There was an almost serene beauty in the vaporization of a silicate asteroid. Exploding in a shower of white dust that shimmered against the disruptor fire, if this wasn’t a life and death situation it would have been an inspiring bit of visual art.

And yet the Calistoga danced through this shimmering field of silica and death, using asteroids for cover as it tried to put some distance between itself and the Vaadwaur fighters chasing it.

Ishreth Dal had already heard and understood Commander Ibanez’s concerns. By the numbers they were outgunned, and they didn’t have the resources to come out on top in this fight. At least not in a fair fight. And Ishreth had no intention of playing fair with a fighter squad of murderous invaders.

And yet, despite all the overwhelming evidence against them, he still held out the hope that with clever thinking and intelligent decisions, they might still come out on top.

A hope, that shining thread in the darkness, countered by the reality that this was very dangerous, and he had to keep his crew safe first and foremost.

No more casualties. No more sending letters to grieving families. It was inevitable, but he could mitigate it. Would mitigate it. The smell of blood and fire still lingered in the darkest parts of his mind.

“Keep us in the nebula’s ionic interference field.” Ishreth directed Jols, the helm officer. That interference was disrupting sensors – including targeting sensors, which benefitted the Calistoga more than her pursuers.

Thus far Lieutenant Jols knew the Calistoga’s capabilities well and had navigated well within those boundaries. But if the Calistoga was going to get an upper hand on the Vaadwaur, Jols would need to push the boundaries of the Calistoga’s abilities.

Commander Dal was well versed with the California class, and he had also been watching the engine efficiency like a Tarpalian hawk. The Calistoga should be able to navigate deeper into the asteroid field, and if they could draw in the Vaadwaur fighters they would have the asteroids as a new player on the field of battle.

Of course, the Vaadwaur fighters were small craft and able to navigate the field. But Ishreth was hoping to make an alliance with the laws of physics and cajole gravity to his side. If they could just bait the fighters into following them, they might get the upper hand.

Then again, there was always the threat of chaos that he couldn’t prepare for. He knew that bitterness all too well.  No matter how many times Commodore Anshin commended him on his clever tactics and outside the box thinking, the names of the eighteen fatalities of his last battle haunted him.

Now wasn’t the time to think about the past. Not while flying through an asteroid field with hostiles on your tail.

The Vaadwaur seemed to tire of this game of chase and two split off in an upward trajectory while two more stayed straight on the Calistoga’s path. Splitting into circular interception paths that required more triangulation and focus to track. It was a smart move, especially considering the ionic field also disrupted sensors to some degree.

But it was also a move Ishreth was counting on.

“They’re coming in from above us!” Commander Ibanez’ voice was filled with anxiety.

In contrast Ishreth sounded as calm and controlled as ever.  Externally.  He had trained his external poise – nearly had it beaten into him from a very young age. “I am aware.  Lieutenant Jols, set course for the carbonaceous asteroid at 351 mark nine.”

It was the biggest orbiting rock within range.  Large, irregular and cragged, it drew smaller asteroids towards it – marked by a myriad of pockmarks on the surface.

Jols was a good pilot, but not the most confident officer.  He hesitated. “That’s awfully close.”

Instead of giving an order, Commander Dal offered a question. “Can our engines break the gravitational pull?”

Jols nodded silently. “They can, Sir.”

“Then my order stands Mister Jols.” Ishreth returned with his quiet conviction.

The Bolian nodded and focused on the job at hand. While the Vaadwaur were not openly firing – yet – the ships were weaving in and out of the asteroid field, splitting the shimmering space dust like a sailing ship cutting through the waves while the sun glittered off.

And the Calistoga danced around a mid-sized asteroid, firing a phaser blast to cut a bigger chunk into pieces that would bounce harmlessly off the shields, heading towards a massive, irregular asteroid that was three times the Calistoga’s size. It dwarfed the fighters.

Ishreth wanted to get close enough to ensure the fighters would be drawn into the pull of the asteroid. If they couldn’t escape they would get caught in the gravitational pull. Even if they escaped, that would eat up some engine efficiency and give the Calistoga an edge in maneuvering into a better weapons position to make a disabling strike.

No time to rest. One small Vaadwaur fighter swooped down from below and started spitting disruptor fire, forcing the Calistoga to swerve off course.

“Return the favor Mister K’lim.” Ishreth’s calm tones almost seemed out of place for this battle.  Almost. To K’lim that was music to her ears.

“Gladly.”

Phasers spit upwards from the saucer sector of the Calistoga as the ship rolled and righted itself, forcing the fighter to go on the defensive.  In response the two following the Calistoga opened fire. “Evasive maneuvers. Push is as fast as you can handle Mister Jols.”

Fast was a terrifying prospect as rocks were flying all around them. As the Calistoga came screaming towards the target at impulse, the saucer section nearly grazed a rocky outcropping. Proximity sensors screamed and Jols blue face turned a chalky white color as he pulled back in the nick of time.

Disruptor fire blossomed around them, slamming into the large asteroid, which shuddered in its orbit. Smaller asteroids were similarly knocked off course as the effect formed a miniature shockwave around the big asteroid. The Calistoga took cover behind it as all three Vaadwaur fighters gave chase.

But where was the fourth one? The one that had veered low to take the Calistoga’s belly?

Ishreth’s antennae twitched and suddenly he stood and braced. “Helm, 187 mark eight half impulse, NOW!”

It was so sudden and so sharp Jols didn’t have time to question it, he simply did it. Later he would marvel that for a man with such a soft lisping voice, how much Commander Dal could make his voice cut and carry when he needed to.

The Calistoga jumped drunkenly forward, small debris crashing off the shields as it leapt between two bigger asteroids – almost smashing into one of them. Lieutenant Jols thought he might have a heart attack before this was over.

Behind them there was a thunderous crack as two torpedoes hit the large asteroid right where the Calistoga’s hiding spot had been a split second before. Jols wondered how the Commander tracked that, and then decided not to question it because he immediately needed all of his focus on evasive maneuvers.

The large asteroid cracked in half, sending a shockwave through the field and displacing the trajectory of dozens of larger bodies. And suddenly that threat of chaos that Ishreth loathed so much was no longer a threat. It was very real, and they were in the middle of the maelstrom.

One of the oncoming Vaadwaur pulled upwards, reacting to the blast as soon as it saw the Calistoga move. The other wasn’t nearly as fast – or lucky. It slammed into one of the moving pieces, getting crushed in a flare of plasma fire and debris against the silicate rock.

Ishreth tried to track the remaining two Vaadwaur – the one that tried to come from above and the one that fired upon them, but the shockwave hit before he could pinpoint anything.

The Calistoga pitched hard to starboard and Ishreth ended up grabbing the command chair, antennae twitching to help stabilize his balance and brace before he went headlong into the floor.  That would be an awful end to a first command, and a mistake he was utterly unwilling to make. Partially because it would be painful and mostly because it would be embarrassing, which was one of the greatest horrors in his mind.

Once he was in a stable position, he chided himself for that. He would risk embarrassment to save his crew. But for now, survival was the order of business.

A warning alarm flared as chunks of asteroid battered the Calistoga’s shields, and the power on the bridge guttered. Already engineering was trying to compensate and keep power to critical systems, but the impulse engines weren’t enough to break away from the shockwave and the Calistoga was helplessly pushed deeper into the asteroid field.

Everything went dark. Something cracked, a deep rending sound as if the Calistoga was being ripped apart from the inside out, and then finally the inertia stopped.

The alarms stopped.

The silence that filled the gulf was deafening.

“Casualty report?” Ishreth found his voice before anyone else did, that soft lisp echoing eerily around the pitch-black bridge.

“I don’t know how we’re alive.” It was Commander Ibanez, who sounded like he was ready to throttle Commander Dal… if he could only find him in the dark.

One by one the bridge crew checked in. Jols. K’lim. Silstar. Avander.  No major injuries.

But no power. No sensors. He believed the phrase was sleeping duck?  Or was that sitting duke?  He couldn’t remember, and Lieutenant Broz wasn’t here to correct him. He shook his head trying to clear the disorientation.

“What do we do now?” Ibanez asked in the least supportive tone possible without being contemptuous.

Ishreth paused for several long seconds, noting the thinness of the air, that the ventilation systems were operating on low power, but at the same time he could hear life support systems still working. They were not dead in the water – yet. “We have auxiliary power, check all systems, get the comm lines up.”

Commander Ibanez snorted at this, but didn’t respond.  In the dark it was unclear whether he was dismayed that Ishreth had an answer or just plain dismayed at the situation they were in.

A thin voice came through the comm lines.

“Draxen to bridge, can you read me?”

Dal answered. “We can, go ahead Lieutenant.”

“That last hit disrupted the main power distribution system. Shields are still up, but at 24%. I’m going to have to reroute power to the bridge, one system at a time – unless you want to command from sickbay.” The Troyian engineer’s voice was clipped and snappy, the stress leaking through on the punch on certain words like ‘sickbay.’

Still, it told Ishreth that the ship did have power and sickbay was protected – two very good things to know.

“Can you give us helm and scanners?”

“Do we have two minutes?”

Ishreth allowed himself a single breath. “I don’t know.  We can’t see where the Vaadwaur are.”

“I’m working on it. If you see them light up and we’re still breathing, then… they didn’t find us.” Draxen’s cavalier words didn’t match his sharp stressed tone. Ishreth could hear him and his team actively working in the background.

They had no choice but to wait. In the darkness. And hope that each breath was not their last.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Breathe in.

Once more time everything Ishreth had done to plan well, play smart, and try to shift the odds in his favor was undone by the tides of chaos, those things in battle you could not possibly prepare for. Or maybe you could with enough experience – or better reactions or – he wasn’t sure. The ability to navigate the unexpected chaos was still a problem for him, and his mind dwelled on comparing this fight to the last one.

Experienced commanders avoided this sort of horror.  Somehow.  Maybe a sixth sense developed after enough experience.  Maybe there were tiny red flags that Ishreth could not perceive from his own meager experience.  Maybe some commanders simply got lucky on their first few commands and had reasonably simple obstacles to overcome until they understood every bit of their command and could react without thinking.

And yet this felt interminable difficult for him, despite doing his level best.

He didn’t have a full casualty report yet. The ship was still in one piece – for now. And every second he spent ruminating was another second they might be atomized by Vaadwaur weapons fire that they would never see coming.

He forced himself to accept it. He felt stupid for getting his ship – on his first true command – into a situation where they were so utterly helpless. He hated himself for being the idiot who allowed this to happen, but that he kept fully to himself.  He had a lifetime of training in the highest echelons of Andorian society to master social graces and that careful professional mask that he always wore.  He also had a lifetime of training to gracefully assimilate self-loathing into pleasant formality.

And an entire childhood where he was encouraged to beat himself up for every failure – and perceived failure, in the hopes that next time he could do better.

Was this better?

He wasn’t sure if it was better.  And he wasn’t sure if they were going to live through this.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Breathe in.

“We are going to die out here, in this nameless asteroid field… for nothing!”

Ishreth would be mad at Commander Ibanez’s outburst. But, secretly he was pleased that the distraction, however hostile it was, ripped him away from his ruminations.

“Your protest confirms that you are very much alive.” Ishreth offered back in a soft, pleasant tone.

There was silence for a moment. K’lim made a sound that was close to a stifled giggle. Maybe it was a stifled giggle because Commander Ibanez’s next words were incredulous. “Was that a joke?”

“It is a fact.” Again the answer was nothing but pleasant.

The darkness made Commander Ibanez bold – that and perhaps the belief that they were going to die so nothing he said would matter because no one would know or remember when they were space dust decorating the asteroid field. “You!  You have the biggest stick up your ass, and then we’re dead in the water and you make a joke?!”

His incredulous expression was highlighted into dawning visibility as the sensor display panels lit up. They were alive.

And they deep within the asteroid field. Stopped within an ion cloud that wreaked havoc with their sensors. And likely made the Vaadwaur believe them dead.

“I wanted to focus on the fact that we’re alive.” Ishreth offered, focusing on whatever positive he could.

“We got lucky.” Ibanez returned, his face tinging deep pink as the entire bridge crew was staring at him. He should be removed from his post for his conduct – he knew this. But he also knew that he could do his job.

So this was certainly going to come back to bite him later.

Ishreth focused on the sensor report, as the helm lit up. “Jols, do you have enough sensor data to plot a safe course out of the asteroid field?”

The Bolian helm officer nodded a confirmation. “If we can take it slow, we can avoid any major obstructions.”

“Do it, we need get away from this cloud and locate the remaining Vaadwaur.”

Jols once again confirmed, and the bridge fell into a heavy silence as the Calistoga eased into motion again. Limping through the shimmering curtain of rock and ionized dust, the saucer section rose above the cloud, just as the viewscreen snapped on.

Commander Ibanez growled at his scans. “Three ships left, all of the are attacking Mireya VII. They’re going to lose shields and get ripped in half.”

“Do they see us?” Ishreth queried, one antennae raising.

The science officer fixed him back with a guarded look.  “No.” He paused and then a flood of words came out. “We don’t have enough shields to endure another fire fight. We can’t take three on at the same time. Mireya VII isn’t helping. Their weapons are pitiful, their shields are laughable. Why are we protecting them?”

“And what about our away team?”

All the color drained from Ibanez’s face. Finally, he drew in a breath and his posture changed.  “I hate this.”

“It’s hardly ideal. But we have the element of surprise.” Ishreth turned towards K’lim. “which fighter is most damaged?”

“The strafing one is operating at only 31% engine efficiency, but we need to be careful, if we take out those engines we could send crashing into Mireya VII.” She replied.

Ishreth took a moment to visualize the fight before making a decision. “Jols, keep us to the outside of the asteroid field, some in 482 mark six, Klim, target the strafing fighter’s engine sector – phasers. Keep torpedoes on standby.”

“Yes, Sir!” Despite the rollercoaster ride, Lieutenant K’lim seemed to thrive in the chaos and even if she didn’t enjoy the situation they were in, she did enjoy the chance to show off her skills.

Skimming the end of the ion field, the Calistoga remaining under cover until she was in position. The Vaadwaur circled for another assault run on Mireya VII and the Calistoga burst into action. Phasers lanced out, slicing through the injured fighter’s shields, and overtaxing the already failing engines. The fighter started to spin out of control, as the remaining two fighters – the larger lead ship and the smaller attack fighter that had originally fired on the Calistoga in the asteroid field – turned their attention to the new threat.

“Full torpedo spread, second fighter.” Ishreth ordered, as the Calistoga neared its target. “Let’s return the favor.”

The irony of picking the target that had recently tried to destroy you was not lost on him. The fighter spit disruptors back, as torpedoes battered its shields and threw its systems offline.

The shields sizzled with energy as the largest fighter bore down on the Calistoga. Jols yelped as he started evasive maneuvers one more time, but the Calistoga’s engines were also taxed, and she was sluggish.

A crack of roaring thunder hit them, sending a shockwave through the deck plating as the Vaadwaur weapons hit them dead in the underbelly and for a moment the Calistoga came dangerously close to careening into Mireya VII.

The station responded by firing whatever secondhand disruptor canons they had jerry rigged onto the patchwork station into the Vaadwaur, giving the Calistoga just enough cover to slink out of a second direct hit.

And their friend, the smaller fighter, took a direct course straight towards the Calistoga’s saucer. Venting plasma and bleeding oxygen, it bore down on the California class ship in a desperate suicide maneuver. Revenge was a universal evil, one that turned its ugly head in all too many situations. Even without comms, the malice was palpable.

“Route backup power to the deflector dish, fire all phasers!” it was a band-aid maneuver, taking power away from a potential attack from the lead ship to fend off the immediate threat.

K’lim’s aim was true. Phasers tore through the smaller Vaadwaur ship, secondary blasts broke it into pieces. And one more blast for good measure to ensure those pieces were small enough to be repelled by the deflector dish.

It was a cruel answer to an evil tactic. Ishreth didn’t have the time to lament his decision. The bigger Vaadwaur ship was upon them.

Fire rained down from the skies and no amount of cover fire from Mireya VII could shelter the Calistoga. They circled the Vaadwaur, exchanging blows, until the shields begged for mercy and the engines cried out to stop.

“Shields down to 14%!” Commander Ibanez called. “Photon torpedoes offline, phasers at 50%, Engines at 25% efficiency, and the shields on Mireya VII are completely down!”

None of that was good.

The Calistoga came to a stop in from of Mireya VII, as the Vaadwaur circled and hung in space, like a predator watching them. It, too, was damaged. How badly? They couldn’t tell.

What Ishreth did know was the Vaadwaur started with seven ships and they were down to one.

He would take any time they could buy to recoup their energy and shore up their defenses.

And then the thing he least expected happened. The commlines lit up.

“Call from the enemy ship, Sir!” Ensign Silstar called.

Ishreth straightened up, frowning. “Put it through.”

The hissing tone of a Vaadwaur Commander pierced the bridge. “Starfleet ship. This is Commander Reegh, I order you to stand down and prepare to be boarded.”

Ishreth’s professional demeanor cracked as his face went from a healthy blue to an ashy grey. “And if we do not comply?”

“I will destroy the station. You cannot stop me.”

And for a moment Ishreth looked towards Commander Ibanez.  And Ibanez fixed his gaze back. And despite not knowing each other well and barely being hospitable to one another, in that moment it was clear that they were thinking the same thing.

The Vaadwaur did not threaten to destroy the Calistoga. They wanted the Calistoga intact – as a spoil of war perhaps? To replace what had been destroyed? Maybe they couldn’t destroy the Calistoga without jeopardizing their own survival. It might be a bluff.

But Mireya VII was a sitting duck. Threatening to destroy the station was not a bluff.

“Choose. Quickly. Or I open fire.”

Ishreth had so little time. Boarding was his worst nightmare. Even if they repelled the Vaadwaur, the casualties would be terrible. Standing their ground would certainly get the away team killed and Mireya VII destroyed.

Every set of eyes on the bridge was on him.

Choose. Quickly. Before the choice was made for you.