Prologue-
The First Battle of Chin'toka-2374
It was late on a clear, cold evening in the eastern hemisphere of Chin'toka III when the Federation Allied fleet arrived.
Glinn Ducet stood in front of a small situation screen, a small island of calm in an otherwise chaotic control center. He had been working his labour party hard for some time to get the subspace relay stations online. Harder still over the last few hours. The orbital defense platforms, and their power station on the second moon, together formed an impervious phalanx. But without this station, they'd have no means of interstellar communication, and little defence against Federation jamming.
All the heavy work had been completed, the relay stations constructed, the shielding in place. The slaves' only responsibility now was to support the specialists in any way they could as the final protocols were input, the final encryptions set. It was the mark of a good handler if they required little encouragement to do so.
Ducet allowed himself a smug grin. His slaves had leapt to their new roles.
His satisfaction was short lived though. Even as the Cardassian engineer detachment worked feverishly to enable this relay station, the Federation forces had arrived, much sooner than planned. Even with the lumbering Romulan warships now tagging along, Starfleet's reputation for efficiency had been upheld. The massive, combined fleet of Starfleet, Klingon, and newly allied Romulan forces had warped in, just out of firing range to ensure that the weapon platforms were offline, then committed themselves to the attack. The few remaining Jem'Hadar had done what they do best; happily throwing themselves on the proverbial sword, and the Klingons had matched them, fool for fool.
Now the Jem'Hadar were dead and the attacking fleet had turned their attention to the defence network.
Ducet's attention was drawn from the situation screen as the officer in charge of the technicians, Komar, approached. While a glinn, like Ducet himself, there were rumors that Komar had spent much of his career in the Obsidian Order.
"It's done," Komar stated. "I've initiated the start-up sequence. Get to the transport." He already seemed to be doing so himself, gathering his specialists and making for the exit.
Ducet refrained from bristling at the other glinn's brusque manner. While technically equals in rank, there was a coldness to Komar's eyes that certainly gave validity to the whispers. Still, the order confused Ducet.
"Evacuate? Do you have so little faith in your own work?"
Komar didn't even look back as he replied, "I didn't build the damned things, I just turned them on." And with that, he left the small structure, purposefully striding towards the troop transport on the makeshift landing pad outside.
Realizing that his last ride off this frozen rock was leaving, with or without him, Ducet made for the exit.
Catching up with Komar, he saw the transport's pilot already running through the preflight checks. The specialists were not wasting time.
"What of the labourers? I'll need time to organize them!" He was already needing to shout over the engine noise.
"What about them?" Komar retorted. "They're slaves! We have more! Make up your mind, we're leaving now!"
The rest of the Cardassian Techs had boarded the transport, and the ground was throbbing as the anti-grav thrusters powered up. With a shake of his head Ducet realized he had no reason to argue. He quickly jumped up onto the ramp as the large shuttle gently lifted off the ground. Turning, he caught a glimpse of his work crew, realization dawning on their pathetic, alien faces.
Yes, you're free, he thought. Then he smiled, as he saw the sky light up with antimatter explosions. Free to watch your liberators burn.
"Engine room! Those defense platforms are coming online! We're going to need everything you can spare going into the shields!"
Alistair Wattie, newly promoted chief engineer of the U.S.S. Valley Forge, struggled to pick himself up off the deck that had so enthusiastically rushed at his face just a moment before. Blood flowed from above his right temple and down the side of his face, as he blinked a swarm of stars out of his vision. "Understood sir! Just...give me a minute!"
"You don't have a minute Lieutenant Commander! Do it now!" As if to underscore Captain Van der Meer's shouted commands, the massive ship rocked again, the lights dimming as the shields struggled to soak up even more hellish energy.
Dozens of alarms tweeted, warbled, and howled at Wattie as he stumbled against a console which, like nearly every other screen in main engineering, was flashing with red indicator lights. He looked up at the engineer closest to him, a young junior lieutenant who was struggling to regulate phaser power.
"Wang!" The officer looked over, "Draw power from phasers, every other emitter! Transfer to the shields!" The young man nodded and got to work, as Wattie grabbed a frightened ensign, MacKenzie, and directed her to another nearby console.
"Moira, I need you to transfer power from every spare system you can find into the structural integrity field. All the little things, just like we talked about, remember?"
She nodded as she got ahold of herself. "Yes sir, I remember. Running lights, door chimes, cargo handlers. I remember." Fear was making her thick, Glaswegian accent all the more difficult to decipher, but he could see she was already focusing on her task.
"Good on ye' lass! Ye'll be miracle worker in no time!" Wattie doubted his butchered brogue made much of an impression on her, but he couldn't have her panicking at a time like this. Even if that was all he wanted to do. When she came aboard four months earlier, she'd taken to him like a long-lost brother, and now he'd grown to feel a brother's protective instinct about her. Even his recent brevet promotion to lieutenant commander and chief engineer had done little to change that relationship.
Pushing through a knot of damage control techs who were rushing towards the starboard Jeffries tube access, Wattie made his way farther forward towards the main engineering situation desk. He ducked as a nearby status screen overloaded, showering him with burning fragments of ODN cables.
Two minutes into the fight and we're already coming apart at the seams, he thought, grimly. He could see fires already burning in a number of stations around the engine room. Damage control teams were doing what they could, but they were being overwhelmed by the volume of incoming fire.
The deck was shaking almost continuously. Wattie could feel the big Excelsior class ship straining to perform maneuvers she was at least thirty years too old for, interrupted by the rhythmic pulse of the photon torpedo launchers two decks below him, and the violent force of enemy weapon impacts. Stumbling the last three steps like a drunk, he got to the "pool table" just in time to be thrown against it by another onslaught of disruptor impacts. Pain flared through his chest as he slammed into the edge of the waist high table.
This is really starting to piss me off! he thought as he growled through clenched teeth.
"Are you okay, sir?" Visaris, his assistant chief engineer, asked. Her calm demeanor belied by a touch of genuine concern in her voice. Surprise actually managed to dull the pain from his undoubtedly cracked ribs. Al had never seen Visaris lose her Vulcan composure in such a public setting.
"I'll survive," he grunted. She said nothing, but nodded her acceptance.
"You diverted power from the phasers. Lieutenant Mickelson will be displeased."
Back to business, I guess. "Mickelson's always displeased! And I only took half the phasers, he only ever uses the same two banks, anyways. He'll be fi-," another massive blast rocked the ship. "Besides, at this rate we won't live long enough to shoot anything!"
"Bridge to engineering!" The captain's voice again, the screaming alarms from the bridge momentarily adding to the din in engineering.
Wattie tapped his combadge, "Here, sir!"
"Is there anything else you can give me?" Even the big man widely known as being "the most relaxed walking beard in Starfleet" sounded worried.
Wattie consulted the display on the situation table in front of him as Visaris gently shook her head. They were already doing everything possible, and then some.
"I'm afraid not, Captain! We're running the shields at a hundred and seventy percent as it is! I'm amazed we haven't blown the emitters already!"
"Understood Commander, we'll ma-," The captain's response was cut short by a sudden, violent explosion.
The force was unlike anything the lieutenant commander had ever experienced in his ten years aboard a starship. The deck slammed upwards, throwing him, and the rest of his crew into the air, then immediately reversed direction, as consoles and power conduits in all corners of the engine room exploded in series. Somehow, in his shock and confusion, Wattie realised the grav plating had been momentarily disabled. The main lights flickered, and then died.
Just as quickly the emergency power kicked in, dropping all the free falling engineers back to the deck. Fatally, for those who were thrown into the towering void around the warp core.
New alarms shrieked everywhere, nearly drowning out the cries of the injured. Fires raged freely as the stunned engineers struggled to clear their heads. Those protected by more robust alien physiologies helped anyone they could.
Wattie checked on Visaris first. She was dazed, her hair matted and emerald blood leaked down the left side of her face, but she nodded back at him as she got back to her feet. Then he took as quick an assessment of casualties as he could through the thickening smoke and sickly, amber, emergency lighting. Everyone he could see was hurt in some way, many seriously.
"Damage control! Concentrate on the fires in here! Forget the Jefferies tube for now, we'll vent it if we have to!" The fire fighting teams rushed back to their tasks "Status!" He shouted. It was a measure of the crew's professionalism that the team leads started replying promptly, in their proper order.
"Warp core offline!"
"Antimatter containment seals weak, but holding!"
"Emergency generators online at thirty-six percent of maximum!"
"All weapons offline!" Wang sounded shaken up.
"Main computer online, but lagging severely! We lost at least one computer core!"
"Transporters are all offline!"
"Primary life support offline! I think local backups have kicked in, but I can't get any solid confirmation!"
"Internal comms are offline!"
"Try to patch comms through an external channel," Wattie shouted at ensign Edanion. "Hull status?" He called out when ensign MacKenzie failed to report. "Ensign MacKenzie! Hull status!"
Wang replied instead. "Primary hull compromised on all decks! Critical damage to starboard warp nacelle!"
Wattie had the feeling he didn't want to know, but he had to ask, "Pete, where's ensign MacKenzie?"
The delay was all the confirmation he needed, but Wang responded anyway, "Moira's dead, sir. Her console exploded in her face."
He'd known it was coming, but it still hit him like a physical force. For a moment, grief threatened to overwhelm him. He closed his eyes, as he bent over the situation table, the pain of his cracked ribs forgotten, his hands gripping the edge of the console as tightly as he could manage, every muscle in his body tense. The crushing weight of sorrow only balanced by a searing rage. An anger that had been growing over the course of this war. All he wanted at that moment was to find the Cardassian son of a bitch that designed those weapon platforms, and kill him with his bare hands. He wanted to watch the light go out of those reptilian eyes, and inhale the bastard's dying breath. He wanted to kill Cardassians! To inflict on them the pain they had been causing him! He wanted revenge!
A gentle touch on his right hand broke him from his momentary rage. Three cool fingers that seemed to leach the anger from him. As always, Al was surprised by Visaris' moment of tenderness. He wasn't sure if it was some aspect of Vulcan telepathy, or just her calming influence, but quickly, the turmoil inside himself subsided.
And just as quickly was replaced by the turmoil outside. The ceaseless alarms mixing with the cries of the wounded and the shouts of crewmembers, all to produce an unending soundtrack to hell. The ship still shook occasionally, but just from various compartments decompressing as emergency force fields failed. It seemed the weapon platforms had moved on to more lively targets.
With a weak smile, Wattie thanked his assistant chief engineer, and got back to work
"--idge to engineering! Is a-one there?" Well, at least the comms are back.
"Wattie here, sir. Good to hear from you." He truly was glad to hear the captain. Too many good officers had already been lost.
"What's your s-ion down there, com-der?" The captain sounded relieved too.
"Better than I'd feared, far worse than I'd hoped." The pain threatened to return.
"Understood." The tone in Captain Van der Meer's voice lending weight to the single word. If it was this bad in the heart of the ship, Wattie could only imagine the kind of hell that had played out on the bridge. "I've dis-ed medi-o engineering. What's our p-uation, Al?"
Wattie's response was cut off by a new alarm on his table.
"Shit."
The captain heard the profanity. "-ander, what's w-ng?"
"The antimatter containment fields are destabilizing! Probably from the subspace distortions of exploding starships in close proximity!"
"Can you rep-r -em?" Alarm was creeping back into Van der Meer's voice
"Not a chance, the fields are degrading too quickly! I need to jettison the antimatter pods!"
"Do it, Comman-r!"
Wattie looked to Visaris who tapped a few commands on her side of the console, then shook her head. "Remote ejection systems are not responding."
Great. Wattie tapped his combadge again,"Bridge we've lost a lot of automation down here. It looks like I have to eject them manually. I suggest in the mean time you warn off any friendlies that may stray too close!"
"Und-d, Command-e'll try to get the word out."
He turned away from the command table, and started towards the pod bay access, but his first running steps brought him up short with a sudden reminder of his injuries. Visaris was at his side immediately.
"You are too injured, Commander. I will do it," she said, placing a steadying hand on his shoulder.
He started to argue but with a subtle shift, her right hand went from gently resting on his shoulder to a firm, pointed grip at the base of his neck.
"You wouldn't."
She arched her left eyebrow, and suddenly his vision started to tunnel.
"Okay! You made your point. But I'll be monitoring you!"
"Understood, commander." With a look that was as close as a Vulcan came to satisfaction, she took off around the warp core towards the access ladder. He had to admit, perhaps he could have made it in time, but she was the logical choice. He could never argue with her logic. He allowed himself a small smile as he turned back to the situation table.
The medics had started arriving. Not true medical staff, rather other crewmembers that had received emergency medical training. Usually made up of the ship's science staff and other support personnel who were otherwise not much use in massed ship-to-ship combat.
Leading this group was, somewhat surprisingly, Lieutenant Commander Hars Arlin, the Valley Forge's chief science officer.
Instead of waving anyone over though, Al turned his attention back to the readouts on his table. First aid could wait. There was far too much calling for his attention, and many in more urgent need for treatment.
Nevertheless, he wasn't surprised when he heard the familiar trilling of a medical tricorder directly behind him.
"Sir, I can guarantee there are others more in need of attention than me," he started, but the patronly old Bolian interrupted.
"Don't sir me, Mister Wattie. We are the same rank now. Call me Hars. That's an order."
Wattie dismissed the obvious contradiction in that order, and turned his attention to the calling up the internal sensors in the antimatter storage compartment. Still, the loquacious science officer continued, unabated, while waving his hand sensor around, seemingly at random.
"Frankly it amazes me, the consistency among you division chiefs. Be you engineer, starship captain, or even, ironically enough, a doctor; as soon as you are given the responsibility of others' well being, you give up the same responsibility for yourself."
Wattie listened with half an ear as he cycled through a half dozen faulty or disabled compartment scanners on one screen looking for a safe path for Visaris, and configured a second screen to monitor the A/M pod field integrity.
Commander Arlin continued, "I truly don't understand how you all seem to think that you can be any kind of an effective leader, while needlessly hobbling yourselves with easily treatable injuries. It's a truly intriguing quality in its apparent uniformity over such an otherwise diverse group of species, backgrounds, and personality types. It's almost enough to make me wish I'd studied behavioral psychology, rather than archaeology..."
A quick glance showed Wattie that Visaris had already managed to set up a monitoring program for him before she left. He smiled with a warmth that surprised him. If he lived half her life span, he'd never figure out how she managed to be so efficient. He'd come to owe her a great deal over their years together on this ship. He still couldn't think of a way to repay her.
His scanner picked her up as she exited the ladder well. He tapped his combadge again, "Wattie to Visaris, I've got you on sensors now. I suggest you take access 14-Beta. It's damned ugly, but 'Alpha' is on fire and 'Charlie' has lost atmosphere."
"Then that would seem to 'B' the logical choice, Commander. I commend you on your mental growth."
"Was that a joke?" Commander Arlin's eyes were wide in astonishment. "And not just a joke, but a pun! A bad pun! With sarcasm! Commander, what have you done to our fair lieutenant?" At least he finally seemed to be satisfied with his tricorder readings.
"Commander? Who is there with you?" The rodinium bulkheads of Vulcan stoicism were back in place, stronger than ever.
"Lieutenant Commander Arlin is here with the first aid teams." Al cast a withering glance over his shoulder at the enthusiastic blue man. "He's the only one near me right now. You're coming up on junction 219. There's a good sized fire two decks below. Looks like a turbolift jumped the rails and it took a couple EPS conduits with it. Best if you move quickly."
"Understood," The chill in her voice lessened. Slightly. "Commander Arlin, may I enquire as to Commander Wattie's condition?"
"Oh, he'll live. Aside from some minor burns, he has three broken ribs, a concussion, and a badly sprained wrist," Wattie hadn't even noticed the wrist. "All told, I'd say he's in far better condition than his appearance would suggest. I'm afraid medical science will never be able to help his face. To be honest, until I heard that abhorrent pun, I'd always wondered what you saw in him. Now I'm starting to think you two deserve each other."
A pause, then, "thank you, Commander."
"Don't thank me yet. I still intend to give your head a check when you return." Arlin was clearly starting to enjoy himself.
"That...will not be necessary, sir"
"You're command material, Lieutenant! Don't let anyone tell you differently!"
Wattie watched a visual feed as Visaris skipped through junction 219. The deck was hotter than he'd expected, as even on this poor feed he could see smoke rising from her left boot.
"Okay, you're twenty meters from the hatch release, and it looks like a clear path," he glanced at the rapidly diminishing containment status, "and you have lots of time."
"You are lying."
"Yes I am. Please hurry."
"Commander, what's going on?" Hars was starting to realize the gravity of the situation.
"We're less than two minutes from losing antimatter containment. Vi has to manually blow the hatch off the compartment."
"Isn't that dangerous? Won't she get sucked out with them?" Arlin was getting visibly agitated.
"Blown out, Commander."
"I stand corrected," Arlin replied, dryly.
"It is a common mistake."
Wattie shrugged. "What she said. And no, she won't. As soon as the hatch blows, it activates an integrated atmospheric retention field. Just like in the shuttle bay. The A/M pods are launched clear, the air stays here." She was almost at the release handle. "Just remember, those ejection rockets will be loud, so try to cover your ears somehow!"
A slight pause, then, "understood...sir."
Something in her voice caught Al's attention. His eyes cast over the various panels as he was about to ask what she wasn't saying.
Then he found it. A small, red, system failure indicator, on Visaris' side of the situation table.
"Atmospheric Field Emitter: OFFLINE"
Panic gripped him. "Lieutenant! What are you doing?"
"I'm sorry, sir. I...couldn't let you go."
"We can figure something out! We always do!"
"There is not enough time, Commander."
Wattie looked up at Hars, hoping for support, or another of his brilliant, off the cuff solutions. Anything! But all he saw was a growing look of intense fear, as realization dawned. Fear mixed with helplessness, and infinite sadness. The same look Allistair knew was mirrored on his own face.
Desperate, he looked around the smoke filled compartment. Medics and engineers still bustled around, busy with their own important tasks, completely oblivious to the tragedy that was unfolding in front of them. On the small monitor in front of him, he could see her at the release. She was less than a hundred meters away from him, but it may as well have been a thousand lightyears.
There's no time! The thought came on him, unbidden. There's no hope!
"Transporters! I'll get a lock on-"
"Transporters are offline, Commander."
"I have to do SOMETHING!"
"Remember me."
"Visaris!"
"Alistair." She looked up at the camera that she somehow knew he was using.
"I love you."
She pulled the release
"Visaris! NO!"
The comm was suddenly filled with an explosion, followed immediately by silence. The deck shuddered four times as the antimatter pods were violently launched into the void. Every vibration, a hammer blow to his soul.
Alistair Wattie collapsed to the deck. His legs had no strength left in them. All his injuries forgotten, as his whole body went numb.
At that moment, no physical pain could fill the emptiness inside him.