Notes:

I don't own star trek (though I wish I did)

Knowing federation, Klingon, Cardassian and jem'hadar ship classes would be of use

There are many deaths

This story set in the DS9 era

Chapter one

"Captain we are receiving a distress signal from the Argolis sector and long range sensors are detecting weapons fire from three ships"

"Ensign Samson set course for the Argolis sector warp 8"

"Aye sir course plotted and laid in" replied ensign Nikita Samson her voice as calm as always "engage"

As the USS Charleston titled on its axis and engaged it warp drive Captain Thomas Brooks sat back in his chair of his Akira class heavy cruiser and thought about how long this war had been continuing for. Ever since the space station Deep Space 9 in the bajoran sector had been taken over by the Dominion/Cardassian alliance the Federation and Klingons had suffered, Brooks recalled in his mind the ambush of seventh fleet where 98 ship out of 112 were destroyed his ship was one of the 14 ships who made it back to federation lines but even they were in bad shape. His train of though was shattered by his tactical officer Lieutenant Matthews

"Captain we'll be in visual range in 2 minutes sensor have now identified the three ships, two are jem'hadar attack ships and one is the USS valiant an excelsior class cruiser it is heavily damaged and leaking drive plasma, one of the dominion ships is damaged as well"

It only took a second for captain brooks to come up with a battle plan.

"Lieutenant Matthews as soon as we are in range raise shields and fire all phasers at the damaged dominion ship and fire a volley of photon torpedoes at the second ship"

"Aye sir" replied Matthews "phasers ready, photon torpedoes armed"

"sir we are in visual range now" Samson reported

"Thank you ensign, put it on the main viewer and drop out of warp"

"On main viewer now captain, slowing to impulse"

The scene displayed in front of them was one of disaster the valiant was listing on is port side though it was still firing, there was drive plasma leaking out the starboard nacelle and there was a large breach in the hull near engineering a phaser blast from the valiant skimmed the hull of one of the jem'hadar vessels which replied by firing 2 torpedoes at the valiant these torpedoes both hit the port warp nacelle rupturing that just like the starboard one.

Lieutenant Matthews broke the silence "Captain the jem'hadar ships are coming around for another pass"

"Fire at will Mr Matthews" shouted first officer Rand

"Aye sir" replied Matthews "phasers firing, torpedoes away"

The arrival of the Charleston had taken the jem'hadar by surprise as phaser shots punched straight through the shields of the already damaged vessel destroying it, while of the torpedoes fired only 2 hit the vessel impacting on the shields but doing little damage the others missed narrowly as the ship swerved but then it exploded as the valiant fired.

Captain brooks breathed a sigh of relief "Lieutenant Matthews open hailing frequencies"

"Hailing frequencies open captain" replied Matthews

"USS valiant this is captain Brooks of the Charleston do you require assistance"

"This is Lieutenant Kennedy yes we need help that last shot damaged our warp core we have 5 minutes till a warp core breach I've just ordered abandon ship captain we need to beam people over to your ship"

"Beam them into a cargo hold and we'll use our transporters to beam people off as well" said Brooks quickly

"Please hurry captain" there was a sense of urgency in his voice "Kennedy out"

"Lieutenant Matthews get down to cargo bay 2 and also get the medical staff down there" ordered Brooks

"Aye sir" replied Matthews already on his way off the bridge

"Captain to all transporter rooms lock on to any life signs and beam them over now, no.1 with me, you have the bridge ensign Samson keep us in transporter range but put some distance between us and the valiant"

"Aye sir" she replied, her voice still it's usual calmness

As the captain and his first officer left the bridge ensign Samson tapped her console and the ship rotated on its axis and moved slowly away from the valiant, then she tapped her combadge "Samson to Captain, two minutes left till the valiant's warp core breaches"

"Thank you for the update ensign were are in transporter room 2 if I am needed"

"Captain" said the transporter chief as the entered the room "this is the last group"

"That's great chief" replied Brooks