Damon Vaako sat alone in his private quarters, a large room big enough for a family of five, the carpet was a maroon red and the walls were bulkhead gray decorated by trophies from his battles and life. On one wall academy trophies and awards on another a various hand to hand weapons some Klingon some Romulan a few Gorn a Borg Arm some debris from various Dominion ships. On another was his family's battle standard, a black flag with a broadsword through a skull with wings attached. Underneath in a banner was written in welsh 'Ormodol yn ei graddio'n rhy isel' or 'Overkill is under rated'.
He had a large black Oak desk behind which was a large painting Of Vakko with his wife, a tall red headed woman with porcelain skin and red hair, she had green eyes and wore an old fashioned dress her rose red lips curved into a blissful smile, and his son, he looked around six years old he had his hair in dreadlocks, he was wore a Prussian cavalry officer styled uniform, his eyes were green like his mothers and he had her skin tone but his face was identical to his father at that age, he smiled happily with his father's arm on his shoulder. Damon himself was wearing his Prussian officer styled uniform and was one of the few times there was an image of him smiling.
Damon was sitting at his desk looking at a picture of himself and his wife holding his newborn son.
"Computer Combat log" it beeped to acknowledge the command "Star date 77151.63, Super Dreadnought I.S.S Kumari-A NCC-2150 Grand Duke, Admiral Damon Vaako commander of the Olympus and Titanic fleets, defender of the northern sector, General and commander of the 16th, 09th, and 12th legions of the United Empire of Planets, commanding.
We have been travelling at high warp speeds for over two days and have encountered no problem which leads credence to my theory of sabotage. A theory witch at the time was laughed out of the senate, well who is laughing now the regular Starfleet, (those ships and crews not of the noble houses), reported that they would have major engine problems if they stayed at high warp for any extended time. Engine problems which range from warp-core failure to injector failure, I have sent a coded communication to section 31 to get them onto the problem.
I have the fleet running through drills for the past four hours and I must say I am impressed, they have broken their personal best by one point ten seconds, though this may not seem like much but on this ship is just over a six miles long, two and a half miles wide and three and one half miles tall.
It will be another twelve hours before we reach deep space nine so far so good, End Log"
Bajor was a garden world with a rich artistic and agricultural culture. That was until the Cardassian union came, the Bajoran people tried to fight but they were brushed aside. Many hold a romantic nostalgia about defence of Bajor and have it a kin to the Alamo, Rorke's drift and the defence of terra nova during the Romulan war. But the truth of the matter is that the Bajoran military was brushed aside in one night.
There was no grate heroic struggle, no last stand just one night that secured almost a hundred years of slavery and oppression. The Cardassians were ruthless and pitiless; millions of Bajoran's died at the lash and heel of Cardassian solders. They were forced to build the station that the Empire now calls deep space nine, thousands of men and women died in the construction and use of the station, in its old role as an ore processing station, and it became the key to the defence of the Alpha quadrant, it was destroyed once and a new station was put in its place the old Cardassian ore processing station Empok Nor. Witch now sits where the old station dose just off the mouth of the worm hole to the Gamma quadrant
In the commanders office on the station sat Coronel Kira Nerys formally of the Bajoran Militia, she sat looking out of the port hole in the distance she could see her home a small smile graced her beautiful face as she absentmindedly played with the late Captain Sisco's favourite baseball.
"Station log" the Cardassian commuter bleeped in its strange tone and she continued "Star date 77152.99, we are expecting the arrival of Grand Duke Vaako and his fleet, already the ships from Starfleet have arrived, have docked and we are loading more supplies. It will be nice to see Lord Vaako again after so long, the last time I saw him was at the memorial to the fallen on earth." She span around in her chair so she was sitting behind her desk "the station is running smoothly, the crime wave that hit the promenade two weeks ago has ended with the capture of the culprit, a Packled trader. The new engineer an Andorian named Shar has managed to fix the malfunctioning industrial replicators in the main cargo bay. So far the resupply of the imperial ships has gone without a hitch I only hope it continues End Log."
She replaced the ball upon its small pedestal and smiled again, good memories of the Captain came to mind before she got up and walked out of her office. The bulkhead doors opened with a strange mechanical groaning sound. The ops crew looked up from there stations at the sound but got back to work when they noticed the Coronel.
She walked to the stations where Dax was working on the long range sensors.
"When can we expect Vaako" she asked to her friend
"Any time now" she said as she once again began long range sensors
"How many ships do you think he is brining?" she asked
"Knowing Vaako a lot, he doesn't do anything without taking major ordinance with him" she said as she looked up from her console "you know that Jadzia was in his year at the academy" she said to her astonished friend
"I thought he went to his family's academy on Ares"
"Yep, but because he is a lord he has obligations one of which was to set an example to the Starfleet cadets, so he had to go to the academy" she smiled "Jadzia had a crush on him for ages"
"Really?"
"Yep, he was tall dark and handsome" she blushed slightly "he had already gone through the Agoge so he was pretty buff as well and he was in the top five of every class, and his butt" she blushed and fanned herself dramatically.
"I take it that you have a slight crush on him as well?" she was answered by a deepening blush.
The computer beeped to signal incoming ships.
"Colonel was picking up a lot of incoming ships" she said as she began to calibrate the sensors to the location "about three hundred maybe more"
"IFF" she asked using her command voice
"There too far out it'll take another few minutes to get the IFF"
"Yellow alert" she shouted making the Opps crew jump slightly, pressing her comm. badge twice to get station wide "Yellow alert all crews to your battle stations this is no drill repeat this is no drill" across the station civilians made their way to safe locations as Starfleet security ran to their battle stations as the Yellow alert klaxon blared.
"Getting IFF now..." she went through the presses for decrypting the Friend or Foe Identification "...it's Vaako" she said sighing a little she did not want a mini war to erupt. Looking over the scans she blanched then ran the scans again. "My god" she breathed
"What is it?" asked Kira
"The rumours were true"
"What rumours?"
"That Vaako was building a ship more powerful than any in the quadrant." She said as she brought it up on screen the massive vessel made the station look like a mini donut. "Look at that monster that thing has more weapons than three fleets"
The computer beeped twice
"Incoming transmission" said the female Orion Comm. Officer
"On viewer ensign" a few seconds later the viewer showed Damon Vaako.
"Greetings lady Kira" he said as his left hand fist supported his head "it is good to be back though it is under less than ideal circumstances, I request permission to board"
"It's good to see you again my Lord and permission granted" she smiled until the screen went blank, she tapped her Comm. badge twice "stand down yellow alert" the klaxon stopped and all the civilians returned to their normal routine.
A few minutes later the tell tale sound of the transporter activating and deactivating. Standing on the pad with three body guards all in their armour,
"Your office lady Kira" he said as he walked across the Opps centre. It took a second or two for her brain to catch up but as soon as it did she made her way to her office. She was at the bulkhead doors just before Vaako, the two bodyguards's walked to the door then stood guard. The doors opened and they entered, Kira sat behind her desk as Vaako went to the wall panel. He pressed several buttons and the station schematic on Kira's desk changed to a galactic map with all known territory on it.
"My Lord why are you hear, and with such a large fleet" she said as the map appeared, he stood in front of Kira and leaned over the map to give her his briefing.
"Lady Kira" he said in such a way that she dared not interrupt "as you know the dominion war ended a few years ago, and we are still rebuilding our losses, the fleet is about at fifty five present full capacity, the majority of which is on border patrol or defending our assets as we rebuild, the house fleets are picking up the slack but the majority are still close to their home systems just encase of an attack. None of the forces in the Alpha Quadrant can withstand a war so recently after the last finished, the Cardassian union is still rebuilding, the Klingon empire is consolidating and rebuilding as fast as possible but may lose a few border worlds, the Romulan empire" he spat to get the taste of saying it out "are in a shambles there praetor and entire political infrastructure has been gutted and there military is trying to restore order but they have already lost border worlds, the Gorn have only just finished a war against the Breen the same for the Tholians, they took heavy losses and there militaries were gutted, the Breen are gone, and we" he ran his hand through his hair "we are rebuilding with the help of every house and all our shipyards, our engineers are working beyond their maximum, were producing about three heavy cruisers every six months, luckily our economy can take the strain or we would be in worse shape than we are now" he scratched his chin slightly "imperial intelligence believes that the dominion is or has rebuilt there forces and are waiting for the order to strike." He tapped the map to show the wormhole and the dominion territories. "As you can see the Dominion has the majority of the Gamma quadrant under their thumb, including the border from the Gamma to Beta quadrant. Intel believes that they will instead of using the wormhole they will take the long way here" he made a sweeping motion with his hand from the Gamma to Beta quadrants "we believe that they will create a beach head in the Beta quadrant, as you can see with this tactic they will hit the Klingon Empire first, analysis's believe it will take three months to sweep the KDF aside" he said as he made a long sweeping motion across Klingon space. "Though it is believed that the KDA, the Klingon ground forces may last six months, once the Klingons are gone they will take the smaller powers, the Gorn Hegemony, the Tholian assembly, the First Federation, then they will skip us and attack the weakened Romulan Empire" he spat again to was the taste out "the RSN in its current state will last a month at the most, there ground forces less, then the Cardassian Union, once they have us surrounded they will attack in over whelming numbers, first to take the wormhole here, once they have this sector it will be a matter of months, our fleets will last nine months at best, our ground forces will last at most a year"
All the colour had drained from Kira's face as the grim news was delivered.
"So the listening posts?"
"Are mainly a ruse, but there are listening posts that have gone silent,"
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Once I have gone through you should expect a dominion representative to demand answers you are to disavow any knowledge of me or my fleet, as far as you know I am investigating the loss of imperial assets, you will then defer them to the diplomatic corps."
"This mission is suicide you know"
"The best ones always are, the only easy day was yesterday" he said as he walked to the door, the two guards stood at attention then followed him to the transporter pad. "Good day lady Kira, it was agreeable to see you again" he bowed slightly
"Good day and good luck Lord Vaako" she returned the bow
"Vaako to Kumari three to transport" a moment later they disappeared in the amber lights of a Cardassian transport beam.
A few hours later the ships departed for their objective, the mouth of the wormhole opened wild and swallowed the fleet. Inside the swirling vortex of light Damon Vaako sat in silence on the bridge, he watched his crew go about their routine knowing that he was leading them to their possible deaths. It was with a heavy heart he picked his crews and now with an even heavier heart that he leads them onward to their ultimate destiny.