As the Phoenix Feather fell Down

Chapter 2

IT DID NOT GET better. In the three months that followed, things only seemed to get worse. Dickson barely agreed with any of Fujita's decisions, which did not only damage her authority, but also greatly pissed her off. She liked officers who had their own will, who dared to speak up to their Captain when they did not agree with them, who cared more about standing up for their believes than about how it might look on their record; however, this was really too much. It almost felt like Dickson was purposely looking for ways to oppose Fujita.

One time had been particularly bad. The Starlight and it's crew had been on a mission to the planet Ehrlu, to deliver medical supplies. On their way there, they had receiver a distress call from a Cardassian ship, which had been stranded just inside the Federation border. Dickson had wanted to ignore it and continue toward Ehrlu, knowing that – undoubtably – another ship would soon appear and help out the Cardassians. Fujita, however, had wanted to help and had put the Starlight on a course toward the Cardassian border. However, before she had done so, Dickson had started another argument, and – already pissed off by hours of fighting in the past days – they had both barely been able to contain their anger and had retreated to Fujita's ready room, where Fujita had had to use all her self-control not to shout at the man – something that never used to happen anymore.

Now, they were on their way to a starbase on the border of Federation space to pick up an officer. Starfleet Command had not been wanting to let off much, so Fujita expected that the man had something to do with Starfleet Intelligence or Covert Operations. The mission was to get as close to the space station as they possibly could without being detected – which Fujita found weird, considering that it was a Federation station – and beam out this officer of unknown identity with the least fuss possible.

'Ensign Stacy, full stop', Fujita said, and the starship came to a halt. The starbase was just visible on the far right side of the screen, lighting up bright in the infinite darkness of the vast reaches of space that surrounded them.

'Commander B.J., have they detected us?'

'No signs of elevated activity, Admiral. It does not seem they have.'

Fujita shifted in her chair and drew her hand through her brown ponytail. 'Mister Tremeni, can you detect the officer?'

'I'm scanning, sir', the Chief of Operations answered. Fujita looked around and saw the Indian man viciously pushing buttons on his ops panel. 'I'm not picking up any Human life signs.'

'Are you sure?'

'Admiral!' B.J. bellowed before Tremeni could answer. 'Two ships are closing in on starboard, one of them is right on our tail!'

'Who are they?' Fujita asked, making sure she carefully hid her surprise.

'Unknown, sir,' B.J answered, and as he said it, three ships entered in vision range. They have locked their weapons on us.'

'Shields up, red alert.' The emergency claxon instantly started blaring on the Bridge and the lighting changed to red.

'Should I fire, sir?' B.J. asked.

Fujita shook her head. 'Let's take a moment to see what they want, they might be just as threatened with our arrival as we are with theirs. Hail them.'

B.J. pushed a few buttons, but before he could respond, the Bridge erupted in flames. The sound of shouting people filled the room and threw it into chaos. Panels exploded and the severe rocking of the ship threw more than one officer helplessly flying about. In the middle of all of it, Admiral Fujita had to stay calm and focussed on her job.

'B.J., status!' she shouted.

It stayed silent for a moment, and then B.J called out, 'Shields are at eighty-six percent and dropping!'