Chapter 11
Bridge
USS Redemption
Starfleet Construction Yards
Romulus
“Computer, initiate Tactical Projection System,” Kalara ordered as the Redemption began to pull out of spacedock.
All around her, the bridge’s walls, floor and ceiling seemed to vanish, replaced instead by a real-time holographic projection of the view outside the ship. It appeared as though all of the bridge crew were sat or stood on nothing, affording them a 360° view of the grey and white ribs of the spacedock around them, and beyond that, space.
“Steady as she goes,” Kalara said, trying to imbue her words with confidence. She glanced down at Lieutenants Williams and Q’sar. The young woman’s eyes were glued to the holographic controls in front of her, making minute adjustments with the control thrusters as they slid out of the spider-like structure. As for the Vulcan Navigation officer, he seemed to have inherited the true impertuable Vulcan mindset, despite what had happened to the rest of his people.
With the tactical projection activated, Kalara mentally instructed her headset’s viewfinder to provide her with a sensor readout of the tactical situation. A green screen appeared before her left eye, showing the whole Romulus system. She saw a large red icon representing the Dominon battlecruiser split off from the rest of the fleet, and Kalara imagined the ship’s impulse drives flaring as she descended towards the planet, three Birds-of-Prey tight on her rear. The rest of the fleet began to break up as well, with one of the Martok-class cruisers setting course for the starbase.
“Commander, that other Martok cruiser is heading straight for us,” Lieutenant L’wynd said, “along with both D’thar-class cruisers and seven of the Birds-of-Prey.”
“I see them,” Kalara said through gritted teeth. “Lieutenant Williams, can you get us out of this dock any faster?”
“Can do, Commander,” Williams said. Her fingers slid flashing icons from left to right and Redemption leapt forward. Kalara winced slightly as the edge of the saucer section screeched along one of the docking bay’s ribs, then the front of the ship was out into open space, followed moments later by the rest.
“Well done, Lieutenant.”
Williams nodded. “Course, Commander?”
Kalara studied the space before her for a moment, comparing what her eyes could see through the tactical projection with what the sensors were telling her through her viewfinder. She saw it a moment before L’wynd called out.
“Both D’thar-class cruisers and four accompanying Birds-of-Prey are changing course.”
“They’re heading for the other construction docks,” Kalara said. “They’re going to try and cause as much damage as possible.”
“The Martok-class is still on an intercept course, along with three Birds-of-Prey.”
Kalara nodded. “Helm, increase speed. Lay in a course towards the closest Bird-of-Prey.”
L’wynd turned to look at her. “Cap- I mean Commander, the Martok-class is the more immediate threat.”
“I know that, Lieutenant, but we need to play the odds.”
“Yes sir.”
Again, Kalara felt the Redemption surge beneath her, rolling slightly to starboard as Williams guided her towards the flanking Bird-of-Prey.
“How long until we’re in range?”
“55 seconds.”
“And the cruiser?”
“78.”
“Lieutenant L’wynd, fire a spread of subspace disruption torpedoes at the front of the Bird-of-Prey on my mark. Then follow that up with a full burst of our forward phaser banks. Target the phasers at the Bird-of-Prey’s left wing, right where it meets the hull.”
“With all due respect, sir, subspace disruption torpedoes will be unable to penetrate the…”
“Lieutenant, I am in command. If you question my orders one more time, I will have you removed from your post. Is that understood?”
A mass of crystaline flesh rippled across L’wynd’s body, turning it into a solid mass of diamond-like facets. A moment later, the effect disappeared. The Crystat’s head bobbed. “Aye, sir.”
I know you don’t trust me yet, Kalara thought. You’re just going to have obey my orders anyway.
The oncoming ships grew larger and larger in the forward view. Kalara realised she was gripping the railing so hard that her knuckles were turning white. She forced herself to relax. This will work, I know it will.
“In range in ten seconds,” Dax spoke up from his post.
“Wait for it,” Kalara whispered. “Wait for it.”
After exactly eleven seconds, Kalara shouted, “Now, Lieutenant. Fire.”
The spread of torpedoes volleyed from the Redemption’s forward launchers like miniature stars. They impacted against the Bird-of-Prey’s forward shields, illuminating them but not doing any damage.
“Now. The phasers,” Kalara snarled.
L’wynd did as she was ordered, firing all banks. From the bridge’s secure location deep within the ship, Kalara couldn’t hear anything, but she imagined the whining moan of the phased energy beams as they leapt from their coils. As she had known it would, the torpedo spread had forced the Bird-of-Prey’s commander to recalibrate his forward shields to counterbalance the subspace disturbances that they had created or risk them tearing his ship apart. The phasers cut straight through the unbalanced shields, shearing the port wing off at the base. The Bird-of-Prey began to spin out of control, explosions wracking its tortured form. Then it exploded in a glorious fireball that filled the screen.
“Target destroyed,” L’wynd said, her voice surprised.
Before Kalara could say anything, Dax shouted, “Incoming.”
The ship was rocked as a full spread of quantum torpedoes struck their shields. Kalara shouted, “Evasive manoeuvers,” but it was already too late. Battle had been joined.
She just prayed they would be as lucky with the cruiser as they had been with the Bird-of-Prey.
Hornet-Class Starfighter
Above Ki’Baratan
Romulus
The moment they had cleared the launch tunnel, Ba’el moved in behind the two trailing fighters, slotting into a larger diamond position that had him as the lowest point. They were flying almost directly upwards, the planetary shield a constant blaze of green light above them. The constant battering from the Dominion Battlecruiser’s phaser banks did not seem to be visibly weakening the shield, despite the odd phaser beam breaking through to strike the city below. Seeing the insect-like form hanging in orbit brought back unpleasant memories for Ba’el.
“What is it doing?” he heard someone say through his ear piece. “Surely it knows that it can’t get through the shields with brute force.”
“Stow it, airman,” Turner snapped. “Concentrate on your job.”
Silence fell over the radio, each pilot left with his own thoughts. Ba’el stared at the waiting ship. The last time he had flown a fighter against one of these, the end of the Occupation had still been five years away. Laurentia, he realised. I was flying with three Hegemony fighter wings. The irony wasn’t lost on him. Now the question was whether he would be able to do the same thing today as he had done then. There seemed to be only one way to find out.
Flipping a switch on the controls in front of him, he opened a secure, private channel to Turner. “Commander? I may have an idea how to take out that Battlecruiser.”
“Good because I’m all out.”
“Are Hornets equipped with warp cores?”
Turner didn’t respond straight away and he could imagine her mind racing as she tried to work out why he was asking. “Yes,” she said finally, the word drawn out. “Why?”
“Just a little something I pulled off during the Occupation.”
“Captain, I don’t think…”
“What did I tell you, Commander? For this mission, call me Joker.”
Before she could say anything, he heard a sharp intake of breath and a warning shout over the comm system. He looked up just in time to see a glowing, whirling, spitting ball of energy pass through the planetary shield. He acted on instinct, jinking the fighter to the left with a sharp tug on his joystick.
The phased energy weapon – a torpedo of some kind – charged the air as it passed, creating shock waves that tossed his fighter about in the air. With sheer force of will and strength of muscle, he managed to hold her steady, but he saw two of the other fighters above him collide in the air, vanishing in a burst of light and fury and static over the comm system. He swerved out of the way of the falling debris, avoiding all but what looked like a burning helmet, which clipped his wing as it fell.
“What happened?”
“Allah-Yahwe.”
“What just happened?”
“How did that penetrate the shield?”
“Flight Commander Turner to Starfleet Command. What the hell is going on down there?”
There was a moment of static then they heard a voice shouting over the sounds of vigorous explosions. “Oh my God, they’ve destroyed the shield generators. We’re defenceless. We have four ships, I repeat, four ships in attack positions over the planet’s surface. They hit all four shield generators at once. The planetary shield is down, I repeat the planetary shield is…” The voice vanished in a burst of static amid the sound of tortured screams.
A series of curses sounded through the comm system until Turner’s voice cut through them. “That’s enough, Starburst Squadron. Look alive, we’ve got incoming.”
With the shields down, the Battlecruiser had begun to bombard the surface again, laser beams streaking down through the atmosphere. All those people. Ba’el felt sick. This wasn’t supposed to happen again. Not again.
“Captain, if you have an idea, I’m all ears,” Turner’s voice came over the comm system. Ba’el narrowly avoided a phaser beam that dropped like a shooting star from the ship above. He glanced down at the readouts on his console to confirm that they were on a secure line before he spoke, his eyes snapping back upwards to keep an eye out for another phaser beam.
He told her what he had planned. Her response was almost immediate. “No way. It’s too risky.”
“That’s the job, Commander. You know that.”
“Fine. Then let me do it.”
“No way. You don’t have the reflexes or the training. You’d blow up on impact. I practiced this a hundred times before doing it for real.”
“And that was how many years ago? Sir.”
“You let me worry about that.”
By this time, they had reached the atmosphere. The Battlecruiser’s short range phaser banks began to target them as well, forcing the squadron to break formation and scatter. Ba’el sent his fighter through a tight curve, stars giving way to planet giving way to stars in his cockpit window. He jinked to avoid the incoming phaser beams, spinning and jukeing like an old boxer.
Suddenly, a new voice came over the comm. “To all ships, this is Admiral Qwert.” The Ferengi! “The Klingons have brought down the planetary defence grids. We have three, repeat, three Birds-of-Prey in the lower atmosphere, firing on Ra’tleihfi, Val’danadex Trel and Dinalla. Ki Baratan is being bombarded by a Dominion Battlecruiser. If anyone can provide assistance, please respond. Repeat, to all ships, this is Admiral Qwert. The Klingons have…”
Qwert’s voice was replaced by Turner’s. “Alright Starbursters, you heard the man. We have four bogies strafing the planet. We’re going to take them out.”
“What about the other squadrons?”
“How the hell are we supposed to take out a Dominion Battlecruiser?”
“Captain Sarine has an idea on that, don’t you Captain?” Turner said, ignoring the first question.
Ba’el keyed his own comm. “I can do it. I just need a couple of pilots to watch my back.”
“Starburst 11, 12 and 13, you just volunteered. Form up on Captain Sarine and do whatever the hell he asks you to do.” Ba’el could almost hear the ‘no matter how crazy’ that she left unsaid.
Ba’el led the three Hornets out of range of the Battlecruiser’s phaser banks. They flew into a triangle formation and dropped in behind him. All four of them watched as the rest of the squadron broke into three separate wings, then flared their thrusters. Each group headed in a different direction. Ba’el said a silent prayer for their success before he opened a channel to all three of his own wingmen.
“What do you need us to do, Captain?”
Again he explained his plan. There was a moment of silence then one of them spoke. “You’re kidding, right? He’s kidding, right?”
“No Starburst 12, I’m not kidding. You keep those phasers off me, I’ll take care of the rest. You got me?”
“Loud and clear, Captain. I just hope you know what you’re doing.”
So do I, Ba’el thought as he began to make the necessary adjustements to his shields. So do I.
Bridge
USS Redemption
“Repeat, to all ships, this is Admiral Qwert. The Klingons have brought down the…”
“Shut that off,” Commander Kalara ordered. Jasto sliced a finger through the communication’s grid on his left, the broken holographic projection effectively severing the line. The Admiral’s voice was replaced by the sound of explosions as another volley from the Martok-class cruiser rocked the ship.
Jasto spun his chair round to see the cruiser gaining on them. The Redemption was running, trying to lead the cruiser and its escorts away from the undefended construction yard. The plan seemed to be working, only too well. He turned round again and glanced over at Williams on the helm – she seemed totally concentrated on what she was doing, almost not blinking. The light of another volley striking the shields illuminated the bridge, catching her scars. He turned away, feeling sick. Thank the Caves that I just had my injection. At least he didn’t have to deal with Haebron’s screams.
One of the Birds-of-Prey fired at them, a direct hit on the rear shields. L’wynd spoke up from her place at tactical. “Rear shields down to sixty percent.”
Jasto was quite impressed at how well the shields were holding up, actually. One of Ezri Dax’s memories popped up, a memory of the Defiant during the Battle of Bajor, taking the same kind of pounding. He dismissed it, but a thought lingered. She was a good ship too, until that battle. He hoped the Redemption would have a kinder fate.
A warning light on his display caught his attention. He slid the projection through the air with his palm, bringing the sensor readings to the fore. The strange readings seemed to be coming from Starbase 2. He glanced at them once, twice, a third time before he was sure of what he was seeing.
“Commander, I’m picking up some strange readings coming from the starbase.”
“I’m kind of busy right now, Lieutenant Dax.”
“I know, sir, but I think you’re going to want to see these.”
He crumpled the sensor readings off his readout into a ball of light in his palm, then threw it towards the Commander. She caught it, bringing her hand up to her headset to download the information. Moments later, he heard her gasp.
“Turn us around.”
“But Commander,” Astrid Williams began.
“Turn us around, Lieutenant. Prepare to fire phasers.”
The starfield in front of Jasto spun as Williams fired the thrusters, swinging the Redemption around to face the oncoming ships. The Klingon cruiser bore down upon them, flanked by three Birds-of-Prey. Kalara ordered L’wynd to fire all phasers, but Jasto knew before the tactical officer spoke that the damage would be minimal. Still, the barrage got them past the ships and kept the Klingons from inflicting any major damage of their own. The problem is, we just lost whatever lead we had over them.
The construction yard reappeared in front of them now, with Starbase 2 hanging behind it. At least twenty-five percent of the construction docks – seven or eight of the spider-like bays – had been destroyed, along with the ships that had been under construction there. Jasto felt sick to the stomach at the thought of all of those engineers who must have died. Then his attention turned to the starbase.
The other Martok-class cruiser was pounding her with everything she had – transphasic torpedoes, quantum torpedoes, phaser banks… As Jasto watched, he saw a phaser blast cut right through the shields, slicing into the station’s main hull, tearing off another few layers of her ablative armor.
“But how are they firing through their shields?”
“The Klingons must have the shield frequency harmonics.”
“Why isn’t the station changing frequencies?”
“Cut the chatter people,” Jasto ordered his Helm and Navigation officers. “Stay focused on…”
Before he could say any more, a series of torpedoes struck the Starbase’s core. They must have hit a main energy relay, he thought. A vast explosion burst out of the side of the Starbase, extinguished almost immediately by the cold vacuum of space. Moments later, though, another cloud of fire and debris vented into space. Before Jasto could order them to increase speed, a pointless gesture anyway, Starbase 2 blew apart, scattering metal, fire and dead bodies in every direction.