((Blythe Bridge))

It was Delta shift, and Mee IH had declared this Friday as ‘Jersey Day’ and all staff on duty that shift were encouraged to wear the jersey of their favourite sports team whether it be past or present.

“How long until we’ve finished beaming down the Doc’s supplies?” Mee IH said as he sat/layed across the command chair, his belly to the ceiling, tail flipper flapping over top of the XO’s chair, dorsal fin down in the base of the Captains chair. He was wearing a tank top style jersey of the 4 time reigning Olympic champion water polo team, the Oceania 8 Greynosers.

“The last load of medical supplies was just beamed down sir.” Singh said from his comm station, wearing the purple and red striped jersey of the Mumbai Mamba’s, an elite cricket club that had had a heyday in the early 24th century, winning 6 PCL titles in the 2320-2330s.

“Excellent, inform Doc Lady that we’ll be standing by if she needs anything else.” Mee IH squeeked as flapped his tail and leaned back and looked at the starboard bridge wall upside down.

Just then the Dallas Cowboys jersey wearing Ensign at the tactical console reported.

“Sir, I have a Ferengi shuttle launching from the station. They’re on a course to pass a few hundred kilometres behind us, moving at full impulse, they’re obviously in a hurry, sir.” His choice of jersey stemmed from the fact that one of his fathers prized possessions back in Forth Worth, Texas was a vintage Dallas Cowboys signed jersey from the NFLs final season before World War 3 had popped off in the mid 21st century. Apparently the team was most famous for losing 6 Super Bowls in a row in the 2030s.

“Hmmm. Raise the shields please Mr. Larson. I still don’t trust ‘em” Mee IH burped as he flicked on his repulsors and returned to an upright position.

“Put the vessel onscre…” the 2ndO began.

“Sir! The Ferengi have altered course right towards us, they’re charging weapons.”

“Holy shit! Shoot ‘em, charge weapons, pew pew, quick!” Mee IH said with a high pitched squeek.

It was too late, and the shield being up had no effect either way  The Ferengi shuttle pilot had used the black market Breen Energy Dissipator weapon on the Blythe and it had been a direct hit.

Through the entire ship, rippling, swirling, and slithering bolts of electric blue swarmed around the interior spaces of the vessel. The effects centred around non insulated power sources and immediate began draining its reserves or its source of power.

“Sir. We’re losing power.”

“Elms not responding eeder sar.” Lasage added.

“How much power are we losing? Singh send out a distress call, tell the Slivin and the Irrawaddy that we’ve been attacked by the Ferengi.”

The operations watchstander tapped furiously at his quickly dying console, trying to figure out what had hit them.

“All of it..sir…everything except emergency battery power sir.”

Mee IH head banged his headset eyepiece into place and began accessing various ships system, but after about a second a blueish purple streak of electrified metrions slithered out of the floor, up the side of his body and shorted out his headset, causing a popping sound and shattering his green holo eye piece.

“Distress call sent sir, I think it got out.” No sooner had Singh said that when his comms console completely died.

“Fucker. Ih Enh Eeeeeh” Mee IH squeeled as a piece of the jagged glass from the eyepiece had lodged itself in his right eye, a massive stream of blood flowed down his face and blurred his vision as found himself laying on his side on the floor of the bridge.

“Battery power is failing now too sir.” Ops said.

“Aye av nutting ear sar. No trusters, no hengines, nutting.” Lasage said from the helm as he smashed his fist as the console went completely dead.

“What the fuck do we have that works?” Mee IH squeeked.

“Comm badges still work, they have their own internal insulated power source…shuttles, escape pods, they’re insulated too I think Sahib.” Singh said as he grabbed one of the emergency medpacks and went over to start treating Mee IH.

“Larson, get on the comm to the shuttlebay see if there are any of them are still serviceable. Mee IH to Tyler” The Second Officer said after he tapped his own comm badge.

“Commander, what’s going on, did we just hit an ion storm?”

“No sir, the Ferengi just came up and attacked us, judging by the effects, I think they we were hit with a Breen Energy Dissipator sir. We’re dead in the water, they came out of nowhere. Eh eheh EEH!’ Mee IH squeeked as Singh ran the dermal regenerator over his eye.

“Is our orbit around Derganix still stable?” Tyler asked as he gazed out of the windows of his quarters where he had been so rudely awakened.

“Hunot fer long sar, de dam Fair angey it us while we were stationary sar.” Lasage hollered into Mee IHs comm after leaving his useless console and joining Singh at Mee IHs side.

“We’re coming in on a ballistic re-entry sir, we’ll probably enter the upper atmosphere in less than 15 minutes based on our last known orbital height and speed.” Mee IH said before wheezing in a long low tone signifying utter disgust in himself. He should have got the ship maneuvering instead of just raising the shields. Now they were going to probably lose the ship.

“Do we have any way of maneuvering the ship at all or restoring power in the next 15 minutes?” Tyler asked over the comm.

Mee IH looked at Lasage with his one good eye and Lasage shook his head, no.

“If it was a Breen Dissipator weapon. No sir.” Mee IH replied.

“Escape pods and shuttles are powered and serviceable sir” Larson called after making a series of comms calls himself.

“The shu…” Mee IH began.

“I heard Commander…it seems we don’t have much of a choice. Order all hands to abandon ship. I’ll contact our teams on the ground and have them warn the Dergans about the ship that’s going to crash into their capital. I’ll standby in the shuttle bay and leave on the last shuttle.” Tyler said, with no power there was no point in trying to make it to the bridge.

Lasage, Singh, and Mee IH all exchanged glances at each other before Mee IH replied.

“Aye sir. Bridge out.” He tapped his comm badge with his nose again.

“All hands this the bridge. ABANDON SHIP. I SAY AGAIN, ALL HANDS ABANDON SHIP. ” Mee IH in a firm but even tone.

((Cockpit, Irrawaddy))

“They what?” Ingram yelled as he rematerialized on the runabouts transporter padd.

“The message was a general distress call from the Blythe, said they were attacked by the Ferengi, we haven’t heard anything else since.”

Ingram went and took a seat at the pilot chair of the Danube-class ship and resisted the urge to lock phasers on the old Ferengi D’Kora hulk a few hundred kilometres away and just start shooting. Instead he opened a channel to the Slivin.

“Commander, we have received the distress call as well, we are en route to assist the Blythe as we speak.” Kerak said as Ingram could see a flurry of action on the Klingon bridge behind him.

“You’re a lot closer than us, but I’m going to pull our people back to the Irrawaddy and head to Derganix too, just to be safe.” Ingram eyes his sensors, watching for any sign that the Ferengi station was launching any ships or powering up its weapons.

“A prudent course of action Commander. These duplicitous Ferengi will rue the day they picked a fight with a friend of the House of Jutarg. We will keep this channel open and advise you of the situation when we arrive.” Kerak said.

“Thank you Captain, we’ll be right behind you.” Ingram said before muting the channel.

“Beam our people up, get ready to return to the Blythe.” The 1/8th Polluxian ordered. There were 2 things that concerned Ingram the most at this particular moment. The fact that Ferengi hadn’t made any other moves yet, and how the Blythe had gone radio silent since the initial distress call.

((Blythe, Bridge))

“Common on Sahib, we gotta get you to you pool so you can swim to the Cetacean escape pod.” Singh said as he motioned to Lasage and Larson to come and help him get Mee IH over to his pool. The dissipator bolts that had taken out his headset had also knocked out the power to his fin mounted flippers.

Just then Wong opened a Jefferies tube hatch and entered the rear of the bridge, having come from 3 decks below when they were hit by the Ferengi.

Being the melancholy elderly pygmy Beluga that he was, Mee IH said “No boys, leave me, I’m done for. If I survive they’ll just court martial me for crashing a fucking ship into a planet full of primitive pigs anyway.”

“Report Commander Mee IH. What the hell happened?” Wong said sharply as he came around the railing behind the command/nav well.

“Aw, shit…” Mee IH said as he wiggled himself into a belly down, upright position(he had been laying on his side in front of the Captains chair up until that point).

“We were hit by what we think was a Breen Energy Dissipator sir. I’ve just been on the comm with the Captain, he’s ordered us to abandon ship sir.” Mee IH winced a bit as he wiggled around to face the ship’s Number One. Even though in Beluga years Mee IH was nearly twice Wong’s age, the cetacean had genuinely come to admire and respect the XO, and not just because he often looked the other way at the shenanigans he and his fellow aquatic crewmembers got up to. Wong could see the blood smear the covered his second officers right eye.

“I heard the announcement.” Wong said just as the last of the battery power on the ship began to sputter and fail.

“We don’t have time to discuss it anymore, we need to get everyone off the ship. Everyone grab a hold.” Wong said as they all crowded around Mee IH and he tapped his comm badge.

“Joe and Bob, this is the bridge, we are sending Commander Mee IH to the Cetacean escape pod now. Make sure he gets there.” Wong looked to the Delta bridge crew around him.

“Roger that boss.” Joe, one of the dolphins said.

“On 3. 1, 2, 3, heave!” At just over 300lbs it took several mighty tugs before they got Mee IH to the edge of his pool.

The little old whale sighed and said, “Thanks guys, now get yourselves out of here.”

He then shuffled, hopped and plopped himself back into the pool and began swimming to the escape designated for the 3 cetaceans.

As Wong righted himself he saw that the ship was starting to hurtle faster and faster towards the planet. Derganix filled the entire viewscreen now that it was simply acting as the large armoured window that it was. He saw that they were aimed directly at the north western outskirts of the capital district.

“Is there anything we can do to change our course?” Wong asked Lasage. Both being pilots they arrived upon the same idea as the same time.

“The rear cargo bays!” They both said at the same time. Depressurizing the 3 rear bays before they hit the upper atmosphere might just give them enough of a nudge to come down in the forest and not the outskirts of the capital given the current nose down attitude of the ship. Wong knew they would have to be quick, and him and Lasage both noted almost zero radial velocity as the ship was plummeting down(it wasn’t spinning) towards Derganix.

“Larson, Singh, you 2 get to the nearest escape pod. Lasage, you’re with me.”

“High eye sar” Lasage said.