Mara Exar looked out from the walls of Starbase 83 in hope that something, somehow, could speed up the repair time.

After a week in dock and some temporary shore leave to Jiacon, the planet below Starbase 83, several of the Egypt’s crew was beginning to get jittery. Not that Jiacon was a bad place to visit, however. A small, laid back planet, Jiacon had many small port towns and coastal cities. Its well laid-out paradise attracted many tourists. Its oceans, which covered most of the planet, were a wonderful place to swim, sail, or just get away for a while. However, Jiacon was also important to Starfleet in that it held many natural Diridium ore, a primary gas sealant used to hold Antimatter inside a containment field. Starfleet had established a port of call on Jiacon’s paradise, and made traveling to and from the planet a lot easier than it was before. Seeing as Jiacon had been first found and established by a group of private businesses, they decided to exploit the planet. By the time Starfleet purchased it, however, there were so many cities all over the newly-developing planet, that the Prime Directive could do little to change back Jiacon to the fresh, untouched world it was.

Mara, who was much less interested in the planet, was more confused and concerned about her marital plans with Voren. Voren Na’al, her husband and captain of the USS Egypt, was always making great leaps for her. Just recently, after the Skarr Incident in Ferengi Space, Voren had treated Mara to one of the most high class hotel in Starfleet. Although she had enjoyed dining at The Starfleet Royale, the supposed “death” of Widiam Baahling, the Egypt’s tactical officer, had given her a new look at things. What if she died during a mission, and left a saddened Voren to handle the Egypt? What if she was injured and decided to leave Starfleet? Mara was well aware that a captain like Voren Na’al was too much Federation to leave the Federation, even if he was of Bajoran heritage. Mara had been deeply looking into divorce recently, which would annul the marriage between them, and leave them to more...business-like dealings with each other. They could remain friends, like they had been during the Egypt’s initial launch. Mara remembered it like it had been yesterday. Voren and her smiling, talking, just being friends, not romantic love-makers and romancers. How she wished she could just keep him at the same level as she kept all her friends-at a level in which none of them could...overpower her. It was one thing Mara’s growth on the exile world of Partlania had taught her-never to let anyone become too involved with you. Old habits die hard... Mara thought as she watched small Workbees or Shutugs drift by, slowly moving towards, or away from, the Egypt.

That was something that took Mara’s mind off of marital problems. The Egypt had suffered a lot of weapons damage since its last battle with Skarr’s flagship, the Imperiator. The Egypt had lost the phase-shift matter transfer device during the battle, leaving her cloaked only to sensors and imaging devices. Seeing as an unstable matter transfer device was hot stuff, Starfleet had a small shuttle deliver it to the outskirts of the Jiacon system, and quietly destroy it, for fear of it possibly phase-cloaking anything else. The Egypt also needed extensive shield repair and weapons reloading; the ship hadn’t been restocked with photon torpedoes for over a year. Well, with all the missions we get, no wonder we end up short on photorps... Mara thought. She watched a cargo shuttle slowly dawdle by, its lax thrusters carrying the giant cargo of a duranium deck plate with no effort. That was something Mara had always loved about space, its lack of gravity. She had experienced it enough growing up; Partlania was a very light-gravity planet. The Egypt was also undergoing a massive refit and repair of the main deflector dish, which had been burned out like an overheated light bulb during the battle against the Imperiator. And the photon torpedo launching pods the Maquis had installed had never worked, and were being removed as well. Mara and Widiam had protested, seeing as they believed the typical mission on the Egypt had thus far ended up using the photon torpedoes somehow. However, their request was ultimately refused by Voren and the higher-ups, saying that the Egypt was a ship destined for diplomatic and exploration duties. Every time Mara heard that, she had scoffed. We’ve spent more time in Red Alert than studying new worlds and new civilizations... She finally ended up scoffing again as she watched how slow all the vehicles out in the spacedock were moving. If she was the dock chief, she’d make them all speed up, get their things to the Egypt, and, in short, just get things going. Life was so slow staying on the starbase.

Mara decided to go talk to Jerrica Adams about divorce. She walked away from the giant transparent aluminum windows towards the turbolift doors. Even though the massive, triangular space dock held only three starships at a time, it had a massive upper section, which held most of the temporary quarters for the ship’s crew. Mara ended up staring blankly at the starbase’s design layout pattern, which was running as a standby program on one of the turbolift monitors.

"Deck twenty-five." Mara said, knowing this wouldn’t exactly be quick.

The giant Federation starbase 83 was shaped like a triangular box, with the three sides opening into three different spacedocks. Each spacedock had a giant door through which one starship could pass into another dock, or one long, giant starship could be housed in two docks at once. Seeing as the incredibly long shape of the Egypt was sometimes an impediment to standard Starship yards, she was docked in two spacedock facilities right now. Mara was amused at the fact that the third spacedock was only occupied by a small Miranda class starship, which was dwarfed beside the Egypt. The upper section of the starbase was a smaller triangular box resting on the larger one, and this held all the temporary-or permanent-quarters. The third triangular box, the smallest of the three, rested on top of the first two, and held the command areas.

Mara was surprised that the journey to deck twenty-five hadn’t taken as long as she had expected it to be. Traveling from deck one-hundred-twelve to deck twenty-five was obviously going to take a long time in an Egypt turbolift, or maybe Mara had just been thinking about enough to make her miss the time passage?

Mara came to Jerrica’s quarters, and looked at the door. She didn’t press the communication button just yet, and the doors were locked. Is this really what I want to do? Do I really want to leave Voren? This went through Mara’s head just as the door opened itself. Jerrica Adams bumped right into Mara Exar, and took a step back.

"Oh! I’m sorry, Mara, I didn’t know you were out here." Jerrica said, laughing away the brief embarrassment.

Mara smiled back, replying, "No problem. I just came to talk to you about Voren."

Jerrica nodded, her smile fading.

She stood silent for a moment, before responding, "Is it about...divorce?"

"Yes..."Mara said slowly, trying to figure out how Jerrica knew. Jerrica’s deep blue eyes met Mara’s hazel browns.

"How did you know that?"Mara said. Jerrica walked back inside her quarters.

"Come on in, I’ll tell you."Jerrica said.

Mara shrugged, and complied. Jerrica sat down at her Betazoid mental cleansing chair, and smiled in spite of herself as it morphed to her position.

"Before we go on, there is something I love about my counseling quarters-it’s usually not as dirty as Don and my quarters are before we both wake up and go to work. We sometimes knock things over on the way out the door, although waking up on the Egypt is slow and quiet. Don’s such a speed demon; he’s awake one minute, out the door the next."

Mara smiled, and said, "Well, I guess one of the few aspects of living with the captain is the fact that we both command, so we both get ready for a day on the bridge slowly and gradually. Voren’s needed it during most of the time we’ve been handling the Skarr Incident."

Jerrica nodded at Mara’s explanation, and said, "Tell me something. It looks like the two of you are getting along fine right now. Just what seems to be the problem in the relationship?"Mara sat at the other Betazoid mental cleansing chair, slowly smiling as some of her uneasiness left her body.

"Boy, does that feel good..."she remarked. As she settled into the chair, she replied to Jerrica.

"Well...the two of us like each other, given, it’s just that, well, we’re not exactly in love with each other anymore. We were good friends during the Egypt’s initial stages of service, but when Voren held out that ring, it just seemed so...simple. At the time, of course. I had just been promoted to commander, and he was on his first captaincy. It just seemed so easy."Mara said.

Jerrica replied, "So...you want the marriage annulled? You want to schedule a standard divorce?"Mara nodded.

"Yeah. That seems like the best idea right now. The two of us care too much for each other, risking more than life and limb. Back when Voren, Don, Bobby and I had gotten caught on Vacatopia, he was so protective of me... Jerrica, it just seems like the right thing to do. To save us both."Mara explained.

Jerrica nodded slowly, replying, "Well, you came at just the right time. Voren was talking to me, during and after the Skarr Incident, about divorce as well, expressing the same general points and beliefs about what was going on between the two of you. He seemed..."Jerrica hesitated.

Mara, always annoyed by even such little things, urged on.

"He seemed what?"

"He seemed...interested in a divorce as well."

Mara nodded. "I thought so. He’s recently been acting more and more casual around me, less love-crazy. He seems like the James Kirk type; a woman per solar system. You know what I mean?"She said, looking around the counselor’s quarters. Jerrica’s temporary quarters were much like the large standard quarters in the starbase, and they were much bigger than the Egypt’s crew quarters. There were two long viewpanels filled with the Jiacon system’s information, although Jerrica was pretty sure this was merely a standby program. Jerrica had left most of her things back on the Egypt’s counseling room, yet had insisted on beaming both of her mental cleansing chairs to the Starbase’s counseling room. Mara now knew why. They felt great, and Mara could feel no pains or small aches throughout her body while she occupied the large chair.

Jerrica slowly responded, "I think I can have your marriage annulled. The way the two of you are right now, I think you’ll feel much better if we did this."Mara smiled, and stood slowly. She thought about sitting down, and finding some other meaningless point to talk about, just so she could reside in that chair. Her thoughts slowly turned back to what had to be done to ready the Egypt for launch.

Mara smiled professionally, and said, "Thanks, Jerri. I’ll see you later. I’ve got to go back to work."

Jerrica smiled, and replied, "Any time."As Mara left, Jerrica turned back to the Jiacon system information screen.

"Now, where to visit, where to visit..."

Voren walked down the small, wooden ramp to the beach in front of him, and pulled off shirt. Some of the Egypt’s ensigns, off-duty and on shore leave at the time, smiled or laughed as Voren made a joke out of flexing his muscles. He smiled back at the crewmembers currently enjoying themselves on the beach, and laid down on his repulsor pad. The small pad jiggled a bit as it became accommodated to Voren residing there. He pulled out a small pad from his Starfleet away bag, (which usually doubled as his off-duty packing bag,) and started working on it. He had to write a report on the Egypt’s cloaking device exchange between her and the Australia. Voren set to work, knowing that this reverie of quietness probably wouldn’t last too long.

He got about midway through the report, when he saw Don and Widiam emerge from the depths of the water. Both had on a snorkel mask, and an artificial oxygen pipe feed, leading from one of the battered Starfleet labeled tanks residing on each one’s back. Wid carried a small, black and yellow device in his hands, and Don was wearing large, duck-like flippers.

"Greetings from below, captain!"Don yelled. Voren, who had gone back to writing, looked up again, and waved. He was beginning to think he could finish the report soon, when they started walking towards him. Well...I’ve gone into as much detail as I can, time to end it! Voren thought. He wrote in two cursory sentences to end the report, and shoved the padd in his bag.

"Captain, care to join us in the water?"Wid asked, calm and cool as usual. The two crewmen approached where Voren lay, Don having some trouble in his large flippers. Voren stood from the repulsor pad, and put the small bag on the padd.

"Computer, fly the repulsor pad up to my personal cottage, and land. Put it into standby mode once it’s there."Voren stated.

The repulsor pad’s computer terminal clicked and bleeped for a second, before responding, "Affirmative."It flew away, with only a small hum.

"Well, I’d be glad to, but I don’t have any gear. Is there anything in the water that might decide to get the better of me, gentleman?"Voren said, looking at both men’s elaborate swimming gear.

Wid went into a steady line of explaining oceanic problems and parasites, before Voren said, "All right, all right, try limiting your search pattern to the water in front of us."

Wid nodded, and said, "Oh. Very well then, captain, there is little in the water in front of you that is able to harm you, save semi-organic bacteria."

Voren smiled, and said, "Just what I needed to know."He jumped in the water, and started swimming. Don turned around and splashed down the shore into the deeper water as well, followed by Wid, who turned on the yellow-and-black personal propulsion unit.

Bobby Squit sat intertwined in a holodeck simulation of the USS Egypt up against an armada of Cardassian ships.

"Okay, let’s see here...if shield strength is lowered to twenty percent about here..."Bobby walked back to the holographic information input panel, and programmed in several more coordinates. In front of him, the entire battle simulation exercise rewound itself, 7 Cardassian ships flying backwards to their start position, a Cardassian left flank attack. The Egypt flew backwards to her start position-the apex point of the left flank maneuver. The Cardassian Galor class squadrons most frequently attacked a warp-traveling ship in the left flank maneuver, each one spreading his guns across the ship’s hull. It was the only attack thus far that Bobby had simulated, and found the Egypt destroyed. Actually, Bobby had watched a holoprojected Egypt get destroyed so many times that it wasn’t funny. However, every time he ran an evasive pattern until it worked right, he saved it in the holodeck, his personal files, and in the helm station’s evasive patterns.

He pressed the activate button again. This time, the Egypt dropped out of warp, and the 7 Cardassian ships all came in from the left, disruptors firing. The Egypt than flew in a spiraling roll downwards, directly out of the line of fire, and then made a U-turn until it was flying vertically past the horizontal flying Cardassian ships. Although the Egypt’s shield strength was 70 percent this time, Cardassian ventral guns were less powerful and harder to lock than the forward and upper guns. Therefore, when the miniature Egypt fired three rounds of photon torpedoes at each ship, and then phasered it, each Cardassian ship was slowly disabled. The Egypt made a victory spin, as Bobby always loved to do in the holodeck simulations, and then warped away. Although it was much harder to spin a Lightstar class starship upon its horizontal axis in space, it was fun to watch the ship "enjoy"its victory. Bobby nodded in approval, and loaded the program onto the panel. He shut down the holodeck, and walked down the corridor of the Egypt towards turbolift three. Things are good, he thought.

That’s when the Egypt suddenly went to red alert.

"This is the shuttlecraft Quie to Egypt, open the shuttle doors, I’ve got to get inside!"yelled Evan Palpatine over the communication system. He had been out in a solitary stroll in the Quie when he noticed a slight Neutron radiation surge. He ignored it, and seconds later, a Romulan scoutship decloaked near the Jiacon system’s sun. Evan decided to fly in to find out what was going on when the Romulan ship fired a small torpedo, and cloaked. Evan looked up at the sun, and had gasped. When he saw that the sun’s brightness was fluctuating and dropping slowly, he spun the shuttlecraft around and flew back to the Jiacon station at full impulse. Since the main shield doors were open, he just flew straight in, telling the Jiacon spacedock operators to go to red alert-a class 2 shockwave was about to rip apart the Jiacon system.

Once inside the cavernous main hangar bay lodged behind the command section on top of the saucer, Evan saw that the place was in pandemonium. Crewmen ran to and from shuttles, moving them away from the middle of the hangar decks so people could get inside them. An ensign ran up to the shuttle’s main window port and motioned Evan madly towards the wall of the hangar. Evan nodded, and although the shuttle Quie was a bit large, he landed on the left side of the hangar. He opened the shuttle, and got out. He could see that the shuttlebay was filling up with crewmen from the Jiacon station. Evan ran and even pushed through crowds to get to the door. He ran out into the main corridor.

"I’m on Deck five right now, so..."He muttered, orienting himself.

Evan ran towards an access door to the Jeffries tubes. He reached it, and entered. He saw that two other people had decided to utilize this way to get to the bridge as well.

"Ah, hello Bobby, hello Mara."Evan said, greeting his crewmates.

Bobby looked down, and replied, "Evan Palpatine! Glad to see you, Doc."

Evan smiled, and said, "A pleasure, as always, Mr. Squit. We’ll talk later. I need to get to sickbay, and you two are heading towards the bridge."

Bobby shrugged, and replied, "Oh well, we never get much off-time anyways...”Each one was scurrying up the ladder to the bridge, and Evan wasted no time heading downwards-to sickbay.

Mara and Bobby reached the bridge in no time. They entered the bridge to see that only Cheval had been on duty. Mara nodded at her, and Cheval left the captain’s chair, to sit at the Sciences station. Cheval sat at her station, and made a brief once-over of the system’s situation.

"Commander Exar, we have fifteen minutes until that shockwave hits us." She noticed outloud.

Mara started rattling off commands to the different crew members, when she noticed something.

Voren.

"Where’s captain Na’al?" Mara said. Cheval looked down at her station, punching in several commands.

"He’s on Jiacon."

Mara nodded. "Well, no matter where he is right now, beam him, Don Maxwell and Widiam Baahling up. Tell our crew on the space station, including Jerrica Adams, to board the Egypt butt-fast or they all get left behind."

Mara then turned to Bobby. "Helm, ready us for departure. Clear all moorings, prepare the thrusters."

Bobby nodded, and went to work at his console. Mara walked up to study the helm controls, when Voren walked onto the bridge. He was still getting his captain’s shirt on, and behind him were Widiam Baahling and Don Maxwell.

Mara smiled in relief, and said, "Uh, welcome to a hectic bridge, captain."

Voren nodded, and said, "Yeah. Listen, everybody, right to work. Don, I want to know who’s still stuck on the station that’s on our manifest. Tell them to get the hell onto the ship now."At that minute, Jerrica Adams arrived on the bridge. Her usually tied-up hair had fallen all down in her face, very mussed and equaling her disheveled appearance. She smiled sheepishly.

"I had to drag my two Bajoran mental cleansing chairs back on the Egypt."

Voren looked back at Don. "Well?"

Don replied, "We have twenty-six people still left on the station. The command section of the Jiacon station has separated from the spacedock and just jumped into warp."

"Come on!" Voren urged silently, hoping it would increase the speed of people getting back on the Egypt.

Don then spoke up. Everyone’s aboard. Most of the Jiacon station’s crew got away on the command section, but I don’t know about those on the planet.

Voren nodded, and said, "How many of the Jiacon station’s crew do we have?"

"One fourth. The rest got away in the command section."

Voren nodded. "Leave spacedock, full Impulse. Sure, it may destroy the facility, but there’s no one left behind to worry about it. Once we’re clear, begin beaming up massive amounts of people from Jiacon’s surface. As many as you can." He said. He heard the Egypt’s main Impulse engines thrum up to speed quickly, and he watched the spacedock facility slowly shatter around them as the Egypt left the giant doors. Voren saw the Miranda-class starship that had been in the spacedock near them jump into warp speed as they blasted into the vast starfield of space.

"Cowards." Voren muttered.

"How many people are left on the planet?" Voren said. "Thirty two hundred, sir." Cheval responded.

Voren nodded. "Keep on beaming people up. Make space anywhere you have to on the ship." He knew he would never be able to fit that many people on the Egypt, but he was going to try to the last man.

"Sir, the shockwave’s going to hit in one minute." Cheval said. Voren paced the bridge, looking at the transport status meter on Cheval’s science station. Although she wasn’t using it-the transporter crews levels down in the transporter bays were operating it-showed the body count growing on the Egypt. The amount of people on the planet was still drastically larger than the amount on the Egypt.

"Captain, we have to go." Mara said.

Voren nodded. "Very well. Bobby prepare to jump to warp 6. Course, 1562, mark 9."

Voren took one last look at Jiacon. "Execute." He blurted out. Voren looked away from the planet as the Egypt sped away from Jiacon, her mighty warp engines blasting her into warp as an almost scream-like sound erupted from the core of the planet Jiacon as it was ripped to pieces of asteroid by the shockwave.

So, what do you think? If you like it up to here, E-mail the author and I'll send it in either a Microsoft readable .DOC format, or in text, or .TXT format!