Broken Bottles

Posted on Sun Sep 28th, 2025 @ 8:05am by Lieutenant Commander Keishara Davaris & Lieutenant JG Sam Matthews

1,745 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Year One: Strange Bedfellows
Location: The DMZ, USS Moore
Timeline: MD 039 - 2200 Hours

The DMZ was alive the way only a starship’s heart could be after a long shift: music low but steady, a scatter of conversations layered over the clink of glasses and the hum of the replicators. Tables were crowded with off-duty crew trading stories, nurses still in scrubs nursing mugs of tea, a cluster of engineers arguing cheerfully over a hand of cards. Laughter rose in bursts, fell into the general noise again. For a moment, it almost felt like shore leave.

Keishara leaned against the far bulkhead with a glass of water she hadn’t touched, letting the room play out around her. This was the space where her people decompressed, where edges dulled and tension bled off. Tonight, though, there was a sour note under the sound—a deeper, harsher timbre that cut through the warmth.

She didn’t have to look to know it was the Orions. Five of them, sprawled near the centre of the lounge like they owned it, voices pitched just loud enough to carry. The words slurred through drink but clear enough: crude remarks about the legs of a passing ensign, suggestions that weren’t suggestions, laughter edged with threat.

At first, the younger officers at the table opposite tried to ignore it. Kei heard the tightness in their replies—forced politeness, clipped “no thank yous.” Then one of the Orion males leaned closer, his words too sharp to miss.

“Come on, pretty thing. Bet you’ve never had a real man between your sheets. Your captain won’t mind sharing, eh?”

The women recoiled, one of them gathering her glass as if it were a shield. “Leave us alone,” she said, voice low but firm.

That only set the pack laughing harder. Another Orion chimed in, voice dripping with mockery. “She says no, boys. Which means yes, if you ask properly.” His hand slid across the table, fingers brushing too close to the ensign’s arm.

The junior officer slapped it away. “I said no. Back off.”

A chorus of jeers followed, one of them muttering something about “Federation ice-queens” and what it would take to melt them.

Kei felt the anger coil hot and sharp in her chest. She straightened slowly, setting the untouched glass on the nearest table. It wasn’t the volume of their voices or the vulgarity of their words—it was the look she saw on her crew’s faces. Tight shoulders. Eyes flicking toward exits. That mix of fear and shame that came when predators laughed in public.

That was enough.

She started across the lounge, steps measured, eyes fixed on the Orions’ table.

As Keishara closed the distance, the tone of the room shifted. Conversations around the Orion table thinned into uneasy silence, punctuated by mutters just loud enough to carry.

“Why are they even here?” a junior ops officer hissed to his tablemate.
“Bloody parasites,” another added, his voice low but bitter.
“They don’t belong in our lounge,” came from the card table, cards snapping a little too hard against the surface.
“Someone tell them to get out before this gets ugly,” a nurse muttered, clutching her glass tighter.

The Orions heard it all. They smirked, revelled in it. One raised his glass in mock salute. “Hear that, boys? They love us.” He leered toward the nearest group of ensigns, voice booming now. “And we’ve barely even started.”

The jeers sparked another round of laughter, the sound cutting jagged through the DMZ’s usual warmth. A glass tipped over in the background, shattering, and the room collectively flinched.

Kei stopped at the edge of their table, the noise ebbing into a taut hush. Her presence alone steadied some of the younger crew, though their eyes still tracked the green-skinned men with open dislike.

She planted her hands on the edge of the table, her voice even and unhurried. “That’s enough. Drinks are done. You’ll finish what’s in front of you and then you’ll leave.”

One of the Orions leaned back in his chair, grin wide and teeth bared. “Look at this, boys. The Federation’s finest babysitter. You going to tuck us in, Commander?”

More laughter followed, louder, meaner, feeding off each other.

Kei didn’t blink. “You’ve been told. Take the out while you still can.”

One of the Orions reached out as if to pat Keishara’s shoulder—an attempt to be jocular that read like a claim. The hand slid past touch and tried the face instead, more brazen than the rest, fingers angling for a cheek with a grin that didn’t reach his eyes.

Kei’s body moved before she thought. She caught the wrist in a quick two-handed grip, twisted the elbow into a hard forearm lock and stepped through, using his momentum to send him face-first onto the table. It wasn’t theatrical; it was efficient and final — a pin that folded him over the lacquered surface, one knee settling on his shoulder to stop struggle, her forearm across the back of his neck to control the head. The table creaked. Glass rattled. The lounge went very, very quiet.

For a second the pack looked as if they might laugh it off, but the grin on their leader snapped into something colder. “You embarrassed my friend,” he said, tone flat. He spat on the deck and reached for the broken bottle at his side.

The bottle smashed like a Geiger counter, jagged glass bared. In a heartbeat the jeer dissolved into the threat: one of them – the one she’d pinned – was hauled up by his collar, blood and beer matting his hair, and shoved into the centre of the room. “Let him go,” the leader barked, “or we burn this place down with him in it.”

Hands grabbed at tables. Chairs scraped. A junior engineer pushed forward, jaw tight, and a nurse stepped between the bar and the Orions, eyes wide, hands raised to show she had none of it. Someone yelled for them to get out; a chorus of voices rose—some pleading, some ready to answer with fists.

Kei kept her forearm heavy across the Orion’s neck, her voice low and hard. “Put it down. Now. Nobody else needs to get hurt.” Her words were measured for distance, not performance. She could feel the tremor under the table — fear, yes, but also the kind of anger that sharped into action.

That was the moment their mood turned. Where they’d been leering predators they became something worse: cornered animals with knives. A bottle smashed against the bar, then another. One of the Orions swung the broken neck at a nearby crewman and caught him across the shoulder; the sound of flesh on glass was ugly and immediate. Blood flecked the holoslate on the table.

Kei’s hand found the emergency channel on her comm and she didn’t bother to whisper. “Davaris to Security — DMZ lounge. Hostiles escalating. Armed with improvised weapons. Bring backup. Now.”

There was a hard intake of breath and then Sam’s voice, steady as it had ever been: “Copy, commander, en route with two squads.”

She tightened her hold for a heartbeat, felt the Orion’s pulse stutter under her forearm, then released him enough to shove him back to the floor and stand. Her palms were blood-slick from someone else’s cut; her lip had split where a wild hand had nicked her. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and raised her free hand, palms open, the universal sign she didn’t want more blood.

“Back off,” she ordered, not yelling so much as making the order itself a weapon. A few of the junior crew hesitated, then stepped in close to her — not to fight, but to make it harder for the Orions to use space as a weapon.

The Orions surged. Two lunged for the bar, smashing bottles into shards to brandish; another tried to rush the entrance. The first fist came at Kei, grazing her cheek and knocking her to one knee. She used the drop to sweep a leg, taking one Orion down hard and rolling through to cover his wrist with her boot. Around her, the fight became a tangle of elbows and curses, blood and the wet thump of bodies on deck.

The sound of boots hit the deck like a new instrument. Sam and his team hit the room in a wedge, phasers up, voices cutting through the chaos. “Security! Stand down! Now!” The wedge closed fast; two Orions tried to bolt for the airlock but Sam cut them off with a shoulder, bringing one down with a solid tackle. A field cuff clicked onto the leader’s wrist; another snapped across a throat.

Takedowns followed in quick, brutal choreography: arm bars, leg hooks, restraint fields. The improvised weapons were disarmed, bottles clattered to the deck, and the last of the Orions went face-first into the holo-mat under the weight of Sam’s cuff.

When the dust settled the DMZ looked like a caught storm — overturned chairs, shards of glass, a smear of blood across the deck by the bar. Five Orions lay cuffed and breathing heavy; a handful of crew had split lips, bruised ribs and one swollen eye. Kei stood with her palm pressed to the cut at her lip, eyes steeled and tired.

She looked at Sam. “Get them to holding. Medical triage on the injured. I want statements taken—now. And lock down the external comms. We don’t let this get spun.” Her voice was flat with work; the adrenaline had not yet left the edges.

Sam nodded once, words clipped: “On it. Good work boss.”

Kei let herself exhale, a long, quiet thing. Around her murmurs began: thanks, curses, questions. She didn’t search for praise. She’d done what needed doing. She’d kept people safe.

As the last Orion was dragged out, Keishara took in the room—the overturned chairs, the blood on the deck, the crew still catching their breath. This was supposed to be the one place aboard where people could drop their guard, if only for an hour. Tonight, the Orions had tried to take even that.

She straightened, wiped the last of the blood from her mouth, and forced the tension from her shoulders. Order restored, lesson delivered. The DMZ would be theirs again by morning.

For now, it was enough.

 

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