Here it is, probably the best action sequence I've ever written.

Part 7 (0900 hours)

The battle over Vega IX was turning south, three cruisers had barely managed to lay in a course away before their engines cut out, and another two were dead in the water with a screen off ships protecting them. Another four were gone for good: Boise, a ship fresh from the shipyard less than a month ago with a fine captain and experienced crew, a torpedo impacted her engine room and it was that's all she wrote. Another frigate, the common cross between a Miranda and Centaur-class, had lost engine power in front of the ship, she had been in a dead zone for the Borg weapons, but the dreadnought had been moving so slow no one had known it would ram straight into it. The older Rapier-class escort was famed for maneuverability, yet sometimes it was hard to avoid a torpedo that tracked your movement. The final casualty was a Constitution-refit-class which had tried to protect the damaged Rapier-class when the repulsor beam hit it and drove it into the small escort. The resulting collision was something heart-wrenching.

Every ship was damaged in one way or another, Kirk had a plasma fire burning the whole length of her secondary hull, Valor was missing a warp nacelle, and Walker suddenly took a hit to her aft that blew through all the decks just in front of the Security and Operations offices.

Suddenly Reddy felt the ship beneath him go dead. The casual hum or vibration of the ship stopped, something was wrong with the engines. "Engine room report." he ordered. No answer. "T'Vrell see if you can get hold of Zarva."

After several moments the chime sounded. "Zarva to bridge."

Reddy hit the corrosponding button. "Go ahead."

"Sir we've just got a few problems, I've taken the mains offline but I should have them up in a few seconds."

"Understood." he closed the line. "Potter, activate maneuvering thrusters and bring us about. I want our bow to the dreadnought, yet our thrusters firing to port."

Potter checked her panel. "That will put us into a slide sir."

"Exactly Ensign. Make it so."

All throughout the tiny fleet of ships the damage was growing worse, warp nacelles were ejected and plasma fires burned brighter than if they had been fighting the Romulans. This bold stand was becoming a last one, as more and more ships were disabled or critically damaged to a point they could not function.

On the bridge of the Kirk, Captain Thelin was growing more nervous. "Damage Control, report!" he called.

"Fire's are burning brightly sir, it's taking every man I got to keep it from the control room, and we've been too heavily damaged to try and space it, bulkheads have been breached. In fact, we are lucky to simply have air down here still."

Thelin swore. "What about evacuating the section, then spacing the fire?"

"Negative, my men are working constant just too keep it from entering the engine room, to take the time to evacuate all of us would mean the fire could get to main engineering."

"Damn!" Thelin swore again.

There was a bleeping at the tactical console, his TACO checked it and broke into a smile. "Sir, Commodore Horrock's ships have reported that they are inbound, and fifteen Imperial Guard vessels are forty kilometers out."

Thelin stood, feeling a smile of pride break across his face. "Viewer, center and magnify." the viewer looked off towards the space beyond the dreadnought, and then zoomed in to spot fifteen of the beautifully sleek and powerful Kumari escorts.

"Lieutenant, open hailing frequencies to those ships." he told his comms officer. "Imperials, I am relieved to see your hulls, please honor us with your help."

"Sir, Imperial ships have responded with an affirmative and will begin attacking immediately." the comms officer reported.

Thelin could think of nothing but smiling and watching the sleek, bullet-like, vessels dive into the attack.

Horrocks knew that inter-system warping was quite dangerous, especially in a system full of the wreckage of Borg ships. Yet Starfleet had trained their navigators specially to make the necessary calculations. When they had to drop out close enough to Vega IX the calculations did take longer, but Horrocks was pleased to hear his navigator give the word, and then to see briefly the blue trails of Warp Factor Four before they dropped out. The image of a massive starship grew in the ship's sensors when they dropped out less than twenty kilometers away. Horrocks swore.

"Evasive, all weapons to bear!" Pershing pulled over, the other ships did as well and before long a massive amount of fire had focused on the enemy ship. Horrocks managed to get several ships to focus their fire with him, yet even with a withering amount of fire on the enemy, nothing was powerful enough to break through the massive hull of the ship.

"Captain? A small Miranda-class reports that she is dead in the water and taking heavy fire. She is on the opposite side of the dreadnought." the TACO reported.

"Very well, helm, take us up and over. Engines ahead full impulse."

Pershing pitched up and flew over the top of the dreadnought at distance of less than .5 kilometers, on the other side Horrocks was shocked to see that the ship was the Walker, and had bright plasma fire's both just forward of engineering, and on the starboard side.

"Get me a hailing frequency." he ordered. "USS Walker, this is the Pershing, do you require assistance?"

There was a moments pause, then a Scottish voice came back. "No sir, we've got it under control. But we would all be grateful if you will shield us while we get our Impulse engines back online."

"Very well, Pat, we'll cover you good old chap." He ended the transmission. "Place us between the dreadnought and Walker. I don't want anything to get through."

For several minutes things looked up, then plateaued and looked exactly the same, as if they were wasting time. Captain Vo'Lok of the USS Renown, a man who had relieved the Walker over Vega IX several months before, formed a plan to move around in front of the ship and try to focus weapons fire down it's throat. While he did that, the Andorians along with part of Thelin's 4E group formed and tried to bombard and break through to the engines of the dreadnought. But there was a problem, phasers never ran out of ammunition, torpedoes did. Smaller ships had been running out since before Horrocks' group arrived, now the larger ships, drained from their fight over Vega III, were slowly running out. Even the heavily armed Kumari vessels were beginning to run out of ordinance.

Pershing was hailed, a captain asking for Horrocks. "Go ahead." he said.

"Commodore, we're running short of torpedoes, and our ships are weary, we must disengage." it was the voice of Captain Jay Yim.

"Jay, you know what we said when we agreed to join Starfleet. I don't remember either, but it meant we defended the Federation to our last dying breath, retreat if you see fit, but until then: fight." he closed the channel and swore again.

As if on cue, his TACO spoke up. "Commodore, I'm detecting a massive energy build up at what appears to be the front of the dreadnought."

Horrocks stood and watched, from eight kilometers away he could see energy sparking down the hull of the ship, working towards the front. Then he saw Renown and a number of smaller ships, including an Andorian vessel, directly in front of the dreadnought.

"Sir, it's plasma, computer believes it will be launched as a weapon."

"Order Vo'Lok out of there!" Horrocks shouted.

Too late. On the bridge of the Renown, Vo'Lok had looked curiously over the shoulder of his science officer, even as she was close to abandoning her post at the readings she was getting. He remained fascinated about the readings right up until his First Officer yelled "No!" at the sight of Wellesley being completely consumed by the plasma ball. At that moment he was brought from his trance, and in his final moments he showed the one thing that he, as a pure blooded Vulcan, despised.

"Shit."

Three ships were completely disintegrated by the energy ball, leaving four more to be damaged. The second and third were caught in it together, one Cheyenne-class and an Akira caught going seperate directions trying to get out of the blast zone. The Cheyenne's rearward section was consumed by flame and recovery teams would later find the oxygen deprived bodies of the torpedo crews at their posts, working until their last breath of air, with only one person of a three hundred and fifty man crew surviving. The Akira made a fatal mistake, her captain ordered a port turn, away from the energy ball, and was swept over by it. Their outer hull was breached and the entire ship caught fire, the hundred survivors were burnt, head to toe, so fatally that another sixty would die before the end of the day. The fourth ship was damaged badly, but was spared except for heavy plasma fires on the outer hull. The most terrible part was the poor Renown. The event was main heard by Tactical and Communications officers, they had been monitoring Horrocks as he called to the ships in the plasma ball's path, and they had heard Renown's first officer crying, and the panicked cries of the bridge crew. But nothing compared to the screams when the world around them, including the metal and atmosphere, turned into a death trap. For six awful seconds the speakers were overwhelmed with pure screeches of pain, ones that weren't fueled by minor burns of a regular fire, but the heat that was frying their skin and setting the air inside their lungs alight. Most stopped when their vocal chords were burnt after about four seconds, but one continued for two seconds more, the high pitched wail of the Science Officer as she had worn the more sturdy Sierra uniform unto the bridge, her suffering was prolonged even as she could no longer speak.

Horrocks was filled with horror at the sound. "Mute that damn speaker. Science Officer, status report on that vessel."

His Science Officer was a Vulcan, he looked unemotionally at his captain. "Sir, the final crew member aboard the Renown died 2.36 seconds ago."

Horrocks swore and looked back out at the dreadnought. "Assign ships as Damage Control and pull those hulks out of the way of—"

"Captain I'm getting another large energy build up."

"Belay my order, pull the fleet away regroup over Vega IX's North Pole."

"Sir, the source of this energy build up is not from the forward section, but the rear, and it is indeed a different form." The Vulcan checked his instruments. "It appears to be a Warp Drive."

Horrocks looked again, he could see it now, the great monster was moving forward. He realized that although state of the art, the new Regent-class would not stand up to being rammed. "Order to all ships, lock on to enemy's rearward section and pursue. Helm lay in our course."

The Vulcan spoke up again. "Captain, the ship is commencing a long turn and accelerating to warp velocities."

Horrocks stood and watched the ship disappear into Warp. "Mister Zh'Ress, contact Captain Oscars of the Armitage, have him assemble a force of fast ships, with a number of mine layers, and pursue that ship until she drops out."

Less than two minutes later a group of fifteen ships warped away after the dreadnought. Despite the fact that the dreadnought had escaped, Horrocks remembered that they had cleared the Vega System of Borg ships. He sat down and sighed.

"Alright, let's clean this mess up."

Commodore's Log, Stardate 86206.8.

Upon clearing the system, I have ordered that all ships perform a sensor, and, in a way, visual scan. Our last news from Captain Oscars' group was that they have violated Romulan space in pursuit of the dreadnought, which appears to be heading back towards the Delta Quadrant. My men are tired, I am tired, the fleet has been at ready stations for over thirty hours, and we are awaiting the final scans of Captain Yim's ships on the far edge of the system.

Horrocks' eyes burned with the strain of keeping them open. The only crew not affected by combat fatigue, or didn't appear to be affected, were the Vulcan, and he only had one on his bridge. His helmsman was nodding off and his comms officer kept slapping himself to stay awake.

Then he sighed in relief. "Sir, Captain Yim reports that he has cleared his sector, he is requesting that his ships got to standdown." Zh'Ress said.

"Very good Bin, order the whole fleet to stand down." while they had been waiting for Yim's input he had stationed ships around the different planets of the Vega System, meaning all they had to do was set the ship on auto, and leave one able crew member at the command chair. He could feel the all over relief of the crew as he walked to his quarters, he was sure that it was the same on every ship.

USS Walker

Reddy didn't bother changing, T'Kira had volunteered for bridge duty, seeing that she at one point had taken a catnap during a visit to Sickbay, he just fell face first unto his bed and lay there. He secretly hoped he wouldn't wake up until he chose to, and not by some alarm.