Chapter 42 - Strange Bedfellows
IKV Bortas, Klach D'Kel Brakt system
White sparks cascaded down like a waterfall of light from a ruptured conduit on the bridge's roof. The Bortas shook again as a fresh volley of plasma torpedoes struck his drained shields. The main bridge was a cacophony of noise and a flurry of activity as Luza's finely tuned command crew fought their ship.
"Message from the Flag, Captain." Luza's com officer belted out over the blaring klaxons and battle damage noises. "The ISC Battleship Five is weakening and he is ordering us to finish it off."
All this over a worthless system in the back of beyond. Luza thought, for the skirmish against Galactic Unity forces was about as far away from Qo'noS as one could get in the reborn Klingon Empire. On the Bridge's wrap around displays a force of about a dozen Vor'cha's and their escorts were in a furious firefight against a mixed force of ISC and Dominion vessels. The Klingon forces were little better than a very light Taskforce, with nothing heavier than the Vor'cha Battlecruisers. Fortunately, the ISC considered this system just as much of a backwater as the Klingons did. They had only sent a lone squadron of Battleships and their escorts. Under normal circumstances, this would have been more than sufficient to either burn the Vor'cha's and their escorts from space should they choose to stand, or force them to withdraw if they wouldn't.
But fortunately for citizens of the Klach D'Kel Brakt system, the Klingon High Command had dispatched Luza's squadron of Vampire's here, escorting a titanic mobile smelter that was supposed to break down the system's mineral rich asteroid belt into vitally needed supplies for the shipyards near Qo'noS. Replicators could reconstitute nearly anything into virtually anything one needed. But for certain elements and compounds, it was more efficient energy and time wise to harvest them the old fashioned way by taking them directly from their natural sources. Luza's squadron's presence tilted the odds ever so slightly in the system defender's favor.
But even that would have been insufficient to stop the Galactic Union forces given the extended range of their PPD and their STL speed advantage. But the mobile smelter's Captain had volunteered to act as bait to lure the GU forces in close enough that they could be targeted by the Klingon's shorter ranged weapons. It was a truly selfless act, one worthy of song, for if the battle failed to pan out in the Klingon's favor, the smelter's captain would go down with his ship rather than surrender it to the GU. With the mammoth smelter presenting a near impossibly fat target, the GU forces had set off after it and the EW drones operating in concert with it. With them pretending to be the smelter's escorting warships, the GU had closed steadily, unaware that the real warships were lying doggo under their passive stealth systems nearly directly in their path.
The initial strikes had hammered the GU Battleships hard, the Klingon vessels erupting into action from their hidden positions with guns blazing. They had even managed to get in under the GU's PPD minimum range, and although the potent phasers and plasma torpedo batteries the ISC ships housed spat back answering volleys of their own, two were quickly cut down to size by the Vampire's Maulers. After that, the two opposing formations actually interpenetrated one another and combat devolved into a swirling melee of frantically maneuvering capital ships as precise fleet formation became a detriment rather than an asset.
"Gunnery, target Battleship Five." Luza ordered. "Order the Kirom and the Sompek to attack as well on their next passes." As she finished, her command shuddered again as a fresh volley of phased polaron beams slammed into his shields as the Jem'Hadar attack craft struggled to down her weakening shields. With a final torrent of emerald bolts, the Bortas broke off pursuit of the now expanding cloud of wreckage that had once been a Jem'Hadar attack craft to begin a run against the Battleship. Or rather the quartet of Battleships, as the ISC warship had deployed three EW drones and all were swarming in helix patterns around their base course.
Streams of brilliant green splinters of energy spat from their emplacements, connecting with the false signatures as well as the actual Battleship. The EW drones faked battle damage quite well, but the range was far to short for the deception to fool Luza's sensors. Bortas' CIC near instantly sent targeting updates to the rest of the Klingon ships, letting them know which ship was the true target.
Phaser and polaron beams cris-crossed with disruptors on the forward viewer, creating a cacophony of visual stimuli, but Luza tuned it all out. Her attention was focused on the soon to be dead Battleship. He was maneuvering with ever erg of impulse speed he could get. As maneuverable as Klingon designs were, the ISC Battleship was noticeably fleeter on the helm than something his size had any right to be.
"Mauler charged!" Her weapons officer shouted across the orange hued bridge
"Fire!" Luza replied at once, her upraised, leather gloved fist closing tightly.
A lance of silver appeared between her command and her target. It blew threw the Battleship's weakened aft shields and bulled forcefully through the hull to explode out the other side. Even as he began to spiral away from the point of attack, a fresh assault clobbered him from his ventral side as the Kirom and the Sompek opened up with shimmering silver swords of their own, wreaking vengeance down on the GU for daring to attack a Klingon world. What had once been a proud ISC Battleship shattered as secondary explosions consumed what little remained of her hull in brilliant white hot fireballs.
"Captain!" a shocked cry came from across Bortas' bridge, causing Luza's head to snap towards her gunnery officer. "Sensors show another Galactic Unity force dropping out of warp! They will be in PPD range of our position in eighty seconds!"
"Bearing and strength!" Luza snapped.
"186 mark 124. A minimum of one wing of Superdreadnoughts and approximately two dozen lesser vessels as escort."
The bridge went deathly quiet as the new enemy formation size was announced.
"Open a channel to the Flag." Luza ground out.
"Channel open." Her com officer replied quietly.
"Sir, we must withdraw."
The voice on the other end of the com let loose a stream of colorful curses. "Agreed." Luza finally heard his growling voice snarl back. For a heart wrenching moment, she had worried that his warrior heart might have overcome his common sense and reason. "General order to all ships, fall back to the rally point in the Balduk system." At least all the Klingon ships were light enough to outrun the mass of alloy rushing up behind them. Even the mobile smelter was far enough away that it would shortly exit its nearest warp field inhibitors area of effect. Although the loss of Klach D'Kel Brakt would hurt, it was after all a relatively worthless system in a strategic sense, and the only recently resettled Klingon population had survived for virtually their entire lives under Terran boot heels. They could survive being occupied by forces of the Galactic Unity until sufficient forces could be scraped together to force whatever picketing force the GU left behind out again.
The cost of the system's now failed defense had also been light, especially if one took into account the tonnage they took away from the enemy even though they took the system. The outright destruction of three ISC Battleships easily outweighed the three destroyed Vor'chas, five vaporized Chava'kals and the plethora of minor and serious wounds the ships on both sides had received. Forming up into their squadron level formations, the Klingon ships accelerated away from the remaining two Battleships, both crippled and in need of extensive repair work before they would be ready to fight again. Fortunately, none of the lighter escorts still alive mounted PPD's, and those on the surviving ISC Battleships had been to heavily damaged to be useable. It was that which allowed the Klingons to withdraw so easily.
Some Jem'Hadar and ISC Destroyers left their posts guarding the Battleships to pursue the Klingons in a vain attempt to slow them down. They were easily discouraged by the Vor'chas aft weapons batteries and by selective assault by the operational members of Luza's squadron. Her Vampires cut their impulse engines, coasting onward on momentum alone and using their bow and stern thrusters to bull themselves end for end. Now flying at slightly over full impulse tail first, their heavy forward weapons arc was again exposed to the enemy. Disruptors birthed streams of bolts down where the Klingon ships had just been. Maulers sent out lances of eye tearingly bright silver, and every time they fired, another GU ship died. Kirom even got lucky and scored a hit on one of the now EW shrouded Battleships, finishing it off in a savage blossom of white light and molten, half vaporized debris. Seeming to take the hint, the GU Destroyers threw themselves into even more wild evasion routines that curved them back towards the remaining, wounded Battleship and the onrushing Superdreadnought Battlegroup.
The Vampires and their consorts sent a token barrage after their retreating foes, then pivoted back and snapped their impulse engines back on. They had nearly rejoined formation with the mobile smelter by now, throttling back to full impulse as they fell in around it. Luza settled into her leather command chair, finally allowing herself to relax. They may have lost the system, but at least the had made the pahtk pay in blood for it.
Suddenly, a guttural alarm sounded, causing Luza's head to snap up as she pivoted her chair to face her gunnery officer.
"Contacts coming out of warp!" He shouted. "Multiple contacts!"
Almost against her will, Luza forced her eyes down to her tactical repeater. Superdreadnoughts. Dozens of them, coming out of warp all across their path, their careful organization exposing them as a carefully planned ambush. Some of them had light combat damage, hinting that they had been called in from successful combat in surrounding systems.
"Long range fire control sensors detected. I'm picking up energy spikes centered in their PPD's, their weapons are hot and ready to fire." Her gunnery officer said tersely.
"Incoming signal from the lead GU ship Captain. It's an all ships signal." Her com officer piped up
"Put it up." The screen came to life, showing the lightly smiling visage of a Dominion Vorta.
"Klingon brothers and sisters, I call on you to stand down and prepare to be boarded. There has been enough loss of life today. Do not throw your lives away in a futile effort to halt our advance. You will see that the peace, unity and acceptance of all peoples that we will bring. There is no need to oppose us. I call on you to see reason and prevent your own destruction."
Luza spat onto the deck, her leather clad hands straining their gloves as they balled into fists. "Perhaps today is a good day to die after all. Open a channel to the Flag." Her com officer entered commands into his console, then nodded to her. "What are your orders Sir?"
Second Fleet, ISS Athena, enroute to the frontlines near the Alpha/Beta Quadrant boarder
"Admiral," T'var's com officer said, "the Tempest reports that they have detected significant EW interference coming from the Davion system. Far more than could be accounted for by any natural means."
Second Fleet, the premier offensive battle fleet of the Terran Empire, had been enroute to the frontline of the Galactic Unity's advance. Once there, the ships were bound to have a significant impact on GU battle plans. 2000 Wraith upgrades and 4000 Excaliburs, along with Athena herself, composed the core of the heaviest Imperial formation ever put into space. Even with tightened spacing, the fleet was a large and ungainly when tucked into one cohesive force. It moved like a snake through slipstream, rank after rank of upgraded Wraiths, Sovereigns and Galaxies ringing the mobile shipyards, hospital ships and fast Marine transports of Second Fleet's fleet train. While they still were a little rough around the edges (only to be expected with a virtually scratch built fleet), T'var and her fellow taskforce and battlegroup CO's had instituted an in-depth, fleet wide program of battle drills and sims to hone the massive mace of Second Fleet into a razor edged sword. One of the most promising commands to emerge so far was the ISS Tempest, and as such, she had drawn duty as Second Fleet's starboardmost guard and sensor platform, scouting along Second Fleet's right flank. Her position, far out from the rest of the fleet, allowed her to see farther than any other ship.
"Does the Tempest's Captain have an idea as to what type of unnatural source was causing the interference?" T'var replied with a cocked eyebrow above one of her deep blue eyes.
So far, the GU had been dispersing their strength whenever they could. While this allowed them to attack more targets in the same amount of time, it also spread them thinner than would otherwise be the case. T'var had been tasked with exploiting the enemy's current disposition, and in the initial stages at least, Second Fleet could do exactly that with ease. If this interference proved to be what T'var suspected it was, it would give her a chance to bloody her still largely green units relatively painlessly.
"He says his tactical department is convinced that the interference is of GU ECM in origin."
"Hmm.Order the fleet to drop to impulse and reorient to formation Epsilon Four. Detach BatCru Ron 2.32 and Dest Ron 2.61 to fall back to Davion system," T'var, as her com officer before her, used the 'correct' Imperial designation for what the Klingons had once called and now called again the Klach D'Kel Brakt system, "to execute a covert long ranged sensor sweep. Commissar Augustus, if the Tempest's tactical department's hunch pans out, we may get a live fire exercise against GU targets."
T'var's personal keeper strode onto the raised platform that held her command chair. He was a short but wiry man, with the mass of tight black curls above his swarthy complexion streaked with the silver of age. Green eyes that couldn't quite mask the coldly calculating intelligence behind them from T'var's experienced gaze stared back at her. He tried his best to hide the true level of his competency from her, and a lesser judge of character may well have believed him, but not T'var. She was acutely aware of just how competent a watchdog the Empire and Section had saddled her with, and knew full well why. Her covert probes of secure databases, probes she was sure had never been uncovered (for she was still breathing and free), had long ago alerted her to Section's piqued interest in her.
Fortunately she had been too good at her job, or they were never sure enough, or a combination of the two, for Section to act on their interest. But Julius Augustus' presence on her Flag Bridge showed her that that same inaction hadn't indicated that they trusted her. Quite the opposite in fact, they had gotten crafty and saddled her with a seeming incompetent in the hopes that she would get complacent and slip up.
"And you're sure that the enemy is too weak to pose a credible threat?" His deep yet melodic voice resonated in the expansive Flag Bridge facilities.
"We will not know for certain until the recon elements report back, but I doubt that the ISC and Dominion would commit serious numbers to conquer such an unimportant Klingon world. Even when it was under Imperial control, the system's lone M-class world never boasted much population wise, and there was never much reason to colonize it more heavily because it was so far from core systems and trade lanes." T'var shook her head. "Not that even a serious enemy fleet would be sufficient to stand up to Second Fleet without significant fixed fortifications to back them up. The Davion system never possessed any, so I am confident we can overcome any opposition the GU is capable of mounting. But it is always good to be thorough, which is why I detached the scout formation to probe the system first."
"I see. Very well then Admiral. If the GU forces are as weak as you suspect, we shall engage them at your discretion."
IKV Bortas, Klach D'Kel Brakt system
White sparks cascaded down like a waterfall of light from a ruptured conduit on the bridge's roof. The Bortas shook again as a fresh volley of plasma torpedoes struck his drained shields. The main bridge was a cacophony of noise and a flurry of activity as Luza's finely tuned command crew fought their ship.
"Message from the Flag, Captain." Luza's com officer belted out over the blaring klaxons and battle damage noises. "The ISC Battleship Five is weakening and he is ordering us to finish it off."
All this over a worthless system in the back of beyond. Luza thought, for the skirmish against Galactic Unity forces was about as far away from Qo'noS as one could get in the reborn Klingon Empire. On the Bridge's wrap around displays a force of about a dozen Vor'cha's and their escorts were in a furious firefight against a mixed force of ISC and Dominion vessels. The Klingon forces were little better than a very light Taskforce, with nothing heavier than the Vor'cha Battlecruisers. Fortunately, the ISC considered this system just as much of a backwater as the Klingons did. They had only sent a lone squadron of Battleships and their escorts. Under normal circumstances, this would have been more than sufficient to either burn the Vor'cha's and their escorts from space should they choose to stand, or force them to withdraw if they wouldn't.
But fortunately for citizens of the Klach D'Kel Brakt system, the Klingon High Command had dispatched Luza's squadron of Vampire's here, escorting a titanic mobile smelter that was supposed to break down the system's mineral rich asteroid belt into vitally needed supplies for the shipyards near Qo'noS. Replicators could reconstitute nearly anything into virtually anything one needed. But for certain elements and compounds, it was more efficient energy and time wise to harvest them the old fashioned way by taking them directly from their natural sources. Luza's squadron's presence tilted the odds ever so slightly in the system defender's favor.
But even that would have been insufficient to stop the Galactic Union forces given the extended range of their PPD and their STL speed advantage. But the mobile smelter's Captain had volunteered to act as bait to lure the GU forces in close enough that they could be targeted by the Klingon's shorter ranged weapons. It was a truly selfless act, one worthy of song, for if the battle failed to pan out in the Klingon's favor, the smelter's captain would go down with his ship rather than surrender it to the GU. With the mammoth smelter presenting a near impossibly fat target, the GU forces had set off after it and the EW drones operating in concert with it. With them pretending to be the smelter's escorting warships, the GU had closed steadily, unaware that the real warships were lying doggo under their passive stealth systems nearly directly in their path.
The initial strikes had hammered the GU Battleships hard, the Klingon vessels erupting into action from their hidden positions with guns blazing. They had even managed to get in under the GU's PPD minimum range, and although the potent phasers and plasma torpedo batteries the ISC ships housed spat back answering volleys of their own, two were quickly cut down to size by the Vampire's Maulers. After that, the two opposing formations actually interpenetrated one another and combat devolved into a swirling melee of frantically maneuvering capital ships as precise fleet formation became a detriment rather than an asset.
"Gunnery, target Battleship Five." Luza ordered. "Order the Kirom and the Sompek to attack as well on their next passes." As she finished, her command shuddered again as a fresh volley of phased polaron beams slammed into his shields as the Jem'Hadar attack craft struggled to down her weakening shields. With a final torrent of emerald bolts, the Bortas broke off pursuit of the now expanding cloud of wreckage that had once been a Jem'Hadar attack craft to begin a run against the Battleship. Or rather the quartet of Battleships, as the ISC warship had deployed three EW drones and all were swarming in helix patterns around their base course.
Streams of brilliant green splinters of energy spat from their emplacements, connecting with the false signatures as well as the actual Battleship. The EW drones faked battle damage quite well, but the range was far to short for the deception to fool Luza's sensors. Bortas' CIC near instantly sent targeting updates to the rest of the Klingon ships, letting them know which ship was the true target.
Phaser and polaron beams cris-crossed with disruptors on the forward viewer, creating a cacophony of visual stimuli, but Luza tuned it all out. Her attention was focused on the soon to be dead Battleship. He was maneuvering with ever erg of impulse speed he could get. As maneuverable as Klingon designs were, the ISC Battleship was noticeably fleeter on the helm than something his size had any right to be.
"Mauler charged!" Her weapons officer shouted across the orange hued bridge
"Fire!" Luza replied at once, her upraised, leather gloved fist closing tightly.
A lance of silver appeared between her command and her target. It blew threw the Battleship's weakened aft shields and bulled forcefully through the hull to explode out the other side. Even as he began to spiral away from the point of attack, a fresh assault clobbered him from his ventral side as the Kirom and the Sompek opened up with shimmering silver swords of their own, wreaking vengeance down on the GU for daring to attack a Klingon world. What had once been a proud ISC Battleship shattered as secondary explosions consumed what little remained of her hull in brilliant white hot fireballs.
"Captain!" a shocked cry came from across Bortas' bridge, causing Luza's head to snap towards her gunnery officer. "Sensors show another Galactic Unity force dropping out of warp! They will be in PPD range of our position in eighty seconds!"
"Bearing and strength!" Luza snapped.
"186 mark 124. A minimum of one wing of Superdreadnoughts and approximately two dozen lesser vessels as escort."
The bridge went deathly quiet as the new enemy formation size was announced.
"Open a channel to the Flag." Luza ground out.
"Channel open." Her com officer replied quietly.
"Sir, we must withdraw."
The voice on the other end of the com let loose a stream of colorful curses. "Agreed." Luza finally heard his growling voice snarl back. For a heart wrenching moment, she had worried that his warrior heart might have overcome his common sense and reason. "General order to all ships, fall back to the rally point in the Balduk system." At least all the Klingon ships were light enough to outrun the mass of alloy rushing up behind them. Even the mobile smelter was far enough away that it would shortly exit its nearest warp field inhibitors area of effect. Although the loss of Klach D'Kel Brakt would hurt, it was after all a relatively worthless system in a strategic sense, and the only recently resettled Klingon population had survived for virtually their entire lives under Terran boot heels. They could survive being occupied by forces of the Galactic Unity until sufficient forces could be scraped together to force whatever picketing force the GU left behind out again.
The cost of the system's now failed defense had also been light, especially if one took into account the tonnage they took away from the enemy even though they took the system. The outright destruction of three ISC Battleships easily outweighed the three destroyed Vor'chas, five vaporized Chava'kals and the plethora of minor and serious wounds the ships on both sides had received. Forming up into their squadron level formations, the Klingon ships accelerated away from the remaining two Battleships, both crippled and in need of extensive repair work before they would be ready to fight again. Fortunately, none of the lighter escorts still alive mounted PPD's, and those on the surviving ISC Battleships had been to heavily damaged to be useable. It was that which allowed the Klingons to withdraw so easily.
Some Jem'Hadar and ISC Destroyers left their posts guarding the Battleships to pursue the Klingons in a vain attempt to slow them down. They were easily discouraged by the Vor'chas aft weapons batteries and by selective assault by the operational members of Luza's squadron. Her Vampires cut their impulse engines, coasting onward on momentum alone and using their bow and stern thrusters to bull themselves end for end. Now flying at slightly over full impulse tail first, their heavy forward weapons arc was again exposed to the enemy. Disruptors birthed streams of bolts down where the Klingon ships had just been. Maulers sent out lances of eye tearingly bright silver, and every time they fired, another GU ship died. Kirom even got lucky and scored a hit on one of the now EW shrouded Battleships, finishing it off in a savage blossom of white light and molten, half vaporized debris. Seeming to take the hint, the GU Destroyers threw themselves into even more wild evasion routines that curved them back towards the remaining, wounded Battleship and the onrushing Superdreadnought Battlegroup.
The Vampires and their consorts sent a token barrage after their retreating foes, then pivoted back and snapped their impulse engines back on. They had nearly rejoined formation with the mobile smelter by now, throttling back to full impulse as they fell in around it. Luza settled into her leather command chair, finally allowing herself to relax. They may have lost the system, but at least the had made the pahtk pay in blood for it.
Suddenly, a guttural alarm sounded, causing Luza's head to snap up as she pivoted her chair to face her gunnery officer.
"Contacts coming out of warp!" He shouted. "Multiple contacts!"
Almost against her will, Luza forced her eyes down to her tactical repeater. Superdreadnoughts. Dozens of them, coming out of warp all across their path, their careful organization exposing them as a carefully planned ambush. Some of them had light combat damage, hinting that they had been called in from successful combat in surrounding systems.
"Long range fire control sensors detected. I'm picking up energy spikes centered in their PPD's, their weapons are hot and ready to fire." Her gunnery officer said tersely.
"Incoming signal from the lead GU ship Captain. It's an all ships signal." Her com officer piped up
"Put it up." The screen came to life, showing the lightly smiling visage of a Dominion Vorta.
"Klingon brothers and sisters, I call on you to stand down and prepare to be boarded. There has been enough loss of life today. Do not throw your lives away in a futile effort to halt our advance. You will see that the peace, unity and acceptance of all peoples that we will bring. There is no need to oppose us. I call on you to see reason and prevent your own destruction."
Luza spat onto the deck, her leather clad hands straining their gloves as they balled into fists. "Perhaps today is a good day to die after all. Open a channel to the Flag." Her com officer entered commands into his console, then nodded to her. "What are your orders Sir?"
Second Fleet, ISS Athena, enroute to the frontlines near the Alpha/Beta Quadrant boarder
"Admiral," T'var's com officer said, "the Tempest reports that they have detected significant EW interference coming from the Davion system. Far more than could be accounted for by any natural means."
Second Fleet, the premier offensive battle fleet of the Terran Empire, had been enroute to the frontline of the Galactic Unity's advance. Once there, the ships were bound to have a significant impact on GU battle plans. 2000 Wraith upgrades and 4000 Excaliburs, along with Athena herself, composed the core of the heaviest Imperial formation ever put into space. Even with tightened spacing, the fleet was a large and ungainly when tucked into one cohesive force. It moved like a snake through slipstream, rank after rank of upgraded Wraiths, Sovereigns and Galaxies ringing the mobile shipyards, hospital ships and fast Marine transports of Second Fleet's fleet train. While they still were a little rough around the edges (only to be expected with a virtually scratch built fleet), T'var and her fellow taskforce and battlegroup CO's had instituted an in-depth, fleet wide program of battle drills and sims to hone the massive mace of Second Fleet into a razor edged sword. One of the most promising commands to emerge so far was the ISS Tempest, and as such, she had drawn duty as Second Fleet's starboardmost guard and sensor platform, scouting along Second Fleet's right flank. Her position, far out from the rest of the fleet, allowed her to see farther than any other ship.
"Does the Tempest's Captain have an idea as to what type of unnatural source was causing the interference?" T'var replied with a cocked eyebrow above one of her deep blue eyes.
So far, the GU had been dispersing their strength whenever they could. While this allowed them to attack more targets in the same amount of time, it also spread them thinner than would otherwise be the case. T'var had been tasked with exploiting the enemy's current disposition, and in the initial stages at least, Second Fleet could do exactly that with ease. If this interference proved to be what T'var suspected it was, it would give her a chance to bloody her still largely green units relatively painlessly.
"He says his tactical department is convinced that the interference is of GU ECM in origin."
"Hmm.Order the fleet to drop to impulse and reorient to formation Epsilon Four. Detach BatCru Ron 2.32 and Dest Ron 2.61 to fall back to Davion system," T'var, as her com officer before her, used the 'correct' Imperial designation for what the Klingons had once called and now called again the Klach D'Kel Brakt system, "to execute a covert long ranged sensor sweep. Commissar Augustus, if the Tempest's tactical department's hunch pans out, we may get a live fire exercise against GU targets."
T'var's personal keeper strode onto the raised platform that held her command chair. He was a short but wiry man, with the mass of tight black curls above his swarthy complexion streaked with the silver of age. Green eyes that couldn't quite mask the coldly calculating intelligence behind them from T'var's experienced gaze stared back at her. He tried his best to hide the true level of his competency from her, and a lesser judge of character may well have believed him, but not T'var. She was acutely aware of just how competent a watchdog the Empire and Section had saddled her with, and knew full well why. Her covert probes of secure databases, probes she was sure had never been uncovered (for she was still breathing and free), had long ago alerted her to Section's piqued interest in her.
Fortunately she had been too good at her job, or they were never sure enough, or a combination of the two, for Section to act on their interest. But Julius Augustus' presence on her Flag Bridge showed her that that same inaction hadn't indicated that they trusted her. Quite the opposite in fact, they had gotten crafty and saddled her with a seeming incompetent in the hopes that she would get complacent and slip up.
"And you're sure that the enemy is too weak to pose a credible threat?" His deep yet melodic voice resonated in the expansive Flag Bridge facilities.
"We will not know for certain until the recon elements report back, but I doubt that the ISC and Dominion would commit serious numbers to conquer such an unimportant Klingon world. Even when it was under Imperial control, the system's lone M-class world never boasted much population wise, and there was never much reason to colonize it more heavily because it was so far from core systems and trade lanes." T'var shook her head. "Not that even a serious enemy fleet would be sufficient to stand up to Second Fleet without significant fixed fortifications to back them up. The Davion system never possessed any, so I am confident we can overcome any opposition the GU is capable of mounting. But it is always good to be thorough, which is why I detached the scout formation to probe the system first."
"I see. Very well then Admiral. If the GU forces are as weak as you suspect, we shall engage them at your discretion."