title CHAPTER 2: THE BATTLE title
=
"…does anyone know where the love of G-d goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours…"
–– "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" –– Gordon Lightfoot
u Meanwhile . . .
In the upper atmosphere . . . u
"Captain! It worked! Just like the textbook said it would!" reported Hall from his station at ops.
"We are being attacked by a Cardassian battle-cruiser. The target's cloaking device has taken damage, but we are still outgunned," Sark reported from the tactical console.
"Prepare for saucer-separation." Ramon tapped the intercom button on his captain's chair. "All hands clear the separation corridors! Prepare for saucer separation!"
(Several classes of Starfleet ships have a large, prominent saucer module that is capable of separating from the rest of the ship, effectively providing a armed and shielded escape pod that can protect the entire crew in the event of attack; a second-to-last resort, and a "flying saucer" when traveling through an atmosphere. However, its warp-speed capacity is limited.)
"Commander Boslin, you have the conn." ("you have the conn" has 2 possible meanings: a) "take the helm [pilot's station] OR b) "you're in command until I come back". In this case, it is definition 'b')
"Aye, sir" the first officer scooted into the captain's center seat.
Then the captain tapped his combadge: "Lieutenant Hawkins, report to the battle bridge immediately" and he entered the turbolift . (The battle bridge is an auxiliary bridge located in the stardrive section of a starship. The stardrive section is what's left of the ship after saucer separation.)
u Lt. Hawkins… u
Lt. Hawkins was already on his way to the battle bridge when the call came. He had figured it out very quickly: Impact saucer separation battle bridge = BIG trouble. Actually, he had expected the call right after the impact. It became a habit to know where the captain wanted him before he was actually told where to go. It was no secret that he was the most skilled pilot on the whole ship, so it figured that the captain would want him to aim the guns while he gave the order to shoot. He met the captain as he came out of the turbolift. They entered the battle bridge together; Ensign Perkins was already there at her tactical station, along with CEO (Chief Engineering Officer) Cooper when they entered.
They (the captain and Lieutenant Hawkins) went directly to their stations in the cramped bridge. Captain Ramon immediately gave the order to separate and they watched the underside of the saucer section glide away while the city lights on the planet flashed by. The view was slightly marred by the heat from the friction between the ship and the atmosphere.
"Perkins, put the bad guy on screen. Target their weapons ports. Fire at will."
It was like in a movie: phasers flashed across the screen, hitting the enemy's shields. The enemy shot back, rocking the battle bridge harshly. No one was able to stay on their feet. Which was lucky for Perkins because her console exploded at that moment. The saucer section flew by, blasting the enemy at point-blank from above. Unfortunately, Perkins had hit the wall violently and was unconscious. Cooper immediately moved to examine the fallen crewmember. "She's unconscious and she has a concussion. But I think she'll live." Then she examined what was left of the burning console. "Captain! We lost our phasers! Torpedo rooms four through six are not responding; the rest report extreme damage."
The ship shook again, but just after the hit, the ship rocked even more violently. An explosion was heard in the hallway, just outside of the battle bridge. Marla, knowing that they were doomed, said "Captain, we lost the torpedo rooms. We need to abandon ship now before the warp core goes." Then she went into the hallway to assess the damage. The floor had a huge gash that had taken out some of the walls of the corridor and scorched everything around it. Marla could see straight through the ship, three decks down. Two torpedo rooms had either collapsed or exploded (torpedo malfunction, no doubt), one with two corpses still in it, and the bottom level had parts of three or four other corpses, all half-charred. Bad memories from the Dominion War came back to her.
u On the battle bridge . . . u
"Hail the saucer. On screen." Ramon ordered… "Captain reporting in. Warp core breach is imminent. We are abandoning ship. Stardrive out." The captain slouched in the center seat. "This is it." The captain sighed, sadly, and activated the comm. "All hands abandon ship! I am ramming the Cardies (informal, rude reference to Cardassians) so the saucer will retrieve you! All hands abandon ship!" No one could blame him for the guilt that had settled over him in only a few seconds. The hardest order for a captain to give was 'abandon ship'. "This isn't over," he growled. "Hawkins, take us behind the moon."
u On the Cardassian ship . . . u
"Gul (Cardassian rank equivalent to captain) Hurkin! I intercepted a distress signal! The Federation captain is abandoning ship!" the communication officer announced.
"Which ship?"
"The secondary hull (another possible reference to the stardrive section) has a warp core breach. It's going to the moon."
"Target the saucer. Destroy it."
u Aboard the saucer . . . u
"No way." First officer Steve Boslin had been through a lot, but never had the captain gave the order to abandon ship. Besides, he'd known Captain Ramon too long. There was no way, in hell and high water, that Ramon was giving up like this. They'd fought impossible odds during the Dominion War. There was no way he was giving up that quickly. "Sark, what's the status of the stardrive section?"
"Hull is buckling, integrity maintained at 27%. Engines are online and operating at 50% efficiency but the deuterium output is fluctuating, and the port nacelle (engine pod) is venting (leaking) plasma. Weapons are offline, and the deflector has taken severe damage. It is on course to the moon."
The commander thought about this. When they'd fought the Romulans during the "Prometheus Incident" (refer to Star Trek: Voyager episode "Message in a Bottle". NOTE: The Nebula –class starship that is destroyed by the Romulan-controlled Prometheus is obviously not the Columbia) last year, they'd had a complete systems failure, and the captain still had a few tricks up his sleeve. Hmmm . . . "A ram! He's going to ram the Cardassian, but the crew will be on the moon in escape pods, awaiting rescue! Helm, let's lure the Cardies the hell away from the planet!"
u Aboard the stardrive section . . . u
The crew was scrambling to get to the escape pods on all decks. If you've ever seen Starfleet personnel evacuating from a starship you would think they were school kids (I mean: who has ever seen anyone leave a burning building in an orderly fashion?) In a matter of five or six long minutes, the entire ship was vacant except for five people: Captain Ramon, Lt. Cmdr. Cooper, Ensign Perkins (unconscious), Lt. Hawkins, and, unbeknownst to the battle bridge crew, Ensign Simon Ruben was in engineering, keeping the engines in one piece. The only reason he was still an ensign was that he was a troublemaker. Not as in blowing up a ship; more like deliberately disobeying orders, smart talking, back talking, etc.
Captain Ramon expected this. "Bridge to engineering. Get your butt off this ship, ensign!"
"Captain, I'm the only one on board keeping this ship in one piece so you can ram the Cardies. I'm staying."
"Your court-martial. Bridge out." "Hawkins… ramming speed."
The Cardassian ship loomed closer on the viewscreen at a frightful rate. . .
u Saucer section, USS Columbia Bridge . . . u
"Here they come!"
"Boslin to transporter room 1. Beam everyone off the stardrive section to the bridge when our shields go down. Trust me."
"Gotcha."
"Target the Cardies' engines. Fire at will. Drop shields on my mark . . . "NOW!"
On the screen, the stardrive section suddenly appeared from one side, it exploded violently from impacting with the Cardassian battle cruiser. On the bridge, four spires of light appeared and were soon replaced with the captain, Cooper, Hawkins, and Ensign Ruben appeared; Perkins' unconscious form appeared on the carpeted floor (she was unconscious when she beamed away so she of course she wouldn't be standing now).
(The saucer did not get hit by the debris because the stardrive section impacted on the Cardassian ship's broadside; the saucer was above it.)
"Get her to sickbay." Ramon pointed at Perkins. Then he addressed Simon: "You are confined to your quarters, ensign. Get off my bridge."
Then Marla (Cooper, remember?) moved to her station, and dismissed the technician who had occupied the engineering console; Hawkins returned to his quarters.
Commander Boslin scooted back to the first-officer's chair as Ramon returned to the center seat. "Welcome home, captain. We missed you," he greeted.
"I missed you, too. But half of the crew is waiting for pick-up on the far side of the moon, so let's get going."
"Uhhhh … captain? The debris is drifting toward the planet," Marla announced (for lack of a better word). "We can't let that civilization acquire the technology from the two ships. The cleanest way to clean it up would be to dump antimatter and phaser the large chunks so they burn up faster."
"Damn. Can we avoid using the antimatter?" Ramon asked.
"Not if we intend to keep all of the debris from the inhabitants," she answered nervously, but confidently.
"And the down side to using it?" Ramon noticed that her voice left an unsaid "but" hanging between them.
"We need it to get home, even though the Prime Directive states that we have to sacrifice it."
"Double damn. All right, let's go. Helm, take us in."
They soared back into the atmosphere . . .
u Kagome's house Souta . . . u
He couldn't sleep. The house was different without Kagome around. He stared out his window. "Neechan…" he whispered.
He was still staring when something bright lit up in the sky! A meteor shower? At this time of the year? He thought. Then another… then another! And then a bright star appeared that seemed to static-shock the other meteors, which flashed and disappeared. Huh? Then something VERY bright lit up in the sky. Like fireworks (bright and loud)! Then another! And another, all in rapid succession! "What!??! What's happening?!?!" He was watching matter/antimatter annihilation happening in the atmosphere! A rare display, considering that his world was only advanced to the point of making antimatter one antiproton at a time and at a very high government expense.
Kagome is really missing something . . .
u One hour later . . .
Saucer section, USS Columbia Deck 1: Conference Lounge u
u En Route to the next closest planet . . . u
So much for going home. Captain Eric Ramon was about to break the bad news to the rest of the crew. He couldn't remember being so depressed in his life. He tapped the comm. "Attention, all personnel. This is your captain speaking." Deep breath. "We do not have many options left." Another deep breath. "We have saved the ship, but we lost the stardrive section. And with it, our warp-core, our antimatter supply, our engines except for impulse, and any chance of getting home in the next eight years. We are in an alien solar system with two class-M worlds (classification of any planet that ranges in description and inhabitability between Earth and Mars; description does NOT include number of natural satellites, which are classified separately.) One world is advanced to its early space-age. Thus, we are not entirely safe from detection anywhere in the system. I am going to scuttle the saucer on the other, less advanced world. We still risk detection by the natives, so I will be posting a duty roster for guards around the ship once we are down. We will be on an inhabitable, Earth-like world, so I suggest you make the most of your time, and don't worry about the atmosphere; it is breathable. Without impulse-drive, it will take us a couple extra days to get to the other planet. I guess we're all in for some extended shore-leave. You will receive daily updates on our position and ETA (Estimated Time to Arrival). Captain out."
======================================================================
If you (reader) are wondering about how/when Perkins goes to sickbay: Dr. Gonzalez and another (nameless) technician come onto the bridge shortly after the end of that paragraph to carry Perkins to sickbay.
"…does anyone know where the love of G-d goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours…"
–– "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" –– Gordon Lightfoot
u Meanwhile . . .
In the upper atmosphere . . . u
"Captain! It worked! Just like the textbook said it would!" reported Hall from his station at ops.
"We are being attacked by a Cardassian battle-cruiser. The target's cloaking device has taken damage, but we are still outgunned," Sark reported from the tactical console.
"Prepare for saucer-separation." Ramon tapped the intercom button on his captain's chair. "All hands clear the separation corridors! Prepare for saucer separation!"
(Several classes of Starfleet ships have a large, prominent saucer module that is capable of separating from the rest of the ship, effectively providing a armed and shielded escape pod that can protect the entire crew in the event of attack; a second-to-last resort, and a "flying saucer" when traveling through an atmosphere. However, its warp-speed capacity is limited.)
"Commander Boslin, you have the conn." ("you have the conn" has 2 possible meanings: a) "take the helm [pilot's station] OR b) "you're in command until I come back". In this case, it is definition 'b')
"Aye, sir" the first officer scooted into the captain's center seat.
Then the captain tapped his combadge: "Lieutenant Hawkins, report to the battle bridge immediately" and he entered the turbolift . (The battle bridge is an auxiliary bridge located in the stardrive section of a starship. The stardrive section is what's left of the ship after saucer separation.)
u Lt. Hawkins… u
Lt. Hawkins was already on his way to the battle bridge when the call came. He had figured it out very quickly: Impact saucer separation battle bridge = BIG trouble. Actually, he had expected the call right after the impact. It became a habit to know where the captain wanted him before he was actually told where to go. It was no secret that he was the most skilled pilot on the whole ship, so it figured that the captain would want him to aim the guns while he gave the order to shoot. He met the captain as he came out of the turbolift. They entered the battle bridge together; Ensign Perkins was already there at her tactical station, along with CEO (Chief Engineering Officer) Cooper when they entered.
They (the captain and Lieutenant Hawkins) went directly to their stations in the cramped bridge. Captain Ramon immediately gave the order to separate and they watched the underside of the saucer section glide away while the city lights on the planet flashed by. The view was slightly marred by the heat from the friction between the ship and the atmosphere.
"Perkins, put the bad guy on screen. Target their weapons ports. Fire at will."
It was like in a movie: phasers flashed across the screen, hitting the enemy's shields. The enemy shot back, rocking the battle bridge harshly. No one was able to stay on their feet. Which was lucky for Perkins because her console exploded at that moment. The saucer section flew by, blasting the enemy at point-blank from above. Unfortunately, Perkins had hit the wall violently and was unconscious. Cooper immediately moved to examine the fallen crewmember. "She's unconscious and she has a concussion. But I think she'll live." Then she examined what was left of the burning console. "Captain! We lost our phasers! Torpedo rooms four through six are not responding; the rest report extreme damage."
The ship shook again, but just after the hit, the ship rocked even more violently. An explosion was heard in the hallway, just outside of the battle bridge. Marla, knowing that they were doomed, said "Captain, we lost the torpedo rooms. We need to abandon ship now before the warp core goes." Then she went into the hallway to assess the damage. The floor had a huge gash that had taken out some of the walls of the corridor and scorched everything around it. Marla could see straight through the ship, three decks down. Two torpedo rooms had either collapsed or exploded (torpedo malfunction, no doubt), one with two corpses still in it, and the bottom level had parts of three or four other corpses, all half-charred. Bad memories from the Dominion War came back to her.
u On the battle bridge . . . u
"Hail the saucer. On screen." Ramon ordered… "Captain reporting in. Warp core breach is imminent. We are abandoning ship. Stardrive out." The captain slouched in the center seat. "This is it." The captain sighed, sadly, and activated the comm. "All hands abandon ship! I am ramming the Cardies (informal, rude reference to Cardassians) so the saucer will retrieve you! All hands abandon ship!" No one could blame him for the guilt that had settled over him in only a few seconds. The hardest order for a captain to give was 'abandon ship'. "This isn't over," he growled. "Hawkins, take us behind the moon."
u On the Cardassian ship . . . u
"Gul (Cardassian rank equivalent to captain) Hurkin! I intercepted a distress signal! The Federation captain is abandoning ship!" the communication officer announced.
"Which ship?"
"The secondary hull (another possible reference to the stardrive section) has a warp core breach. It's going to the moon."
"Target the saucer. Destroy it."
u Aboard the saucer . . . u
"No way." First officer Steve Boslin had been through a lot, but never had the captain gave the order to abandon ship. Besides, he'd known Captain Ramon too long. There was no way, in hell and high water, that Ramon was giving up like this. They'd fought impossible odds during the Dominion War. There was no way he was giving up that quickly. "Sark, what's the status of the stardrive section?"
"Hull is buckling, integrity maintained at 27%. Engines are online and operating at 50% efficiency but the deuterium output is fluctuating, and the port nacelle (engine pod) is venting (leaking) plasma. Weapons are offline, and the deflector has taken severe damage. It is on course to the moon."
The commander thought about this. When they'd fought the Romulans during the "Prometheus Incident" (refer to Star Trek: Voyager episode "Message in a Bottle". NOTE: The Nebula –class starship that is destroyed by the Romulan-controlled Prometheus is obviously not the Columbia) last year, they'd had a complete systems failure, and the captain still had a few tricks up his sleeve. Hmmm . . . "A ram! He's going to ram the Cardassian, but the crew will be on the moon in escape pods, awaiting rescue! Helm, let's lure the Cardies the hell away from the planet!"
u Aboard the stardrive section . . . u
The crew was scrambling to get to the escape pods on all decks. If you've ever seen Starfleet personnel evacuating from a starship you would think they were school kids (I mean: who has ever seen anyone leave a burning building in an orderly fashion?) In a matter of five or six long minutes, the entire ship was vacant except for five people: Captain Ramon, Lt. Cmdr. Cooper, Ensign Perkins (unconscious), Lt. Hawkins, and, unbeknownst to the battle bridge crew, Ensign Simon Ruben was in engineering, keeping the engines in one piece. The only reason he was still an ensign was that he was a troublemaker. Not as in blowing up a ship; more like deliberately disobeying orders, smart talking, back talking, etc.
Captain Ramon expected this. "Bridge to engineering. Get your butt off this ship, ensign!"
"Captain, I'm the only one on board keeping this ship in one piece so you can ram the Cardies. I'm staying."
"Your court-martial. Bridge out." "Hawkins… ramming speed."
The Cardassian ship loomed closer on the viewscreen at a frightful rate. . .
u Saucer section, USS Columbia Bridge . . . u
"Here they come!"
"Boslin to transporter room 1. Beam everyone off the stardrive section to the bridge when our shields go down. Trust me."
"Gotcha."
"Target the Cardies' engines. Fire at will. Drop shields on my mark . . . "NOW!"
On the screen, the stardrive section suddenly appeared from one side, it exploded violently from impacting with the Cardassian battle cruiser. On the bridge, four spires of light appeared and were soon replaced with the captain, Cooper, Hawkins, and Ensign Ruben appeared; Perkins' unconscious form appeared on the carpeted floor (she was unconscious when she beamed away so she of course she wouldn't be standing now).
(The saucer did not get hit by the debris because the stardrive section impacted on the Cardassian ship's broadside; the saucer was above it.)
"Get her to sickbay." Ramon pointed at Perkins. Then he addressed Simon: "You are confined to your quarters, ensign. Get off my bridge."
Then Marla (Cooper, remember?) moved to her station, and dismissed the technician who had occupied the engineering console; Hawkins returned to his quarters.
Commander Boslin scooted back to the first-officer's chair as Ramon returned to the center seat. "Welcome home, captain. We missed you," he greeted.
"I missed you, too. But half of the crew is waiting for pick-up on the far side of the moon, so let's get going."
"Uhhhh … captain? The debris is drifting toward the planet," Marla announced (for lack of a better word). "We can't let that civilization acquire the technology from the two ships. The cleanest way to clean it up would be to dump antimatter and phaser the large chunks so they burn up faster."
"Damn. Can we avoid using the antimatter?" Ramon asked.
"Not if we intend to keep all of the debris from the inhabitants," she answered nervously, but confidently.
"And the down side to using it?" Ramon noticed that her voice left an unsaid "but" hanging between them.
"We need it to get home, even though the Prime Directive states that we have to sacrifice it."
"Double damn. All right, let's go. Helm, take us in."
They soared back into the atmosphere . . .
u Kagome's house Souta . . . u
He couldn't sleep. The house was different without Kagome around. He stared out his window. "Neechan…" he whispered.
He was still staring when something bright lit up in the sky! A meteor shower? At this time of the year? He thought. Then another… then another! And then a bright star appeared that seemed to static-shock the other meteors, which flashed and disappeared. Huh? Then something VERY bright lit up in the sky. Like fireworks (bright and loud)! Then another! And another, all in rapid succession! "What!??! What's happening?!?!" He was watching matter/antimatter annihilation happening in the atmosphere! A rare display, considering that his world was only advanced to the point of making antimatter one antiproton at a time and at a very high government expense.
Kagome is really missing something . . .
u One hour later . . .
Saucer section, USS Columbia Deck 1: Conference Lounge u
u En Route to the next closest planet . . . u
So much for going home. Captain Eric Ramon was about to break the bad news to the rest of the crew. He couldn't remember being so depressed in his life. He tapped the comm. "Attention, all personnel. This is your captain speaking." Deep breath. "We do not have many options left." Another deep breath. "We have saved the ship, but we lost the stardrive section. And with it, our warp-core, our antimatter supply, our engines except for impulse, and any chance of getting home in the next eight years. We are in an alien solar system with two class-M worlds (classification of any planet that ranges in description and inhabitability between Earth and Mars; description does NOT include number of natural satellites, which are classified separately.) One world is advanced to its early space-age. Thus, we are not entirely safe from detection anywhere in the system. I am going to scuttle the saucer on the other, less advanced world. We still risk detection by the natives, so I will be posting a duty roster for guards around the ship once we are down. We will be on an inhabitable, Earth-like world, so I suggest you make the most of your time, and don't worry about the atmosphere; it is breathable. Without impulse-drive, it will take us a couple extra days to get to the other planet. I guess we're all in for some extended shore-leave. You will receive daily updates on our position and ETA (Estimated Time to Arrival). Captain out."
======================================================================
If you (reader) are wondering about how/when Perkins goes to sickbay: Dr. Gonzalez and another (nameless) technician come onto the bridge shortly after the end of that paragraph to carry Perkins to sickbay.