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Chapter Text

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X

First Officer Natalia Yurovsky banged her forehead on a protruding pipe and swore.

“Language, Commander!” her captain called cheerfully.

Eyes watering, Natalia raised a hand to her forehead. At least she didn’t seem to be bleeding. “Sorry, sir,” she said. Then, “The ship does have turbolifts, Captain!”

“What use is a tour where you only see the inside of a turbolift, Commander?”

Obviously, when she’d been assigned as the NX-03’s executive officer, Natalia had read her new captain’s file. Sofia Álvarez Matos was by all accounts supremely qualified to command Earth’s third Warp-Five-capable starship, graduating top of her academy class and with an impressive record as head of the Starfleet debate team; she’d been scouted for the diplomatic corps several times and turned every offer down. Her instructors consistently described her as intelligent, authoritative, and calm under pressure.

But the file hadn’t mentioned that Captain Matos was, evidently, completely insane.

Apparently unfazed by her XO managing to concuss herself within five minutes of boarding the ship, Matos grinned down at her from halfway up a ladder until Natalia could see straight again and started climbing.

“I’ve been off and on ever since they told me I was assigned to her,” Matos admitted cheerfully. “You can never be too familiar with your ship.”

Natalia admitted, “I can’t argue with that, sir. Why the maintenance shafts…?”

Matos’ laugh was almost guilty. “Shaft forty-seven C, linking eight subdeck maintenance tunnels. This is faster! And...I wanted to see your reaction.”

After a moment, Natalia had to shake her head. “I’m afraid to ask what it says about me that I didn’t question it.”

“You have a sense of adventure,” Matos called down the shaft. She flashed a grin over her shoulder, but there was a wry undertone to the statement. Natalia revised her opinion somewhat. Eager, and understandably excited—everyone assigned to the NX Warp-5 ships struggled to contain their glee in public. But more grounded than she’d maybe given the woman credit for.

Finally, they reached the exit to the maintenance shaft. Matos climbed out first, and gallantly helped Natalia clamber out the hatch. She had a stronger grip than one might expect; Sofia Matos was a slim, delicate woman, dark-skinned with tightly-curled hair and a slight South Brazilian accent, and the quickness of her smile was deceptively calming.

All right. Natalia approved.

“Captain!”

Matos turned to face the newcomer—a bearded man with red Engineering piping and lieutenant’s pips—as nonchalantly as if she’d been expecting him.

“Lieutenant,” she greeted him. “Is there a problem?”

“No problem, sir,” he assured her. “I wanted to tell you in person—final checks in Engineering have been completed. She’s ready when you are, sir.”

“Excellent.” Matos clapped him on the shoulder, then stepped back to gesture Natalia into the conversation. “Commander, this is our Chief Engineer, Lieutenant Konrad Burkowski. Lieutenant, Natalia Yurovsky. My first officer.” They nodded politely to one another; Natalia offered a hand, which was accepted with good cheer. “Lieutenant, I expect you’ll be needed in Engineering. We’d best get underway.”

Personal Log, August 1st, 2154

By now, I expect the drydock and Engineering teams must be nearly sick of me. I have spent the past several weeks becoming familiar with every inch of our new ship.

Challenger is what the old wet-navy would have called a lady. She has the newest hull plating and an advanced polarization technique invented in large part by my soon-to-be science officer. That in itself is enough to make me glad to have Lieutenant-Commander Hasdai onboard, even as young as she is. Out in deep space, we’re going to need innovators more than anything.

I’m told some of the newest NX-class vessels are being designed with room for more weaponry at the expense of scanners; thankfully, cooler heads seem to have prevailed in Challenger ’s design. Some more...reactive factions put a lot of pressure on the engineering team to squeeze in extra cannons, but my people—ahem—stuck to their guns. Our design is still the classic one; modelled off the NX-01 Enterprise, no more and no less. We’ve chosen quality over quantity, and all of this girl’s weaponry is state of the art. 

I suspect that when, not if, we run into some of those space pirates I was so eager to read about as a child, I’ll be glad of the new photonic torpedoes and pulse-phase cannons. 

For the most part however, I hope they’ll be unnecessary. I have the highest confidence in this crew’s ability to handle any crisis with clear heads; every one of them comes highly recommended, and I’ve had the pleasure of speaking with a few already. I’m particularly satisfied with my first officer; Commander Yurovsky seems a bit wary, but not overly rigid. I suspect we’ll work much more smoothly together than she believes.

I look forward to testing that hypothesis.

“Captain on the bridge!”

Sofia’s lips twitched as she stepped out of the turbolift, fighting the urge to straighten the sleeves of her jumpsuit.

“Not quite yet, Lieutenant Commander,” she said lightly. 

“Right, sir.” Science officer Esther Hasdai acknowledged the mild correction with an ease that would almost be insolent if her bright eyes and messy ponytail didn’t practically radiate goodwill. She folded her hands behind her back in a very poor imitation of parade rest; the thick Aussie twang in her voice was even more pronounced when she grinned and continued, “Sorry, sir. Commanding officer arriving.”

Sofia shook her head slightly, aware that smiling would be unprofessional but not entirely able to help herself regardless. “There we go. Ahem.” The bridge perked up as she placed a padd on the back of her command chair and read the orders aloud. “To Captain Sofia Álvarez Matos, August 1st, 2154. You are hereby requested and required to take command of the starship designated NX-03 Challenger as of this date. Signed, Admiral Daniel Leonard, Starfleet Command.”

Lightheadedness was normal, right? This was probably fine. She probably should have eaten more than a piece of toast for breakfast.

She moved to set the padd aside, only to realize at the last moment that there was nowhere convenient to place it. It would have been a perfectly forgivable moment of hesitation. Humanizing, her Academy mentor might have said. But at this precise moment…

Yurovsky reached out just before Sofia’s brief misstep became noticeable, taking the padd and holding it at her side in a smooth, crisp motion that made it look planned from the beginning. Sofia thanked whatever deities might be listening for giving her this XO, and folded her hands behind her back to look around her new bridge.

“Well,” she announced. “We have our first set of orders from Starfleet Command. On the off chance that you haven’t all spent the last month reading them twelve times a day, I’ll go over them again.” That got a soft snort from Esther Hasdai, and the helm officer’s cheeks turned slightly pink. Meanwhile, her young comm officer was wearing an entirely non-naval earsplitting grin. Well, Starfleet wasn’t a military, so Ensign Sandoval could be as eager as he liked. “We’ve been dispatched to the Celes sector to carry out an analysis of the mineral content of a series of deposits contained in the KH-17 asteroid cluster. It’s not sexy,” she admitted with a wry grin. “But we came out here to learn. Any questions?”

There was general head-shaking, and Esther tossed off a casual salute.

“Clear as crystal,” she announced for the bridge crew. “Let’s do science on some rocks.”

This woman, Sofia was quickly realizing, would someday be either her greatest and most trusted asset or her first homicide. In the meantime she inclined her head and collectively acknowledged the bridge.

“Stations,” she said softly.

There was no hesitation as everyone turned to their consoles and began running final checks, no awkwardness. They knew their jobs. They’d lived this moment in their dreams for years. But a sudden electrical tension still hummed just under their sure movements.

Simulators could teach them the motions, but this was different. This was for real.

Sofia Matos took her place in the captain’s chair, and felt her ship come to life around her for the first time.

Her fingers shook slightly as she tapped the comm on her chair arm; but this time it was adrenaline, not nerves. “Bridge to Engineering. Status, Lieutenant?”

Burkowski’s voice answered immediately. “Optimal readings across the board, Captain.”

“Acknowledged.” She flipped the channel closed and sat up straight. “Helm?”

Lieutenant Aleksi Lehtonen didn’t look back at her; his eyes were fixed on the viewscreen in front of him, but there was no stiffness in his shoulders. Wonder rather than anxiety. His response was clear and steady. “Standing by on your order, sir.”

Sofia let the anticipation ring through the silent bridge for a moment, then smiled.

“Take us out.”

Challenger ’s hull shuddered as the docking clamps were released; and then, silent and smooth, she crept out of spacedock. It was agonizingly slow and somehow too fast at the same time; when her helm officer’s hands shifted at the controls Sofia had a brief moment of panic, certain that they couldn’t be clear yet; she forced herself to bite her tongue and trust her crew, and Challenger banked without incident and began a long, languid turn. 

She wasn’t so in awe that she forgot to shield her eyes as they swung around to face the sun; it was a moment before the viewscreen cameras compensated for the glare, and poor Ensign Sandoval hissed under his breath at the blinding flash of light, belatedly ducking. And then they’d completed the turn toward open space, the sun sliding away to starboard and then to their backs. 

For a moment Earth was visible in the forward viewscreen, dayside fading to night; and then Lehtonen leveled out, and full impulse alone left the lonely, precious planet behind.

“Warp 4 in three,” he announced. “Two. One.”

The stars distorted, and they dove into the light.

This was the rough part of a Communications track.

Oh, the linguistics was exactly what it was always advertised to be. It was a lot of work—more than most members of Starfleet ever realized, possibly the most study-intensive career track outside of Engineering—but, if you really loved languages, there was no better place to be. You learned so much about a culture from studying its language, and some of them were incredibly beautiful. Just like on Earth, sometimes written language was more art than text.

It was a lot of sleepless nights. It was basically grad school that never ended. Atsa’s cabin was filled with padds and reference books and pallets of printer paper, and he spent a lot of long hours on memorization and hands-on practice. But it was worth it.

He was no Hoshi Sato, mind; but while she was Starfleet’s unparalleled translation and analysis expert, Atsa Sandoval could still hold his head up for depth of knowledge next to her intimidatingly vast but generally less intimate array of information. Plus, if he did say so himself, his Andorian accent was way better.

So on the rare occasions when he would actually be called upon to act as a translator, cultural analyst, and go-between on the comms, that was great. Nerve-wracking, but what he’d dreamed of for years; for a 23-year-old ensign, a bridge post on Challenger was the assignment of a lifetime. And handling, encoding, and decrypting messages from Starfleet Command was always a trip. Kinda made him feel like he was in a spy movie. Sometimes he put a timer on himself just for fun.

Just. Most of the time, when he was actually on-duty, it was a lot of...this. Not that the bridge of a starship was ever boring, and sure, he had internal communications to keep an eye on; but it sure did feel like a whole lot of sitting in an uncomfortable seat auto-replying to the occasional message while everyone else did something interesting.

Bee-bee-beep!

Unless, of course, that happened.

He checked the transmission code before saying anything; for all he knew this might be Ferengi merchants wanting to trade, a simple acknowledgement from a passing Vulcan ship, or one of the weird, earnest evangelical alien sects trying to give them electronic pamphlets and meditative bangles.

The code didn’t need much checking, and he sat up straighter. 

“Captain,” he called. “We’re receiving a distress signal.”

Chapter Text

Captain’s Log, Supplemental

We’ve changed course in response to an intercepted distress signal from an unknown source; the Celes asteroid field isn’t going anywhere, and it’s just going to have to wait. Helm estimates the diversion will put us at intercept in just over thirty minutes, given the coordinates and vector embedded in the distress signal.

Apparently, we could be testing that new weaponry sooner than anticipated.

The ship has been placed on yellow alert; we have no way of knowing for certain what kind of distress our target is in, at least until Ensign Sandoval finishes translating the signal. The translation matrix Lieutenant Sato’s developed will be invaluable one day, and is certainly a help; but this is a language unfamiliar to Starfleet, and with such a short, unclear message there’s not enough information for the matrix to reliably analyze. I hope he can finish the translation before we make contact, but I don’t expect miracles.

“Any luck, Ensign?”

The door slid shut behind her as Sofia stepped back onto the bridge. Esther was bent over her console across the room, intensely focused on something and occasionally tapping in a command; she wore a Starfleet souvenir sports bottle on a sling over her uniform, and every so often took a deep drink. Aleksi Lehtonen had turned his chair to face the rest of the bridge but he was going to pull a muscle if he didn’t stop glancing over at his console every five seconds, Yurovsky’s expression was unreadable, and Atsa Sandoval was staring unblinking at a readout screen, which didn’t bode well.

“Some,” he answered after a brief pause, voice faint and distracted. Then, as an afterthought, “Captain.”

Sofia glanced at the helm “Time to intercept?”

“T minus three minutes forty-six seconds,” Lehtonen answered immediately. He was even more pale than usual. “Assuming their course hasn’t altered.”

Sofia placed a hand on her comm officer’s shoulder for a moment. “Just give me what you have.”

Sandoval took a deep breath, rubbed the heels of his palms over his eyes, and gave a determined nod. “Yes, Captain. The problem is that a lot of the message, by its nature, consists of proper nouns. There’s not much the translation matrix can do with a name, so I’m trying to work around it. What I do have is mostly unclear. A few articles, a few words emphasized in a way that makes me think they’re names, though I don’t know how to pronounce them and I’d rather not guess, sir.” 

“More than fair.”

Growing more confident now that he was in his element, he pointed out a few spots in the readout. “Judging by their position in the message, I assume this is a ship name, or the name of the captain.” The relevant section turned blue; another tap and two other sections were highlighted in red. “These are the coordinates, and this is the distress code. This word shows up several times, and the translation matrix calls it ship or vessel. So I have...Something ‘ships’, proper noun ‘ship’ proper noun—so one of those words is probably a species or government identifying mark.”

“There’s no indication which?”

Sandoval winced. “If I had to guess, I would say the first; the symbol looks more organized and less like a normal name. But I don’t like to assume that kind of thing, sir. It could just be a slang word used as a ship name.”

Sofia inclined her head. There was no point in trying to make first contact if you weren’t going to bother being careful and respectful of other cultures, try to learn about them from their own perspective, bring no assumptions to the table. Still, given the circumstances… “A fast and loose translation for now, please.”

He gave a jerky nod. “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. I would guess…‘Distress code. This is government-slash-species-affiliation ship Name, coordinates, untranslatable words, ships, untranslatable.’ Given the context I would say it’s safe to assume the rest of that sentence is something like ‘requesting help from any friendly ships in range’. And then some more symbols I can’t quite decipher, a different government or species name ship, etc, and the last word is damage.”

Lieutenant Lehtonen spoke up. “Thirty seconds to impulse.”

Yurovsky cleared her throat. “If a possible translation is ‘Taking damage,’ Captain…”

“Red alert,” Sofia agreed.

Sirens sounded throughout the ship as Sofia took her seat. There would be no lurch coming out of warp, the Academy always said, and they’d all been on short training missions—little Phoenix-type low-warp vessels, just to get them comfortable around warp drives and working in space.

Everyone on the bridge braced themselves anyway.

Sofia ran a mental countdown as Lehtonen’s fingers hovered over his controls. Fifteen seconds. Ten. Five. Four. Three. Two…

And with barely a whisper, no fanfare at all, they were at their coordinates, out of warp, and in the middle of a dogfight.

“Evasive!” she snapped, reflexively, as a stray disruptor beam arced far too close to Challenger ’s hull for comfort. Almost before the order left her throat it was obeyed; Aleksi Lehtonen might be prone to pre-battle jitters but his reflexes were the sharpest in Starfleet. The ship twisted up and around, pulling away from the starship firing on them while simultaneously protecting Engineering and the nacelles.

It was a cold calculation, placing the saucer between the engines and the enemy; but a warp core explosion would kill them all anyway, and a responsible pilot could make that call.

None of which meant that Sofia Matos was particularly eager to sacrifice anyone today. “Ensign Sandoval,” she said. “Keep a comm channel open and see if you can contact that ship and ask them nicely to stop shooting at us.”

“They seem to be focusing on the second vessel, Captain,” Yurovsky reported. “Scanners indicate a lightly-armed freighter of unfamiliar design, probably a merchant ship.”

“Space pirates,” she blurted. Then, hastily trying to cover up the exclamation, “Onscreen. I assume the freighter is the source of the distress signal?”

Sandoval answered in the affirmative as he brought up visual of the battle, and Sofia leaned toward the viewscreen and frowned.

In all honesty, “battle” was the wrong term for it. The freighter was being shredded. As Yurovsky had said, the design was an unfamiliar one; a cylindrical base with occasional, seemingly random blocky protrusions jutting out, and a single donut ring near one end that was still rotating—centrifugal gravity? Earth had abandoned that method long ago. A few of the protrusions appeared to be topped with light unmanned turrets, but only one was still firing, taking ineffective potshots at the hammerhead bulk of the Klingon vessel circling her.

That design, Sofia recognized.

“Captain.” Ensign Sandoval’s voice was flat. “We’re being hailed by the Klingon ship.”

She raised an eyebrow and sat back. “Split-screen, please, Ensign. Keep an eye on that freighter.”

“Sir.”

The viewscreen blinked out, and when the display returned it took Sofia a moment to make sense of the face taking up the left half of her screen.

“Humans,” the Andorian male said dismissively. “Learn to mind your own business.”

“This is Captain Sofia Matos of the Earth starship Challenger,” Sofia informed him curtly. “Responding to a distress call received from these coordinates. May I ask what justification the Andorian government has for using such extreme force on a commerce ship?” She had a sneaking suspicion it wouldn’t have been inaccurate to say “civilian,” but it didn’t pay to make assumptions. 

The pirate captain gave a cold smile. “I think we both know the Andorian government’s got nothing to do with this. Luckily for you, I have no interest in warships. I suggest you take your vessel and get back to warp before I change my mind.”

A quick glance to the opposite side of the screen confirmed Sofia’s suspicions; these Andorian pirates were at least concerned enough about the presence of a Starfleet ship in the area that they’d stopped firing on the freighter. Maybe if she could buy that crew—assuming any of them still survived—just a little bit more time…

“I confess,” she said lightly, “I’m also curious about your choice of transport. Andorian ships are normally so much more elegant.”

The pirate captain didn’t even blink.

“Warning shot,” he ordered, without breaking eye contact.

A blinding flash lit up the external camera on the right of the screen at the same time Challenger lurched violently under an external blow. A warning siren started to wail on Yurovsky’s console; she silenced it within moments, but it was too late.

First blood; the Andorians had heard her ship scream.

“Direct hit over—” Yurovsky, apparently remembering she was being transmitted to the enemy, cut herself off before continuing with the less-informative “A nonessential system. Hull polarization down by fifty-six percent in that section, but the plating held.”

“Quite a warning shot,” Sofia commented to the Andorian captain, forcing a smile past clenched teeth.

“You have ten seconds,” she was informed. “Tactical, put the next shot through their port nacelle.”

Lieutenant Lehtonen’s fingers twitched at his controls.

“That won’t be necessary,” Sofia responded, but there was a time and a place for negotiation and this wasn’t it. “Ensign. Helm, evasive maneuvers.”

Sandoval obligingly cut the transmission as Aleksi Lehtonen tapped out commands that he’d no doubt been mentally rehearsing since Sofia had accepted the pirates’ hail, fingers flying over his console at the speed of light.

“I can go to warp, captain,” he called over his shoulder as Challenger dove and rolled; a risky maneuver, exposing their belly to the enemy, but if the pirates really were locked onto the port nacelle it was the best way to ruin their firing solution. This one had good instincts; but Sofia still shook her head at the suggestion.

“Lieutenant-Commander, are there survivors on that ship?” she demanded as the first of the pirates’ disruptor beams shook Challenger to her core.

Esther looked deadly serious. “Not many, Captain, but I read almost a dozen lifesigns.”

“Then let’s keep our friends’ attention on us. Fire at will, Commander.”

“Firing aft torpedos.” Yurovsky sounded profoundly relieved at being allowed a military solution. “Impact...no effect.” The ship shook again. “Hull polarization is holding, but the bleedthrough is causing a lot of—hull breach on B-deck, Captain.”

“I’m trying,” Lehtonen said. “If I had more distance—”

Another earth-rending lurch and shriek of metal. This time the lights flickered, and Esther’s head snapped up.

“That was the sensor array,” she announced, controlled panic threatening to break through her voice. “Atsa, check long-range communications—”

“Down,” Sandoval confirmed.

“I can’t make headway on their hull, Captain.” Yurovsky at least was still cool, but even she sounded a bit tense.

The ship took another hit.

They could probably all be forgiven for being a bit tense.

Yurovsky braced against her console and continued, “They have some sort of energy shield, sir. That hull plating doesn’t look reinforced on scans, but our weapons can’t get through to it before theirs destroy us!”

“Keep trying, Commander.” She would, of course. But it would be futile. If their weapons weren’t going to work…

Sofia closed her eyes and forced herself to think of this as a training exercise. The solution was always obvious in Academy classes, in the aftermath, studying old submarine battles and aerial dogfights. Well, cadets, what did Captain Matos do wrong in this engagement?

Two ships, one dying freighter. Challenger’s weapons struggling to penetrate the enemy’s energy shields. She was maneuverable but a Klingon battlecruiser was powerful enough to negate that advantage; if a handful of hits could demolish them, dodging a few wouldn’t make much difference. Enemy vessel matching pace with her own, just off the port stern, lazily snapping at their heels. The Andorians might or might not be aware of an Earth ship’s layout, whereas Sofia Matos had studied enemy ship layouts almost as closely as her own. 

But would knowledge of its weak points really matter if they couldn’t get to them? It was an unfair advantage, energy shield technology going up against nothing but…

...reinforced hull plating…

Against all logic and safety regulations, she leapt to her feet. “Aft torpedo spread,” she ordered. “Then ready full pulse-phase array, fire the minute the shields go down.”

There was a nonplussed pause before Yurovsky reported, “Torpedos away. Readying phase array.”

Sofia took a deep breath and prayed she was about to save her ship rather than doom it.

“Helm,” she said calmly. “Full stop, ninety degree turn to port.”

Aleksi Lehtonen didn’t hesitate.

In the moment before impact, she tried not to wish he had.

The pirate vessel never had a chance to slow down. Challenger crossed its T at full impulse, main power died instantly, and Sofia’s ship rolled onto her back with the impact and howled in agony.

The lights went blood-red as auxiliary power came online; the sparks, smoke and broken glass from overloaded consoles made it seem as if the entire bridge was in flames. Sirens and warning lights screamed over one another for attention as Sofia and the others, thrown to the ground by the crash, struggled to get to their feet again.

“Captain.” Yurovsky, with a split lip, but smiling and still gripping her console. “I didn’t see what I hit, but that ship is venting air and plasma and its shields are down.”

“Finish it off, Commander.”

Yurovsky’s eyes flashed, but before she could give an affirmative the pirate ship disappeared, trailing oxygen and glowing plasma into warp.

Sofia made herself take a moment to feel relief. Then she pulled herself into the captain’s chair and opened an internal channel.

“Engineering,” she said. “Damage report.”

Chapter Text

“Engineering. Damage report.”

There was nothing but the static of an open connection.

“Ensign Sandoval…”

“Internal communications should still be functional, sir.”

Sofia turned to glance at Yurovsky, who met the look with a grim one of her own.

“Reading heavy damage to the aft hull, Captain,” she reported. “Explosive decompression along all decks; impact tore her open along the sides. None of the damage appears to have permanently compromised structural integrity, but this is only a shallow overview. And...damage to the plasma coolant system. There are signs of a critical explosion in Engineering. Warp power is disengaged, impulse is falling.” A heavy pause; even her professional demeanor couldn’t hide the relief as she added, “Warp core is offline but stable.”

“How could we not have felt that?” Esther demanded.

Sofia gestured her silent, perhaps more sharply than she should have. “We were busy being bodyslammed by a Klingon warship, Lieutenant-Commander.” 

Yurovsky tapped a comm channel open. “Emergency-response team to Engineering,” she ordered. “Fire-suppression procedure.” A pause, and then, “Be careful. We don’t want to lose anyone else today.”

It occurred to Sofia that her XO’s order might very well be construed as disapproval. Well, she’d made her call. Yurovsky could disapprove, and she would give it a fair hearing once the crisis was through.

“Shut the warning sirens off,” she said. “Everything but fire alarms. No point in giving everyone a headache on top of everything else. Hasdai, what’s the status of that freighter?”

Esther winced. “Not good, sir. They’re in worse shape than us, if you can believe it. Multiple hull breaches, life signs fading, life support and main and auxiliary power offline, and…” She jolted straight. “Power readings just spiked! They’ve got a reactor leak, sir; it’s not at meltdown yet, but…”

Sofia inclined her head and turned back to her comm officer. “We still have close-range communication?” He nodded. “Can you hail them?”

Her answer came a few seconds later, in the form of a grainy image flickering to life across the viewscreen. She blinked, hard, then blinked again, because she was apparently talking to a lion. Male, by the looks of the creature; it had a thick black mane and a dark, shaggy appearance, with a fresh cut across its face.

The lion bared his teeth and yowled. For a moment she thought the audio was distorted as well, but Ensign Sandoval held up one finger, brow furrowed in concentration as his fingers flew across his console, talking to the universal translator.

“He gave us his name,” he informed her. “Shol. And the name of his ship, the Crirraa , and thanks us for the rescue. The connection is too tenuous right now to translate in real-time, sir, I’m sorry.”

Sofia gave a genuine sigh of relief. “Ensign Sandoval, if you can translate at all it’s more than I dared hope.” She nodded politely to the feline alien. “My name is Captain Sofia Matos, human starship Challenger —which may not translate well, I apologize,” she added guiltily.

“No need to translate most of it at all, sir, they’re names,” Sandoval responded cheerfully. “Keep going.”

Sofia smiled and tried to relax and use simple words for the sake of translation. “Your ship has taken heavy damage,” she noted. “As has mine, but Challenger’ s life support is still functional. I realize we’re strangers to you, but we are happy to take your people onboard and treat any wounded you may have.”

There was a pause, and the grizzled alien glanced aside, presumably to read the text translation Sandoval had sent. Sofia had never owned a cat, but she thought that the way his ears flicked forward and the corners of his eyes softened was a good sign.

“Humans,” he greeted them; the word was softly distorted but recognizable as he placed a paw over his heart and responded with another growling noise she couldn’t make out.

“We are... Caitian,” Sandoval translated, carefully matching the captain’s pronunciation. “And accept any offer of friendship gratefully.” He paused. “There are ten of them alive, sir, and their shuttlecraft were all destroyed. He asks if we would be willing to send one of ours.”

“Of course. I hope to see you soon,” she answered, and Shol bowed his head in acknowledgement and closed the connection. Sofia took a deep breath. Quite the first contact, this. “Commander, you have the bridge. I’m going to greet our guests. Sickbay,” she added, flipping open a comm channel. “Prepare to receive wounded from the alien freighter.”

Doctor Vena Atakan took a deep breath and nodded, determinedly keeping pressure on a young man’s lacerated stomach. “Niwat,” she said calmly. “Comm.”

Her assistant knew better than to slow down during triage; they’d both taken one look at the comm setup and immediately rejected it in favor of having the response button linked to Vena’s wristband, and Nurse Srisati tapped the link open in passing as he rushed back to their casualties carrying a armful of pressure pads.

“Acknowledged, Bridge,” she said once the light came on. “But I don’t know where we’re going to put them—dermal regenerator in ten seconds,” she added, pitching her voice above the general clamor without raising it. “There are some survivors from Engineering, Captain, but very few, and they’ll be in no condition to do more than rest for some time.”

“Protoplaser, ma’am,” Niwat reported, popping up at her elbow.

“Three,” she told him. “Two, one, switch.”

“How bad is it, Doctor?” That was not Captain Matos’ voice. Vena sighed, closed her eyes, and resisted the urge to pinch her nose largely because her gloves were covered in blood.

Not her own, of course. You could tell because it was red.

“Commander,” she responded as she stripped them off and replaced them, turning to prep a hypospray for the woman in the next bed. A painkiller was the best she could do for now, in the middle of triage. She would live until the critical cases had been cared for; but the plasma burns covering most of the girl’s face and chest would be agonizing, and the few seconds it would take to ease that pain were worth Vena’s time. “With all due respect, people are dying and I will write a full report when I can.”

To her credit, Commander Yurovsky’s response was immediate. “Understood, Doctor. I can send a security team to assist you.”

Vena’s instinctive reaction to that was to recoil at the thought of a bunch of gun-toting grunts in her sickbay, but that wasn’t really fair to the security people. “Thank you,” she said, pressing the hypospray against her burn victim’s neck, and waiting for her desperate, hitching sobs for breath to slow as the painkiller worked before reinstating the sterile field and turning to the weapons analyst who’d cracked his skull on a bulkhead. “Their help would be appreciated.”

She hesitated for a moment, then reopened the channel. 

“Commander.”

“Go ahead.”

“Lieutenant Burkowski is not among the survivors from Engineering.”

A long, static-filled pause. Vena let it go on while she silently directed Niwat to start treating the non-critical cases—plasma burns first. Her mother’s blood didn’t make her incapable of feeling pity, however illogical an emotion it might be.

“Acknowledged, Sickbay. Save the others if you can.”

Vena shut the channel by holding a scanner in her teeth and knocking the wristband against the floor.

“Thank you, Commander,” she commented under her breath. “I wouldn’t have known what to do with myself.”

Her patient gave a weak laugh. Vena stabbed him in the neck with a sedative.

The Sickbay doors swept open with a whisper, and Sofia Matos stepped through.

The nurses glanced up at her approach; she was walking and apparently uninjured, so their commanding officer didn’t merit further attention. Sofia respected that.

There were a lot of wounded. Security’s casualty estimates and Dr. Atakan’s terse overview suggested fewer casualties than Sofia had feared—but still too many. Far too many. And despite Aleksi’s best efforts to protect the heart of his ship, most of their dead had been in Engineering. Fire-suppression teams had still been working to control the plasma fire when she’d last heard from Yurovsky; and without Burkowski, and with eighty percent of Engineering lost or entirely incapacitated, they were going to have a very, very difficult time getting Challenger back underway.

But they weren’t the only ones who’d suffered losses.

Sofia didn’t know offhand the name of the ensign running a dermal regenerator carefully over the Caitian captain’s injured eye; the young woman nodded to her as she approached, stepping aside unobtrusively to give her captain better access to the patient.

The Caitian didn’t smile; he blinked slowly and deliberately, however, ears pricked forward, and Sofia inclined her head in return.

Her guest gave a low mewling noise, then cleared his throat and said, with a passable accent, “Matos.”

“Shol,” she greeted him in return. “Wasn’t it?” She turned the portable translation unit around as she spoke, allowing it to translate the Standard question into unfamiliar but hopefully correct characters. Shol’s eyes lit up, and he answered her much less hesitantly. Now that she was expecting the sound of his voice, it really didn’t resemble a lion’s growl as much as she’d initially thought. 

A glance at the translator conveyed the captain’s thanks, his condolences for the damage to Challenger, and the phrase “deep honor and sadness” in regards to their fallen crewmembers that didn’t seem to have translated perfectly but which was instantly understandable nonetheless.

“Thank you,” she said quietly. Shol gave a shallow bow. “Captain,” she said, “ Challenger would be happy to drop your people off anywhere en route, but if you can contact your own government or anyone who might be able to rendezvous—ah, to meet us…”

She was interrupted by a short, feline yowl from across the medbay.

“I apologize.” Dr. Atakan held her hands up placatingly. “It was Tisarr, wasn’t it? Tell me what hurt, please?”

Sofia nodded quickly to Shol before making her way across the room to her chief medical officer. “Problem, Doctor?”

“Not at all, Captain.” Vena Atakan’s voice was much warmer than it had been less than an hour earlier. All of their critical cases had been dealt with, put into stasis, or were in the hands of other doctors; the arrival of beta and gamma shift backup had taken a great deal of pressure off her, and she was the picture of calm as she worked with her Caitian patient. 

The young alien she’d called Tisarr was smaller than Shol, with brighter, more golden-tawny fur, and had a much less impressive mane. Sofia didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but this one looked much younger. She also looked extremely on edge; unlike Shol, her ears were pinned back and her long, tufted tail lashed back and forth across the bed.

Dr. Atakan had already set the Caitian up with one of Sickbay’s handheld translators, and they seemed to be using it much more naturally than Sofia herself had ever managed. “That shouldn’t have hurt a broken bone,” she explained, “so there may be some other injury…”

Tisarr blinked rapidly at the translator, and was shaking her head even before her doctor finished. Sofia stepped to the side so that she could read the output as the Caitian responded, briefly apologetic.

No, no, it said. Sorry, Healer. I was calling the captains.

“Translation error?” Sofia asked.

Dr. Atakan glanced over her shoulder and shook her head. “Both of you, I believe. She’s been extremely anxious, Captain; if you would talk to her while I set her arm, please…?”

It might have been just on the edge of disrespectful, if her tone had been any different, but Sofia heard nothing in the request but a genuine desire to get her patient the information it was clearly distressing her not to have.

Well, Sofia hadn’t been trained as a diplomat for no reason.

“Something I can help you with?” she asked the young...woman? Lioness?

Tisarr asked her something, tail twitching again, and almost instantaneously the translator displayed the question: We have not gone to warp.

Sofia shook her head, suppressing a stab of terrible guilt as she tried to answer evenly, “I’m afraid not, ma’am. We suffered damage in Engineering, and our casualties are making it difficult to repair. Rest assured, we’ll be on our way as soon as we can.”

For a second Tisarr’s ears folded back in fear again; then, something flickering behind her golden eyes that reminded Sofia of nothing so much as a Starfleet cadet, she drew herself up and pointedly flicked them forward.

You need engineers, she said. Those slavers will come back, and there are going to be more of them.

Sofia considered her sudden determination for a moment.

“You’re an engineer,” she realized.

Tisarr nodded and looked over to her captain for support; Shol, who had been listening with the other translator and suddenly looked as concerned as Tisarr, met Sofia’s questioning look and nodded, adding another comment with a fond twitch of the ears. It translated as You will not find better.

If you cannot fight, Tisarr said, you had better run, Captain. Let me help you. I can get your ship into warp!

“You have a broken arm,” Dr. Atakan reminded her, and Tisarr broke into what Sofia could only assume was the closest thing to a Caitian grin; sharp incisors bared but only slightly, ears pricked forward, and one of those slow blinks she’d quickly realized were an indication of friendly intent.

You can get me back in hunting shape, Healer, she replied.

Dr. Atakan hesitated for a moment, then sighed and nodded, stepping aside to pick up a prepared hypospray.

“I am only allowing this,” she said clearly, “because this is an emergency, and I trust you to know your own limits.” Tisarr dipped her head politely, and the doctor pressed the hypospray against her bare arm. “This is a local anaesthetic.” She glanced at the translator to make sure it understood the word, then continued, “I’m going to set the bone, but the computers have not finished analyzing the samples we took from your people enough to know whether our quick-heal compounds are compatible with your system.”

Tisarr made a face. I would prefer not to experiment, Healer, if it is all the same to you.

Dr. Atakan’s lips twitched. “Quite,” she agreed. Sofia winced and turned away as her CMO started feeling gently at the Caitian’s broken bone. She wasn’t squeamish, exactly, but she didn’t have any particular desire to watch bones being set.

The numbing agent had done its work well, however; Tisarr’s feline face didn’t even twitch as her bones were slipped back into place.

Dr. Atakan sighed and stepped back. “Unfortunately, the best I can do now is to immobilize it for the next few hours, after which I expect you back in Sickbay to be healed properly.”

Sofia couldn’t help but laugh herself at that.

“You’ve dealt with engineers before, Doctor,” she observed. Dr. Atakan graced her with a brief exchange of wry exasperation at the entire concept of the Engineering corps before turning back to her patient. 

Tisarr made a strange noise in her throat; Sofia didn’t want to be speciesist, but it sounded like nothing so much as a soft, rough purr.

If I am still alive after the next few hours, she said, I will do anything you want, Healer.

Her captain laughed across the room.

I will believe that when I see it, he informed Sofia.

Having been accused a few times herself of “recklessly disregarding the explicit instructions of medical personnel,” Sofia couldn’t find it in her heart to be stern with the young woman. Anyway, she wasn’t Starfleet.

“All right,” she said, and Tisarr stopped making faces at Shol to read the translation. “Do what you can for my engines. If there’s an argument with any of my officers, call the bridge and let me handle—”

The lights in Sickbay flashed scarlet, and the rest of her sentence was drowned out by the shrill, impersonal scream of a red-alert siren.

Chapter Text

“Report!” Matos called the moment the turbolift doors slid open.

Natalia pushed herself out of the captain’s chair and swung into place at her station.

“Our friends seem to have returned, sir,” she reported crisply as her captain sat down. “Three Klingon vessels. Raptors, not full-sized bird-of-prey ships, but in our current condition…”

“Three Raptors are quite enough to be dealing with,” Matos agreed. Her voice was grim as she opened a comm channel on her armrest. “Tisarr, status?”

Natalia looked up and frowned, but Matos gestured for her to wait. Reluctantly, she held her tongue as the computer’s electronic voice sounded over the comm system.

“I appreciate what you did, Captain,” it said, “but you took a sledgehammer to this engine room. I will do what I can, but I have only managed to get a fraction of hull polarization back online…”

Ensign Sandoval gripped his headphones. “Sir, we’re being hailed…”

“One moment,” Matos told him. “Tisarr, don’t bother getting anything fully operational right now. Just get weapons online, if you can only give me half power then give me that. Focus on the warp core.”

“Yes sir.”

“Helm,” Matos ordered, almost before she clicked the channel closed. “Full impulse and run for it. Ensign, send a closed message to the pirate vessels to stand off and there will be no hostilities.”

Sandoval winced as Lehtonen brought Challenger groaning to life and urged her in a sweeping arc away from the incoming enemy contacts. “They ordered us to surrender, ma’am.”

Matos spared him a smile. “I don’t take orders from slavers. Send the message, then close the comms. And well done rigging the translation matrix to intra-ship communications in the middle of this mess, Ensign, I won’t forget that.”

“Slavers?” Natalia couldn’t help herself.

Matos took a deep breath and turned around to face her. Natalia stiffened, but her captain’s expression was apologetic.

“I’m sorry for the hectic pace, Commander,” she said. “I imagine we’ll be under fire in a few moments, so I hope you’ll forgive the shortened version. According to our Caitian guests this pirate group has a reputation for selling any survivors of their raids to an Orion ring, hence why a merchant ship was so determined to stand and fight. Their chief engineer was injured in the attack but is still in considerably better shape than any of our Engineering officers, and has volunteered to step into Lieutenant Burkowski’s shoes, at least for the time being. I would have filled you in earlier if it weren’t for the pirates. Anything I’ve left out?”

Natalia’s eyebrows lifted at how much had apparently happened since Matos left the bridge, but she did appreciate the briefing. “Not that I can think of, Captain.”

Matos grinned. “Excellent,” she said as Challenger shuddered. “Because I believe that was our warning shot. I’ll give everyone a full briefing if we survive.”

Natalia resisted the urge to sigh heavily.

“Yes, Captain.”

Tisarr hissed.

The humans’ healer did good work, and her broken arm didn’t even twinge as she skidded around the unfamiliar engine room. But only being able to use one hand was frustrating, even more so given the fact that everything was exploding around them. Every second wasted while she fumbled with a coil spanner was a second this ship didn’t have.

Well, if the worst should happen, she’d blow the warp core before she let herself or any of the “humans” who’d rescued her people end up in the hands of Orion slavers. She owed them better.

Since that wasn’t exactly the preferred plan, she jammed a dualitic converter between her teeth and scrambled one-handed up a ladder. This would be so much easier if she wasn’t having to learn the entire system from scratch at the same time. Or if any of the battered off-shift humans who’d been assigned to help her could speak Caitian…

“Hey,” Tisarr called to the nearest human. The woman looked up, frowning slightly, and Tisarr nodded encouragement as she spat the converter out. “I need a wrench. Wrench!” she repeated, pointing to the translator readout on her chest. “You know, a...a wrench!” She mimed turning a wrench and the human’s eyes brightened in understanding as she ran off to grab one.

Right. Tisarr took the converter between her teeth again and braced herself on a railing. There wasn’t a ship in the galaxy she couldn’t put right. Time to show these humans what Cait could do.

Another torpedo exploded just off Challenger ’s bow.

Sofia bit down on her urge to cringe. This was her plan, after all—and while the blast was too close for comfort, it hadn’t impacted against the hull. Thanks entirely to the split-second judgement of one Lieutenant Aleksi Lehtonen, of course.

“You’re doing well, helm,” she announced with a calm she didn’t feel. “Alter course six degrees port and proceed on that vector.”

Lehtonen complied instantly, and Sofia watched their projected course change on her padd readout. They couldn’t take more than a few direct hits in this condition, but the zigzagging, up-and-down rolling course she’d taken them on was playing merry hell with the pirates’ accuracy. More than that, it was making them angry, and they were plowing in on direct courses that made Commander Yurovsky’s retaliatory potshots much easier to plot. They’d even managed to wear down the shields on the lead unit.

Still, they couldn’t do that forever, and she could feel her tactical officer’s blood pressure rising with the need to say something.

Sure enough, as Lehtonen spun Challenger along her length like a well-fired arrow in order to ruin a pattern of stern shots, Yurovsky tapped out a series of terse counterfire commands and then moved to brace against the command chair, leaning forward. Sofia respected that. With how unhappy her actions must be making Yurovsky, she couldn’t have been blamed for failing to keep her objection private. The respect inherent in doing so was appreciated.

But she didn’t have time for it right now.

“Captain.” Yurovsky’s voice was low and strained. “I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that this is not a winning strategy.”

“No,” Sofia responded, equally quietly. “You don’t. Get back on guns, Commander, you’re needed there.”

Yurovsky’s fingers tightened on the back of Sofia’s chair.

“Captain…”

“Helm,” Sofia said curtly. “One hundred and ninety-three degrees starboard, twenty degrees, ah...up.”

Aleksi Lehtonen gave a little laugh. “Going up in space, aye, sir.”

Yurovsky pitched her voice even lower. “Sir, it’s my duty to inform you when your approach is unsustainable—”

“Yes, Commander.” Sofia’s eyes were still locked on her readout. “And I cannot order you to trust my judgement.”

Her first officer was abruptly silent.

“...Yes, Captain,” she said. Some of the strain was gone from her voice, and she straightened. “My thanks for your time.”

Sofia took a precious moment to look up at her and nod. Those piercing, cautious grey eyes met hers and returned the nod with only a moment’s hesitation. “Hold them off while we can, Tactical,” she ordered, and could not have asked for a more professional salute as Yurovsky settled back behind her console.

The outcome of this engagement would make or break that relationship, she realized, and glanced from the vector plot to the comm channel with Engineering. If Tisarr didn’t get them some kind of warp functionality soon, the status of her command team would be academic.

This was insane.

Tisarr hung from her knees over the edge of an access platform, reaching out with one extended claw to snag a bundle of cables, and she barely knew what they did. Only that one of them was badly torn.

She could figure out the basics, obviously. She was a warp engineer, and some things were fairly universal; but the human layout was different from a Caitian ship, and for some reason they used full artificial grav-plating throughout their entire vessel instead of restricting it to a rotary living space. 

Tisarr wasn’t used to having to contend with gravity of all things while trying to fix a warp core! The amount of time and energy wasted…

She forced herself not to look at the flashing display on the wall. She already knew the ship schematic would be showing entirely too much red.

This wasn’t getting her anywhere, she realized as she maneuvered the laser cutter with her tongue and spliced the torn cables. She’d never get anything down here set up properly, but…

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, and forced herself to stop thinking.

She wasn’t on a human vessel, Tisarr told herself. She’d just started a new position on a new ship. Things were done differently, but there was no insurmountable difference. Every ship was unique. This one had grav-plating in Engineering, and unfamiliar technicians. But it was a Caitian ship, and she had no reason to be bubbling over with anxiety over making a good impression on another species.

Not a ship in the galaxy she couldn’t put right.

It was just a warp core.

She opened her eyes, gold flashing green in the dim emergency lighting, and dropped from the platform.

One of the human males cried out, but Tisarr had grown up on the wild steppes of Cait. She knew how to fall, and she twisted effortlessly in midair and crouched on landing to soften the impact.

She stopped looking at the Engineering room as a whole, tracing the warp core with her eyes. Antimatter containment was fine, the intermix chamber was fine, or they’d already be dead. Dilithium crystal was damaged and would have to be replaced, but it was less than a hairline fracture on the surface of the crystal. It wouldn’t survive going to warp, but it should be able to support at least enough of a reaction to get some power back to the ship, so why...

Tisarr’s eyes flashed as, ignoring the stairs, she leapt and pulled herself one-handed back onto the upper platform. 

It had to be a computer issue, which meant, if humans were half as cautious as a Caitian would be, that there had to be a manual override. And if she hadn’t seen one yet, that meant it couldn’t be on the ground level, which meant it would be near the ceiling, accessible by...the section of scaffolding that had been blown across the room when the plasma circuits exploded.

Because nothing could ever be easy.

The ship bucked as what felt like a disruptor beam finally struck home. Not deep enough to penetrate Engineering, but distant alarms made Tisarr’s ears fold back. The battle was getting desperate. 

Well. It could be worse, she thought, stepping out onto the loose bundle of cables leading up to the warp core’s housing. A fall from this height might not even kill her, if she was lucky, and if it turned out the humans could alter their quick-healing injections for her biology after all!

The ship shook, causing the cables to sway; Tisarr dug her rear claws into the thick rubber casings and crouched, just barely holding her balance. Just a little closer...a few more tail-lengths…

Another impact made the ship lurch, but Tisarr had already made her last lunge to the warp core. She clung to the casing, feeling along the edge until she could pry off an access panel. She didn’t allow herself time to wonder if she was interpreting the wiring properly or if humans might wire their warp cores in some archaic alien manner. She knew what a failsafe looked like, and she bit down on her laser cutter and sliced the safety wire free.

The warp core began to hum under her paws.

Tisarr gave a yowl of triumph and began the crossing back to solid ground.

“Captain.”

Sofia’s head snapped up. Challenger ’s computer spoke to them all the time, of course, but not in combat, and not routed through the comm from Engineering.

“Tisarr,” she responded, almost before slapping the link open.

The translation matrix shouldn’t be capable of expressing emotion. It was working with the text-based Sato translator, linked through Ensign Sandoval’s system; the Engineering com registered Caitian words, which were then translated into Earth Standard text or vice versa, which the computer would read out in its dispassionate, electronic tones.

Somehow, Tisarr’s words still managed to burn with urgency. “You will only have a few seconds,” she warned. “At no higher than Warp 1.5. But you have warp.”

“Excellent.” Sofia trusted Tisarr to recognize the relief in her voice. “Keep the core online at all costs.” She closed the channel and typed a series of numbers into her display. “Helm, I want a safe exit trajectory that takes us through these coordinates and I want it now!”

Challenger pulled up “vertical” in the plot and twisted like a stooping falcon, jackknifing out of her vector and around toward the spot Sofia had marked.

The part of her that had once dreamed of being a pilot dabbed at inner tears at the sheer beauty of the maneuver. Aleksi Lehtonen was clearly a bird of some kind occupying the body of a shockingly blonde Finnish man. And, making Sofia’s heart even lighter, the stolen Klingon ships racing at their tail copied him.

From their perspective, Sofia had just made a deadly mistake. They were faster than Challenger, and more maneuverable; Aleksi’s gorgeous dive had eaten momentum they didn’t have to spare, and now the raptors raced along her wake.

“Hold her steady, Helm.” Aleksi’s fingers twitched with the need to pull some kind of evasive maneuver away from the disruptors battering their stern, but he’d protected Engineering and the nacelles perfectly this long. Right now, they could afford to take a few hits if it gave Yurovsky her shot. “Commander, you received those coordinates?”

Yurovsky answered in the affirmative.

Sofia’s eyes still traced their pursuers. Good. The raptors were going to keep coming. “Photonic torpedo en passant, Commander,” she said softly. “Use your own judgement. You’ll only have one chance. Helm, take your mark from her.”

She’d been told in the Academy that this was the hardest part of command—that captains always struggled with stepping back and letting bridge officers do their jobs. But she didn’t feel it. Her people knew their jobs as well as she knew hers. 

She felt nothing but heady pride as Challenger raced under the forgotten Caitian freighter. They slipped seamlessly into warp just as the photonic torpedo Natalia Yurovsky had sent into the broken ship took out its already failing warp-core containment, and the entire pirate squadron on their tails vanished in a flare of blinding light.

Chapter Text

United Earth Starship Challenger

NX-class long-range explorer

Registry: NX-03
Crew complement: 83

225 meters long, 7 decks
Two shuttlepod auxiliary craft

Crew roster:

Command 

Captain Sofia Álvarez Matos

Human
Age: 45
Hometown: Porto Alegre, Brazil

Tactical | First Officer

Commander Natalia Dmitrievna Yurovsky

Human
Age: 36
Hometown: Ekaterinburg, Russia

Science Officer

Lieutenant Commander Esther Hasdai

Human
Age: 25
Hometown: Brisbane, Australia

Chief Medical Officer

Lieutenant Commander Dr. Vena Atakan

Human/Vulcan
Age: 34
Hometown: Istanbul, Turkey

Helm

Lieutenant Aleksi Lehtonen

Human
Age: 24
Hometown: Imatra, Finland

Chief Engineer

Tisarr

Caitian
Age: 32
Hometown: [???]

Communications

Ensign Atsa Ahoo’nit Sandoval

Human
Age: 23
Hometown: Burnside, Arizona