Star Trek Hunter
Episode: 16: Slavers
Scene 16: The Second Battle for Pillo
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16.16
The Second Battle for Pillo
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"Old Possum-Chicken won another one." The gabby Lieutenant Commander in the blue uniform was part of the U.S.S. Galaxy's medical department.
"You served with him?" asked Lt. Cmdr. Mlady.
"Let her talk!" said Commander David Pepper. "Let her talk! Come on, I want to hear about this…"
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Several of the U.S.S. Hunter's crew members had joined a large number of officers from the U.S.S. Galaxy on the newly opened Observation Deck – a combination of what had previously been 10-Forward with the arboretum. This expanded community area combined the 10-Forward bar with an enormous open space in the middle of the Galaxy that took up two decks and rivaled the Promenade on Deep Space 9 for an airy feeling in the middle of an enormous spaceship. An open deck with safety railing allowed passengers and crew to look down into the arboretum, from which large trees grew up and had yet another opening into the deck above to stretch their canopies, which could be viewed from balconies attached to the executive and ambassador staterooms.
The old Galaxy class ships had been designed to last (with retrofits) for at least 70 years and with the most recent retrofits, which included miniaturization of thousands of the ships systems, dramatically increased the available deck space on a ship that was originally designed to be a spacious, self-sufficient floating city in space. The impact of this enormous interior space, from which on several sides outer space could be viewed through a variety of windows and viewscreens, was simply stunning. Even with all this open space in the center of the ship, improvements in materials technology, area design, emergency bulkheads and safety procedures made the old Galaxy class cruisers far more resilient, sturdier and much safer to serve on then they had been nearly 30 years ago when they were first launched.
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"We watched it on the view screens," gushed Lt. Cmdr. Stacy Abrams. "Star Fleet Operations had information that the Nausicaan Collective wanted to make another play to take control of Pillo. So Rear Admiral Chekov deliberately left only two Prowler class ships to guard the system. The Nausicaans respect those new Prowlers – since your Lieutenant Dolphin…"
"Lieutenant Commander Dolphin," 2nd Lt. T'Lon corrected.
"Oh… really? Cool!" said Abrams. "Lieutenant Commander Dolphin cleaned their plate with just the Hunter's tactical unit up against three of their heavy cruisers."
"So Chekov probably figured they would still try for Pillo as long as they thought they would only have the U.S.S. Prowler and the U.S.S. Trapper to face, along with maybe a dozen of the old short-range interceptors," added a lieutenant in a red uniform.
"Of course he figured it out, Anton!" Abrams said. "He knew that would make them commit everything to the battle, especially with Possum-Chicken using the Milky Way to tow the Intrepid all the way back to Starbase 86 and the Victory stopped at Coridan for major repairs – they said it wasn't even safe to travel at warp 3 because it was so badly damaged at the Battle of Coridan Corridor…"
"The Nausicaan Collective should have expected it… They walked right into the same trap he had just set for the orions," said the lieutenant named Anton.
"He had the Intrepid play wounded bird with the orions. I think he was playing "wounded flock" with the nausicaans," Abrams continued. "They committed their heavy interceptors and found that the Prowler and the Trapper were really effective against them. They were using some strange new configuration called the Quack Attack?"
This drew an unexpected laugh from the several Hunter crew members at the table.
"Please allow me to introduce Chief Flight Specialists Thyssi zh'Qaoleq and Dewayne Guth," said Pep. "They're the pilots who designed the Quack attack…"
"No way!" said Abrams. "Okay – I saw it in action – really impressive – that was you two? Why did you call it the Quack attack?"
"That was Kenny's idea," said Guth.
"You call him Kenny?" Abrams asked.
"Most people refer to him as Dr. Dolphin," Guth responded.
"Okay… Well… So since their interceptors were getting torn up, the nausicaans committed their heavy cruisers – all three of them. And apparently they had learned their lesson from the last time they faced a Prowler class ship. The cruisers came in from three different angles so that no one could pull the Dolphin maneuver on them."
"She doesn't even know what the Dolphin maneuver is," said the red-suited lieutenant.
"Neither do you," Abrams retorted.
"Neither does anybody, it's classified."
"But it involved the cruisers being in tight formation. Anyway so the Trapper and the Prowler are in serious trouble, but then the Ravonnelle shows up and sends one of those heavy cruisers into a tailspin. Makes me really glad your people are on our side." Abrams lifted her glass to Thyssi zh'Qaoleq. "Those andorian phasers cut through the nausicaan shields like butter…"
"Like a knife through butter," said Anton. "Have another drink, Stacy…"
"Buy one for me, Lt. McNeill." Lt. Cmdr. Stacy Abrams huffed up a little.
Lt. Anton McNeill rolled his eyes, then gamely walked off to the bar.
"So the nausicaans, they commit everything. Nearly 40 more heavy interceptors, 5 heavy destroyers and 9 marauders. That's when the vulcans showed up. 60 long range interceptors. And Chekov threw in everything and the kitchen sink. The Bellerophon, the Valiant, oh – thank you Anton!" Lt. Cmdr. Abrams said as Lt. McNeill returned with a beer for her (and another for himself).
She picked up the narrative before anyone could interrupt, not even bothering to take a drink: "The Vox, the Enterprise, the Ajax, the Eagle, the Hornet, the Monitor, the Thor, the Musashi, the San Francisco and then, just to top it off, the Victory and the kHov Bome – both fully repaired, the Nome and the Milky Way. The Nausicaans surrendered all their ships while Rear Admiral Chekov was still warping in…"
Abrams did not notice how the officers from the Hunter started to display more serious expressions as she rattled off ship names. Lt. T'Lon, Lt. Cmdr. Mlady and Cmdr. Pepper exchanged significant looks.
"…only four casualties. Four! And we got the entire… Nausicaan… Collective…" Abrams slowed down as she realized that something in her news was seriously worrying to the Hunter's leadership.
"Commander Pepper," said Lt. McNeill. "What is it?"
"You said 60 vulcan long-range interceptors?" asked Lt. T'Lon.
"Yes – it must have taken several days for them to warp from Vulcan to Pillo," Abrams said.
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Pep and Mlady both stood up and turned as if to leave.
At that moment the comm system on the U.S.S. Galaxy came alive: "This is Captain Janet Duncan of the U.S.S. Galaxy…" Captain Duncan had a strong Scottish brogue.
"And this is Captain Minerva Irons of the U.S.S. Hunter." Justice Irons sounded more upset than any of her crew had ever heard her.
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Captain Duncan spoke again, her voice emotional and her usually thick Scottish accent occasionally opaque: "To all crew and passengers aboard the U.S.S. Galaxy and the U.S.S. Hunter and to all persons within range of this transmission on all subspace frequencies, it is with great sadness that I have to inform you that our greatest contributor to science, especially the science of spaceflight, and Earth's first interstellar ally, one of the 19 charter worlds of the Federation, the planet Vulcan… has fallen.
"I also must report to you that Vice Admiral Senvol ordered the evacuation and self-destruction of Starbase 18 along with all ship-building infrastructure. Admiral Senvol and a security detail of 200 Star Fleet personnel remained onboard to prevent the station and gantries from being taken and all of these personnel gave their lives in the line of duty. To our knowledge, there were no other casualties. A comprehensive list will be released once all casualties are accounted for and the families notified. The Federation Council has sent a delegation to meet with the Romulan Imperial Senate to negotiate formal terms of surrender…"
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