CODA III

The Long Night

CHAPTER 1

"There's an old saying, Fortune favors the bold. Well, I guess we're about to find out."

– CPT Benjamin Sisko, Deep Space Nine (Human)

"The diplomatic party on board the Gorn battlestation Airdrie was in full swing. Admiral T'Skay was even beginning to relax and enjoy his triumph. His engineering of the Dosadi Marshal Furball's defection was the only thing that had kept his rank and position intact after the disaster at Toulagai. The Marshal had been a top commander of Dosadi ground troops but had been dishonored in a recent battle against the Avatan (a centaur-like race with four arms and a single-eye that wrapped completely around their head; An eye-flap could be opened in a sort of wave on opposite sides of their heads, moving their field of view around their heads. Very strange critters) and rather than accept his loss of face and status, he elected to betray the Dosadi Imperium to the Gorn. With suitable baiting by T'Skay, of course.

Thinking of Toulagai brought a frown to T'Skay's bug-eyed tyrannosaur-like face. While he had managed to bring his mangled fleet home, the ghosts of more than 500 dead crewmen still haunted his dreams. And the Hydrans hadn't been entirely pleased with the mauling they had received either. All because of that stupid Klingon Drake. Well, and perhaps his own dead-cat jokes. No, those were funny. It was mostly the Klingon's fault, T'Skay decided. One day he'd have his revenge.

A burst of applause snapped him back to the present. Evidently Marshal Furball (a translation of the name he now bore after his disgrace at the battle of Corlon) had finally decided to sit down and shut up. He could understand why the cat-people didn't care much for ol' Furball. They usually preferred direct action to talking endlessly, but this one loved the sound of his own snarling voice. He gulped down the rest of his mead and held his cup out to be refilled. A motion outside of the ballroom's huge crystal windows drew his attention. He looked up to see several warships sail majestically past – the battleship Blackfoot and her escorts, the corvette Loveland, heavy frigate Ewa, and the battlecruiser Ottowa. Nosing along behind the big ships was the little minesweeper stationed at Airdrie, the Harvey. He chuckled, a rumbling and ominous sound; Just let the Dosadi try something THIS time. Even supposing that they managed to slip a few ships through the Romulon Empire – no lovers of the big bipedal cats that looked so much like Terran cougars – AND elude his border patrols, then they'd still have to deal with the battlestation's massive phaser-IV cannons, a large minefield, the battleship task force, and a carrier task force centered around the brand new Troy.

That thought brought a full-blown smile to his toothy face. The Troy was escorted by two more battlecruisers – The Towson and the Zion, two heavy destroyers – Azusa and Ceres, the corvette Macon and the heavy frigate Centralia. He was beginning to hope that they really would try to recover Furball.

Still, he reflected, he'd be happier if Furball were safely at a starbase deeper in Gorn territory. The Romulon's were still at war with the Grand Alliance and definitely operated under the 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' principle. They might just let a small raider force slip through. Or, as they were sill struggling to recover from the Dosadi pounding of Romulus, maybe they could sneak a few ships past or buy off a local commander. And the idiot paper-pushers had over two months to process his application for asylum. Lots of nonsense about 'delicate alliances with the Federation' and not wanting to 'antagonize' the kittycats. Cowards. If they had any strength at all, they'd be in the Fleet.

He had just taken a large bite out of the even larger steak in front of him (being quite sure to show as many teeth as possible to the Dosadi Ambassador scowling at him) when an aide tapped his large, green, scaly shoulder.

"Sir, Sensory reports that they are receiving heavy jamming on all channels from the direction of the Romulon border."

T'Skay was about to tell the aide to go tell Sensory to wipe off its screens when a nagging doubt hit him. He wiped off his ample mouth with it's rows of sharp teeth and motioned to the man to take him to the station's sensory center.

When he arrived, he was not pleased. All scopes showed heavy jamming on the bands traditionally used by Dosadi attack forces. In fact...He stepped forward and shoved a young officer out of his chair. He readjusted the sensors and began feeding the data into the computer. "There!" he thought. "I remember that pattern when the Dosadi launched that drone wave at... TOULAGI. Nolin! He was HERE! It had to be Admiral Nolin." He dredged his memory. "That meant the carrier Delos. Nolin never left that hulk. Probably married the damn thing. Let's see, she was escorted by two of those damnable anti-seeker corvettes with the equally damnable Federation Aegis defense system...What were they? Oh yes, the Nareth and the Lavet Cair. The Nareth had chewed the destroyer Tooth nearly to pieces. Perhaps they never repaired the Lavet Cair after the Hydran's cruiser Succession almost blew her out of space while she was attacking their big carrier, the Kingdom. No, the big cats had an almost religious devotion to ships. If there were something left of it, they'd rebuild it." he continued to access the library computer as he ran through his thoughts.

The aide had just about decided that T'Skay had blown a mental gasket. He and the other officers in the Sensory watched as several screens began displaying Dosadi warships, schematics, battle histories, capabilities and specifications. He was still staring at the diagram of the assault carrier ISS Delos when T'Skay grabbed the front of his tunic, easily lifted the quarter-ton officer off the ground and said, "Listen closely. The station is under attack by the Dosadi. At least this carrier force. The civilians are NOT to be alerted. Put all military personnel on Grade 1 Alert. Notify the fleet to prepare for action and make sure that there are at least FIVE fully armed Marines near Furball at ALL times. Got that?"

"Ye..Yes Sir!" he stammered. T'Skay dropped him and went back to his dinner. The station commander should get him if things got too critical. Meanwhile, he had to keep up appearances. The officers in the compartment he just left shook their heads and went back to trying to clear their screens. Three minutes later, they managed to burn through the electronic noise. Sitting there were three Dosadi attack fleets. At this range and still suffering from the effects of the jamming, it was difficult to determine their types, but they were certainly large. Aboard the Gorn battleship Blackfoot Commodore Sethet ordered his ships out to reinforce the minefield. The Dosadi had come in much faster than was standard procedure for anyone facing a minefield – clearly risking damage to their ships for the element of surprise. Within minutes of dropping out of warp, they were already beginning to sweep paths through the minefield – far enough out that the station's phaser cannons weren't even an annoyance.

Frowning at the speed that the Dosadi were pressing the attack, he ordered "Lieutenant! Get me a complete breakdown on the attacking forces."

A few moments later, his battle manager responded, "They seem to be organized in two task forces sir. The first force, to our left, is in two groups centered around the assault carrier Delos and the battleship Dorsai. In station around them are the corvettes Nareth and Lavet Cair and the heavy cruiser Dinen. Leading this force is the minesweeper Tarot. The second force, on our right, is a larger force being led by the minesweeper Telesh. This force is centered around the assault carrier Eleth and the heavy cruiser Thelet with the corvettes Toulagai and Turanti escorting. These are some of their newest ships, sir, I'm shocked to see them already participating in an attack. Acting as auxiliary minesweepers for this group are the command destroyer Shagrat and the scout destroyer Sheol with the heavy drone frigate Borlin providing close fire support."

The Commodore stared at him, why the man had just listed off half a million tons of warships! "Is that ALL?" he hissed, his voice dripping sarcasm.

"Yes, Sir!" the man replied brightly, still focused on his displays. Evidently the sarcasm was lost on him. The Commodore briefly debated with himself on the merits of firing the man out of a photon torpedo tube, but as he was a good battle manager, he decided against it.

"Comm, make sure that T'Skay knows the size of the fleet the kittycats brought with them." Then he began to deploy his own fleet. Hopefully, the minefield would do something; at least slow them down enough for his fleet to pound them while they couldn't maneuver.

Deep inside the Delos, Admiral Nolin was pleased. This attack was going very well. The Romulon's had been more than willing to ignore his fleet's run through their territory – a sizeable bribe and the prospect of a lot of damage to the Gorns seemed to help with that. All four forces had dropped out of warp exactly on station a half million kilometers from the Airdrie battlestation and closed with the minefield behind their minesweepers. Surprisingly, the station was slow to react to his jamming. All of the threat screens showed clear. While the numbers and sizes of ships surrounding the battlestation were depressing, there were no more than his intelligence had led him to expect. Ambassadors made good spies, after all. He decided he might as well have some fun. Turning to his electronic warfare officer, he said "Lieutenant, do you remember the jamming pattern we used at Toulagai?"

"Yes sir. It was a logarithmically modulated Lisajou pattern with a rolling random prime shift. Why?"

"I want you to use it now." Nolin smiled. He knew T'Skay would see it. "You see, the Gorn Admiral we fought at Toulagai is in command here. I want him to know it's ME."

The man chuckled. "Yes SIR!" he bent to his panel, purring as he began to adjust dials and buttons. Nolin turned to the Air Commander, "Seleth, launch our fighters when we're 100,000 km from the minefield. Have the Eleth hold half of hers. We'll sweep through at .18C and return fire only if fired upon. All we want is Furball. Let's not upset the Terrans any more than we have to. They seem to like these lizards."

"Got it, sir." he turned and began issuing orders to the seven squadrons of fighters he was responsible for. The entire fleet had finished forming up into spearheads and had begun clearing paths through the big minefield. As the fighters launched into space, Delos' wing commander, Commander Delac was quite content. The six Tomcats of White Wing and three of the six from Eleth's Gold Wing were on station and Green Wing's Hornets and Red Wing's Thunderbolts were getting where they needed to be. With the 15 fighters still aboard Eleth, this was the most fighters he'd seen on one place. He knew the Gorns had a carrier here and anticipated racking up a few more kills for his Wings. "How did they manage to fit something that ugly and that big into a fighter?" He wondered.