Chapter 39 - In Death Ground
ISS Valley Forge, Deck Five, near PPC Turret Alpha Eight
A jet of fire retardant foam sprayed out of a nozzle mounted on one of the Engineers synthetic arms, spraying a small flicker of flame into nonexistence. The nozzle folded back out of the way, falling into line with an assortment of various tools. The engineer extended his hands, grasping a hunk of alloy. His artificial muscles that were part of the engineering hard suit he wore strained to lift the collapsed frame member off of a trapped crewman. Basically a scaled down version of infantry power armor minus most of the protection and combat systems, it was used extensively by Starfleet engineers during battle situations, especially for damage control teams. There was a groan of stressed metal as the fractured frame member inched upwards. Another set of mechanical hands gripped the unconscious crewman under his shoulders and pulled, dragging his limp form out from under the collapsed debris. A medical tricorder was waved over him by the team's medic, allowing for a quick diagnosis of the extent of the crewmen's injuries.
"Get him to sickbay. Triage priority Beta." The medic ordered. A pair of marines slipped him onto a gurney, rapidly strapped him in, then each grabbed an end and went jogging off down the hallway towards the nearest sickbay.
The damage control team's supplemental marines, decked out in their power armor suits, were unrolling two power lead coils. They had been spliced into the closest working EPS trunk, and now only needed to be attached into the remains of the grid closest to the PPC Turret. Another Marine followed them in, stringing out a much thinner C&C datalink hard-line. The engineers strode towards the access panel where the connections would have to be made. On of them removed the cover, exposing the scorched, torn tubes beneath. The other surveyed the mess for a few seconds, then came to a decision. Reaching in, he brought out a torn datalink cable about as thick as a man's thumb. A tool folded itself out from its stowed position along his forearm. There was a flash of light as it made contact with the cable above where it was torn, then the torn piece fell away, leaving only a cleanly cut end ready for reconnection. Taking a hold of the fresh datalink cable from the marine, the engineer let what little remained of the coil fall on the ground save for the end he grasped in his other hand.
The other engineer approached with a piece of pliable material that looked like a metallic bandage. The first engineer, using the suit's excellent micro-movement servos, butted the two line segments together near perfectly. The second engineer applied his bandage, then deployed another tool. There was an audible humming and a rapidly strobeing purple light. Quickly, a sizzling sound was heard. The whole process lasted a handful of seconds, then the engineers stepped back. Aside from a slight bulge at the connection, there was very little to tell the difference between it and the rest of the cable.
The Marines manhandled their EPS conduits towards the exposed trunk. Fresh tools deployed from the engineers, sending out arcs of intense white lightening where they met along the connection between the conduits and the dead trunk.
ISS Valley Forge, Main Sickbay
Anna and her staff worked furiously to save the seemingly endless stream of broken bodies that had begun to pile up out into the hallway. Plasma burns, shrapnel wounds, smoke inhalation, crushed and broken bones and all combinations possible by mixing them and varying the degree came across her operating tables. It was truly hell, and something not often shown in the entertainment holos. They all to often showed only sanitized ships destroying other ships, ignoring how beings aboard them died horrible deaths or were severely wounded.
A nurse swept a neuroelectrical suppresser across a wounded man's upper torso. He had third degree plasma burns to his upper torso and a broken arm. His thrashes of pain became low moans as the signals his pain receptors generated stopped going to his brain. She switched tools, pulling out the dermal/muscle regenerator and using it to repair the lion's share of the burn damage.
"Hold her down." Anna's stern command was heard over the cries of the wounded. Her patient was bucking wildly, and there was a large splinter of bulkhead sticking out of her chest. Then the monitoring sensors shifted from irregular pulsing to a steady beep. "Damn it! Seven cc's of leporazine!" There was a soft hiss as the hypo was pressed to the woman's neck. There was no change to the steady beep. "Neural stimulators!" The small, stamp sized tools were stuck on the now still woman's temples. Anna pressed their activation button. A whine was heard, and the body convulsed. But there was no change. Again, Anna pressed the activation button, another whine was heard, and again the body convulsed. This time, the steady beep shifted to something approaching normal. "That's it, fight! Alright, let's get this splinter out and get her patched up before she crashes on us again." She told the surrounding nurses as she moved down the biobed to look closer at the hunk of alloy jutting out of the woman's chest.
ISCV Purity of Heart
Teresa's detached units were nearing nominal PPD range. They had been peppered by the Terran's damnable enhanced torpedoes, some of the lighter ones dying, paying the price so that their brethren could reach range. They had been smart in their manuvers, hiding behind the bulk of her ships of the line, sheltering in the shadow of their potent defenses until they were nearly far enough out. Only then did they shape their course upward, terminating just high enough to gain clear firelanes against the Terrans capital ships. The Soulwolfs and Cobras that had been tailing them virtually since they began their maneuver finally caught up to them, but that was a mixed blessing. For while the Imperials could now engage the ISC vessels with their energy armament, the ISC battle line could also now engage them with their PPD's. More of Teresa's detached units were cut down by the Terran's potent Phaser Lances, but they were all soon dead as the massed aft PPD batteries of her entire Fleet gave voice to their displeasure. Soulwolfs may be quick and heavily armed for an Imperial Destroyer, but their shields and armor were little better than most other Destroyers as a result. Within seconds, they were all glowing wreckage having taken only a handful of the enemy with them. The Cobras faired even worse, for with the Soulwolfs removed from the equation, every phaser and plasma torpedo emplacement the detached units possessed could be trained on their elimination exclusively.
"Fleet Marshal, I believe that we have nailed down the location of their Flagship! They, just as we, are rerouting fleet orders through other ships to prevent their localizing our Flagship." The process sent orders through the short ranged secure datalink to nearby ships, using their com systems to transmit rather than the flagship's own, decreasing the likelihood of the enemy deducing which ship was the enemy Flagship and executing a decapitation strike against it. But given time and a little luck, the enemy might deduce where the center of the near random pattern was and get an approximate location as too one's Flagship. "CIC thinks that they have localized the enemy's flagship in sector 24 grid 13."
Teresa dour face switched to a wolfishly. "Got you now you sneaky bastard." She whispered, then spoke loud and clear. "Flag to detached units. Engage the Terrans with PPD's. Fireplan Unity Alpha on sector 24 grid 13."
ISS Valley Forge, Flag Bridge
Now. Ulysses thought as his final units pursuing the detached ISC units were cut down. "All ships! Execute Phase Two! Repeat, execute Phase Two." His words were drowned out by the sounds of tortured alloy as the first PPD wave slammed into his command.
ISS Vigilance
Suzette could only scowl at the tactical plot in consternation as her ships flew farther and farther away from the titanic battle burning space at Point Invictus. They were totally ignored now, as the Unity Fleet was fully engaged with Ulysses smaller wall of battle. All her firepower was forced to sit and wait, not contributing to the battle, not aiding their comrades as they were slowly picked off one by one. It was maddening, being ordered to do nothing. Her hands gripped the upholstery of her command chair's armrests like talons. The ISC ships that had fallen back from the main battle lines slowed. On her tactical plot, they showed a deadly hail of weapons fire blot out their pursuing fighters even as long ranged PPD fire claimed the Soulwolfs.
"All ships! Execute Phase Two! Repeat, e." the Flag Bridge's speakers blared to life, shattering the tension filled silence that had settled on it and jerking the crew into action. They had been ordered to act immediately, not to wait for Suzette to repeat the command.
Holocloaks dropped, showing her ships for what they truly were, Steamrunners and Nebulas of Imperial Starfleet. Ulysses had thinned his fire support squadrons to dangerous levels in order to put them into the Vigilance Taskforce, but now that calculated risk was going to pay him back in spades. The Taskforce stopped its motion towards the corridor loci and swung about as if directed by one mind. All torpedo tubes went into continuous rapid fire, birthing tsunami after tsunami of enhanced quantums that began to home in on the enemy from far beyond normal torpedo range. Steamrunners might be potent fire support platforms, but they didn't hold a candle to a standard configuration Nebula.
Each of the Taskforce's 21 Nebulas including the Vigilance spat 51 quantums from their tubes in both their massive saucer and their attached weapons pod. The 26 Steamrunners spat out 32 apiece from their quad tubes. Over 1900 torpedoes were vomited into space. Three seconds later, another salvo, equally as dense, followed. Three seconds after that, a third was born.and unlike those used by the rest of Ulysses Fleet, these were implementing the upgraded torpedoes full capabilities.
ISCV Purity of Heart
"Fleet Marshal, the Imperial merchant ves."
"I see them." Teresa said with a scowl. What the devil were they doing? As she watched, the now maneuvering merchantmen transformed into Imperial warships. What were they doing there, what possible advantage could they have by sneaking past her fleet and dropping their masks now? They must have been responsible for deploying the mine field she had stumbled into, that much was quite evident. But WHY would they choose now to show their true nature? It couldn't be to launch weapons, for they were far to far away for that. So what could it be?
"Dispatch Superdreadnought Battlegroup 31 to take them out if they fail to retreat or surrender. And send a recon drone to scout them out. Something doesn't feel right about this."
On her tactical plot, her detached units continued their merciless pounding of the Terran BB's and SD's in the general location where the enemy flagship should be. If it wasn't already out of action, it soon would be. And then, the rest of the Terran fleet would undergo the same systematic pounding that was right now being reserved to a handful of its fellows. Soon, this battle would end, and the sector would come fully into the peace of the Galactic Unity.
Oddly, all Imperial vessels operating in the rear of her formation suddenly broke away to the periphery, disengaging from attack runs and accelerating hard to beyond the edge of her wall. Now what were the Terrans up to? A brief flicker on the tactical plot caught her attention. Her eyes narrowed. The flicker returned, looking like a massive swarm of sparks dancing where nothing should be. "What the hell.." The recon drone she had sent aft to scope out the Imperial fire support ships was nearing the cloud. Suddenly, it blossomed into thousands of targets. With a scowl, she zoomed the tactical plot in closer. The targets were small, only about the size of a. TORPEDO! The thought hit her at the same time that the enhanced quantums brought their shields online. Teresa's eyes bulged.
"All units, emergency shield reinforcement aft!"
Prescott's Star
The enhanced quantums, all but invisible at long range thanks to their small signatures and lack of active shields, suddenly showed themselves as they brought their shield grids up. They numbered in the thousands, and they crashed down on the weakened Unity fleet's aft arcs like the waves of an incoming tide. Teresa had just issued her order when the first deadly volley struck. Weakened shields were saturated to the breaking point, armor boiled away exposing the weaker superstructure beneath to damage. Whole squadrons of ISC Superdreadnoughts and Battleships were knocked out of the fight, but the destruction didn't end, for scant seconds aft the first wave hit, the next one struck, wreaking the same havoc. And still more appeared on tactical plots as the enhanced quantums brought their shield grids online, a seeming endless flood of them.
ISCV Purity of Heart
Teresa lurched forward, nearly thrown out of her chair. Lighting flickered throughout the Flag Bridge, and the tactical display nearly died before snapping back on. The picture it showed wasn't good. Nearly 78% of her ships were down, and the number was growing with every passing moment. Her choices flashed through her head. She couldn't retreat, for that would expose her to fire from both directions and in her weakened state her ships couldn't survive it. Neither could she stay and continue to fight. She could hurt the Terrans more before she died, but at the rate she was loosing ships she could only hurt them a bit more. There was only one possible course open to her, distasteful as it was.
"Signal all ships, stand down and surrender. Open a channel to the Terran Fleet. We surrender! Cease fire. We surrender!"
"Fleet marshal?" An aide said, his expression stunned and his voice shocked.
"You heard me damn you! Do it now, before more die needlessly!" And pray that the Terran commander chooses to give us quarter, she thought.
ISS Valley Forge, Deck Five, near PPC Turret Alpha Eight
A jet of fire retardant foam sprayed out of a nozzle mounted on one of the Engineers synthetic arms, spraying a small flicker of flame into nonexistence. The nozzle folded back out of the way, falling into line with an assortment of various tools. The engineer extended his hands, grasping a hunk of alloy. His artificial muscles that were part of the engineering hard suit he wore strained to lift the collapsed frame member off of a trapped crewman. Basically a scaled down version of infantry power armor minus most of the protection and combat systems, it was used extensively by Starfleet engineers during battle situations, especially for damage control teams. There was a groan of stressed metal as the fractured frame member inched upwards. Another set of mechanical hands gripped the unconscious crewman under his shoulders and pulled, dragging his limp form out from under the collapsed debris. A medical tricorder was waved over him by the team's medic, allowing for a quick diagnosis of the extent of the crewmen's injuries.
"Get him to sickbay. Triage priority Beta." The medic ordered. A pair of marines slipped him onto a gurney, rapidly strapped him in, then each grabbed an end and went jogging off down the hallway towards the nearest sickbay.
The damage control team's supplemental marines, decked out in their power armor suits, were unrolling two power lead coils. They had been spliced into the closest working EPS trunk, and now only needed to be attached into the remains of the grid closest to the PPC Turret. Another Marine followed them in, stringing out a much thinner C&C datalink hard-line. The engineers strode towards the access panel where the connections would have to be made. On of them removed the cover, exposing the scorched, torn tubes beneath. The other surveyed the mess for a few seconds, then came to a decision. Reaching in, he brought out a torn datalink cable about as thick as a man's thumb. A tool folded itself out from its stowed position along his forearm. There was a flash of light as it made contact with the cable above where it was torn, then the torn piece fell away, leaving only a cleanly cut end ready for reconnection. Taking a hold of the fresh datalink cable from the marine, the engineer let what little remained of the coil fall on the ground save for the end he grasped in his other hand.
The other engineer approached with a piece of pliable material that looked like a metallic bandage. The first engineer, using the suit's excellent micro-movement servos, butted the two line segments together near perfectly. The second engineer applied his bandage, then deployed another tool. There was an audible humming and a rapidly strobeing purple light. Quickly, a sizzling sound was heard. The whole process lasted a handful of seconds, then the engineers stepped back. Aside from a slight bulge at the connection, there was very little to tell the difference between it and the rest of the cable.
The Marines manhandled their EPS conduits towards the exposed trunk. Fresh tools deployed from the engineers, sending out arcs of intense white lightening where they met along the connection between the conduits and the dead trunk.
ISS Valley Forge, Main Sickbay
Anna and her staff worked furiously to save the seemingly endless stream of broken bodies that had begun to pile up out into the hallway. Plasma burns, shrapnel wounds, smoke inhalation, crushed and broken bones and all combinations possible by mixing them and varying the degree came across her operating tables. It was truly hell, and something not often shown in the entertainment holos. They all to often showed only sanitized ships destroying other ships, ignoring how beings aboard them died horrible deaths or were severely wounded.
A nurse swept a neuroelectrical suppresser across a wounded man's upper torso. He had third degree plasma burns to his upper torso and a broken arm. His thrashes of pain became low moans as the signals his pain receptors generated stopped going to his brain. She switched tools, pulling out the dermal/muscle regenerator and using it to repair the lion's share of the burn damage.
"Hold her down." Anna's stern command was heard over the cries of the wounded. Her patient was bucking wildly, and there was a large splinter of bulkhead sticking out of her chest. Then the monitoring sensors shifted from irregular pulsing to a steady beep. "Damn it! Seven cc's of leporazine!" There was a soft hiss as the hypo was pressed to the woman's neck. There was no change to the steady beep. "Neural stimulators!" The small, stamp sized tools were stuck on the now still woman's temples. Anna pressed their activation button. A whine was heard, and the body convulsed. But there was no change. Again, Anna pressed the activation button, another whine was heard, and again the body convulsed. This time, the steady beep shifted to something approaching normal. "That's it, fight! Alright, let's get this splinter out and get her patched up before she crashes on us again." She told the surrounding nurses as she moved down the biobed to look closer at the hunk of alloy jutting out of the woman's chest.
ISCV Purity of Heart
Teresa's detached units were nearing nominal PPD range. They had been peppered by the Terran's damnable enhanced torpedoes, some of the lighter ones dying, paying the price so that their brethren could reach range. They had been smart in their manuvers, hiding behind the bulk of her ships of the line, sheltering in the shadow of their potent defenses until they were nearly far enough out. Only then did they shape their course upward, terminating just high enough to gain clear firelanes against the Terrans capital ships. The Soulwolfs and Cobras that had been tailing them virtually since they began their maneuver finally caught up to them, but that was a mixed blessing. For while the Imperials could now engage the ISC vessels with their energy armament, the ISC battle line could also now engage them with their PPD's. More of Teresa's detached units were cut down by the Terran's potent Phaser Lances, but they were all soon dead as the massed aft PPD batteries of her entire Fleet gave voice to their displeasure. Soulwolfs may be quick and heavily armed for an Imperial Destroyer, but their shields and armor were little better than most other Destroyers as a result. Within seconds, they were all glowing wreckage having taken only a handful of the enemy with them. The Cobras faired even worse, for with the Soulwolfs removed from the equation, every phaser and plasma torpedo emplacement the detached units possessed could be trained on their elimination exclusively.
"Fleet Marshal, I believe that we have nailed down the location of their Flagship! They, just as we, are rerouting fleet orders through other ships to prevent their localizing our Flagship." The process sent orders through the short ranged secure datalink to nearby ships, using their com systems to transmit rather than the flagship's own, decreasing the likelihood of the enemy deducing which ship was the enemy Flagship and executing a decapitation strike against it. But given time and a little luck, the enemy might deduce where the center of the near random pattern was and get an approximate location as too one's Flagship. "CIC thinks that they have localized the enemy's flagship in sector 24 grid 13."
Teresa dour face switched to a wolfishly. "Got you now you sneaky bastard." She whispered, then spoke loud and clear. "Flag to detached units. Engage the Terrans with PPD's. Fireplan Unity Alpha on sector 24 grid 13."
ISS Valley Forge, Flag Bridge
Now. Ulysses thought as his final units pursuing the detached ISC units were cut down. "All ships! Execute Phase Two! Repeat, execute Phase Two." His words were drowned out by the sounds of tortured alloy as the first PPD wave slammed into his command.
ISS Vigilance
Suzette could only scowl at the tactical plot in consternation as her ships flew farther and farther away from the titanic battle burning space at Point Invictus. They were totally ignored now, as the Unity Fleet was fully engaged with Ulysses smaller wall of battle. All her firepower was forced to sit and wait, not contributing to the battle, not aiding their comrades as they were slowly picked off one by one. It was maddening, being ordered to do nothing. Her hands gripped the upholstery of her command chair's armrests like talons. The ISC ships that had fallen back from the main battle lines slowed. On her tactical plot, they showed a deadly hail of weapons fire blot out their pursuing fighters even as long ranged PPD fire claimed the Soulwolfs.
"All ships! Execute Phase Two! Repeat, e." the Flag Bridge's speakers blared to life, shattering the tension filled silence that had settled on it and jerking the crew into action. They had been ordered to act immediately, not to wait for Suzette to repeat the command.
Holocloaks dropped, showing her ships for what they truly were, Steamrunners and Nebulas of Imperial Starfleet. Ulysses had thinned his fire support squadrons to dangerous levels in order to put them into the Vigilance Taskforce, but now that calculated risk was going to pay him back in spades. The Taskforce stopped its motion towards the corridor loci and swung about as if directed by one mind. All torpedo tubes went into continuous rapid fire, birthing tsunami after tsunami of enhanced quantums that began to home in on the enemy from far beyond normal torpedo range. Steamrunners might be potent fire support platforms, but they didn't hold a candle to a standard configuration Nebula.
Each of the Taskforce's 21 Nebulas including the Vigilance spat 51 quantums from their tubes in both their massive saucer and their attached weapons pod. The 26 Steamrunners spat out 32 apiece from their quad tubes. Over 1900 torpedoes were vomited into space. Three seconds later, another salvo, equally as dense, followed. Three seconds after that, a third was born.and unlike those used by the rest of Ulysses Fleet, these were implementing the upgraded torpedoes full capabilities.
ISCV Purity of Heart
"Fleet Marshal, the Imperial merchant ves."
"I see them." Teresa said with a scowl. What the devil were they doing? As she watched, the now maneuvering merchantmen transformed into Imperial warships. What were they doing there, what possible advantage could they have by sneaking past her fleet and dropping their masks now? They must have been responsible for deploying the mine field she had stumbled into, that much was quite evident. But WHY would they choose now to show their true nature? It couldn't be to launch weapons, for they were far to far away for that. So what could it be?
"Dispatch Superdreadnought Battlegroup 31 to take them out if they fail to retreat or surrender. And send a recon drone to scout them out. Something doesn't feel right about this."
On her tactical plot, her detached units continued their merciless pounding of the Terran BB's and SD's in the general location where the enemy flagship should be. If it wasn't already out of action, it soon would be. And then, the rest of the Terran fleet would undergo the same systematic pounding that was right now being reserved to a handful of its fellows. Soon, this battle would end, and the sector would come fully into the peace of the Galactic Unity.
Oddly, all Imperial vessels operating in the rear of her formation suddenly broke away to the periphery, disengaging from attack runs and accelerating hard to beyond the edge of her wall. Now what were the Terrans up to? A brief flicker on the tactical plot caught her attention. Her eyes narrowed. The flicker returned, looking like a massive swarm of sparks dancing where nothing should be. "What the hell.." The recon drone she had sent aft to scope out the Imperial fire support ships was nearing the cloud. Suddenly, it blossomed into thousands of targets. With a scowl, she zoomed the tactical plot in closer. The targets were small, only about the size of a. TORPEDO! The thought hit her at the same time that the enhanced quantums brought their shields online. Teresa's eyes bulged.
"All units, emergency shield reinforcement aft!"
Prescott's Star
The enhanced quantums, all but invisible at long range thanks to their small signatures and lack of active shields, suddenly showed themselves as they brought their shield grids up. They numbered in the thousands, and they crashed down on the weakened Unity fleet's aft arcs like the waves of an incoming tide. Teresa had just issued her order when the first deadly volley struck. Weakened shields were saturated to the breaking point, armor boiled away exposing the weaker superstructure beneath to damage. Whole squadrons of ISC Superdreadnoughts and Battleships were knocked out of the fight, but the destruction didn't end, for scant seconds aft the first wave hit, the next one struck, wreaking the same havoc. And still more appeared on tactical plots as the enhanced quantums brought their shield grids online, a seeming endless flood of them.
ISCV Purity of Heart
Teresa lurched forward, nearly thrown out of her chair. Lighting flickered throughout the Flag Bridge, and the tactical display nearly died before snapping back on. The picture it showed wasn't good. Nearly 78% of her ships were down, and the number was growing with every passing moment. Her choices flashed through her head. She couldn't retreat, for that would expose her to fire from both directions and in her weakened state her ships couldn't survive it. Neither could she stay and continue to fight. She could hurt the Terrans more before she died, but at the rate she was loosing ships she could only hurt them a bit more. There was only one possible course open to her, distasteful as it was.
"Signal all ships, stand down and surrender. Open a channel to the Terran Fleet. We surrender! Cease fire. We surrender!"
"Fleet marshal?" An aide said, his expression stunned and his voice shocked.
"You heard me damn you! Do it now, before more die needlessly!" And pray that the Terran commander chooses to give us quarter, she thought.