It wasn’t often that Lieutenant Commander Tynleigh Ache agreed with Counselor Turro. That made this Turro’s lucky day, like catching a sunfish in migration season.

Ache agreed with his assessment that Kazon only respected strength.

She understood the ship stats well and even studied them again before bed last night. A Constitution III-class starship could take on a Kazon carrier and probably even warp away from the fight. But three raiders and two carriers on their tail?  And no Defiant-class escort in sight? There was a better than even chance Constellation would be joining the starship graveyard if they attacked all at once.

It didn’t help that Captain Taes was pacing.

It appeared to be a stress-management mechanism during their conference with the away team on the abandoned Kazon wreck. Taes had been pacing across the aft of the bridge, squeezing every iota of observations over the comm signal.

It was a problem now because the pacing hadn’t stopped when Taes hailed First Maje Vuldu. Now, she was pacing between the command platform and the flight control station. There was a certain menace to her stride as if she were stalking Lieutenant Cellar Door as prey, but Taes was usually far scarier when she was still.

“You have encountered Underspace before?” Taes asked. Standing in the middle of the bridge, her left heel was slightly bouncing.

The projection of Vuldu’s face was massive on the viewscreen, looming over the bridge crew. His mouth hung open while Taes spoke as if he were going to gobble them up. He scrunched his nose when Taes spoke, clearly taking offense.

“Encountered it? The Kazon-Relora have conquered it.”

Ache quickly looked away from her tactical display to check Taes’s reaction. She saw Taes lock her jaw, trying to hide the sneer that curled up when someone lied to her face.

Condescendingly, Taes asked, “You can open the apertures at will, first maje?”

“Better than that,” Vuldu said, practically spitting the words out. “Our advance guard has claimed Underspace for the Kazon. My fleet is expanding our defence net around the apertures they entered.”

“Your defence net won’t protect you from the Vaadwaur,” Taes said. It sounded like she was entreating his fear rather than persuading through logic. “They’ll be able to prowl out of Underspace within your borders.”

Vuldu laughed at her. It was a deep, resonant belly laugh. Vuldu laughed at Taes harder than Ache could remember ever laughing at anything in her entire life. She couldn’t decide who was more unpredictable in this moment: the boastful buffoon on screen or the sharply elegant wit of Taes.

He chuckled, “The mighty Starfleet with its secret technology, yet you quiver at ghost stories like mewling brakka calves would do.” –In a blink, the bravado was gone, and he spoke to Taes with pity– “Those were whimsies, stories the Trabe told us to keep us under-boot. They threatened the Vaadwaur would steal our young if we ever rebelled against the Trabe. And look? We took the Trabe planet that we swept up and we took the Trabe’s fleet that we built, and the Vaadwaur never came.”

“The Vaadwaur have come,” Taes insisted. “They’ve invaded our home worlds, and they won’t stop there. You know that. You do. Because you wouldn’t stop there either. The ships they dropped out of Underspace were only the prologue.”

“You were right, Captain Taes. You don’t have the might. My fleet was attacked through Underspace,” Vuldu said, his dark eyes gleaming through the dim light of his bridge.

“That means the Turei attacked us. They have fooled you with the same ghost stories told to us by the Trabe. Worry not. We will have our vengeance on the Turei, but punishing the Trabe must always come first.”

“What does this have to do with the Trabe?” Taes asked.

Ache didn’t understand what that meant, and frankly, she didn’t want to understand. All that mattered was the shift in Vuldu’s baseline behaviour. Unpredictable. On her console, she monitored the weapons status of each ship surrounding them.

Hovering over the flight controls, Lieutenant Cellar Door amplified his voicebox to announce, “The carriers are charging right at us!”

“Evasive pattern lambda six,” Taes orders. She was standing right behind the exocomp pilot’s station and clenched his chair’s headrest.

The comms channel to Vuldu’s ship snapped closed, revealing the Predator-class carriers’ movement towards them as Constellation leapt into reverse thrust.

Because Ache’s tactical station flanked flight control, she only had to lean over slightly to whisper for Taes’s ears only.

“Shields are still down, captain,” Ache reminded her.

Taes offered no reaction. Pivoting on her heel, she marched back to the command platform. She briskly asked, “Do we have our transporter lock on the away team?”

“We have–,” Nova said and then abruptly stopped, shifting her weight in her seat. “Incoming hail from the away team.”

Doctor Nelli’s voice was transmitted over the bridge transceivers, “Nelli to Constellation. Requesting immediate transport directly to Sickbay. Commander Calumn has been shot. Yuulik and Nune have been taken.”

“Beam the away team back!” Taes ordered, practically glaring at Nova.

Nova kicked her station. “Calumn, Nelli, and Jurij have been beamed directly to Sickbay,” she said, her words wobbly. Her hands were shaking over her LCARS panel. “We have a lock on Yuulik and Nune’s comm signals aboard the Kazon shuttle, but transporters can’t energise through their deflector shields.”

Immediately on it, Ache offered, “The Kazon shuttle is en route to Vuldu’s raider. I’m locking phasers on the shuttle’s shield generator.”

“Commander Ache,” Taes said, threading the needle between strident and care. “Can you guarantee that shuttle can withstand a type-fourteen phaser shot without exploding?”

Ache studied the shuttle’s shield strength and harmonics, structural integrity, and engine stability, among other factors. She trusted she could complete the calculations in her head, but she also knew Taes wanted facts — indisputable facts. Ache ran a simulation through the computer.

There was a flash of light through the transparent viewscreen, and the bridge deck rumbled. Ache was furious with herself –and nauseated– at missing the nearest carrier powering up its phasers. As Constellation took two more shots, unshielded, an EPS power node exploded overhead, flickering the lights and showering the bridge in sparks.

Not even trying to hide his panic, Cellar Door shouted, “We’re nearly out of transporter range from the shuttle! Captain, do I continue evasive procedures?”

“Ache, can you guarantee it?” Taes asked.

Taes raised her voice now. And she was still. Standing at the base of the command platform, she was absolutely still.  Everyone and every thing aboard the ship orbited her. Why couldn’t Taes have been this still when intimidating the Kazon?

In her head, Ache could make the numbers work. She could reduce phaser power just enough to avoid the complete annihilation of the shuttle. But the simulations disagreed. Every simulation reduced Yuulk and Nune to little more than stardust.

Ache knew she could forgive herself for making that mistake, but Taes would never forgive her. Never ever.

“No, captain,” Ache answered, returning her attention to the defensive systems.

“Shields up! Red alert,” Taes demanded. “Commander Ache, target the carriers with a full spread of quantum torpedoes. Lieutenant Door set an intercept course with Vuldu’s raider.

“I’m getting my away team back.”