“I must lose myself in action, lest I wither in despair.”

Alfred Lord Tennyson (1833)

It is only when at our deepest nadir that we come to realize that the only viable option, other than to conceed defeat and succumb to oblivion, is to rise.

By it’s very nature and core to the tenets that encapsulated the ideals of the Federation that it was founded upon, more than anything Starfleet symbolized the cyclical struggle of meeting the challenges of the galaxy head-on and finding the strength of character to pick yourself up to rise to face the outcome of your decisions with flexibility and resolve.

For Lieutenant – Commander Lane Hanley, a Starfleet Officer who’s heavily damaged command had been swatted from the skies to careen through poisoned skies to crash land on a Hellworld and sink ignominiously to the bottom of a toxic lake, finding that vaunted resolve to persevere had become an almost insurmountable challenge.

The red – haze of the emergency – lighting that persisted throughout the interior of the foundered USS Kirk cast a morbid hue across the face of her friend and First Officer, making what bruises could be seen on the Tellarite’s gnarled face cast dark trenchant crannies when his beard did not predominate.

Bohrigm Nil had been Lane’s best friend and closest confident since their days together at the Academy. When she had been assigned the Kirk as her first command, she had not hesitated to seek her old friend out to take on the position of her Executive Officer. The trust and rapport she shared with this sometimes taciturn (and often brutally honest) man, was one that Lane valued more than gold – pressed latinum.

To see him compromised and injured so, laid out on a Biobed in a sickbay filled to it’s small capacity with those injured as a result of their forced landing on the surface of Hectate#7b, was almost more than Lane could bear. As the ship’s CO, Hanley was keenly aware that the safety and fate of all her crew were her responsibility alone and, ultimately, she was responsible for the state her she found her friend in now.

After a time, she became aware that she was being observed.

“I feel like shit.” Bohrigm muttered faintly, but with certain conviction.

It was all Lane could do not to laugh out loud.

The need to release her tension was almost palpable. Since the stricken Shran – class had come to rest in the murky depths of the toxic – lake in the middle of the long – ago ruined city above them, Hanley had been forced to take stock of the ruinous state of her ship, the damage to her crew (three dead and numerous injured from the attack and the crash) and the fact that her mission of rescue had been thwarted and the Free States Warbird that had reduced the tough little escort to this injured state, still hung somewhere above in orbit like a murderous hawk in the night.

Keeping her face serious, Lane reached out to grasp Bohrigm’s stubby hand with her own and she assured him with a wry smile.

“Well. You look like shit, so that scans.”

Lieutenant Bohrigm Nil attempted a small laugh at this dry rejoinder, but the action of doing so pained him and his face contorted in discomfort as a deep cough rattled his barrel chest.

“No more jokes.” Nil grimaced when the pain subsided. “Experiencing whatever it is that I’ve broken is still preferable to what you think passes as humour.” He winced and tried to raise himself to a sitting position, only for Lane’s firm grip to press him down again.

“Dr Voe has diagnosed, amongst other things, a broken hip, five fractured ribs, a dislocated shoulder, a fractured occipital bone and an award-winning concussion. You’re not going anywhere for the foreseeable future Bo’.” Lane admonished.

“Not a bad inventory for someone whose recently been a pinball.” Bohrigm grunted.

Hanley frowned and her lips set into a determined line.

“The next time I order you to strap in, Mister, you strap the hell in!”

Bohrigm closed his bruised eyelids and nodded in agreement.

“Seatbelts.”

The CO nodded along.

“Seatbelts.”

Presently, Nil was able to take better stock of his surroundings and turned his head to take in the busy sickbay. Dr Denah Voe and both of the nurses that made up the ship’s small medical department were hard at work triaging patients and seeing to those most grievously injured. Those less afflicted were seen to be resting in the hallway outside.

“The ship. What kind of shape are we in?” Bohrigm persisted and Lane let out a deep sigh.

“Not much better shape than you, I’m afraid.” Hanley nodded her head tiredly and drew up a seat to sit beside her friend.

“Six reports that the Warp drive is effectively inoperable. The damage to the port nacelle is such that we won’t be able to sustain a balanced warp – field without a full replacement and overhaul at a Starbase. The shield generator isn’t in much better shape. We have enough to sustain the emergency force-fields in place, which is a good thing because aside from multiple bulkhead breaches, we’ve come to rest in a body of water whose least-noxious main constituent seems to be concentrated sulphuric-acid.”

Bohrigm nodded carefully at this bleak assessment.

“So swimming is not advised then.” The Tellarite smiled dryly.

“The one good thing about that state of affairs is that our current watery – abode partially shields us from scrutiny from orbit. I’m sure that if they really wanted to, the skipper of that Warbird could just carpet bomb the general volume with Ortillery – strikes but why bother if the Hellworld will finish us off eventually. He’s probably reserving his munitions. That and I hope that our little maneuver up there did at least some damage? It must have or else we’d all be dust right now.”

“The Warbird is a problem that we are definitely going to have to deal with, if we’re ever going to get off this world.” The XO agreed. “But that seems to be a bridge that we’ll have to cross if and when we ever manage to get to it?”

Lane rubbed her temples tiredly and smiled wanly.

“Problem number #246 is a rolling rollcall of collective-woes, that’s true. I have ordered Six and her Engineering team to prioritize restoration of the impulse drive and weapons systems and then see what other functionality we can jerry – rig together with whatever systems are left functional.”

Sensing the trepidation in her voice, Nil frowned as far as his injuries allowed.

“So, you mean to return to orbit and engage the Romulans?”

Hanley shook her head dismissively.

“No, my first choice. Even fighting fit we’re no match for a Warbird, even one as old as a D’deridex.” Lane replied in a tired voice, wearing at the edges.

“But if we don’t manage to leave this place, we never will and eventually we will become as dead as the city above us. I have to idea whether our transmission to Starfleet Command was successful, but we have to assume that it was not. We are on our own. If we can get to orbit, my hope is to evade or waylay the D’deridex long enough to reestablish contact with Starfleet and hope that an allied vessel is searching for the Selquar or even for us.”

Bohrigm lay back on the Biobed and sucked air through his teeth.’

“Those are pretty long odds.” He advised.

For her part Lane just shrugged her slight shoulders and replied.

“Those are the odds we’ve got.”

Bohrigm was silent for a while, he watched his friends face intently. Ever since he’d known her, even as a young, fresh – face Academy Sophomore, Laney Hanley had seemed to perpetually bear the weight of the world on her shoulders.

He knew that the weight of her father’s legacy constituted part of that inevitable load. Rear – Admiral Eustace “Bull” Hanley’s actions at the battle of Wolf 359 had firmly cemented the man’s legend in the foundations of Starfleet and Bo’ appreciated more than anyone how hard his friend had had to work to struggle to separate her career successes from her father’s and feel like she had earned her own way to command.

“There’s something else isn’t there?” He asked softly, knowing his friend sometimes probably better than she even knew herself.

Lane regarded him with those tired, grey – eyes and nodded eventually.

“When Ensign Gaca was running diagnostics on the comms – array to determine if our last report to command transmitted properly, she chanced upon a distress signal. Planetary in origin. The signal seems weak, but she was able to triangulate it’s position to within a radius of approximately 20 km2. It’s some 12,000 km to the northwest of our current position.”

This piqued Bohrigm’s interest and he pressed her.

“It’s origin?”

Now it was Hanley’s chance to be cagey.

“The signal corresponds to a Romulan distress beacon. It could be that some of the crew of the Selquar survived their encounter with the Warbird and were able to find shelter somewhere on the surface.”

Bohrigm closed his eyes and laid his head back down.

The surface of a Hellworld was about as conducive to supporting life as the surface of a main sequence star. Aside from a death row of exotic radiations, the atmosphere of this world was rife with what was likely the fallout of mutagenic, chemical and biological weapons – discharge left over from whatever apocalyptical struggle had wiped out its original inhabitants thousands of years ago.

The chances that any survivors from the lost Republic science vessel had been able to survive any length of time in such conditions were vanishingly small.

“It could also well be a trap laid by the Free States crew.”

Lane shook her head dismissively.

“That just doesn’t scan for me.” The CO countered. “Why would they waste the effort? They’ve comprehensively bested us and the planet will finish the job. No, there’s a reason why that Warbird destroyed the Selquar and to my mind that reason has something to do with this planet. I have no idea what it is, but if there is anyone who can shed any light on those reasons, it’d be any survivors from that ship.”

“You mean to mount an attempt to rescue the survivors?” Bohrigm realized with a sinking heart.

Lane nodded slowly, her face set stern in the red gloom.

“It’s what we came here to do in the first place. Yes, I mean to follow through and complete that mission.”

Bo’ winced as he tried to turn on his side to look Hanley squarely in the eye.

“Lane….Captain, that is a Hellworld out there. The name is not ironic nor coincidental.” Bohrigm persisted warningly. “That’s a death sentence to yourself and whoever is crazy enough to join you in the attempt.”

Yet Lane could not be dissuaded, Bo’ knew she would be unshakable in her resolve once she was determined to action.

“Volunteers only.” The CO insisted. “I won’t compel anyone to join me. If needs be, I’ll go alone if I have to.”

“The hell you will!” Nil grunted in consternation. “I’m the Executive Officer and the regs state that the XO shall lead the away team and the CO shall remain onboard to maintain and preserve the chain of command.”

A wan smile actually crept across her lips and Lane shook her head and squeezed Bo’s hand.

“The ship is effectively a fishing – weight and you are not going anywhere soon with a butchers – list of injuries like that. You’re orders are to remain onboard and oversee the repairs to the ship. I will lead an away team, hopefully along with Chief Harvey, whoever from his security team volunteers and maybe one of Dr Voe’s nurses, if he can spare one and they agree to come.”

“God’s-teeth Lane!” Her friends protested. “Why do you always have to be so damned pig-headed!”

Hanley looked at Bohrigm and the Tellarite’s somewhat pig – like features, currently contorted in ire. She raised a mocking eyebrow as if to say ”Really?”

“Oh! You know what I mean and don’t pretend that you don’t!” The Tellarite frowned disapprovingly. “You don’t have to do this, Lane. You don’t have to prove anything to anyone!”

But he knew that his protests were ultimately to be in vain.

As if to signal that this decided matters, she stood and gave his hand one more squeeze before gently letting go, gracing her friend and subordinate with a firm smile that hinted at sadness.

“We’ll attempt to locate any survivors from the Selquar and evacuate them back here. I’m counting on you to lead the effort to get the ship functional again Bo’. If we can’t exfiltrate & get her back up into orbit then the whole mission will be for naught.” She asserted firmly and Bo’ feared for her in that moment.

As Hanley threaded her way carefully through the mass of casualties scattered about the cramped sickbay, Lieutenant Bohrigm Nil instinctively knew that something was wrong.

“Captain!” He called out from the Biobed, a sense of unease growing within him. “What are you not telling me?” He demanded quietly.

His friend paused at the sickbay, silhouetted in the garish crimson light as she put a slim hand out to rest lightly on the door frame. She stayed that way for a second, until she twisted slightly from the waist to address him, her features unreadable in the faint glooming red light.

When she spoke, he could sense a tinge of trepidation that she was only just managing to contain in her voice.

“The damage to the ship is extensive, Lieutenant. Six estimates that we might get two, maybe three chances to use the transporters before they fail completely.”