June 19, 2361

We've been so busy that I've hardly had time to sleep, and Toby and I usually eat when we're in the cockpit. Between all the pirates and the federation checkpoints, there's never been a minute to waste when awake. The bunks they have for us are so tiny I hardly fit in one, I don't know how Toby does, so it goes without saying one couldn't fit two people in there.

The showers are smaller than the beds, and use real water. I'd never taken a shower with water, every house I've ever lived in had a sonic shower, as well as anywhere I'd stayed for any length of time.

I didn't understand how they could give us such pathetic living conditions on this ships. Toby explained that most people find that less important than the pay scale, benefits and death coverage. I haven't even discussed any of those things with the company, but I would be soon I'm sure. Toby told me if I asked for it, I could even get full medical coverage, which would include maternity leave, and could expand to include any spouse or offspring, but I'm not too worried about that yet.

As we were discussing this Orion pirates swarmed down on us. The two tiny ships targeted our shields first. Toby had been piloting up until that point, since officially I was only an observer, but the moment he saw the ships he told me to take over. So far all the pirate attacks had been when Laina and Travis (the pretty boy) had been on watch, or when Laina was in the cockpit for some reason, so she usually was at the helm.

I slipped over onto Toby's lap not waiting for him to move and I didn't think he expected me to do that. I didn't give him a chance to react or move as my hands flew to the helm control to try to make it harder for them to get a hit.

He told me he needed to get at the weapons console, and I nodded to acknowledge him as I flew between the two ships and stood during the moment they couldn't fire at us without likely hitting each other too. Toby slipped out from under me and hit the weapons quick enough that he even got a shot at one of the ships before they could fire back.

The fight lasted fifteen to twenty minutes past that. They managed to get a lucky shot and knock down our shields, but not before we knocked out the main power on one ship. The second ship managed to get a boarding party on before we knocked out their warp drive and left them behind.

Toby called down to tell Laina what happened, and he was informed that Travis headed down to the cargo bay to attempt to deal with the boarding party. Of course, pretty boy didn't know what he was doing and only took a small phaser with him. Toby couldn't leave me up here by myself as I only knew the helm controls, so he asked Laina to come up to the cockpit when she admitted the most she could do was defend herself. I offered to go down, but Toby firmly told me no.

After a tense exchange where he made it clear he wasn't just looking out for me by saying no, Laina came up to the cockpit and Toby went down to the cargo bay. The next thing Laina and I heard, the boarding party had Toby and Travis was planning to just go in randomly shooting hoping it would make it better. When I offered my help, neither Laina or Travis said anything against it.

Travis was waiting for me outside the cargo hold. He tried to convince me that I should leave this to the professional, him. I drew my d'k tahg, grabbed him by his collar and slammed him against the wall. I had to stand on tip toe to look him level in the eye, but I managed to do this in a dignified and calm manner as I explained to him exactly how stupid he was, and pointed out that his ineptitude was clear just from the way he was holding the phaser.

I let go of him, still steaming, and put away my d'k tahg as he quickly fumbled with the phaser to turn on the safety. He tried to cover the embarrassment by getting huffy. I told him to stop acting so male and tell me what his genius “professional” plan entailed. He mutters before admitting he was just planning to go in guns blazing.

I took a deep breath before I told him to go ahead as planned, but make a point not to hit anything, as he was simply going to be the distraction. I was going to slip around under the cover of his fire and get Toby out. He muttered something, but agreed to my plan.

He palmed the door controls as he spun in and started shooting up all the ceiling and airspace. I slid in as the doors were closing and hugged the wall as I made it to the back of the cargo hold. Toby was leaning against a crate holding his arm. I could see a little blood dripping from his lip. It looked like the Orion guarding him was about to hit him again.

I charged, and brought him down before his hand could touch Toby again. Travis was doing his job and the other two Orions didn't notice as I took down Toby's guard.

I asked Toby if he was okay and looked at his lip. He hissed back asking why I didn't stay in the cockpit like he told me to. I challenged if he really wanted to trust Travis to get him out of here on his own and grabbed him by the wrist to guide him towards the door again. He shot a quick look at the chaos in the middle of the hold, Travis currently dancing like a moron dodging fire from the Orions as he continued to fire at random. Toby stayed silent as we made our way back to the door into the cargo hold.

Once we were outside, Travis darted out behind us and locked the doors. A quick exchange was had as I demanded what we were going to do now, and Travis suggested we transport them out of the hold. I chose not to ask why no one mentioned the transporters to me earlier.

The Orions were transported out of the cargo hold and into an empty extra room on the ship, where they sat until we came across a star fleet ship which was happy to take them off our hands.