- CHAPTER 33 -
- 2nd Fleet Battle Group A, Engaging Species 8472 Fleet in former Borg System A875 34B9 -
An Akira wing in claw formation with six Defiant wing pairs ranging at their flanks and an Aegean tucked in behind in support were executing finely tuned volley fire at the onrushing bioships. Their massive single launch torpedo capability allowed them to take out even the tough Battleships, and they were doing just that. Launching eight quantums apiece per volley, they rained down a tidal wave of weapons on the enemy. Their attached Defiants maneuvered around to the Battleships blind arcs to add their own fire, and even possibly distract the enemy into attacking them instead of the higher priority targets the Akiras posed. That was the one good thing about attacking a Species 8472 Battleship. While it was as maneuverable and speedy as a Defiant, and about as tough as a Wraith with deadly weaponry, it was all in its foreword arch. This allowed the fleet little Defiants to maneuver into their rather large blind spot while they concentrated on the Akiras. And if they distracted the Battleship enough to cause it to turn and engage them, then it would be cut to ribbons by the Akiras. The waves of quantums spat from the heavy torpedo pod and the launchers in the primary hull. While they weren't burst fire capable, they did have a respectable reload speed, and volley after volley crashed down on the bioships. They were followed closely by massed phaser strikes, and the torrent of sheer power was to much for even the thick hides of the Battleships. Spindle after spindle crumpled and died under the onslaught. But then the Akiras were themselves struck. Two wings of Battleships were charging in from port and starboard, firing as the came. The wing CO chose fast, then swung his ships towards the port attackers. Both fore and aft tubes went into continuous rapid fire, and their foreword phaser arrays were joined their rear phasers as those arcs came to bear on their attackers. While at the current rate, their stocks of quantums would be exhausted rapidly, as would the phaser capacitors, they had no choice but to throw everything they could at the enemy and hope that it would be enough.
The first Akira to die was hit by three bio-pulse beams nearly simultaneously. The first one smashed its shields flat, the next struck the ablative armor, punching through to leave a gaping molten crater in the ventral port saucer. The Akira would have continued to fight even after that, but the third beam was the final straw. With its defenses depleted and not yet regenerated, the Akira was a sitting duck. The third bio-pulse beam speared deep into the heart of the ship and it broke into large sections of debris. The next one was running low on shield strength as it had just shrugged off an attack. The Battleship that had shot it sent out a fresh beam that clipped the port Slipstream nacelle. It was only a glancing shot, yet it was enough to cause the nacelle strut to begin to warp from the unnatural strain. With a giant groan of strained alloy, the nacelle ripped away taking most of the weapons pod and port boom with it.
A wing of Galaxies was heavily engaged with an equal number of Battleships, and if it wasn't for the escorting Aegean, the fight would have been over long ago. As it was both sides were taking damage, yet it was still in the winged spindle shaped Battleships favor. As they traded furious fire, striking with phasers, phaser lances and burst fire quantum tubes that crisscrossed bio-pulse beams, the battle lines met and interpenetrated. A Galaxy was hit through an opening in her failing shields, and the beam tore away a full ΒΌ of her saucer and shattered her port nacelle. The lighting flickered on board the great ship, then died as the QSS core went into emergency shutdown. Backup fusion reactors kept her quantums and powerful phaser arrays firing, but many of the crew were already fleeing in escape pods. A shot from a Frigate punched through her scarred armor, cutting through her saucer, neck and engineering section almost down her center line. The ship then stopped firing as all power died and began a lazy list to starboard. Orderly formations were dissolving into seeming chaos as 2nd Fleet tried to blow through the enemy. The bioships were more maneuverable than their similarly sized Imperial counterparts, and they made malignant use of it, diving through openings in the Imperial lines, then pulling radical 180 degree hairpin turns that would have quite possibly ripped a Starfleet vessel to shreds from the strain. They came out of their turns firing their hideously destructive bio-pulse beams into the less heavily weaponed rear arcs of 2nd Fleet's capital ships. Yet this had been allowed for in the planning and the still linked Prometheus's spun around in a fair approximation of the enemy's maneuverability and launched everything they had at them. Crimson/orange shafts of Phasers, amber bolts of Pulse Cannon fire and the blue/white orbs of quantum torpedoes were seeded into space by their parent vessels. While individually these did very little to a bioships skin, the sheer weight of fire brought to bear on solitary targets by entire Prometheus wings was enough to take out even the powerful Battleships. Yet even that was not looking like it would be enough. Starting in a trickle, but growing larger by the second, Imperial Prometheus's, Nebulas, Galaxies and Sovereigns began to die as the incoming fire overcame what even their enhanced shields and ablative armor could shrug aside. As the fleet finally broke through and prepped to micro jump, they were far fewer in number than there had been at the start of the battle. Bartlett glanced down at the casualty report on his left hand terminal.
While the Yamato was still mostly in one piece, receiving only superficial damage to her port dorsal QSS nacelle and saucer, two of the other Wraith's were gone. Out of the 40 Sovereigns, only 32 of them were operational, with all having various degrees of battle damage. The same held true for the 13 out of 45 Galaxies, 48 out of 60 Prometheus, 24 out of 50 Nebulas, 14 out of 55 Akiras, 49 out of 75 Steam Runners, 27 out of 80 Intrepids, 46 out of 200 Sabers, 68 out of 300 Defiants, 33 out of 250 Novas and 12 out of 20 Aegeans. The crew casualties were in well into the hundreds of thousands dead and nearly twice as many wounded. The fortunate thing was that most of them were Imperial R&D's new toys, the Imp Drones. They weren't technically Human or Vulcan, at least to Human and Vulcan eyes, so their loss wasn't as painful as those incurred during the Borg/Imperial war when all Starfleet had were Humans and Vulcans with the odd alien thrown in here and there. And worse yet, if S-8472 chose to press their attack, they still had the numbers to force 2nd Fleet out of the system. And then a miracle happened. Well two actually, but they happened so close together as to count as one in the grand scheme of things.
- ISS Hopolite, Captain's Yacht, a few minutes earlier -
The familiar whine of the transporter sounded in Ulysses ears and his vision went to blue/white as the beam turned him into a data stream and sent him onto the Flag Bridge of the ISS Athena. While it was a perfectly acceptable means of getting from place to place, one didn't use it without a subconscious terror as to what exactly happened to ones self when one was transported, and to what could go wrong. Very bad things could happen if things went wrong in a transporter. Fortunately for Ulysses subconscious AND his conscious, nothing went wrong and he rematerialized on the Flag Bridge exactly where he had wanted to be. P'tel and Percy Davenport were there with him, and the trio, lit by the flickering glow of the battle unfolding mirror image style on the massive holo display, leveled their phaser rifles into combat readiness. Not only were they armed, they were wearing the light, unpowered riot armor and helmets that shipboard MPs and Security Details wore. It would shrug off most physical attacks and even offer some protection against phasers. While no where near as potent as the defenses a full on power armor combat suit offered, it was considerably better than transporting into an unknown situation in just their uniforms.
The scene on the Athena's Flag Bridge was eerie. The bridge was laid out before them, with the secondary stations ringing the central command chair and holo display in a horseshoe shaped pit. Imp drones, identifiable by their Borgish looking fan shaped implant near their left ear, lied twitching in the bottom of the pit, or not moving at all. Their fellow Human crewmembers and officers seemed to fare little better, for they were alternately lying still or spasming on the ground. Except for a few. They were repeatedly smashing blunt objects like the pommels of their largely ceremonial, yet still quite deadly daggers into hapless fellow crewmen. There was a maniacal gleam in their eyes, and sweat glistened on their brow thanks to the holo display's flickering, dancing light. P'tel and Davenport phasered those quickly, before they noticed that they had new visitors and turned their gruesome, malevolent actions on them instead of the mangled corpses on the deck.
Ulysses strode down the narrow catwalk and into the holo display towards the Flag Officers command chair. Percy and P'tel covered him, walking a half a pace behind him with their eyes and weapons trained outward alert for the slightest sign of attack. As Captain Vanguard pierced the holo display, he saw a feminine hand attached to an arm clad in the brilliant white and gold uniform of an Admiral draped lifelessly over the armrest. Still cautious, he picked up his pace. Still holding his phaser rifle in one hand, his finger ready to pull the trigger at need, Ulysses reached out with his Borg exoskeleton encased left hand and slowly swung the chair around till the still form of Fleet Admiral T'var was visible. Ulysses gasped and his eyes went wide as he saw her face. It caused him to nearly drop his rifle in shock. Of all the people in the universe to run into in this situation, why was it her?
"What is it?" P'tel asked, here eyes still scanning the room.
"Nothing." Ulysses said after just a tad to long of a pause. P'tel turned slightly to stare at him. He was kneeling in front of the lifeless Admiral, one hand holding his rifle on her, the other hovering in space as if not knowing what to do with itself. But she had a job to do here, so she resumed scanning her half of the room, keeping her questions to herself. Ulysses let his rifle drop to its shoulder sling and opened up the med kit hanging down to his opposite hip. Taking out a tricorder, he began to scan the Vulcan Admiral. After a short period of time, the tricorder reached its diagnosis and showed its recommended treatment to Ulysses. "Tricorder says they are all suffering from neural shock to varying degrees. Most likely cause is Psychonic attack." He said to his two officers." While it wouldn't be an actual fix to her problem, a hypo stimulant would revive her with no ill effects. His hands moved with frantic speed as they grabbed the designated hypo and pressed it to T'var's neck. There was the usual short hiss and then T'var climbed out of the smothering blanket of unconsciousness.
Her eyes opened to reveal an anxious looking Human with the remains of Borg implants showing on his face and hand. He wore light armor and there was a phaser rifle strung from his shoulder. She was still groggy, both from the period of unconsciousness and her still untreated mind flaying, so she couldn't initially place his face. She knew that it wasn't one of her officers or senior bridge staff, yet she was sure that she had seen that face somewhere before. The face spoke, its near whisper seeming like a rifle shot in her eardrums.
"Admiral T'var, can you hear me?" the face's worried voice said. She nodded slowly, as if even that slight movement took all her control to muster. The voice continued as she tried to sift through her shattered mind just exactly where she knew this man from. "Thank God. Look, I'm going to have to move you to sickbay to get you fixed up." Part of him wanted to rush her immediately to sickbay, but he just couldn't bring himself to leave the others suffering on the Flag Bridge and throughout the ship. Speaking to the air, he continued. "Computer, activate EMH program ship wide medical alert condition Red One."
"Unable to comply, Engineering systems severely compromised on multiple decks. Cause is removal of isonlinear chips and physical damage to Engineering systems."
Muttering under his breath about simple-minded computers, Ulysses spoke aloud again in a slightly more irritated voice. "Then initiate EMH program on all capable sections."
"Acknowledged. EMH program under alert condition Red One initiating in all capable sections." Red One set the EMH's into autonomous mode, fixing up injured crew on their own without orders. One appeared on the Flag Bridge, the light flickering on his bald head. Without orders, just like he was supposed to, he went over and began to treat the injured, placing neural regenerators on their foreheads. Ulysses reached up and tapped his communicator. "Vanguard to Cadence," he paused a beat as the Hopolite's Captain's Yacht's computer chimed its acknowledgement. "Four to beam directly to sickbay."
- 2nd Fleet Battle Group A, Engaging Species 8472 Fleet in former Borg System A875 34B9 -
An Akira wing in claw formation with six Defiant wing pairs ranging at their flanks and an Aegean tucked in behind in support were executing finely tuned volley fire at the onrushing bioships. Their massive single launch torpedo capability allowed them to take out even the tough Battleships, and they were doing just that. Launching eight quantums apiece per volley, they rained down a tidal wave of weapons on the enemy. Their attached Defiants maneuvered around to the Battleships blind arcs to add their own fire, and even possibly distract the enemy into attacking them instead of the higher priority targets the Akiras posed. That was the one good thing about attacking a Species 8472 Battleship. While it was as maneuverable and speedy as a Defiant, and about as tough as a Wraith with deadly weaponry, it was all in its foreword arch. This allowed the fleet little Defiants to maneuver into their rather large blind spot while they concentrated on the Akiras. And if they distracted the Battleship enough to cause it to turn and engage them, then it would be cut to ribbons by the Akiras. The waves of quantums spat from the heavy torpedo pod and the launchers in the primary hull. While they weren't burst fire capable, they did have a respectable reload speed, and volley after volley crashed down on the bioships. They were followed closely by massed phaser strikes, and the torrent of sheer power was to much for even the thick hides of the Battleships. Spindle after spindle crumpled and died under the onslaught. But then the Akiras were themselves struck. Two wings of Battleships were charging in from port and starboard, firing as the came. The wing CO chose fast, then swung his ships towards the port attackers. Both fore and aft tubes went into continuous rapid fire, and their foreword phaser arrays were joined their rear phasers as those arcs came to bear on their attackers. While at the current rate, their stocks of quantums would be exhausted rapidly, as would the phaser capacitors, they had no choice but to throw everything they could at the enemy and hope that it would be enough.
The first Akira to die was hit by three bio-pulse beams nearly simultaneously. The first one smashed its shields flat, the next struck the ablative armor, punching through to leave a gaping molten crater in the ventral port saucer. The Akira would have continued to fight even after that, but the third beam was the final straw. With its defenses depleted and not yet regenerated, the Akira was a sitting duck. The third bio-pulse beam speared deep into the heart of the ship and it broke into large sections of debris. The next one was running low on shield strength as it had just shrugged off an attack. The Battleship that had shot it sent out a fresh beam that clipped the port Slipstream nacelle. It was only a glancing shot, yet it was enough to cause the nacelle strut to begin to warp from the unnatural strain. With a giant groan of strained alloy, the nacelle ripped away taking most of the weapons pod and port boom with it.
A wing of Galaxies was heavily engaged with an equal number of Battleships, and if it wasn't for the escorting Aegean, the fight would have been over long ago. As it was both sides were taking damage, yet it was still in the winged spindle shaped Battleships favor. As they traded furious fire, striking with phasers, phaser lances and burst fire quantum tubes that crisscrossed bio-pulse beams, the battle lines met and interpenetrated. A Galaxy was hit through an opening in her failing shields, and the beam tore away a full ΒΌ of her saucer and shattered her port nacelle. The lighting flickered on board the great ship, then died as the QSS core went into emergency shutdown. Backup fusion reactors kept her quantums and powerful phaser arrays firing, but many of the crew were already fleeing in escape pods. A shot from a Frigate punched through her scarred armor, cutting through her saucer, neck and engineering section almost down her center line. The ship then stopped firing as all power died and began a lazy list to starboard. Orderly formations were dissolving into seeming chaos as 2nd Fleet tried to blow through the enemy. The bioships were more maneuverable than their similarly sized Imperial counterparts, and they made malignant use of it, diving through openings in the Imperial lines, then pulling radical 180 degree hairpin turns that would have quite possibly ripped a Starfleet vessel to shreds from the strain. They came out of their turns firing their hideously destructive bio-pulse beams into the less heavily weaponed rear arcs of 2nd Fleet's capital ships. Yet this had been allowed for in the planning and the still linked Prometheus's spun around in a fair approximation of the enemy's maneuverability and launched everything they had at them. Crimson/orange shafts of Phasers, amber bolts of Pulse Cannon fire and the blue/white orbs of quantum torpedoes were seeded into space by their parent vessels. While individually these did very little to a bioships skin, the sheer weight of fire brought to bear on solitary targets by entire Prometheus wings was enough to take out even the powerful Battleships. Yet even that was not looking like it would be enough. Starting in a trickle, but growing larger by the second, Imperial Prometheus's, Nebulas, Galaxies and Sovereigns began to die as the incoming fire overcame what even their enhanced shields and ablative armor could shrug aside. As the fleet finally broke through and prepped to micro jump, they were far fewer in number than there had been at the start of the battle. Bartlett glanced down at the casualty report on his left hand terminal.
While the Yamato was still mostly in one piece, receiving only superficial damage to her port dorsal QSS nacelle and saucer, two of the other Wraith's were gone. Out of the 40 Sovereigns, only 32 of them were operational, with all having various degrees of battle damage. The same held true for the 13 out of 45 Galaxies, 48 out of 60 Prometheus, 24 out of 50 Nebulas, 14 out of 55 Akiras, 49 out of 75 Steam Runners, 27 out of 80 Intrepids, 46 out of 200 Sabers, 68 out of 300 Defiants, 33 out of 250 Novas and 12 out of 20 Aegeans. The crew casualties were in well into the hundreds of thousands dead and nearly twice as many wounded. The fortunate thing was that most of them were Imperial R&D's new toys, the Imp Drones. They weren't technically Human or Vulcan, at least to Human and Vulcan eyes, so their loss wasn't as painful as those incurred during the Borg/Imperial war when all Starfleet had were Humans and Vulcans with the odd alien thrown in here and there. And worse yet, if S-8472 chose to press their attack, they still had the numbers to force 2nd Fleet out of the system. And then a miracle happened. Well two actually, but they happened so close together as to count as one in the grand scheme of things.
- ISS Hopolite, Captain's Yacht, a few minutes earlier -
The familiar whine of the transporter sounded in Ulysses ears and his vision went to blue/white as the beam turned him into a data stream and sent him onto the Flag Bridge of the ISS Athena. While it was a perfectly acceptable means of getting from place to place, one didn't use it without a subconscious terror as to what exactly happened to ones self when one was transported, and to what could go wrong. Very bad things could happen if things went wrong in a transporter. Fortunately for Ulysses subconscious AND his conscious, nothing went wrong and he rematerialized on the Flag Bridge exactly where he had wanted to be. P'tel and Percy Davenport were there with him, and the trio, lit by the flickering glow of the battle unfolding mirror image style on the massive holo display, leveled their phaser rifles into combat readiness. Not only were they armed, they were wearing the light, unpowered riot armor and helmets that shipboard MPs and Security Details wore. It would shrug off most physical attacks and even offer some protection against phasers. While no where near as potent as the defenses a full on power armor combat suit offered, it was considerably better than transporting into an unknown situation in just their uniforms.
The scene on the Athena's Flag Bridge was eerie. The bridge was laid out before them, with the secondary stations ringing the central command chair and holo display in a horseshoe shaped pit. Imp drones, identifiable by their Borgish looking fan shaped implant near their left ear, lied twitching in the bottom of the pit, or not moving at all. Their fellow Human crewmembers and officers seemed to fare little better, for they were alternately lying still or spasming on the ground. Except for a few. They were repeatedly smashing blunt objects like the pommels of their largely ceremonial, yet still quite deadly daggers into hapless fellow crewmen. There was a maniacal gleam in their eyes, and sweat glistened on their brow thanks to the holo display's flickering, dancing light. P'tel and Davenport phasered those quickly, before they noticed that they had new visitors and turned their gruesome, malevolent actions on them instead of the mangled corpses on the deck.
Ulysses strode down the narrow catwalk and into the holo display towards the Flag Officers command chair. Percy and P'tel covered him, walking a half a pace behind him with their eyes and weapons trained outward alert for the slightest sign of attack. As Captain Vanguard pierced the holo display, he saw a feminine hand attached to an arm clad in the brilliant white and gold uniform of an Admiral draped lifelessly over the armrest. Still cautious, he picked up his pace. Still holding his phaser rifle in one hand, his finger ready to pull the trigger at need, Ulysses reached out with his Borg exoskeleton encased left hand and slowly swung the chair around till the still form of Fleet Admiral T'var was visible. Ulysses gasped and his eyes went wide as he saw her face. It caused him to nearly drop his rifle in shock. Of all the people in the universe to run into in this situation, why was it her?
"What is it?" P'tel asked, here eyes still scanning the room.
"Nothing." Ulysses said after just a tad to long of a pause. P'tel turned slightly to stare at him. He was kneeling in front of the lifeless Admiral, one hand holding his rifle on her, the other hovering in space as if not knowing what to do with itself. But she had a job to do here, so she resumed scanning her half of the room, keeping her questions to herself. Ulysses let his rifle drop to its shoulder sling and opened up the med kit hanging down to his opposite hip. Taking out a tricorder, he began to scan the Vulcan Admiral. After a short period of time, the tricorder reached its diagnosis and showed its recommended treatment to Ulysses. "Tricorder says they are all suffering from neural shock to varying degrees. Most likely cause is Psychonic attack." He said to his two officers." While it wouldn't be an actual fix to her problem, a hypo stimulant would revive her with no ill effects. His hands moved with frantic speed as they grabbed the designated hypo and pressed it to T'var's neck. There was the usual short hiss and then T'var climbed out of the smothering blanket of unconsciousness.
Her eyes opened to reveal an anxious looking Human with the remains of Borg implants showing on his face and hand. He wore light armor and there was a phaser rifle strung from his shoulder. She was still groggy, both from the period of unconsciousness and her still untreated mind flaying, so she couldn't initially place his face. She knew that it wasn't one of her officers or senior bridge staff, yet she was sure that she had seen that face somewhere before. The face spoke, its near whisper seeming like a rifle shot in her eardrums.
"Admiral T'var, can you hear me?" the face's worried voice said. She nodded slowly, as if even that slight movement took all her control to muster. The voice continued as she tried to sift through her shattered mind just exactly where she knew this man from. "Thank God. Look, I'm going to have to move you to sickbay to get you fixed up." Part of him wanted to rush her immediately to sickbay, but he just couldn't bring himself to leave the others suffering on the Flag Bridge and throughout the ship. Speaking to the air, he continued. "Computer, activate EMH program ship wide medical alert condition Red One."
"Unable to comply, Engineering systems severely compromised on multiple decks. Cause is removal of isonlinear chips and physical damage to Engineering systems."
Muttering under his breath about simple-minded computers, Ulysses spoke aloud again in a slightly more irritated voice. "Then initiate EMH program on all capable sections."
"Acknowledged. EMH program under alert condition Red One initiating in all capable sections." Red One set the EMH's into autonomous mode, fixing up injured crew on their own without orders. One appeared on the Flag Bridge, the light flickering on his bald head. Without orders, just like he was supposed to, he went over and began to treat the injured, placing neural regenerators on their foreheads. Ulysses reached up and tapped his communicator. "Vanguard to Cadence," he paused a beat as the Hopolite's Captain's Yacht's computer chimed its acknowledgement. "Four to beam directly to sickbay."