Aboard the Dragonfly, Lieutenant Commander Thorn stood near the front of the bridge with near perfect posture and his synthetic arms folded behind his back. At his post at the top of the bridge, he was used to standing up nearly his entire shift, so he didn’t feel the need to sit in the captain’s chair. Besides, it gave him the chance to look over the shoulders of the helm and science officers to make sure they were on the up and up. For better or for worse, if Thorn were captain, he would run an extraordinarily tight ship.
“Sir,” Ensign Ester started, “I’m detecting power fluctuations on the Excelsior.”
“What’s going on over there?” Thorn demanded.
“I’m not sure…” she said. “But something weird is happening on Deck Seven and in Engineering of their ship. There’s phaser fire going on there.”
“Hail them.”
“Sir, they are hailing us.”
“Put it on-screen,” he ordered. It was Captain Santiago, looking quite distressed.
“Where is your captain?” he demanded, without so much as a courtesy to greet the Lieutenant.
“He’s in sickbay with Dr. Min. What do you want?”
“Tell him if he needs further evidence that we need to defend ourselves against the Annecta, tell him that twelve of my crewmen are dead. We’re under attack.”
