CNS Bastille, Boat Bay One.
The shuttle ghosted up to the docking clamps, and hydraulic rams squeezed the clamps together around the hull of the shuttle with a thud that resonated smartly. A moment later, the docking hatches opened.
Daniel O'Leary followed Jin Liu onto the boat bay with Tamara Jackson and Angela Higgins close behind. He looked around as they reached an open space and his eyes took notice of the appearance and upkeep of his new surroundings out of professional reflex.
He remembered Anaconda's boat bay now kilometers below them on the planetary surface; this one looked downright huge and clean in comparison -- and there were two of them on this ship, he reminded himself.
His mind now breezed over the last few months; the downfall of Anaconda, and his decisions -- his decisions -- that brought his ship, and his entire crew, to this, and he felt a fresh stab of panic mixed with total entropy blasting through his soul.
It was short-lived.
Hearing approaching footsteps, he looked up to see a woman about his height approaching alone. She had short-length dark brown and chestnut hair over hazel-brown eyes that radiated concern and ... incipient outrage, he guessed?
She chewed her bottom lip thoughtfully for a moment while she studied him, and he reciprocated the attention stoically. Suddenly mindful of his appearance, he could imagine he was certainly disheveled, but he could see that she saw no fault in that; after all, he'd just lost his command, and he'd been planet-bound for the past what felt like several days. The five o'clock shadow itched at his face just now, and he felt the greasy, sweaty crop of his hair clinging stubbornly to his scalp.
"Commander Daniel O'Leary," he heard Jin Liu announce, "Captain Lira Méline."
"Permission to come aboard, Captain?" He asked both automatically and uncomfortably, and that was enough to break the silence spell while Jin excused herself.
In all of the commotion of their arrival, he hadn't been informed who the commanding officer of this ship was until just now, but he had a passing knowledge of the fleet organizational chart and more than a dim idea in whose company he now found himself. It was hard to keep the nerves at bay, and he found himself hoping he hadn't come off as idiotic.
"Granted, Commander; welcome aboard!" she smiled warmly. "I'm glad to see you're okay. Would you like a tour of the ship?"
"Of course, ma'am," O'Leary replied.
"The ship's a little bigger than yours was," she said amiably. "That being said --"
"So is your reputation, ma'am," O'Leary blurted.
"Come again?"
The request for clarification wasn't hostile-sounding, but O'Leary froze anyway. At least he now knew he didn't have to worry about sounding idiotic anymore.
"I-I mean ..." he stammered, and out of the corner of his eye he saw his two officers doing two different things: Angela had a serene half-smile on her face as if she was genuinely enjoying this moment (which only served to make his face flush hot with actual embarrassment), and a muted look of disbelief crossed Tamara's face as she wandered off to lean against a railing.
"Relax, Commander," Lira soothed. "You've had a rough day, but you and your people survived it. That's worth something."
"Yeah," O'Leary said with obvious uncertainty, and Lira sighed.
"Let's level the playing field a bit, shall we? My name is Lira Méline. I've been human my whole life; I've got red blood under my skin. I'm not God, nor do I pretend to speak in their name; I'm just a girl that captains a ship."
"I know," O'Leary stumbled, then shook himself visibly as she prompted gently with a raised eyebrow for reciprocation. "Daniel O'Leary, ma'am."
"That's better. Irish, right?" Lira asked, and he nodded. "Earth-born?"
"Aye, ma'am. Originally from Cork; southern Ireland Territory. And you?"
"I'm from Merak," Lira smiled. "Born in Auguste's Claim. It was ... speaking in Euclidean terms, a short trip to the Academy for me."
There was a polite cough behind O'Leary, and he winced.
"Ahh! Over there is my ATO, Lieutenant Senior Grade Tamara Jackson," O'Leary offered, "and this is my EA, Lieutenant Senior Grade Angela Higgins."
"Higgins?" Lira blurted with raised eyebrows. "Any relation to --"
"The same, ma'am," Angela interrupted gently with a half-smile, and O'Leary arched an eyebrow at that.
"We have a scion in attendance," Lira smiled.
"Ugh, with all due respects, ma'am," Angela blurted, "I'm just a girl who crashed a warship onto a planet. I'm not royalty."
"I get it. Alright, then," Lira smiled. "As I said, welcome aboard. I'm going to have my people help your people to get situated and helped. I guarantee you we'll have a comfortable space for them all. Follow me?"
They left the boat bay in relative silence now.
***
That silence was deafening after a while, and O'Leary couldn't stand it any longer. For a ship underway, even in a parking orbit, there was too much silence.
"Captain, permission to speak bluntly?" He asked, and they stopped walking.
"Bluntly, Commander?" Lira repeated coolly and turned to face him. "Why ever would you want to be blunt with me?"
"Well," O'Leary shifted uncomfortably, and Lira smiled.
"Spit it out, Commander. Otherwise, this is probably going to take all day."
He heard Angela stifle a quick snicker behind him. Lira swiveled her eyes to regard the interruption with a wry smile, and she returned her attention to him.
"What's with the freighter, ma'am?"
Lira chuckled. "It's an unpublished tactic, Commander. In the Bush you have to think outside of the box, as it were."
"So you ..." O'Leary began pensively. "You appropriated a freighter, crewed it with your detachment and you use it as bait?"
"Close, Commander," Lira smiled. "The freighter is theirs. They're privateers, and they don't break the laws."
"You're in a business partnership with them?"
"Anything in the regulations against it?"
"Well, no," O'Leary murmured.
"Have you heard of the Wounded Gazelle tactic?"
"Aye; also known as schmuck bait."
Lira laughed at that, and he shrugged at her.
"Yes, I suppose you could call it that. They tell me what they hear in the neighborhood. In turn, we keep them safe while keeping the illusion that we're not actually working together."
"Makes sense," O'Leary admitted with some chagrin.
"Don't worry; I've kept that to myself for a while now. I don't need everybody souring the milk out here with a bunch of copycats."
"Fast, easy way to end idiots," he murmured.
"Exactly," Lira replied.
"Where's your crew, ma'am?" he blurted out. "We must have covered a third of your ship already, below-decks, and I've yet to see anybody."
"Well, this ship is largely under computer control right now," Lira answered. "We've got two officers in Engineering watching the drive and the fusion bottles, and the rest of my officers are on the bridge or near Zone Two Hundred. Then there are those in the freighter."
O'Leary pursed his lips thoughtfully.
"Why?" He intoned melodically. "I understand the whole crew detachment bit, but this doesn't add up; I'm not following."
"Our crew disembarked at WASP-26; we left them over two days ago."
"Now I'm really not following," O'Leary said, and Lira blinked at his sudden change in tone. She looked at his face -- querulous, and dangerously approaching something similar to alarm.
She then chortled at herself, which invited a not-so-subtle flinch from O'Leary.
"I've been in deep space too long, and it's already been a long day," she said -- half to herself, and half to her guests. "We aborted the start of a C-Check and broke dock to check out your beacon," she explained, and O'Leary relaxed visibly and nodded in understanding. "We just got done with a patrol rotation; we actually got all of our ratings off-loaded and some of my officers were already disembarked when your beacon was received and passed off to me. Because I was the closest serviceable ship, I responded. We weren't expecting to find anybody alive here, so it was supposed to be a quick out-and-back."
"Ah, Jesus, Mary and Joseph!" O'Leary breathed in relief. "I've had my weirdness from time to time, and this has been just the most remarkable turn in me life! On top of everything that's happened this week, for a second, I thought you were going to tell me you stole your own ship!"
"No, that would be reckless and insane," she chuckled, and he gasped out a quick sigh of agreeing relief. "Say ... I'm obviously starving and not thinking very clearly right now. I'd imagine you're in a similar state."
He nodded smartly in reply. Food was an excellent idea. And rest.
"Forgive me, all of you; I was obviously failing at multitasking here. You know how it is. We're going to switch gears now. I'm going to repeat my original offer: would you and your officers like to get something to eat and a place to take some rest? The tour can wait. We'll take care of your people and give them something to do; I promise."
"Yeah," O'Leary conceded, "that's a good idea."
"Good," Lira smiled. "Oh, and Commander?" She leaned into him, coming dangerously close to invading his personal space bubble.
"Yes?" He replied warily as he reciprocated the physical encroachment as closely as he dared to.
"You really should take a shower," she murmured to him through grinning teeth, and he backed away abruptly. "I promise you it'll do you some good."
"Lead the way, Captain," he chuckled softly.
***
CNS Bastille, Captain's Stateroom.
Captain Lira Méline and Commander Daniel O'Leary sat at the table with plates of mostly-eaten food in front of both of them. Lira, with a plate of spaghetti and a chaser of water, and O'Leary with a turkey breast smothered with gravy, mashed potatoes, vegetables and an apple juice.
Lira was content to poke at her food for much of the time they'd spent just now. A shower had done her guest wonders, she observed, and she wasn't sure just then whether it was simply having a clean body and a fresh change of uniform that had done the trick.
She could plainly see his appetite was healthy. She made this observation fairly early into the meal time as she watched him tear into his food. His table manners were precise, but aggressive. Definitely the habits developed at the Academy still pressed upon his way of doing things, she observed with a nostalgic half-smile of her own, but at least he'd obviously been in the service long enough to loosen up to the point where it dawned on people that life or death did not depend on how quickly or fastidiously one ate their food.
To his credit, he didn't seem to mind the scrutiny. To him, it seemed that this was a moment of desperately-needed succor. She could see that he had been under a great deal of stress in the last several days, had done the best he could with what he had, and her own sensor readings told the story (both in real-time and in hyper-light as Bastille augured in to the only remotely-habitable planet in the star system).
"It wasn't hard to piece together what happened," Lira murmured, and O'Leary stopped eating and looked up from his plate to see her grave expression. "Assuming we part ways soon, and you don't listen to me, you'll never find Hadley again."
"Who the hell is Hadley?" O'Leary asked.
"What we saw, and what your exec described, is the hallmark of the rat bastard who led you straight into this trap," Lira murmured. "He's the commander of one of two third generation light cruisers that have been operating in this region. I had been tailing him for months now, but scheduled maintenance was more important at the time, so I had to break off. He's former Navy, Commander. He knows what he's doing."
There was an uncomfortable pause, and O'Leary relaxed his stance.
"Alright," He said. "What do you know about him?"
Lira nodded. "Commander Kyle Hadley was a patrolman, just like me when he had his commission. The end of his service record isn't pretty. He was tasked with convoy escort, and his convoy was attacked."
"Raiders?"
"Yes."
O'Leary nodded, and set his eyes on Lira in deep concentration.
"He was outnumbered, but that didn't stop him from completely annihilating those that jumped him and his charges. Where it gets repugnant is this: during the course of action, he let the raiders kill one of the passenger liners unchallenged."
O'Leary's eyebrows shot up, and Lira nodded gravely.
"Once that was done," she continued, "his people apparently grew a pair; his targeting and point defense went through the roof. After three quarters of the raider squadron was destroyed, they sued to end the hostilities. They lowered their shields and cut their drives ... and Hadley had them picked off one-by-one."
"Go on," O'Leary said gravely.
"After the fact ... he was brought up on charges. The Admiralty didn't thank him for executing surrendered raiders, and they especially didn't appreciate the overall outcome of the situation. They understandably took exception to the fact he'd used a passenger liner as bait and used the destruction of that vessel along with civilians to incentivize his crew. When he revealed that he let the raiders have the passenger liner just to make defending the rest of the convoy easier ..."
She paused and let out an angry sigh. "He was dishonorably discharged from the service with extreme prejudice, and the only reason he didn't end up shot into the closest star, was that he disappeared immediately after his hearing."
O'Leary nodded solemnly. Being dishonorably discharged was bad enough for any average incompetent or idiot who wore the uniform; being discharged with prejudice meant jail time was involved. Extreme prejudice meant that Hadley was headed straight for the airlock, and he knew it.
A cold shiver ran down O'Leary's spine as he realized the cold-blooded calculation mixed with sheer opportunism that must have driven Hadley to commit such a heinous act. The fact that he'd escaped from judicial death spoke volumes about his logic and planning skills, as well.
"And that brings him straight into the outstretched arms of the Shardaan," O'Leary concluded dryly.
"Precisely, Commander. I spent four years tracking his ass down to try to bring him to justice, but he's a slippery bastard, and I could never find him in the same place twice, so ..."
She grinned suddenly. "So I started turning the heat up on him. I started passing off things other Shardaan crews had done and gave the credit to him. I figured if I couldn't catch him, at least I could watch the bastard squirm from getting it from multiple vectors."
O'Leary dropped his jaw and impaled Lira with incredulous eyes.
"You mean to tell me you've been falsifying reports just to stick it to one person?"
"I didn't tell you that," she gravely said as she gave him a high-eyebrow look. "As a matter of fact, I was daydreaming just now; I have no idea what you heard."
O'Leary smiled weakly in reply, which made her relax slightly. He wasn't completely unaccustomed to bending the rules somewhat thanks to his time in Admiral Martinson's service, and Lira's admission came endearing to him just now. She smiled slowly at him while she read him.
"Maybe everybody out here isn't batshit crazy." He declared numbly.
"Or maybe we are," Lira replied wryly.
"How so?"
"Well, things work a little differently out here in the Bush than they do in the Core Worlds, Commander."
"The … Bush?" O'Leary asked blankly, and Lira swept the air with her hand.
"It's what they call this backwater area of the sticks of space. Stay with me, Commander."
"Aye, I'm with you," he said, still blankly -- but, he nodded for her to proceed, and she nodded back.
"So yeah. Out here, where they measure Euclidean distance by weeks, rather than length. It's kind of a wild territory. There's plenty of opportunity to be had out here, both legitimate and illegal. You've got new worlds being populated left and right for expansion, mining, farming ... as outposts for more far-reaching scientific expeditions ... as way-stops along trade routes, and as preludes to be annexed by the Commonwealth. I learned quickly that for each and every one of these worlds that appeared, there was bound to be some idiot who thought they could get ahead without trying. As far away as we are now, it's often up to independent systems to defend their own territories."
"That's true," he nodded. "The further away you get from the center of government, the more corruption there is."
"Exactly! Now one thing I've learned out here ... the Shardaan," Lira continued, "they don't just survive -- they thrive out here, Commander. Out here, where no one ship can even attempt to police the area with any sort of success. One ship is simply incapable of that, heavy cruiser or not. So just how the hell do they do it?"
They stared at each other for a moment -- perhaps it was meant for Lira to make sure her speech was sinking in. Something Irish bubbled up inside O'Leary's head, however, and he shrugged helplessly at her.
"I clearly have all the answers, ma'am," He blurted darkly.
"Ahh, the genius reveals himself under all that ennui!" she giggled.
He smiled weakly at her, and she smiled back.
"May I … ask what the Captain found out about her time trying to do the impossible?"
"You certainly may," she half-chuckled. "As most other things in the Bush, doing my job required unconventional methods."
"Unconventional methods," O'Leary parroted, and she nodded.
"After six months I put away, or put down several raider ships, and even captured a light cruiser belonging to the Shardaan ... but I hadn't made any noticeable dent in the illegal activities taking place along my patrol route. I wasn't about to bomb my first patrol or come back with lame excuses, so ... as my father is a policeman, I borrowed a few pages from his book. I started paying attention to the local politics. I started to use my head, and all of the tools that were given to me."
"Okay, I can accept that," O'Leary said softly.
"Good," Lira nodded, and her expression turned grave just now. He picked up on this, and cocked his head inquisitively.
"Surviving out here doesn't mean you have the biggest guns or the biggest ship," She continued. "You have to use your head and your senses out here. It's okay to make mistakes, but you have to be able and willing to learn from them. You have to be able to read people. Otherwise for their own safety, they're going to pull the wool over your eyes every time."
"How did you do it for so long?"
"Well, I learned early on which systems were sympathetic to one side or another, and I also kept track of which ships I encountered repeatedly. Most were everyday freighters and transport ships; they were quite happy to travel with an escort for a time. I took the opportunities to get to know the captains of those ships. I developed a trust with many of them, friendships with a few, and learned who to take seriously, and who were only trying to blow smoke and kiss up to the Navy."
"I see."
"It boils down to this, Commander. The Shardaan aren't what the Navy briefed me about. They're not really a terrorist organization or a mafia hell-bent on bringing the Commonwealth crashing down to its knees and damn who they have to kill to get their way. Out here, they often serve as the police force that we can't be. I've seen it happen myself. They do a fair job of keeping the raiders in check. They also do their best to make sure that star systems in dire need of help actually get that help."
"At the expense of other systems?"
"Sometimes," Lira nodded slowly. "But rarely to the point of endangering them from what I've seen."
They both sat in silence for a moment, and O'Leary began to look uncomfortable.
"What's wrong?" Lira asked.
"Ahh, it's just ..." O'Leary shrugged. "I don't know how we're going to do this."
"Do what?"
"This," He gestured to the room. "Find this guy and get revenge for what's happened. He hasn't done this just to my ship; he also murdered another ship right in front of me."
"You're forgetting this is a heavy cruiser," She murmured gently. "And I know my way around."
"To what end?" O'Leary asked apprehensively. "I realize this ship's got a hell of a punch, but what if we run into something we can't handle?"
"You sound like an Introduction to Tactics student," she smiled.
"I realize that," He growled irritably. "I'm just ... at a bit of a loss here, that's all."
Lira cast her eyes levelly at him, and she frowned contemplatively.
"I would expect someone who's gone through what you have, to feel the same way."
O'Leary looked up at Lira somberly.
"You lost a ship, Commander. You also lost people under your authority. However, you also saved the majority of your crew in a damn-near impossible situation. I think you should reflect upon that."
She spoke neutrally, and O'Leary winced at her non-judgmental, matter-of-fact tone. He shook his head stiffly.
"It was my stupidity that brought us to this."
"No!" Lira intoned. "It was your abilities and leadership that made the best out of a horrible situation."
"I ordered an attack; I should've withdrawn," he said indignantly. "My orders specifically forbade me to engage anything more powerful than me. I lost me temper."
"So?"
"So?!" He sputtered. "Going up against two cruisers, crippling my ship, crashing my ship into a bloody planet, and killing twenty-one of my people doesn't constitute disregard for me orders?" O'Leary growled bitterly.
"Do you honestly think nobody in the history of the universe has ever lost their temper or good judgement? You're human, Commander," Lira spoke flatly, and he winced at first before relaxing his self-condemning expression somewhat.
"There are other factors at work here; many of which we never get to see for ourselves," she continued softly. "Everybody makes mistakes. Nobody ever gets it right all the time. And those mistakes, no matter how severe? Many actually live to learn from them. You did. So did most of your people."
O'Leary stared into space for several seconds and sighed.
"How can you say things like that?"
"Like what?"
"I mean, how can you be so nonchalant about making mistakes? Especially ones that cost the lives of people working for you? People who put their trust --"
"Didn't anything they taught you in O.C.S. sink in?" she sighed impatiently. "An officer in a command role must be detached from the possibility or probability of death. Otherwise, there is no functionality, especially in combat. I realize you're Irish, but if you don't learn this, you're going to drive yourself insane."
O'Leary nodded stiffly.
"So you simply have to acknowledge that you've lost people. They knew the risks and they knew what they were signing up for. They did the absolute best they could, and they followed your lead instead of chickening out or freezing up. The honor is theirs for doing their duties to the best of their abilities, and the honor is yours for pulling the rest of your people and yourself out of certain death. You should make the best of it," She ground her words in.
O'Leary nodded severely at that, and she smiled thinly at him.
"There. Am I done blowing sunshine up your ass now?"
"Yes."
"Good. Now let's get to the details of what I'm thinking here. First off ... your Commander Briggs has already made himself useful."
"Really?"
"Yes. He's been working with Jin and Heike, and he's offered his help to get our charlie check done while we're out and about. We'll need to be offline for a few days for it to get done, but I don't see that being a problem."
"Good," he said softly.
"We're also working on sorting all of the supplies Anaconda had," Lira continued. "Since we have that, we won't have to stop anywhere for a while to pick up supplies. We're going to need to work to train your people to work with Bastille's systems."
"I can get Marish working on that while we're doing what we're doing," O'Leary offered. "We're probably all going to be busy doing CBT's for a while."
"That would be good. Once we're done with all of that, we can go hunting."
The room fell silent as Lira and O'Leary stared inquisitively at each other. The spell was short lived, Lira noted with disgust, as her communicator beeped.
"Captain, go ahead," She said.
"Captain, we're picking up a gate transit. Better get up here," The voice on the other end declared grimly.
***
CNS Bastille, Bridge.
Captain Lira Méline strode briskly through the double-doors leading to the bridge, with Commander O'Leary at her heels.
"Joe, what's happening?" She barked as she crossed over to her seat.
"Gate transit concluded," Lieutenant (S/G) Joseph Edwards replied from the Tactical station. "We're getting real-time surveillance of the entire system thanks to the sensor net our 'friends' clued us into. They're a pair of two-gee light cruisers."
"Shit. Hamish, get us out of here, now," Lira snapped.
"Aye, Captain. I can have us moving in ten minutes."
"Wait." Commander O'Leary's voice snapped into the bridge, and heads whipped around to regard him.
"Excuse me?" Lira snapped.
"Who the hell is this guy?" Edwards growled.
"We picked him up, remember?" Someone blurted.
"Oh. What is he --"
"Those two cruisers," O'Leary interrupted, "are here because of me. I lit off that fleet beacon just before Anaconda crashed, remember?"
"You're sure they're not Shardaan?" Edwards demanded.
"Mr. Edwards," O'Leary said serenely, "ignoring my beacon entirely, when's the last time the Shardaan actually came to you?"
Edwards snapped his mouth shut and glanced at Lira.
"O'Leary is right," she said.
"We have another problem," O'Leary said. "The Shardaan might still be somewhere nearby and able to listen. If they know Anaconda survived and repatriated to Bastille, they won't let us come within a parsec of them."
O'Leary closed his eyes in concentration while Bastille's bridge crew stared at him impatiently. He opened his eyes, and crossed over to Lira's command chair.
"Do you … happen to have a solution, then?" Edwards growled.
"Yes, I have a solution," He replied abruptly, "but I need access to everything."
"Everything?" Lira parroted.
"Everything!" O'Leary replied tersely.
"Why?"
"I excelled at the communications and infosec track before I went executive. Watch this," O'Leary said as he helped himself unceremoniously into Lira's command chair and immediately went to work. His fingers worked furiously over the keypads, and Lira noticed, looking over O'Leary's shoulder, that he was very well and gone into the ship's executive-level systems.
"What are you doing?" She hissed.
O'Leary ignored her punctiliously as he continued his work, and after several seconds of typing, his keystrokes ended with an energetic snap. He turned his eyes to the communications station.
"Mr. Jones," He prompted, reading the Lieutenant's nameplate. After a moment of silence, he sighed.
"Captain Méline, if this is going to work, I'm going to need everybody to just reply to me instead of looking at you first. It's still your ship, still your people, and still your command. I know you people don't know me from a used air-car salesman, but I do know what I'm doing. Can we have that, ma'am?"
"Let's go with Mr. O'Leary's plan, whatever it is," Lira nodded.
"Thank you! Mr. Jones?"
"Yes, sir?" Lieutenant Christopher Jones replied tensely.
"I have just reconfigured Bastille's internal transceiver to mimic another hull number. Please verify that the changes are in effect."
Jones looked at Lira, who gave him a choppy nod. He turned to his console.
"Affirmative, sir. We are now broadcasting as Charlie Alpha Two Six Eight Seven Six."
"Excellent," O'Leary replied dryly. "How much time until we're within reliable sensor range?"
"Twenty minutes, Mr. O'Leary," Commander Liu replied.
"Alright, then. Mr. Jones, I'll need a medium-focus on this station in twenty minutes."
"Yes, sir."
"Oh, and ..." O'Leary paused as he grabbed for a thought. "Captain Méline ... I'm going to need to borrow your rank insignia."
***
"Attention incoming contacts, this is Commonwealth Heavy Cruiser Charlie Alpha Two Six Eight Seven Six transmitting on Guard."
'Captain' O'Leary spoke this evenly into his com pickup, and a moment later, a video feed flickered to life on a display to his left. It showed the form of a Commonwealth Commander; concerned, but resolute.
"Heavy Cruiser Eight Seven Six, this is Task Force Seven Four Two; good day."
O'Leary nodded respectfully.
"Task Force Seven Four Two, are you inbound to respond to the fleet beacon?"
The Commander on the other end nodded.
"That's affirmative, Eight Seven Six. I see you're already orbiting a planet here, sir."
O'Leary smiled gravely. "There's been an engagement here, Commander ..."
"Oh. Sorry. Commander Ian Stills, sir. CNS Falcon. Verify ... did you say there was an engagement here?"
"That's correct, Commander. We've already been planet-side; I just came back up myself not that long ago. We found what was left of a light cruiser that crashed onto the planet. You're welcome to look, but we're moving on."
Stills bowed his head and pursed his lips.
"You mean to go after them then, sir?"
"That's correct, Commander." O'Leary repeated. "The Shardaan caused this incident; I was able to pull their data so I know how it all went down. It wasn't good. They were two to one against a pair of light cruisers, and the lower orbital plane of this planet is pretty well irradiated. It seems that the crew down there were throwing nukes. If they went that route, instead of using conventional warheads ..." O'Leary let his voice trail momentarily, and Stills nodded in morbid understanding. "If you see them, I advise you to clear out and call in a larger task force. Don't waste yourselves on them."
"Jesus. If they were taken down by a pair of light cruisers ..."
O'Leary nodded.
"Commander, as I said, you're welcome to come down here and take a look. I was about to head over to the gate here and send off a dispatch containing my findings; it'd be convenient if you could run that dispatch for me. We'll take care of returning those whose day is done, ourselves."
"We can handle that dispatch for you, sir," Stills nodded gravely.
"Excellent. I'll have my exec send the files to you in a moment. Good luck to you, Commander. Eight Seven Six clear."
"And good luck to you too, sir. Task Force Seven Four Two clear."
O'Leary breathed a sigh of relief as the transmission cleared, and he noticed the same sigh echoed through the other bridge occupants.
"I'd say that was a successful broadcast," he announced proudly.
Someone cleared their throat behind O'Leary, and he turned his head. Lira crossed over to her chair and shook her head at him; she had a strange smile on her face and he smiled back as widely as he dared.
"Commander ..." She said carefully. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but did you just declare yourself dead?"
"Maybe," he shrugged. "Maybe not. Social engineering's a bitch, isn't it?"
There was an uncomfortable chuckle that rippled through the bridge, and Lira and O'Leary nodded to each other.
"Now ... I suggest we give them their report, and get the hell out of here. I'm going to find quarters and get some sleep."
A polite cough stalled his feet before he took two steps. He turned around to see Lira smiling gently at him. She held out a hand.
"Yes?" O'Leary asked blankly.
"Captain," she intoned, "out here in the Bush, we still have standards."
O'Leary paused in fatigued confusion. Then,
"Oh, right!" He crowed as he understood. He unclipped Lira's rank pins from his shoulder plates and handed them over.
***