Twenty minutes. That was how long it had been since Starfleet forces had repelled the last boarding party. In that brief and insignificant span of time, the battlefield had suddenly grown still. The invasion force simply turned around and disappeared into the Underspace fissures they’d emerged from.

Vulcan was still largely unharmed, even if there had been some planetary bombardment. The 40 Eridani A shipyard control station was battered, and many had fallen in her defense, but it was still largely intact. Two of the starships that had been pressed into service were all but floating husks, but the remainer of the ragtag fleet was salvageable.

The loss of life, however, was staggering.

Captain Gar’rath sat in the solitary chair in the center of the much smaller auxiliary bridge on deck twenty-two of the USS Century. The Vaadwaur had made it to the bowels of the ship, but they’d been denied the opportunity to tear the heart out as was clearly their intent. This meant that the back-up command center of the ship had also been spared destruction which prevented the Century from being truly decapitated. The faces around him, however, were not the familiar ones he’d grown so used to seeing, save for Lieutenant Khar.

“Captain, we’ve received word from shipyard control that all Vaadwaur forces are confirmed as departed from Vulcan space. They are currently monitoring all of the Underspace access points they detected during their retreat,” the Klingon reported from the small tactical console he occupied.

Some of the tension that the Gorn had been unconsciously holding in his shoulders finally slackened, “I see. Do we have a damage assessment yet?”

“Engineering is reporting heavy losses to a number of systems shipwide. We’ve lost our port nacelle, an impulse engine is offline, half of our maneuvering thrusters are disabled or destroyed. The bridge…” Khar trailed off, his face contorting as he recalled the devastation he’d witnessed, “Commander Brak reports most of the more minor repairs will take days to complete, with some systems requiring weeks of drydock supported repairs.”

“Weeks we might not have,” Gar’rath grumbled, “Has Sickbay sent down the casualty numbers?”

“They have,” the Lieutenant replied slowly.

The Gorn turned toward the man with an expectant look on his reptilian face. The Security Chief shifted as he searched for the right way in which to present such demoralizing news. He looked down at his console and back up to his Captain several times before finally bringing himself to speak.

“Ninety-one reported dead… seventy-six wounded so far, though there are several decks that have not been completely explored yet by the damage control teams,” Khar finally reported.

Ninety-one. That was how many lives had been lost to keep the Century from being destroyed. A heavy price, paid in blood, in lives cut short, in futures that would never come to pass. It was a heartless statistic, a grim reminder that what was visited upon them was no mere happenstance but a deliberate affliction.

Gar’rath let his gaze sink down to his hand, flexing the appendage as he recalled the reciprocal violence he had visited upon the boarding team for their efforts. He could still feel the sensations from the encounter, could still recall the fear in their eyes that his savagery had inspired, could still hear their screams echo in his mind as he reflected upon it all. And he felt exactly the same as he had in the moment.

Empty.

“Have you sent a report to the station yet?” the Captain asked once he looked back up.

“I have not,” the Klingon replied, “I wanted to inform you first.”

“I see…” Gar’rath said as he took in a measured breath, “Then I will send it to the Admiral myself.”

The Gorn pushed himself out of the chair that felt much smaller than his usual one on the bridge, making his way to the equally smaller room that served as the watch officer’s workstation in more normal times. Gar’rath pulled the chair out from behind the desk and sank down into it, activating the holographic terminal but making no overt move to actually start the process of initiating communications with shipyard control. He simply glared at the display, as if the very notion of having to report the losses his ship and crew had suffered was abhorrent to him.

The silence that pervaded the small office stretched for many dozens of minutes while Gar’rath came to terms with the situation that had unfolded in the last dozen or so hours. The fighting hadn’t lasted even a full day, and yet it felt as though they had been mired in some violent nightmare for weeks. The dissonance between reality and perception were a staggering thing to reconcile, even for Gar’rath. But moving forward was inevitable, just as the passage of time could not be halted.

His clawed hand finally rose, activating the communications array. As the hail was being sent, the Gorn straightened up a bit and fussed with his uniform slightly, though only enough to smooth out a few errant wrinkles before the screen switched over to Rear Admiral T’Reln.

“Report,” was all the woman said in greeting, her voice slightly above the volume she had used when he’d first spoken to her.

“My ship has suffered extensive damage from both the battle in the system and from a boarding action by the Vaadwaur. Ninety-one have been confirmed dead so far, with damage control teams still sweeping impacted areas. Our bridge is gone, and our primary computer core was severely damaged,” Gar’rath explained in a low and deliberate voice.

“What of the intruders?” the Admiral inquired pointedly.

“None escaped.”

“I see…” the Vulcan raised an eyebrow at the finality in the Gorn’s words, “Begin making what repairs you can. I will ask my yard supervisor if we can accommodate the replacement of your bridge. I will be conducting a debrief of all the ship captains in four hours here on the station. Your attendance is mandatory.”

“Understood, Admiral,” Gar’rath nodded. The transmission cut off without any further discussion or pleasantries, which likely reflected just how frantic things where for everyone involved in the recent battle. The fact that he hadn’t been given any details about the status of other ships, the station, or Vulcan itself was concerning but not completely out of the ordinary. Likely, he would learn everything in the subsequent four hours when they met in person. Until then, there was much to be done to start removing the scars of their long fight… at least on the ship.

A deep, rumbling sigh escaped the Captain’s massive chest as he finally made the decision to leave the claustrophobic feeling office to roam the corridors of his ship. He passed through the auxiliary command center, passing by the crew who were busy coordinating the recovery efforts with the station and the damage control teams throughout the ship. Lieutenant Khar looked up and watched the Gorn pass in silence, accepting the unspoken handover of responsibilities that came with Gar’rath no longer being there.

The passageway beyond was dotted with the heat burns of weapons fire, a silent testament to the savagery that had taken place within it. Though the remains of those who had fought and died no longer littered the space, small reminders of their remained in the form of still wet streaks and speckles scattered at seemingly random intervals along his path. It painted a grim picture of just how desperate both sides had been to secure their objectives, be it defense or destruction.

Passing through the entry bulkhead into Main Engineering was like crossing a physical barrier between the stillness of inaction and the chaos of simultaneous action. Engineering teams rushed in and out of the compartment, tool kits and replacement parts carried in their arms as they moved. The deep thrum of the warp core felt as though it was marking time, pushing the engineers around it to push themselves faster somehow. And in the center of it all stood the diminutive Tellarite Chief Engineer, acting as if he were some grand conductor of an orchestra.

“Captain,” Brak grunted in acknowledgement of his presence without ever looking his way.

“I just spoke to Admiral T’Reln. She is going to speak with the shipyard engineers about our bridge,” Gar’rath remarked.

“That’d be helpful… if the pointy-eared crone actually does it. I won’t hold my breath for it.”

“Have your teams been able to assess the damage to the computer core?”

“Aye,” Brak nodded, “And it’s a small miracle the thing isn’t a smoking pile of slag at the bottom of the enclosure. That’s where the good news ends, though. Two whole decks worth of memory storage modules might as well be slag, and the ones on either side overloaded from the sudden power surge right after the explosion. Our secondary computer core is working triple shifts just to keep up with the most essential of ship functions. If the Vaadwaur hadn’t ran off when they did, we’d have probably lost that one just from overwork.”

“How long will it take for the core to be repaired?”

“With the amount of people we lost keeping this place from coming down around our ears, I’d say we’ll need at least a week, maybe two. If you want me to make that our sole priority right now, I can cut that down to four days, but you’ll have to run everything from down the corridor in the meantime,” the Tellarite explained.

“The core is objectively more important right now; the bridge can wait. We don’t know why the Vaadwaur retreated when they did, or when they’ll come back. We need the computer back online. Between that and the shields and weapons arrays that were damaged in the fighting, those are the most urgent areas to focus our time and resources,” Gar’rath said as he folded his arms across his chest.

“Betting on them coming back for more?” Brak said with a wry expression, “Probably not the worst way to handle things, though. I’ll shuffle the teams around and get them to working on it.”

“Thank you, Commander,” the Gorn offered with sincerity.

“Thank me after.”

Gar’rath nodded to the Tellarite and turned away, passing by several engineers who spared hardly a glance in his direction as they hurried to whatever part of the ship they were needed. He made it almost to the corridor entrance when Brak’s voice interrupted his step.

“Did you at least get some of the bastards?”

The Gorn turned around just enough to almost face the man, “I did.”

“Good…” the engineer nodded, his focus returning to the console in front of him.

The trip up to Sickbay was just as somber as the one to Main Engineering had been. The turbolift ride was much slower than normal, evidence that the entire ship was beleaguered with issues that impacted every corner, every facet of life that the crew normally took for granted. The halting stop of the car jolted Gar’rath both physically and mentally, enough that he had to brace against the wall to keep his footing.

His arrival to Sickbay went largely unnoticed by the collection of medical staff as they focused solely on the lives that were still at risk even after the fighting had ceased. The air was filled with voices, some of them calling out requests for equipment or medicines, others simply groaning in muted agony. Sickbay had become the battleground, and it felt as if the physicians were slowly losing ground.

Gar’rath made it roughly half-way through the compartment when Lieutenant Commander Reli Odaim stepped out of one of the surgical wards, garbed in blood covered scrubs. Their eyes met and the Gorn could see the profound sadness reflected in them. Reli motioned toward her office with a flick of her head, which Gar’rath acknowledge with a nod and made his way through the chaotic sea of patients and providers to reach her.

Once they were alone, Dr. Odaim sank down into her chair, exhaustion plain in her expressions and her posture. Gar’rath let her gather her thoughts and indulge in a moment’s rest, watching her intently as she seemed to stare off into the middle distance before her in search of what to say.

“We’re doing what we can,” Reli said after an extended silence, “But it’s getting harder to keep up.” Gar’rath listened silently as the woman gathered her thoughts and fought through the emotions that were clawing at her mind. Her shoulders started to tremble before she finally managed to push herself to continue.

“Lieutenant Connor had some extremely deep entry wounds… we managed to remove the fragments but he’s still unconscious and I’m not sure how long it will be until he wakes up. Commander Sorreth lost considerable amounts of blood, and several of his bones were pulverized in places from the falling beams. If he hadn’t been found when he was, he might not have survived,” the Betazoid explained, her voice constricting a little more with each word.

“What of Commander Peters?” Gar’rath asked in a soft but insistent tone.

Reli’s eyes drifted downward, tears beginning to line the bottom of them, “Abby was… she was in very bad shape. When they brought her in, I almost counted her among the dead…” She wrung her hands nervously as she struggled to articulate what she had seen, “Her entire body was riddled with fractures, lacerations, muscle tears… injuries that could normally… somehow, she managed to cling to life. They’re still working on her in the operating suite. I only stepped out to take a break when I saw you…”

“What are her chances, Doctor?” the Gorn inquired flatly.

“She should already be dead with everything she’s been through,” Odaim said softly, “Every second she survives is already a medical miracle. I don’t… I can’t even begin to guess how long her luck will hold out.”

“I see…” Gar’rath growled in muted displeasure at the pessimistic outlook. He had little choice but to accept the prognosis, dire as it was. There was little he could do about the situation even if he were to verbalize his frustrations.

“Do what you can, Doctor…” the Gorn said quietly.