It still took Stephen several precious moments to regather his wits about him. Shaking his head clear, he turned towards Elaine, who was still staring at the unconscious captain. "Lieutenant Davies," Kirk announced, snapping her back to reality, "contact the transporter room and have them beam the captain straight to sickbay. Then, contact the doctor and tell him what happened."
"Aye, Sir," she replied uncertainly. Slowly, she turned around in her seat and began pressing buttons.
Kirk sat down in the captain's seat and took a deep breath while Colonel Prichard sat down next to him. He wasn't going to have the luxury of being nervous. "T'Nia, what's our shield status?"
A quick scan of her screen gave her an immediate answer. "Primary shields holding at fifty-nine percent."
"Mr. Richards, where are they?" Kirk asked, looking for a tactical display on every console and readout he could identify and not finding one within easy viewing range.
"We've been flanked, Commander," Richards replied shaking his head. He hoped the actions of the maverick Marine weren't too late.
"Alright," Kirk replied taking another deep breath. "Tyler, when I tell you, give me full impulse reverse and full burn on the forward starboard and rear port thrusters." He pivoted to T'Nia. "When Tyler moves, put cannon one into the bandit on our port side. Throw in however many torpedoes are necessary to blow it out of this system."
"Aye, aye," Bristol complied, thrilled to finally be doing something.
"Understood, Sir," the vulcan tactical officer replied robotically.
"They're firing again!" Richards announced.
"Tyler, now!" Kirk yelled.
With a pound of his fist, the giant ship shuddered as it lurched backwards and spun to its left. From within the bridge, the crew could actually feel a shaking sensation as the inertial dampeners attempted to compensate for the change in force and direction. As the large, gray bat-like image of the Dominion battle cruiser came into full view of the viewscreen, T'Nia pressed a single button on her tactical panel. Within moments, a long stream of green glowing globes streaked towards the Dominion vessel. For several moments, the globes could be seen impacting the protective blister of the shield surrounding the cruiser. Unfortunately for the Dominion vessel, its shields were no match for the continual pounding of the cannon. The blister quickly collapsed sending the final six green globes into the ship itself, causing several small explosions throughout its hull.
T'Nia pressed three more buttons on her console, sending three large, purple glowing objects, like small purple suns, towards the damaged Dominion ship. They also impacted squarely on target. The first torpedo tore the cruiser's port wing completely off. The second torpedo flew into the listing underbelly of the cruiser starting a chain of explosions that started at the bottom of the ship and continued through the top. As the engines of the cruiser began a sequence of explosions of their own, the third torpedo slammed into the underside of the rear of the ship, which concluded the overload of their primary power source. The Dominion battle cruiser exploded in a firey ball of yellow and red sparks.
"That's for having the gall to think you could challenge us," Stephen remarked with disdain. The crew's duty now clear, their minds also cleared as they fell back into their Starfleet roles. "Well done, Mister T'Nia." Kirk said with a nod. He leaned forward and rested his chin on his hands. "Mister Bristol, swing us around and line up bandit two. T'Nia, fire when you have a solution."
"Yes, Sir!" Tyler replied with a smile. This was turning out to be fun after all.
"Locking weapons on target now, Sir," T'Nia replied.
"Commander, the other ship is leaving. They're bugging out." Richards remarked, staring at his console.
"What?" Kirk questioned. That was very much unlike the Dominion tactics he was familiar with. "Bristol, give chase. T'Nia, practice your sharpshooting skills. Use pulse phasers to take out any asteroid that gets in our way." The two acknowledged the command and turned back to their stations. With another barely discernable lurch, the Warlord lunged back to forward thrust and pursued the gray cruiser into the asteroid field.
"What's wrong?" the science officer asked?
"The Dominion don't retreat, Commander," Kirk replied flatly. "Something else is going on here."