The lonely drummer of Bale’s heartbeat continued to quick march relentlessly against her skull as she pressed herself onto the console moments before the ship shuddered under weapons fire. A slight squeak erupted from her boots as they braced her small frame against the smooth surface, disappearing in the chaotic symphony of bumps and crashes that rumbled through the deck plates. A barely noticed drop in the endless cacophony of battle.

“Is it like you thought it would be?” The man grinned smugly from where he sat atop the arching edge of the operations console, silently bouncing his feet against its dark grey front.

“What?” Bale muttered, her attention fixed on the ever-shifting data that ebbed and flowed across her screen.

Request for additional power to forward phaser arrays approved, cycling time reduced by six per cent.

The man threw his arms wide, indicating the embattled bridge. As if on command, a nearby console sparked and sputtered, its lights flickering to a dark emptiness. At its feet, a blue uniformed Andorian cradled the bleeding head of a junior engineer whilst he scrambled for the medkit that had spilt its guts onto the deck.

“You should probably lend a hand,” he suggested with faux concern. “It looks like he might be a bit out of his depth.”

The young operations officer offered the pair a quick glance, tearing her eyes from the vital screen for a moment. Enough time to witness a tear slip from the Andorian’s eye as he held his crewmate’s head in his lap with one hand, the second straining for a nearby hypospray. His lips twisted back and forth, moving in frantic twitches to accommodate his whispered reassurances.

‘You’ll be okay, we’ll be okay.’

But even his most desperate pleading would not stretch his fingers those last few millimetres through the leaden air to grasp the tool, so painfully out of reach.

“Bale, I need those forward shields reinforced!” Encore shouted across the bridge from tactical.

Bale’s attention snapped back to the console, her fingers already reaching for the required command sequence.

Reallocation of power from aft sensor arrays approved, forward shields at thirty eight percent. 

“You’re really going to just let them sit there?” The man sneered as he dropped onto the deck without a sound and leant over the edge of the waist-high console.

“I can’t leave my post,” Bale informed his cruel flash of perfectly white teeth.

“Your loss,” he shrugged. “Or his, I suppose.”

“Now is not the time Mark, get out of my face.”

He fell onto the stool that Bale had pushed to the side with a petulant groan.

“It’s never the right time!” he moaned. “Not when you’re in the mess hall making goo-goo eyes at that lieutenant. Not when you’re reviewing those maintenance reports. Not when you’re fighting for your life. Tell me Edwina, when is a good time?”

“Not now,” Bale hissed through gritted teeth in a rare show of frustration.

“I only thought it might be fun to see your first real battle.”

“This isn’t my first battle.”

“It’s the first one where you might die.”

Bale’s breath caught in her throat. It was true, they might not win this one. Four ships had quickly become three only through the virtue of Daedalus’s surprise arrival; now the enemy had redeployed, and they chased the ship mercilessly round K-74’s battered body. Despite Daedalus’s nimbleness and agility, these massive engined frigates seemed to outmanoeuvre them at every moment. It was simply a matter of time before they aligned their weapons and broke through the ship’s dwindling shields.

“We won’t lose,” Bale informed him, unconfidently pushing the words from her lips with ill-performed bravado. “I don’t need your commentary in either case.”

The man rose from his stool and moved to stand next to Edwina, a ripple of worry dancing beneath his familiar face.

“I’m only here to help,” he mooned softly.

“Why?” Bale could feel the warmth of his airless breath on her neck, carrying with it the sweet scent of Turkish delight he had always consumed with such vigour.

“I’m in your head Edwina, it’s in my interests to keep it in one piece.” He tapped the top of the console where a warning pulsed with deceptive calm. “And breathing.”

Hull breach deck 4, hull breach deck 5. Emergency forcefields are non-responsive. 

“Major hull breach deck 4, our patch job isn’t holding. We are venting atmosphere.” Bale announced urgently to the bridge as another strike of weapons fire scraped along the ships’ rear shield and nipped at their heels.

Captain Mellasitox gave a slight tilt of the head to Sehgali, who silently rose from her chair and began towards the secondary engineering console at the rear of the bridge.

“Do you think they talk to each other in their heads like us?” Mark mused as he pulled a small satsuma from his pocket and began peeling it nonchalantly. “The Captain is a telepath. Or do you think it comes from being so… you know.. close.”

“We aren’t talking in our heads,” Bale replied scornfully as she dismissed the warning, satisfied Commander Sehgali was handling things.

“We’re literally doing it now.”

“No Mark, we’re talking in my head.” Bale chided, attempting to block the smell of oranges from her nostrils. Fresh, juicy oranges that would fall away from the branch in the crisp autumn air, the orchard behind their house would be littered with them by early October. They would sneak in after Mr. Trillick turned in for the night, plucking tiny suns under the cover of starlight.

Bale shook her head with gusto, her nostrils clearing the distracting memory.

“I like to think of it as our head,” Mark replied in a sullen tone.

“Well, it’s not, it’s mine. You’re a guest here.”

“Not a very welcome one, apparently,” he grumbled.

“No, not right now.” Bale summoned up a series of hull integrity readings; the commander’s efforts to restart the forcefields seemed to have been successful, as small blue lines appeared across her miniature schematic. She risked another glance across the bridge to where Sehgali had been standing, but she had already departed the station and was now on her knees placing a hypospray into the Andorian’s hand.

“See, we’ll get through this.” Bale smiled slightly, her confidence rising by minute notches.

“I’ve seen it Eddie, I’ve seen the other side. The divine treasury with its endless rivers of latinum, the gates of Sto-Vo-Kor where you trade honour for glory, the black mountain that looms ever on the horizon. Mark’s face had turned into a pale white apparition as his eyes looked upward beyond the bridge into the endlessness of the universe. “I could take you on a tour when it happens.”

“You haven’t seen any of it.” Bale’s heart seized momentarily. “You, are not real.”

“Yes, I am.” Mark rolled his imaginary eyes.

“No, Dr. Tyne-” Edwinda began, but Mark interrupted her with a sharp scoff.

“-Is a decrepit old twot. And I do not trust her medical qualifications.”

Dorsal shields at twenty-five per cent. Recommend diverting auxiliary power. Approved.

“Mark, I love you. But now is not the time, please.” Edwina turned towards the man, his thick beard and quaffed hair still as perfectly imperfect as the day she had last seen him before his shuttle crash. It broke her heart every time. “Please.”

“Fine, Edwina, I’ll go,” he sighed.

Alert, EPS rupture, deck 2. 

“Just…” Mark trailed a sticky finger across the top of the console like a wounded child who had been sent to bed once without his vital glass of water. “I wanted to see you one more time.”

Alert power surge, deck 1.

“I promise when this is over, I’ll come visit,” Bale promised truthfully. She longed to see Earth again, the endless blue skies and orange orchards.

Alert power surge, operations station.

“I hope that’s true.” Mark offered a sad smile. “I don’t want to have to give you the tour.”

Alert, Alert, Alert.