Disruptors have a strange sound. If I had to describe it, they have a sort of wetness that separates them from a phaser beam. Whilst phasers hiss and snap with purpose, disruptors spill out, with a kind of toxic poison that drips out of a barrel with a wet slap of energy.

Thwap, thwap, thwap.

Ensign Keswick had been hit quickly; the first green disruptor blast that erupted from a doorway hit him square in the chest. I can still taste the tang of the energy in the back of my throat, mixed with stomach acid and my own fearful bile.

The sight of his eyes is burned into my brain, his dark grey irises drowning in a sea of white as they lie there like open saucers. Unblinking, filled with surprise.

Captain Nemros had been right; this wasn’t a place for me. This was a place for heroes.

If anyone needed more evidence of my lack of suitability for a firefight, my current hiding spot behind a large fern should be plenty. It’s a wide squat thing that means I have to be almost lying on the deck, but I jumped behind it in a moment of panic, and it’s too late to change my mind now. So here I am, belly down on the carpet with a phaser that hasn’t even been fired, stuck looking into the unendingly open eyes of Ensign Keswick that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get out of my head.

His actual body…

I shudder at even the thought of the word.

His actual body… is slightly further down the corridor beyond the safety of my floral fort. Out of sight, out of mind, some might say, but I can see the tips of his boots as the bulkhead turns away. I keep half expecting him to leap up and return to the fray like some epic legend my grandfather used to tell. Golden-haloed heroes of an age where the seas and stars were the realms of gods and demons. What would he say of me now? A little girl sheltered by what isn’t even a particularly impressive fern.

My hands feel like they’re about to rattle themselves free from my wrists and go scurrying away down the deck, escaping into the depths of the ship in a fearful shame. For a second, I wish they would, but it’s perhaps too much to hope they’d carry me with them into the darkest corners of Acension’s belly.

Another trio of disruptor blasts peel down the corridor, stinging the edge of the fern’s tallest leaf with their wet venom.

The boarders have pushed themselves forward down the corridor. I know they’re not far from the other side of my ferny shelter, I can see them through the sharp little fronds. Three helmeted humanoids with large pointed rifles that vomit out caustic energy towards the end of the corridor, where Captain Nemros and Ensign Fern have hunkered down in an empty conference room. Every few seconds, I catch a glimpse of the captain’s face, stoic as ever, peeking out from the doorway as he lets off a few shots from a phaser in seemingly futile retaliation.

He looked at me last time, with a strange twist to his eye. Disappointment, I expect. That I hadn’t lived up to my own arrogance in volunteering to wield the cold phaser in my hand. Grand ideas of a silly girl who had heard one too many stories.

I risk edging a few inches forward, shuffling on my stomach like a worm to get a better sight of the boarders. They’ve clustered forward of the VIP quarters, taking position in the small divots in the bulkheads that frame the cabins, pressing themselves against the walls with evident skill.

The doors behind them suddenly pull open, doors that I was sure I had locked, save for the most extreme of emergency overrides. I remember my hands on the control panel, the pressure of my fingers on the cool surface, the dull thud of the magnetic locks. I had definitely closed those doors.

The quintet of beings suddenly lurch out from the shelter of the VIP quarters. A tall goddess like Orion woman who looks like she could cross the ocean in only a few steps leads a trio of Yomaji down the corridor as a man brings up the rear. It looks like they’re leading frightened children away, a momentary vision of a Renaissance oil painting frozen in time. I can almost see the words etched into a brass nameplate below.

‘Starfleet saves the prophet.’

I grab a glimpse of the Divine’s face as she turns to look down the corridor, and my stomach turns as our eyes meet. She is as full of fear as I am. As fearful as Keswick was in that moment, he was struck by the angry bite of the disruptor blast. As fearful as a child surrounded by the sticky venom of a firefight. What would I expect? She is a child.

She stumbles on the hem of her snow white cloak, and the man grabs her roughly before she falls. There is a strange flicker, and for a second, the man’s uniform is gone, replaced by dark leather and crimson. I look back towards the Captain to see a flash of confusion dance across his face, and I share his sudden doubt. There weren’t any other officers in this section when the intruder alarm went off.

I can see him calculating his options, a thousand past missions tipping the scales in his mind back and forth. It’s impressive even here from my prone position on the floor, a mind full of similar scenarios and mission debriefs informing his choice. He weighs every possibility, ranking and assessing their probability at light speed. Finally, his eyes settle on me again, and as his lips begin to overpronounce a single word.

‘Imposters.’

I don’t believe Rigellians are telepathic, though with Captain Nemros, anything seems possible. He’s as much the subject of a thousand heroic stories as any legendary being of my grandfather’s tales. I can hear his words in my head, split between order and entreaty as we enter a strange wordless communion between the weapons fire.

“Stop them.”

“Me?”

“You.” He replies with a slight nod, a paternal worry filling his eyes. “She’s just a child; she needs a hero.”

As quickly as it had begun, our conversation is seemingly over as Nemros taps Fern on the shoulder and issues a different wordless instruction. The pair lift their phasers and unleash a volley of phaser blasts, stinging streams of orange energy stretching down the corridor to push the boarders back behind their bulkheads.

Despite my better judgment, I am already leaping to my feet, chasing the group down the corridor like a woman possessed. Once again, my heart has overtaken my better judgment.

I will be the hero.

‘Starfleet saves the prophet.’