coiled with tension. Even though he wore a starfleet combat uniform, there was something… not starfleet about him. Something darker and infinitely more dangerous that sent a shiver down Tav’s spine. It was like looking at the captain, but he wasn’t the captain anymore, he was someone else who looked exactly like him. 

“Contact! Twelve o’clock!” Mason bellowed, and started shooting. 

Tav squeaked, trying to yank his rifle to where he remembered the twelve o’clock firing position should be. He couldn’t see anything, so he just fired the same way as Mason. The air was filled with phaser and plasma beams as battle was joined, their hidden enemy firing back. 

The big captain stood upright next to him, like some sort of avenging angel. His face was hard, and his eyes narrowed as he aimed and fired with machine-like precision. In front of them there were grunts and then two bodies fell, Jem’Hadar appearing out of thin air into crumpled heaps on the ground. 

“Let ‘em have it!” Mason shouted.

The team fanned out, each member’s face grim as they launched into their prepared battle plan. Smoke grenades were thrown, hitting the ground and rolling to belch out a light purple gas like the wings of the butterfly he’d seen. It filled the air in a shimmering, glittery haze. 

Tav frowned. He didn’t remember smoke grenades looking like that… then his breath caught in the back of his throat as he spotted the edge of an arm. Then the side of a leg as its owner moved… the turn of a head. 

“Open fire!” Mason bellowed. 

Tav shoved his rifle butt into his shoulder. Or at least he tried to. He overshot and smacked it into his chin instead. Swearing, he managed to get it into the right place. He aimed and fired, his heart hammering all the time. The scene became a blood-bath. The smell of blood and burned flesh, battlecries and screams of pain filled the air. 

Then the Jem’Hadar broke free, dropping their shrouds to charge the Starfleet team. With a snarl, Mason shoved Rennox down into cover. Casting his rifle aside, he yanked the big combat dagger from his back holster free and charged, bellowing a llanarian battlecry. 

Tav was frozen in place, watching as more starfleet officers surged forward, combat knives in their hands. In the middle of it all was the captain, engaged in a deadly dance as he wove through what was left of the Jem’Hadar unit. 

He lifted his arm, a combat knife bigger than a small sword slicing through the air. 

Tav flinched as a round object flew past him, his brain refusing to identify it as amber blood splashed across the white flower, its butterfly resident long gone. Silence fell and he looked up, breath rasping in his ears, to find the captain standing nearby, his chest heaving as he looked around. 

The Jem’Hadar were all dead, scattered around the starfleet team. Some slumped, some in more than one piece.

“H-how…?” he managed. “I thought we wouldn’t be able to see them?”

“Jem’Hadar can shroud themselves,” Mason explained in a deep voice as he wiped his blade clean and slid it away into the holster. “But they can’t shroud the air around themselves. Most humanoid eyes are drawn to movement, so all we needed to do was ensure we could see the movement of the air instead.”

Tav blinked. “So…”

“We added glitter to each grenade’s payload.” Mason grinned. 

It wasn’t a nice expression. It was dark and deadly and… totally alive. Like something within the captain had woken up from slumber. 

“Okay people, let’s move out. We’ve a farmhouse to secure and some people to get to safety.”

“No, Aya. You are absolutely not taking the first raft!” 

RJ raged as he stormed down the central corridor to the transporter room of the Morningstar. Not the cargo transporters, even though they had banks of those ranked row on row, but the crew transporters. He was that mad, he wasn’t even riding the loop, but burning off energy by walking… stalking, every muscle in his body tight. All because his sister was a pain in the ass brat with a death wish.

“Who died and made you fucking god?” Aya shouted back, less than two steps behind him. He could feel her angry glare slicing into his back. If looks could kill, he wouldn’t need to worry about the Jem’Hadar… or even Raan Mason, he’d already be deader than a doornail, face down on the damn deck right here. 

“I did!” He turned on his heel, shoving his hand through his hair. It was too long again, the curls getting in the way. “This isn’t some border skirmish, Aya.”

“Well, duh!” She hissed, getting all up in his face. “Do I look like an idiot—DON’T ANSWER THAT! Of course I know it’s not a fucking border skirmish! If it was, there wouldn’t be a Starfleet warship out there and a combat veteran commanding it… WHOSE WIFE YOU SLEPT WITH!”

“That’s not important right now!” Was it actually illegal to throttle your own sister? Or was it just frowned on? “This is the Dominion, Aya. THE ACTUAL DOMINION! It’s serious. You take that raft out and you’re putting a fuck-off big target on yourself!”

“Yeah, and you’re not?” She snarled and poked him in the chest. “I don’t think you need to worry about the Dominion taking pots shots at you, Mason probably will! So it makes sense for me to take the first raft down. At least I’ll only have one enemy taking shots at me.”

She glared up at him, obviously satisfied with her argument. 

“No.” He shook his head. “You’ll have no one taking shots at you because you’re not going first. I am. I’m the eldest, so there.”

She gaped at him, her jaw dropping. “Seriously? You’re pulling the age card?” 

“Uh-huh,” he nodded, crossing his arms. “Seniority in the family.”

“You are such a fucking dick!” she snarled and shoved past him, making sure to slam her shoulder into his. He rocked back on his heels and then turned to follow her into the crew transporters. 

The starfleet crew was already on the pads, looking around with the kind of careful expressions that said they’d heard most of the conversation out in the corridor. 

“Ah, Commander Reese-Riggs?” the Lieutenant at the front of the group stepped forward, offering his hand. “Lieutenant Smith, of the Resolute, I’m in charge of the civilian relocation.”

“A pleasure to meet you Lieutenant,” he smiled and reached to shake the guy’s hand. Before he could, Smith’s heel caught on the edge of the step down off the transporter pads and he tumbled forward. 

“Easy there,” RJ said, catching the other guy easily. “Gravity can be a little dodgy on these old transports.”

“Yes, of course. That must be it.” Smith straightened up and smiled at them both. “I’m sorry, Miss…” he said, offering his hand. 

“Aya Reese-Riggs,” she smiled as she reached out to shake Smith’s hand. RJ was sure he heard bones crunch. Aya had a grip that could crack billiard balls. 

“Oh,” Smith’s gaze darted between the two of them. 

“Sister,” RJ said quickly. “Not wife.”

“Oh, god, no. Ewww!” Aya stopped just short of making gagging noises, which he was grateful for. If he ever wanted to get back into uniform, he needed to make a good showing here. Although, having this lot overhear that little conversation—

He cut the thought off and smiled his best charming smile at the small group of starfleet officers. 

“Okay, Aya will be take you guys up to the bridge and the loading platforms and will get you settled,” he said. “The Morningstar operates with two detachable loading rafts. We don’t usually use them since it’s far more efficient to transport livestock but they do have surface-to-space capability. I will pilot—“ He ignored Aya’s pointed sigh. “I will be piloting the first raft down, Aya will take the second.”

He started to usher them out of the transporter room. They were on a time crunch so they needed to walk and talk. 

“We’ll need two of you on the bridge to liaise with us and then a team on each loading platform to offload car…” 

He paused to correct himself. “Sorry, offload our guests over into the cargo holds. Now, we’ve done our best to increase holding capacity but bear in mind we’re using to carrying cattle who don’t need much in the way of luxuries or even amenities.” As in, they brought their own coats and just needed drains in the floor rather than bathrooms. “But we do have replicators on board, so feel free to use those to make everyone as comfortable as possible.”

Smith nodded, easily keeping pace with RJ. “Thank you sir. I’ll be on the bridge so I’ll be keeping in contact with you. We haven’t heard from the Captain yet as to whether he’s secured the site yet, but it shouldn’t be long. You can start your descent and then can you hold above cloud cover until we’re sure the location is safe?”

RJ shook his head. “No can do. The instant we let that raft go, it’s a one shot to the ground, pure and simple. They are literally platforms with thrusters underneath. Very limited navigational control.” 

“Drop and go, got it.” Smith didn’t seem to be one to argue, which RJ was thankful for. “Okay, we can work with this. I checked on your specs so we’ll time the drop for as soon as we have the go from the captain.”

RJ nodded, slowing his pace as they reached the corridor branch for the raft controls. “This is where I love you all and leave you, I’m afraid,” he smiled and turned to head to the raft cockpit. 

“Hey!” Aya hissed as she followed him a few steps. Concern was etched over her features as she looked at him. “Don’t get yourself killed, okay?”

“Why, anyone would think you cared, brat,” he grinned, reaching out to ruffle her curls. 

“Fuck off, asshole,” she huffed, but he caught the edge of the smile she suppressed. “You still owe me from last week’s poker game, remember? If you die, I don’t get my money.” 

“Yeah, yeah… you’ll get your money. Don’t worry,” he winked at her, hearing everything she didn’t say and then turned for the raft. 

The easy smile slid off his face as he walked. He’d made his choice and he was about to face the consequences. Because one thing was for sure, he was not letting his sister drop into a hot zone first. 

Conflict, choice, consequence… they were a chain reaction no man could hope to avoid.

The day was quiet, but Mason didn’t trust quiet. He particularly didn’t trust quiet with no birdsong or the sounds of other small creatures or insects. That kind of silence meant that there was a predator nearby. 

Or predators in this case. 

He and his team moved through the small woods as they approached the farmhouse that was their objective. Lifting a clenched fist, he brought the team to a stop just inside the treeline and crouched down, studying the farmhouse and its surrounding buildings. 

It looked abandoned. But recently. The curtains that fluttered in the open windows looked bright and clean, rather than ragged and dirty if they’d been in a window open to the elements for long. The gate in front of them was half open, creaking slightly in the warm breeze. It was red, the paint not peeling or cracking. The whole scene gave the impression that the owners had walked out, perhaps left for a nice summer stroll. 

He knew they hadn’t. The best case scenario was they’d fled to one of the camps nearer the city that the team on the Resolute even now would be trying to contact. Worse case scenario… he slid a sideways glance to Rennox, kneeling down next to him. 

If the owners hadn’t left, he didn’t want the kid finding them. Not the condition they were likely to be in. He was holding up well, but he still looked a little green after that ambush.

He arched an eyebrow as Rennox looked up, a silent question. The yeoman swallowed and nodded, his grip tight on his rifle. Mason looked back front, not missing the bruise blossoming over the kid’s jaw where he’d clocked himself with his own rifle butt. 

The farmhouse was still silent. And he still didn’t trust it. 

“Okay,” he murmured in an undertone, the sound carried to the team’s ear-piece comms. “Break into two teams, alpha takes the front, bravo takes the back. I’m hoping that team we caught out in the woods was it, but don’t count on it. Moving in three… two… moving!”

Adrenaline surged through Tav as he followed the captain, trying to stay low, move fast and light just like he did. But he couldn’t. His breath rasped in his ears so loudly he was sure every Jem’Hadar on the planet could hear him, his legs felt like lead weights and he managed to step on every twig between the wood and the edge of the wall of the farmhouse. 

His back hit the brick as he took position behind Mason, who was already firing off hand signals to get the rest of alpha fire team moving like dancers on a stage as they surrounded the red farm gate. They used the wall for cover as they poured through the tiny gap, somehow knowing who moved first and who covered what area with their rifles. He was still trying to remember what Mason’s field signals meant, while trying not to fall over his own feet. 

This was not like the fight with the pirates on the ship. There all he’d had to do was stop pirates getting into sickbay. And they’d only been able to come at him from one direction. Here not only could the Jem’Hadar come from any direction… he couldn’t even see them. 

“With me, kid,” Mason rumbled. Tav stumbled as he followed, the captain’s broad back cutting off his view. Two of the team followed them through the gate. 

They didn’t stop, moving silently up the main path toward the farmhouse. Mason nudged the door open with the barrel of his rifle, boots silent as he led the way into the house. 

Tav’s eyes were wide as they went room to room, his heart a frantic tattoo in his ears as he expected the scaled enemy to emerge from thin air by the big range oven, or from behind the comfy couch in the living room. 

But room after room went by without the world becoming chaos again, each time the captain leading the way, checking each room with a sweep of the big gun he carried. Tav understood why. It wasn’t a starfleet weapon, it seemed to be a cross between an energy weapon and a slug thrower. And brutally effective. 

“House secure,” Mason announced as they reached the last room on the single level dwelling. “Post sentries, bravo team how yo—“

He didn’t finish, his words cut off by bellows and the sounds of a firefight erupting from the yard behind the house. 

“Go Go GO!” Mason bellowed and Tav was almost crushed as half the team barelled through the house, heading for the back doors. They spilled out into the back courtyard and right into a scene from a nightmare.

There were Jem’Hadar everywhere. Tav screamed as two appeared right in front of him, their scaled faces contorted into a battlecry. Somehow he managed to bring his rifle up, finger on the trigger before he aimed properly. One got hit in the shoulder and went down, but the other kept coming, death in his eyes. 

Something big hit Tav in the side and he stumbled sideways, slamming into the wall of the farmhouse. Eyes wide, he watched the captain despatch the Jem’Hadar that had been about to gut him with two shots. The body crumpled to the ground. 

He sagged against the wall with relief. Just a moment, then he’d get into the thick of it. Turning, he jumped as he found himself face to face with a pretty young woman with wide violet eyes.

“Ohmygod, I’m so sorry,” he said quickly as her mouth opened and closed soundlessly. She was obviously terrified. 

What was she even doing here? This was no place for a civilian. His protective instincts flared and he reached out to pull her behind him, to put himself between her and danger. 

Then she fell forward, onto him, and he looked down. She was covered in blood from the chest down and—

She collapsed into his arms, her eyes wide and sightless.

Then the screams started.

“Shit!” 

Mason’s head whipped around at the screams. They were too deep, too masculine to be any of the women the washing flapping on the line belonged to. They were screams of rage, terror and the need for vengeance, all rolled into one. 

Where was the kid?

“Secure the perimeter!” he bellowed, sprinting back around the outbuildings the fight had taken him around back to the farmhouse. “RENNOX!”

The scene that met his eyes brought him up sharply. The courtyard behind the farmhouse was one of carnage. Most of the bodies were Jem’Hadar but there were one or two in starfleet uniform as well. Mason blocked that out for now, their stillness assuring him that nothing could be done at the moment. 

Instead he focused on the young yeoman standing in the middle of the courtyard, his rifle trained on the Jem’Hadar on his knees in front of him. The kid’s face was twisted with rage, his eyes wild. 

“You animals!” he shouted, neck flushed. “You killed them!”

No, Mason realised, Rennox wasn’t flushed. He was covered in blood. Mason’s gaze snapped for a moment to the bodies to the left of the farmhouse door and his eyes widened. They’d been butchered. In a way even his stomach turned. 

“You fucking slaughtered them!” Rennox shouted, jabbing the muzzle of his rifle toward the captured Jem’Hadar. He was injured, favoring his side, but he watched Rennox with blank eyes. “You… you… I’ll fucking kil—“

“Rennox,” Mason said, stepping into the kid’s line of sight. Carefully. Slowly. Just in case Rennox got trigger happy. “Put the weapon up.”

“No!” Rennox shook his head, determined, as tears streamed down his face. “D-did you see what they did? These animals… they… they…”

“I know, kid,” Mason kept his voice low, a deep rumble. 

He kicked himself mentally that he hadn’t checked that side of the door out more. All he’d done was given it a quick glance to make sure there wasn’t a hostile there. If he had, if he’d clocked where the bodies were in relation to where the kid was, he could have moved him on past all that quickly. Saved him from seeing the horrors of war like this. “But put the gun up. You don’t need to do this.”

“I DO!” Rennox snarled. “They need to pay.” Another jab of the rifle in the air. “He needs to pay for what they did!” 

Mason inclined his head, taking a few steps closer. 

“I’m serious Tavik,” he said. Just a few more steps. “You do this, and it’s never the same as before.”

The Jem’Hadar’s gaze flicked to Mason as he neared the kid, not moving, not flinching as he stared down the muzzle of Rennox’s rifle at his own death. He favoured his side, injured arm curled in and the other arm wrapped around himself as he dripped blood into the dirt and dust he knelt in. 

Mason didn’t pay him much attention, instead focused on Rennox. The kid’s hands shook, but he had his finger on the trigger, beginning to squeeze…

“You do this, kid,” he warned. “And part of you never comes back. Believe me, I know.”

“He killed them,” Rennox whispered, his tone so heart-broken and torn that the heart Mason thought was dead and silent ached. “He should pay for that.”

“He will,” Mason murmured, finally close enough to reach out and put a hand on the rifle Rennox held. Gently he pushed it down. “But you’re not that guy.” 

Rennox looked up at him, his blue eyes wide and tortured. In that moment Mason knew he should never have allowed him to come along. Shouldn’t have put him in this situation. 

The moment the rifle was off him, the Jem’Hadar roared and launched himself forward. Mason moved without thought. Shoving Rennox to the side, he had his rifle in his shoulder and a round off before he’d taken his next breath. The Jem’Hadar stopped like a puppet with its strings cut, eyes wide as a bead of amber blood rolled down from the hole in the center of his forehead, down his nose. 

The drop of blood and the body hit the ground at the same time. 

Mason turned to Rennox and held his hand out to help him up. The kid’s eyes were wide and dark, his lower lip trembling, but he reached out and took Mason’s hand in a stronger grip than he expected. He hauled the younger man to his feet and looked down at him. 

“You good?” he asked as he slung his rifle over his shoulder. 

The question wasn’t whether Rennox was going to be okay. He knew the kid had a long road ahead of him, filled with broken sleep and nightmares, of guilt and self recriminations. That was a problem for the future. The question was could Rennox function and do what Mason needed him to. 

Rennox just stared at him, and Mason thought that was it. He’d seen too much, more than he could handle, and it had broken him. But, as he watched, the kid somehow put himself back together and gave a shaky nod. 

“Good man,” Mason said, clapping him on the shoulder. 

Altering the grip, he herded the kid out of the courtyard and away from the place he’d nearly made a mistake that would have cost him part of his soul. He scooped up the kid’s rifle as they went, not stopping until they reached the rest of the fire team behind the outbuildings. 

“Perimeter secure?” he asked.

“Aye sir,” a lieutenant answered him. There was dirt and blood on her face, but her hands were steady and her eyes clear. “And contact has been made with what remains of the local forces. They’re starting to assemble the civilians for relocation.”

“Excellent.” Mason squeezed Rennox’s shoulder. “You’re up, kid. Contact the Resolute and let’s get these people to safety, okay?”

For a moment he didn’t think the kid was going to answer, that he’d folded in on himself. But then his chin came up and he nodded. “Yes sir, I can do that.”

He walked off. Mason watched him for a moment, then looked at the lieutenant. “Go and herd him the other way, make sure he stays away from the action.”

The cockpit of the raft was cramped, little more than a cabin on the bottom of the huge transporter. RJ levered himself into the seat, and strapped in, ignoring the clear space and the planet below the glass deck beneath his feet. 

“This is Reese-Riggs,” he said, opening a comm channel with the Morningstar’s bridge as he flipped switches. “Raft one is online and ready to drop.”

“We have you raft one,” Smith’s voice came over the comm. “Contact has been made with the surface. Civilians are at the rally point and we have the go for drop. Sending co-ordinates now. We have T-minus two minutes to raft release. Confirm.”

RJ nodded, lips compressed into a line as he checked over the info Smith sent over. 

“Raft release in T-minus two,” he confirmed, casting an experienced eye over the console in front of him. Unlike the fancy consoles the Resolute no doubt had, these were practically analogue, new when his grandparents were young. But he’d been piloting on raft drops since before he’d needed to shave. “Aya, looks like we’ve got turbulence in the upper atmosphere. Might want to be careful of that.”

His sister’s snort came over the comm loud and clear. “Just how many tonnes are these things? And… did you forget I’ve been working on these things while you swanned off to play in Starfleet. Raft Two ready to drop on your mark, Lieutenant Smith,” she added, switching the comms to open. “Just in case you want me to take the first drop, show my brother how it’s done, just in case he forgot.”

“Err… I’m sure the commander has it all in hand,” Smith replied diplomatically, obviously not wanting to get in the middle of a family squabble. “Raft One, your contact on the ground is Rennox. He’s the captain’s yeoman, he’s coordinating things down there. T minus sixty to drop.”

“Rennox, got it.” He nodded, then his comm sparked again. Private line. Aya. “Oi, knobhead… make sure to bring your weapons online.” 

He rolled his eyes, even as he activated the weapons arrays. They weren’t much, but he didn’t like the fact they were dropping into a hot zone. “Do you really think I’d forget something like that?”

“I dunno, you seem to forget other important things… like not sleeping with other people’s wives.”

“You’re not going to let that one go, are you?” 

“Hell no. Perhaps I should take one for the team, even things out—“

“Raft one dropping in three…two…”

“Don’t you fucking dare, Aya!” RJ hissed, but that was all he got out as the raft clamps released. One moment he was there, the raft in line with the side of the Morningstar and the cockpit just beneath…if he looked sideways, he could see Aya in Raft Two’s cockpit… the next he was gone. Hurtling down toward the planet below. 

There was a lot said about space to surface drops. How difficult they were… he’d seen hardened officers break and cry at the prospect, especially when dropping in difficult conditions. He’d never understood it. All they’d had to worry about was themselves. Dropping a raft that weighed thousands and thousands of tonnes… now that took skill and balls. Both of which he had in abdunance. 

“WOOOHOOO!” he yelled as the raft plummeted through the upper atmosphere, dropping into the clouds below. As soon as he was past the first layer, the raft started to dance, juddering and shaking. 

“Stay with me, baby,” he murmured, hands and feet on the controls to bring the thrusters online and ease the drop. He hit the comms unit, opening a channel on the code Smith had sent him. 

“This is Morningstar Raft One,” he said, eyes narrowing as he looked between his feet as he crashed through the last of the cloud cover. “Coming down hard on your position. Gonna need a ping to make sure I’m on target. Last warning to clear the drop zone because this baby is coming in hard and heavy.”

“I have you Morningstar One,” a voice replied and RJ blinked. That was Rennox? He sounded about fourteen. “Confirming your descent now, drop zone is clear.”

“Clear and secure?” he asked, frowning as the continent below went from a blob to filling the view between his feet to a patchwork of fields and roads in a heartbeat. “Because I heard you got Jem’Hadar problems down there and my sister’s bringing Raft two down. I really don’t want those asshole’s shooting at her.”

There was a silence and an odd note in Rennox’s voice when he replied. “Yeah, we’re secure. The Captain has… we’ve made sure the perimeter is secure and there are two… now three other sections out there on roving patrols.” 

RJ nodded. “That’s Captain Mason, right?”

He didn’t know why he kept talking, other than he was hurtling toward the ground and, while he’d done this most of his teen years, if he misjudged it, he was going to end up as a thin layer of jam on the top of this cockpit as the raft smashed itself to pieces on the ground. If that happened, lots of people were going to die… and he’d never get his pips back. 

“Yeah. Captain Mason. Commander Bennett’s out there somewhere as well. We keep hearing his bombs go off.”

“Oh?” Rennox must be new to chatter this easily. “Bennett’s your sec chief?”

The pings narrowed his view down to a group of fields, and he adjusted the thrusters to angle the raft that way. “Ground in ten… nine… eight…”

“No, he’s actually the chief engineer. He’s an old friend of the captain though. They served in a war together, I think.”

RJ grunted and hit the brakes, feeling the jolt all the way up his spine to rattle his brain. Dust and dirt swirled up around the raft, cutting his view off. This was the worst part, the last few seconds. If he’d misjudged this, he was dead. And he couldn’t even see the ground before it killed him. 

He froze, waiting. 

The raft lurched slightly, and the airbrakes cut off, the raft settling down lightly. The breath he’d been holding punched from his lungs. Then Rennox’s words caught up with him. Mason had a friend, another veteran… shit. He was screwed. Really screwed. 

“Raft one on the ground,” he announced over the open comm with the ship, then switched to the one with Rennox. “Lowering loading doors now. Get your people on as quickly as you can.”

He cracked the cockpit release at the same time he unclipped his harness. Dropping down, he landed lightly on the ground, walking around the front of the raft to where a young yeoman stood, a datapadd in hand. 

“Hi,” he said over the roar of the loading door motors, and offered his hand. “I’m Reese-Riggs. You must be Rennox?”

“Go to Arriana Prime, they said. It’ll be a nice vacation, they said…” 

Saar grumbled to himself as he crouched behind a ruined wall and tried to scan the street in front of him without poking his head too far above it and possibly getting it shot off.

A crowd of frightened civilians were grouped behind him, eyes wide. Some of them were armed, but that was only because they’d come across a planetary forces unit that had been slaughtered. He’d forced the little group into an alley while he’d grabbed all the weapons he could. 

The street looked clear. Which didn’t mean jack when the Jem’Hadar could shroud themselves. He shook his head to himself as he ducked back down into cover. How the hell had he gotten himself into this situation? He was never taking a vacation again. He was retired, done with this shit when he’d taken his uniform off for the final time two years ago. 

“Gogogogo,” he hissed, motioning them all out of cover and leading them at a crouch along the front of the wall. His back and knees complained bitterly but he ignored them. Tomorrow it would be his left shoulder after carrying this rifle. Getting old sucked. 

Explosions sounded in the distance and then sounds of a firefight somewhere close. 

“Shit!” he dodged to the other side of the street. The Jem’Hadar had swept through here like a damn tornado. Half the buildings had been ransacked or gutted with grenades. “In, get in!” he ordered, sweeping his charges into one of the ruined shopfronts as he stood by the door, sweeping the street. 

He didn’t know why, if there were any Jem’Hadar about, he wouldn’t see them. So he kept his eyes sharp on the dust in the road, checking for footprints appearing. 

“What is that?” a young woman asked him, a local, as she crept forward. She had a nasty cut down one cheek and held onto the rifle for grim death. Her voice was steady, but there was a haunted look in her eyes that said she’d seen and done horrible things, probably to protect the two kids that clung to her shadow like limpets. 

“That…” he said in a low voice as the firing started up again. Whatever that was, it sounded like a damn canon. “Is not a Dominion weapon. Which means there is someone here. Come on, we need to find them. Let’s move.”

For saying he was in the middle of an active warzone, Bennett was a happy little clam at the moment. Not only did he have Big Bertha on his shoulder, but he’d been playing with explosives all morning. 

He and his team hadn’t been able to link up with any of the local forces, but they’d rigged entire minefields to stop the Jem’Hadar advancing where Bennett didn’t want them to, and created a whole lovely little funnel in what had once been a bustling town full of life. Now it was a ruined shell thanks to one Jem’Hadar unit. That unit had been taken care of, courtesy of Mason’s glitter bombs. He still couldn’t believe that had worked. Trust the general to think outside the box. 

“Perhaps they decided to take the day off?” the ensign next to him said, rifle rested on the window ledge in front of them. They’d taken position at the end of a road. The rest of the team were in buildings along the sides. With the obstacles and charges they’d set, any dominion unit had to come through here. Which made it a perfect kill box. 

Bennett snorted. “Yeah, right. Victory is life, remember?” 

A red light on his wrist comp blinked and his lip quirked slightly. “Gonna get noisy in three… two… Now.”

The charges set at the edge of the town went up, the first line of daisy-chains taking out whoever was trying to sneak around them. “Okay people,” Bennett said over the comm. “They’re gonna come in hard and heavy now. Be ready.”

Almost before he’d finished his sentence, a beam erupted out of nowhere and picked off Ensign Kerson, in the end building. He screamed as he fell out of the second floor window, the sound abruptly cut off. 

“CONTACT!” Bennett roared and the team opened fire. 

He shrugged his shoulder and Bertha clicked down into place. The sighting system was as hybrid as the weapon, a mishmash of Latharian and other tech he’d melded onto it. He flipped the scopes over, looking for the minute movement of air and glitter particles they’d already seeded the alley with. Even so, it was a small advantage, one that was easily negated by the speed and ferocity of the Dominion attack. 

The fight was short and brutal. The Jem’Hadar unshrouded to attack each of the buildings individually. Bennett bellowed a battle cry as he tried to pick off as many of them as possible before they disappeared from view and his people were on their own. 

But then four Jem’Hadar charged the door on the floor below. Bennett exchanged a glance with the ensign next to him. Hernandez, from Ops, if he recalled correctly. With a nod, they both drew combat knives. Or rather Hernandez drew a Starfleet issue combat knife, Bennett had his llanarian issue combat dagger. A small sword in comparison. 

“Wait for it,” he murmured, turning to watch the door. “Wait for it…”

The door burst inward and he fired off two shots, taking the lead Jem’Hadar in the middle of their chests. They flew backward, hitting the fighter directly behind them, but the last one got through. Herandez launched himself forward, the lethal edge of his combat knife slicing through the air. 

Bennett stayed back, dagger light in his hand, as he looked for a way into the fight that wouldn’t endanger Hernandez. But movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention and he turned just as the final Jem’Hadar barreled through the door. 

He didn’t get time to react, or even swear, as the Jem’Hadar bellowed and caught him up in a tackle that hit him in the mid-section, the momentum taking them both back and out of the window…

To fall to the ground below.

Captain’s log, stardate 78179.36. 

We have reached Arriana Prime and now have assets on the ground. Alpha team have secured the landing site for civilian extraction, while Bravo and Charlie team’s are operating under guerilla warfare conditions to halt the Jem’Hadar advance on the capital. 

We have secured non-starfleet resources to help in the evacuation and are now attempting to contact what remains of planetary forces. Infrastructure and all kinds of public services are shot to hell, which is hampering efforts to reach survivors. 

We have… sustained casualties of our own, but nothing so far that will prevent us from achieving our objective. I anticipate this may change when we encounter the main bulk of the Jem’Hadar forces, who have so far kept themselves beyond our reach. I have no doubt they are planning something. What, however, remains to be seen…

Mason cut the recording and stood for a moment, rocking his weight between his heels and toes as he surveyed the scene before him. The first of the Morningstar’s rafts had dropped and even now was loading frightened civilians. They’d been fortunate enough to find that at least some government officials had remained at their posts rather than fleeing to try and save their own skins. They were a large part of the reason so many civilians that were or had been in the Jem’Hadar’s destructive path were now being lifted out of the line of fire. 

His gaze swept over the field, past the big raft, to the tents that had been erected for the dead. There were far too many of them. His jaw tightened, gaze narrowing as he fought down anger. So many lives lost and why? Because wraiths from the past had decided their war was not over yet? 

Sighing, he shook his head and turned, heading towards where his yeoman was speaking to the raft pilot. Reese-Riggs… Commander Reese-Riggs… that name rang a bell in the back of his mind somewhere but he couldn’t place it. 

“Hi,” he said over the roar of the loading door motors, and offered his hand. “I’m Reese-Riggs. You must be Rennox?”

The man coming toward him was tall and broad-shouldered with a shock of brown-red curls that whipped around his face like medusa’s serpents. Rennox nodded as he gripped the taller guy’s hand and shook it firmly. 

“I am,” he yelled back, only to realise that the roar of the transporter raft doors had cut out. “Sorry, didn’t realise how loud that was.”

Reese-Rigg’s lips quirked slightly and Rennox found himself with serious envy over the guy’s mustache and the swagger to his walk. “Don’t worry, you get used to it. You wait until I bring the engines online to take her back up. Your grandkids will feel that noise in their souls.”

Rennox chuckled, something about the older man’s easy manner that relieved the tension of the situation. He could almost believe that they were just chatting in a beer garden somewhere, rather than holding an evac point against Dominion forces. 

At that thought, his gaze flitted to where he’d last seen the captain, only to find Mason walking toward them. He had what Rennox was calling his ‘captain’ face on, that focused, determined look that hid the man he’d seen during the fights with the dominion. 

“Jeezuz…” Reese-Riggs murmured, the easy smile slipping for a moment. “That’s Mason? He’s fucking huge.”

“Yeah.” Pride swelled in the center of Rennox’s chest at the formidable picture the big captain made as he stalked toward them. “He’s Llanarian. They’re all big like that.”

By this time Mason had reached them, his pale eyes flicking over both of them before settling on the Morningstar pilot. 

“Reese-Riggs? Glad you made it down in one piece,” he said, offering his hand to shake. Rennox found it amusing that that very human gesture was so common place. Or perhaps llanarian’s shook hands as well. 

“Call me RJ,” Reese-Riggs replied. “And thanks. There’s a knack to it.”

Mason flicked a glance to the gargantuan raft behind them. It looked like they were about a quarter of the way through loading the civilians. “I’ve combat dropped in things not even half the size of that and seen it go very, very wrong. Takes real skill to set one down.”

“Thank you,” RJ nodded, that confident smile back on his face as though his little wobble when he’d seen Mason hadn’t even happened. 

Rennox narrowed his eyes slightly. As far as he knew, the two men had never met before… so why had RJ looked like he’d seen a ghost? 

“It’s a good job we were so close, or we never would have got here in time.”

“A good job indeed,” Mason nodded, his gaze sharp as his attention moved from the new guy to sweep around the edges of the area again. Checking the team on perimeter watch. He’d spent so much time watching the captain, he could see when the war-guy looked out through his eyes. It was chilling, to say the least. Especially when that version of the captain was still there when he looked back at RJ. 

“How many drops do you think it will take to clear the numbers here?” Mason asked. “We have a team holding this area, but we’re stretched. I’d like to keep this as short as possible so we can pull back and hunt the main dominion force out there.”

RJ pursed his lips, pulling a small padd from his thigh pocket. It wasn’t Starfleet issue and was surprisingly old-fashioned tech. From the way he walked and talked, and the gold chain that peaked out from the open neck of his jumpsuit, Rennox would have expected the latest, expensive civilian tech. 

“These numbers, with humanoids being the same average height and weight as… subtract time for herd mentality, add time for intelligence because people never follow directions…” he muttered to himself, then looked up. 

“The drops are quick, getting them offloaded… with these numbers, at least six hours. Think you can hold this location?” he asked, his expression suddenly becoming harder. “Because if there’s any doubt about that, we’re going to need to add two hours.”

Rennox frowned, but the captain beat him to the punch. 

“Why the additional?” Mason asked, hands resting lightly on the rifle he carried as easily as if it was an extension of his hands and arms. 

RJ folded his arms, the shipsuit pulling across his chest. “Because my sister is the other pilot and I am absolutely not letting her drop into a hot zone. If there’s a chance of that, I’m piloting on all the drops and it’s going to take longer.”

Oh shit. Rennox froze. There was no way the captain was going to take that lying down, surely? Even though RJ was also a Starfleet commander, Mason was the captain on the ground, this was his op… so he had command. 

“RJ Reese-Riggs, you say?” Mason asked suddenly.

“Yeah… Ryder James,” RJ replied, then frowned. “Why?”

Mason just shrugged, war-guy dark in his eyes. “We’ll hold this location for six hours. If it looks like we’re compromised, I’ll give you prior warning so you can change out pilots.”

He offered his hand again, then, when RJ took it, yanked him forward. For anyone looking from a distance, it would look like the two men were old friends as Mason clapped RJ on the back. But Rennox saw the tension in Mason’s grip and the panic that flared in RJ’s eyes. 

“I know exactly who you are,” Mason growled by RJ’s ear. “Don’t get yourself killed because when this is done? You and I are having a chat.”

The sounds of fighting got louder the closer they got to the center of the small town. 

“Shhhh,” Saar warned his little group, herding them into a little alley like a mother duck with her chicks and standing protectively at the front as he leaned around the corner to look down the main street. Shit. There was a full on battle going on between Jem’Hadar and—

“Starfleet,” he breathed, his eyes widening as he spotted the distinctive uniforms in second storey windows, and then the Jem’Hadar piling through the doors below. 

“Oh bollocks! Stay here!” he threw over his shoulder and launched himself forward before common sense could kick in about what an epically bad idea this was. What did he think he was? Some kind of super-shady special forces soldier? He wasn’t. He never had been. He was just a retired guy with too much time on his hands and… his knees were really going to hate him tomorrow. Holidays were over-rated. Next time someone suggested he take a holiday, he was buying a book instead. Yeah, that sounded like a plan. Less chance of the sodding Jem’Hadar trying to kill him that way. 

“I‘m too old for this shit,” he grunted as he ran forward onto the main street, trying to keep as much in his rifle scope as he could at the same time as trying not to fall over his feet. The last time he’d done any combat training was years ago, on a holodeck. And even when he’d been in uniform, he hadn’t done this ground stuff… he’d been far more comfortable on the bridge, in ship to ship combat. 

Bloody hell, he was so going to die. He scowled. That would be inconvenient. What would happen to his little group in the alley if he was stupid enough to get himself killed? 

The sound of breaking glass and a bellow made him whip around just in time to see two figures fall from a window. A big guy in a fleet uniform and a Jem’Hadar. They hit the ground, the uniform first and he winced. That had to have really hurt. 

But the guy was still fighting, trying to throw his opponent off. The Jem’Hadar reared back, his face contorted into a snarl as he lifted a kar’takin over his head. 

Saar was not a seasoned soldier, but he didn’t hesitate. His finger squeezed the trigger with a lover’s touch and the energy bolt hit the dominion fighter in the center of his chest. He dropped his shock blade, a look of surprise on his face, then toppled backward. 

The fleet officer pushed the body the rest of the way off and was on his feet in an instant, with way more grace than a man that big should have. 

“Thanks for the assist,” he rumbled, eyes narrowing as they flicked over Saar assessingly. “Commander Bennett, with the Resolute. You with local forces?”

Saar shook his head as the two of them hit the wall. The fight wasn’t over yet, and being out in the open was always a bad idea. 

“Captain Ket,” he introduced himself quickly. “Retired starfleet. I was taking a vacation.”

“You picked a hell of a place for it, sir. You alone?” Bennett raised an eyebrow as Jem’Hadar piled out of a nearby building, bellowing as they ran toward them. 

Saar tried not to think about what had happened to the people wearing fleet uniforms that had been in the window on the second floor as he started firing at the same time as Bennett. The big weapon on the commander’s shoulder cut a bloody swathe through the Dominon fighters in seconds. 

“Tell me about it,” Saar sighed and scrubbed at the back of his neck as the other member’s of Bennett’s team emerged from the remaining buildings. 

It appeared they had been victorious against the Jem’Hadar. This time. 

More would come. They always did. 

But… he eyed the monster gun attached to Bennett’s arm and shoulder, and the hard looks on the faces of the men and women around them. They looked like they were here to kick ass and take names, for sure. 

“No, I’m not alone. I have a small group of survivors with me. About ten. In the alley on the left. We’ve been on the move since the first attack, staying out of the way.”

Bennett frowned, surprise evident on his face. 

“You’ve been tracking the Jem’Hadar’s movements?” he asked, then motioned to one of his team. “Go fetch the group from the alley down there,” he ordered, then turned back to Saar. 

“In a way?” Saar shrugged. “It wasn’t difficult. More a case of working out where they’ve been and staying in those areas, hoping they won’t come back. Been trying to get ahead of them, but that ran the risk of running into them… and there’s only one of me.”

“Okay, so you can tell us where they’ve already hit. That could prove useful. How long have you been here?”

Saar’s eyes narrowed, worry rolling through him until he saw his little group being led out of the alley, surrounded by some serious-looking, heavily armed starfleet personnel. 

“About three weeks. I was hiking over the foothills back there,” he nodded to the south of the town. “Which meant I was out of the main areas when the first troops dropped. I’ve been picking up survivors since.”

“You’ve done well to stay alive,” Bennett said, as the civilian group joined them, their dirty, ripped clothes and their nervous air hinting at what they’d been through. “The gen—my captain, sorry, is going to want to talk to you. And we need to get all you guys to safety. Follow me please…”

The roar of the Morningstar’s transport dropping was almost relaxing. Tav lay on his back under a tree, staring up through the branches at the night sky. It was a warm summer’s night, like the ones he and Soren had spent camping out in the back of their grandparent’s farm when they were kids. They’d lay on their backs, looking up at the stars and talking about what they’d do when they grew up. 

Those plans had not included the Dominion, or the Jem’Hadar. 

“Get some sleep, kid,” Mason ordered, his voice a deep rumble in the darkness. 

Tav turned his head. The captain was sitting a small way away, back against a broad tree trunk. A padd by his thigh illuminated the side of his face but he wasn’t looking at it, he was looking out across the evac area. Civilians were already assembled for the final transport as it dropped through the atmosphere toward them. 

“Why’d you do it?”

For a moment Tav didn’t think the captain was going to answer him. Or perhaps pretend he didn’t know what he was on about. But Mason didn’t brush him off. 

He sat there, stripping the leaves off a rush as he looked out, jaw set. “Because you don’t need that on your soul, kid. Killing…”

Tav didn’t move, waiting as the silence welled between them. But it wasn’t a ‘we’re done talking now’ kind of silence. It was heavy with the weight of something… expectation. Potential. 

“It’s easy, kid. Too easy.” Mason sighed. “The price though, that’s too high. Especially killing that way, the way you were going to. That kind of killing kills a part of you. Bit by bit.” 

Silence again. The sound of the raft dropping for the last pickup.

“Yeah.” Tav moved his head, looked up at the stars again. “I get it. I was mad, I would have… wanted to…” He didn’t have the words. 

“Yeah.”

The stars were so peaceful. It didn’t seem right with what was happening. What had happened already. 

He turned his head again. 

“I get all that,” he said, studying the hard line of the captain’s jaw. “But why… why did you do that for me?”

The captain didn’t look at him, but Tav didn’t think he was actually seeing the evac point either. He wasn’t looking at anything. Or rather, he wasn’t looking at anything Tav could see. 

“Because I was there.” Mason’s voice was almost absent, and Tav got the feeling not many people saw him this way. It made him feel… special. He held his breath, waiting for the captain to say something else. 

“I was there,” Mason carried on, deep voice heavy with something. Not regret, but a sense of inevitability. “I stood where you did, with a man on his knees in front of me. Begging for his life.”

Tav frowned. The captain still didn’t look at him. 

“No one was there for me, kid. And I killed in anger. I killed in fury. I killed in rage.”

“But he was a bad man, right?” Tav asked, half sitting up. He’d seen the captain in battle and he knew Mason had a darkness in him, but he couldn’t see the captain as a cold-blooded murderer. 

But the captain wasn’t listening to him. His gaze sharpened on something and he leapt to his feet, hitting his commbadge. 

“Who’s on the south checkpoint?” he barked the demand, grabbing his rifle and breaking into a sprint across the field. “HOSTILES ON THE SOUTH PERIMETER!”

————

“Raft one clear,” RJ said over the comm and leaned, stretching out in the confines of the small cockpit. At over six feet, it wasn’t really built for people his size, more for midgets like Aya. Then Mason came to mind and he closed his eyes with a groan.

“Shitshitshitshit!” he slammed his hands into the bulkhead above his head. Not only was Mason a bloody combat veteran, but he was a freaking giant to boot. 

…Don’t get yourself killed because when this is done? You and I are having a chat…

Yeah, he could imagine what that chat was going to be about. Less verbal and more physical. Mason was going to bloody well kill him. Slowly and painfully. 

“Great…” he sighed. 

Wouldn’t be so bad, apart from the fact he couldn’t even remember sleeping with the guy’s wife. Well, he remembered waking up in the morning… but the actual night. Nope. Nothing. Zip. Nada. His memory was blank. All he remembered was being bundled out of the door in his boxers, and his clothes shoved into his arms before she’d slammed the door in his face. 

Pity, she’d been stunning from what he’d seen. Stunning, and Mason’s wife… he rubbed his hand over his face. Yeah, he was a dead man walking. 

“Shit! There’s shooting going on down here!” Aya’s panicked voice came over the comm. 

“What?” RJ shot upright. “Smith, you getting this? What the fuck is going on?”

“Looks like we have hostile forces infiltrating the evac area,” Smith replied immediately, any panic concealed under the professional ‘starfleet’ voice. If RJ didn’t know better, he’d think they went to school for it. “The captain and the other fire teams are converging on a large force that are trying to cut through and get to the capital city.”

“RJ!” Aya’s voice cut off with a scream. 

He started flipping switches. “Cut me loose, Smith. NOW! Raft one drop immediately!”

“On it,” Smith replied. “Clamps still locked on. Fifteen seconds to drop.”

“Shitshitshit!” RJ hissed. “Aya! Bring weapons online!” he shouted down the comm. 

God, how long could fifteen seconds be?

“AYA! Answer me!” he raged over the airwaves. “For gods sake! Talk to me. Bring your weapons online! Now!”

If anything happened to Aya, Nana was going to kill him. Slowly. With a blunt spoon. 

No, it wouldn’t matter what his nana did to him, he’d never forgive himself. He’d gotten her into this. She was his baby sister and he’d gotten her killed. 

“Raft one drop initiated. Now.”

RJ’s heart thundered as he and his raft dropped away from the Morningstar. 

“Smith! What’s going on? Talk to me!” he ordered as the raft plummeted, dropping through the atmosphere like a stone. “What’s going on down there?” 

“We’ve lost contact with the ground.” Now Smith’s voice betrayed a thread of panic. “I’m trying to raise Rennox now.”

“That kid?” RJ shook his head. It didn’t matter if Rennox was practically in the cradle, as long as he could help Aya. “Did you get him?” 

“Nothing as yet. I think the Jem’Hadar are blocking our signals.” 

Either that or they were all dead. RJ shook the thought off, his jaw tight as the raft dropped through the cloud cover. Shit. If he came down on the same drop vector before, then he was going to drop right onto Aya’s raft. If the Dominion hadn’t…already killed her, then him dropping a damn raft right on top of her certainly would. 

“Changing drop vectors,” he announced. “Where the hell are these bastards, Smith? Give me some co-ordinates. And quick. I’ve got like four seconds before the cut off point.”

Smith didn’t get time to reply. Instead, a new vector flashed up in green digits on the small screen in front of RJ. He punched it, accepting the vector and the raft banked sharply. Or as sharply as a shipping container half the size of a planet could. 

“Aya! Coming in hot on your side,” he said over the comm, only to get garbled messages back. 

The last of the clouds cleared and he could see what was going on. 

“Oh fuck…”

_______

The situation had gone to hell in a heartbeat. 

Mason growled as he sheltered at the side of the mangled drop raft, which was doing its best impression of a shark fin poking out of what remained of the dirt of the evac area, the injured pilot tucked in behind him. He was dirty, bleeding from gods-knew how many wounds, and on his own. The rest of his fire team were dead, scattered behind him.

They’d come from nowhere, managing to get around all their defense perimeters and Bennett’s minefields. He shouldn’t be surprised, the Jem’Hadar were born and bred for war. And they’d caught him on the damn hop. 

“Get those civilians into cover!” he bellowed as he hoisted the unconcious girl over his shoulder and ran toward Bennett’s fire team as they emerged from the trees. 

The civilians had fortunately scattered away from the drop point when the Jem’Hadar had shot the raft down, but now they were milling around like damn cattle, just creating extra targets. The Jem’Hadar themselves were using the ruined raft as cover and taking pot shots. 

“COVER!” he yelled again, waving at them. Gods, how dense could they be? If they didn’t get the message with him thundering toward them waving and the Jem’Hadar shooting at them, then what else could he do?  “Get into cover!”

“You heard the man! Let’s move!” a new voice shouted and a figure broke from  Bennett’s team to start herding the civilians toward the treeline. 

Thank the gods, someone with some sense. Mason carried on running, the Jem’Hadar taking shots at his back, the dirt around his feet kicking up in little plumes. Swearing, he yanked the girl down from over his shoulder to carry her against his chest. That way if he got hit, then she had half a chance of making it. Unless he fell on her, then she was screwed. 

The sound of firing made him turn his head, only to find Rennox running toward him, rifle in his hand as he shot back at the Jem’Hadar. 

“What are you doing, kid?” he snarled, trying to get between Rennox and the incoming fire. “Get back! Get back behind the line.”

“AYA!” The bellow came through the comm loud and clear as Mason bundled the unconcious girl into Rennox’s arms and grabbed his rifle. He’d lost his own fighting to get to the pilot. 

“Who is this?” he demanded, turning and picking off the snipers on the ridgeline of the destroyed raft. 

“RJ, in raft one. Coming down on the southside of the evac point,” the reply was short and swift. Mason looked up to see the stars being blotted out by something big. “If you ain’t clear then—“

Mason didn’t get time to bellow a warning to anyone. Instead, he dropped the rifle, turned and threw himself to cover Rennox and the girl. 

The shockwave of the raft hitting the ground hit like a sonic boom. It took Mason off his feet like the last time he’d gotten caught in an explosion. He’d be pissing blood for a week. He grunted as he hit the deck, braced over both kids as the world rained half a planet of dirt and bits of metal down over his shoulders. 

Silence.

…

… 

Either that or his eardrums had ruptured. 

More silence. Yeah, totally possible his eardrums were ruptured. He wiggled his jaw. No pain.

He grunted as something poked into his ribcage. 

“Huh?”

“Can’t… breathe.” Rennox’s voice was soft and muffled. 

“Oh… sorry.” 

He heaved up, shoving what felt like a construction site of dirt off his back, and giving enough room for Rennox to scramble out from under him, covered in mud and blood. 

“Is that yours?” Mason demanded, gaze sweeping over the kid to check for wounds. 

Rennox shook his head as he reached under Mason, and dragged the girl out as well. 

“No… I think it’s yours. Oh shit,” his eyes widened as they both managed to get to their feet and looked around. There was a new hill in the middle of the evac point. 

“He squashed them,” Tav breathed. “Or dropped the planet on them.”

“He did,” Mason murmured, gaze sharp on the area the Jem’Hadar had been. Just in case. But his instincts told him not even those scaled assholes could survive being hit with a raft from orbit and then buried. 

Movement caught his eye and he snapped his head up to see a parachute fluttering overhead. As he watched, it executed a loose spiral around the hill then headed for them. RJ Reese-Riggs landed at a run in front of them, unclipping the harness with a practised movement that said this wasn’t the first time he’d done it. 

“Aya!!” he shouted, ignoring them both to slide to his knees next to the unconscious girl. Grief twisted his features.

“She’s alive, sir,” Rennox said, his voice gentle. “The captain pulled her from the wreckage himself.” 

RJ looked up at Mason, his gaze narrowed. Then nodded. “Thank you.”

“No problem.” Mason inclined his head. Whatever problems he had with the guy himself, they didn’t extend to his sister. 

“We won, sir,” Rennox rejoined him, a small, relieved smile on his face as Bennett and the other survivors headed over the field toward them. “Didn’t we?”

“We did, kid,” Mason said in a low voice, but his gaze swept over the field. “We won.”

Everything came with a price. 

Even victory. 

Especially victory. 

That price was written in the other bodies among the fallen Jem’Hadar. Civilians. Starfleet officers. 

It was written in the new darkness in Rennox’s eyes. The tightness on the faces of his crew as they walked toward him. 

History was written by the victors, but they never wrote about the price. That price wasn’t for the history books. 

The price was for the survivors to pay. 

Aya looked so small, tucked beneath a thin blanket on the biobed in the Resolute’s sickbay. For such a small ship, RJ had been surprised by the relatively large size of sickbay. But then again, with a guy like Mason as captain, he shouldn’t have been surprised. The ship probably dropped into a warzone at least twice a week. 

“She’s going to be fine.” RJ turned to find not the CMO he’d spoken to earlier, but Mason himself standing behind him. “I spoke to Micheals. Your sister had internal injuries but surgery went well and she’s just sedated now so she can heal.”

RJ nodded, relief washing through him. He’d been looking at Aya’s bio readouts on the screen above her for the last hour, but he couldn’t make head nor tail of it. Why couldn’t he had been something useful, like a doctor, rather than a command officer? What good was standing there and knowing what attack pattern to order a ship into in a situation like this? It wasn’t like he could keep death at bay with attack pattern Alpha-seven-nine, was it? 

He shook the thought off and focused on Mason, standing in front of him. 

The Resolute’s captain had changed since they’d made it back up from the surface, the torn and bloody combat uniform gone, replaced by the uniform of a Starfleet commander. The only evidence of what had happened on the surface was a bruised scrape on the side of Mason’s face, a cut lip, and a red ring around his pale iris where the blood vessels had burst. 

“Didn’t you get treated yet?” he asked, nodding toward the damage on Mason’s face. From what he’d seen, that uniform had to be concealing a lot more, especially as Mason had been in the fall-out zone from when he’d dropped half a planet on the Jem’Hadar.

Mason watched him with an unreadable expression. “Not yet, no. Why?”

“No reason.” RJ shrugged. “It’s just I would have thought the Captain of the ship was top priority…” 

“I’ll live. Why are you so concerned?” Mason’s gaze laser focused on RJ, pinning him like a collector secured a specimen to a board. “I would have thought, given the conversation we’re about to have, you’d have wanted me in less than top physical condition.”

RJ’s blood chilled, and the rest of the room fell away, his sole focus on the man right in front of him. “So we’re going to have that kind of talk.”

It was a statement, not a question. How could it be anything else, especially with the look on Mason’s face?

Mason made a small sound, almost like a grunt. For a second though, it almost seemed regretful. “I think so, yeah. Given the situation.”

“Look man,” RJ said, taking another step forward. “I had no idea she was your wi—“

He didn’t get another sound out of his mouth before Mason’s brawny forearm was in his throat and the wall behind him slammed into his back. It happened so fast he didn’t have time to react, he didn’t even get off even one punch before Mason was on him. Pinning him with a ruthless efficiency that was breath-taking. 

At just over six foot, RJ wasn’t a small guy but he was nowhere close to Mason. And up close Mason was even bigger than he’d looked. And packed with muscle. Absolutely solid, carved from hull plating, steel like muscle. He tried to struggle but Mason pressed harder with his arm, cutting off his air. 

“Don’t say a fucking word,” Mason snarled, a deep growl that rumbled from the center of his chest, transmitted through RJ where they touched. “You don’t get to say her name. You don’t get to make excuses.”

Mason glared down at RJ, pale eyes dark with anger… no, not anger. That was fury. A fury so deep that it could have burned up entire solar systems like a wildfire ripping through a drought-blighted landscape. The kind of fury that sustains a man on a lifelong mission of vengeance. 

And it was all aimed at him.

Ice rolled down RJ’s spine. He was about to die. Here and now, in a bloody sickbay of all places. 

RJ wasn’t a complicated personality. He wasn’t a great hero, and while he occasionally did have moments of heroism… like dropping a raft from orbit on a horde of Jem’Hadar to save his sister… he mostly looked after himself first. 

So, faced with a furious combat veteran ready to rip his spine from his body, RJ did the only thing he could think of… 

He kissed Mason.

“Kid, if you weren’t feeling the best, then you need to get checked out,” Bennett growled at him, his hard look nearly as bad as the captain’s as he all but frog-marched Tav down the corridor toward sickbay. “No excuses.”

“I’m fine!” he squeaked, but it was walk or be dragged, so he walked faster, preferring to get to their destination under his own steam. “Honestly!”

“Really?” Bennett grunted and held up his hand. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

Tav squinted as he looked at them, but couldn’t focus and walk at the same time. He stumbled but Bennett’s hand was around his arm before he could hit the deck. 

“No fair!” he complained. “You were wiggling your fingers, that was all!”

“You keep telling yourself that, kid,” Bennett chuckled. “You had your bell rung good and proper. So you need to see Micheals. Like now.”

“But the captain didn’t get treatment yet!” Tav argued, then bit his lip. “And she’s kinda scary.”

“Well, the captain is bigger than you are, and knows his limits. He’s also probably had more concussions than you’ve had hot dinners, so he knows how to deal with them. But I’ll admit that you have a point about Micheals. She is kinda scary. But she’ll be even scarier if this gets worse and she realises that you were avoiding getting checked out,” Bennett said as they turned into sickbay, the double doors sweeping open. 

They stopped dead at the sight in front of them and Tav’s eyes widened. The captain had the Morningstar commander pinned up against a wall and they were—

“About face, kid,” Bennett ordered, his hand hard on his arm as they turned around. “Micheals ain’t here.”

“B-but—“ Tav stammered, looking over his shoulder as Bennett hauled him away. The captain had shoved away, standing a few feet away from the other commander. “Was that—“

“Private. That is most definitely private,” Bennett said, marching him down the corridor in the other direction toward the lounge where a secondary medical bay was set up. Tav blinked, managing to look the way they were going with effort. His head rung, and the lights were too bright, but…

“He kissed the captain,” he whispered, looking up at the big engineer. 

“Uh-huh,” Bennett’s expression was unreadable as he looked down at Tav. “Still private.”

“Will he be okay?” he asked, then shook his head. Okay, no. That had been a bad idea. “The commander I mean?”

“Huh?” Bennett frowned. “Why on Llanar wouldn’t he be?” 

Tav blinked as they reached the lounge and Bennett hustled him toward one of the loungers. 

“Well, I mean because… the captain. He’s… and… he was…” he whispered, dropping his voice as Bennett’s big hand on his shoulder made him sit down. “I mean like the captain is uber…the captain. And he was married. To a woman!”

“Ahhh…” Realisation and then amusement chased each other over Bennett’s expression. 

“Yes,” he said. “Raan… the captain was married. Probably still is until he signs the paperwork. But before that he was engaged twice, I think he’s married to one of them now. Sit still,” he ordered as a nurse approached. 

“Probably concussion,” the engineer explained to her as Tav gaped at him. “He was down there when some idiot dropped half a planet on them, he’s been ignoring getting checked out since.” 

“Still engaged?” Tav blinked as the nurse checked him out with a tricorder. “How… I mean, if he was… is married?”

Bennett shook his head. “Not every species has the same societal or cultural set up. Nor do inter-personal relationships always work the same as humans… you’re human, right? You’re going to have to get used to that, being in Starfleet.”

“Human, yeah…” Tav nodded, then felt sick again. Okay, moving his head at all was a bad idea. “And I know, I just did training on all that. But…”

Bennett’s hand landed on his shoulder. “No but’s, kid. Raan is kinda private about his personal life. You want to know more, you’re going to have to ask him.”

I don’t wanna die, I don’t wanna die… I’m so gonna die…

The litany rolled through RJ’s mind for all of the two point four seconds it took Mason to shove back away from him. He opened his eyes warily, expecting one of those massive fists to slam into him any second, but instead Mason stood a step or two away, watching him with an odd look on his face. 

He wasn’t dead.

RJ blinked, tempted to pat himself down to make sure he actually was alive, rather than beaten to a little pulp in the corner of sickbay and this was some kind of dream before he died. If so, it was a weird one. There were less harps and clouds than he’d expected, and he’d always hoped for scantily-clad virgins… not one very large, very handsome, combat veteran giving him a look he couldn’t work out. 

“Bridge to the captain,” the internal comms sparked into life, and Mason held a hand out to him, finger raised in the universal signal for ‘we’re not done here yet’. 

RJ nodded and leaned back against the wall as Mason tapped his commbadge. So much for making a quick getaway. The speed Mason could move, he doubted that he’d make it halfway to the door before the guy was on him.

“This is Mason,” the Resolute’s captain growled out, his gaze still locked with RJ’s. “Talk to me, Burton. What’s going on?”

“New orders from command, sir,” the Resolute’s XO replied. “The call has been sent out for all available ships to head to Farpoint at top speed.”

Silence stretched out for a second, then Mason nodded. “Sounds like a last stand. Get everyone off the ship who doesn’t need to be here, and then set a course. I’m on my way up. Mason out.”

He regarded RJ for a moment, then turned and strode out of sickbay without a backward glance. RJ watched him go, then sagged against the wall again, shoving a hand through his hair. 

“Fuck!”

“Well, that was enlightening.” 

The sound of Aya’s voice made his head whip around, and he found her watching him with frustrated affection. “I thought I was the one taking one for the team and seducing Mason to get you out of the shit? Why’d you have to go and ruin all my fun!”

He pushed off from the wall and was by her bedside in a heartbeat. “How are you feeling?” he demanded, looking around for one of the medical staff. “You were supposed to be sedated not spying on me.”

“Yeah, yeah…” She closed her eyes and lay her head back against the pillow. “So, how quickly are you getting me off the ship so you can have another crack at the captain?”

“Shut up, brat,” he growled, and caught the attention of the nurse who’d just walked in. “She just woke up, and I believe that we need to get all non-combatants off the ship? I’m going to need to get her transferred to the Morningstar ASAP.”

——— 

That had been… unexpected. 

Raan’s expression was unreadable as he stalked through the corridors up to the bridge. Reese-Riggs was… a frown creased his brow as he stood in the turbolift, feet shoulder width apart and his hands behind his back. He didn’t know what the crazy commander was at the moment, but that was a problem for tomorrow. Today had other problems already lining up.

“Computer,” he said as the doors closed and whisked him away. “Retrieve signed divorce documents from my personal files and send them to Captain Ilona Hale.”

“Affirmative.”

He sighed, dropped his head back and closed his eyes. He’d held off sending the paperwork back to Ilona, but now it was time. Past time. And they did say when one door closed, another opened. 

He rolled his shoulder and bit back a groan. He hurt, his entire body aching from the fighting and having half a planet dropped on his back earlier. He caught sight of his reflection in a plate of the turbolift door and winced. No wonder Reese-Riggs had asked him about treatment, he was a freaking mess. 

He’d head down and find Micheals after they were underway for Farpoint. He’d also check in and find out how Rennox was doing. The kid had held up well during the situation on the ground, but he was going to need some time with Armstrong, that was for sure. 

The lift slowed and he stepped out onto the bridge. 

“How we doing Burton?” he asked as his XO stood from the center chair. 

“We’re offloading non-crew members as we speak,” Burton replied, dark circles of exhaustion under his eyes. It looked like he hadn’t slept since this whole thing had started, much like Raan himself. Command officers often didn’t get that luxury, they were too busy keeping shit together and making sure other people held their shit together. 

Raan nodded. “Hand that off to Quinn, then go get some sleep. If we’re heading into combat, I’m going to need you at your best. Even just a catnap will make a difference.”

“Aye, sir.” Burton nodded, for once not arguing protocol or any of the rules he liked to throw at Raan. Instead, he just sighed tiredly, then looked Raan up and down. “How the hell are you still on your feet looking as fresh as you do?”

“Practice, stamina and a shitload of coffee,” Raan chuckled, clapping a hand on Burton’s shoulder. “Go get some sleep.” 

Raising his voice a little to carry, he addressed the bridge crew. “That goes for anyone on alpha shift who hasn’t slept recently. Hand off to beta team and get a nap. We’ll bring you back up when needed.”

There were no complaints, just tired movements as officers filed out to find what little rest they could. One person though, remained at her station. 

Raan smiled as he crossed the bridge to stand next to Kovash at the helm. She looked up at him over her shoulder. 

“Not dead yet then, verenias?” she asked, eyebrow raised. 

Unlike the rest of the bridge crew, she looked as bright and fresh as a daisy even though Raan knew she would have been at her station through the whole incident, just in case. But if llanarians were hardy, able to stay awake for days at a time, then Kovash’s people outstripped them and then some. 

“Not yet, no,” he replied mildly, watching the view of the planet in front of them. Other support vessels had arrived, and emergency humanitarian efforts were being coordinated by the retired starfleet captain they’d discovered on the surface. From the way the guy was acting, Raan wouldn’t be at all surprised if he ended up back in uniform before too long. 

“The Jem’Hadar tried,” he admitted, wincing as he rolled his shoulders again. “Then some damn fool dropped one of those rafts on the planet and caused a tidal wave of dirt.”

Kovash whistled. “That Morningstar pilot? He crazy. Awesome move. Even I not dropped something from orbit while on it. I need to meet him.”

Raan raised an eyebrow. The idea of RJ and Kovash in the same room? He put his hand on the riv’s shoulder. “You’d eat him alive, Ray, and then some. Okay, do we have anything else from Farpoint? We should put some ideas together…”

Kovash looked up at him and grinned. “For what? We do same as always. You shout orders, I fly, we shoot at things. If battle goes well, we win. If not…” She shrugged. “We die in glory, fighting for what we believe. Is good way to go. No?”

He smiled, squeezing her shoulder. Sometimes it was refreshing being around Kovash and her way of looking at life. 

“Yes, indeed. It would be a good way to go. The best way to go.”