No Clean Shot

Posted on Mon Jul 27th, 2026 @ 1:20pm by Commander Calvin 'Cal' Maraj & Lieutenant Commander Keishara Davaris & Lieutenant Sherev th’Zal & Commander Steven Greco & Lieutenant Evelyn Stewart & Lieutenant Dashku Zhevou & 1st Lieutenant Kes Th’relnal
Edited on on Mon Jul 27th, 2026 @ 1:21pm

5,477 words; about a 27 minute read

Mission: Year One: The Point of No Return
Location: Bridge, USS Moore
Timeline: MD 012: 1010hrs

The ready room doors opened onto yellow light.

Cal stepped onto the bridge first, the alert tone gone now but its colour still sitting across the consoles and bulkheads. The room had shifted into that particular kind of quiet Starfleet did well: voices lower, hands faster, everyone pretending they were not waiting for the next bad thing to introduce itself.

He did not look back at Stewart for long.

Just enough.

A small nod toward the helm.

No conversation. No unfinished ready room bleeding onto the bridge.

Not now.

Cal crossed toward the centre of the bridge, eyes already finding Greco. Whatever had been sitting in his chest a moment ago folded itself away. It did not disappear. It simply lost the right to steer.

“Report.”

The word came clean, clipped without being cold.

He stopped beside Greco rather than dropping into the chair, one hand resting lightly against the rail. Yellow alert did not get called because somebody had a funny feeling and a bad cup of coffee.

“What have we got, Steve?”

Greco walked across the bridge to meet Maraj. He barely spared half a glance at Stewart before answering, instead moving his hands behind his back to control the tension he felt in his body. "We received a distress call from a non-Federation freighter, the Redhaven, claiming to be under attack by a Starfleet vessel."

Greco nodded at Dashku at Ops. The channel opened.

This is Captain Voss of the Redhaven. We are under attack. I repeat, we are under attack by a Starfleet vessel. Any Starfleet vessels in range please respond.

The fear was there. The urgency. And underneath both, something that sounded like a man who genuinely did not understand what he had done wrong.

Greco looked at Cal.

Keishara was already at Tactical when the ready room doors opened.

She glanced up once, just long enough to register Cal’s return and Stewart at the helm, then her attention went back to the console. Whatever had followed them out of the ready room did not belong on the bridge. Yellow alert had a way of making everyone honest about priorities.

Her display carried the same distress traffic Greco had flagged, the words ugly even before the details had teeth.

Under attack by a Starfleet vessel.

Kei’s fingers moved across the panel, tightening the tactical picture without making a show of it.

“Shields are raised,” she said, calm and low. “Weapons remain cold pending identification. I’m pulling local traffic records and Starfleet transponder activity now.”

She looked briefly toward Cal and Greco.

“If that call is accurate, we’re already late to something bad.”

Sherev kept one hand near the science console, fingertips resting against the haptic feed as the bridge settled into yellow-alert stillness.

The distress call sat wrong in the air.

He did not let himself react to the shape of it. Not yet. He widened the astrometric picture instead, pulling in local traffic, subspace wake, transponder scatter, anything that might separate truth from camouflage.

Around him, the bridge listened to Greco’s report.

Sherev stayed with the map.

Stars did not care whose insignia a ship wore. They only kept the trail.

Stewart caught Cal's nod and quietly moved to helm, relieving the ensign on duty. She slid into the chair without a word.

Cal stayed still for a second after the recording cut out.

A freighter calling for help from Starfleet because Starfleet was shooting at it.

Well now.

That was a special kind of morning.

He moved toward the command chair but didn’t sit, one hand settling lightly on the rail as his eyes stayed forward.

“How far out?”

The question came quick, plain, already moving.

“And I want that Starfleet vessel named. Registry, commanding officer, last filed orders, anything we can pull.”

His gaze shifted toward Tactical.

“Kei, keep us non-threatening but prepared. Weapons cold, options ready.”

Then Ops.

“Dash, find me the why. Inspection refusal, cargo flag, bad paperwork, somebody reading today’s standing orders like scripture. Whatever started this, I want it before we arrive if we can get it.”

His jaw tightened once, the annoyance there and gone again.

“Steve, match this against the latest version of the orders. Not yesterday’s, not the one Command pretended they didn’t send, the latest. If another captain out there is acting on those orders, I want to know before we arrive.”

Only then did he sit, shoulders settling into the chair without his eyes leaving the viewer.

“Stewart, lay in an intercept. Best speed. Clean approach.”

A beat.

“And don’t put us in a position where either ship thinks we’re here to start something.”

He leaned back a fraction, voice low now.

“Let’s go see what Starfleet has managed to do to itself.”

Dashku furrowed her brow as she looked up from her console, the message from the Redhaven wasn't what she had been expecting. They were under attack from a Federation vessel, no they said a Starfleet vessel. She replayed it in her mind at least once, before she started tapping the console. She was sure Davaris was already scanning, but it was her job to confirm. Second set of eyes to help eliminate mistakes and if that message had any truth to it, they couldn't afford a mistake here.

Did the Redhaven fire first and was now calling for assistance because they got more than they'd bargained for? Was it an older class of Starfleet vessel that had been repurposed and given new life as a policing ship for a local system, or as a cargo ship that had kept a few more of the weapons than they should have? The possibilities where endless, but she didn't want to speculate. They all had the same questions. They needed hard facts and for the moment she had none to give.

Stewart simply nodded at the orders, already tapping the controls as she brought the ship about and laid in the course. She said nothing.

Minutes later, Greco stepped away from his console and crossed the bridge toward the command chair.

"Orders confirmed. No official changes since 1500 hours yesterday. All non-Federation vessels are expected to remain on designated flight paths through Federation space. Those that don't are subject to inspection—or impoundment."

Greco met Maraj's eyes briefly.

Then he turned toward Ops. "Lieutenant, report."

Facts, he was asking for facts no her speculation, she reminded herself as she watched the information tick across her console. A couple more taps before she looked up, the pause was long enough it looked like Greco was about to repeat himself but she was able to speak before he did so.

"The Redhaven is a non-federation Icaire class transport. According to records they registered as a bulk carrier for raw ores and they're flying out of Capella VI. They're lightly armed, a few plasma canons and low level structural integrity fields, but they're no longer on their established flight plan. The Gallant is a steam runner class ship, they've done significant damage and it looks like the Redhaven's warp drive is offline," Dashku paused for a moment before she continued. The situation was looking worse and worse, although the faintest hint of a smirk crossed her lips. "They're using an old smuggler's technique to prevent a tractor beam lock, they're using their impulse engines to alter the local subspace field around their ship. It slows them down, but it means the Gallant can't lock on."

Kes' antenna perked up and he looked back. "Steamrunner? I served on the Kensington during the war. We always had problems with the tractor beams drawing power from the shields manifold. The Gallant could have the same issue but not really care about it since no one is shooting back."

"Permission to get my squad ready? If diplomacy fails." Kes held back his thoughts on that 'if'. "A surgical boarding party could take out their weapons and engines without damaging life critical systems."

"You want to board a fellow Starfleet vessel?" Dashku looked back at the marine, before she realized she had spoken out of turn. She tried to hide her wince, but the idea of attacking a Federation vessel made her stomach turn even if that was Kes' job. She swallowed before turning back to the view screen. She decided to not address her outburst and focus on what she could do. "I can hail the Gallant and the Redhaven. Perhaps we can defuse the situation."

Keishara looked across at Kes.

“No boarding party yet.”

Her tone was calm, but there was enough in it to stop the idea becoming a plan without her.

“If we board the Gallant, Security leads. Your people can support us if this turns into an opposed action, but we are not there yet.”

Her fingers moved across the tactical display, pulling the Steamrunner’s shield geometry and weapons arcs into sharper relief.

“And unless they invite us aboard, getting onto that ship means taking down her shields first. Possibly her weapons and engines as well.”

Kei glanced towards the command chair.

“That means firing on a Starfleet vessel before we know whether this is misconduct, bad orders, or something worse.”

Her gaze shifted back to the tactical display.

Greco watched the exchange on the bridge by the officers without moving. "We don't know anything yet. So let's keep this by the books, people." The steel in his voice coming through the even cadence.

Still, he drew a slow breath through his nose, watching the viewscreen, then let it out as his eyes found Kes. "Even still, we could use a hand at auxiliary, Lieutenant." He offered to the marine with a gesture of his head towards the console.

When her console beeped of their arrival, Stewart tapped her console and dropped them out of warp. "We're approaching the coordinates, Commander."

As the Moore came into range, both the civilian freighter and Starfleet vessel seemed to realize the attention they had drawn and slowed to a stop.

The Moore slid to a halt off the flank of the standoff, a spectator's distance, neither ship between her and the other. Ahead, the two vessels sat stalled against the starfield — the warship's silhouette bent toward the freighter, the transport dark and drifting where her warp core had failed. The Moore hung apart from it all and watched, the way you watch something you haven't decided whether to stop.

Cal let the bridge talk itself through the first rush of possibilities.

Boarding parties. Shield geometry. Tractor weaknesses. All useful if the situation went bad, but none of it changed the fact that they had arrived knowing only that one Starfleet ship had damaged a civilian freighter badly enough to knock out its warp drive.

He looked towards Kes at auxiliary.

“Keep your people ready, but nobody leaves this ship until I say so. We’re not boarding one of our own because the first five minutes made us uncomfortable.”

His gaze moved to Keishara, then Greco.

“And nobody fires either. Not unless somebody out there gives us a damn good reason.”

The Moore settled into position, yellow light still washing across the bridge. Cal leaned forward slightly as both vessels filled the viewscreen. The Gallant held position over the damaged freighter, her Steamrunner silhouette unmistakably Starfleet. The Redhaven looked like she had already lost whatever argument had brought them here.

His mouth tightened.

“Right.”

He glanced towards Ops.

“Dash, hail the Gallant.”

A beat, his eyes staying on the other ship.

“Let’s hear how they explain this.”

The channel opened.

Cal straightened in the command chair, voice calm but carrying easily across the bridge.

“USS Gallant, this is Commander Calvin Maraj of the USS Moore. We received a distress call from the Redhaven and we’re reading significant damage to her propulsion systems.”

He let half a second pass.

“Maintain your position, hold your fire, and put your captain on the channel.”

The warmth had gone out of his voice, but not the control.

“I’d like to understand why a civilian freighter is calling Starfleet for protection from Starfleet.”

The channel resolved into a face that had clearly not expected to explain itself, and did not much intend to.
The man on the Gallant's bridge was older than Maraj, silver at the temples, with the settled calm of an officer who had long ago stopped asking himself hard questions. He did not stand. He did not lean toward the pickup. He regarded the viewscreen the way a man regards paperwork that has walked in on legs.

"Commander."

Polite. Procedural. Rank acknowledging rank and finding the arithmetic in his favor.

"Captain Renn, USS Gallant. I'll save us both the time." He didn't wait to be asked. "That vessel is non-Federation, operating well off her filed corridor inside Federation space. She was ordered to heave to for inspection. She refused. She was ordered again. She ran — and she is still running, spoofing her tractor lock to keep from being brought to. Three lawful orders, Commander. Three refusals."

He let the count sit, as though it settled something. In his mind it plainly had.

"A ship that will not stop for inspection is a ship with something to hide. A ship that flees lawful authority inside our borders and actively defeats attempts to detain her is not a compliant vessel having a bad day. She is a hostile one. That isn't my judgement — it's the definition we've been handed."

Before Cal could start to answer, Renn continued.

"And current directives are not ambiguous on hostile vessels in Federation space. They are to be stopped. By any means necessary. Not inspected, not escorted, not negotiated with once they've declared themselves by their own conduct — stopped, before they leave with whatever they've decided is worth running for."

Every step of it fit the one before. That was the thing. He wasn't reaching.

"So I'd ask you to look at what you're actually watching before the Moore decides she has an opinion about it. A foreign ship, off-corridor, non-compliant, fleeing, defeating detainment. Every box the order names. I don't have the luxury of assuming the best about a vessel that has spent the last twenty minutes telling me, in the only language that matters, that she will not be stopped by anything short of force."

He said it without heat. A man walking down a list, finding it complete.

"This is a routine enforcement action under current orders, and it is well in hand."

A beat. Nothing behind it but procedure.

"Now stand aside, Commander, and let us do our job."

Cal let the channel sit for a moment after Renn finished.

The man had made his case cleanly. That was the problem. There was no rant to dismiss, no obvious cruelty to seize on. Just a line of reasoning built from orders, conduct and consequence, each piece fitted neatly into the next.

On the viewscreen, the Redhaven drifted under failing impulse, her warp drive already gone.

Cal leaned forward slightly.

“Captain Renn, I’m not arguing the facts.”

His voice stayed calm, but the bridge had gone quiet enough to hear the steel in it.

“She left her corridor, refused inspection, ignored repeated orders, and interfered with your tractor lock. You had grounds to stop her.”

A beat.

“You have stopped her.”

He let that land.

“She’s lightly armed, her warp drive is disabled, and her impulse systems are failing. At this point, continued fire is not detainment. It is punishment.”

Cal’s eyes stayed on Renn’s image.

“I understand the directive. I also understand what ‘any means necessary’ does not mean. It does not mean we keep shooting after the vessel is no longer capable of escape.”

His jaw tightened once.

“You have control of the situation. Hold your position and hold your fire.”

The words were respectful.

They were not a request.

“We’re both operating under the same orders, Captain. I trust the directive—but in this moment, I’m not convinced your judgement is applying it correctly.”

A pause.

“So no, the Moore will not stand aside while a crippled civilian ship takes another volley.”

Cal sat back by a fraction, his gaze still fixed on Renn.

“I’m going to speak to Captain Voss. I want to know why he left the corridor, why he refused inspection, what he is carrying, and whether he made any attempt to explain himself before this became a firefight.”

His attention shifted toward Ops.

“Dash, hail the Redhaven. Put Captain Voss on screen.”

Then, without looking away from the two ships ahead:

“And keep this channel open. Captain Renn should hear the answers too.”

A flicker crossed the viewscreen as the hail connected.

Cal leaned forward again, eyes locking onto the new image.

“Captain Voss,” he said evenly, “this is Captain Maraj of the Moore.”

A beat.

“Could you explain what’s going on?”

The image that replaced Renn's was a different kind of man entirely.

Voss looked like he had aged a decade in an afternoon — sweat at his hairline, one hand braced on a console that kept lurching under him, the bridge behind him hazed with smoke that hadn't cleared. He was not a soldier. He was a freight captain, and he had the wide, cornered eyes of a man who still did not understand what he had done to deserve this.

"Starfleet — yes, thank God, please —" The words came too fast, tumbling. "Captain, I don't— we weren't running from anyone. We were in the lane. The Capella approach lane, the one we filed, the one we were told to use—"

He wiped his face with the back of a shaking hand.

"Then it changed, and I don't— we're a bulk carrier, we have a pilot and an astrogation table and whatever Command remembers to send us. I was flying the last lane I had confirmation for. I didn't do anything wrong!"

His voice cracked toward something that wasn't quite panic and wasn't quite plea.

"He hailed us and told us to heave to, and I— we were in the lane, Captain, we were doing everything right, so I didn't— it didn't make sense that it was meant for us. I thought it was a mistake."

The words hung there, small and human in the middle of all that machinery.

And then Renn's voice came back over the still-open channel, level and unbothered, as though the freighter captain had not spoken at all.

"Commander…"

A pause. Longer this time. The particular, deliberate patience of a man who had explained himself once and did not intend to do it again — and was letting the silence say so.

"I've been more than accommodating. We have our orders. Stand down."

It was not a suggestion, and he did not phrase it as one. It was the flat, final instruction of a senior officer who had decided the conversation was over — and expected the Moore to remember which of them outranked the other.

Cal’s jaw tightened, but his voice stayed level.

“Captain Renn, look at the ship in front of you. She’s a civilian freighter with no warp drive, failing engines, and barely enough weapons to frighten a customs cutter. Whatever threat she presented twenty minutes ago, she is not one now.”

He leaned forward slightly, eyes fixed on Renn.

“I’m asking you one last time to hold your fire and let us sort this out without anybody else getting hurt. You may outrank me, Captain, but I will not stand down while you keep firing on a ship that cannot run and cannot meaningfully fight back.”

A beat.

“The Moore isn’t going anywhere.”

Something in Renn changed.

He came out of the chair — not a lunge, nothing so undisciplined, but sharp, fast, a man rising because sitting could no longer hold him. He crossed into the pickup, closer now, and the settled calm had something working beneath it.

"I have explained myself to you as a courtesy, Commander. Once. I will not say it again. I have been patient, and you have mistaken that patience for uncertainty."

His jaw set. When he went on, the voice was lower — and harder for it, each word laid down flat and deliberate, the sound of a man holding something on a very short leash.

"I am not uncertain."

A beat. His eyes did not leave Cal's.

"We have our orders."

Cal held Renn’s gaze across the channel.

The man had his orders. So did Cal.

Only one of them still seemed interested in what those orders were meant to protect.

“Stewart,” Cal said, eyes still on the screen, “take us between the Gallant and the Redhaven.”

The bridge tightened around the order.

“Easy on the helm. No sudden moves. Keep our shields facing the Gallant and give the freighter room behind us.”

The order settled over the helm. For a half-second, Stewart's hands stayed where they were.
On the display, the gap between the two ships. The Gallant's arc. The freighter behind it.

Then her hands moved. "....Aye, sir."

Even. Unhurried. The same two words as any course she'd ever laid in.

The stars began to move across the viewscreen.

In the dark between the two ships, the Moore came about.

She turned slow and broad, no flare of thrust, no aggression in the motion — just tons of Starfleet hull swinging its length into the open lane. Her flank came around to face the Gallant, shields ghosting faint across her armor where the warship's weapons were trained, and behind her the crippled freighter fell into shadow, the Moore's body settling between the guns and the ship they were pointed at.

Then she stopped, and held, broadside to the Steamrunner — a wall of hull and name and running lights, offering the Gallant her whole side and daring it to fire through.

Cal watched it happen without sitting back.

“You’ve done enough, Captain Renn.”

His voice stayed level, but there was no courtesy left to mistake for uncertainty.

“The Redhaven is stopped. She is contained. You will hold your fire.”

A beat.

“Any shot you take at that freighter now comes through us.”

Renn’s expression shifted, his mouth already opening.

Cal looked towards Ops.

“Mute the channel.”

The bridge fell silent.

Renn remained on the viewscreen, speaking soundlessly into a room that had stopped listening.

Greco's eyes dropped to his console. "The Gallant's powering weapons." A pause before the breath he was holding escaped his nose as a sigh as he read the readings. "They are locking onto the Redhaven."

Flat. Level. On the display, the Steamrunner's power curve climbed out of standby. Not swinging onto the Moore. Not yet.

He watched it a moment. Then he crossed the bridge. No hurry in it. He'd made the walk to Maraj's chair a hundred times. He made it again now, and came to a stop at Cal's shoulder, close, his voice dropping to something only the man would catch.

"We're doing this?" Quiet. Just for him.

He held Cal's eyes a moment. Then he turned, squared toward the viewscreen, and settled in at his side.

For a long moment, Cal did not answer.

The Moore kept moving.

He watched the distance close on the tactical display, watched his ship place herself between one Starfleet hull and another captain’s certainty. He could feel the weight of the chair behind him without touching it.

His father had spent half Cal’s childhood teaching him that orders mattered.

He had been right.

But Stanley Maraj had never taught his sons to hide behind one.

Cal drew in a slow breath, then looked at Greco.

“Yeah, Steve.”

His voice was quieter than before.

“We are.”

He rose from the command chair.

Not quickly. Not for effect. He simply could not stay seated for what came next.

Cal stepped into the centre of the bridge and looked around at the officers gathered there, people he had asked to trust him with their lives, their careers and the ship beneath their feet.

“That freighter broke regulations. Maybe more than regulations. She left her route, refused inspection and ran from a Starfleet vessel. We are going to find out why. If she is carrying heavy ore, we secure it and verify its origin. If her captain broke the law, we arrest him. If the ship needs impounded, then we impound her.”

His gaze shifted briefly towards the damaged vessel behind them.

“But we do not beat a civilian crew half to death first and sort out the paperwork afterwards.”

The anger came back then.

Not wild.

Hot, clean and impossible to miss.

“The Redhaven is already crippled. She cannot run. She cannot fight us. Captain Renn knows that, and he is still prepared to fire because somebody handed him a directive broad enough to cover whatever he feels like doing.”

Cal shook his head once.

“No.”

The word carried across the bridge.

“No, man. That is not what this uniform is for.”

His eyes moved across the stations.

“I have spent my whole career believing Starfleet means something. Not because the orders are always right. Not because the people giving them are always wise. Because when we have the power to hurt somebody, we are supposed to have the discipline not to use more of it than we need.”

His voice rose, passion breaking fully through now.

“We are supposed to be better than the people who think strength settles the question. Better than the ones who look at a frightened civilian ship and see an excuse to prove who is in charge.”

He turned slightly towards the viewscreen, Renn’s silent face still there.

“I will not move aside and help that man finish a beating.”

The bridge seemed smaller now, every console and every breath drawn into the same moment.

“I know what this may cost. Renn outranks me. The orders are on his side, at least on paper. Command may strip these pips off me before the day is out.”

Cal’s jaw tightened.

“They can come and take them.”

The words landed without hesitation.

“But they will not say Calvin Maraj stood on this bridge, saw something wrong and moved his ship out of the way because doing the right thing had become inconvenient.”

He let that sit.

His gaze held on the Starfleet ship ahead.

“And if Captain Renn forces us to choose between his orders and the lives behind us, I choose the lives.”

A breath passed through the bridge.

“That may mean firing on another Starfleet vessel.”

He turned back to his crew.

“I will not pretend that is a small thing. It is not. Once we cross that line, there is no clever explanation that makes it disappear.”

Cal’s voice softened, though none of the conviction left it.

“This is my decision. The responsibility is mine, and I will carry every piece of what comes after.”

His eyes moved from one face to the next.

“But I will not order any of you across that line without giving you the chance to speak.”

A pause.

“If you object, say it now. If you cannot follow the order, step away from your station. There will be no shame in it. No mark against you. No quiet punishment later.”

He stood straight in the centre of the bridge, the yellow alert light catching across the four pips at his collar.

“I mean that.”

Another silence.

“But understand me.”

Cal looked back towards the Gallant.

“We are not turning our backs on Starfleet today.”

His voice dropped, rough and certain.

“We are standing here to remind one of our own what Starfleet is supposed to be.”

Dashku took a deep breath, she heard what was said back and forth between the three captains and understood the implication of Maraj's orders. The idea of two Starfleet ships coming to blows over an ore freighter wasn't something she'd ever have guessed would happen. She tapped two commands on the ops console before she looked up.

"They have to shoot first. If they're willing to do that..." She let the words hang in the air for the moment. "They're not Starfleet anymore."

Keishara had watched the Gallant’s power curve climb while Cal spoke, one hand resting against the edge of the tactical console.

She understood what he was asking of them. Not blind loyalty. Something harder than that.

Her eyes moved briefly across the bridge before settling on Cal.

“You don’t have my objection, Captain. You have my support.”

There was nothing ceremonial in it. Just certainty.

“The Redhaven is under our protection now. Whatever Captain Renn thinks his orders permit, he doesn’t get to decide that a civilian crew has suffered enough only after there’s no one left to argue.”

She glanced towards Dashku.

“They’re still Starfleet. So are we. That matters most when one of us has forgotten what the uniform is supposed to mean.”

Then she turned back to her console, the tactical picture reflected faintly across her face.

“We’ll hold this position, protect the freighter, and keep both ships intact if Renn gives us any choice in the matter.”

A beat.

“And whatever comes after, sir, you won’t be carrying it alone.”

Sherev had stayed quiet through Cal’s speech, one hand resting over the haptic feed as the tactical picture trembled beneath his fingers.

The map had become very simple. One damaged freighter. One Starfleet ship still finding reasons to point weapons at it. The Moore between them, broadside and stubborn, all her running lights burning like someone had drawn a line in the dark and given it a name.

His antennae dipped once, then settled.

“No objection from Science, Captain.”

His voice was quiet, but it carried.

“The Redhaven is contained. She has no meaningful warp capability, degraded impulse response, and no tactical profile that justifies further fire.”

He let his fingers move across the console, confirming the thing he already knew from the shape of the data.

“If the Gallant shoots now, that is no longer enforcement. It’s a choice.”

Sherev turned his head slightly towards Cal.

“And I support yours.”

"My duty is to the Captain of this vessel and to follow their just orders." Kes responded crisply. He pushed his shoulders back as his antenna weaved forward like two snakes ready to strike. "My squad will be at the ready."

Keishara’s display changed beneath her hands.

“Captain.”

Her eyes stayed on the tactical readout.

“The Gallant is loading torpedoes.”

The crew’s answers came without hesitation.

Cal listened to each of them, but he did not answer straight away. Their support did not make the decision lighter. It made it real. They understood what he was asking, what it could cost them, and they had chosen to remain at their stations.

Then the tactical picture changed.

On the command repeater, the Gallant’s forward launchers climbed towards readiness. A targeting solution stretched across the space between the ships, passing through the Moore and settling over the crippled freighter behind her.

Renn could see them.

He knew the Moore was in his line of fire.

He was preparing to shoot anyway.

Cal looked up at the silent image on the viewscreen. Renn was still speaking into the muted channel, still issuing orders to a bridge that had stopped listening. Cal had appealed to his rank, his judgement and the uniform they both wore. He had given the man every opportunity to step back from this.

Renn had answered him.

Cal’s hand slipped from the back of the command chair.

“Kei.”

His voice was low, but it carried through every part of the bridge.

“Target the Gallant’s forward torpedo launchers and weapons control.”

He stepped forward, eyes fixed on the Starfleet ship ahead.

“Phasers only. Keep the spread tight. I want her weapons disabled and her crew alive.”

The targeting brackets closed around the Gallant. A clean tone sounded from Tactical.

Cal did not speak.

For one final second, the two Starfleet ships faced one another across the dark, the Moore holding the line between Captain Renn and the civilians he had decided no longer mattered.

Cal’s expression settled.

Not anger now. Not doubt.

Choice.

“Fire.”

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