“What do you mean we’ve lost Archanis?” Captain Cassidy Cayde asked warily as he set down his bourbon, a quiet soirée with Lieutenant Commander Cathryn Winters interrupted by the abrupt arrival of his tactical and operations chiefs. “Did a new Blackout boundary materialize between us and them?”

“No, that’s not it,” Lieutenant Commander Arjun Rao shook his head.

Lieutenant Ora Jesi crossed the room and stepped up to the wall-mounted display opposite his desk and the couch. “You know that garbled signal we received a while ago? Well, we just finished cleaning it up…”

She hit play.

“Mayday. Mayday. This is Federation station Archanis broadcasting a distress call on all emergency channels. We have come under attack by the Vaadwaur Supremacy.”

Suddenly, the bourbon and the pleasant conversation were forgotten as Captain Cayde sat up in his chair, a wary expression turned to a worried one. Everything had been fine just a few hours ago when he’d given Fleet Captain Elsie Drake the first sitrep about Starbase 88 now that they were on scene.

“The Vaadwaur have broken through our defensive lines and boarded the station. Our security teams have been overwhelmed, and we will not be able to hold out much longer.”

That was not good. Not good at all. It was different too. On Starbase 88, the Vaadwaur had not gone aboard. They had simply beaten it to a pulp and withdrawn, leaving it hanging by a thread.

“If you can hear this call, I beg of you to respond. Help us. We have fifteen thousand men, women, and children aboard. We need immediate assistance. I say again, we are…”

The message cut out, leaving them in silence.

“What happened to the rest of the message?” Lieutenant Commander Winters asked. “Are you still trying to clean it up?”

“Nope, that’s it,” Lieutenant Ora shook her head. “It just cut off.”

“And what time was this?” Captain Cayde inquired.

“2223 hours.”

Fuck. That was three hours ago.

“Should we call back Commander Rawlins and Lieutenant Tsideki?” Lieutenant Commander Rao asked. Their executive officer and their chief engineer had deployed to Starbase 88 with almost the entirety of the engineering department to see what they could do about getting the station’s life support back online and structural integrity stabilized.

“Why would we call them back?” Captain Cayde raised an eyebrow. Rao was sharp, but this was lesson time. He’d been like the young man once, ready to leap without thinking.

“To respond to the distress call,” Lieutenant Commander Rao replied, almost aghast at how that was even a question – especially coming from Cassidy Cayde, the cowboy captain of the wild frontier who shied from no fight. “Archanis Station is under attack. We have to respond.”

“No, Arjun,” Captain Cayde corrected thoughtfully. “It was under attack, but that was almost three hours ago. By now, either Grayson and Drake have pulled a miracle out their ass, or the station has fallen to the Vaadwaur, and by the fact you’re both standing here, I’m going to guess you haven’t been able to raise Archanis?”

“That is correct,” Lieutenant Ora confirmed grimly.

“Then I’m afraid we must assume that Archanis has fallen,” Captain Cayde surmised. And that was something they would address, no question there, but to do that, they were going to need more than the Lincoln. The Gagarin was lean and mean, but it’d never be able to singlehandedly beat a force that had managed to overwhelm a Canopus. “Jesi, put out a call to ships in the area. Anyone willing and able to join in a counterassault, we can stage from here while we get eighty eight back on its feet.” 

Whether anyone would respond though, that was a separate question, but the operations chief nodded dutifully. “I’ll get right on it.” It couldn’t hurt to try.

Captain Cayde then turned to his tactical chief. “Arjun, if this is going to be successful, we need to get eyes on the place. Have Malcom borrow one of eighty eight’s runabouts and take it over to Archanis for a sneak-and-peak. Just remind him of the Vaadwaur’s sensor capabilities. He needs to run as close to zero emissions as he can.”

“Will do,” Lieutenant Commander Rao confirmed. “But being quiet isn’t really Malcom’s thing.”

“Yeah, but staying alive is,” Captain Cayde countered.

Putting it in those terms, everyone was reminded what they were playing with here. This – all of this – it was a matter of life or death. One mistake, and Malcom Blaine would end up dead. Now that they’d arrived at Starbase 88, they had seen what the enemy could do. There was a fight in their future, and one nothing like the scuffles they regularly engaged in with pirates and smugglers.

“While he’s off doing that, why don’t you get the team together and start working on assault plans?” Captain Cayde requested. “It’s going to involve boots on the ground too, since we’re going to have to dig the Vaadwaur out of every nook and cranny throughout the station, so get Hardcastle in on the fun.”

“I’ll get right on it,” Lieutenant Commander Rao agreed.

“Alright, then get to it,” Captain Cayde nodded, looking at the two standing awkwardly there as if there was something more to be said. “Dismissed.” He watched as the two turned and left, and then he picked up his glass and took a sip, thinking about what lay ahead.

“You knew it was going to come to this eventually,” Lieutenant Commander Winters offered.

“Yes,” Captain Cayde agreed. “But I’d rather hoped we’d be taking the fight to them instead of fighting from the back foot reacting to their moves.” It was too predictable this way. The Vaadwaur would anticipate a response, and that meant they’d be ready for it.

“Counterpunchers can win fights too.”