"On it!" Sage shouted, jamming the probes into the door control panel. Curie’s portable dampener emitted a final, agonizing pop and died. The sapphire-blue protective bubble collapsed.

"Brace yourself, this is gonna hurt" Patch barked, injecting hypospray directly into the neck seal of Khalil’s suit, then moving down the line to Curie and Breach. The high-dose anti-radiation cocktail hissed into their bloodstreams, slowing the rapid degradation of their vitals.

"I need ten seconds!" Sage yelled. "Ears! If you're still on the line, I need you to spike the auxiliary logic pathway"

"Spiking the logic pathway... now!" Ears roared over the stat-choked comms. The inside Sage's open panel flared brilliant white. With a heavy mechanical shudder, the massive door slid open, revealing the smoke-choked, shattered command deck of the Romulan bridge.

"Door's open! Move, move, move!" Tac roared, covering the team's entry. The entire team crossed the threshold, and Sage disconnected from the panel and secured the door behind them. The simulation's primary timer flashed on Khalil's HUD: 1 minute, 45 seconds remaining before total structural collapse. In the center of the room, slumped over the primary command chair, was the simulated figure of a Romulan Commander.

Beside the chair, the optronic data core. The helm and tactical consoles were also blinking with a low-power, amber data feed."Sage, get the data," Khalil ordered. "Tac and Curie, see what else may be running. I don't want this ship popping off before we get out. Patch, check the commander.

"Curie interfaced with the bridge transport controls. "Transporter power is minimal, we should be able to get everyone on the bridge."

"Ears, prep a signal enhancer for site-to-site transport."

"Downloading now!" Sage called out, her wrist strapped PADD connected into the console. Curie’s tricorder clicked frantically against a smoking casing. "Starfield! there’s an automated scuttle sequence buried in the auxiliary power grid!"

"I'm on it," Tac grunted, using the butt of his compression rifle to smash the weapons console. He looked around reached inside, and violently ripped out the only glowing components. The scuttle sequence flatlined. "Neutralized."

"Flight incoming, docking on the port side of the command."

"He’s alive, Starfield!" Patch reported, passing the medical tricorder sensor over the Romulan Commander's. "Severe neural trauma, but he's stable enough to move."

The primary simulation clock hit 0 minutes, 28 seconds. The entire bridge structure violently shuddered, as the transport horrific tearing sound echoing through the deck plates as the dorsal hull began its final separation. "Data extraction complete!" Sage yelled, pulling her pad from the console. "We have the logs!"

Khalil tapped his suit's comms link. "Ears! Energizing now."

The transport locked onto the docking port and pressurized the airlock just as the transporter control panel sparked and the pads lit up with the signature pail green. "Move out everyone we have 30 seconds!"

A second later, Blackwatch Simulator hissed back into view. The matte-black walls of the training room materialized, and the simulated operators vanished into thin air, leaving Lieutenant Khalil "Starfield" Hoshino standing alone in the center of the silent room.

The overhead display illuminated EVALUATION SIMULATOR 1: "GHOST SHIP" — COMPLETED.OPERATOR: LIEUTENANT KHALIL "STARFIELD" HOSHINOFINAL SCORE: EXCELLENT (98.4%)