CHAPTER TWO
Riffel was glad to slip into the cylindrical tank in the middle of Communications Central. The walk from the Shuttlebay had dried him up quite a bit, so he spent the first few minutes just flipping around in the tank. All around him, lieutenant junior grades, ensigns and non-commissioned officers were pressing buttons and running scans. They were all wearing earpieces in accordance with protocol, but they were talking out loud themselves as well. The tank muffled the cacophony, but to Riffel it was still a dulcet symphony of these humanoid voices.
Just then, his deputy, Lieutenant Boyd, approached the tank. "Welcome back, sir," she greeted him.
"Good to be here, Miss Boyd," said the Aquatic. "How were things while I was away?"
"Not bad. The frequency analysers went offline, but Ensign J'nar got them back. He's a great guy, that Vulcan. For a former Federation officer, he's very co-operative. He works well with the rest of the crew, and sometimes I think he shows a sliver of emotion." Both lieutenants regarded the young ensign as he tapped away at his control panel.
Their musings were interrupted, however, by a bleeping from one of the small panels in the tank. Riffel swam over to respond. It was the little box that acted as his combadge, since he didn't wear a uniform. "Riffel here."
The voice of Captain Mordecai Olchab, the first human/Trill hybrid to host a symbiont, came in over the comm link. "Lieutenant, we need you up here right now."
Riffel started. "Okay, just let me get my mask–"
"No time," said the Captain urgently. "Prepare for a site-to-site transport."
The next thing Riffel knew, his tank on the Discovery's bridge was materializing around him. To his right were a multitude of screens, each depicting a comm frequency of some sort. To his left was the rest of the bridge. He could see Fligi at one of the four science stations at the back of the room, tapping at a display titled "Subspace Vacuole Simulation." This was a Xindi technology that both the Federation and the Coalition had been experimenting with. Obviously, the Discovery was planning to try a test run.
The captain approached the tank anxiously, his long black hair making a striking contrast to the bright red uniform he was wearing. "Lieutenant, good to see you. Look, we need you to hang about here for the duration of the battle we're heading into. I have to know what those two ships are saying to one another. Comms responsibilities are at your station, not Ops, and I want the frequencies we use to contact Voyager and the Evangeline as densely coded as Species 8472's DNA, is that clear?"
"Crystal, sir," said the Xindi, as he went about coming up with an elaborate code based on a Vulcan lute concerto, which Ensign J'nar had introduced him to. It amused Riffel to base codes on obscure pieces of music. Suddenly, a hailing light bleeped on the behemoth interface grid that stretched out on the front wall of the tank.
"Captain Olchab, the Evangeline is hailing us. Voyager's on a matching channel."
"Give me picture-in-picture on the main viewer," said the Trill. "Let's see what we want to be doing."
On the main viewer and on two of Riffel's screens, the faces of Admiral McKenzie and Captain Bhea Dax appeared. The Admiral spoke first.
"Let's not beat about the bush, Captains. You both know what to do. You will jointly attack both the Sparrowhawk and the Anubis, while the Evangeline will tackle the Enterprise. It won't be easy, but we'll show those militant goons what we're made of." A chorus of "hear, hear" s erupted on all three bridges, as Admiral McKenzie terminated the link. Captain Dax's grinning visage filled the main viewer.
"So, Olchab. What do you make of this?" asked the Trill. "I've never seen such an evenly matched pair of attack groups in all my lives, even with Jadzia and Ezri in the Dominion War."
"Well, we all know who triumphed there," said Olchab, grinning. "It was the people who had Dax on their side!"
The other Trill gave a tinkling laugh. "Oh, stop it," she giggled, and broke the link.
Olchab squared his shoulders and sat down. It was barely ten seconds before the operations officer said, "Sir, the Enterprise-G and the Sparrowhawk are in visual range."
"Red alert, on screen," commanded the first officer, a short Bajoran woman named Okra. The two ships winked onto the main screen. The Enterprise, Avatar-class (like the Evangeline) was a massive battleship, with four nacelles behind it and a niche in the primary hull for the deflector, like the old Nova-class science vessels. The Sparrowhawk was a smaller, sleeker destroyer, with only two nacelles and a more conventional frame, except that the primary hull was actually lower than the nacelles, like the very first Starfleet vessel to be commissioned, the Enterprise NX-01.
"Helm, take is closer to the Sparrowhawk. Mister Riffel, keep a voice channel with Voyager at all times. Where the hell's the Anubis?" The Captain tapped his foot impatiently, something the symbiont's last host, a doctor whom they'd all met when he had passed his symbiont on to Mordecai, had done when he was nervous. Commander Okra stood up to try to calm him down.
"I expect it hasn't decloaked yet, sir," she soothed. The Captain nodded, just as Dax's voice came over the comm link.
"Alright, Olchab. Are you up for Tactical Pattern Sisko Lambda Seven?" she asked.
"As ready as I'll ever be," muttered Mordecai, and signalled the conn officer to execute the pattern. "Mister Nolgen, load quantum torpedo tubes six through ten, and positron missile launchers three and five," he told the tactical officer. "Activate metaphasic shield. Ready forward phase de- atomizers. Fire on my mark."
As Voyager and the Discovery both swooped in, the Sparrowhawk turned herself around and abruptly fired nucleon beams at the two ships. "Shields at ninety-six per cent," barked the tactical officer, "and Voyager's are at ninety-three."
"They're just warming up," said the captain grimly. The Sparrowhawk swooped around, and fired a full spread of quark torpedoes at the Discovery. (Note: Quark torpedoes are a form of antimatter explosive four times more powerful than a quantum torpedo.)
"Shields at sixty-one per cent!" shouted Nolgen, just as Voyager fired a spread of positron missiles. (Note: These advanced fusion explosives are about half as effective as a quark torpedo.)
The Sparrowhawk went in a huge loop away from the ship, exchanged a little fire with the Evangeline, which was going head-on with the Enterprise a short distance away, and came right back round. Voyager and the Discovery then pounded it with phase de-atomizers, taking the shields down a little further. Then, just as the morale of the two bridge crews started to increase, a smaller ship materialized right on top of Voyager. Its registry read, "USS Anubis NCC 112786."
It took Voyager's crew a few seconds to react, during which the Anubis had already knocked their shields down to forty per cent. After what seemed like an eternity, Voyager went belly-up and used her ventral de-atomizers to cut into the Anubis' metaphasic shield. Protecting her now vulnerable belly, Anubis twirled like a ballerina and zoomed toward the Discovery. Hoarsely, Captain Olchab shouted, "Fire quantum cannons!"
The two large and powerful energy weapons on Discovery's dorsal hull exploded into life, expelling huge balls of white-hot superplasma right into the face of the Anubis. Voyager followed suit with her far more powerful array, blazing at the Sparrowhawk, which in turn zoomed out of the way. "We can't do that again for a bit," said the tactical officer. "They'll need some time to cool down."
In fact, the destroyer kept going, until it reached the Evangeline and the Enterprise, who were still in something of a stalemate. Voyager barrelled after it, racing pell-mell toward the new fray. The Anubis, however, stayed with the Discovery. The two ships circled one another, like cats. Then the much faster Anubis dropped a few quark torpedoes right in the path of the Discovery. "Shields at twenty per cent!" shouted the now-hysterical Lieutenant Nolgen.
Commander Okra pointed wildly at the screen and shouted, "Positron torpedoes, full spread!" The missiles exploded when they came into contact with the Anubis' shield grid. Okra smacked her forehead.
"The bastards inverted it!" she cried. "Right, well this should help us. Quick, Mister Nolgen, get some de-atomizer blasts in."
Two glittering subatomic energy beams blasted right past the shield grid of the Anubis, which had been specially modified to repel solid objects – but let energy weapons past. Before the crew could switch it back to normal, the Discovery's de-atomizers had disintegrated the aft half of the starboard nacelle. Crippled, the Anubis suddenly shimmered out of sight. She had gone under cloak.
The entire bridge crew of the Discovery breathed out. Captain Olchab reluctantly ordered the ops officer to send out an ionic de-cloaking pulse, which failed to reveal the Anubis. "They must have gone to warp," said Okra. Mordecai shook his head.
"I'm not so sure we've seen the back of them." He sat down. "Helm, bring us about and pull us into the fray. We want to give Voyager and the Evangeline a helping hand."
As the Discovery pulled herself about, Captain Dax came in over the comm link. "Discovery, this is Voyager. Please assist. Shields have failed, and the Evangeline is losing power too."
"Charge quantum cannons," ordered Mordecai. "Target the Enterprise and fire."
The renewed plasma weapons burst forth again, slamming their cosmic fireballs into the shields of the battleship. Meanwhile, Voyager backed off, but the Sparrowhawk chased her in and out of the nacelles of the two larger battleships.
"Now would be a very good time to help," Captain Dax screamed, as three simultaneous quantum blasts hit Voyager's tail end. In a desperate bid to distract the Sparrowhawk, Olchab ordered the conn officer to fly right between her nacelles. Everyone held his or her breath as this manoeuvre was executed – but the ensign at conn pulled it off, and was even given a "well done" by Commander Okra, a rare achievement. The general relief was short- lived, however, as the quantum cannons on Sparrowhawk's dorsal hull fired straight up at the ill-prepared Discovery. The blast rocked the ship.
"Shields down!" reported a frantic Nolgen. "Hull breach imminent on Q- Deck."
Riffel looked at the reports flooding in on his screens. "Injuries reported on all decks. Fires are breaking out in engineering and in the minor armoury on F-Deck." Another blast rocked the ship.
"Alright," said Mordecai. "Commander Fligi, open up a subspace vacuole to the nearest system on our side, which I believe is the H'nori Colony?"
"Yes sir," said the Andorian, and keyed in a sequence. An ethereal glowing energy portal opened in front of the ship, and it barrelled through, with the Voyager tumbling after.
Riffel was glad to slip into the cylindrical tank in the middle of Communications Central. The walk from the Shuttlebay had dried him up quite a bit, so he spent the first few minutes just flipping around in the tank. All around him, lieutenant junior grades, ensigns and non-commissioned officers were pressing buttons and running scans. They were all wearing earpieces in accordance with protocol, but they were talking out loud themselves as well. The tank muffled the cacophony, but to Riffel it was still a dulcet symphony of these humanoid voices.
Just then, his deputy, Lieutenant Boyd, approached the tank. "Welcome back, sir," she greeted him.
"Good to be here, Miss Boyd," said the Aquatic. "How were things while I was away?"
"Not bad. The frequency analysers went offline, but Ensign J'nar got them back. He's a great guy, that Vulcan. For a former Federation officer, he's very co-operative. He works well with the rest of the crew, and sometimes I think he shows a sliver of emotion." Both lieutenants regarded the young ensign as he tapped away at his control panel.
Their musings were interrupted, however, by a bleeping from one of the small panels in the tank. Riffel swam over to respond. It was the little box that acted as his combadge, since he didn't wear a uniform. "Riffel here."
The voice of Captain Mordecai Olchab, the first human/Trill hybrid to host a symbiont, came in over the comm link. "Lieutenant, we need you up here right now."
Riffel started. "Okay, just let me get my mask–"
"No time," said the Captain urgently. "Prepare for a site-to-site transport."
The next thing Riffel knew, his tank on the Discovery's bridge was materializing around him. To his right were a multitude of screens, each depicting a comm frequency of some sort. To his left was the rest of the bridge. He could see Fligi at one of the four science stations at the back of the room, tapping at a display titled "Subspace Vacuole Simulation." This was a Xindi technology that both the Federation and the Coalition had been experimenting with. Obviously, the Discovery was planning to try a test run.
The captain approached the tank anxiously, his long black hair making a striking contrast to the bright red uniform he was wearing. "Lieutenant, good to see you. Look, we need you to hang about here for the duration of the battle we're heading into. I have to know what those two ships are saying to one another. Comms responsibilities are at your station, not Ops, and I want the frequencies we use to contact Voyager and the Evangeline as densely coded as Species 8472's DNA, is that clear?"
"Crystal, sir," said the Xindi, as he went about coming up with an elaborate code based on a Vulcan lute concerto, which Ensign J'nar had introduced him to. It amused Riffel to base codes on obscure pieces of music. Suddenly, a hailing light bleeped on the behemoth interface grid that stretched out on the front wall of the tank.
"Captain Olchab, the Evangeline is hailing us. Voyager's on a matching channel."
"Give me picture-in-picture on the main viewer," said the Trill. "Let's see what we want to be doing."
On the main viewer and on two of Riffel's screens, the faces of Admiral McKenzie and Captain Bhea Dax appeared. The Admiral spoke first.
"Let's not beat about the bush, Captains. You both know what to do. You will jointly attack both the Sparrowhawk and the Anubis, while the Evangeline will tackle the Enterprise. It won't be easy, but we'll show those militant goons what we're made of." A chorus of "hear, hear" s erupted on all three bridges, as Admiral McKenzie terminated the link. Captain Dax's grinning visage filled the main viewer.
"So, Olchab. What do you make of this?" asked the Trill. "I've never seen such an evenly matched pair of attack groups in all my lives, even with Jadzia and Ezri in the Dominion War."
"Well, we all know who triumphed there," said Olchab, grinning. "It was the people who had Dax on their side!"
The other Trill gave a tinkling laugh. "Oh, stop it," she giggled, and broke the link.
Olchab squared his shoulders and sat down. It was barely ten seconds before the operations officer said, "Sir, the Enterprise-G and the Sparrowhawk are in visual range."
"Red alert, on screen," commanded the first officer, a short Bajoran woman named Okra. The two ships winked onto the main screen. The Enterprise, Avatar-class (like the Evangeline) was a massive battleship, with four nacelles behind it and a niche in the primary hull for the deflector, like the old Nova-class science vessels. The Sparrowhawk was a smaller, sleeker destroyer, with only two nacelles and a more conventional frame, except that the primary hull was actually lower than the nacelles, like the very first Starfleet vessel to be commissioned, the Enterprise NX-01.
"Helm, take is closer to the Sparrowhawk. Mister Riffel, keep a voice channel with Voyager at all times. Where the hell's the Anubis?" The Captain tapped his foot impatiently, something the symbiont's last host, a doctor whom they'd all met when he had passed his symbiont on to Mordecai, had done when he was nervous. Commander Okra stood up to try to calm him down.
"I expect it hasn't decloaked yet, sir," she soothed. The Captain nodded, just as Dax's voice came over the comm link.
"Alright, Olchab. Are you up for Tactical Pattern Sisko Lambda Seven?" she asked.
"As ready as I'll ever be," muttered Mordecai, and signalled the conn officer to execute the pattern. "Mister Nolgen, load quantum torpedo tubes six through ten, and positron missile launchers three and five," he told the tactical officer. "Activate metaphasic shield. Ready forward phase de- atomizers. Fire on my mark."
As Voyager and the Discovery both swooped in, the Sparrowhawk turned herself around and abruptly fired nucleon beams at the two ships. "Shields at ninety-six per cent," barked the tactical officer, "and Voyager's are at ninety-three."
"They're just warming up," said the captain grimly. The Sparrowhawk swooped around, and fired a full spread of quark torpedoes at the Discovery. (Note: Quark torpedoes are a form of antimatter explosive four times more powerful than a quantum torpedo.)
"Shields at sixty-one per cent!" shouted Nolgen, just as Voyager fired a spread of positron missiles. (Note: These advanced fusion explosives are about half as effective as a quark torpedo.)
The Sparrowhawk went in a huge loop away from the ship, exchanged a little fire with the Evangeline, which was going head-on with the Enterprise a short distance away, and came right back round. Voyager and the Discovery then pounded it with phase de-atomizers, taking the shields down a little further. Then, just as the morale of the two bridge crews started to increase, a smaller ship materialized right on top of Voyager. Its registry read, "USS Anubis NCC 112786."
It took Voyager's crew a few seconds to react, during which the Anubis had already knocked their shields down to forty per cent. After what seemed like an eternity, Voyager went belly-up and used her ventral de-atomizers to cut into the Anubis' metaphasic shield. Protecting her now vulnerable belly, Anubis twirled like a ballerina and zoomed toward the Discovery. Hoarsely, Captain Olchab shouted, "Fire quantum cannons!"
The two large and powerful energy weapons on Discovery's dorsal hull exploded into life, expelling huge balls of white-hot superplasma right into the face of the Anubis. Voyager followed suit with her far more powerful array, blazing at the Sparrowhawk, which in turn zoomed out of the way. "We can't do that again for a bit," said the tactical officer. "They'll need some time to cool down."
In fact, the destroyer kept going, until it reached the Evangeline and the Enterprise, who were still in something of a stalemate. Voyager barrelled after it, racing pell-mell toward the new fray. The Anubis, however, stayed with the Discovery. The two ships circled one another, like cats. Then the much faster Anubis dropped a few quark torpedoes right in the path of the Discovery. "Shields at twenty per cent!" shouted the now-hysterical Lieutenant Nolgen.
Commander Okra pointed wildly at the screen and shouted, "Positron torpedoes, full spread!" The missiles exploded when they came into contact with the Anubis' shield grid. Okra smacked her forehead.
"The bastards inverted it!" she cried. "Right, well this should help us. Quick, Mister Nolgen, get some de-atomizer blasts in."
Two glittering subatomic energy beams blasted right past the shield grid of the Anubis, which had been specially modified to repel solid objects – but let energy weapons past. Before the crew could switch it back to normal, the Discovery's de-atomizers had disintegrated the aft half of the starboard nacelle. Crippled, the Anubis suddenly shimmered out of sight. She had gone under cloak.
The entire bridge crew of the Discovery breathed out. Captain Olchab reluctantly ordered the ops officer to send out an ionic de-cloaking pulse, which failed to reveal the Anubis. "They must have gone to warp," said Okra. Mordecai shook his head.
"I'm not so sure we've seen the back of them." He sat down. "Helm, bring us about and pull us into the fray. We want to give Voyager and the Evangeline a helping hand."
As the Discovery pulled herself about, Captain Dax came in over the comm link. "Discovery, this is Voyager. Please assist. Shields have failed, and the Evangeline is losing power too."
"Charge quantum cannons," ordered Mordecai. "Target the Enterprise and fire."
The renewed plasma weapons burst forth again, slamming their cosmic fireballs into the shields of the battleship. Meanwhile, Voyager backed off, but the Sparrowhawk chased her in and out of the nacelles of the two larger battleships.
"Now would be a very good time to help," Captain Dax screamed, as three simultaneous quantum blasts hit Voyager's tail end. In a desperate bid to distract the Sparrowhawk, Olchab ordered the conn officer to fly right between her nacelles. Everyone held his or her breath as this manoeuvre was executed – but the ensign at conn pulled it off, and was even given a "well done" by Commander Okra, a rare achievement. The general relief was short- lived, however, as the quantum cannons on Sparrowhawk's dorsal hull fired straight up at the ill-prepared Discovery. The blast rocked the ship.
"Shields down!" reported a frantic Nolgen. "Hull breach imminent on Q- Deck."
Riffel looked at the reports flooding in on his screens. "Injuries reported on all decks. Fires are breaking out in engineering and in the minor armoury on F-Deck." Another blast rocked the ship.
"Alright," said Mordecai. "Commander Fligi, open up a subspace vacuole to the nearest system on our side, which I believe is the H'nori Colony?"
"Yes sir," said the Andorian, and keyed in a sequence. An ethereal glowing energy portal opened in front of the ship, and it barrelled through, with the Voyager tumbling after.