Captain Adam Wolf reclined in his chair, took a liberal sip from his drink, and set it down on his armrest. Then he redirected his attention to the Roborean’s main viewer, where two Klingon battle cruisers were tearing up a Cardassian orbital weapons platform.

            A compact ­Defiant-class warship, Roborean nimbly traversed the battlefield, weaving between the massive dreadnoughts of either faction. She came up behind a derelict Galaxy-class cruiser.

            “That’s the Burr,” Lieutenant Hobbes reported from tactical. “There’s a Dominion warship right behind her.”

“Let’s come out of nowhere, then,” Wolf replied, smiling.

            The Roborean banked right to avoid the Burr’s port nacelle, and then left to circumvent her broad neck. Wolf marveled at the magnificence of the dead starship. It would no longer stand proudly at the final frontier, but its majesty persisted, even in death.

            “Hold on,” said Turv, the Tellarite helmsman. The Roborean swooped up from under the Burr’s hulking saucer hull. The Dominion warship loomed in the center of the viewscreen.

            “Open fire,” Wolf commanded. A rainstorm of fiery yellow pulses erupted at the corners of the screen, shrinking to nothing as they darted toward its center. Plasmatic fire radiated across the Jem’Hadar vessel’s hull as every shot hit home. When the flames cleared, the ship’s scorched-red interior belched weak jets of fire as secondary explosions cascaded.

            Wolf congratulated himself with another sip of his White Romulan. Regulation, schmegulation, he thought. A relaxed captain is good for morale.

            “They’re recharging weapons!” Hobbes shouted. “Looks like they’re still alive over there.”

            The Roborean lurched suddenly as a vibrant blue beam lanced out from the crippled Dominion ship.

            “Dammit,” Wolf said. “Shove a torpedo in that wound, Hobbes.”

            “Are you sure, Captain? We only have one quantum torpedo left, and we’re fresh out of photons.”

            “Lieutenant, I said fire.”

            A single blue starburst shot out from the starboard side of the viewscreen. It vanished into the burning innards of the warship. The resulting explosion filled the entire screen with white light. Glowing starship fragments hurtled wildly through space.

            “Excellent job, Lieutenant. Take us about.” The chaos of battle silhouetted against the backdrop of Cardassia Prime filled the screen once again. But the view was dominated by a single Jem’Hadar dreadnought, one of the new ones that were bigger than a Romulan D’Deridex. It was drifting leisurely through the battle, releasing a storm of torpedoes in every direction with some kind of rapid-fire launcher.

            “That thing’s breaking an entire Allied wing,” Hobbes said. “We’ve got to take it out.”

            “Not gonna happen,” Replied Lieutenant  Anderson at ops. “We could never take that on alone, and the rest of the fleet’s occupied.”

            Wolf stood up and approached the main viewer. “Hey,” he said, silencing his bickering bridge officers. “I’ve never seen torpedoes fired like that before. They probably have hundreds of armed polaron warheads in racks. Anderson, can you pinpoint their torpedo storage site?”

            Anderson deftly worked his console, probing the massive battleship with the Roborean’s sensors. “Yes!” he called after a few seconds. “They’re right here.” Two red icons appeared on the viewer, superimposed over the dreadnought’s shoulders. “I’m sending the targeting data to tactical.”

            Hobbes angrily slapped her console. “This is no good. We still can’t punch through their shields.”

            “Yes, we can,” Wolf said, surveying the tactical readout. “Their aft shield emitters have taken damage. There’s a hole right there, a window of opportunity.”

            She shook her head. “The shields are weaker there, but they’re still too strong for just our phasers.” Wolf caught her meaning and cursed himself for ordering the use of their last torpedo.

            “Maybe not,” he said. “What if we overloaded the phaser emitters? What if we pump in so much extra power that we completely burn out the crystals?”

            Hobbes considered the idea briefly. “Uh, yeah,” she said. “Yes, it could work.”

            “Good. Helm, take us into position behind that ship. We need line of sight to the torpedo storage through that window.”

            “Aye, Sir,” Turv affirmed.

            “Anderson, divert power from all systems to phasers. Shut down lights, gravity and life support in uninhabited parts of the ship, deactivate all sonic showers and replicators, and prepare to cut power to shields. Hobbes, deactivate all the safety protocols in the phaser cannons; we’re going to give them a lot more power than they’re made to take at once.”

            His orders given, Wolf stood back to observe their execution. He took one more sip from his drink. Maybe the last sip, he mused. If all we do is make that ship mad, we won’t last ten seconds without our shields.

            The dreadnought floated back into the center of the viewscreen as Turv announced, “We’re in position, Captain. They’re right in the crosshairs.”

            “Good,” Wolf said. “Hobbes, are you ready?”

            “Yes, Captain. But I should warn you, these will be our last shots; for the phasers to pierce that shield, they’ll need so much power that the emitter crystals will burn out after a few shots. Whether we punch through or not, we’ll be effectively disarmed.“

            “Noted, Lieutenant,” he snapped. “I know we’re effectively taking Roborean out of the fight, but we’re taking that battleship out, too. We could save thousands of lives.”

            As his words sank in, the bridge crew fell silent.

            “All right then,” he said. “Let ’em have it.”

            “Lowering shields,” Hobbes narrated. “Firing phasers.”

            The overpowered phaser cannons shook the ship with each blast—Wolf lost his White Romulan to the deck plates after the first salvo as the inertial dampeners failed to compensate. But victory was illustrated on the viewscreen. Wave after wave of golden energy bursts arrogantly barged through the battleship’s shields. Each volley hit its mark unhindered.

            Then the phasers stopped firing abruptly. “What the hell?” Wolf said, but the Roborean reeled beneath his feet, throwing him to the deck before he was answered. Sparks exploded from a dozen consoles. The bridge darkened, to be lit a second later by red emergency lights. The belligerent howl of alert klaxons sounded from every intact terminal.

            “Oh my God,” Hobbes bellowed. “The phaser overload … it was worse than we thought. Captain, all four cannons just exploded.”

            “Looks like they took most of the nacelles with them,” Anderson tacked on frantically. “We’ve got hull breaches on multiple decks and serious trauma in engineering.”

            “Trauma? What do you mean, trauma?” Wolf demanded.

            “There’s a lot of radiation down there, interfering with sensors, but I think we’ll be dealing with catastrophic containment failure inside three minutes.”

            “Shit,” Wolf said. “Hail the nearest allied ship. Call for emergency evacuation by transporter.”

            “No good, Sir,” Hobbes said. “We’ve lost communications.”

            Better that way, Wolf thought. Wouldn’t want anyone lowering their shields and leaving themselves vulnerable just because I had a crazy idea.

            Bright violet light suddenly filled the bridge. Wolf turned to the main viewer, which, miraculously, remained functional. A massive explosion ripped open the side of the Dominion dreadnought, as if all their stored torpedoes had detonated at once. Secondary explosions abounded, and the monstrous ship was dust in a matter of seconds. Guess we did some good after all.

            Snapping back to reality Wolf said, “All right, everyone get to the escape pods immediately.” He tapped a panel on his command chair’s armrest, opening a channel to all personnel on board. “All hands, this is Captain Wolf,” he began. “We are looking at imminent warp core breach. Report to the nearest available escape pod and launch at your discretion. Abandon ship. I repeat: Abandon ship.”

            Not wanting to argue, all the bridge officers quickly filed out the door. Only Anderson remained, staring intently at his console.

            “Anderson,” Wolf snapped. “We’re all going to die in a couple of minutes. Get the hell out of here!”

            Anderson looked at Wolf gravely and said, “Captain, we have a problem.”

            “No kidding, Lieutenant. We have a—”

            “Sir, this is different. The explosions damaged some of the circuitry coming out of the main computer, including the evacuation craft disembarkation protocol grid.”

            “What the hell are you saying?”

            “Captain,” he said feverishly, “the escape pods can no longer be launched by commands from their on-board computers. They’re stuck in their docking clamps.”

            Wolf’s hand involuntarily grabbed his forehead. “God dammit. What can we do? Beam everyone down to Cardassia?”

            “No, the transporters are down, too. But there is another way to launch the escape pods.” He keyed a security code into his console and a panel slid away, revealing an old-fashioned mechanical lever beneath it. “This is the emergency override for the escape pod system. Pull this switch, and all the pods are launched simultaneously. But obviously one of us has to stay behind to pull it.”

            “Are you volunteering?” Wolf asked.

            “Aye, Captain.”

            “Tough luck. A captain goes down with his ship, Lieutenant. That’s how the saying goes.” He grabbed Anderson by the shoulder and forcibly removed him from his chair. “Now get the hell out of here.” Anderson looked at him with a strange sense of longing, then bolted for the door.

            When Anderson was gone, Wolf stood alone on the bridge of the Roborean. The alert klaxons assaulted his ears, but he felt a horrible silence in the absence of his officers. He stepped toward the lever and reached out to pull it, but stilled his hand before he could. Better give everyone as much time as possible to get to the pods. I’ll let them get to the pods, then I’ll pull the lever. Then they all fly away and—

            And he would die. Even as he had said the words, go down with his ship, he had not fully comprehended what he was doing. It had just been a reflex, programmed into him by his Starfleet training. Always put the crew first, sacrifice yourself to save them. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

            Now, as death became real, he thought to himself, I don’t want to die.

            But there was no choice. He had already condemned himself. At least he might be remembered for his brave sacrifice—he gave his life to save his crew, and he gave his ship to destroy thousands of Jem’Hadar soldiers and their massive dreadnought. Too bad this isn’t a Klingon ship. I know they’d appreciate this. Then again, he could just as easily be remembered as a fool—he killed himself and blew up his ship just to take out one enemy vessel. 

            “Warp core breach is imminent,” said the ship’s computer.

            Well, it’s now or never. Wolf reached for the lever and—

            A blue haze clouded his vision, and little white lights danced before his eyes. He began to lose feeling all over his body as weightlessness took hold.

            No! he cried out mentally. No! I have to save them!

            He clawed desperately at the lever, but he was already immaterial.

            When the light of the transporter beam faded, Wolf looked around, disoriented. As he regained his bearings, he found he was on the familiar bridge of Galaxy-class starship. A statuesque woman with long blond hair approached him. She wore the rank insignia of a fellow captain—and he knew her.

            “Captain Wolf,” she said. “Welcome aboard the Juno.”

            “Xantara,” he said, smiling with recognition. “My crew! Did you get my crew?”

            “Crew?” the other captain said. “No. We didn’t see any life signs other than yours.”

            Wolf turned to the Juno’s main viewer where Roborean was displayed, charred and broken by the phaser explosions. “They’re still in the escape pods,” he said desperately. “There was radiation from the warp core …”

            “Compensating for radiation,” said the Juno’s ops officer, a young Bolian woman. Then she looked up sharply. “He’s right, Captain. There are at least fifty people in those pods.”

            Xantara Lee said, “Can you break through and beam them out?”

            “It’ll take a minute,” the Bolian said. “I’ll have to—”

            “Incoming Breen ships!” the tactical officer called.

            “Raise shields!” Lee responded.

            As the threat of the approaching fighters was addressed, a whirlwind of activity consumed the Juno’s bridge. But Adam Wolf stood motionless, staring at the viewscreen, numb to the world around him. As Roborean’s stored antimatter burst from its magnetic containment field and annihilated its surroundings, an enormous wave of pure energy expanded, engulfing the ship. The stalwart Defiant-class warship, defender of the Federation, disintegrated before his eyes. Lost. With all hands on board.

            Except one.