Vulnerable and Exposed

[DrDMatthews 0]

She hunkered down in her office determined to keep busy at any cost. But it was proving to be more difficult than she originally anticipated. For one thing, Sickbay was ready and had been for days. Further inspections would be redundant not to mention demoralizing for the staff. They were among the best in the fleet. They knew their jobs and she trusted them implicitly. She had no desire to imply otherwise. So, for now, she would stay out of their way and allow them to concentrate on preparing for a large scale emergency situation.

 

And Deborah Matthews was pretty sure they were heading into a "large scale emergency" situation.

 

The official notification had just come down from the bridge. Reaent had crossed into the Romulan neutral zone disguised as a huge rock courtesy of the ship's holoemitters. Initially, there were serious concerns about power utilization for this particular plan. There were fears it would require so much energy, every system but life support would have to be diverted to the holoemitters. It appeared Aaron and his team of engineers had managed to resolve that issue. One way or the other, the holoemitters were now projecting an image of an ungainly asteroid slowly meandering into the neutral zone. She wondered how often such a thing happened in this area of space. Hopefully, asteroids were fairly common and the Romulans wouldn't bother inspecting this one too closely.

 

She had to given the team credit. It was a very imaginative plan. But she didn't like it. It left her feeling vulnerable and exposed. She much preferred one of the alternative ideas, namely the installation of a home made cloaking device. The least they could have done was have a cloak standing by in case the holoemitters failed.

 

But it wasn't her call. She voiced her opinions following the staff meeting but the Captain seemed overly concerned about treaty violations. So he decided the Reaent should enter the neutral zone dressed like a rock. And it was his call.

 

Deb tossed her stylus onto the desk and watched it spin its way off the far edge. Crossing her arms in front of her, she leaned back in her chair and stared at the ceiling feeling both weary and apprehensive. It would take a miracle to keep them from getting caught. And what would they do when that happened? Would they really blame their intrusion into the neutral zone on a malfunctioning navigational system? The Romulans would surely find that amusing. They would probably laugh themselves silly as they blew Reaent into a zillion little pieces.

 

As far as Deb was concerned, there was something far worse than total destruction and that was being taken prisoner by the Romulans. She'd heard many of the horror stories. Even though most were liberally embellished, there was a grain of truth in all of those tales. And the truth wasn't pretty. She preferred a zillion little pieces to becoming a Romulan prisoner.

 

She got up and walked around the desk. It took a minute to locate the wayward stylus and as she searched for it, she reminded herself to think positively. There was a chance they would successfully pull off this subterfuge. Miracles happened every day, didn't they. Retrieving the stylus, she returned to her chair and activated another of the padds neatly stacked in front of her.

 

Drawing a deep breath, she forced herself to focus on the report. "Stay occupied," she mumbled. "Worrying about it won't change a thing."

 

All she could do for now was believe the Captain knew what he was doing and if he didn't, hope she would have moment to say good-bye to her husband before the end came.