Hey there!
I'd like to apologise for missing last week's upload. I got caught up in other things and as a result, I couldn't finish the chapter in time. The next few chapters may also take a little while, but I'm hoping to finish this off before the New Year.
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Until next time, enjoy this chapter!
Chapter 7: Prelude
In the depths of space, the remains of the station Starbase 75 sat burnt and adrift. Abandoned for a year at this point, the station was a major part of the opening battle of the Imperial War. Being ambushed by 100 Star Destroyers, the station was practically helpless, especially given that Starfleet was unable to respond at the time, due to being locked in legal proceedings with the Federation Council. The only good thing to come out of the battle was that no civilians lost their lives, thanks to an outstanding rescue effort from ships docked at the starbase and the self-sacrifice of the station's crew, self-destructing the base and inflicting major casualties upon the enemy with it's destruction. How fitting that where the war began would be part of it's end.
Thousands of Federation starships dropped out of warp all around the base, all of varying sizes, from the smallest NX or Miranda Class Frigate to the largest Odyssey Class Star Cruiser or Constitution-K Class Cruiser. Ships poured in across the region, tightly packed together in complex formations, all with different purposes and capabilities. Within the space of 10 minutes, about 2,000 ships had appeared across the area.
Amongst the thousands of ships, the USS Sovereign pulled ahead of the group and stopped before the wreckage of the base. Aboard the Sovereign's bridge, Starbase 75 took up the entirety of the screen as the crew looked upon in remembrance. Remembering when times were simpler, more peaceful. Before the war, the Federation was on the path to stabilizing the Alpha Quadrant and the Galaxy at large. And now, it had watched it's work halted once more by a species that wouldn't take peace for an answer. That would not be the case any longer. With this one final push, the Federation would be basically pushing the reset button on the entire universe, allowing them to go back to the way they lived before. That is though, if they succeeded.
"Is everyone here?" asked Trent as he sat down in his Captain's chair.
"Everyone's here sir." answered Th'etonnor. "We've got 2,000 ships all here, awaiting orders."
"That's got to be one of the biggest fleets we've ever pulled together." remarked Hawk.
"It would be even bigger if we had the Klingons and Romulans backing us up." commented Aldrin.
"Well, we work with what we've got." replied Trent.
"Sir, we're receiving an encoded message from Starfleet Command." Announced Th'etonnor. "Operation Reset is now fully authorized. Captain Trent to take the fleet to the Ivor system and proceed from there."
"Open a channel to the fleet." ordered Trent. Th'etonnor nodded as he did so, and a boatswain whistle filled the air.
"May I have your attention please. My name is Captain Darius Trent, the commanding officer of the USS Sovereign, and the leader of Operation Reset. I don't know most of you. I probably never will. We may never meet face to face, eye to eye in our entire lifetimes, even after we do this. And here I am, giving you orders to charge into the enemy lines. What a strange man I may seem.
But this is our chance to ensure that this never happens in the first place. If we manage to succeed in doing this, we can not only make sure that this never happened but also get back to making peace with our surrounding entities. This is our chance to get what we want without outside interference. The question is, will you take it? Follow the orders directed towards you by your group coordinator, and await further instructions. Sovereign out."
Trent turned towards Th'etonnor and nodded at him to close the transmission.
"All ships report ready sir." remarked Hawk.
"Plot a course to the Ivor system Lieutenant." ordered Trent. "Warp 7. Relay orders to the fleet and engage."
And just with that, the Sovereign's warp engines made the short build-up to warp speed. The ship's warp nacelles performed the everyday unthinkable job of wrapping the ship in a time-space bubble, ready to be accelerated to faster than light speeds. Once this was complete, the ship seemingly accelerated into the distance, plasma trails softly flowing from the ends of the nacelles, before disappearing amongst the backdrop of stars with a flash of light.
Within moments, other ships began to do the same thing as they warped off in the direction of the Sovereign. The massive fleet followed the Sovereign into the distance, the ships disappearing in massive flashes of light. In a matter of minutes, the area was empty once more, leaving the frail remains of Starbase 75 to once again drift into the abyss.
Aboard the TARDIS, the Doctor was busy tinkering underneath the control panel as the blue box flew through the time-space continuum. The ship warbled and beeped in protest as she disconnected various wires and reconnected old ones.
"Look, I'm sorry, that's going to be the last time we send out a Q pulse for the foreseeable future." apologised the Doctor as she pulled out from underneath the control panel. "I just had to get his attention about one more thing."
"And what one more thing was that?" asked Q as he walked up towards her. In the time it had taken for her to send the pulse out and then get out of the underside of the console, Q had somehow managed to bypass every single security system she had implemented in order to prevent beings like him from entering without warning.
I'm gonna have to upgrade the security system. She thought before she replied. "I thought I told you to stop interfering with the war from now on."
"Hey, all I did was visit the child in order to test his abilities." defended Q. "He's harmless. There's nothing he can do to stop what's coming."
"You may think that, but their people are not one to take lightly." warned the Doctor. "They're fast, tough and not easy to beat."
"Oh please, whose side are you on?" complained Q.
"I'm not on anyone's side." the Doctor defended. "I'm simply stating that the Federation is too small to even prevail against the Empire."
Q thought for a moment before he responded.
"You know, you're right. The Federation is small. It's one of the smallest major powers in the multiverse and it always will be. The Empire is bigger, the Imperium is bigger, hell even the Cybermen are bigger. But the Federation has one thing that all those powers don't; hope. They hope for many things: for things like love, peace and prosperity to one day be universal amongst all races and cultures. You may consider them weak for it, but they will fight for those values to the very last breath, no matter how hard you hit them. And that's why it will not matter how many ships or what weapons the Empire will bring into the fight. The Federation always finds a way. Even if sometimes that way comes to them instead."
"I'm not gonna lie," commented the Doctor, "that sounds like something I would say."
The Tardis warbled and beeped in response.
"Oh don't be silly, I haven't become a pessimist at all!" she argued.
"You were sounding like one earlier." added Q.
"You stay out of this!" jokingly snapped the Doctor. "Now if you'll excuse us, I have a naughty girl I need to sort out here."
"Very well then." stated Q. "I'll stay out of this. For now."
With a sly smile, Q vanished once more into thin air, leaving the Doctor once alone with the TARDIS.
"Now where was I?" the Doctor asked herself. "Oh yeah, you need to straighten out your behaviour…
"Are you seeing these reports sir?" asked Lieutenant Commander Hoshi Sato as she passed on a report to her superior, Captain Jonathan Archer.
"My god." he remarked as he saw the numbers on the pad. "How have they managed to bring in this many ships?"
"The Galactic Empire has been known to have an large excess of ships at it's disposal." remarked Commander T'pol, the ship's Vulcan First Officer and Science Officer. "It would be foolish to assume that they would give up the Ivor system without a fight."
Archer couldn't believe his eyes. The Imperial fleet had doubled in size from 2,000 to 4,000. Some of the ships were of the new Resurgent Class, some were other pre-known designs, but most were of a different design. They made up at least a third of the additional ships, and looked a lot smaller compared to a normal Star Destroyer.
"I'm getting confirmation from the USS Musk." announced Sato. "The new ships are Sith Empire ships. Harrower Class."
"Do we have a visual?" asked Archer.
"Enterprise itself is not in range of the enemy fleet." answered T'pol. "However, we can link into the USS Galaxy's sensor feed."
"Do it." ordered Archer. He felt a sense of purpose in his voice as he spoke; this was what he was meant to do here, in this time.
He thought back to how they got here in the first place. It had only been weeks since the Romulan attack on the Orcini system, and even more since the disappearance of the Vulcan Turell. Enterprise was on it's way back to Earth for a full debriefing on the Turell incident when it detected a temporal anomaly approximately 2 light years from Earth. Taking the opportunity to analyse the anomaly, the Enterprise and hundreds of other United Earth ships were suddenly thrown over 200 years into the future, where the United Earth had become a part of a 'United Federation of Planets', and Starfleet was it's primary scientific and military branch. It seemed like paradise to them.
The only problem; Starfleet was at war with a power from another universe: the so called Galactic Empire. Being at war, Starfleet needed every ship it could get it's hands on at the moment into the fight, and for the most part ships new than Enterprise such as the Constitution and Walker Classes were able to find roles as fast attack cutters.
But what of ships from Archer's era? They were slower, less heavily armed and a lot less shielded than their more futuristic counterparts. Hell, some ships were still equipped with old style PDCs. And while Starfleet did have the resources to re-shield these ships, it didn't have the time to re-arm them with new weapons.
Given that they would have virtually no effect as regular combat ships, Starfleet struggled for a while to give these ships a use. Then it came to them: what about anti-fighter screens? The weapons were powerful enough for it, and weaponry from TIE fighters, while still having an impact on their shields, would be no different to a disruptor impact of the day.
So Starfleet assigned these ships to anti-fighter roles, dealing with the vast swarms of TIE fighters with a high rate of effectiveness. This allowed larger, more powerful ships and their own fighters to move on and target other vessels, thereby eliminating fleets and stations a lot quicker than otherwise.
"Status of the fleet?" asked Archer, trying to drag his mind back into the moment.
"The fleet's at full battle readiness sir." answered T'pol. "We're still 2 hours out from weapon's range."
"Let's just hope that we can finish this quickly." Remarked Archer as he continued to stare at the ever growing feed on the viewscreen.
Aboard the USS Sovereign, Captain Trent walked up in front of the Conn position as he stared out onto the Imperial fleet. They had arrived in a standoff with the blockade for a little over half an hour now, and they had been taking final notes on the composition of the fleet. It was composed of very basic, large groups of ship types: 500 ships of Arquitens or Gozani Class, 2,000 ships of Imperial Class Star Destroyer variants, 1,000 Harrower Class Sith Destroyers and 500 Resurgent or larger ships. Worse still, the ships were led by an unknown super ship, shaped like a massive, sharply shaped bird, with a wingspan of over 60 Kilometres from tip to tip. It dwarfed any kind of ship in the entire galaxy, and here it sat, leading the enemy fleet.
The turbolift doors opened up behind Trent, causing the entire bridge crew to stand up and turn around to see who it was. Some stared, some eyed him off in hatred, and others felt a chill down their spine. Regardless of their feelings, the occupant of the turbolift stood there for a moment, before talking to Trent.
"Permission to come onto the bridge." Anakin asked through his mask, wheezing as he spoke.
"Permission granted." replied Trent. "Welcome to the bridge Mr Skywalker. Please, take a seat in the visitor's chair. You'll be our tactical advisor against the Intergalactic Order."
Anakin walked up towards the visiting chair, before pausing before he sat down. It was almost as if he could read the emotions of everyone in the room, even without looking at their faces. He stayed frozen for a moment, before getting back up and turning to face the back of the room.
"I understand that many of you still believe that I am the same man you fought over a year ago back in this very system." he began in a sombre tone. "I can sense your fear, feel your anger. You want retribution for your lost comrades. I wish to tell you now that I am no longer that man.
Darth Vader is dead. I am Anakin Skywalker. I understand how you feel about me, but I hope that it does not affect our ability to work together. And hopefully, when this is all over, we can live our lives the way they were meant to be; separately."
"Excellent points Mr Skywalker." followed up Trent. "And I believe I speak on the behalf of the crew here when I say that we forgive you for your actions. Now let's get back to work here."
The crew turned around and returned to their duty stations as Anakin and Trent sat down in their respective chairs.
"Captain, we're approaching weapons range now." announced Th'etonnor. "All ships report ready status. All fighters have been launched and are awaiting orders."
Trent thought for a moment before he gave his next orders. This was it; everything in the war had built up to this moment. From here on out, anything they did would determine the fate of not one but two universes. There could only be two outcomes from this battle; a world of peace and normality, or a world of chaos and disorder.
But then again, what would they be sacrificing if nothing came of this battle. Billions of lives had been lost in the course of this war. If they weren't right about the timeline resetting, it could mean that they would never get them back.
Even more troubling to Trent was that it had to go this far. While he knew that attempting to offer an olive branch to them at the stage they had was unwise, he knew that this war never had to happen in the first place. If the Empire had been more civil and diplomatic in first contact, they would have been able to get the relationship off on the right foot. Trade routes could have been established, technology shared, a new frontier explored.
However, now wasn't the time for speculation or debate. They had a job to do, and it had to be done now. And so, with a heavy sigh, Trent ordered the first offensive action in Operation Reset.
"Have all ships with lance phasers target and fire at the Resurgent Class Star Destroyers. Order all ships to target the centre of their formation with torpedoes and fire at will."
And with that, the final battle had begun.