Never let your guard down. It was the third thing Ensign Jackson Smith had learned about being a security officer.

Jackson had always been adept at being present in the moment – or ‘living in the now’ as his brothers put it. Whether it was enjoying every moment at a great party or noticing something dangerous and moving out of the way before it could hit him, he never struggled to keep his guard up or see what was going on around him.

In fact, he always wanted to see more. He had volunteered for every type of mission on the USS Kaladar, afraid that if he didn’t try everything he might miss his calling. That had bit him in the end, as he took on roles that he simply wasn’t suited for.

Once bitten, twice shy – he would have never volunteered for this mission if he hadn’t been selected and ordered to join the team. And yet here he was, doing something that was well beyond the call of duty. He was proud of himself and yet terrified all at the same time.

Darin Jaroo knew this station like the back of his hand, and for that Jackson was very grateful. They were moving through ventilation ducts and back passages as fast as legs could carry them. Jaroo was surprisingly fit, something he kept hidden under his gaudy mercantile fashion – and Jackson was focusing his efforts and keeping up, while dodging sharp debris, damaged systems and electrical fires.

Back in the vents until Jaroo deliberately placed his boot against one of the panels and pushed until there was a clicking, popping sound and dim red light streamed through from the other side. He steadied himself and Jackson watched as he hopped out of the vent, his head bobbing left and right.

“Coast is clear, come on, Kid.” Jaroo waved him forward.

Jackson hopped down, letting his eyes try to adjust to the brash reddish light. He could see the vaguely familiar entryway they had walked down to get into Darin Jaroo’s office. “We’re close, aren’t we?”

“Very.”

There was a note of finality in Jaroo’s tone and for a moment all the hairs on the back of Jackson’s neck stood up. He realized that he still didn’t know what the Klaestron was hiding and he had no strong assurance that Jaroo wouldn’t try to betray him once all was said and done. Never let your guard down.

Still, he had vouched for Jaroo to Commander Roix and he wanted to believe the small details he had picked up were meaningful.

Jaroo broke into a run to clear the distance with Jackson rushing afterwards, hot on his heels until they came to the set of double doors that kept them from their destination.

They didn’t open.

Jaroo almost spit, but decided it was undignified even for this undignified situation, and he pounded a hand against the doors. “Of course you won’t open. Time for a manual override.”

He had just popped the control panel to the left side of the doors off when something slammed into the doors from the inside, visibly denting them with a metallic screech and a guttural roar. Jackson’s focus snapped to the doors and then Jaroo. “What is that?”

Jaroo had backed ever so slightly away from the door. “Ush’org’thilik! Stand down!  It’s Jaroo!”

If Jaroo had been a friend Jackson might have answered ‘bless you’ to the guttural amalgamation of sounds that he was pretty sure was a name. But they were professional allies at best, and Jackson wisely kept his mouth shut.

Another smash at the door, another guttural growl. Jaroo grimaced. “Dammit, he’s got the door jammed.”

“Is there another way in?”

“Of course there is.” Jaroo had a hint of smugness in his tone. “But I don’t fancy being trapped inside with an enraged Nausicaan. Especially if he’s taken any wounds – he may not be able to distinguish friend from foe.”

As if to punctuate this the fists slammed against the doors again. Stuck though they were, the protesting, bending metal was starting to tear.

Jackson pinched the bridge of his nose. The missing Nausicaan guard. Nausicaans were not easy to take down in a fight. But if someone could get into a good position, and apply a steady, prolonged stun beam that would neutralize the threat without killing anybody. “Where does the second entrance come out?”

Jaroo pointed straight up to a hatch in the ceiling. “You go up and above and it drops down in the left center of the room.”

And there was an open area below, if Jackson remembered correctly. The geometry was starting to make sense now. “I’ll go up, you stay here.”

Both of Jaroo’s brows hiked upwards. “This is my station…”

Jackson turned with an earnest expression. “Trust me, please.  I have the phaser, you have the ability to draw your guard’s attention. I can get a sustained shot if you keep his attention on you.”

WHAM! Another unnatural shriek from the metal losing cohesion. Another guttural scream of pain and unhinged rage.

Jaroo glanced between the doors and Jackson and finally with a stifled curse he hooked his fingers together and offered Jackson a boost upwards. “Don’t make me regret this, Kid.”

Jackson pushed the panel open and grabbed the handholds inside, hauling himself up. “I have your back.”

Another crack against the door, one door shuddered and started to fall open. Emerging from the darkness was the bloodied, enraged face of Ush’org’thilik, his eyes burning red with pain induced madness.

“Better hurry or I won’t have a back left.” Jaroo offered before he turned to focus on the Nausicaan. His voice took on the cavalier tone he had greeted the Starfleet officers with just like a light switch flicking back on. “Ush’org’thilik, this is unbecoming of a guard…”

Jackson ducked slinking down the shaft in a crouched position. Feeling the shudder and shake of the Nausicaan punishing the doors – which was admittedly better than the Vaadwaur punishing the station. There had been a some respite from the relentless focus of weapons fire on Mireya VII, and while that was crucial to them getting the shields back up, Jackson also worried that the Calistoga was taking the brunt of the fire instead.

Worse, he didn’t actually know what was happening out there. All he could do was keep moving through this stuffy, cramped, and unusually hot ductwork until he found a downward hatch. Stumbling through the darkness in every way possible, hoping that Jaroo was keeping Ush’org’thilik busy, hoping the Nausicaan hasn’t already killed Jaroo. Hoping Commander Roix was alright, hoping the Calistoga was alright…

His hand felt a hatch.

He drew in a breath, got his phaser ready, toggled it up to the heaviest stun setting and with his offhand fumbled in the darkness for the latch.

Click.

It swung away from him, a heavy metal hatch threatening to slam against the support beam that marked where the exit came out in the control room. Jackson stopped breathing for a moment and lunged forward, catching the hatch just before it hit. His fingers wrapped around the sharp metal edge, and he bit back the pain as the metal cut into flesh, and he pulled the hatch back ever so gently, letting it drop soundlessly.

“Ush’org’thilik, STOP!”

Taking in a breath so fast it made his head spin, Jackson realized he was hanging out of the hatch, like a human pinata waiting for Ush’org’thilik to beat him to a bloody pulp. His entrails were a poor substitute for candy. The only reason the Nausicaan wasn’t in the middle of cracking Jackson open like an overripe watermelon was the fact that he had his sights on a different target.

With one final smash, the doors burst open, one ripped down the side, the other so bent out of shape it would need to be cut into pieces to be removed. And beyond the doors was Darin Jaroo, backing up quickly, with no more cover between him and a Nausicaan bent on violence.

Don’t you dare freeze, Jackson bitterly told himself, as past failures ghosted in his mind. Just ghosts. Sometimes living in the now had its benefits, and the ghosts of the past were pushed aside for the need of the present. He aimed, and fired.

The orange beam hit the Nausicaan squarely in the back. Ush’org’thilik roared and raised his hands in the air, taking two wild, haymaker swings at Jaroo before turning to find the source of the pain.

Jackson grit his teeth, unable to keep the beam steady. He shifted his weight and tried again, hitting Ush’org’thilik in the chest.

This time the Nausicaan saw the tasty human treat dangling from the ceiling and he started to rush into the center of the room. Nothing Darin Jaroo said deterred him.

One second.

A roar of pain, arms outstretched.

Two seconds.

Stumbling, leg caught on a chair, still close enough that Jackson could smell the sweat and blood.

Three seconds.

The beam started to heat up, and the phaser felt hot in Jackson’s hand. Ush’org’thilik emitted a guttural cry of pain and gave one last-ditch effort to get to the source.

Four seconds.

A hand grazed Jackson’s shoulder, tugging him off balance. He clenched his teeth and keep firing until the Nausicaan finally crashed to the ground, unconscious.

With a yelp, Jackson dropped his phaser and grabbed on to the ductwork with his uninjured hand, as his weight toppled out of the hatch.

“Hang on Kid, I’m coming. You did great!” Darin Jaroo pushed through the damaged doors and sprinted across the command center to offer a hand to Jackson, helping him drop down without breaking anything.

As his feet hit the floor Ensign Smith finally allowed himself to take a long, slow deep breath and let hisheart stop dancing a rhumba in his ears. Darin Jaroo was already re-routing power as Jackson picked his phaser up and went over to help.

The viewscreen snapped on, and the breath caught in Jackson’s throat as a tightness spread through his chest. The Calistoga was situated of Mireya VII – heavily damaged – and facing down one last large Vaadwaur fighter. A last stand.

“It looks like they’re getting boarded.” Jackson’s words were tight and worried.

Darin Jaroo chewed the side of his cheek. “Looks like they’re trying to evacuate to Mireya VII.”

Jackson allowed his eyebrows to raise. “The Calistoga?”

“Some of them. Our shields are down, and the main commerce area is cleared.” Jaroo seemed to be piecing the puzzle together. “Don’t tell me they bargained their ship for our safety?”

“It’s our duty to ensure your station remained safe.”

Jaroo might have questioned that four hours ago, but now – just like with Jackson’s estimation of him – the evidence was piling up in favor of Starfleet. Jaroo placed a hand to his chest. “Well, then – pirate’s honor – I feel compelled to return the favor.”

Jackson stared in confusion, eyes darting between the viewscreen and Jaroo as the station leader started adjusting the power settings of Mireya VII at the very core of the distribution system. As the Vaadwaur moved closer to the Calistoga, into a position where it looked like the Vaadwaur ship was trying to devour the little California class cruiser, the lights snapped on in Mireya VII and the shields flared back into place.

There was a shimmer in the asteroid field, and something flickered into view.

The first thing he saw were ships – dozens of small ships, some freighters, some cargo carriers – and some were fighters. And then his eyes were drawn to the real prize. A massive asteroid – planetoid – clearly in the middle of a major terraforming project. Life had already started to blossom, and it held the promise of becoming a home.

And suddenly Jackson understood, Darin Jaroo wasn’t just hiding armed pirate ships, he was protecting this planetoid – this potential home to the people on the station.

“Revak, I’ve dropped the cloak, there’s one Vaadwaur left – help Starfleet, take that Vaadwaur ship down.” Jaroo spoke into a commline.

“You got it, Commander.” A gruff, but focused voice replied.

The tiny fighters poured from the asteroid field like a swarm of wasps that covered the Vaadwaur fighter, stinging and harassing the damaged ship before flying off only to return and do it again. It was an insane hodgepodge of ships – no two were alike, some were clearly freighters that had been refit with weapons, others were upgraded smuggling runners with better shields and disruptors, and one was an old Romulan fighter craft from the pre-Hobus era.

“You wanna pick you jaw up off the floor, Kid?” Jaroo chuckled, indulging in the first real smile he had shared.

With a flushed expression Jackson closed his mouth, his eyes still wide. “You built all this?” He gestured towards the station, the planetoid, the hodgepodge fleet.

Jaroo nodded. “It’s my home. It’s their home.” He gestured towards the fighters which were making short work of the damaged Vaadwaur ship. “You get it, right? You’d protect your home, you’d die for your family?”

Jenna and Julia’s faces flashed across his mind.  His mother and father and their hydroponics farm. Yeah, he would do anything to keep them safe. “I would.”

Never let you guard down. For one paranoid moment he wondered if this was Darin Jaroo’s way of telling him ‘it wasn’t personal, but now that you know my secret I’m gonna have to kill you.’

Jaroo watched him and then laughed. “Stop getting spooked kid. You helped protect us, guess that makes you extended family.”

Maybe let your guard down once in a while. Rules were meant to be broken, right?

Jackson offered Darin Jaroo a smile. “Well I can’t wait to introduce you to my mother.”

That prompted a full laugh from the Klaestron. “And for that, once this is all said and done, Kid, I’m buying you a drink!”