— Romulan Colony, Planet’s Surface —

The small group of Starfleet officers, and one Romulan stoped on the edge of the landing zone. They had been walking for hours from where their shuttles had landed and their hope was that at least some had gotten through giving them a more complete force to assault the Romulan defense ministry offices. Inside would be the controls to allow them to activate the planetary defense grid, and turn it on the Vaadwaur ships. That was assuming that there was not heavy resistance waiting for them.

Javal was eager to press on, but Lieutenant Sesi Oari hung back, signalling her officers to stop while she scanned the area. Javal peered at her tricorder, “What are your readings?”

“About forty life signs,” the Bajoran said, “Mix of life forms, that would suggest it’s Federation and Romulan.”

Javal did some quick math. He had seen at least two shuttles shot down and explode approaching the planet. If his and Oari’s shuttles were the only other ones shot down that would leave four and about forty people to land.

Adjusting his grip on his plasma rifle he nodded, “We had better go see if it’s them, we don’t have a lot of time.”

— USS Andromeda, Romulan Space —

This was the kind of meeting that required a drink. Captain Olivia Carillo sat down with a pint of beer from a New York brewery that she’d been drinking from since she was old enough to drink as her remaining senior staff settled in. Her Chief Counsellor and Chief Science Officer were back with the saucer section many light years away, so it was a smaller group than normal. None of the senior staff had gone down to the Romulan colony with the strike force, as all remaining hands were needed to keep the Andromeda working. 

“We going to be ready to jump back to the Romulan colony in three hours?” Carrillo asked, looking between Chief Engineer Commander James Young and Chief of Operations Lieutenant  Commander Tashia. 

Young looked the most stressed out. Even now the ship was barely holding together, and he looked like the captain had taken a top of the line Starfleet vessel and bashed it with a bat until it was falling apart. Of course that was almost what had happened as they had done their best to draw fire from the Vaadwaur in the last battle, and now anytime he looked at his engineering status board it was filled with flashing red bits that indicated systems that were going critical.

He looked tired, and Carrillo assumed knowing him that he had not slept for three days. The fact that Lieutenant Commander Diya Acharya the Chief Diplomatic Officer was also with the saucer section and one of the few people who worried about Young’s work-life balance was not there made her worry.

“We’re ready to go, the slip stream drive is online,” Young reported, “Shields, weapons, navigation are all a go. It’s the secondary systems that I’d worry about.”

“As long as we don’t need gravity or oxygen,” Carrillo said, “we’ll be golden.”

Young nodded, “Basically. It’s a tough ship, we’ll be able to get the snort kicked out of us some more, but we really need that planetary defence grid to even the odds or we won’t be making it out this time. We’re low on fuel for the slipstream. We have enough to get to the colony and then if all goes well back to the saucer section. Affter that we need more.”

“That sounds like next week’s problem,” Carrillo said, “Okay, noted. No side trips to Risa. How are operations?”

“We’ve got the doors and lights working. Replicators won’t be online for awhile,” Tasha reported, “waste systems are working. So at least we won’t be covered in poop when we’re destroyed.”

“I didn’t know that was an option,” Carrillo said, nodding.

She glanced at her First Officer Kan Th’Kaotross. He was not enjoying the level of levity that she was showing, but aside from a large frown had not vocalized his displeasure. Carrillo smiled at him, able to tell that he was not okay with the level of joking that was accompanying this pre-suicide run meeting.

“Young we have three hours, spend that sleeping,” Carrillo said, “It’s why you have a whole team. That probably goes for the rest of you,” she said, “I need you at your best in three hours, we’ll be leaping before we look, so we need to be able to deal with whatever we find when we return to the colony.”

— Romulan Colony, Planet’s Surface —

Ducking behind a cement barrier Javal nearly was vaporized. The Vaadwaur were putting up a much more coherent defence of the building than he had thought they would, and the collection of Romulan and Starfleet ground troops was making slow progress. It seemed that for every two Vaadwaur he killed, at least one took its place. It was progress but not fast enough considering that the Romulan D’deridex-class warbird Talon and the USS Andromeda would be appearing in the planet’s system in an hour. If they did not have the planetary defence system up and running the vessels would be outmatched and destroyed.

“Is there a back way?” Bajoran Sesi Oari the head to the remaining Starfleet officers asked. As she to dove behind the cement barricade.

“There’s a service door,” Javal said, “for non-Romulan to use. Remans and…”

“Yeah I don’t care about your racism right now,” Oari said, “Grab ten troops, let’s make our way to the back, leave the main bulk of our squad here to keep them focused on the front.”

Javal signalled to some of the Romulans and they made their way around back. Oari and a collection of Starfleet officers followed. It was a small group, but when they found the door undefended he hoped it would be enough. The Andromeda and Talon would be arriving soon. They needed to get that defence system working.