Things could have gone smoothly. Really, they could have. But apparently, fate was in a bitchy mood.
Your face smacked into the navigations panel as the ship jolted. Peeling it off and straightening, you glanced down at the small tracking screen.
"Romulan ships," Spock confirmed from the science station. "I believe our best chance would be to take evasive action."
"Way ahead of you," you said grimly, tapping away at the buttons before you.
Another hit jolted the ship once more, nearly giving you whiplash from the force of it. Too busy to look at the tracking screen, you called over to Spock, "How many of them?"
"Only two," Spock said, eyes fixed on the scanners. "I suspect that these ships were supposed to receive the Enterprise from our captors. The Romulan Empire would not have sent more than that; they expected the ship to be in their control. When we reversed course, it alerted the ships that their comrades had lost."
Another hit. You barely kept your face from embedding itself on the navigation controls again.
"We have lost several secondary systems," Spock reported.
"We need to return fire," you snapped, "but I can't handle weapons and navigations at once!"
"Logical." Spock crossed to the helm seat and sat down. "Continue evasive maneuvers and increase to warp seven."
You obeyed. You couldn't pay a great deal of attention to what Spock was doing, not with your own panel to worry about, but you could tell from your occasional peeks at the screen that he had managed to hit at least one of them. Another peek at the tracking screen told you that the damaged ship was dropping behind. It also showed you that you were nearing the Federation side of the Neutral Zone.
"Spock, we're almost there," you whispered. "Will that ship follow is into Federation space?"
"It would violate the truce," Spock said.
"Yeah, but they could claim that we tried to invade their space," you pointed out. "All records would show that. We're the only ones who know the truth, but if they win, we'll be too dead to tell anyone."
He was silent in response to this, but you could see in your peripheral vision that his face had drawn into a concerned frown. You drew a deep breath, trying to steady your hands. Your chances were not good, you knew. Two people couldn't operate a starship bridge during battle with full competency; it typically required at least four. One to navigate, one to take readings, one to handle weapons, and one to take the information from the other three and give quick orders. With only two, it would be difficult to scrape through this mess. You were doing your best to navigate, but your quick glances at the readings were nowhere near sufficient for the purpose. Likewise, Spock was struggling to read out the enemy ship's position, take aim, and fire in smooth sequence. You suspected that many of his shots went awry.
Another jolt caught you both off guard, and you were flung forwards into your panel once more. Beside you, Spock instinctively flung out a hand to soften his impact, and with a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach, you saw it connect with one of the buttons. For the first time since you sat down, you were entirely distracted from your task.
"What did you hit?" you exclaimed.
"I believe that I mistakenly fired a photon torpedo," he said, eyebrows shooting up.
He wasn't looking at his panel, however. He was looking across the bridge, at the main screen. You followed his eyes, and your own eyebrows rocketed upwards. That accidental torpedo hit the Romulan ship in its heart, and as you watched, the entire thing exploded. For several seconds, the Enterprise was rocked by shock waves, but you sat in stunned stillness, unable to react. Silence filled the bridge; it seemed that Spock was equally surprised by the turn of events.
Something on your panel beeped, breaking the spell. You blinked, tearing yourself away from the flaming debris still shooting across the main screen.
"Entering Federation space," you announced. It seemed surreal to say something so commonplace after such an ordeal.
"Set course for the nearest starbase," Spock said after a moment.
You did so, then swiveled around in your chair to face Spock.
"Why didn't anyone come up here to help?" you asked. "If you hadn't slipped, we'd probably be dead right now."
"Indeed." He rose from the helm seat and returned to the abandoned science station. After a minute's silent reading, he looked back over at you. "When some our systems were knocked out, the turbo lifts were among them. No one could have reached us, although the captain was doubtlessly trying."
"It also means that we're stuck here until someone down in engineering fixes the lifts."
"Yes."
You ran your fingers through your hair. Stuck didn't seem so bad, after all the other crap that had happened. "Well," you said wryly, "at least there aren't any emergency bulkheads going off."
