U.S.S. Amazon NCC-1975

Pavel Chekov double-checked the sensor reading on his science station, praying it wasn’t actually showing what he thought it was showing. With Reliant still under repair at Denobula, he had found himself assigned to the Amazon, a Soyuz-class ship very similar to Reliant in design. The bridge science console was a near-perfect match for his station aboard Reliant, but he hoped there was some subtle difference he had overlooked, leading him to misread its displays.

But the error check confirmed the result. Mizuki City, the massive L5 habitat that the Amazon had been assigned to evacuate, was moments away from being engulfed by a new surge of vacuum flare microbursts that had just erupted from subspace directly in its orbital path.

When Chekov announced this, Captain Jangura spun to face him, blinking his bulbous red eyes. “Damn. That’s sooner than expected.” The greenish-brown Saurian turned to his helm officer. “Merck, increase speed. Get us back there!” As the lieutenant acknowledged the order, Jangura turned to his first officer. “Randolph, how many people are left to evacuate?”

“Over four thousand, sir,” Commander Joel Randolph answered in a lilting Indian accent. “But we’ll have trouble punching transporter beams through that interference.”

“Can you and Chekov make it any less troublesome, Commander?”

The handsome, dark-complexioned young officer traded a look with Chekov and nodded. “We can try, sir.”

Chekov smiled briefly at his old Academy classmate. It was good to be working together again, though he was still getting used to thinking of Joel by his married name—and trying not to be too envious that Randolph had managed to find a spouse and become a first officer before Chekov did.

The two of them fell readily back into their old rhythms as they applied themselves to the transporter problem. It wasn’t so different from the tests and simulations they had gone through at the Academy, aside from the stakes being much higher. Joel had always had a knack for outside-the-box solutions, though it had often fallen to Chekov to point out the practical problems he overlooked.

“… So this lets us narrow the confinement beam and tighten the focus. It’ll pierce the interference more effectively.”

“But it will slow the transmission of the matter stream by nearly fifty percent, Joel. Which doubles the risk of a microflare emerging within or near the beam. It could blow the beam wide open and we’d lose the evacuees.”

“They’d be at less risk as moving targets than sitting ducks, Pavel. Remember those tennis lessons I gave you? Always keep moving.”

Ensign Rider at communications spoke up. “Damage report from Mizuki, Captain. Main power compromised. Several outer compartments breached to vacuum. Multiple fires ignited by microflares. Casualty list too, sir. Their hospitals are filling rapidly.”

“And at just as much risk as the rest of the city,” Jangura hissed. “Gentlemen, get those transporters working!”