Chapter 7 - The Jem Hadar

After 5 minutes, it was obvious that the Andromeda was more than a match for the attacking vessels. As Sisko watched the main screen in ops, another Jem Hadar battle cruiser was destroyed by multiple hits from the Andromeda. Silently, he walked to a vacant terminal and called up sensor data on the Andromeda's weapons. They were using a sort of missile which travelled a lot quicker than federation based torpedo's, with a greater range and a lot more destructive. Incoming fire was either being ignored or in the case of torpedo's intercepted by some sort of mid ranged laser's

Sisko returned to his original position in the centre of ops when he felt vibrations through the deck. Turning to one of ops secondary personal. " Status" he queries.

" Andromeda has disabled or destroyed 50 % of the vessels in the main body. However, in order to continue the engagement they are being drawn further away from the station by the Jem Hadar. "

The technician pauses before continuing

"The 15 vessels that were flanking her have been engaged by some sort of small one man fighters. However 5 attack ships have broken away and we are attempting to hold them at bay with the long range torpedo salvo's, they are currently out of phaser range "

" The Defiant and Rotarran have destroyed two enemy vessels but the Defiant is in trouble " before she came continue, however, the station is rocked by a series of tremendous explosions.

" Lead battleship has entered range and opened fire " Kira then interrupts " That hurt us really badly, phaser's are off line, and we have lost three torpedo launchers. We have no weapons left on that side of the station "

" Chief, I need those shields " Sisko calls, looking at the engineering station. Dax and O'Brien are frantically trying to get the stations defences working. Harper stands behind them, still trying to undersatnd the technology.

" Not going to happen any time soon sir " O'Brien calls, without looking up.

The blast had blown some panels off the wall behind him revealing circuitry, but the Chief was to busy to pay much attention. Harper looked closer. His up link cable would attach to it, and if the problem was a software one he would be able to activate the defence shields instantly. The only question was he figured , and he had nobody to ask, would DS9's computer be complex enough able to receive his brainwave's without killing him ?

Suddenly Dylan grabs Sisko's arm and points to the main screen " What are those ?"

Sisko looks at the screen, and then instantly activates his communicator

" Sisko to Odo "

"Odo hear "

" We have incoming boarding pods, they should hit the station in 30 seconds "

" Understood "

" Captain the vessels engaging the Andromeda are retreating into warp, the Andromeda is letting them go and moving to assist the Defiant and Rotarran. The Rotarran is in danger of shield failure, they have been flying cover for the Defiant, however, they only have one Jem Hadar left, but she is undamaged " Kira reports

The station is rocked again, this time not by weapons fire but by the boarding pods breaching the hull, and then secondary alarms go, indicating a loss of atmosphere.

**************************************************************************** *********

" Odo to Sisko "

" Go ahead "

" Sir the Dominion troops are steadily pushing us backwards. They had self sealing pods which sealed the breach. I have lost 18 of my men, with 25 more injured. We are not going to hold them much longer "

" Very well ... fall back to the " Sisko begins to order Odo

" Captain, where is the fighting " Dylan asks as he and Rommie walk to towards the turbolift

" It started in upper pylon three, but is spreading towards the habitat ring " Sisko replies " Why, where do you think your going ?"

" To help, we are not being much use here" Hunt says as he deploys his force lance, Rommie draws her own, but not deploying it. " Harper, if things don't go well, get Trance and head for the Maru "

" Sure boss " harper says absently, still focusing on the Stations engineering technology.

As Hunt and Rommie descend out of view Sisko turns his attention back too assessing the tactical situation outside

The main attack force has been destroyed by the Andromeda. The Rotarran was heading back towards the station, a lot slower than it really should be, indicating the amount of damaged it had taken. The Defiant was being towed by two slip fighters, while the Andromeda was heading back towards the last remaining group of enemy warships, which were no longer attacking the defenceless station. Instead, he realised they were focusing on a squadron of small fighters from the Andromeda.

Sisko watched, fascinated, as three of the small vessels made a run on a Dominion battleship, dodge all of the fire power the dominion vessel could release before strafing it. Looking at the tactical readout, its shields fell from 45 % strength down to 15 %.

In an effort to avoid the slip fighters, however, the last remaining Jem Hadar were getting closer and closer to the station. As Sisko realised that that section still had operational weapons, the station let lose a barrage of torpedo's straight at the battleship Sisko had just been monitoring, destroying it. Sisko looked across the room at the weapons console, only to find Kira grinning to herself, but she kept focused on the displays whole hearted.

The remaining Dominion vessels suddenly turned and fled towards the Bajoran sun, with the Andromeda taking pursuit. A quick scan of the Andromeda as it flew past the station revealed numerous weapon impacts scarring the hull, but no real obvious sighs of damage. As the Andromeda was just entering weapons range the surviving Dominion vessels vanished into warp. The Andromeda slowed and turned back towards the station

" Incoming hail from the Andromeda " Kira reported

Suddenly Beka Valantine's face appeared on the screen.

" That's taken care of them." In the background Tyr can be seen still staring at the readouts in front of him, but there is otherwise no signs that the Andromeda has just emerged from Battle " I'm sending some slip fighters to tow the Klingon vessel back to the station, it appears that their drives have failed. Andromeda will take a defensive orbit. "

" Agreed " Sisko replies, not having even noticed Martok's vessels engines have failed. " And thank you. Deep Space 9, out "

Sisko then turns and heads towards the weapons locker. He takes three phasers out. Passes one to Kira, one to Dax and then says

" Everyone not helping the chief grab a phaser, we have our station to reclaim "

**************************************************************************** *********

Odo surveyed the situation with mounting horror as he was forced to retreat again, round another corner. In doing so, it left 3 of his squad trapped with no means of retreat.

The boarding party was completely comprised of dominion Jem Hadar soldiers. They were completely fearless, taking risks that their fanatic loyalty to their gods allowed them to, while his more veteran forces were being picked off one by one. Suddenly the lift behind him opened and Dylan and Rommie emerged.

" Mr Odo, " Dylan greets, as he exits the lift " I understand you have some uninvited guests ?"

Before Odo can reply, he turns to Rommie, mouths a silent take care and then turns towards the sounds of gunfire. Rommie barges straight past them both and with an incredible burst of speed goes flying round the corner, and activates her AG field, making her a lot more manoeuvrable in the tight confines of the corridor. She then literally runs down the corridor, passes the three DS 9 security men and meets the first Jem Hadar.

One of the reasons that the DS9 forces were having so much difficulty with the Jem Hadar, was due to the fact that they were using their stealth shields. Rommie, however could detect the energy from the shields, which simply made them easy targets, since they thought that they were undetectable to the naked eye. She made her way further down the passageway leaving a trail of corpses in her wake.

**************************************************************************** *********

Sisko emerged from the same lift to find Odo and Dylan just rounding the corner. They were exchanging fire with some Jem Hadar they had managed to corner in side room. What really shocked Sisko was the fact that Odo was wielding a weapon, something the changeling had never done before.

As he surveyed the passageway in front of him, he inwardly cringed. The passageway was being used as tempory place for DS9' s wounded. He also knew that the medics were doing the best that they could, but he cursed inwardly at the fact that Bashir was once again a captive of the Dominion.

Suddenly, Sisko saw Hunt dive head first into the room, as he rolled the remaining Jem Hadar leaned out from behind his cover to shoot Dylan who was frantically rolling towards the nearest cover, but Odo was ready and shot the solider straight in the chest.

Hunt reappeared and then followed Odo down a corridor, in pursuit of Rommie. He had got only a couple of paces out the room when a loud explosion was heard.

Sisko and Kira set off following Odo and Hunt, who were now running down the corridor with a new sense of urgency. As he rounded the corner he was not prepared for what he saw. Jem Hadar corpses litter the hallway. Jem Hadar bodies lay a funny angle, Ketrasel white tubes had been ripped out. Some bodies had missing limbs, some were decapitated. Sisko, Odo and Hunt slowly made their way past the carnage.

" My god, " breathed Sisko, who was still under the impression that Rommie was human, not an avatar " How the hell did she do this? "

A minute later they came upon a section of the corridor that was completely black, no lights were working for at least 20 meters. Sisko activates a torch on his phaser rifle and then flinched at the devastation. The entire corridor looked like a grenade had gone of while surrounded by 20 Jem Hadar. The insides of the Jem Hadar covered the wall, floor, and ceiling.

Hunt says quietly,

"it looks like a force lance on overload did this, to resort to this means the fighting had been reduced to hand to hand combat. "

"Captain, it looks like all remaining Jem Hadar have been eliminated, their were only 85 in the boarding party, and I'm not reading any more on the station " Odo said quietly.

Suddenly a silhouetted figure walks towards them, Hunt and Odo raise their weapons, prepared to open fire. As Sisko raises his flashlight it reveals the figure of Rommie walking towards them. She is covered in grime, and, he realised, Jem Hadar guts. Her left arm hung limp, one side of her face is black, from the looks of it from a Jem Hadar weapon had been fired at close range. Suddenly she slips and begins to fall, only to be caught by Odo.

"Captain, area is clear of enemy solider's." Rommie reports " Captain Sisko, I'm sorry about the mess, but they were quite annoyingly persistent "

" That's ok " Sisko replies, smiling " I won't send you the cleaning bill "

Rommie then turns to Dylan. It's suddenly dawns on Dylan that something is very wrong with Rommie. He looks directly at her face, Rommie looks straight past him, and realises with a start them Rommie is not responding to his movements.

" Rommie, what's wrong? "

" I think I was to close to the explosion. I believe... that ...it .has....." Rommie then goes still, not being able to finish her last sentence.

**************************************************************************** *****

On board the Andromeda

Beka walks onto the command deck, carrying two bottles of water. She hands one of them to Tyr, before she takes a sip out of her own.

" Andromeda " she calls

" Yes Beka " the ship instantly replies, appearing in holographic form.

" Status of the station, have they contained the boarding party ?"

" Accessing " came the reply.

"Unable to connect with my avatar "

At this announcement Tyr looks up, Beka becomes concerned, she had grown quite fond of the avatar.

" Accessing "

" Unable to connect "

" Establish a comm link to Dylan " Tyr commanded

There's a moments pause.

" He's not responding "

" Get Harper "

**************************************************************************** ****************

Harper sat on the deck in ops, he had finally figured out the basic principles of the operating system of DS 9's computer, typically after the battle had finished he thought to himself.

In the end he had decided against trying to interface with it. He was chatting to Chief O'Brien, who had the upper half his body in a access point, still trying to repair DS 9's defences. Suddenly Harper drops the conversation, and starts talking to Tyr. O'Brien listens, intrigued

" They went to assist with the boarding party "

" About 10 minutes ago..... Hang on, let me try "

" Dylan this is Harper .... Romm Doll, this is Harper "

" I can't get them either....... I'm going, Harper out "

" Chief, Where was the station boarded ? "

" Habitat ring, why ... here, wait a bloody minute " He calls after Harper disappears from view after jumping into the Turbo lift.

**************************************************************************** ***********

Harper emerges from the turbo lift, and as he steps out he is horrified at the scenes of carnage. He starts running down the corridor, stepping over corpses when he sees a cluster of people stood and Dylan on his knees in front of somebody. As Harper gets near he realises that Rommie is laying on the floor in the middle of the gathering.

He barrels his way through the crowd, knocking two of the security force aside and drops to his knees next to Rommie. He face takes on look a look of horror as he realises the amount of damage that Rommie had sustained.

"Not good" is the first thought that runs through his brain. There is a section at the side of her head that was hanging by a thread. Literally, it was a strand of her hair, peering inside her head, Harper sees massive internal damage, obviously caused by an impact from a sharp object.

" Dylan ? " He shakes him " Dylan what happened here? "

" When we got to this level, there were so many Jem Hadar, Rommie stopped the entire boarding party by herself " Dylan says, not really speaking to Harper, but more to himself.

" We have to get her back to the Andromeda " Harper states, looking round for help. He had never seen Dylan behave like this and it worried him.

Odo, upon hearing this, simply picks her up carefully because of her head, and starts carrying her to the Maru's docking berth.

" Odo" Sisko says, offering to help carry the load.

" Thats a'right Captain. She saved most of my people, probably the station, from the Jem Hadar. The least I can do is carry her now. " Harper falls to the back of the procession and activates his communicator.

" Beka, its Harper. We have a problem, its Rommie "

" What do you mean it's Rommie ? " came the reply, concern in Beka's voice obvious.

" I'm not sure if I can fix her this time. She's taken one hell of a beating. "

As the group approach the docking bay, Harper darts straight for the cockpit of the Maru and begins to power the ship up.

Odo puts Rommie down on one of the small sofa's in the ships small lounge, but remains with her.

" Captain Hunt " Sisko says addressing the Andromeda's captain from the airlock. " Would you mind if Odo and Dax accompany you ? "

" Whatever " came the faint reply as Dylan looked at Rommie.

The DS 9 crew had to jump back into the station as Harper, without warning, started to close the airlock.

" Hurry, Harper, Hurry " Dylan said watching the younger man as they left the station for the Andromeda.