Chapter 31 by CaptainChewbacca
The fleet drifted in the black of space, waiting. All weapons were ready, all crews prepared. Admiral Sisko sat quietly on the flag bridge of the Saratoga, thinking. All of his life, the Empire had been powerful. It had been strong, determined, and victorious. But now, the Cardassians matched them in all three. He was about to engage an enemy fleet, and for once, victory wasn't certain, or even likely. Riker's android, Lore, had given odds of success at only 72.3%. Sisko didn't like those odds, but they would get better fast. He stood and straightened his uniform. "Fleet Status!" He barked.
Kira was seated on her command throne four decks down, overseeing several displays on the arms of the seat. "All groups report optimum readiness." She spoke to the voice coming from the speaker in her chair. "We are deployed in a Zeta-screen formation, and groups Alpha, Beta, and Delta are holding steady. Admiral Aesstuusss reports that Nova wing is fueled ready to launch."
"Excellent." Sisko turned to his science officer. "Anything on sensors?"
The young lieutenant worked the controls. "Nothing yet si.." She trailed off. "Wait. Admiral, I am detecting in excess of seven thousand vessels transiting to normal space at seven-eight-two by four-four-one." Her voice trembled as the color drained from her face. "It's the Cardassian fleet."
"Red Alert." Sisko strode back to his throne and rubbed the Bajoran box he had placed on his console. The light was so... compelling. "When they are within comm range, hail the lead ship. Designate hammer flight and trident flight subordinate to Nova wing." There was an electric silence throughout the fleet as the Cardassian fleet approached, spreading out like the hood of a cobra ready to strike. In its center, holding back, was a sight which put a knot in Sisko's stomach. "Tactical, give me a reading on their flagship."
"It's a monster, Admiral. Over four kilometers by three by one and a half. It masses more than half of a Bastion-class, and its defenses are just as good."
The magnified ships were now visible, and Sisko counted the captured Wraiths. The Arizona, the Behemoth, the Meteor, and other paragons of Imperial engineering. How many men had died locked in their quarters on those ships?
"Admiral," the comm tech called to him "I have communications with the flagship. It is identifying itself as the Cardassia's Song."
"Now batting for the London Kings..." Sisko muttered under his breath. "Onscreen." With a flicker he was face to face with a Cardassian who he would have to treat as an equal. The commander was a large male, with prominent neck folds. Standing behind him was a stern-looking Cardassian dressed in dark leathers, with a cape. He reminded Sisko of a Commissar.
The seated male spoke. "This is Legate Damar of the Fourth Order of the Cardassian Union. We do hereby claim the Bajoran system and the remainder of sector 3921 in the name of the Cardassian Union. Remove your Fleet immediately and evacuate all Imperial personnel from the sector in twelve standard days."
Cardassians always were bold. "Legate Damar, I am Vice-Admiral Sisko, commander of this sector. I do not intend to surrender it to you or to any other hostile force which claims it. This sector belongs to the Empire and to the Bajorans. Now, why don't YOU withdraw your fleet and go back to your Cardassian Union before I decide Bajora needs a new planet orbiting it."
Damar gripped the armrests of his chair. The Cardassian homeworld had been destroyed by a Genesis torpedo, but it was a bluff. Sisko had no Genesis torpedoes, the so-called Grand Alliance had seen to that, but maybe Damar didn't know that.
The standing Cardassian whispered in his ear, and Damar nodded. "Do what you must, but my men would be honored to die the same death as our homeworld. Check your sensors, Admiral. You are outnumbered and outgunned. No one need die today." A sardonic smile told Sisko that this Legate didn't believe that at all.
Sisko reached for a comm panel on his right, and tapped in a set of commands. "Legate Damar, how is the security on your ships?"
Damar's brow furrowed. "Second to none. What is this about?"
"Well," Sisko smiled, "you seem to have multiple security breaches." He hit the execute button on his panel, and space lit up in the Cardassian fleet. "Close channel. Attack all weapons, all ships." He sat back in his chair. Batter up!
--- --- ---
Alarms blared on the Song. "What is going on?" Damar threw a young technician away from a flashing panel and scanned the data.
"Legate! The Wraith ships!" A comm operator shouted. "Twelve of them have self-destructed. No survivors."
"To darkness with diplomacy!" Garak was livid. "Punish the Terran treachery!"
--- --- ---
A red light on Lafayette Sisko's control board flicked to green. All forces attack. He took the controls, yanking his cobra out of its holding course and reading his orders as they came from fleet command. Admiral Aesstuusss was a brilliant tactician, and he knew his job. As Lafayette formed his wing together, the Ark Royal carriers and Aegean destroyers formed a great disk, crisscrossing space with their reinforced shield generators to protect the fighters. Lafayette and the rest of Berserker flight were to join the rest of the fighters in torpedo interception. Long shots were long, but take enough and either side could even up the odds with enough of them.
"Berserker Flight, this is Berserker Lead, signal click all." Lafayette counted silently as twenty-three clicks echoed in his earpiece and were tallied up. The EW generators on each fighter began to charge up, creating a wall of false echoes for the torpedoes to get through. That was Aesstuusss' favorite tactic. All too soon, the space between the fleets began to shrink, and filled with streaks of light. A few torpedoes came his way, and his flight took care of them with efficiency. A low tone sounded in his headset.
"Screen volley! Flight to position one in ten seconds!" His fighters scrambled to the safe zone, but Berserker fifteen had an engine flutter and didn't get clear of the friendly fire. Two solid walls of quantum torpedoes flashed out from the Steamrunners he had been screening. They streaked across the vanishing gap and slammed into the Cardassian fleet, blossoming into fire and eating away at ships like waves against a sand castle.
A glint of metal caught Lafayette's eye, and he instinctively mashed down the trigger on his phasers. As he banked to follow, he saw phaser-fire from four of his flight mates converge with the golden energy of Hellbore Cannons from two Hydran fighters against the shields of a Galor-class cruiser. It resisted for a few seconds before it exploded.
He looked around, and saw that the fighters were now surrounded by Imperial and Cardassian ships. A higher tone echoed in his headset. "Close range achieved. Engage all targets of opportunity." The Aegean destroyers picketing the Ark Royals would still reinforce the shields of Imperial ships nearby, but now Lafayette's flight was to sow destruction among the lumbering ships of the enemy fleet.
"Berserker flight, form up. Time to hit a few out of the park." He grinned and glanced down at his readouts. Imperial forces were down four percent, and Cardassians down six percent. Still room for improvement.
--- --- ---
Legate Damar glared at the display in front of him. Those Imperial torpedoes were more powerful than anything his intelligence had reported, and had better tracking, too. He had separated his fleet into five elements, each led by twenty Superdreadnoughts, but now they were all blunted thanks to Sisko's trickery. He silently cursed the Obsidian Order, they had assured the central command that there were no computer- traps or latent programs left, but he had already lost half of the captured Wraiths.
He pounded the console. "We have to break through the Imperial line! If we don't get to Bajor nothing our Fleet does is going to matter." On the display, three of his forward elements were firmly engaged with two prongs of the Imperial Fleet. The spine of Ark Royals and Aegeans down the center of their formation was providing them an anchor he couldn't dislodge, with the Aegeans protecting the carriers, who were constantly replenishing those blasted fighters. Both forces were evenly matched, but the Cardassian fleet wasn't advancing.
Garak watched the display with a cold gleam in his eyes. "We seem to have encountered stronger resistance than expected, Damar." His gaze pierced into the commander's soul. "Fortunately, we have prepared for this eventuality."
"Indeed we have." Damar relaxed visibly, the fog of anger clearing from his mind. "Signal the second Fleet. Begin Vole Swarm." The comm pit scrambled to carry out his orders. Behind the fleet, boiling out of subspace corridors, came five thousand ships. Mostly Rasilaks and Legates, they swarmed over and around the larger Cardassian ships like angry rodents.
"Fleet is in position, Legate!"
Damar clenched his fist and looked out at the Imperial ships.
"Fire."
--- --- ---
Onboard the Enterprise, Admiral Lore was standing rigid in front of the tactical display. When he was devoting his mind to thinking, he tended to keep his body still. "Signal the Rutlidge and the Hyperion and have them bring the third arm to grid twenty-two by eight." His crew carried out his orders with efficiency. On two separate occasions, Lore had summarily executed crewman who failed to perform at his expectations.
"Admiral," Commissar Troi was growing alarmed in the midst of this. She had never been in a battle of this magnitude, or one that might be lost. "Moving up the third arm will leave our rear exp-"
Lore's head snapped around and he cut her off with a raised hand. "Thank you, Commissar for your thoughtful analysis. In the time I am using to tell you to be quiet, almost two-hundred ninety Imperial citizens will die in this battle. Do not make me waste their contribution." He turned back to the display. "Contact the Wrath of Hydria, and tell them to send four wings through the gap in our flank. Order assault platform groups alpha and delta to fire a stuttered quantum burst along their vector in exactly fourteen point two seconds... mark!"
In space the pair of Wraiths flanked by Sovereigns brought up their arm of the second fleet group, bringing heavy fire to bear on the Cardassian line. In doing so, they left a large section of the fleet group undefended. Sure enough, a trio of Sartans, each the match for a baseline Wraith, flanked by a number of Keldon cruisers came soaring in for the kill. Suddenly a hail of glowing nova-blue torpedoes streaked out towards them, overwhelming their shields and vaporizing ablative plating. As the blasts subsided, the ships were surrounded by a swarm of Cobras, Vipers, and Hydran Trebuchets, spitting death from their Hellbore Cannons and carving flaming gashes along the superstructure of the ships. The Vipers pounded the ships with quantum torpedoes mercilessly. In another ten seconds, all eleven Cardassian ships were expanding balls of plasma.
Lore didn't look back at Troi, but she knew that everyone else on the bridge was, and she could hear their thoughts; Section 31, always on the job... She never even went to fleet, who does she think she is? Her cheeks glowed in embarrassment.
"Admiral, I'm detecting a second wave of Cardassian ships advancing, mostly smaller hull-sizes."
"Highlight the display, and give me scans of three of the nearest ships. I want details." Lore bent to study his sensor console.
A tactical officer was processing the data. "They have minimal shields, sir, and their crew count is low. I am detecting no significant antimatter onboard, so they aren't suicidal."
Lore's eyebrow arched. "There seems to be a scattering field preventing detailed internal scans... attempt to penetrate it."
"Admiral," Troi tried to salvage her authority, "there are currently over twenty Wraith-analogues for our fleet group to contend with. I don't think these new ships are any concern."
"On the contrary, Commissar Troi," Lore looked up from his display while his hands continued working the controls, "they are extremely important. Since Cardassians are neither unintelligent or vainglorious, they do not intend to sacrifice those ships for no tactical gain. I intend to determine that tactical gain." He turned back to his readouts. "There is a high-energy surge in the forward section of each ship that is spiking into the terradyne range at an increasing frequency..." He jerked up and looked to the comm. "Lieutenant Kellan, signal the fleet! Flash warning code Alpha nine. Designate each of those ships as a priority target." He turned back to the display, "Shields emergency full to front. Link warp cores three and four to the main relays and engage power transfer." As he watched, each of the smaller ships spat a massive bolt of energy towards an Imperial ship. He was too late. The maulers began to slam into ships, shredding smaller ones and crippling those which survived. Four bolts were coming towards the Enterprise, and Lore knew the shields would not reach full power in time.
"Oh... SHIT."
--- --- ---
"Kira, what is going on?" Sisko's voice thundered across the Flag Bridge.
After a few seconds a holo of Kira appeared on the stand next to him. "Admiral, it appears that the Cardassians refit a number of smaller ships with a single mauler cannon. Our forces are currently down eighteen percent, the Cardassians are at fifteen."
"Those maulers can't be firing more than once every forty seconds, destroy those ships!" Sisko flipped a switch on the comm and Kira was replaced by Aesstuusss. Without his suit, the Hydran made Sisko do a double take. "Admiral, you see what's going on?"
The Hydran's eyelids blinked simultaneously, the equivalent of an affirmative nod. I DO, SIR. I AM DISPATCHING ALL FIGHTERS TO SWEEPER DUTY.
"Good. The first fleet group will provide covering fire, and we'll see if we can get closer to the command ship."
The Hydran waved, and the connection turned off.
"Comm, get me our SWACS and have them paint all of the mauler-refits as priority targets, then flash that to the fleet. And-"
"Admiral!" A lieutenant interrupted him as he hustled back to his command chair. "The Enterprise is down. Last communiqué had breaches spanning fifteen decks and two of its warp cores were ejected. It's dead in space."
Sisko's eyes fell, and he clenched a fist. The banner ship of the Empire had just been holed and was drifting. "Noted. Mark its position for salvage and signal the fleet that Rutlidge now has command of the second group. Transmit all codes to Commodore Minchori." He turned back to the holographic display and watched the tiny flashes of ships exploding. The battle wasn't lost yet. Not by a long shot.
The fleet drifted in the black of space, waiting. All weapons were ready, all crews prepared. Admiral Sisko sat quietly on the flag bridge of the Saratoga, thinking. All of his life, the Empire had been powerful. It had been strong, determined, and victorious. But now, the Cardassians matched them in all three. He was about to engage an enemy fleet, and for once, victory wasn't certain, or even likely. Riker's android, Lore, had given odds of success at only 72.3%. Sisko didn't like those odds, but they would get better fast. He stood and straightened his uniform. "Fleet Status!" He barked.
Kira was seated on her command throne four decks down, overseeing several displays on the arms of the seat. "All groups report optimum readiness." She spoke to the voice coming from the speaker in her chair. "We are deployed in a Zeta-screen formation, and groups Alpha, Beta, and Delta are holding steady. Admiral Aesstuusss reports that Nova wing is fueled ready to launch."
"Excellent." Sisko turned to his science officer. "Anything on sensors?"
The young lieutenant worked the controls. "Nothing yet si.." She trailed off. "Wait. Admiral, I am detecting in excess of seven thousand vessels transiting to normal space at seven-eight-two by four-four-one." Her voice trembled as the color drained from her face. "It's the Cardassian fleet."
"Red Alert." Sisko strode back to his throne and rubbed the Bajoran box he had placed on his console. The light was so... compelling. "When they are within comm range, hail the lead ship. Designate hammer flight and trident flight subordinate to Nova wing." There was an electric silence throughout the fleet as the Cardassian fleet approached, spreading out like the hood of a cobra ready to strike. In its center, holding back, was a sight which put a knot in Sisko's stomach. "Tactical, give me a reading on their flagship."
"It's a monster, Admiral. Over four kilometers by three by one and a half. It masses more than half of a Bastion-class, and its defenses are just as good."
The magnified ships were now visible, and Sisko counted the captured Wraiths. The Arizona, the Behemoth, the Meteor, and other paragons of Imperial engineering. How many men had died locked in their quarters on those ships?
"Admiral," the comm tech called to him "I have communications with the flagship. It is identifying itself as the Cardassia's Song."
"Now batting for the London Kings..." Sisko muttered under his breath. "Onscreen." With a flicker he was face to face with a Cardassian who he would have to treat as an equal. The commander was a large male, with prominent neck folds. Standing behind him was a stern-looking Cardassian dressed in dark leathers, with a cape. He reminded Sisko of a Commissar.
The seated male spoke. "This is Legate Damar of the Fourth Order of the Cardassian Union. We do hereby claim the Bajoran system and the remainder of sector 3921 in the name of the Cardassian Union. Remove your Fleet immediately and evacuate all Imperial personnel from the sector in twelve standard days."
Cardassians always were bold. "Legate Damar, I am Vice-Admiral Sisko, commander of this sector. I do not intend to surrender it to you or to any other hostile force which claims it. This sector belongs to the Empire and to the Bajorans. Now, why don't YOU withdraw your fleet and go back to your Cardassian Union before I decide Bajora needs a new planet orbiting it."
Damar gripped the armrests of his chair. The Cardassian homeworld had been destroyed by a Genesis torpedo, but it was a bluff. Sisko had no Genesis torpedoes, the so-called Grand Alliance had seen to that, but maybe Damar didn't know that.
The standing Cardassian whispered in his ear, and Damar nodded. "Do what you must, but my men would be honored to die the same death as our homeworld. Check your sensors, Admiral. You are outnumbered and outgunned. No one need die today." A sardonic smile told Sisko that this Legate didn't believe that at all.
Sisko reached for a comm panel on his right, and tapped in a set of commands. "Legate Damar, how is the security on your ships?"
Damar's brow furrowed. "Second to none. What is this about?"
"Well," Sisko smiled, "you seem to have multiple security breaches." He hit the execute button on his panel, and space lit up in the Cardassian fleet. "Close channel. Attack all weapons, all ships." He sat back in his chair. Batter up!
--- --- ---
Alarms blared on the Song. "What is going on?" Damar threw a young technician away from a flashing panel and scanned the data.
"Legate! The Wraith ships!" A comm operator shouted. "Twelve of them have self-destructed. No survivors."
"To darkness with diplomacy!" Garak was livid. "Punish the Terran treachery!"
--- --- ---
A red light on Lafayette Sisko's control board flicked to green. All forces attack. He took the controls, yanking his cobra out of its holding course and reading his orders as they came from fleet command. Admiral Aesstuusss was a brilliant tactician, and he knew his job. As Lafayette formed his wing together, the Ark Royal carriers and Aegean destroyers formed a great disk, crisscrossing space with their reinforced shield generators to protect the fighters. Lafayette and the rest of Berserker flight were to join the rest of the fighters in torpedo interception. Long shots were long, but take enough and either side could even up the odds with enough of them.
"Berserker Flight, this is Berserker Lead, signal click all." Lafayette counted silently as twenty-three clicks echoed in his earpiece and were tallied up. The EW generators on each fighter began to charge up, creating a wall of false echoes for the torpedoes to get through. That was Aesstuusss' favorite tactic. All too soon, the space between the fleets began to shrink, and filled with streaks of light. A few torpedoes came his way, and his flight took care of them with efficiency. A low tone sounded in his headset.
"Screen volley! Flight to position one in ten seconds!" His fighters scrambled to the safe zone, but Berserker fifteen had an engine flutter and didn't get clear of the friendly fire. Two solid walls of quantum torpedoes flashed out from the Steamrunners he had been screening. They streaked across the vanishing gap and slammed into the Cardassian fleet, blossoming into fire and eating away at ships like waves against a sand castle.
A glint of metal caught Lafayette's eye, and he instinctively mashed down the trigger on his phasers. As he banked to follow, he saw phaser-fire from four of his flight mates converge with the golden energy of Hellbore Cannons from two Hydran fighters against the shields of a Galor-class cruiser. It resisted for a few seconds before it exploded.
He looked around, and saw that the fighters were now surrounded by Imperial and Cardassian ships. A higher tone echoed in his headset. "Close range achieved. Engage all targets of opportunity." The Aegean destroyers picketing the Ark Royals would still reinforce the shields of Imperial ships nearby, but now Lafayette's flight was to sow destruction among the lumbering ships of the enemy fleet.
"Berserker flight, form up. Time to hit a few out of the park." He grinned and glanced down at his readouts. Imperial forces were down four percent, and Cardassians down six percent. Still room for improvement.
--- --- ---
Legate Damar glared at the display in front of him. Those Imperial torpedoes were more powerful than anything his intelligence had reported, and had better tracking, too. He had separated his fleet into five elements, each led by twenty Superdreadnoughts, but now they were all blunted thanks to Sisko's trickery. He silently cursed the Obsidian Order, they had assured the central command that there were no computer- traps or latent programs left, but he had already lost half of the captured Wraiths.
He pounded the console. "We have to break through the Imperial line! If we don't get to Bajor nothing our Fleet does is going to matter." On the display, three of his forward elements were firmly engaged with two prongs of the Imperial Fleet. The spine of Ark Royals and Aegeans down the center of their formation was providing them an anchor he couldn't dislodge, with the Aegeans protecting the carriers, who were constantly replenishing those blasted fighters. Both forces were evenly matched, but the Cardassian fleet wasn't advancing.
Garak watched the display with a cold gleam in his eyes. "We seem to have encountered stronger resistance than expected, Damar." His gaze pierced into the commander's soul. "Fortunately, we have prepared for this eventuality."
"Indeed we have." Damar relaxed visibly, the fog of anger clearing from his mind. "Signal the second Fleet. Begin Vole Swarm." The comm pit scrambled to carry out his orders. Behind the fleet, boiling out of subspace corridors, came five thousand ships. Mostly Rasilaks and Legates, they swarmed over and around the larger Cardassian ships like angry rodents.
"Fleet is in position, Legate!"
Damar clenched his fist and looked out at the Imperial ships.
"Fire."
--- --- ---
Onboard the Enterprise, Admiral Lore was standing rigid in front of the tactical display. When he was devoting his mind to thinking, he tended to keep his body still. "Signal the Rutlidge and the Hyperion and have them bring the third arm to grid twenty-two by eight." His crew carried out his orders with efficiency. On two separate occasions, Lore had summarily executed crewman who failed to perform at his expectations.
"Admiral," Commissar Troi was growing alarmed in the midst of this. She had never been in a battle of this magnitude, or one that might be lost. "Moving up the third arm will leave our rear exp-"
Lore's head snapped around and he cut her off with a raised hand. "Thank you, Commissar for your thoughtful analysis. In the time I am using to tell you to be quiet, almost two-hundred ninety Imperial citizens will die in this battle. Do not make me waste their contribution." He turned back to the display. "Contact the Wrath of Hydria, and tell them to send four wings through the gap in our flank. Order assault platform groups alpha and delta to fire a stuttered quantum burst along their vector in exactly fourteen point two seconds... mark!"
In space the pair of Wraiths flanked by Sovereigns brought up their arm of the second fleet group, bringing heavy fire to bear on the Cardassian line. In doing so, they left a large section of the fleet group undefended. Sure enough, a trio of Sartans, each the match for a baseline Wraith, flanked by a number of Keldon cruisers came soaring in for the kill. Suddenly a hail of glowing nova-blue torpedoes streaked out towards them, overwhelming their shields and vaporizing ablative plating. As the blasts subsided, the ships were surrounded by a swarm of Cobras, Vipers, and Hydran Trebuchets, spitting death from their Hellbore Cannons and carving flaming gashes along the superstructure of the ships. The Vipers pounded the ships with quantum torpedoes mercilessly. In another ten seconds, all eleven Cardassian ships were expanding balls of plasma.
Lore didn't look back at Troi, but she knew that everyone else on the bridge was, and she could hear their thoughts; Section 31, always on the job... She never even went to fleet, who does she think she is? Her cheeks glowed in embarrassment.
"Admiral, I'm detecting a second wave of Cardassian ships advancing, mostly smaller hull-sizes."
"Highlight the display, and give me scans of three of the nearest ships. I want details." Lore bent to study his sensor console.
A tactical officer was processing the data. "They have minimal shields, sir, and their crew count is low. I am detecting no significant antimatter onboard, so they aren't suicidal."
Lore's eyebrow arched. "There seems to be a scattering field preventing detailed internal scans... attempt to penetrate it."
"Admiral," Troi tried to salvage her authority, "there are currently over twenty Wraith-analogues for our fleet group to contend with. I don't think these new ships are any concern."
"On the contrary, Commissar Troi," Lore looked up from his display while his hands continued working the controls, "they are extremely important. Since Cardassians are neither unintelligent or vainglorious, they do not intend to sacrifice those ships for no tactical gain. I intend to determine that tactical gain." He turned back to his readouts. "There is a high-energy surge in the forward section of each ship that is spiking into the terradyne range at an increasing frequency..." He jerked up and looked to the comm. "Lieutenant Kellan, signal the fleet! Flash warning code Alpha nine. Designate each of those ships as a priority target." He turned back to the display, "Shields emergency full to front. Link warp cores three and four to the main relays and engage power transfer." As he watched, each of the smaller ships spat a massive bolt of energy towards an Imperial ship. He was too late. The maulers began to slam into ships, shredding smaller ones and crippling those which survived. Four bolts were coming towards the Enterprise, and Lore knew the shields would not reach full power in time.
"Oh... SHIT."
--- --- ---
"Kira, what is going on?" Sisko's voice thundered across the Flag Bridge.
After a few seconds a holo of Kira appeared on the stand next to him. "Admiral, it appears that the Cardassians refit a number of smaller ships with a single mauler cannon. Our forces are currently down eighteen percent, the Cardassians are at fifteen."
"Those maulers can't be firing more than once every forty seconds, destroy those ships!" Sisko flipped a switch on the comm and Kira was replaced by Aesstuusss. Without his suit, the Hydran made Sisko do a double take. "Admiral, you see what's going on?"
The Hydran's eyelids blinked simultaneously, the equivalent of an affirmative nod. I DO, SIR. I AM DISPATCHING ALL FIGHTERS TO SWEEPER DUTY.
"Good. The first fleet group will provide covering fire, and we'll see if we can get closer to the command ship."
The Hydran waved, and the connection turned off.
"Comm, get me our SWACS and have them paint all of the mauler-refits as priority targets, then flash that to the fleet. And-"
"Admiral!" A lieutenant interrupted him as he hustled back to his command chair. "The Enterprise is down. Last communiqué had breaches spanning fifteen decks and two of its warp cores were ejected. It's dead in space."
Sisko's eyes fell, and he clenched a fist. The banner ship of the Empire had just been holed and was drifting. "Noted. Mark its position for salvage and signal the fleet that Rutlidge now has command of the second group. Transmit all codes to Commodore Minchori." He turned back to the holographic display and watched the tiny flashes of ships exploding. The battle wasn't lost yet. Not by a long shot.