Chapter 22 - Recon In Force
Imperial Space, Near the B'hava'el System
The Enterprise Battlegroup was on manuvers near the along the Cardassian/Imperial frontlines. Light raids were still sporadically launched by both sides, but till an appreciable fleet was built up, neither side possessed sufficient firepower to take and hold fresh systems without leaving others severely depleted in their mobile picket forces. That wasn't a smart move, for both the Grand Alliance and the Empire had very good intelligence of each other's space. The slightest sign of weakness would be pounced on merely to destroy infrastructure and ships even if the planet couldn't be held. And there certainly couldn't be any sign of weakness this close to the frontline of the war, especially since then Captain now Vice Admiral Ben Sisko had fought tooth and nail to halt a determined Cardassian advance on this sector.
Riker thought to himself, we should have exterminated the Cardassians when we had the chance, then we wouldn't have the problem we're now saddled with. We're nearly completely encircled by hostile enemies, and they are nearly as strong together as we are alone. For now at least, for Second Fleet was only beginning its build up when the Enterprise and her fellow Sovereign class wing mates had shipped out to go on patrol along the Cardassian Front. Starfleet Command had left it up to Riker's discretion weather or not the Battlegroup would attack the Cardies or not. He was most certainly authorized to engage any target of opportunity that presented itself, but he wasn't to hazard his command needlessly. The bad hit morale would take with the destruction of the Enterprise would be a bad blow, especially if she died at the hands of the Grand Alliance.
His wool gathering was disrupted by a chime from his com. "Riker here, what is it." He said after he swatted his combadge lazily.
"Admiral, there has been an Empire wide combat alert announced." Lore's voice said.
"Source?" The Admiral replied, the chance for combat piquing his interest. So far the patrol had been as uneventful as one before the recent unpleasantness with the Empire's subject species. The Cardassians seemed to be unwilling to attack, perhaps they heard that the Enterprise was coming and wouldn't dare attack her. Riker smiled at the thought, personally swelling his already puffed up ego even more.
"Starbase 2000 Sir, in the Delta Quadrant." Lore replied nearly as soon as he finished.
"I know where the damned base is Captain!" Riker snapped.
"Yes sir, I apologize for seemingly implying different." Thomas doubted that the golden android really was sorry, but his hollow words had been delivered quick enough to allow it to slide. Especially since Riker really didn't know where the base was. Lore had been under his command long enough to supply little useful tidbits of information like that to his superiors that weren't bright enough or just to lazy to keep them in their own memory. It was one of the useful tricks he had picked up during his career in Starfleet to help him advance in a society that was largely anti AI. Not that Lore could really blame them, with over 12 colonized worlds having their atmospheres burned away and their surfaces turned into a ebon, glassed version of Luna, before the errant M 5 computer and the old ISS Essex that housed her were finally brought down. The final death toll had been over a billion. No, the humans had every right to fear AIs, not that it made their fear of his own self more palatable, but at least Lore could understand their point of view.
That fear was what, among other things, made his 'brothers' in the D-class special ops Androids so scary. It was more what the public's imagination made up than any official mission logs or factoids the Empire's government had let slip for propaganda purposes that contributed to their mythos, just like the Furies.
"Wait a minute," Riker said after a moments thought, "that's the base that that little upstart Vanguard got sent to isn't it?" The name seemed to surface from a half remembered report he had read a few days ago, something about nearly every flag rank officer in the entire sector being killed.
"Yes Admiral, Brevet Admiral Ulysses Vanguard is currently in charge of the entire sector around the Starbase. It is on his authority that the alert was issued."
On the Enterprise's Main Bridge, Lore's exquisite hearing picked up Riker's mumbling something about wet behind the ears upstart presuming that he could issue a Empire wide alert to possible hostilities with a major power.
Lore stamped down on his initial impulse to point out that being assigned command, however temporary, by the Emperor himself gave the 'wet behind the ears upstart' all the authority he needed. That also said nothing about the Lion of Terra he had been awarded, for Starfleet Command didn't hand those things out like combadges. As much as he would personally love to show up his immediate superior, doing so would have an extremely detrimental effect on his further promotion. He was to wise on how to play the game to make that mistake. Instead he pretended not to hear Riker's comment.
"Orders sir? Shall we take any special action over this alert?"
"No, anything happening out in the Delta quadrant can't affect us here. Maintain scans of any Cardassian patrols nearby that we can take out. The Enterprise has spent too long in Sol system. With the upcoming offensive against the GA, I want to ensure our combat skills are every bit as good in actual practice as they are in the sims."
"As the Admiral commands."
The next hour, nothing unusual happened. Then in a sudden, widening flood, fragmentary reports and coms began to fill the subspace and hypercom channels. It took a while to sort them out into something resembling a complete picture, but it was rapidly clear that the Empire was under large scale attack.
"I want everything we have on the tactical abilities of the, what did they call them?" Riker said as further frantic coms were picked up by his ship.
"The Interstellar Concordium Tom." A feminine voice said from behind him, while at the same time he felt a deceptively pleasant sort of pressure inside his head. Riker immediately schooled his expression to its usual cocky smile, hiding his surprise as Commissar Troi entered the Flag Bridge. That woman could sneak up on an Andorian neo-leopard. Riker focused on his anti-esper training, activating the learned techniques that were part of every Starfleet officers basic training. Eventually the pressure abated, but not before there was something of an amused laugh sent into his brain. Yes, Deanna had always enjoyed playing mind games. Originally Riker had been intrigued by it, but that was a long time ago. Now it was a potentially hazardous threat to his position.
"Yes, the Interstellar Concordium, that's it." Riker agreed. "I want a report on the past and projected current abilities ASAP."
A young officer scurried to accommodate his Admiral's wishes, scurrying out the door to head to CIC to get their analysis and access the library computer for historical battle logs to add to the report.
He was barely out the door when the red alert klaxon began to toll.
"Admiral," Lore said, "sensors have spotted what appears to be a scouting party at extreme range. CIC puts it as 30 Jem'Hadar Destroyers and a double pair of Battlecruisers."
"Finally some action! Order the Battlegroup to come about onto a heading." Admiral Riker consulted his tactical repeater, "330 mark 23 and engage formation Riker Alpha at maximum warp. Riker to Commander LaForge, is there a volatile nebula nearby, or perhaps some way we could hack into the Dominion's computer systems?" Both the Dominion and Imperial ships were brought out of warp by the activation of the Enterprise's warp field inhibitor as their vectors intercepted. Knowing Riker's preference towards a technological solution to combat, LaForge already had some possibilities lined up. He didn't even start into his list before a burst of hearty laughter cut him off. Riker looked irritated at the source of the interruption. Deana could barely contain her mirth, but finally brought it back under control. The Enterprise shook as the first Dominion fire hit her.
"For the love of God Tom! Shoot them!"
Riker just looked back with a look of slight incomprehension. Troi rolled her eyes, he might have become even better looking since they had been together, but he was still dense as a brick in a combat situation. It was only due to the fact that he kissed all the appropriate asses in Starfleet Command that he had risen as high as he had.
"Oh Hell!" Troi said with another snort of laughter. She strode over to the communications console on the Flag Bridge. "This is the Flag to all units. Fire at will!"
Enterprise Main Bridge
". Fire at will!" Troi's voice said from the bridge speakers. Finally someone in command prodded some sense into Riker. Things on Enterprise just hadn't been the same since Picard had been executed for treason. While Riker was an adequate officer in many respects, his combat instincts left much to be desired. Lore had been on the verge of ordering the Battlegroup to open fire on his own, and was thoroughly relived that someone higher up had done it for him.
Commander Yar needed no further prodding. The Enterprise had been steadily accruing shield damage while Riker made up his mind as to how to attack. The Battlegroup's Sovereigns and escorting Defiants finally swung to the offense. The nimble and tough Defiants broke formation to chase down the Dominion Frigates. The beetle shaped craft were every bit as maneuverable as their Imperial counterparts, but during the Imperial/Dominion war, they had proven easy meat to the one-two punch of PPC fire and Quantum torpedoes.
"CIC says the Dominion ships have higher capacity shield grids than known variants. They recommend concentrating fire to expedite taking them out." Natasha said to the direct link to Flag Bridge even as she and the other Sovereigns birthed a firestorm of phasers targeting the first Dominion Battlecruiser. The 10 Prometheus class escorts the fleshed out the Battlegroup opened fire on the other enemy Battlecruiser, causing both Dominion vessels to be bathed in fire sufficient to rapidly shear away their shields.
Enterprise Flag Bridge
Riker was quietly seething that Deanna would usurp his rightful authority. He nearly missed Cmdr. Yar's communiqué.
"Defiants coordinate fire in wing pairs, All Sovereigns and Prometheus', coordinate fire on the lead Battlecruiser." He ordered, his anger leaking into his voice. Troi merely looked on with a twinkle in her eyes as she leaned against the communications console for support.
The pair of Battlecruisers had swung about in an attempt to outrun the sleek and Deadly Imperial Battleships. They had not been upgraded with the ISC's new damper though, that was why they were in a scouting party and not part of the main offensive fleet. They were still faster than the Sovereigns that pursued them, but it was only by a slim margin. They were bathed in hellfire as Natasha and her fellow tactical officers unloaded their weapons into them. Volley after volley of deadly blue/white orbs spat from the Sovereign's multiple foreword tubes and from the ventral turret. ECM caused only a handful to break lock, but the engagement range was so short that guidance corrections could be transmitted from the more powerful sensors and ECCM equipped motherships. None of the torpedoes missed their mark, crashing in on the helpless Battlecruisers like an avalanche. They were followed by every facing phaser array lancing into them. The discrepancy of allied firepower to enemy shield and armor strength was too great. The Imperials didn't even need to fire the twin phaser lances the packed under their saucers, which would have been overkill on such overmatched opponents.
The Defiants chased down the Destroyers, tag teaming them with concentrated fire as they bobbed and weaved in evasive pursuit patters. Even though they proved tougher than earlier versions, they were still only Destroyers and they still were lacking in weapons upgrades. Their lone forward phased polaron beam and single fore and aft torpedo tube were no match for the more heavily armed and armored Imperial Destroyers. Double quad streams of amber PPC bolts backed up by triple torp quantum barrages punched through Dominion shields to gnaw at their lightly armored hides. Once this happened, the ships usually died rapidly, for they were not as toughly built as their Imperial opponents. The Dominion had always emphasized numbers over individual combat capability. It was a sound tactic given the near limitless supplies of troops they could grow, and was most evident in the design of their Destroyers. They were nimble, but weakly armed and armored, quickly built, useful in swarming tactics and the inevitable suicide runs the Jem'Hadar employed whenever they got the chance.
Though they had a slight numerical advantage over their Imperial opponents, they were at a distinct disadvantage where it really counted - tonnage. They were fighting against ships that were considerably outside their weight class, and thus the outcome was a forgone conclusion. The quartet of sleek Dominion Battlecruisers died in short order, forming star bright funeral pyres as their warp cores let go. Large chunks of their hulls remained, only to be largely claimed by secondary explosions as EPS grids and internal magazines let go.
The heavies in the enemy RIF squadron dispatched, the Imperial Battleships and Destroyers began to lend a hand with their powerful phaser arcs to the Defiants. The tough little ships had already taken a large bite out of the Jem'Hadar Destroyers, with more than half of their number atomized and fragmented wreckage. The enemy, sensing that the battle was well and thoroughly lost, spun almost as one to execute suicide runs on the Imperial capital ships. While this increased their threat level by several orders of magnitude, it also sent them into more predictable courses. Nearly all were flayed short of their intended targets.
Two Jem'Hadar Destroyers survived the storm of energy weapons and torpedo fire, though largely hulks by the time they impacted, to hit their targets. Their beetle like hulls, already venting plasma with molten pits on their outer surface from successful weapons strikes, slammed into a lone Sovereign almost side by side on her engineering hull. The kinetic strike of something that massive traveling at close to .7 c was bad enough for the already weakened shields, but combined with the near simultaneous detonation of the pairs warp cores and internal AM stores and torpedo magazines, proved deadly. Even ablative armor can only stand so much punishment, and the combined factors nearly proved too much for the ships defenses. Slipstream One was exposed to space and largely gutted. The core went critical, melting down to slag and taking quite a few of the surrounding compartments out with it. A giant, irregular, molten wound opened up on the engineering hull of the once proud ship. Bodies and other debris streamed aft of the stricken vessel like blood before internal bulkheads and emergency forcefields slammed the breach off from the rest of the ship. Running lights and the blue glow from her slipstream nacelles died as she lost over half of her power and a good portion of her secondary hull and its vital power distribution trunks. The ship slowed to a stop relative to the nearby stars as her Impulse drive went offline.
Then after a few seconds, Slipstream Two shouldered the full load for the surviving ship and the surviving engineering and damage control teams diverted power around destroyed compartments. Running lights came back on, as did the ships massive twin impulse engines, but her slipstream nacelles remained dark and dead, the port one trailing drive plasma from a large fracture about a third of the way up from the secondary hull juncture.
"Admiral, Vengeance reports that she has multiple hull breaches across her engineering hull and that her port warp pylon is fractured along the 27 frame." One of the Flag Bridge officers reported to Riker even as his tactical plot subdivided to show the damage to his fellow ships. The Vengeance was the most badly hurt, but a number of the Defiants had also sustained moderate damage as they engaged over a third again their number before the rest of the Battlegroup lent them a hand.
"Order SAR teams out." Riker ordered. "Once they have completed their search patterns, lock on the Vengeance with a tractor beam and engage for Bajor at max sustainable slipstream velocity." There was a slight frown on his face as Thomas computed just how the word the damage to the Vengeance and other ships in his command for his after action report to Starfleet Command. Troi's mind showed her an image of a hamster running furiously in its exercise wheel as she scrutinized her former lover from across the Flag Bridge. With another guffaw of laughter, she sauntered sultrily off of the bridge.
Imperial Space, Near the B'hava'el System
The Enterprise Battlegroup was on manuvers near the along the Cardassian/Imperial frontlines. Light raids were still sporadically launched by both sides, but till an appreciable fleet was built up, neither side possessed sufficient firepower to take and hold fresh systems without leaving others severely depleted in their mobile picket forces. That wasn't a smart move, for both the Grand Alliance and the Empire had very good intelligence of each other's space. The slightest sign of weakness would be pounced on merely to destroy infrastructure and ships even if the planet couldn't be held. And there certainly couldn't be any sign of weakness this close to the frontline of the war, especially since then Captain now Vice Admiral Ben Sisko had fought tooth and nail to halt a determined Cardassian advance on this sector.
Riker thought to himself, we should have exterminated the Cardassians when we had the chance, then we wouldn't have the problem we're now saddled with. We're nearly completely encircled by hostile enemies, and they are nearly as strong together as we are alone. For now at least, for Second Fleet was only beginning its build up when the Enterprise and her fellow Sovereign class wing mates had shipped out to go on patrol along the Cardassian Front. Starfleet Command had left it up to Riker's discretion weather or not the Battlegroup would attack the Cardies or not. He was most certainly authorized to engage any target of opportunity that presented itself, but he wasn't to hazard his command needlessly. The bad hit morale would take with the destruction of the Enterprise would be a bad blow, especially if she died at the hands of the Grand Alliance.
His wool gathering was disrupted by a chime from his com. "Riker here, what is it." He said after he swatted his combadge lazily.
"Admiral, there has been an Empire wide combat alert announced." Lore's voice said.
"Source?" The Admiral replied, the chance for combat piquing his interest. So far the patrol had been as uneventful as one before the recent unpleasantness with the Empire's subject species. The Cardassians seemed to be unwilling to attack, perhaps they heard that the Enterprise was coming and wouldn't dare attack her. Riker smiled at the thought, personally swelling his already puffed up ego even more.
"Starbase 2000 Sir, in the Delta Quadrant." Lore replied nearly as soon as he finished.
"I know where the damned base is Captain!" Riker snapped.
"Yes sir, I apologize for seemingly implying different." Thomas doubted that the golden android really was sorry, but his hollow words had been delivered quick enough to allow it to slide. Especially since Riker really didn't know where the base was. Lore had been under his command long enough to supply little useful tidbits of information like that to his superiors that weren't bright enough or just to lazy to keep them in their own memory. It was one of the useful tricks he had picked up during his career in Starfleet to help him advance in a society that was largely anti AI. Not that Lore could really blame them, with over 12 colonized worlds having their atmospheres burned away and their surfaces turned into a ebon, glassed version of Luna, before the errant M 5 computer and the old ISS Essex that housed her were finally brought down. The final death toll had been over a billion. No, the humans had every right to fear AIs, not that it made their fear of his own self more palatable, but at least Lore could understand their point of view.
That fear was what, among other things, made his 'brothers' in the D-class special ops Androids so scary. It was more what the public's imagination made up than any official mission logs or factoids the Empire's government had let slip for propaganda purposes that contributed to their mythos, just like the Furies.
"Wait a minute," Riker said after a moments thought, "that's the base that that little upstart Vanguard got sent to isn't it?" The name seemed to surface from a half remembered report he had read a few days ago, something about nearly every flag rank officer in the entire sector being killed.
"Yes Admiral, Brevet Admiral Ulysses Vanguard is currently in charge of the entire sector around the Starbase. It is on his authority that the alert was issued."
On the Enterprise's Main Bridge, Lore's exquisite hearing picked up Riker's mumbling something about wet behind the ears upstart presuming that he could issue a Empire wide alert to possible hostilities with a major power.
Lore stamped down on his initial impulse to point out that being assigned command, however temporary, by the Emperor himself gave the 'wet behind the ears upstart' all the authority he needed. That also said nothing about the Lion of Terra he had been awarded, for Starfleet Command didn't hand those things out like combadges. As much as he would personally love to show up his immediate superior, doing so would have an extremely detrimental effect on his further promotion. He was to wise on how to play the game to make that mistake. Instead he pretended not to hear Riker's comment.
"Orders sir? Shall we take any special action over this alert?"
"No, anything happening out in the Delta quadrant can't affect us here. Maintain scans of any Cardassian patrols nearby that we can take out. The Enterprise has spent too long in Sol system. With the upcoming offensive against the GA, I want to ensure our combat skills are every bit as good in actual practice as they are in the sims."
"As the Admiral commands."
The next hour, nothing unusual happened. Then in a sudden, widening flood, fragmentary reports and coms began to fill the subspace and hypercom channels. It took a while to sort them out into something resembling a complete picture, but it was rapidly clear that the Empire was under large scale attack.
"I want everything we have on the tactical abilities of the, what did they call them?" Riker said as further frantic coms were picked up by his ship.
"The Interstellar Concordium Tom." A feminine voice said from behind him, while at the same time he felt a deceptively pleasant sort of pressure inside his head. Riker immediately schooled his expression to its usual cocky smile, hiding his surprise as Commissar Troi entered the Flag Bridge. That woman could sneak up on an Andorian neo-leopard. Riker focused on his anti-esper training, activating the learned techniques that were part of every Starfleet officers basic training. Eventually the pressure abated, but not before there was something of an amused laugh sent into his brain. Yes, Deanna had always enjoyed playing mind games. Originally Riker had been intrigued by it, but that was a long time ago. Now it was a potentially hazardous threat to his position.
"Yes, the Interstellar Concordium, that's it." Riker agreed. "I want a report on the past and projected current abilities ASAP."
A young officer scurried to accommodate his Admiral's wishes, scurrying out the door to head to CIC to get their analysis and access the library computer for historical battle logs to add to the report.
He was barely out the door when the red alert klaxon began to toll.
"Admiral," Lore said, "sensors have spotted what appears to be a scouting party at extreme range. CIC puts it as 30 Jem'Hadar Destroyers and a double pair of Battlecruisers."
"Finally some action! Order the Battlegroup to come about onto a heading." Admiral Riker consulted his tactical repeater, "330 mark 23 and engage formation Riker Alpha at maximum warp. Riker to Commander LaForge, is there a volatile nebula nearby, or perhaps some way we could hack into the Dominion's computer systems?" Both the Dominion and Imperial ships were brought out of warp by the activation of the Enterprise's warp field inhibitor as their vectors intercepted. Knowing Riker's preference towards a technological solution to combat, LaForge already had some possibilities lined up. He didn't even start into his list before a burst of hearty laughter cut him off. Riker looked irritated at the source of the interruption. Deana could barely contain her mirth, but finally brought it back under control. The Enterprise shook as the first Dominion fire hit her.
"For the love of God Tom! Shoot them!"
Riker just looked back with a look of slight incomprehension. Troi rolled her eyes, he might have become even better looking since they had been together, but he was still dense as a brick in a combat situation. It was only due to the fact that he kissed all the appropriate asses in Starfleet Command that he had risen as high as he had.
"Oh Hell!" Troi said with another snort of laughter. She strode over to the communications console on the Flag Bridge. "This is the Flag to all units. Fire at will!"
Enterprise Main Bridge
". Fire at will!" Troi's voice said from the bridge speakers. Finally someone in command prodded some sense into Riker. Things on Enterprise just hadn't been the same since Picard had been executed for treason. While Riker was an adequate officer in many respects, his combat instincts left much to be desired. Lore had been on the verge of ordering the Battlegroup to open fire on his own, and was thoroughly relived that someone higher up had done it for him.
Commander Yar needed no further prodding. The Enterprise had been steadily accruing shield damage while Riker made up his mind as to how to attack. The Battlegroup's Sovereigns and escorting Defiants finally swung to the offense. The nimble and tough Defiants broke formation to chase down the Dominion Frigates. The beetle shaped craft were every bit as maneuverable as their Imperial counterparts, but during the Imperial/Dominion war, they had proven easy meat to the one-two punch of PPC fire and Quantum torpedoes.
"CIC says the Dominion ships have higher capacity shield grids than known variants. They recommend concentrating fire to expedite taking them out." Natasha said to the direct link to Flag Bridge even as she and the other Sovereigns birthed a firestorm of phasers targeting the first Dominion Battlecruiser. The 10 Prometheus class escorts the fleshed out the Battlegroup opened fire on the other enemy Battlecruiser, causing both Dominion vessels to be bathed in fire sufficient to rapidly shear away their shields.
Enterprise Flag Bridge
Riker was quietly seething that Deanna would usurp his rightful authority. He nearly missed Cmdr. Yar's communiqué.
"Defiants coordinate fire in wing pairs, All Sovereigns and Prometheus', coordinate fire on the lead Battlecruiser." He ordered, his anger leaking into his voice. Troi merely looked on with a twinkle in her eyes as she leaned against the communications console for support.
The pair of Battlecruisers had swung about in an attempt to outrun the sleek and Deadly Imperial Battleships. They had not been upgraded with the ISC's new damper though, that was why they were in a scouting party and not part of the main offensive fleet. They were still faster than the Sovereigns that pursued them, but it was only by a slim margin. They were bathed in hellfire as Natasha and her fellow tactical officers unloaded their weapons into them. Volley after volley of deadly blue/white orbs spat from the Sovereign's multiple foreword tubes and from the ventral turret. ECM caused only a handful to break lock, but the engagement range was so short that guidance corrections could be transmitted from the more powerful sensors and ECCM equipped motherships. None of the torpedoes missed their mark, crashing in on the helpless Battlecruisers like an avalanche. They were followed by every facing phaser array lancing into them. The discrepancy of allied firepower to enemy shield and armor strength was too great. The Imperials didn't even need to fire the twin phaser lances the packed under their saucers, which would have been overkill on such overmatched opponents.
The Defiants chased down the Destroyers, tag teaming them with concentrated fire as they bobbed and weaved in evasive pursuit patters. Even though they proved tougher than earlier versions, they were still only Destroyers and they still were lacking in weapons upgrades. Their lone forward phased polaron beam and single fore and aft torpedo tube were no match for the more heavily armed and armored Imperial Destroyers. Double quad streams of amber PPC bolts backed up by triple torp quantum barrages punched through Dominion shields to gnaw at their lightly armored hides. Once this happened, the ships usually died rapidly, for they were not as toughly built as their Imperial opponents. The Dominion had always emphasized numbers over individual combat capability. It was a sound tactic given the near limitless supplies of troops they could grow, and was most evident in the design of their Destroyers. They were nimble, but weakly armed and armored, quickly built, useful in swarming tactics and the inevitable suicide runs the Jem'Hadar employed whenever they got the chance.
Though they had a slight numerical advantage over their Imperial opponents, they were at a distinct disadvantage where it really counted - tonnage. They were fighting against ships that were considerably outside their weight class, and thus the outcome was a forgone conclusion. The quartet of sleek Dominion Battlecruisers died in short order, forming star bright funeral pyres as their warp cores let go. Large chunks of their hulls remained, only to be largely claimed by secondary explosions as EPS grids and internal magazines let go.
The heavies in the enemy RIF squadron dispatched, the Imperial Battleships and Destroyers began to lend a hand with their powerful phaser arcs to the Defiants. The tough little ships had already taken a large bite out of the Jem'Hadar Destroyers, with more than half of their number atomized and fragmented wreckage. The enemy, sensing that the battle was well and thoroughly lost, spun almost as one to execute suicide runs on the Imperial capital ships. While this increased their threat level by several orders of magnitude, it also sent them into more predictable courses. Nearly all were flayed short of their intended targets.
Two Jem'Hadar Destroyers survived the storm of energy weapons and torpedo fire, though largely hulks by the time they impacted, to hit their targets. Their beetle like hulls, already venting plasma with molten pits on their outer surface from successful weapons strikes, slammed into a lone Sovereign almost side by side on her engineering hull. The kinetic strike of something that massive traveling at close to .7 c was bad enough for the already weakened shields, but combined with the near simultaneous detonation of the pairs warp cores and internal AM stores and torpedo magazines, proved deadly. Even ablative armor can only stand so much punishment, and the combined factors nearly proved too much for the ships defenses. Slipstream One was exposed to space and largely gutted. The core went critical, melting down to slag and taking quite a few of the surrounding compartments out with it. A giant, irregular, molten wound opened up on the engineering hull of the once proud ship. Bodies and other debris streamed aft of the stricken vessel like blood before internal bulkheads and emergency forcefields slammed the breach off from the rest of the ship. Running lights and the blue glow from her slipstream nacelles died as she lost over half of her power and a good portion of her secondary hull and its vital power distribution trunks. The ship slowed to a stop relative to the nearby stars as her Impulse drive went offline.
Then after a few seconds, Slipstream Two shouldered the full load for the surviving ship and the surviving engineering and damage control teams diverted power around destroyed compartments. Running lights came back on, as did the ships massive twin impulse engines, but her slipstream nacelles remained dark and dead, the port one trailing drive plasma from a large fracture about a third of the way up from the secondary hull juncture.
"Admiral, Vengeance reports that she has multiple hull breaches across her engineering hull and that her port warp pylon is fractured along the 27 frame." One of the Flag Bridge officers reported to Riker even as his tactical plot subdivided to show the damage to his fellow ships. The Vengeance was the most badly hurt, but a number of the Defiants had also sustained moderate damage as they engaged over a third again their number before the rest of the Battlegroup lent them a hand.
"Order SAR teams out." Riker ordered. "Once they have completed their search patterns, lock on the Vengeance with a tractor beam and engage for Bajor at max sustainable slipstream velocity." There was a slight frown on his face as Thomas computed just how the word the damage to the Vengeance and other ships in his command for his after action report to Starfleet Command. Troi's mind showed her an image of a hamster running furiously in its exercise wheel as she scrutinized her former lover from across the Flag Bridge. With another guffaw of laughter, she sauntered sultrily off of the bridge.