Up on the bridge, I was sure they were discussing something really exciting, such as how to hunt down the Maquis ship, but in engineering things were pretty typical.
When it involves antimatter, you want things to be typical with absolutely zero surprises.
So having put out the thankfully metaphorical fires of the morning, I was now laying on the floor of the upper level in engineering to keep out from everybody's feet while I was reading through the logs of beta and gamma shift.
Nothing had been highlighted for the shift hand off, but it was still good to get an overview.
One thing did draw my eye though. One of the plasma relays had apparently started to show borderline in sickbay of all places. Well, not surprising really. Brand new ship, there's bound to be manufacturing flaws. Even the Federation's manufacturing techniques were not perfect.
Considering it, it likely wasn't critical, but we should replace it. It would mean bringing everything in sickbay offline however as changing it meant removing most of a wall and while I hardly expected a single small Maquis ship to cause anybody to get wounded even if we did manage to find it, bringing the entire sickbay offline during a mission was just a bad idea.
I marked it for replacement as soon as we got back to the station. That'd mean we have a second sickbay in easy access in case of a medical emergency.
Even if the Maquis didn't cause it, somebody could hit their head or something.
When we get back would have to be soon eno-
The flights flared to red and an alarm sounded through the ship, "Red alert! All crew to stations! All crew to stations!"
I surged to my paws, dismissing the report in my HUD, "Carey, report!"
"Bringing it up now, sir," he shouted back from the lower level, "It seems like we're being scanned by a tetryon beam. We- oh shit!"
"All hands, brace for impact!" the voice of Captain Grey rang through every speaker of the ship.
I wrapped the claws on one paw around the railing, digging the rest into the deckplate, "BRACE!" I commanded, "BRACE! BRA-"
"-ir!"
Slowly my little hamster started to run, cobwebs and rust being slowly shaken off the gears as the little thing struggled to get the wheel turning.
I slowly blinked my eyes open, trying to get them to focus on whomever was bothering me, "...Hunt," I said as I focused on the crewman.
She smiled grimly, "Are you alright, sir?" she asked, "You had a pretty awful tumble."
She had blood on the side of her face. The air smelled of smoke, hot metal and blood.
Am I alright?
What the fuck happened? I tried to get a feel for my body as I slowly and carefully rolled onto my stomach. There was a sound of ripping metal behind me and I glanced at it. Apparently one of my horns had pierced a console and I had accidentally ripped it free.
Red alert. Brace.
I glanced up. Oh. I was on the lower level now. Welp, that explains why I hurt.
"...report," I said and carefully shifted each limb. Nothing seems to be outright broken. The wing I had been laying on was hard to move, but it didn't feel broken, likely just tweaked it by landing on it.
Hunt looked up at me, brushing her short hair back, "Davies' dead. So's Berger. We can't reach the bridge and nobody from sickbay is answering."
Fuck.
I nodded firmly once, instantly regretting it as it made it feel like my brain was bouncing around inside my head, "Alright," I said and then raised my head, looking around at everybody, "All stations, report!"
"Sir, we're having a problem here!" Carey yelled from the console by the warp core, "Diagnostics shows a microfracture in the warp core!"
Suddenly I forgot all about my aches and pains and bounded onto my paws, moving over to him while bringing the information onto my visor hud, "Shit, pressure is spiking."
"Eject!?"
"No, lock down the magnetic constrictors, that'll buy us time," I said, "Hunt, get down there with a micro welder!"
"On it," she answered and pulled out a tool pack.
"Sir, if we lock down the magnetic constrictors at this pressure, we may not be able to reinitiate the dilithium alignment," Carey protested.
I growled, "Yes, and if we don't, I'm sure our free floating electrons will be very happy not to have to deal with the issue. Lock it down, we deal with potential problems after the definite ones."
He nodded and got to work.
I looked around, one eye on the readings as I moved over to a console, unlocking the warp core ejection just in case.
I tapped my comm, "Zephyr to sickbay, multiple medical emergencies."
Nothing, comms were still down.
Well, they should soon be up. Everybody not on duty during a red alert or emergency is on the damage control team. Comms were a priority system.
"Bridge to engineering."
There we go.
I tapped my com, "Zephyr here," I answered.
"Zephyr, this is Janeway. The Captain and first officer are dead, I'm taking command of the ship," she said grimly, "Report."
Captain Grey. Commander Cavit.
I pushed that thought to the side, we had more important issues, "We're having a mild warp core breach, we're dealing with it. We have casualties."
"Sickbay is not responding, I have sent a runner."
"Acknowledged, Zephyr out."
"Got it!" Hunt announced and hauled herself out of the well.
I nodded and turned my head in their direction, "Release the constrictors, watch that core pressure!"
"Releasing... now," Carey reported, "Reaction stable... pressure... twenty three thousand kilopascals. Holding steady."
"Alright," I said, "Now, injured, report in!"
I got half a dozen answers. Cuts, burns, a pair of broken arms.
"If you can work, you stay. If you can't hold a tool, get your tails to sickbay," I commanded, "Now, triage and damage control. We haven't blown up yet, so I want a full diagnostic of each system in order of criticality. Carey, I need you to-"
As I watched, he shimmered away in a green mist. As I watched, everybody else disappeared.
What the fu-
"Computer, end program!" I commanded. Nothing happened.
"Computer, arch!"
Nothing happened. Not a holodeck.
"...Well, fuck," I said to the empty room.