Jim Stone sat quietly in the Pennine. The team was on standby due to the recent events, and during the day Jim could neither sleep nor relax with a Type 2 Phaser strapped to his hip. He looked around the cockpit, the amount of diagnostics which had been run on the runabout in the past 6 hours was uncountable and he was beginning to get bored of the same view.
He wasn't forced to sit waiting in the runabout, it was just a more comfortable seat than his office upstairs and besides the secretary couldn't reach him out here. He began tapping the console to start a sensor diagnostic and the panel started bleeping and a small red light blinked on and off. He tapped the light and the comm system came to life.
"SAR from Serenity Control. Respond please."
"USS Pennine receiving, go ahead," Stone replied.
"Pennine, this is control. We're receiving an automated ejection distress signal from the area around the Trojan Planetoids," the controller began. "IFF code matches that of a Starfleet fighter."
"Received."
"This is graded immediate response as you can gather, launch and flight plan are cleared and downloading now, you have callsign Rescue One."
"Understood Rescue One out," Stone said and closed the channel.
As he did so he heard the klaxon begin sounding and moments later Fisher, Watson and Hedley were aboard. The other two were currently on scheduled leave, so all were present. The Pennine was powered up and airborne within seconds of the klaxon, and was soon on its way out of the Serenity's atmosphere towards the Trojan Planetoids.
Max made sure her life support belt was functioning before she popped the canopy of her fighter's cockpit-turned-escape pod and hopped out onto the barren surface of the planetoid. A flurry of dust billowed upwards around her legs and trailed behind in a rising column of smoke as she walked away from the downed vehicle. At a hundred paces, she stopped and looked back.
Another crashed starfighter, she thought morosely. They really are going to start taking these things out of my paycheck.
She couldn't understand what had brought her to this situation. Never before had she been so helpless in the face of the enemy. She had single-handedly outfought a dozen Jem'Hadar battlebugs before and come out without a scratch, so she should certainly have been able to best a lone hulking Mulluran corvette! Her Esper ability had failed her. Why? It was the question that burned foremost in her mind. If her powers had indeed vanished, then her usefulness to Banshee Squad was at an end. Without her Esper gift -- her prescience -- she was just another pilot.
Around her, she could see the dusty earth being blown by a stiff wind, but cocooned inside her life support field she could feel none of it, just a gentle, filtered breeze blowing across the skin of her face and the warmth of artificially generated heat. She climbed atop a large boulder and sat down cross-legged, settling in for the long wait before someone came to collect her.
It took the USS Pennine 8 minutes to reach the Trojan Planetoids, the response times of the team were always slightly faster when Jim was piloting. Rich never liked to admit it though.
"Sensor scans indicate ejection pod has entered the atmosphere of Pompeii," Jan Fisher reported. "I'm picking up debris from the fighter, no signs of anything we need to collect the destruction system has taken care of all essential parts."
"Understood," Stone replied. "Systems to landing mode, Marc, advise Starfleet of our status."
Hedley tapped his console sending the relevant message to the Starfleet controllers and then reported all systems ready to land. Stone took the Pennine through the dusty atmosphere of the planet, under the guidance of the sensors. The dust cleared suddenly and a view of a desert opened out in front of them. The Pennine swooped down to 100 feet above the desert surface and made it's way towards the downed pilot.
The high-pitched whine of a magnetic drive brought Max's brooding mental meandering back to the present just in time to see a Starfleet runabout scream by overhead. As it overflew her position, it did a 'wing waggle' maneuver, indicating the crew inside had spotted her, and as the craft banked around to come in for a landing, she caught sight of the Search & Rescue marking on the side.
"Well, at least they didn't send the other Banshees out to collect me," muttered Max glumly. "That puts off me having to face them for a little while longer." She hopped off her rock and strolled in the direction of the runabout.
Stone brought the Pennine to a halt and slowly lowered it to the surface of the planetoid, a few meters away from the pilot. As the runabout touched down it kicked up a cloud of dust, which gently fell to the surface as the engines slowed to standby.
Watson stood from the co-pilot's console and walked over to the hatch which was part way through opening. He could see through the expanding opening a female figure walking towards the craft. The atmospheric field flickered into place as the hatch dropped open, the computer had detected the low oxygen level outside.
Max gratefully accepted his outstretched hand up into the runabout. "Thanks for picking me up," she said automatically. She deactivated her life support belt and followed Watson into the craft's interior.
"You're welcome ma'am," Watson gestured to the co-pilots seat. "Have a seat."
Max slumped into the chair, too worn-out and despondent to argue. All she wanted was to be back home, away from space, away from spaceships. She closed her eyes and rested her head back against the cushioned headrest. Around her, she could hear the runabout's crew going about their usual business. To them, she was just another rescue, one among hundreds they had performed.
They had no inkling of the personal crisis unfolding in her consciousness, of the terrible debate over whether she was of any worth without her prescience.
Stone tapped the console and the runabout lifted off the surface.
"I hope you didn't leave anything..." he said as he tapped the weapons console online.
Due to the current alert state, any hint of working abandoned technology had to be put out of service. A second tap on the console and an amber beam shot from the runabout as it flew by the escape pod, vaporizing it. The Pennine left Pompeii in the distance and made it's way back to Starbase 901.
Shortly after Serenity began visible in the viewport and within a matter of minutes the runabout was entering orbit.
"Okay, Commander, ready for transport when you are..." Stone told her.
Max opened her eyes and nodded at Stone. Without a word, she stepped to the rear of the forward compartment and took her position on the transporter. As the transporter beam enveloped her and she felt her body begin to dissolve, her last thoughts were that she'd almost rather never be reintegrated than have to face Commander Carter.
The computer bleeped to acknowledge the transport was complete and Stone took the runabout back home to Serenity. It touched down moments later on the landing pad of the SAR Unit.
"Control, rescue one, completed," Stone called out over the comm system. "Job write off to follow."
The runabout powered down and the crew disembarked, back to the routine of standby once again.
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