by Chris Hechtl
“Three million kilometers clear. Four million kilometers clear. Five million kilometers clear. Tango. I say again Tango one and two. Long-range sensors are picking up; two ships moving towards us at 6.4 million kilometers out. We are being hailed,” CIC reported.
“Ignore them. Comm, scrub our radio. Deny all transmissions; we don't want them getting a virus into our systems,” Toni ordered. She looked over to the captain, and he nodded curtly in support.
“Captain to CIC, what are the ships?” the captain asked, pressing the comm button with his thumb.
“CIC here, the ships are destroyers of the new class the enemy is fielding.”
“So, they probably can get to us in another two minutes or less,” the TAO stated. “Depending on how badly they want us and how much ammo they want to conserve in the process.”
“CIC, we need that sensor feed of their fleet. Everything you can get. Our time here is very limited,” the captain warned.
“CIC long-range sensors need another eight minutes to get there and eight to come back, sir,” the rating reported apologetically.
The captain grunted. His fingers tapped another button. “Engineering, get the hyperdrive back online. We're not sticking around for long.”
“Aye aye, sir. We'll have her backup in twenty minutes,” the chief reported.
The captain frowned. “Time to the enemy's outside engagement zone?” he asked, looking over to the TAO.
“Twenty-one minutes thirty seconds,” he said instantly.
“It's gonna be close,” Toni murmured.
“Vampire! Vampire! Multiple vampires port side and closing fast!” CIC barked as alarm klaxons began to wail.
“Engineering, we need to get into hyper now!” the captain barked as he sat up and leaned forward in alarm. He heard the distant numbers rattled off by CIC, but they were partially drowned out by the klaxons and the rushing in his ears as his heart began to pound acutely fast.
“No time! They are in final acquisition!” the TAO said urgently. “Weapons free!”
“How'd they get so close?!?” Someone on the bridge practically shrieked.
“Who knows? Who cares! All hands, battle stations! We've got missiles incoming on the port quarter! Three point five million kilometers out and closing fast!”
“Get that point defense up!” the captain roared.
The point defense gun came up and began to spit laser fire at the incoming missile fire. The first four missiles exploded, one taking out another. A fifth tried to dodge and ran into another missile taking both out. “Eat laser, mother fracker!” someone in CIC cheered.
“Shut up!” the PO in charge of the section barked just as the next wave of missiles came in. Two more missiles were taken out, but the others had spread themselves out so the PDL couldn't hit them all. Two more went down but then the remaining two hit the shields. The ship rocked as the nukes went off in close succession, battering the shields down.
“Those are cruiser grade missiles,” CIC reported.
“No shit,” the XO muttered. “Skipper, we're not going to last long here,” she warned as they tried to run away.
“Vampire! I say again, Vampire! Vampire bow starboard side! We've got another dozen missiles incoming at 2.9 million kilometers. Impact in seven-zero seconds from—Mark!” a CIC rating barked.
“We're fracked,” the skipper breathed as the same CIC rating reported an additional spread coming up their rear. He realized with sick dread that the two ships in front of them had been beaters pushing him back into the arms of the waiting cruisers. He checked the ship status. With his ship fighting for her life, they didn't have enough power reserves to build up a charge for the hyperdrive. It was only a matter of time before something broke.
“Guns clear,” he barked. He didn't want to go down without a fight.
~~~^~~~
Captain Purple Thorn was pleased that Defiant had gotten the last hits in and destroyed the enemy vessel. It was a pity she hadn't surrendered. She had to admit though, she was surprised it had taken so many missiles to take out the tin can. They'd had fiendishly good point defense lasers onboard. It was a pity that the ship and crew had been turned into tiny bits of debris; she would have liked to have her engineers take a look at that.
“Comm, send the all clear and a report to the flag. Append our logs of the incident. SAR on standby. CIC, I want a triple sweep of the wreckage for survivors.”
A series of ayes answered her orders.
“CIC, once you get that sweep complete look for any tidbits for the wrench turners and spooks to go over. We might as well see if we can keep them busy,” she ordered.
“I doubt there is anything bigger than a breadbox ma …. I mean, aye aye, ma’am,” a rating stated.
The elf nodded once and then settled in her chair and patted an armrest. She was pleased with how it had gone, but it could have gone better. “Guns, I want a hot wash on that battle.” She knew they'd had to divide some of their attention when the enemy ship had returned fire. Fortunately, nothing had gotten through their defenses.
“Aye aye, ma’am. Already on it,” her TAO stated.
~~~^~~~
Captain Troi grimaced when she noted Defiant got in the final shot. “Cease fire,” the TAO ordered.
“All weapons cease fire, aye,” a report echoed from the ship's A.I.
“Damn. Defiant got the last word,” Commander Silverfish muttered.
“We still shared in the kill,” the captain said as she turned to him. “All stations report in. Stand down battle stations.”
“A little hairy in that last bit,” Commander Silverfish stated. The destroyer had tried to concentrate her fire on Defiant. He'd watched anxiously as their division mate had taken on the missiles relatively easily at first before the enemy had jinked a couple, and they'd gotten in entirely too close for comfort. They hadn't landed a hit on Defiant's shields fortunately, but it had been a close-run thing.
“Damn good job one and all,” Commodore Binks said through his connection to the bridge. The commander turned to see his holographic image on the plotting board. It was an apparition though, the projectors had problems projecting black and the other Neocat was solid black. “We're sending the initial report off to the Admiralty now. I just sent my congratulations to Defiant. They are to be commended as are the crew of Enterprise. Outstanding work everyone.”
“Yes, sir,” the captain replied with a brief smile of pleasure. “SAR is winding down now, sir. We'll pick through the wreckage to see if there is anything we can use. I doubt it though.”
“Agreed. I'll ask if Commander Chi'th will want to pick it over once we're through.”
“Are we that hard up for supplies, sir?” Commander Silverfish asked. He didn't care about the thought of picking over the dead. He knew a few in the crew might get superstitious about it however.
“Not that I'm aware of. This falls under the heading of every little bit helps I suppose.”
“Ah. Aye aye, sir.”
“Good. I'll want an assessment on the engagement in an hour. Final assessments of the engagement tomorrow. We'll probably pick this apart all week.”
“It did liven things up, sir, for the moment,” Captain Troi said with a brief smile.
“That it did. Fortunately, it didn't get too lively for Defiant. I'll need your input on the final AAR once you are ready, Captain.”
“Aye aye, sir,” the captain replied looking at her XO significantly.
“Joy. More paperwork,” he muttered with a shake of his head. She snorted.
Chapter 46
Dead Drop
Captain Samantha Jurigson was just a little put out over the stubbornness of a certain Horathian officer. Lieutenant Sri Savenan had been left in charge of the Horathians. Despite being left holding the bag, he had agreed to talk but had flat-out refused to surrender. Well, not in so many words of course. It was clear the guy was playing for time.
She shook her head. He might have it on his side, who kno
ws, she thought. Admiral Halsey and her CruRon were just about out of ammunition after chasing the enemy ships out of the star system. They'd bagged one corvette and one frigate for their trouble and shot up a couple of the cruisers, but the cruisers had gotten away. Since they were so low on missiles, the captain couldn't risk going into the inner star system with energy weapons. Apparently, Lieutenant Savenan was smart enough to see that. Or, he had run the math on the number of expenditures they'd made and had a tally on her. Either way he had her number and knew she was bluffing.
She inhaled and exhaled slowly. No matter. They still had a few rocks and some rail gun rounds. Occasionally, they peppered the inner system looking for targets of opportunity and to keep them jumping. Occasionally, he sent shots back their way. It was almost like two hillbilly hicks sitting on their porches on opposite hills firing off the occasional shot at each other just to be neighborly. “Now it is a race to see who gets here first.”
Until she knew which way to jump, she had stationed her force near the DD01ns jump point. There was no way she was going to try to sit on the Garth jump point to ambush something when she was light on ammunition and fuel. No way in hell.
But, that still didn't mean she wasn't going to be surprised. “Hyper wake detected! We have a hyper wake at 2.11 million kilometers out!” CIC reported.
She frowned and punched up the feed on her office computer. She frowned at the replay.
“XO to the skipper,” her XO said.
“Go for skipper,” she replied.
“It looks like one ship, ma'am,” he said.
“Okay. Burst them.”
“Challenge sent.”
She waited a beat. A radio signal might get disrupted by the energy from the hyper translation. The same could be said of tachyons, but there were ways to get around that. When he didn't say anything for a full minute, she cleared her throat. “One of ours?”
“No IFF, ma'am,” he said quietly.
“One of theirs then. Guns, weapons free on all ships! Launch the Alert Five! XO, pull us back and out of range pronto!” she ordered as she made her way to the bridge.
~~~^~~~
Damion Drake cleared her own hyper wake as rapidly as she could. As she began to move, her sensors came online and began to feed data to the computers. It took time though for the sensors to filter things out from the dissipating energy. “Frack! Enemy cruisers two million kilometers out and closing! I forgot about them!” a rating swore.
The captain's eyes went wide. “What the frack?! Where is the fleet?”
“Not here. Not the problem at the moment. sir,” the XO stated in clipped tones. “Sir …”
“Helm evade them. Get us clear fast.”
“At this range, they are already in missile range, sir.”
“Damn.” His thumb stabbed the icon for engineering. “Engineering, can you put us back in hyperspace?”
“Not for another twenty minutes, sir,” the engineer replied.
“Vampire! Missiles incoming!”
“Never mind. Set Missile Defense Two!” the captain snapped out.
~~~^~~~
“We got a piece of the Omaha but she's still running. We didn't anticipate her course to be for the Garth jump point, and we were obviously low on missiles to begin with. We don't have the missiles for a full-on running engagement. And Admiral Halsey's bombers are expended,” Captain Mustafa Leo stated, clearly frustrated by the loss. “What do you want us to do?”
“I know, Mustafa,” Samantha replied. “I'm ordering the cruisers to launch their fighters and give chase. Have them run that ship down. Tell them to try to slow her down and to pin her against us.”
“Aye aye, ma’am,” the Neolion said. He glanced at his Tauren XO and then shrugged. “We'll do what we can.”
~~~^~~~
Lieutenant Savenan noted the engagement at the jump point. He had his people put a signal out. Damion Drake responded to the transmission and a link was established. “I don't know what you expect me to do. I can't fight them off obviously,” Vassili said when the lieutenant asked his intentions. “And no, I'm not sticking around,” he growled.
“I understand that, sir,” the lieutenant responded a few minutes later. “Can I send you my logs?”
The captain frowned and then nodded. “I don't see the harm. I'll transmit our files too. Just for the record,” he said, motioning to the rating manning the comm section to set up the transmission. “Is Garth in enemy hands?” he asked. He felt like kicking himself for asking in the open bridge instead of in private the moment there was a sharp intake of breath from more than one person on the bridge.
Fearful gazes were shot his way for long minutes until the lieutenant received his transmission and then responded.
Like the wings of a prayer, the lieutenant's image shook his head. “Not that we're aware of. The enemy fleet hasn't been seen coming through here ahead of you. There is a problem, however; a second enemy fleet was detected south of Garth. We don't know what you'll be jumping into.”
“That's just perfect,” the XO muttered.
“Sir, enemy fighters detected on our six closing at fourteen million kilometers out,” CIC reported.
“Helm, alter course. Random evasive pattern beta. I want helm changes in a zig zag around our base course,” the captain said instantly. “CIC, time to intercept?”
“Twenty, now twenty-nine minutes to outside missile range of missiles or torpedoes,” the CIC rating replied.
“Helm, let's see if we can add some speed.”
“Sir, engineering is still getting a handle on the damage. We took a few hits back there,” the XO warned.
“Well, tell the chief to get off his ass and break out the riggers tape. Tell him we need as many hamsters patched together and running their wheels as he can get.”
The Xo looked at him in disbelief and then snorted. “Aye aye, sir.”
The captain knew that little bit would go around the ship's scuttlebutt grapevine, hopefully perking things up.
“Comm, get that transmission to Dead Drop HQ. I want their logs.”
“ …They are running low on munitions,” Lieutenant Savenan's image said.
“Wait, run that back. Say again?” the captain demanded.
“He said they have been in the star system for weeks and chased out Lizzy Borden and company. They had a running engagement with her and also used a lot of munitions to destroy the facilities in the outer system while also shooting us up, sir,” the rating reported as he hit rewind. “He has been in negotiations to surrender. He believed it was a bluff and that they are running low on munitions,” he finished as the replay started.
“Thank you but I'd like to hear that for myself,” the captain said crisply. Once the replay concluded, he nodded. “Good copy,” he said, resting a heavy hand on the rating's shoulder. The rating glanced up to him and then back to his station. The captain patted it and then turned to the XO.
“They are going to dog our heels all the way across the star system, sir. If they get us to change course, their other ships will get there ahead of us,” his XO warned.
“And then they'll sit there and squat on the general area and make us come to them. Well, that explains why we're still alive,” he said.
“Sir?”
“No way could we have survived an ambush against seven heavy cruisers and a CEV from a cold exit,” the captain replied with a shake of his head. “They were conserving their ammo.”
The XO nodded slowly. “It fits, sir.”
“Damn right it does. So, we send them a nice raspberry and then run hell-for-leather for the jump point area. We don't need to hit it dead center, just aim for the general area. We'll adjust later,” the captain ordered.
“Aye aye, sir,” the XO said with a nod.
~~~^~~~
Captain Leo looked disgusted as the enemy cruiser completed her hyper jump and entered hyperspace. Not without a sendoff, but not quite the one he'd wanted to send.
Still, they
knew they'd been kissed. It had been awful risky to chase that ship across the star system, but he'd wanted one more kill. And obviously, Sam had too because she'd tagged right along with the rest of the force. Now that the enemy ship had left, there was nothing left for them there. “Captain, we're receiving a signal to all units to make for the DD01ns jump point at our most efficient speed,” the ship's A.I. reported.
“Nav, you heard the man. Get that course and speed off to the flagship. XO, recover the fighters. Did we get anything?”
“A piece but not a big enough one to stop her. She's going to be stinging all the way home though. Based on observed damage she's probably going to be limping pretty badly.”
“Good. If we couldn't kill her outright, that's the next best thing I suppose,” the captain growled.
~~~^~~~
Vassili grimaced as he heard the latest round of engineering reports from DCC. “Enough, he rumbled. “Okay, I get it. We're stuck in the lowest octaves of Alpha band. Do what you can with what we've got.”
He nodded to the exhausted chief engineer. He knew keeping the ship together and running while under constant threat of bombardment, not to mention the last stinging hits as they'd braked hadn't been easy.
“I'm concerned that being stuck in the low bands they'll sail right on past us, sir,” his XO murmured to him.
“We can't help it. We'll have to jump short. We'll need to conserve fuel. I want an assessment made. Also, have OPS begin conserving fuel and energy now. Cut down on lighting but don't make it too obvious to the crew. We don't want an impact on morale.”
“Yes, sir. I'll have an inventory made too. We don't want to run out of consumables before we exit,” the XO stated grimly.
The captain grimaced but then nodded as he patted the other man on the arm and sent him on his way.
It was going to be a long journey to Garth. Of that he was certain. But he was also certain they'd get there. And somehow, he planned on getting his ship put together and get some much-needed revenge.