Chapter Fifteen – Downtime
VF-117, Capt. Vic McDermott's Fighter
Vic's Cobra spun through a viciously tight turn, the whine of the straining impulse thrusters barely covering the creaks and groans given off by of his fighter's hull. The substantial fist of inertia caused by hairpin turns at 70 PSL incessantly pushed him deeper into his acceleration couch in spite of the fighter's powerful internal dampers. He was sweating in spite of his suits environmental systems best efforts, for he had been fighting inertia for close to three hours straight now. His Cobra pulled up behind his quarry, the narrow arch of his primary weapons coming to bear at last. He let lose a burst of quad Pulse Phaser bolts. Vic's dogged persistence was rewarded as the Romulan Fighter/Bomber flew right threw his spray of high powered energy. The Kestrel's shields flared and died and the amber bolts of his weapons mangled its impulse engines. But it was only the onboard computer of his fighter that alerted him to his successful intercept. In a modern battlefield, for something as fragile as a fighter, speed was life. Hit and fade, never loiter in the same area very long, always stay in motion, these were the staples of a fighter jock's life. But even if you followed these rules, you were still likely to wind up atomized. VF-5003 found that out the hard way. Their evasive maneuvers brought them into the deadly ground between the capital ships laying into each other. Phaser and disrupter beams with quantum and plasma torpedoes crisscrossed space, forming a deadly lattice of interwoven energy, plowing molten furrows in the massive ablative armor hides of their targets. Vic spared a wince as VF-5003 died in rapid secession, their fragile craft turned unintentionally to atoms by the enormous energies being exchanged between the capital ships.
"Form up Double D's." Vic said into VF-117 "Dirty Devils'" group channel. VF-117 had been reformed around the handful of survivors from the ill fated attack on Species 8472 as well as new faces added while Athena underwent repairs. In that time, all of 2nd Fleet's destroyed fighters had been replaced, bringing them back up to combat ready levels.
"Two" Cmdr. Jessica Evron, the wing's second in command commed.
"Three." Lt. Jordan Beauregard said.
"Four." Lt. Bernice Chivers acknowledged.
"Five." Lt. Quincy Jefferies, the final pilot in the reconstituted VF-117, commed.
The other Cobras settled in around his one by one, then, following the datalinked signals from Vic's fighter, vectored in on the newest approaching wave of Romulan fighters. The Romulans were nearly close enough to volley their loads of plasma torps when Vic's wing pounced on them. Slicing in from multiple vectors, they descended upon the enemy like the birds of prey they were. VF-117 had drawn CSP duty, so their fighters had been outfitted in Space Superiority mode. Phalanx torpedoes spat from their small launchers, creating a snowstorm of warheads in front of the Cobras. After each fighter volleyed its initial salvo, they broke off at oblique angles. The Romulan Kestrel's EW did its best, but it couldn't spoof all of the warheads. Shields flared, blotted out of existence as the micro quantums struck home. Armor boiled away, external torpedoes detonated as the plasma sustainer field within them was breached, the entire enemy wing was gutted. Vic had trained his pilots mercilessly since he had been promoted to squadron CO, and it showed. He knew full well that being a pilot was the most dangerous assignment in the Empire, having seen nearly all of his fellow pilots blown away in a scant few seconds. If extra training gave his pilots an edge in future combat, he was more than willing to listen to some grousing.
"New Target bearing 284 mark 059." The SWAC controller onboard Athena said. The connection was slightly distorted by the massive electronic warfare battle being waged between the Monitor and the Romulan fleet, yet was still easily understood. The secure datalink between the "Dirty Devils" and the ship that they were out here to protect updated Vic's holo display to highlight their new targets, an enemy wing trying to slip in under cloak with the roaring chaos of the battle to help keep them hidden. It'll take more than that to spoof the sensors on the Athena.
"Roger Control. VF-117 vectoring in on designated targets." The mountain of alloy that was the Bastion Class Monitor Athena swung into view on the bubble canopy of Vic's fighter as he maneuvered to the appropriate approach bearing. Even as far away as he was, the mammoth warship was visible with the unaided eye if slightly distorted due to its high PSL drive away from her attackers. Deadly green hued beams and torpedoes chased after her as 23 beaked nosed D'deridexes and their escorts tried to bring her down in a stern chase. Her shields had already burned away across many sections, but her massive armor, though pitted and glowing in many places, was holding the storm at bay. As he watched, the Athena's phaser arrays and quantum turrets spat hellfire back at her attackers. Like the mythic huntress that was her namesake, measured and carefully choreographed fire stalked individual Romulan ships, burning lighter ones from space while hammering shield arcs flat on the larger ones others.
Then without warning, the arrow shaped bulk of the Athena flared star bright for a fraction of a second before Vic's fighter's onboard computer blotted out the terrible light. Slowly it faded, and through his canopy Vic saw his home torn into molten fragments, some the size of whole Battlecruisers.
"Son of a Bitch!" Vic swore softly as his fist slammed down on his right knee. Someone was gonna catch hell for that. He reached up and cracked the seal on his flightsuit's helmet, pulling it off and setting it in his lap. The panorama of space overhead rippled and dissipated, replaced with the rainbow hued, thatch pattern metal walls of the sim deck. Granted the sim's initial suppositions weren't that fair, for how often would the Athena be alone, relying on only her own considerable firepower and her fighters for her survival? Still, everything was going fine till something went horribly wrong.
The stony faced Vulcan that was mistress of all of Second Fleet approached the daises that had appeared before the staggered ranks of fighter sim modules. Letting her eyes roam across and up the 5000 vertically stacked ranks of modules, she spoke. Her voice carried across the large compartment as if she was standing right next to each pilot.
"By the large, you have performed well, but there is still quite some room for improvement." Above her precise Vulcan head of hair and pointed ears, a rotating tactical holo of the simmed battle burst forth. With a few commands entered into the PADD in front of her, the battle quickly fast-forwarded to the spot she desired. Every pilot in the compartment looked on to see just who was responsible for the simulated destruction of their mothership. The tactical holo labeled seven offending wings of Cobras, all operating in close proximity to each other. "A case in point will now be highlighted. Instead of immediately executing the targeting instructions issued by CIC, Fighter Wings 3300, 23, 9921, 445, 713, 8394, and 102 stopped to engage targets of opportunity. As a result, ISS Athena, NCC - 400004 was completely destroyed with the loss of all hands. Instead of attacking a squadron of Shadows that were getting a bearing on our weakened port shield section six, they chose to jump a squadron of Shrikes that were already engaged by CSP wings. Instead of being part of the choreographed weapons fireplan, their failure to follow orders resulted in a lack of firepower tasked to destroy or disable the Shadows. These wings were the only ones outfitted for standoff attack that still had full or near full torpedo loads. Without their added firepower, the Romulan Battlecruisers survived to close to Mauler range and attacked our downed shield section, breaching the armor and hitting the internal heavy torpedo magazine. The explosion of that alone wouldn't be enough to hurt us terribly, but at the same time, as weapons were retasked to make up the shortfall caused by the errant fighter squadrons, they left other targets relatively unscathed. That allowed the other threats to gain range and hit us on other weakened shield sections. The combined firepower from so many directions overwhelmed our weakened defenses.
"I cannot stress enough that in a battle like the one we just simmed, you need to follow the commands given to you by CIC controllers. We need to choreograph our fire in order to ensure that attacks are applied evenly to those targets that need to be targeted. You don't have enough information in your cockpits to determine this. We will restart the sim from the beginning and this time see if we can do it right." She never raised her voice above conversational levels, but it was like a bucket of ice water to the assembled pilots, especially those who had been responsible for the screw up. No one dared complain when Fleet Admiral T'var ordered another hours long session in the sim chamber. Although another stint in the over active deep tissue massage of the sim chamber was the last thing any of them wanted to do, they obeyed. They knew as much as she did that they still had edges to clean up before they were an effective instrument of death. They were willing to put up with the minor nuisance of extra sim time if it meant that they stood a better chance of living in a real battle. Vic re-donned his helmet as a hologram of Athena's primary catapult tube formed around him.
Terra Orbit, San Francisco Memorial Yards, Observation Deck, 3 hours 45 minutes later
"Well that one went much better, don't you agree Ma'am?" T'var's aide said after the second sim was completed.
"Indeed, they followed instructions admirably the second time, although I think that Admiral Bartlett wasn't in top form directing the Romulan fleet the second time through. There were a few times where his forces could have crippled us but missed the opportunity." T'var gazed out through the transparent aluminum dome as the final repairs were nearing completion on her flagship. The hastily patched rents in her armored carapace were nearly sealed now, and all internal damage was totally repaired. It would only be a day or two before the yards would finally set her free to once again act as the centerpiece of the reformed and expanded 2nd Fleet, but it was still not decided where 2nd Fleet would head for. Starfleet Command had been trying to puzzle that out for months now, and still couldn't come up with a decent decision. Attacking any one member of the Grand Alliance would bring the others to its aid. And even with a fully mobilized 2nd Fleet, the Empire would need more than that to try and retake core enemy systems. Fleet strength was building up, but it would be another year or two before a realistic offensive could begin that didn't strip Imperial systems bare of defence. If all the Empire wanted to do was destroy enemy worlds, that would be far easier to accomplish with current fleet levels, but the Emperor wanted nothing less than retaking all the systems lost to the Grad Alliance powers. In a peculiar way, this was better, for it prevented T'var from making a choice she hoped never to make. If she was ordered to destroy a world, she knew she couldn't do it. It went against everything she believed in. Even if they are the enemies of the Empire, was it not the Empire's treatment of them that caused them to lash out? Were the situations reversed, wouldn't Terrans and even Vulcans lash out against their oppressors? Behind her emotionless Vulcan mask, T'var pondered what might be, both Spock's utopian vision and much darker ones.
The Terran Empire had always taken the approach that alien species needed to be gauged as to the threat they posed to the Empire, then dealt with accordingly. That was the reason that the Empire was always at war, it saw hostile empires as threats to its very survival and destroyed them to prevent that action. Some, like the Borg, deserved to be extinguished, for they posed a clear and present threat to the Terran Empire. Others, like the Grand Alliance powers, weren't as black and white. In their time, they had proven a dangerous foe, but they had never initiated open war. The Empire had done that, not even considering making the attempt to live along side them, instead choosing to exterminate, conquer and enslave. It had been fear that had driven the early Empire to go to war, fear that they would attack you first and you would loose. While there was some logic to attacking your enemy before he could attack you, there was even more logic in trying to live peacefully with them. If Spock's vision of a powerful governing body, encompassing many species on equal footing was achievable, wouldn't that be more a logical path than that of constant conflict? And what did that say about those who chose to serve in the ranks of its warriors? Were they evil because they served the will of their political masters without question?
Of that she did have an answer. Some were indeed beings of darkness, reveling in the pain and suffering of others, but by and large those in the Empire's armed forces were people defending their homes from what they thought were threats. It was the Empire's leaders that had shifted from self preservation to conquest, still feeding the people propaganda that species like the Cardassians and Ferengi were threats to the Terran Empire. There had to be some way to make the general population of the Empire see that not every alien species was a threat, but for the life of her, T'var couldn't see it. The belief had been held for to many generations to be easily changed. But there had to be a way, and T'var was determined that she would find it.
VF-117, Capt. Vic McDermott's Fighter
Vic's Cobra spun through a viciously tight turn, the whine of the straining impulse thrusters barely covering the creaks and groans given off by of his fighter's hull. The substantial fist of inertia caused by hairpin turns at 70 PSL incessantly pushed him deeper into his acceleration couch in spite of the fighter's powerful internal dampers. He was sweating in spite of his suits environmental systems best efforts, for he had been fighting inertia for close to three hours straight now. His Cobra pulled up behind his quarry, the narrow arch of his primary weapons coming to bear at last. He let lose a burst of quad Pulse Phaser bolts. Vic's dogged persistence was rewarded as the Romulan Fighter/Bomber flew right threw his spray of high powered energy. The Kestrel's shields flared and died and the amber bolts of his weapons mangled its impulse engines. But it was only the onboard computer of his fighter that alerted him to his successful intercept. In a modern battlefield, for something as fragile as a fighter, speed was life. Hit and fade, never loiter in the same area very long, always stay in motion, these were the staples of a fighter jock's life. But even if you followed these rules, you were still likely to wind up atomized. VF-5003 found that out the hard way. Their evasive maneuvers brought them into the deadly ground between the capital ships laying into each other. Phaser and disrupter beams with quantum and plasma torpedoes crisscrossed space, forming a deadly lattice of interwoven energy, plowing molten furrows in the massive ablative armor hides of their targets. Vic spared a wince as VF-5003 died in rapid secession, their fragile craft turned unintentionally to atoms by the enormous energies being exchanged between the capital ships.
"Form up Double D's." Vic said into VF-117 "Dirty Devils'" group channel. VF-117 had been reformed around the handful of survivors from the ill fated attack on Species 8472 as well as new faces added while Athena underwent repairs. In that time, all of 2nd Fleet's destroyed fighters had been replaced, bringing them back up to combat ready levels.
"Two" Cmdr. Jessica Evron, the wing's second in command commed.
"Three." Lt. Jordan Beauregard said.
"Four." Lt. Bernice Chivers acknowledged.
"Five." Lt. Quincy Jefferies, the final pilot in the reconstituted VF-117, commed.
The other Cobras settled in around his one by one, then, following the datalinked signals from Vic's fighter, vectored in on the newest approaching wave of Romulan fighters. The Romulans were nearly close enough to volley their loads of plasma torps when Vic's wing pounced on them. Slicing in from multiple vectors, they descended upon the enemy like the birds of prey they were. VF-117 had drawn CSP duty, so their fighters had been outfitted in Space Superiority mode. Phalanx torpedoes spat from their small launchers, creating a snowstorm of warheads in front of the Cobras. After each fighter volleyed its initial salvo, they broke off at oblique angles. The Romulan Kestrel's EW did its best, but it couldn't spoof all of the warheads. Shields flared, blotted out of existence as the micro quantums struck home. Armor boiled away, external torpedoes detonated as the plasma sustainer field within them was breached, the entire enemy wing was gutted. Vic had trained his pilots mercilessly since he had been promoted to squadron CO, and it showed. He knew full well that being a pilot was the most dangerous assignment in the Empire, having seen nearly all of his fellow pilots blown away in a scant few seconds. If extra training gave his pilots an edge in future combat, he was more than willing to listen to some grousing.
"New Target bearing 284 mark 059." The SWAC controller onboard Athena said. The connection was slightly distorted by the massive electronic warfare battle being waged between the Monitor and the Romulan fleet, yet was still easily understood. The secure datalink between the "Dirty Devils" and the ship that they were out here to protect updated Vic's holo display to highlight their new targets, an enemy wing trying to slip in under cloak with the roaring chaos of the battle to help keep them hidden. It'll take more than that to spoof the sensors on the Athena.
"Roger Control. VF-117 vectoring in on designated targets." The mountain of alloy that was the Bastion Class Monitor Athena swung into view on the bubble canopy of Vic's fighter as he maneuvered to the appropriate approach bearing. Even as far away as he was, the mammoth warship was visible with the unaided eye if slightly distorted due to its high PSL drive away from her attackers. Deadly green hued beams and torpedoes chased after her as 23 beaked nosed D'deridexes and their escorts tried to bring her down in a stern chase. Her shields had already burned away across many sections, but her massive armor, though pitted and glowing in many places, was holding the storm at bay. As he watched, the Athena's phaser arrays and quantum turrets spat hellfire back at her attackers. Like the mythic huntress that was her namesake, measured and carefully choreographed fire stalked individual Romulan ships, burning lighter ones from space while hammering shield arcs flat on the larger ones others.
Then without warning, the arrow shaped bulk of the Athena flared star bright for a fraction of a second before Vic's fighter's onboard computer blotted out the terrible light. Slowly it faded, and through his canopy Vic saw his home torn into molten fragments, some the size of whole Battlecruisers.
"Son of a Bitch!" Vic swore softly as his fist slammed down on his right knee. Someone was gonna catch hell for that. He reached up and cracked the seal on his flightsuit's helmet, pulling it off and setting it in his lap. The panorama of space overhead rippled and dissipated, replaced with the rainbow hued, thatch pattern metal walls of the sim deck. Granted the sim's initial suppositions weren't that fair, for how often would the Athena be alone, relying on only her own considerable firepower and her fighters for her survival? Still, everything was going fine till something went horribly wrong.
The stony faced Vulcan that was mistress of all of Second Fleet approached the daises that had appeared before the staggered ranks of fighter sim modules. Letting her eyes roam across and up the 5000 vertically stacked ranks of modules, she spoke. Her voice carried across the large compartment as if she was standing right next to each pilot.
"By the large, you have performed well, but there is still quite some room for improvement." Above her precise Vulcan head of hair and pointed ears, a rotating tactical holo of the simmed battle burst forth. With a few commands entered into the PADD in front of her, the battle quickly fast-forwarded to the spot she desired. Every pilot in the compartment looked on to see just who was responsible for the simulated destruction of their mothership. The tactical holo labeled seven offending wings of Cobras, all operating in close proximity to each other. "A case in point will now be highlighted. Instead of immediately executing the targeting instructions issued by CIC, Fighter Wings 3300, 23, 9921, 445, 713, 8394, and 102 stopped to engage targets of opportunity. As a result, ISS Athena, NCC - 400004 was completely destroyed with the loss of all hands. Instead of attacking a squadron of Shadows that were getting a bearing on our weakened port shield section six, they chose to jump a squadron of Shrikes that were already engaged by CSP wings. Instead of being part of the choreographed weapons fireplan, their failure to follow orders resulted in a lack of firepower tasked to destroy or disable the Shadows. These wings were the only ones outfitted for standoff attack that still had full or near full torpedo loads. Without their added firepower, the Romulan Battlecruisers survived to close to Mauler range and attacked our downed shield section, breaching the armor and hitting the internal heavy torpedo magazine. The explosion of that alone wouldn't be enough to hurt us terribly, but at the same time, as weapons were retasked to make up the shortfall caused by the errant fighter squadrons, they left other targets relatively unscathed. That allowed the other threats to gain range and hit us on other weakened shield sections. The combined firepower from so many directions overwhelmed our weakened defenses.
"I cannot stress enough that in a battle like the one we just simmed, you need to follow the commands given to you by CIC controllers. We need to choreograph our fire in order to ensure that attacks are applied evenly to those targets that need to be targeted. You don't have enough information in your cockpits to determine this. We will restart the sim from the beginning and this time see if we can do it right." She never raised her voice above conversational levels, but it was like a bucket of ice water to the assembled pilots, especially those who had been responsible for the screw up. No one dared complain when Fleet Admiral T'var ordered another hours long session in the sim chamber. Although another stint in the over active deep tissue massage of the sim chamber was the last thing any of them wanted to do, they obeyed. They knew as much as she did that they still had edges to clean up before they were an effective instrument of death. They were willing to put up with the minor nuisance of extra sim time if it meant that they stood a better chance of living in a real battle. Vic re-donned his helmet as a hologram of Athena's primary catapult tube formed around him.
Terra Orbit, San Francisco Memorial Yards, Observation Deck, 3 hours 45 minutes later
"Well that one went much better, don't you agree Ma'am?" T'var's aide said after the second sim was completed.
"Indeed, they followed instructions admirably the second time, although I think that Admiral Bartlett wasn't in top form directing the Romulan fleet the second time through. There were a few times where his forces could have crippled us but missed the opportunity." T'var gazed out through the transparent aluminum dome as the final repairs were nearing completion on her flagship. The hastily patched rents in her armored carapace were nearly sealed now, and all internal damage was totally repaired. It would only be a day or two before the yards would finally set her free to once again act as the centerpiece of the reformed and expanded 2nd Fleet, but it was still not decided where 2nd Fleet would head for. Starfleet Command had been trying to puzzle that out for months now, and still couldn't come up with a decent decision. Attacking any one member of the Grand Alliance would bring the others to its aid. And even with a fully mobilized 2nd Fleet, the Empire would need more than that to try and retake core enemy systems. Fleet strength was building up, but it would be another year or two before a realistic offensive could begin that didn't strip Imperial systems bare of defence. If all the Empire wanted to do was destroy enemy worlds, that would be far easier to accomplish with current fleet levels, but the Emperor wanted nothing less than retaking all the systems lost to the Grad Alliance powers. In a peculiar way, this was better, for it prevented T'var from making a choice she hoped never to make. If she was ordered to destroy a world, she knew she couldn't do it. It went against everything she believed in. Even if they are the enemies of the Empire, was it not the Empire's treatment of them that caused them to lash out? Were the situations reversed, wouldn't Terrans and even Vulcans lash out against their oppressors? Behind her emotionless Vulcan mask, T'var pondered what might be, both Spock's utopian vision and much darker ones.
The Terran Empire had always taken the approach that alien species needed to be gauged as to the threat they posed to the Empire, then dealt with accordingly. That was the reason that the Empire was always at war, it saw hostile empires as threats to its very survival and destroyed them to prevent that action. Some, like the Borg, deserved to be extinguished, for they posed a clear and present threat to the Terran Empire. Others, like the Grand Alliance powers, weren't as black and white. In their time, they had proven a dangerous foe, but they had never initiated open war. The Empire had done that, not even considering making the attempt to live along side them, instead choosing to exterminate, conquer and enslave. It had been fear that had driven the early Empire to go to war, fear that they would attack you first and you would loose. While there was some logic to attacking your enemy before he could attack you, there was even more logic in trying to live peacefully with them. If Spock's vision of a powerful governing body, encompassing many species on equal footing was achievable, wouldn't that be more a logical path than that of constant conflict? And what did that say about those who chose to serve in the ranks of its warriors? Were they evil because they served the will of their political masters without question?
Of that she did have an answer. Some were indeed beings of darkness, reveling in the pain and suffering of others, but by and large those in the Empire's armed forces were people defending their homes from what they thought were threats. It was the Empire's leaders that had shifted from self preservation to conquest, still feeding the people propaganda that species like the Cardassians and Ferengi were threats to the Terran Empire. There had to be some way to make the general population of the Empire see that not every alien species was a threat, but for the life of her, T'var couldn't see it. The belief had been held for to many generations to be easily changed. But there had to be a way, and T'var was determined that she would find it.