- CHAPTER 20 -
- ISS Shiva, Fluidic Space -
The Shiva's main viewer showed a frantic melee as Imperial warships fought valiantly in a loosing cause. In mere seconds, another two flared and died, thinning 24th Fleets numbers still more. Already nearly 2/3 of the fleet were dead or dying, their sacrifice buying only a mere handful of their attackers. This wasn't supposed to happen. With 24th Fleets superior numbers, they should have cut through enemy resistance like a hot knife through butter, but instead the opposite was true. The main viewer darkened slightly as all foreword weapons opened up on a bioship unlucky enough to fly dead ahead of the Shiva. Her twin phaser lances melted double gashes in the bioships hull as she passed their field of fire. She spun away crippled, but that didn't last for long. Soon a volley of quantums and PPC fire ripped her to pieces. A flotilla of Sabers and Defiants were ripping into a damaged bioship with their PPCs, quantum torpedoes and phaser arrays. Just as they were nearing victory, four other bioships dropped in behind the gaggle of Imperials and opened fire. With their squadron mates destroyed around them, the six surviving Defiants and Sabers broke off pursuit and concentrated on their own survival. One of the Sabers wasn't so lucky. As it barrel rolled away from the line of fire, it flew straight into the lance beam of an Imperial Galaxy. Both it and the Galaxies intended target exploded. Some ships tried to cloak in an attempt to evade the bioships wrath, but they were still targeted despite the devices supposed enfolding safety. While under cloak, the Imperials were robbed of both their armor generators and their shields. And since the bioships could still track them when they were cloaked, it just made the Imperial vessels who tried the tactic die faster. Seeing this, few other captains dared try it.
"Victory is at hand!" Chriton raved, his eyes bright with maniacal light. "Order all ships to advance toward the planet and lay waste to it!" There was a grin on his face that was entirely out of place. He seemed totally oblivious to the carnage being wrought on his once proud fleet.
"But SIR!" Commodore Obed pleaded from his post. "We must WITHDRAW. The Fleet is nearly destroyed and." he never got to finish his sentence. Chriton's phaser lashed out and with a startled cry, Commodore Obed ceased to exist as the beam vaporized him. The Shiva lurched again as the alien beams ravaged her dwindling armor and shields. The entire bridge crew was starring open mouthed at Chriton. He glowered at them.
"Anyone else yellow? This is the moment of our greatest victory, and you want to turn around and run like a whipped Klingon?!?" He shot out of his chair turning his venomous gaze and hawk like face at each of the bridge officers in turn. For the most part they tried to appear small and insignificant, trying to disappear into the bulkheads. None wanted to end up like the late Commodore, but they were all certain that they were going to die this day. The ship lurched again and both the wall panel and the wall behind it exploded in the faces of two of the officers, sending deadly shards of alloy and synthetic towards them. They screamed and fell to the deck, their faces bloody scorched messes. The ship rocked again, this time more violently, yet through it all by some miracle Chriton stood as if rooted to the deck. Another officer wasn't as fortunate and was thrown across the pitching bridge. His head struck a console edge and he fell to the deck unconscious. Despite Chriton's warning, here and there some Imperial vessels broke free from the twisting and turning melee to make the jump to slipstream back towards the only portal to this evil and death filled place.
"Full power to the impulse engines!" Chriton bellowed, falling back into his chair as a particularly aggressive strike shook the ship. Overhead conduits burst, spewing foul smelling smoke into the bridge. Chriton still had his phaser clutched in his hand, and was pointing it towards the engineering station's operator. The engineer gulped but made his report anyway.
"I can't do it sir! Impulse is offline, shields are 2% and failing, armor is compromised across multiple." The ship shook again and the engineering console exploded into the engineers back. He fell to the deck like a marionette whose strings had been cut. Outside, a wing of battered Akira's were pouring quantums and phaser fire out as fast as the arrays recharged and the tubes reloaded. Orange red beams lanced out from them, spearing nearly the same section of a bioship and keeping them there till the capacitors in the arrays depleted. Deadly strings of blue white pearls rippled out from their weapons pods to slash in on the bioships caught in the wings deadly crossfire. The Akiras were among the few wings that was still organized, done by sheer force of will and competence of their CO's and crews. They maneuvered as a single entity, concentrating fire on single bioships until they died. After taking out three of the enemy's ships, they caught the attention of 11 of their surviving brethren. With a coordination that put even the best the Imperials could do to shame, the bioships turned and sent concentrated fire back at the Akiras. Within seconds, the tsunami of destruction became too much for the armor and shields of the already lame Akiras, and they died in short order.
On the Shiva, the same explosion that killed the engineer nearly threw the tactical officer from his chair, but he gripped the edge of his console with white knuckles and grimly continued. "Hull breaches on decks 30 to 46 section 2 through 7, decks 4 to 19 section 5 through 20. Structural integrity failing, stress on the outer hull is beginning to increase the hull breaches size. Emergency bulkheads and forcefields are in place but they won't last long." He involuntarily ducked as a Intrepid screamed by on the main viewer scant inches from a head on collision. A bioship followed shortly thereafter, one of its fins scrapping along the now pitted and melted armor of the Shiva. Finally it reached a still glowing and sparking crater and arched up and away from the ship. On the bridge, giant fountains of sparks spewed across the room and minor fires brewed up adding their own smoke to the already noxious atmosphere. "Assault phasers are offline, Heavy torpedo launcher is offline. Phaser arrays 2, 3 and 4 are gone, Quantum torpedoes are nearly depleted. PPC and Phalanx control has gone to local due to main sensor failure. Nearly half of them on the port side and 2/3s on the starboard are gone. Primary slipstream core is failing, main power dropping to 68% normal."
The Shiva pitched violently to starboard and the bridge glowed orange as a bioship's beam lanced deep into the heart of the leviathan. Those caught in the beams immediate never even had a chance to scream as it tore apart their atoms. The rest of the bridge crew wasn't so lucky. The flash burns that they received from the weapons thermal bloom either incapacitated or outright killed most of the remaining bridge crew. But the burns were the least of their worries as a gale force wind began to suck all of the atmosphere out of the bridge and surrounding compartments down the beams deadly path. To preoccupied with their own wounds, they barely had time to scream before they were sucked into the void in the floor of the ship. Then the emergency forcefields and bulkheads slammed into place, putting a sudden end to the whirlwind. Only Chriton was left, the entire front of his normally spotless white and gold uniform scorched and blackened, his face and hands blistering with minor burns. Panels were flickering as both main power and their ship died. Those panels on stations that still remained intact that is. Most had been melted into slag by the beam. By some miracle the main viewer was still functioning but its image was snowy with interference and sensor degradation. On it the last few functioning Imperial vessels were being hunted down and killed. The Shiva lurched again, this time moving a considerable distance. From an outside view, her starboard ventral nacelle was shattered and streaming plasma. Her starboard dorsal nacelle was little better, and the main deflector and port nacelles faded as main power was lost. The few weapons that had still shouted back defiance even as the Shiva died fell silent. With helm control and main power offline, the Shiva began a slow corkscrew, pushed along by the expelled plasma from her shattered nacelles. On the bridge, for what seemed like the first time, Chriton took stock of what was accually happening around him.
"What have I done?!" he said out loud in a horrified voice, his eyes flowing over the smoke filled carnage that surrounded him, "Dear God, WHAT HAVE I DONE!?!" Suddenly a pair of strong hands wrapped a sliver chain around his throat. The surprise was total, and Chriton's eyes bulged as his hands flew in a desperate attempt to claw the chain away, but they were helpless against the irresistible, incessant tightening of the chain. A voice whispered in Chriton's ear.
"Tickle us, do we not laugh? Prick us, do we not bleed? Wrong us, shall we not revenge?" The once great Klingon Warrior Chang whispered with considerable relish. With the chain grasped tightly in one hand, Chang reached down with the other one and pulled out Chriton's dagger. He then plunged it into Chriton's cold black heart. With a final strangled gasp, Thomas Chriton died. Chang let the body drop like so much refuse. He then turned back to the main screen. On it, he could just make out a gaggle of bioships forming up into a ring formation. Another, slightly different looking bioship moved into the middle of the ring. Once the formation was complete, the encircling ships began to fire into the middle vessel. At first Chang thought that it was madness, why else would they be turning their fire on their own ships. But then, when the middle ship wasn't destroyed, when it in fact seemed to power up the middle ship and its front section began to glow ominously, Chang knew. Standing proud and tall, like the true warrior he was, he tipped his head back and howled at the ceiling of the bridge. It was a warning, sent to the dead, warning them that a Klingon warrior was about to arrive. He would take his place at Sto-Vo-Kor with the honored dead. A massive beam, more powerful than any weapon Imperial scientists had ever dreamed of, bowled into the heart of the handful of Imperial ships left. It struck the Shiva's scarred and battered from and the ship splintered and blew apart, the ensuing fireball taking out the rest of 24th Fleet's remaining ships. They had huddled around the near dead leviathan as if it could somehow protect them from the end that was now unavoidable. They died with their flag ship and once they were gone, from 24th Fleet's original order of battle, only five Intrepids, one Akira and three Sabers had managed to break free of the battle, but none were unharmed, and many were in fact on the verge of collapse. One of the finest fleets in the Empire had just had its head handed to it by less than 1/5 their number.
- ISS Shiva, Fluidic Space -
The Shiva's main viewer showed a frantic melee as Imperial warships fought valiantly in a loosing cause. In mere seconds, another two flared and died, thinning 24th Fleets numbers still more. Already nearly 2/3 of the fleet were dead or dying, their sacrifice buying only a mere handful of their attackers. This wasn't supposed to happen. With 24th Fleets superior numbers, they should have cut through enemy resistance like a hot knife through butter, but instead the opposite was true. The main viewer darkened slightly as all foreword weapons opened up on a bioship unlucky enough to fly dead ahead of the Shiva. Her twin phaser lances melted double gashes in the bioships hull as she passed their field of fire. She spun away crippled, but that didn't last for long. Soon a volley of quantums and PPC fire ripped her to pieces. A flotilla of Sabers and Defiants were ripping into a damaged bioship with their PPCs, quantum torpedoes and phaser arrays. Just as they were nearing victory, four other bioships dropped in behind the gaggle of Imperials and opened fire. With their squadron mates destroyed around them, the six surviving Defiants and Sabers broke off pursuit and concentrated on their own survival. One of the Sabers wasn't so lucky. As it barrel rolled away from the line of fire, it flew straight into the lance beam of an Imperial Galaxy. Both it and the Galaxies intended target exploded. Some ships tried to cloak in an attempt to evade the bioships wrath, but they were still targeted despite the devices supposed enfolding safety. While under cloak, the Imperials were robbed of both their armor generators and their shields. And since the bioships could still track them when they were cloaked, it just made the Imperial vessels who tried the tactic die faster. Seeing this, few other captains dared try it.
"Victory is at hand!" Chriton raved, his eyes bright with maniacal light. "Order all ships to advance toward the planet and lay waste to it!" There was a grin on his face that was entirely out of place. He seemed totally oblivious to the carnage being wrought on his once proud fleet.
"But SIR!" Commodore Obed pleaded from his post. "We must WITHDRAW. The Fleet is nearly destroyed and." he never got to finish his sentence. Chriton's phaser lashed out and with a startled cry, Commodore Obed ceased to exist as the beam vaporized him. The Shiva lurched again as the alien beams ravaged her dwindling armor and shields. The entire bridge crew was starring open mouthed at Chriton. He glowered at them.
"Anyone else yellow? This is the moment of our greatest victory, and you want to turn around and run like a whipped Klingon?!?" He shot out of his chair turning his venomous gaze and hawk like face at each of the bridge officers in turn. For the most part they tried to appear small and insignificant, trying to disappear into the bulkheads. None wanted to end up like the late Commodore, but they were all certain that they were going to die this day. The ship lurched again and both the wall panel and the wall behind it exploded in the faces of two of the officers, sending deadly shards of alloy and synthetic towards them. They screamed and fell to the deck, their faces bloody scorched messes. The ship rocked again, this time more violently, yet through it all by some miracle Chriton stood as if rooted to the deck. Another officer wasn't as fortunate and was thrown across the pitching bridge. His head struck a console edge and he fell to the deck unconscious. Despite Chriton's warning, here and there some Imperial vessels broke free from the twisting and turning melee to make the jump to slipstream back towards the only portal to this evil and death filled place.
"Full power to the impulse engines!" Chriton bellowed, falling back into his chair as a particularly aggressive strike shook the ship. Overhead conduits burst, spewing foul smelling smoke into the bridge. Chriton still had his phaser clutched in his hand, and was pointing it towards the engineering station's operator. The engineer gulped but made his report anyway.
"I can't do it sir! Impulse is offline, shields are 2% and failing, armor is compromised across multiple." The ship shook again and the engineering console exploded into the engineers back. He fell to the deck like a marionette whose strings had been cut. Outside, a wing of battered Akira's were pouring quantums and phaser fire out as fast as the arrays recharged and the tubes reloaded. Orange red beams lanced out from them, spearing nearly the same section of a bioship and keeping them there till the capacitors in the arrays depleted. Deadly strings of blue white pearls rippled out from their weapons pods to slash in on the bioships caught in the wings deadly crossfire. The Akiras were among the few wings that was still organized, done by sheer force of will and competence of their CO's and crews. They maneuvered as a single entity, concentrating fire on single bioships until they died. After taking out three of the enemy's ships, they caught the attention of 11 of their surviving brethren. With a coordination that put even the best the Imperials could do to shame, the bioships turned and sent concentrated fire back at the Akiras. Within seconds, the tsunami of destruction became too much for the armor and shields of the already lame Akiras, and they died in short order.
On the Shiva, the same explosion that killed the engineer nearly threw the tactical officer from his chair, but he gripped the edge of his console with white knuckles and grimly continued. "Hull breaches on decks 30 to 46 section 2 through 7, decks 4 to 19 section 5 through 20. Structural integrity failing, stress on the outer hull is beginning to increase the hull breaches size. Emergency bulkheads and forcefields are in place but they won't last long." He involuntarily ducked as a Intrepid screamed by on the main viewer scant inches from a head on collision. A bioship followed shortly thereafter, one of its fins scrapping along the now pitted and melted armor of the Shiva. Finally it reached a still glowing and sparking crater and arched up and away from the ship. On the bridge, giant fountains of sparks spewed across the room and minor fires brewed up adding their own smoke to the already noxious atmosphere. "Assault phasers are offline, Heavy torpedo launcher is offline. Phaser arrays 2, 3 and 4 are gone, Quantum torpedoes are nearly depleted. PPC and Phalanx control has gone to local due to main sensor failure. Nearly half of them on the port side and 2/3s on the starboard are gone. Primary slipstream core is failing, main power dropping to 68% normal."
The Shiva pitched violently to starboard and the bridge glowed orange as a bioship's beam lanced deep into the heart of the leviathan. Those caught in the beams immediate never even had a chance to scream as it tore apart their atoms. The rest of the bridge crew wasn't so lucky. The flash burns that they received from the weapons thermal bloom either incapacitated or outright killed most of the remaining bridge crew. But the burns were the least of their worries as a gale force wind began to suck all of the atmosphere out of the bridge and surrounding compartments down the beams deadly path. To preoccupied with their own wounds, they barely had time to scream before they were sucked into the void in the floor of the ship. Then the emergency forcefields and bulkheads slammed into place, putting a sudden end to the whirlwind. Only Chriton was left, the entire front of his normally spotless white and gold uniform scorched and blackened, his face and hands blistering with minor burns. Panels were flickering as both main power and their ship died. Those panels on stations that still remained intact that is. Most had been melted into slag by the beam. By some miracle the main viewer was still functioning but its image was snowy with interference and sensor degradation. On it the last few functioning Imperial vessels were being hunted down and killed. The Shiva lurched again, this time moving a considerable distance. From an outside view, her starboard ventral nacelle was shattered and streaming plasma. Her starboard dorsal nacelle was little better, and the main deflector and port nacelles faded as main power was lost. The few weapons that had still shouted back defiance even as the Shiva died fell silent. With helm control and main power offline, the Shiva began a slow corkscrew, pushed along by the expelled plasma from her shattered nacelles. On the bridge, for what seemed like the first time, Chriton took stock of what was accually happening around him.
"What have I done?!" he said out loud in a horrified voice, his eyes flowing over the smoke filled carnage that surrounded him, "Dear God, WHAT HAVE I DONE!?!" Suddenly a pair of strong hands wrapped a sliver chain around his throat. The surprise was total, and Chriton's eyes bulged as his hands flew in a desperate attempt to claw the chain away, but they were helpless against the irresistible, incessant tightening of the chain. A voice whispered in Chriton's ear.
"Tickle us, do we not laugh? Prick us, do we not bleed? Wrong us, shall we not revenge?" The once great Klingon Warrior Chang whispered with considerable relish. With the chain grasped tightly in one hand, Chang reached down with the other one and pulled out Chriton's dagger. He then plunged it into Chriton's cold black heart. With a final strangled gasp, Thomas Chriton died. Chang let the body drop like so much refuse. He then turned back to the main screen. On it, he could just make out a gaggle of bioships forming up into a ring formation. Another, slightly different looking bioship moved into the middle of the ring. Once the formation was complete, the encircling ships began to fire into the middle vessel. At first Chang thought that it was madness, why else would they be turning their fire on their own ships. But then, when the middle ship wasn't destroyed, when it in fact seemed to power up the middle ship and its front section began to glow ominously, Chang knew. Standing proud and tall, like the true warrior he was, he tipped his head back and howled at the ceiling of the bridge. It was a warning, sent to the dead, warning them that a Klingon warrior was about to arrive. He would take his place at Sto-Vo-Kor with the honored dead. A massive beam, more powerful than any weapon Imperial scientists had ever dreamed of, bowled into the heart of the handful of Imperial ships left. It struck the Shiva's scarred and battered from and the ship splintered and blew apart, the ensuing fireball taking out the rest of 24th Fleet's remaining ships. They had huddled around the near dead leviathan as if it could somehow protect them from the end that was now unavoidable. They died with their flag ship and once they were gone, from 24th Fleet's original order of battle, only five Intrepids, one Akira and three Sabers had managed to break free of the battle, but none were unharmed, and many were in fact on the verge of collapse. One of the finest fleets in the Empire had just had its head handed to it by less than 1/5 their number.