Stars.

She could see stars.

There are no windows on the bridge.

So why can we see stars?

We shouldn’t. Unless…

She tried turning her head and regretted it immediately. Pain seared through every part of her being. She couldn’t help but clamp her eyes shut in pain and scream. An eternity later and it still hurt but she was out of breath. Drawing in air, holding it, she forced her eyes open.

There was the dull pulsing of the red alert lights still. Emergency lighting had joined it, bathing what she could see in a blood-red illumination. The entire roof of the bridge was gone, ripped from the ship, an emergency force field constantly flickering as debris rained upon it.

Moving just her eyes she should see the framing member that pinned her to the deck. Literally. It pierced her abdomen, likely the deck below as well. But more debris had fallen on her, cocooning her amongst the ruins of the central seats of the bridge and forced up against the tactical arch.

Slowly she tried moving her head, stopping when the pain came on. The viewscreen was gone, ripped diagonally from high left to low right. The right side of the bridge was just missing, ragged edges where consoles and hull and flesh had been ripped free from her ship. If she’d been in her ready room she’d be gone.

There had been three officers of her crew seated at those stations.

Zhu, Gomez, H’rev.

The battle seemed to continue, the view of it unfiltered by any electronics and therefore just a series of motes of light flinging beams and small motes at each other, but Atlantis wasn’t part of it. Eyes flicked to the helm and she could see Ensign Tabaaha, blood pouring down one side of her face, still at her station, one hand gripping the edge of her console for dear life, the other working Atlantis free of the conflict. Blue-shouldered medtechs burst forth from a turbolift and one went straight to her but Tabaaha barely seemed to have registered the intrusion in her duties. She could see the young man’s mouth moving, could see the others speaking, but couldn’t hear any of it.

She couldn’t hear anything.

She spoke up, a medtech’s attention immediately turning on her. The woman shouted something and suddenly more faces came into view.

She couldn’t hear anything.

There was Rrr, the rock in a storm. They said something to her and she scrunched her eyebrows at them, then shook her head, bursting into a scream almost immediately at the pain.

And still, she couldn’t hear anything.

When she opened her eyes once more Lin was there, reaching through the debris for her. She tried saying something but couldn’t as she started coughing. More pain wracked her being. Lin spoke, she heard nothing.

“I can’t hear you,” she said back, barely hearing her own words to herself. “I can’t hear anything.”

That stopped everyone for a moment, then she saw the medtech tapping their badge, speaking to someone distant. Lin turned to say something to Rrr, then Mac when he appeared in her field of vision. He had a nasty gash on his left cheek, a decent bruise on the other side of his face and was holding his right arm.

Mac merely nodded, then spoke as if to the whole bridge. Medtechs started helping the walking wounded to turbolifts or the access doors that lead down to deck two. They were evacuating the bridge. But how would she get out? She was pinned, buried under the ruins of the bridge.

Lin turned back to her and spoke slowly, carefully. She followed along, moving her mouth just like Lin’s trying to work out what she was saying.

‘We’re hurt but okay,’ Lin said. ‘We’re beaming you to sickbay. I love you Bug.’

“I love you too,” she replied, letting go of a held breath she hadn’t realised she had. And then the light took hold of her before darkness snatched her.

Sirens blared around the broken bridge, smoke billowing from a fire in what was formerly the science station. She started pulling herself up off the floor, surveying the absolute mess around her. Moaning from the lucky few, silence from others. Captain Denevan was stirring but barely looked like he was there. Commander Thomas…

Grayson Thomas was dead in his seat, a splitter of metal pinning him in place, his body slumped around it.

Her body ached in pain all over. She’d been thrown from the helm, a good distance too. Not by her console exploding, just by sheer concussive force as the Gorn raider had pounced on Jutland out of nowhere, with no provocation at all.

Her left leg refused to cooperate, sending her stumbling as soon as she put pressure on it. Hitting the deck hard she screamed as her left shoulder connected, rolling immediately to the right to take pressure off of it. The shock had disguised the injuries she’d taken until now. Her left arm and leg were mauled. Likely by the same shower of splinters that had claimed Thomas. Blood stained her uniform, but in the poor light, the only hint she had was the wet slickness of her uniform.

Jutland rocked more, alarms blared in renewed protest, demanding attention from their operators.

“Fuck!” she screamed as she grabbed at her seat with her good arm and dragged herself upwards, catching herself against a fall as blood-slicked hands slipped. Her vision was starting to blur around the edges, thinking was getting harder and harder.

But she didn’t need to think about this. She had no orders, the ship was under attack, and the bridge was an utter mess. Her right hand flew across the console, bloody finger and palm prints left in her wake as she set a course, slid her finger along the speed selector till it stopped and brought the ship to bear on its new vector.

As the ship lurched once more under enemy fire, the rocking ceased with a final lurch as the ship jumped to warp. She took in a deep breath and slouched in her seat as everything started to get cold, as thinking became an absolute chore.

Saving the ship wasn’t a bad way to go, was it?

“Ha,” she said weakly as some inconsiderate jerk started waving a light in her face. “Fucking hero.”

While most might stir from unconsciousness after surgery with questions like ‘Where am I?’ or ‘What’s the time?’, it was a common enough belief that starship captains would immediately ask the same question. “Report?”

She could hear something in response, but it was muffled like she was hearing it through a wall. Or like Lin’s commentary some mornings when she tried to bury her head in a pillow.

None of it made sense, just garbled droning that stopped eventually as she forced open her eyes with an effort of will. She’d been put in one of the private recovery rooms but obviously not alone. She had been expecting Terax or Lin to be there, but instead opened her eyes to a rather tired-looking Blake Pisani, who was looking over a padd at the end of the bed.

“What?” she finally asked and was answered by Blake looking up, giving her a full-body sigh and then turning the padd around for her to see.

‘GO BACK TO SLEEP’ was displayed on the screen in large block letters. She flicked a finger and another message appeared. ‘MAC HAS THIS.’

She wanted to protest, to argue, but instead just found herself drifting off again.

Stirring again, she was greeted with faces she wanted to see. People she would have called for anyway. Mac was there, his arm in a splint and sling, his face at least cleaned up. Lin too, having ditched her uniform tunic somewhere and just standing there in a grey undershirt.

“How’s my ship?” she asked dryly.

“Battered and beaten but mostly intact,” Mac said, though his words sounded distant, far off. It was a remarkable improvement from Blake’s warbling or the silence on the bridge. “We’re somewhat warp capable, but not combat capable at the moment.”

“How many?” she croaked out.

“Thirty-seven,” Mac answered somberly. “I’ve already got a list for you when you’re ready.” He waited a moment, letting the number sink in before continuing. “We lost the Pangea and Karpathos. The Romulans lost the RRW Shadowstrike and the Klingons lost nine ships, including one of the KDF observers. They’re likely to scuttle two more once damage assessments are done.”

“The Dominion?”

“Not a single survivor,” Lin answered. “The Klingons made sure of it. Away teams on the surface haven’t seen any signs of occupation either. Looks like they searched the settlement when they first arrived, but then otherwise focused on space assets.”

“The plan?”

“We can talk about it later,” Lin reassured her.

Mac however had something to say on the matter and continued anyway. “Hor’keth is already sending ships out to scout nearby systems and confirm numbers for raiding strikes. But Atlantis took a pounding, so did Ketterac. We’re going to need to fall back.” Mac’s assessment was the unpolished truth. One he didn’t want to have to convey she could tell.

“I –“ she stopped herself as she looked to Lin, then back to Mac. “The ship is yours, Commander. Do what needs doing.”

“Aye, ma’am. You can count on me,” he answered, gave Lin a pat on the shoulder as he passed, and then stepped out.

There was silence for a moment, a minute, an eternity between her and Lin before she broke it with a smile. It was that or wallow in misery for a moment as she considered the losses they’d taken. Smile now, wallow later. “Gods your gorgeous. Sit before you fall.”

“Must be good drugs you’re on. Normally you’re a lot more verbose,” the taller woman said as she perched herself on the edge of the bed.

“How bad is it really?” she asked.

“Thirty-seven dead, but nearly a quarter of the crew are walking wounded at the moment.” Lin settled a hand on her arm. “We’ve lost the bridge for now and a lot of exterior compartments too. The emergency force field system wasn’t happy with the strain so Velan ordered evacuations and bulkhead closures for now so we can keep fields up in places where teams are just working to seal breaches.”

“The bastard packed a punch.”

She felt a spike of regret and pride from Lin at reminding her of the battleship. “I should have seen that shield flaw earlier,” he muttered. “But we got the bastard before it got us.”

“Rescues me from caves, beats up Klingons who insult me and kills Dominion battleships. Anything you can’t do?”

“Keep you safe?” Lin answered.

“You did that love.” She tried to sit up but gave up straight away. “You kept the ship safe by beating that monster.”

“Make you breakfast then?” Lin offered half-heartedly

“Oh please, never again!” She laughed, then coughed straight away, wincing in pain as she did. “Stay with me for a bit?”

“That an order?” Lin asked.

“It’s a request from your girlfriend. Your captain likely would say you’ve got a job to do and go do it. Or get me a list of our dead so we can start working on letters. Or a million other things.”

“Then the captain can punish me for insubordination later,” Lin said as she moved herself to sit on the bed properly. “Because I need some time to just…feel.”

“You wanted to see me, Lieutenant?”

Lieutenant T’Val turned at Mac’s announcing himself and faced him, her face void of emotion as was to be expected. But he couldn’t help but notice something off about the Vulcan. She’d asked to see him and he’d tracked her down to Shuttlebay 2 in the parking spot assigned to Harpy 3, the Karpathos. While the shuttlebay was a buzz of activity, crews servicing the remaining two fighters as their skillsets weren’t needed elsewhere right now, this spot was a spot of calm in the storm.

“Commander,” she answered, her voice as always rich and clear. “I would like to take responsibility for communicating with Lieutenant Petrov’s family regarding his passing. As well as Ensigns Burke and Grant.”

“Of course,” he answered. “Forward any letters to me and I’ll review them. Is that all Lieutenant?”

She paused for a moment, her head tilting to one side momentarily. “I…Commander, this is the first time I’ve lost people who were under my command. I admit I am having some difficulty processing the situation.”

“Oh?”

“I have reviewed all the sensor data from the battle and can find no fault with any decisions I or my pilots made. They flew according to my expectations during combat and I have no doubt beyond their own expectations. And yet we still lost three pilots to enemy action. Logically I understand that I can not account for the actions of the enemy, they are a variable outside of my control. And yet –“

“It angers you? Confuses you? Saddens perhaps?” he asked at a low point in her speaking.

“All of those things,” she answered.

“First off, I’m not a counsellor,” he said. “So do see Hu. And maybe consult with some of the other Vulcans aboard ship?” He didn’t need to have a suddenly moody Vulcan running around the ship. Not that that would happen. He hoped. “But all those feelings – totally natural.”

“And yet you and the captain, both far more emotionally expressive entities, aren’t displaying as such.”

“The captain is dosed up in sickbay, so she gets a pass right now. As for me, I’m too busy to consider such things right now. The crew can’t see us wallowing around, or skulking the halls looking for someone to beat into shape right now. They need to see us as in charge, in control and doing our jobs.”

He stopped for a moment and took stock of just what he said. A few years ago he wouldn’t have said such a thing. A few years ago he’d likely not have been in this sort of situation at all. He had been stuck and going nowhere. But he’d had his butt kicked into action. He’d done those advanced command courses he always said he would. He’d done far more reading and study on such things than he wanted to consider.

“I’m not going to lie, Lieutenant, I wish I had your emotional control. It would be helpful. But right now I’m just keeping busy and will process all of this later. Is it healthy? Probably not, but it is why we have a team of counsellors onboard.”

“I believe I understand Commander,” she replied, then straightened her back even more. “Where do you need me, sir?”

“Battle bridge. Velan wants to recalibrate flight controls before we set course for Deneb and I want the best pilot we have sorting it out.”

“Understood.”

“Oh and Lieutenant,” he shouted at her back as she departed. She stopped, turning on her heel with utter precession. “Consider Ensign Tabaaha for Harpy Flight when you have a moment. Nerves of steel that one.”