Liftoff

M'eko and the rest of the team had just finished welding a new door onto the Jem'Hadar shuttle that they pirated from the smaller Starfleet shuttle that had brought Lieutenants Borealiou and Johnson from Elifia Prime.

"Wow. I thought that would never fit. Good thing these two share common airlocks." M'eko said as she rolled her sleeves up. She didn't know why she was still wearing the uniform jacket. It was getting more then a bit hot on Mirisam V and many of the team had disposed of the jacket and heavy shirt.

"Are we able to take off now ?" Logan asked as he sat on a rock. The door had been quite heavy and had taken five people to lift while M'eko and Private Jax had attached it.

"We're clear. The seal reads as tight and the little bit we did have to remove got cut as precise as I could manage." She replied.

"Not that we have time to test it. We're out of food and for all we know no one is looking for us. Fate might decide to be cruel and have us meet up with the rogue Dominion ship cloaked in orbit." He proposed as he climbed inside the shuttle.

"It looks like we have room for all the Starfleet personnel only. It's too cramped to fit the Jem'Hadar in with us." M'eko told Logan from the open door.

As she said that, the console on the pod started beeping. M'eko pulled the screen up and read the layout.

"There is a ship in orbit.... it looks like a Federation ! Meteor Class. I don't know which one it is though. I'd bet it was commissioned about two or three weeks ago. Its forward nacelles aren't powered. On a full tour of duty, every engine is at 100% and ready to use. Looks like we're going to have to launch now. I don't know if they would even have shuttles yet." She told Logan as he looked at the same screen.

"I'll stay back with Private Jax and watch over the prisoners. You can take the rest of the personnel up with you for now." He responded.

M'eko nodded and gathered all the Starfleet personnel up for a launch. Within one minute, the ship was hovering on thrusters and began to ascend remarkably fast for the crash it had suffered. When they cleared the atmosphere, the name USS Leviathan could be seen on the pennant running the length of the ship.

"USS Leviathan, this is Lieutenant M'eko J'ross, the Executive Officer of the USS Taurus." She called out to the ship.

[Excellent.] The image onscreen nodded. [We came here to look for you, and it looks like you are doing not so badly yourselves. Is there anyone else left on the surface ?]

"We have all the colonists aboard, but Lieutenant Logan McQueen and Marine Private Jax are still on the surface, guarding the Jem'Hadar we have captured. There was not enough space on this shuttle for everyone, so we were hoping to contact our vessel via subspace transmitters once we reached orbit."

[Very well, I will be presently dispatching a shuttle to collect the rest of your party. Stand by for the tractor beam, Lieutenant J'ross.]

Within a minute, the commandeered Jem'Hadar shuttle was on the tractor beam. Once aboard, M'eko met the acting CO of the Leviathan, Commander Rashad. The Romulan-Bajorian explained the situation to the away team and assigned each member of the team temporary posts.

The ship was severely undermanned and M'eko learned she was to be the temporary XO for the trip back. Logan McQueen was give the task of head of security and Lieutenant Kahfre was assigned to sickbay and Lieutenant Borealiou, the new arrival was assigned as the ship's operations chief.

As the away team dispersed, M'eko went to her assigned quarters and took a long sonic shower, then promptly fell asleep glad that her stay on Mirisam was over.