Petty Officer Priyanka Dhawan guided the stolen Manasa towards the end zone. “Can’t believe this rickety bag of bolts actually held up.” She looked over at their engineer, who’d joined them on the bridge for this moment, their triumphant return. “Nicely done, Delaney.”

“I won’t say you didn’t put me through the ringer with that mad flying of yours, Priya,” Lieutenant J.G. Delaney Brewster teased. Between the hard hits they’d taken from the Vaadwaur and the shockwave too close for comfort as the array blew, they’d beaten the crap out of this thing. “But I think, if we’re being honest, I had it easy compared to you, missy.” All she’d had to do was fix the ship. Petty Officer Dhawan, on the other hand, had to outfly an Astika battlecruiser and three Manasa gunboats in a ship she had only five days experience on, and then, even once they were safely away, she’d had to navigate them through the chaotic eddies and currents of the labyrinth, trading off with Sena for only short periods so she could get some sleep.

“Bet you’ll be happy to be back aboard the Serenity,” Chief Petty Officer Kevin Abedayo chimed in as he glanced over at Lieutenant J.G. Brewster. “You know, since Lewis and Sharpe always keep it in suuuch good shape.” It was a joke, of course, given how Captain Lewis beat the crap out of their Duderstadt, and how their chief engineer, Lieutenant Commander Sharpe, had given up on trying to keep the place clean, his catch phrase being: ‘as long as it works, fuck it’.

“Honestly, it’s been kind of fun jury rigging this piece of shit,” Lieutenant J.G. Brewster chuckled. “None of the fancies I have to baby on our ship. Just straight pipe condies feeding plasmas to and fro. Who doesn’t love a boat that’s little more than a pair of engines with cannons strapped to it?” It reminded her a lot of days long past, back before Starfleet, when she worked odd jobs in the borderlands fixing whatever-the-hell-it-was that came through the doors of the hangar.

“Yes, but still, it’ll be nice to be home,” Lieutenant Commander Ekkomas Eidran smiled as he strode onto the bridge. He was more than ready to hand the keys back to Captain Lewis, and to snuggle up with Commander Lee and ball himself to sleep. Yes, they’d succeeded, and yes, they’d made it home, but it had been a lot. And the price. It had come at a steep price.

Lieutenant Commander Sena filed in behind him. “Where are we at, Miss Dhawan?”

“You two are right on time,” Petty Officer Dhawan reported as she rechecked the gauges. “We’re thirty seconds out.” So close now. It had been fun to fly the gunboat, but far less fun dealing with the turbulence of the Underspace. It reminded her of when she used to run the Badlands, and while it was fun for a bit, ten days straight was fucking tiring.

In silence, the five of them watched the energetic walls of the Underspace race by them, and then, in a heartbeat, everything transformed around them, the orange-brown soup parting at the seams, spitting their commandeered Manasa back into normal space.

“Report?” Lieutenant Commander Eidran asked.

“Navigational sensors confirm,” smiled Petty Officer Dhawan. “Welcome to the K’t’inga system, commander.” The rendezvous point they had agreed on with Captain Vox twelve days ago when the original plan had been hatched.

“I’ve never been so happy to be in the dead middle of Klingon territory,” Lieutenant Commander Eidran smiled. But his smile quickly fell as he looked out the viewscreen. The K’t’inga system should have been home to the largest fleet yard in the Klingon Empire, but instead of drydocks and stations as far as the eye could see, now it was mostly just debris. It wasn’t quite as bad as the graveyard deep in Free State territory, but it wasn’t all that far from it. This place had been hit hard, and that didn’t bode well for what awaited them when they made it back to Federation space.

“Don’t rejoice just yet,” Lieutenant Commander Sena warned warily, not in reference to the debris that’d turned Eidran’s smile upside down, but rather to what else she had just picked up on sensors. “We’ve got company.”

Right in front of them, a massive Bortasqu’ class dreadnought decloaked, and behind them, a pair of Mat’Ha class destroyers did the same, shields raised and weapons charged.

“Ah hell,” Lieutenant Commander Eidran frowned, realizing they were sitting in a ship that, to an outsider, looked well and truly like the enemy. “Hail them. Tell them who we are.”

But before anyone could even pull up a link, a voice came over ship-to-ship comms: “Klingon forces, hold your fire! I repeat, hold your fire! She’s one of ours. We’ve been waiting for her.”

Lieutenant Commander Eidran knew that voice instantly. He’d recognize it anywhere. It was the voice of Commander Cora Lee, captain of the USS Ingenuity and the love of his life. She’d made it too. That meant their sortie must have been a success. Relief washed over him.

“Color me disappointed, but very well,” a gruff Klingon voice replied. “We shall spare this one for you, Ingenuity.”

“You should more than spare them, General Kloss,” another female voice said as she joined the conversation. “These fine warriors are the reason they will write songs of our victory beyond the galactic plane.”

He knew that voice instantly too, a voice he hadn’t heard in far too long, but one he’d recognize anywhere. It was the voice of Fleet Admiral Allison Reyes, their stalwart squadron commander. They were well and truly home!

“Open a line to them,” Lieutenant Commander Eidran ordered.

A moment later, Fleet Admiral Reyes and Commander Lee appeared on the screen.

“Welcome home, lieutenant commander,” Fleet Admiral Reyes smiled. “It’s been far too long.”

“Indeed it has,” Lieutenant Commander Eidran replied with an ear-to-ear grin splayed across his face. “I presume, by the fact you’re all here, that the mission was a complete success?”

“You opened the way,” Fleet Admiral Reyes nodded. “And we, along with our Klingon friends, got it done. The hub has been destroyed. The Vaadwaur no longer have unfettered visibility and signalling capabilities across the entirety of the Underspace network.”

That was great news. Everything they had hoped had come to fruition. Why then did both the women look so down? There was a melancholy beneath both of their faces, one that seemed out of place in a moment like this.

“Why do I get the sense there’s something more?” Lieutenant Commander Eidran asked.

“Why don’t you come over to the Polaris, Eidran?” Fleet Admiral Reyes asked. This was not a conversation to be had over ship-to-ship comms. “You and your team both. We will explain when you arrive.”