Evacuating the asteroid

Ensign Sheeneea wore the eyepiece serving as a viewscreen on board Jem'Hadar ships to her left eye,  thus getting only a black and white image since her color perception was into her antennae. Her finger resting on the flight controls of the attack ship, she was routinely reviewing them for instant departure again and again as she watched nervously the progression of Redding's assault team toward and inside the Polaris and, underneath the escort vessel,  the methodical unloading of the antimatter tanks by the spacesuited Jem'Hadars. It had been several minutes now since Lieutenant Commander Snowfire and Lieutenant Tyvya had left with Ensign Jaxon, and the Bynar doctor at the sensor console behind her had reported weapons fire inside the asteroid... and now inside the Polaris... and a beam-in from the dockyard to the sinister Achilles class heavy siege destroyer.

On her nav board, the deserted Dawn had been drawn to another airlock by magnetic cables; Jem'Hadars must be boarding the Delta Flyer by now...

"Ensign Sheeneea... "

The comm message from her badge almost made her fire the engines reflexively.

"Yes, Lieutenant Tyvya... "

"We're bringing in people and prisoners from the asteroid; slave workers hat had lived here for decades... the crew of the Polaris... and Jem'Hadar prisoners. Stand by for departure. "

"... Aye, Lieutenant."

She didn't ask about Lieutenant Commander K'leysha or Commander Redding; somehow they would be about soon as well. She knew Tyvya would not abandon them.

Unless ordered to do so...

Even then... Like all who had served with her on the Artemis, Sheeneea knew that Tyvya was quite  good at deftly circumventing orders when she had her mind set on bringing someone back from danger. After all, that is how she got married in the first place...

"We have sick and injured people coming in, mostly Humans and Bajorans... and those Jem'Hadar jailers," then reported the acting chief of security as Sheeneea's console confirmed the opening of the ship's airlock. "Doctor, we really need you down here."

Doctor 110 glanced at Ensign Sheeneea, not wanting to leave her alone on the bridge of the Jem'Hadar ship. Sheeneea returned a nod to indicate she'd be able to handle the sensors as well through the multifaceted eyepiece, even if it would give her a bad headache to do so.

She exited the bridge and headed to the airlock, hoping that she could find her way through the mess of dark, cramped, jagged hallways of the Jem'Hadar bugship. Without her partner in the immediate vicinity, she was a little disoriented.

Luckily, there was some logic to the ship's design. Go downward and outward, just as on a Federation vessel. Eventually reaching a corridor that circled around the middle portion of the ship, she saw many airlocks, and knew that if she'd just continue to circle around, she would find the one being utilized.

Approaching the airlock, she spoke to the acting security chief who had summoned her. "Any critically injured we need to focus on first leave here in the hallway. They will need immediate attention and we don't have time to move them or set up beds for them. The others, please direct to the mess hall use the tables as makeshift biobeds. I don't suppose the Jem'Hadar have a sickbay, as they don't particularly care about their injured, correct?"

"You got that right, Doctor," answered Tyvya tersely. "And they don't have a mess hall either. They don't hold meetings drinking Ear Gray tea. I suggest that we use their cargo bay since it is empty of the usual military ordnance and the largest room aboard. Only the Jem'Hadars are lightly hurt, Doctor; there was barely half a dozen of them on the entire facility and we stunned them with phaser shots at stun setting directly  through the optic nerve... a trick devised by our former CMO to deal with androids and other physically tough opponents. We are bringing in about fifty old Humans and Bajorans, all seemingly suffering from exhaustion and malnutrition, a few with what appears like battle scars and badly healed fall injuries."

"Aye, take them to the cargo bay then," Doctor 110 replied. Her usually stoic face did not reveal her embarrassment at being unfamiliar with the Jem'Hadar ship.

As the only medical officer there, she had to direct the various security personnel to perform standard field medic duties to keep each patient safe and comfortable until she actually was able to get to seeing them one at a time.

"Any spare medical tricorders should be used for sealing wounds and plasma burns," she directed. "Fill some hyposprays with minor pain relievers, but be wary of overuse." The security officers nodded to her respectfully as they filed past on their way to take their patients to the cargo bay.

"They were used as slave labor within this facility they literally carved out of the asteroid here ," the reported Jaxon as she helped some of the older ones inside with a gentle hand. "They say they were prisoners of war from the Chintoka battle... that was the Dominion War, Doctor, decades ago. All the Klingons captured with them were killed either in revolt attempts or during fighting training practices set up dayly by their Jem'Hadar jailers. They said their Vorta leader was killed during an accident they know nothing about when they were brought here. fact is, they have no clue where they really are."

As the Bynar would come to the opened airlock and upon the file of limping, stiff and tattered-clothed people being gently but quickly shoved inside the attack cruiser, the giantess Tyvya was finishing a rather terse discussion with a man who looked like a Starfleet Marines major; and indeed, it was Major McGregor, saluting and moving out with several dozen people the doctor recognized immediately, one of them, the Vulcan officer T'Lana, carried unconscious on a makeshift stretcher by 2 crewmen as a medic treated her for burns all over her lean frame.

"The crew and passengers of the Polaris, Doctor," reported Tyvya with a definite tone of exasperation in her voice. "They insist in going back to their ship. And since the major outranks me... "

She sighed.

"They say Commander Oseno was taken by Jem'Hadar guards quite a while ago but they don't know where. They speculate he might be aboard the Polaris; their captors wanted to access the ship controls locked out with his command codes. But Commander Redding and his team must be aboard by now so they want to link up with them."

She then rose even straighter and took a few steps outside, her towering frame making the top of her white-haired mane almost touching the corridor's roughly hewed ceiling as she looked around.

"And there is no sign of Lieutenant Commander K'Leysha."

The Doctor felt a twinge of emotional pain, but did not have time to acknowledge the unfortunate events Tyvya detailed or understand what that meant in relation to her task at hand.

At that moment, there was a commotion outside in the base's docking corridor. Jumping out phaser in hand, Tyvya saw that the Polaris crew had come face to face with a quartet of Jem'Hadars, two of them still in EVA suits, one definitely the biggest among them all. The Starfleet personnel immediately moved to a side corridor to get cover from weapon's fire, the marines taking a protective position and a fighting stance to protect the rest of them... and the two supersoldiers just  ran past them, ignoring them completely to head straight at the Andorian giantess.

Their weapons were slung at their back. Nevertheless, Tyvya kept her own phaser ready as they came up to her. They stopped two paces in front of her and, amazingly, saluted her.

"I am the First," said the largest one. "I made a truce with your Commander Redding. We will need our ship."

It didn't took long for the acting chief of security to tap her combadge.

"Commander Redding, this is Lieutenant Tyvya. I have a group of ... gentlemen here who claims to be... joining us."

Redding stopped short and slapped himself in the forehead before picking up speed again Damn it he thought Of course she would break radio silence to confirm this.

It was to much to hope that Khan wouldn't pick up the transmission and that could lead to Khan figuring out that the Jem'hadar had turned on him, losing a significant tactical advantage.

He had to be careful how he phrased his response so that she would understand him but Khan would not.

"Acknowledged Lieutenant, allow First officer Duncel  to proceed with his mission, continue with your evacuation of the crew." stressing the word first slightly he took a breath and held it waiting for her reply.

He wasn't totally sure she would catch the reference to 'Officer Duncel' but he was sure Khan would not, it was an Academy term.

She did. And she didn't like it. Duncel was Academy midshipman talk refering to a part that no longer served any useful purpose.

"Aye, Sir. Reporting to him right now," the Andorian giantess said as she closed her comm channel she had reflexively encoded and encrypted as per regulation 46A; "If transmission are being monitored during battle, no unencoded messages are to be transmitted on an open channel." Her channel had been a closed one but still she had encrypted the transmission and spoken in an encoded manner as Redding did. Khan would possibly pick up the emission but it would take him time to decrypt it and then more to possibly understand it; and she was betting that he might be somewhat occupied at the moment. She knew of his egotistical propension to manifest himself as one unique living monomaniacal entity instead of a multitasking, multiprojected artificial supercomputer. This was the biggest, possibly sole weakness of this manifestation of the artificial lifeform; captain kheren had exploited this once when they encountered it the first time to deprive the Nemesis of power and hurl it here at the edge of the galaxy.

She just hoped that they could do it again.

But then the Jem'Hadar First before her was speaking again.

"We will take our ship. You will take yours."

"Negative," objected Tyvya. The Polaris is already full and the Dawn can cramp at most a dozen passengers. We need your ship to evacuate these people."

"Redding's orders." simply retorted the grey-scaled aged warrior.

The acting chief of security sighed. Then, she turned towards the chief medical officer. By rank, the Bynars were above her, but they were outside the normal chain of command; and even then, Commander Redding was still the senior officer and in designated command of the whole team.

She tapped her combadge as she looked the CMO. 

"All personnel; we are evacuating to the Polaris. Ensign Sheenea will take the CMO and the most seriously wounded to the Dawn. We move out under Commander Redding's word."

Jaxon then came up to her, eyes wide.

"Lieutenant! The Polaris is already full! If we cram those people in her, we will overtax her life support system by one hundred percent! Our chances of reaching back the Horizon..."

"Are zero percent if we don't move out now!" the towering blue-skinned woman interrupted.

"We will help," then offered the First.

"And then?" asked Tyvya.

"We will do our duty."

As the Jem'Hadars went into the bugship, Jaxon still looked up wearily at Tyvya.

"And what about Commander Oseno? And Lieutenant-Commander K'Leysha?"