3: No Rest for the Wicked

USS Vanguard

Conference Room

MacLeod lifted his head from the table as the comm system bleeped. "Why does that still have to work?" he asked the empty room groggily.

Shaking his head, he pressed the intercom button on the table. "MacLeod here."

"You might want to get out here." Stated D'Mora, his acting XO, with a hint of humour in her voice. "We're picking up a message on our short range scanners."

MacLeod stood and, without answering walked the short distance from the conference room to the bridge itself. "Any idea what they're saying?"

D'Mora gave him one of her all-knowing smiles as she answered. "Well, unless I'm rusty I'd say they were speaking in Federation Standard."

MacLeod looked to the viewscreen, expecting to see the ship on-screen, but only saw the mangled remains of it – and the pylon that had smashed down into it.

Trying to not let the annoyance show, he settled into the command chair and brought up the details on his chair's console. "Patch it through."

A second later a static filled audio message was heard. "I repeat… Alliance ships…. Under attack….. slavers."

MacLeod could almost hear D'Mora frown as she spoke. "Slavers?"

"How far away are they May?"

Ku ran the figures then turned to face MacLeod. "At Warp one, two minutes. Though as we can only do half impulse, best estimate is about ten to fifteen minutes. I can't lock down where the signal is coming from exactly, except on the other side of the system."

MacLeod nodded. "Lay in a course, half impulse then. Sub-Commander, sound yellow alert and see what weaponry we have online."

Soon enough the lights blinked, indicating the alert had been given.

"Engineering to Bridge, can I ask as to why we are going to Yellow alert?" came the voice of Lieutenant Varik, and MacLeod was sure he detected a twinge of displease at the order.

"We're responding to a distress call from a human vessel just entering the system."

"With respect Commander, we are not prepared to engage in any kind of action, military or mercy."

"They are under attack by slavers."

There was a pause before Varik replied. "In that case I will see about boosting power to the shields. Engineering out."

MacLeod nodded grimly, knowing how bad the ship was right now, and turned to face D'Mora. "Status?"

"Without warp power, shields can only mange maybe ten or twelve percent power. Only the Port Ventral phaser array is online, and the control circuits to the torpedo launchers are non-responsive."

MacLeod grunted, the only way they could fire a shot was to essentially go in upside down. "Fighter status?"

D'Mora pulled up the information. "Crews are readying both Peregrines and six Valkyries for launch. Both runabouts, along with all shuttles, are being prepped for possible evacuation missions. And for now, the transporters are working and all are being staffed."

MacLeod nodded and turned back to his small display. "Open communication." There was an audible click as an external channel was opened. "This is the Federation ship Vanguard to Human vessel entering the system. We are moving to assist. ETA is ten minutes. Do you read?"

"Thank …. God." Came the reply. "This… Morning Star….. Cargo….. Batarian Slavers….. shields gone….. effect fields failing…. Not... how long…. Out."

"Understood Morning Star. Hang on, we're coming." MacLeod closed the line and waited as the Vanguard inched closer and closer to the Morning Star and her unknown pursers.

"We've got a freighter on short-range scanners. She's venting atmosphere. If she has shields, they're so weak they're not much better than navigational deflectors." Stated D'Mora as she scanned the ship. "I'm reading thirty two life signs, all human. Hold on.." she paused as the scanners picked up other vessels. "Three more ships just entered scanner range. They're all around three hundred meters long. Approximately a three hundred life signs all told, though unknown as to which species."

"Batarian maybe?" stated Ku in slight jest.

"Possibly." D'Mora stared daggers into the young Ensign's back. "Their shields are limited at best. A sustained burst of three to five seconds should knock them out of commission. I'm not detecting any energy readings from their weapons, but what look like main guns are almost all forward facing."

"How fast are they going?"

"About the same as us, though it looks like they're pushing their engines."

MacLeod nodded, grateful that even in their current condition the slavers shouldn't be too much of a threat. "Open hailing frequencies."

"Done."

"This is the Federation starship Vanguard to the ships chasing the Morning Star. She is under our protection and as such we insist that you leave the system peaceful or we will be forced to open fire."

"You're language is human." Came the reply. "Are you human?"

"Most of the crew is from Earth or one of her colonies, yes. Though…"

"Then you should know human." MacLeod was pissed to be interrupted. "That the Attican Traverse belongs to the Batarian Hegemony, and any Human vessels in our space are open to seizure with their crews to be sold into slavery for the greater good of the Hegemony ."

MacLeod looked up at D'Mora in disbelief, "Is he serious?"

"I think so." She smiled a predatory smile, "How about we re-educate him and his crewmates?"

MacLeod managed not laugh at her suggestion as he re-opened the comms. "Batarian vessel. In response to you demands , I think the correct answer would be…." He paused for dramatic effect. "Go fuck yourselves."

Without waiting for a reply, the channel was closed and the Vanguard slid between the Morning Star and her pursers. Automatically the ship activated Red Alert as the Batarian ships attempted to target the Vanguard.

The crew of the Vanguard watched as the slaver vessels continued to close. They were already well inside the firing range of the phaser array, but MacLeod wanted to see what their own range was so he was allowing them to move far closer than his crew were comfortable with.

"Enemy ships now fifteen thousand kilometres away and slowing." Stated D'Mora.

"I'm reading an energy build-up in their main cannons." Reported Havaris, who had finally managed to reach the bridge after having unfortunately been caught in engineering when the alert had sounded.

"Threat analysis?"

Havaris and D'Mora shared a look of contempt for their attackers before D'Mora answered. "Limited. Even with current shield strength, I'd estimate they'll need nearly thirty minutes to penetrate our shields." MacLeod turned and looked up at the Romulan Sub-Commander. "Our shields huh?" he asked, a small smile on his face.

"A turn of phrase, nothing more."

MacLeod tried unsuccessfully to fight off the smile that was creeping across his face as he turned back to the damaged view-screen. "If you say so."

"Enemy are firing." Announced Havaris, to draw a line under the bickering of his senior officers. "They're firing rocks sir."

"Rocks?" asked Ku in disbelief.

"Yup. Rocks." The first shots collided with the shields and disintegrated into nothingness. "Minimal damage, but our shields are not used to dealing with direct assault."

"What about the armour?" asked D'Mora.

"That'd be better, but we could only manage about twenty percent hull coverage because of current damage."

MacLeod nodded. "Ok, if the races of this universe use rocks, let's place the armour ahead of the shields on the repair list."

"Aye sir. " Answered Havaris as he forwarded the suggestion to the repair teams.

The ship shook slightly as the slavers, noticing that the unknown ship wasn't firing back, closed and increased their rate of fire.

"Two of the attackers are trying to move around us to get a clean shot on the Morning Star."

MacLeod frowned in annoyance. "Persistent buggers. Lieutenant, teach them of their folly."

Havaris smiled as he inputted the targeting vectors. "Aye sir. Firing."

All four ships watched in rapt fascination as a rapid energy build-up was detected from the Vanguard. That fascination turned to dread on one of the Batarian ships as the energy fired from the ship towards them.

Though their dread only lasted for a few seconds as their shields buckled under the intense energy being forced onto such as small area, before collapsing, resulting in the slaver ship being sliced from bow to stern in less time than it took for it's compatriots to realise just what was happening.

"Target neutralized." Stated Havaris with pride. "Other ships are turning towards us."

MacLeod nodded and turned to D'Mora, though he never managed to verbalise his next order as several EPS conduits aboard the ship ruptured, venting another section of the interior into space.

"Report!" Demanded MacLeod as the Vanguard shook because of the sudden loss of atmosphere.

"Hull breach on deck nine, portside." Reported Drake, who was handling the OPS station. "It looks like the power conduits feeding the phaser array overloaded. I'm guessing they took damage during the Borg assault."

"Why wasn't that noted earlier?" Commanded D'Mora.

Drake shrunk under the gaze of the Romulan but still managed to answer the question. "All crew have been too busy with critical repairs to examine any system for further unnoticed damage."

MacLeod grunted as he looked at his small display. "Well, we can add the phasers to the list then. Status of the Slavers?"

"Pulling back, very slowly, towards the edge of the system."

"A good thing too," started D'Mora. "The explosion damaged some more shield emitters. Shield strength is down to four percent."

"How long do we have?"

"If they can keep up a full scale assault, then ten minutes, maybe less if they target the right areas of our shields."

"No worry there." Muttered Havaris. "They've gone to FTL. Tracking them heading away along the same vector the came in on."

"How are they generating FTL speeds?" asked Ku as all turned to Drake.

"I'm not totally sure as we lost track of them almost as soon as they went FTL." Started Drake. "As far as I can tell with the preliminary data, they somehow lowered their mass to allow their rather unusual engines to generate enough thrust to achieve FTL speeds."

MacLeod smiled in relief, glad his decision to engage in combat with unknown enemies while so badly damaged had not resulted in the destruction of the ship. "Ok, fight's over. Somehow I don't think it will be our last so let's try to get things repairs ASAP. Stand down from red alert."

The battle lights ended and the normal, brighter lighting kicked in again.

"We're being hailed by the Morning Star."

"Open a channel. Let's go and find out what we can about the new neighbourhood."

That's the start of the Vanguard in the ME universe.

This story is secondary to the B5 one, but actually easier to plan initially as ME is more rapid-fire than early B5...

No ide how often it will update, but I'll try at least once every few weeks, time dependent.