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Benjamin stepped through the airlock and on to the docking ramp. It had taken 30 mins to jerry-rig an airtight seal on the emergency ramp, and he still wasn’t confident in its integrity, but needs must. The clear walls provide a unobstructed view at the ship he was boarding. Or what was left of it at least. Scorch marks littering the hull, whole sections seeming missing. One of her nacelles looked like it was still attached with little more than hopes and prayers, but he supposed on this ship in particular this was unlike to be the case. Her pitiful state was evidence of a dire turn in an already dire war.
He had read the reports from the T’Kumbra, the Resolute, the Subra. They made for grim reading. Weaponised Trellium, neurotoxin-induced psychosis, 53% mortality rate amounts Vulcanoid crew members. For the T’Kumbra and Subra that was the whole crew. For the Resolute, it was six individuals, all dead, the medical staff too slow in identifying the cause. The dominion had a new set of tricks up its sleeve, targeting a specific species within the federation, a new frontier of biological warfare.
Benjamin stepped onto the T’Kumbra the first thing he noticed was how hot it was. The environment controls turned up to suite a crew adapted to desert life. He had to say he understood the appeal of it. Starfleet environmental standards were a compromise that made no one happy. Nineteen degrees Celsius in all starship common areas left the Andorian crew too hot and the human crew too cold, but at least no one was getting heatstroke or hypothermia. Vulcans weren’t really factored into the equation their own internal biocontrols meaning they were fine in almost any temperature, but that didn’t mean they didn’t prefer to be warm. Benjamin assumed they preferred to be warm; this ship would suggest that at least.
The corridors of the ship were like that of another Nebula class vessel, but she looked like she had been through hell. Of the panels along the walls, only about half were still functional. A good number had been smashed, the green blood trickling down the walls suggesting by a Vulcan fist. The doors to quarters or store room were either forced open or sealed shut, making this deck unliveable. Benjamin began doing mental calculations to work out if they could house the crew on DS9. It was going to be a tight squeeze.
Turbo lift G at the end of the corridor wasn’t functioning, likely making the decks 16 through 19 inaccessible. Benjamin remembered some more of the damage report as well as what he had seen of the view from outside the ship. 16 through 19 were open to space. The bulk-heads were sheered open in a shoot and scoot attack from Dominion forces taking advantage of the ships compromised crew and inability to retaliate. He followed the corridors to turbo lift A, stepped inside, doing his best to ignore the pool of green on the floor, and took it directly to the bridge.
The chief was going to pitch a fit when he stepped on board; there was a lot of work to be done before the T’Kumbra was ready to head back to the fight. The bridge was deserted, the crew having been mostly disembarked and sent to a temporary medical station that had been set up on DS9 or just left to wander the station. There were cracked screens here as well as damaged stations, the viewport had been changed to show a damage report of the ship and not turned off. It was written in incomprehensible Vulcan script, but the graphic alone showed the T’Kumbra was in dire straits. She needed a dry dock at best, and a good send off to a ship breaker yard at worst. But the admiralty was adamant that she be fixed at DS9 and who was he to argue.
Benjamin hit the door, chime for Solok’s ready room. There was no reply. He hit it again, once, twice, three times to no avail.
“Computer, locate Captain Solok” There was no response. Benjamin sighed almost willing to admit that his quest was in vain and head back to the station. Perhaps it was for the best. He had his doubts that he should even be here, but when he saw Solok’s chief engineer, looking more harried than he had ever seen a Vulcan, stepping into his office to deliver the damager report instead of her Captain, Benjamin knew he needed to speak to the Vulcan.
For all his flaws he had never known Solok to run from a fight, or to shirk he duty onto a subordinate. It prompted at least a passing concern from Benjamin, enough to have him persisting in his mission and wandering the gutted halls for the T’Kumbra looking for the Vulcan. His breakthrough came when he repeated his location request to the computer in the ships ravaged med bay and received a staticky and distorted response.
“Captain Solok is in Cargo Bay 1, observation deck.”
Cargo Bay 1, observation deck, on a Nebula class was located on Deck 20. A risky place to go in a ship this damaged. Benjamin decided that it was worth heading there anyway.
Benjamin felt the oppressive weight of death as soon as he stepped onto the balcony overlooking the cargo bay. He spotted Solok stood to the left but decided not to approach immediately, instead walking over to the railings and looking down. As he suspected what he saw was row upon row of bundled wrapped in deep green coloured cloth, laid end to end. Benjamin wondered if the Vulcans chose green cloth because of some cultural significance of the colour if it was just to stop blood stains showing up too obnoxiously.
A reported 392 dead but the number of bodies in the cargo bay couldn’t have been much more than half of that, but that happened when you suffer an explosive decompression of the primary crew decks. Benjamin moved slowly to Solok’s side, the Vulcan giving no indication he was aware of the other’s presence.
“I grieve with thee.” Solok’s head tilted a fraction in Benjamin’s direction, but his eyes never left the bodies of his crew lain out on the floor of the cargo hold. Benjamin took the opportunity to study the side of the Vulcan’s face, the idea of looking down, making him slightly nauseous. There were cuts surrounding Solok’s right eye that didn’t appear to have received any medical attention. They looked like that had been made by fingernails, Solok’s own or someone else’s, he wasn’t sure. There were cuts on he cheek and split in his lip, all of which had gone unattended. ‘How illogical’ some vicious part of Benjamin’s brain provides, but he bites it down. Now wasn’t the time.
For all of their differences, their rivalry, their fights, many of which Benjamin still wasn’t ready to let go of, this was different. This wasn’t Benjamin Sisko and Solok of Vulcan; this wasn’t a Human and a Vulcan. This was two Starfleet captains standing in the face of their worst fear.
“I was their Captain; they trusted me to lead them, to keep them safe.” Solok paused, seeming to choke on the next words before forcing them out “And they died, screaming…” Solok’s grip on the railing tightener, he fingers white from the strain, the barely healing cuts on his knuckles tearing open and beginning to leak green blood down the back of his hand.
Benjamin felt the weight of it. The lives he was entrusted with, the burden of responsibility, the desperate need to get his people through his war and out the other side. Each loss felt like a wound, a personal failing, his fault. He couldn’t imagine what it was like to lose over half your crew in one go. He had known loss before, Wolf 359 still haunted him, he was sure it always would, but this was different. They were his people to lose now.
Benjamin raised his hand, placing it slowly and carefully on Solok’s shoulder. The Vulcans head fell forward at the contact, his eyes closing sharply. He didn’t shed a tear, Benjamin wasn’t sure Vulcans could, but he gave a small, pained noise in the back of this throat. Benjamin was sure that either he or Solok would go back to their sniping and their antagonising in good time. After all, nothing had really changed, they would still hate each other. He could say with certainty, as the Vulcan’s shoulder shook under his hand, that he had never respected the Solok more than in that moment.