Dual-ing Champions
"I have to hand it to you Chief, the 'B' sure is a magnificent lady." O'Camp marvelled as he stepped out into the hallway from Jarrad's quarters. He had just gotten done mentioning that his friend's quarters were nearly the same size as the rec deck aboard the previous model to bear this name. Jarrad had replied by informing him that the quarters were actually smaller since the rec hall was actually 3 decks tall while his quarters were merely 2. As the doors slid closed behind him, Jarrad replied,
"Not yet my man. But she soon will be. We have to do an inner perimeter run on the border over past Qortazia, and then we turn in for a retrofit at the Spacedock."
"Great! I heard that the AEC had made a breakthrough with balancing the configuration of the new warp system."
"Yes, it was figured that an on-axis drive set to 'active standby' mode would do the trick. By running one each fore and aft on a dedicated hardline to the 3rd nacelle using the standard drive ratings, it would create one contiguous subspace field."
"But won't that create field balance limitations? We experienced that when we tried hooking up a Wayfarer's drive system to the ARCHANGEL and wound up having to disconnect the other four drives as we were having the same erratic problems as the first Drakmär-class starships."
"That's why we prime the field variance directly off the feed rating for the mid-range plasma adjuster intake. That also gives the primary intercooler manifold a 3-way measure of redundancy since if a spot-check of all 3 yields a similar rating, then even I can determine that other things down the line are running fine."
"Oh, so nice, nice!" O'Camp nodded his comprehension and approval. They turned the last corner before the turbolift and Jarrad enquired,
"Are you looking forward to your new command yet?"
"Actually it's more like settling back into my old command...I just got a couple years vacation on Nortania after my career took a nosedive. Which gave me a chance to lick your boots for a while and I guess I did too good a job of that since Nortania turned out to be a mixed blessing." Jarrad laughed at his friend's description and asked as they entered the lift,
"Really? How is that?" O'Camp sighed and said in a resigned manner,
"To go from the prestige of the command staff of the flagship and the hot assignments that came with it, I then get a cush assignment where almost all of my work has already been done for me. I still had the trust and respect of my team, but my duties had me little more than acting as a flaghead and enjoying the hospitality of our hosts. The Nortanians had some of their own internal problems stemming from the remnants of their civil war, but they disdained our getting involved with them. The few times we were asked to put on a show of force it was usually ceremonial or to beat the drums. I can actually count on both hands the number of times I was involved in missions that involved combat and that usually involved us joining a task force of Nortanian ships sent out of the system to play interdiction on Jerichan activity. Even then we were only asked along as a courtesy."
"Well, the Nortanians always told me that they considered you a more than adept leader and you displayed the skills of the Mystic on many levels. Such high praise is part of the reason I want you on the Spacedock in my stead. I need someone I know I can trust who also has an established reputation and rapport with our allies. Besides, the team you've developed has created quite a reputation for itself and Primus Larrgn-Z is so impressed he wants to keep them close to home to set an example for all and I honestly don't blame him." O'Camp smiled at the thinly veiled compliment as they made egress from the lift onto the new bridge. It was the one part of the ship that had not had its design changed in all the incarnations of the name TANELORN. In his memory O'Camp saw himself at Ops, Potter in the first officer's seat…His musing was interrupted by Lt Jarrad's voice calling out from science station 1. O'Camp followed as Jarrad strode over to where his wife was seated while she reported,
"Admiral, I'm getting some unusual readings in the phaso-polaritic range."
"Define 'unusual,' lieutenant."
"There is a cycling polarized wavefront that keeps coming in and out of phase perception range at irregular intervals."
"Have you polled waveform database?" Requested Adm Jarrad. Lt Jarrad's fingers began rummaging over her console. O'Camp gently cut in by saying,
"You won't be able to make an appreciable determination that way. There is nothing natural with that configuration. I'm sure that ZIGGY could give some theoretical application, but any Nortanian will tell you that the very nature of the Shadowlands preclude any unusual applications." Adm Jarrad nodded comprehension as O'Camp's statements echoed similar lessons he'd taught during a class Jarrad had attended on Shadowland dynamics. Jarrad had not been required to attend the command officer seminar, but he couldn't pass up a chance to visit OUTPOST NORTANIA again. That was the reason O'Camp was currently aboard the TANELORN-B. As O'Camp had correctly guessed, Jarrad had desired a senior officer to represent his interests while the flagship was on patrol after her shakedown cruise. O'Camp was just going to use the ARCHANGEL to go to his new posting but Jarrad would have none of that. The TANELORN had shown two days before O'Camp's scheduled departure ostensibly for Jarrad to officiate the auspicious occasion. Privately, Jarrad had confided that he wanted one last chance to enjoy the Nortanian VIP treatment. Jarrad now requested,
"ZIGGY, what is the location of the nearest Shadow-cat?"
"218 by 144 by 029, Admiral." The artificial intelligence hologram that acted as the computer's interface responded. As sophisticated as ZIGGY was, the hologram wasn't nearly as advanced as the ones that Nortania produced. In response, Adm Jarrad mused,
"That would put it at roughly 8 o'clock low where this unknown is 5 o'clock high." O'Camp interrupted,
"Do you want me to create a remote feed from the Shadow-cat? The ARCHANGEL is set up for it, and I'm authorized to interact without consequence."
"When did this happen? I thought only senior officers in the Nortanian Armada were granted that privilege?" Queried a taken-aback Adm. Jarrad.
"Part of the same arrangement that put the Militia/Armada reserves under the direct authority of the ACE so that the Outpost commander could have a Grand Paladin as his flagship." O'Camp replied and Jarrad started to turn to comment when something on his wife's monitor arrested his attention. He reached over and tapped a few keys, paused a moment, and then tapped a few more keys. He placed his hands on his hips, narrowed his eyes, and muttered a few unpleasant words in Drakmärian. O'Camp cleared his throat and started,
"Now Chief..."
"Technically that wasn't profanity given the circumstances. On a hunch, I retuned the lateral sensor arrays to separate the high and low band phasing. It's interesting, but I think that the wavefront is roughly the same size as 3 Jerichan Fatherships flying in tight formation." O'Camp groaned softly and then quipped,
"Are you sure that you don't want to throw the ARCHANGEL into a storage locker somewhere aboard this?" Jarrad chuckled dryly as he replied to the negative. He also gave his friend a look that said the joke was getting old. When O'Camp had been given his introductory tour, ZIGGY had informed all present of the dimensions of the aft ventral storage bay, which happened to be the largest room aboard any starship in the fleet. O'Camp had noted that it was so large that it could comfortably drydock his flagship. He had then gotten a laughing roar of approval when he'd suggested that they actually try it. Insufferably pleased with the response he'd gotten, he'd proceeded to wear the joke out over the next day-and-a-half.
"Fighting 3 Fatherships inside the Shadowlands is not my idea of fun." Commented Jarrad. O'Camp echoed the sentiment by saying,
"Amen to that. I've attended enough of my own seminars to know that it is a fool's errand. I'm transferring over to the ARCHANGEL, and we can formulate plans from there." Jarrad nodded and O'Camp tapped a few buttons on his Datalink and was gone. Following a quick staff meeting, Jarrad requested,
"ZIGGY, patch me through to the ARCHANGEL." The AI complied and seconds later a translucent image of Vice Fleet Admiral O'Camp appeared next to Adm Jarrad.
"We're gong to make a highwarp run for the nearest event horizon. At warp 9.5 that should be 8 hours and 47 minutes way. Can you hold that?" Jarrad asked. O'Camp turned his head to look at someone on his bridge, this move had his holo-image staring at Jarrad's ready room. O'Camp faced Jarrad and replied,
"If you would transfer the Spectrawarp program to us, we could jump in ahead of you just as you initialize the warp-flex matrix since we are smaller than the tunnel you would generate and we could 'surf' your beacon wave. CARIN says you'd likely have to reduce your factor variable to warp 15(2) to compensate for field shear but that would get us out of here in 1 hour and 23 minutes." Jarrad strode over to his Nortanian Ops officer and told him to proceed with the transfer. Within minutes, the two Star Corps champions were proceeding to their new destination at near physically impossible speeds. Twenty minutes later, ZIGGY noted,
"Admiral, I'm getting some changes in the telemetry from the ARCHANGEL. There are some emanations that are not consistent with any known form of communications in my database."
"Open a channel please." The hologram acknowledged compliance and Adm Jarrad spoke,
"TANELORN to ARCHANGEL, we've noted some unusual energy patterns in your configuration. Are you doing okay?" O'Camp's voice came back unusually distorted, and the Holo-com's image was shimmering radically,
"Everything's fine if a bit dizzying. That energy pattern was the feedback from a Shadowcat. We have a bit of a problem. A recent storm that was unusually violent has left a massive distortion field between us and the R'zal'Shii system that is roughly 2/3 the size of the system. There is no way around it without going back, and I don't yet know the contents of the wake to determine whether we will be able to go through it or not." Jarrad groaned softly. Three Fatherships behind them and an unknown obstacle before them was not an ideal scenario. Jarrad had a flash of inspiration,
"Drop down to warp 8 and we'll fire off a class 10 probe to see what we're dealing with." Minutes later, the warp-capable probe had arrived at its destination and was indicating the presence of gravimetric falloff. CARIN postulated that if the storm were rotating at sufficient speed, the centripetal force might have generated a natural gravimetric field. Jarrad was surprised a moment later when, immediately after the probe entered the gravimetric barrier, contact with the probe was lost!
"I recommend we drop to full impulse and enter using full shields as there may be a residual plasma current present." O'Camp suggested. Jarrad concurred saying only his trademark,
"Let's do it!" The TANELORN continued to follow the ARCHANGEL as they entered the phenomenon. Due to the Tactical Scout's unique outer hull, a sheath that was slightly out of normal phase-sync, it was difficult to maintain sensory lock from the flagship. Entering the field made the situation worse, and the smaller vessel disappeared except for its distorted transponder signal. Even communications were limited to the most basic form. The communications officers for both craft worked madly for the several minutes of the blackout to try to rectify the dilemma. To no avail. They actually got rudimentary information transfer working by using the phasers to fire an energy beam at the other ship's sensory pack in the communication band. By varying the frequency, they could send a rudimentary binary text message. The test data performed adequately and Jarrad asked O'Camp to transmit their sit-rep. O'Camp was preparing a simple report to send when the ARCHANGEL cleared the field right as he hit the transmit key,
"Evasive maneuvers, hard about!" With the jury-rigged communications setup, it took Jarrad a couple seconds to determine the content. By that time, the TANELORN was beginning to emerge and sensors were beginning to register once again. He didn't want to endanger his crew by initiating a radical maneuver 'in the blind' so he had to wait precious seconds until the readouts cleared up enough so that he could be sure he was better able to avoid danger rather than flying headfirst into it. Although with the mass and power of the flagship under his command, he was sure he could directly confront any problem without repercussion of damage. A moment later, he knew he was wrong. Dead wrong. He gasped,
"Helm, hard to port!" What he saw was a Jerichan vessel that was double the size of a standard Fathership in process of discharging its primary disruptor banks. With the shields taxed from the gravitic shear, the TANELORN was at a real tactical disadvantage! Jarrad groaned as he felt one of the disruptor hits strike home. The warship shuddered from the impact and multiple alarms went off as several panels blew out. Jarrad barked,
"Damage report!"
"We have damage to 2 decks and across 12 different sections. No casualties as yet but sickbay reports wounded coming in by the dozen. We were fortunate that your maneuver only caused them to hit us at an extremely oblique angle." Came the report from tactical through the haze of smoke. Jarrad replied,
"Even more fortunate if we hadn't been hit at all…I must be slipping in my old age! Helm, bring us around to confront the aggressor. Tactical, fire at will. Once we've come about, fire quad megaphasers." He watched on the screen as the ARCHANGEL valiantly engaged the more massive craft. Brian probably thinks he's David taking on Goliath, and he's probably right…thought Jarrad. He also realized that the only problem with his analogy was that he didn't think that Goliath had landed as many hits of his own, like the Jerichan warship. Jarrad further mused that if the Biblical giant had landed any hits, the first one would have turned the future king into chunky salsa.
"Engineering reports that one of the warp cores is failing and will have to be rebooted which will take a couple minutes. Damage control reports that quantum torpedo launcher automation is down. Port and ventral shields are at critical. Due to damage to primary EPS system, we are limited to 1/3 impulse." Came the report from Ops. Jarrad ordered,
"Keep moving and continue firing. Keep them guessing and try to focus their efforts away from the ARCHANGEL." He strode over to Ops and gazed at the panel. The Tactical Scout was causing mild to moderate damage with much of the damage being done by Starburst torpedoes. The Nortanian plasma charges went out of continuum-phase when launched. Unlike the ARCHANGEL's out of phase-sync hull, which was translucent but solid, the Starbursts were opaque but could pass through matter to a degree. Jarrad watched on the tactical display that was floating above his armrest as the ARCHANGEL continued to take a beating but was more than able to give back what she took—scratch that; she gave back more than she took which was consistent with her commanding officer's reputation. The flagship continued to do its part against the massive newcomer but with limited firepower and speed, she was at a clear disadvantage.
"Ventral shields at 10 and holding. Port and fore are 30 and falling." Came the report.
"Negative pitch 10 degrees, make your course 0 by 350." Replied Jarrad. The ARCHANGEL finally landed a serious hit after concentrating on softening up the enemy ship's starboard shield. Jarrad saw the defensive bubble flare briefly but before the Jerichan could recover, the relatively tiny craft let loose with a furious salvo from its quad phasers followed by a spread of quantum torpedoes and starbursts. Jarrad was informed that there was an incoming message from the ARCHANGEL,
"Chief, I pray that your latest miracle worker gets on the ball soon. That last spread of quantum torpedoes took us to 2 below our 1/2 point of our load. We still have 2/3 of our complement of starbursts, but our launcher is damaged, and we can only fire it manually."
"How bad is the radiation on that launcher?"
"We have to do a sweep between each shot."
"Not good, I don't want you to risk a misfire because the radiation causes the warhead to go out of alignment."
"Me either. We're replacing the heat sinks on our quads as we speak, and our upper starboard blaster bar is shattered."
"Understood. We'll be doing our part in about 30 seconds." Jarrad answered as he noted the update scroll across his terminal. He then turned to the officer at tactical and ordered that the quad megaphasers be fired once they were ready. O'Camp replied,
"30 seconds, huh? I'll buy that for a scripture!" In response to the running joke Jarrad said in a faux-extravagantly dramatic voice,
"The Lord helps those who help themselves—my child!" O'Camp rolled his eyes and chuckled as he responded with his usual,
"Now Chief; how many times do I have to tell you that is not in the Bible?"
"Perhaps it should be!"
"I'll make a note for my memoirs…meanwhile, I'll buy you that extra few seconds you need" O'Camp reached over and tapped a key that was nonexistent to his holo-image and called out in an authoritative voice that raised the hairs on the back of Jarrad's neck,
"Attention Jerichan warship! This is Fleet Admiral O'Camp aboard the DAV ARCHANGEL. Your presence here is in direct violation of the Drakmärian Alliance's territorial sovereignty. Furthermore, your unprovoked attack on our flagship constitutes an act of war. As Vice-Commandant of the Star Corps, I am ordering you to stand down your primary power systems as preparation to being boarded. Comply within the next 10 seconds or suffer the consequences!" Aboard the ARCHANGEL's bridge, O'Camp smiled thinly as his wife Yve turned from the Ops position quietly sending a light applause to him in response to his bluff. In response, the Jerichan fired a series of missiles. Due to the unique nature of the ARCHANGEL's hull, they all missed. When will they ever learn, mused Jarrad as he watched the missiles fly harmlessly past the Tactical Scout. From behind him came the announcement,
"Megaphasers are locked and ready. Engineering indicates automation is restored, and port shields are supercritical. One or two more hits and we'll lose the warp nacelle. Suggest diverting Megaphaser power to shields so that all can be restored to at least 37.4. It will take less than a minute to divert power to the high-yield, low-intensity core which will cause less than a 5 loss in firepower."
"Let's do it!" Jarrad responded with his trademark without turning to face his tactical officer but tossed a 'thumbs-up' over his shoulder at the Lieutenant as a gesture of appreciation. Helm then announced that the diversion of power also caused the helm to be more responsive and Jarrad ordered the TANELORN to swing wide for a better shot at the aggressor. In the few seconds that it took to perform the maneuver, Jarrad didn't allow himself a moment's respite. He requested a report on the progress of the damage control teams. The affected areas had been successfully evacuated, and temporary repairs were well along. The worst injury so far was an engineer who had been so badly burned that one of his legs had to be amputated. 28 were in serious condition, but Jarrad was assured that they were all stable and would survive. The Grand Fleet Admiral was about to indulge in a small sigh of relief for the welfare of his injured subordinates when the announcement was made that the Jerichan was in range, and they had a confirmed lock with the fixed-mount cannons. Jarrad snarled,
"FIRE!" He watched with grim satisfaction as the four beams slashed a path across the massive craft's dorsal hull as though it were a T'Kli paw taking a swipe at its prey. They completed the pass, which left a diagonal gash across the aft 1/3 of their opponent, and were coming around for a follow-up when the announcement came,
"Chief, we've got problems. It seems our mystery guests are wanting to join the party!" Jarrad sat down in his command chair and toggled his display to clone the Ops readout. Coming through the same section that the two Alliance craft had were two Cruisers along with 4 scouts in tight formation. The scouts broke formation and raced toward the flagship. Jarrad growled,
"If they're so eager to die, let's give them what they want! Prepare megaphasers!" The officer at tactical responded matter-of-factly,
"At this range, the only weapon that will be effective is the new Atomizer. Given our situation, I took the liberty of prepping and priming the weapon it is currently on standby awaiting your authorization for discharge." Jarrad grinned at the yellow-garbed individual,
"Good thinking. Reasoned initiative like that is what makes for promotions in my book. Keep it up and I can assure you one. As it is, you just earned yourself a combat citation!" He then used his terminal to input command authorization for the special weapon. The weapon was fired and had the usual results on the lead scout. The new version looked much different then the original version that Jarrad remembered. It used to be fired until all power had been drained from the systems which burned them out. It had required that much firepower just to operate the weapon. It was designed as a 'one shot wonder' at that time, making it a weapon of last resort since, as the inventor declared, "if they aren't dead, you are" which was an appropriate sentiment. This new version built up a dynamic, rather than a static like the old one, charge off the warp core. Instead of being bled into the transporter system, it was fed directly into the 3rd warp nacelle and held in stasis by the subspace field which was cycled at the same frequency as the transporter. With this new setup, the bubble could be diluted by the field and dispersed if need be rather than firing being mandatory once he entered his codes like the old system. Upon discharge, the field was now filtered through a series of computer-independent transport pattern buffers it was then sent through the nacelle's warp core's antimatter injector's conditioning element as a prefire amplifier. The Atomizer's relay system was directly linked to the warp core for this. The Atomizer was then fired until the beam received feedback from contacting the target. This way, the beam would be out of resolution and the resonant frequency of the antimatter would initiate the decoupling factor instead of the Atomizer being used to dematerialize the target. The old method was directly related to the mass of the target and anything larger than a shuttlecraft would burn the entire system out because of the energy exchange. This new system actually used the energy exchange to its advantage since every ship had an active subspace field which fed the effect upon discharge. The only major difference was that the new system had little effect on planetary bodies except to cause destabilization of the local atmosphere. It was a violation of Alliance law to do so, and therefore had never been tested, but it was theorized that a wide-angle blast could do sufficient damage to the atmosphere long enough to kill the inhabitants of a small continent about double the size of Earth's Australia.
"Hey Chief, you're messing up my percentages! That new warship is disabled. Let me go get the newcomers' attention so that we aren't caught in a split crossfire." Jarrad agreed this was a good idea and kept the heavy busy while the ARCHANGEL danced around the cruisers and scouts. Another scout fell quickly to O'Camp's flagship. The ARCHANGEL had never met a Jerichan scout it couldn't—or didn't—defeat. Its average was slightly over 50 with the cruisers as they could take more of a beating and either managed to make a clean retreat or forced the ARCHANGEL to concentrate on defending a larger vessel. With the TANELORN, it was the opposite. The Star Corps' flagship reigned victorious over all Cruisers it encountered but found the scouts a little too maneuverable and only managed about the same 50 with them. With its torpedo supply running low, Jarrad noted the Tactical Scout was getting more reserved in its tactics. The report from Ops informed Jarrad that the ARCHANGEL's upper and lower port blaster bars were now shattered, and the starboard upper was only partially functional. He knew that unless there was access to starbase facilities, there was only so much that could be done to fix those. When the Jerichans got close enough to engage, Jarrad ordered multiple salvos of quantum torpedoes. These did moderate damage to one of the scouts but managed to destroy one of the cruisers that had been hurt by the ARCHANGEL's efforts.
"Subspace field on the Jerichan heavy warship beginning to increase. Main disruptors are coming back online. I'm also detecting a power buildup in their primary deflector." Came the report from Ops. If they are trying to use the same tactic against us that the ENTERPRISE used against the Borg…there's no way even this ship could handle that much power, thought Jarrad. He called out,
"O'Camp, swing around and we'll give you some more torpedoes. We have bigger problems now."
"I just noticed that. Keep moving and try to engage that cruiser. I'll field the scouts behind you as interference once I get those spares." The ARCHANGEL swooped around to hold at a position between the TANELORN's warp nacelles. Their new transporter chief was a wonder as he didn't even need the flagship to drop shields while transferring a couple dozen quantum torpedoes over. The ARCHANGEL always ran with shields down since they interfered with the auto-repair function of the hull sheath. O'Camp forwarded his tactical officer's appreciation to Jarrad since they were down to less than a couple dozen of their normal complement of just over a hundred torpedoes. Jarrad shrugged that they were happy to be of assistance since they had plenty to spare as they had over a thousand. O'Camp's plan worked well until they managed to dispatch the remaining old-style craft. On an adrenaline rush from the heat of battle, O'Camp didn't confer with Jarrad to form a plan of attack before ordering the ARCHANGEL be spun around to confront the new heavy cruiser. It proved to be a critical mistake. They didn't realize that due to battle damage, their scanners were just slightly out of alignment. It wasn't by much in a comparative sense, but it was enough to cause problems for the valiant little warship in its attack on the vastly more massive opponent. The ARCHANGEL pounded away at the ventral surface of the Jerichan with its quad phasers from stern to bow and was coming around for another pass when then sensors on the TANELORN initiated an alert. The flagship was barreling toward the Jerichan at full impulse to initiate the final confrontation between the two mighty vessels when Ops reported the problem. An unusual energy pattern buildup in the main deflector was spiking on a scale that was almost too fast and too great for the Alliance's advanced scanners to register. Jarrad cried out for O'Camp to veer off even as he called for the megaphasers and quantum torpedoes to target that area. Too late. The ARCHANGEL stopped dead in its tracks as it passed near the deflector which was well over 1/2 its size. All four megaphaser beams decollimated once they hit the field that was being generated. A dozen and a half quantum torpedoes were crumpled into ineffective nothingness as the generated phenomenon began to swirl into existence. The last thing Jarrad heard from the ARCHANGEL before the weapon terminated communications was O'Camp ordering,
'Transfer all available power to propulsion now! Emergency reserve to………!" Jarrad cold still hear the comm band was open but the interference was scrambling the signal. Jarrad barked for all stop with emergency power to the braking thrusters. The report came from Ops as the TANELORN began to shudder despite the distance,
"Gravimetric shear is off the scale! All readouts are pegged above redline! Sensory overload in progress!" Jarrad turned to his tactical officer and requested while bracing himself against the dramatically exponentially increasing turbulence,
"Can both Atomizers be fired simultaneously?" The officer nodded and replied giving a perfunctory answer of some sort, but the words were lost in the growing cacophony. Jarrad gave a stern nod and pointed at the station as if to give the go ahead. The Grand Fleet Admiral then staggered over to the Ops position to look at the readout. The bucking deck was almost as bad as the time he'd gone deep-sea fishing with his uncle in Lake Erie and had gotten stuck 1/2 way between the shore and his uncle's favorite spot off Kelley's Island when a sudden storm came upon them. At the memory, his stomach was currently thanking God for inertial dampeners. The time back then, he'd summarily informed all aboard the rented cutter of the contents of his last several meals. They'd originally called him 'Greenie' because he was the newest member of the excursion, by the time they got home it had taken on a whole new meaning—the color of his face. The Ops panel was of no help as the readouts were garbled. While hanging onto the panel's support, Jarrad glanced to where the tactical officer was working to set up the dual-discharge. What seemed like an eternity later but was really less than a minute, the officer gave him the thumbs-up. The discharge was now going from a formless cloud and beginning to form a large dark-green disc as it began to move away from the source. Jarrad pointed directly at the disc as it began to approach and the officer understood. He watched in satisfaction as the twin beams struck the energy mass and stopped it cold, which reduced the amount of noise and turbulence considerably. Jarrad was ready to congratulate his tactical officer on a job well done and comment that saving the ship, not to mention the C.O.'s last meal, was also cause for promotional consideration when he saw the officer's expression change. As he saw the yellow-shirt's eyes bug out and jaw drop, his only response was to think 'what now!' and spin around to read the Ops terminal. The officer whose shoulder he was staring over monitored,
"It looks like they're using their main deflector to emit a transporter-enhanced broad-spectrum tractor beam. That would easily explain this void if they used that on the Shadowlands' plasma fields. Problem is that its function is causing feedback in the Atomizer somehow." From the engineering station at the back of the bridge the duty officer reported,
"Engineering reports that we can't shut it off and this new design won't be able to handle this load for long. It will likely send most major systems critical in less than 5 minutes with all the damage we've already sustained." Jarrad listened in chagrin as the furious howl combined with the alarm klaxon was replaced by a whine that was steadily increasing in intensity and volume. It wasn't nearly as loud as the noise a few seconds ago, but it was interfering worse with his ability to think clearly. He noted that the Ops console indicated that they were slowly drawing closer to the phenomenon and demanded,
"I thought I'd requested all stop?" The officer at the helm answered,
"Aye sir, you did and thrusters are at full reverse. I'm about to initiate forward impulse engines, but at this rate of reaction I doubt it will change anything." Jarrad turned to Ops the question he was about to ask was clearly written on his face. In anticipation, the officer at that station reported,
"The ARCHANGEL's power plant is at 170 which is full capacity. They have warp engines, and structural integrity at max and what little is left is going into life support. If they didn't have that bio-sheath, they would have been shredded already." Jarrad was trying to think of a way out of this situation when his communications officer got his attention,
"Admiral O'Camp wants to know whether we can beam his crew off. He has about 5 minutes until his EPS system goes supercritical and forces a coolant manifold leak. Before that happens, he's going to initiate a collision course while activating self-destruct."
"NO! I will not authorize that course of action unless there aren't any other alternatives!" While the officer related this information, Jarrad started to race to the rear when his wife leapt away from her seat and grabbed the officer at the Tactical station to pull him away as well. The instant before they hit the ground, her station exploded and Ops reported that the primary sensor pack had just overloaded and the external hardpoint that housed the unit had shattered. They now had no long-range scanners, and forward sensors were limited to passive operations. They were now blind. Jarrad looked at the scene on the main display and it lost resolution and went blank. The wall was now just an array of giant crystalline rods, 2 dozen in all, 10 feet tall packed together tightly. Ensuring that the two officers were indeed fine, Jarrad stared at the now-visible rods as though something in the back of his mind were trying to tell him something. At the periphery of his awareness, a voice informed him that the feed back from the Atomizer was about to reach the warp core for the third nacelle. Engineering theorized that since the EPS system was taxed to its limit that once the feedback hit the core the primary ODN trunk would fail. This was since the nonpropulsive waveguide converters were amplified by the low-impact subspace field generated by the non-drive engine. This increased computer efficiency by an astronomical level and allowed the bioneural gelpacks to act nearly independent of the main computer. The core system programming was operated by the main computer, but routine tasks were handled by the packs and during a crisis situation; mission-critical data were automatically dumped to them to facilitate response time. Thinking fast, Jarrad requested,
"ZIGGY, can you transfer the buildup factor back into that inactive warp core from the nacelle and dump the core once it hits saturation? If I remember my physics correctly, a supersaturated subspace field will divert focal integrity of a directed gravimetric source?" ZIGGY nodded and replied,
"Affirmative sir. That's why the original tractor beams couldn't tow a ship at warp speeds until we could extend shields around both ships. I am attempting to divert flow of feedback through the system. Currently the rate of buildup is proceeding at an increddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd…d…d…d…d…d…d…d…d…d …d………d……d………d…………!" The hologram stood there frozen, sounding like a broken record whose player's batteries were winding down. There was an almost unearthly screaming sound and the holo-matrix seemingly 'shattered' as it lost resolution. Jarrad's wife called out from her station,
"I was monitoring ZIGGY's progress and her work blew out a fail-safe. Instead of continuing to divert the feedback through the EPS system, the repeater acted as a resistor instead of a capacitor and allowed ZIGGY's systemics to absorb the effect. This caused the feedback to have direct access to the normally independent ODN network." Concerned about the welfare of his virtual crewmember, Jarrad inquired,
"Can ZIGGY be rebooted?"
"Not until the firmware for the ODN drivers is reinstalled to the primary computer core. As it is, the dedicated computer for the drive system is well over saturation." Fighting the panic that was trying to overcome him, Jarrad took a deep breath and asked with a calm he was certainly not feeling,
"If we could relieve this overload, could you bleed the field buildup through the same technique we use to dilute and divert the Atomizer bubble?"
"Through the nacelles' field collectors, yes Admiral." She replied with a nod from the engineer at the other console.
"Emergency dump of that computer core! I don't care about safety concerns to the ship but evacuate all adjacent and affected sections!"
"By my estimation, we have less than a minute until the ARCHANGEL hits the phenomenon's event horizon. The gauss, pascal, and cochrane levels at that point are off the scale and the ARCHANGEL is already beyond specification crush levels." Came the hurried report from Ops. Jarrad began to sweat as he murmured under his breath what was his equivalent of a prayer,
"C'mon O'Camp, hang in there just a little bit longer…!" His expression was punctuated by a brilliant flash from the small backup monitor that had just been set up in the front of the bridge. Jarrad noted aloud he wasn't aware the core had already been dumped. He was informed it hadn't, but the flash was a plasma leak from the ARCHANGEL's starboard warp nacelle. Jarrad dashed forward and, sure enough, there was a bright green stream emanating from the flickering nacelle into the center of the phenomenon's disk. The Tactical Scout was tilted at an odd angle yet still maintaining its struggle against the vastly superior forces working against it.
"Get that core out of there now! I don't care if you have to blow the safety interlocks with a phaser! Just do it by whatever means necessary!" Jarrad nearly shouted his order into the intercom. He was getting desperate, and he didn't care that his Cherokee nature was bubbling to the surface right now. The Jerichans had already cost him too much and he was beyond fed up with it. He wanted to end this. He wanted blood. Now!
"That core is just abaft the primary structural interlink for the two modular sections in that area. With the hull in that section polarized, we can't simply eject the core without removing the hull plating first. Otherwise, cascade impact reaction will likely cause the interlocks to buckle. Besides, the core saturation is at critical mass. If it impacts with something that is polarized it will de-phase everything organic aboard, killing us all." His wife announced. Struggling to maintain his balance because of the nausea he was beginning to experience from the pitch of the whine from the system strain, Jarrad commented,
"Well that would certainly end our problem for us." This elicited a smile from his female Drakmärian first officer. She returned to furiously inputting command codes into the engineering station along with the duty officer. Moments later, the lights began to flicker and the deck started to tilt. Since the Ops officer was assisting the tactical officer at the latter's station, Jarrad strode over to the Ops terminal and reported aloud,
"Inertial Dampeners are failing as is our ability to maintain attitude control due Structural Integrity failure. The event horizon of the Jerichan weapon is an ellipse perpendicular to the plane of the face of the phenomenon. Interesting, the ARCHANGEL is closer to the phenomenon, yet the TANELORN is closer to the event horizon!" As he concluded his monitoring, his number one announced that the core's exterior hull plate had been ejected and the sudden vacuum along with the explosive disconnection of the attached conduits should combine to serve to suck the unit clean out into space. Jarrad frowned tightly at this since it put them at a serious tactical disadvantage. Motion on the temporary replacement screen arrested his attention and his heart sank as he looked at it. As the TANELORN's disposed core floated to the increasingly massive dark-green disk, there was another bright green flash of light from the ARCHANGEL. Jarrad couldn't be sure because of the lack of monitor resolution and the distance, but several slivers separated themselves from the bottom of the Tactical Scout. Warp cores. An unmistakable yellow glow appeared from the main impulse engine for an instant and O'Camp's flagship appeared to lurch forward for a split moment. Jarrad knew that without warp power, O'Camp had 'flashed' his impulse engine by streaming antimatter particles into the reactor. This trick gave a brief yet vast boost of power to the engine. The only problem was the effect it had. Or lack thereof. Very little. Jarrad watched sickened as the other ship began to tumble in slow motion as it followed the ejected cores. The cores slid directly toward the angry, roiling disc as it seemed to writhe in place, eager to devour the approaching meal. The ARCHANGEL followed while picking up speed as it continued its lazy tumble. When the cores got to the point from the disc which was equal to the circumference, they seemed to pause for a brief moment. Simultaneously, they all imploded with a horrifically beautiful 'splash' that almost impressed the artist in Jarrad. Watching the 'splash' swallow itself up, Jarrad's eyes flitted over to his friend's flagship and realized that the same destiny was its due. He wanted to throw up. Everything went still for a moment despite the cacophony, and the hairs on the back of Jarrad's neck stood up. Almost as if the hand of God had punched the disc and then opened, ripples began to come forth from the dissipating 'splash' effect. Miraculously, the ripples began to envelop the gigantic disc as they ebbed forth. The effect was eerily similar to the time aboard the TANELORN-A when he had watched as the sun at Alpha Nazerrin went nova. It had expanded, collapsed, and then reverse-imploded (Or would that be reverse-exploded? It was difficult for a non-scientist to describe the effect from a purely artistic point-of-view as Jarrad had noted in his log at the time) while expelling a huge amount of energy which was so vast it imposed upon the visual spectrum. This event was no different. The only problem was that the ARCHANGEL was continuing its lopsided 'free-fall,' and the TANELORN's Vulcan helmsman confirmed that the Alliance vessel was progressing more rapidly than the ripple effect. Although the ripple appeared to be encompassing and dissipating the disc, given the dramatically reduced volume of the overload on the flagship, the mass of the phenomenon would still overwhelm O'Camp and his crew in less than a minute! Then the unexpected happened. Jarrad wasn't much on believing in miracles, but this came close enough to impress even him. With an unusually violent explosion, the Jerichan's main deflector array blew out. The massive warship seemed to shudder and then began to drift slowly and inexorably to the disc. The Jerichan deployed its inverter weapon and fired it at the disc. This had little effect save for the fact that the inversion payload seemed to whisper into nothingness upon contacting the other field. The TANELORN's bridge stopped and watched in fascination as something really unusual happened next. The beacon that projected the deployment factor for the inverter began to glow green and started darkening. The darkening effect initiated at the disc, what there was left of it, and progressed back to the inverter's 'spotlight' on the dorsal hull. The instant the darker color made contact with the hardware, the weapon exploded and the Jerichan increased the speed of its drift. Never one to glory in an enemy's fate, Jarrad actually indulged himself in a small self-satisfied grin. The grin became a smile, and there were murmurs of approval as the Jerichan came into contact with its own weapon mere seconds before the ARCHANGEL. Justice! By now the disc was but 90 of the size of the Jerichan's bow, fully 1/3 of its size on its deployment just a couple minutes ago. It was still enough. Upon contact with the ship, the disc seemed to reach forth to envelop the front 1/10 of it (Jarrad was later informed that it was more accurately 1/9.2 after Mainframe reviewed the logs during Jarrad's council debriefing). There was no explosion, rather the individual molecules seemed to be rendered asunder. It was likely the lack of resolution on the backup monitor, but the effect reminded Jarrad of his favorite target practice program. In the program's final sequence, you have to fire as fast as you can at a large opponent, blasting off as many pieces as possible before the opponent gets to a certain point. The opponent is covered by dozens of little tiles and each must be turned to a different color before it can be destroyed. The nearer the center they are the more shots it takes and each one shatters individually when destroyed. Once the goal is reached, the remaining tiles all shatter and the shattered pieces all melt into vapor. This was almost exactly the same effect he was now witnessing from the Jerichan. With a sigh that reflected nearly-palpable relief, Jarrad watched as the ARCHANGEL bounced off the hull of the ill-fated Jerichan. The Grand Fleet Admiral turned to his tactical officer and requested,
"Can we tractor beam the ARCHANGEL?"
"No Admiral, there is no power to that system and network redundancy for the drivers cannot be reinitialized." Jarrad opened his mouth to say something else when he noticed something on the Ops console. Although the Jerichan was breaking up, its flight path still had it on a collision path with the flagship! He tersely ordered evasive maneuvers, and the helmsman replied,
"Unable to comply, the impulse reactors are being reset and we don't have enough maneuvering thruster power to compensate for our existing inertia." Jarrad groaned, this was just not fair!
"Divert all available power to forward Structural Integrity Field and augment shields to generator limits!" He cried out in desperation. Recalling the TANELORN was on a heading of negative 10˚ relative to zero plane of the Jerichan, Jarrad ordered his helm,
"Fire fore dorsal on full and pulse aft ventral thrusters on 1/4 to see if we can at least use our existing kinetic energy to our advantage." The Vulcan arched an eyebrow and replied in a deadpan manner which gave him such a sense of déjà vu of his original first officer that it raised the hairs on the back of Jarrad's neck and actually caused him to shudder,
"Fascinating tack sir. As that would cause the other ship to come into contact with our 3d nacelle at an angle of 10.2˚, I would suggest that we disable said nacelle." Jarrad responded with his usual "Let's do it!" as he did some quick calculations at the Ops terminal. The Vulcan was correct, due to the two vessels' combined speed and courses, the maneuver didn't change the angle of incident only the location of impact. Had he ordered the port aft thrusters fired full that would have likely changed the result. The only problem was that those thrusters were just one section aft of the section which had been torn open by the initial blast and the EPS system in said area was operating at less than 60 efficiency. In a perfect world…
"Hindsight is always 20-20…" He mumbled to himself as he felt a distinct shudder and this caused him to wonder aloud,
"What now!" His fingers did a quick dance over the Ops terminal and what he discovered made his heart sink. His shoulders slumped as he sighed morosely while looking at the ceiling,
"Oh that is so NOT fair!" As he watched the ARCHANGEL pulling the much larger TANELORN to safety with a tractor beam affixed to the flagship's stern. He felt a tickle in the back of his mind that he was thankful it was O'Camp doing this maneuver or Jarrad might never live this situation down if it were another captain.
"You know exactly what we are going to do as you've been pestering me about it for the past week!" Jarrad replied to O'Camp's query if the senior officer had any plans of what to do from their current predicament. It had been over half an hour since their victory over their ambushers. The TANELORN was currently resting at an odd angle while the ARCHANGEL was providing cover. They were all aboard the flagship as the smaller ship had life support on a few decks only. Each vessel had its own unique set of problems, and neither one would be going very far anytime soon because of them. O'Camp had looked better as he was missing his tunic top and the lower half of his left pants leg was badly torn up. His hair was disheveled, and he had smoke smears on much of his exposed skin. Jarrad was waiting for his friend to tease him about the situation or to at least say something about the suggestion which had just been made. O'Camp remained silent. Jarrad continued,
"Since your vessel's warp drive has been seriously compromised and the same goes for my computer system, it would seem the most logical approach." O'Camp nodded and said quietly,
"Otherwise it would easily take us months to get home at the very least." Jarrad replied that this was quite true. O'Camp activated his Datalink and informed his crew what they were planning. The procedure took several hours. They actually had to clear out the massive cargo bay so the Tactical Scout could be brought in. From there, it actually became easy. Since the smaller craft had 5 times as many maneuvering thrusters relative to its size, it was a simple task to get the ARCHANGEL into the bay—Jarrad even lost the bet with O'Camp that the TANELORN would have to assist using her tractor beam. It actually became easier to facilitate the process once Jarrad came up with the idea to close the cargo bay door and repressurize the enclosure with a breathable atmosphere. Jarrad actually strode up to the torpedo launcher atop the ARCHANGEL's dorsal surface and sat on it to watch the flurry of activity in the bay. The Grand Fleet Admiral noted with surprise that the bio-sheath was warm and soft…almost like flesh! It was actually disconcerting to look directly at the sheath with the naked eye since it was not in phase continuum with his eyes, and it gave him slight eyestrain gazing at the perceived optical illusion. The ship was translucent, and he could see everything that was occuring about her exterior as though the craft were one massive empty see-through shell. Part of his mind wondered why he couldn't see the activity inside the ship he was sitting atop, but he also knew the laws of physics didn't work that way where phasing was concerned. Oh, how he hated quantum physics! Before coming up, he'd found that the engineers were planning to establish a force-field around the external hardpoints for the EPS and ODN systems. Fortunately, the damage-control rigging had left temporary patches in the exposed sections of the damaged nacelle and they were able to use those instead. He heard the sound of footfalls and turned to face O'Camp, who was approaching him. The Irishman's hair was plastered to his face with sweat, and the work that he'd been taking part in had made the smoke and lubricant to change his hair color from its champagne blond to an almost chocolate brown. He still hadn't put on a tunic appropriate to his Star Corps position. He was currently wearing an engineering jumpsuit with his insignia affixed. The two friends made small talk for a few minutes as they watched the flurry of activity happening below. While they talked, they waved at any of their subordinates who looked up at them while speaking words of encouragement and praise. Jarrad was in the process of complimenting O'Camp on a job well-done since the other man had not taken the bait to tease his Cherokee friend for bailing him out when he noticed something,
"Hey Brian, why do certain sections of the sheath look distorted?" He pointed to one section in particular which was 4 meters in front of him. O'Camp walked over and waved his Datalink's scanner over it. He crouched as he tapped a few buttons then frowned and said,
"We have a slight problem Chief. The sheath is designed to operate in space and actually derives some of its function from the vacuum. Since its in the cargo hold which we have pressurized, oxidization is taking place." O'Camp toggled his Datalink's communicator and paged his ship's engineer. He informed the officer of the situation and that the problem was more pronounced where the artificial lighting was in proximity. The biggest section was in location 'Kappa 37 at Romeo 122' which was where Jarrad had spotted the effect. Minutes later, a Cardassian engineering team leader appeared and began to go to work on the affected area. Minutes later, the engineer reported the findings to O'Camp who shared them with Jarrad while rubbing his hair with a degreaser cloth he obtained from the Cardassian,
"The sheath is slowly losing stability due to the unusually high concentration of oxygen it is encountering combined with the low lux level and color spectral band of the artificial lighting in here." Jarrad replied,
"So then my guess about the lights did have something to do with it after all. I'm not completely familiar with the technology since I'm not encountering it on a daily basis, so that was a lucky guess on my part." O'Camp nodded and confirmed,
"And a good one too. I didn't think of that since it had been around artificial lighting during its construction." The two got down from their perch and evacuated the ARCHANGEL so that the cargo bay doors could be opened during the remainder of the flight. Jarrad told O'Camp to go get cleaned up in his quarters since he had a water-based shower system. During the remainder of the trip, O'Camp tried multiple times to get Jarrad to allow him command of the flagship but the senior officer declined, stating that his friend had more important duties to attend to with his own crew. The two understood that it was just a running joke between friends as they'd always had this type of relationship. It took less than a week for repairs to be completed on the TANELORN once they arrived at the Spacedock and Jarrad was more than ready to get back into space by then. The AEC had informed him that the upgrades were ready to be installed, but Jarrad had wanted to give a promised flag-waving along the inner perimeter to allay the concerns of the Qortazian government who had noted some suspicious activity in the local shadow-cloud. Jarrad had also wanted to give O'Camp some breathing space since his friend's demeanor had been less favorable in the week since his transfer. O'Camp was still doing his job and was still acting his usual self, but after having known the man for all this time Jarrad had a sense something had changed. He'd even made an offhand remark to Yve O'Camp and her response about her husband's well-being seemed to confirm his thoughts. On his last day, he found out what the problem was. O'Camp was escorting him to the flagship's berth when they entered the dock overlook. The center section was just under the dockmaster's office and was sometimes used as a holding area when the dockmaster was busy during times of crew processing. O'Camp stopped short and turned to the two beings behind him. One was a Drakmärian Royal Ranger and was the guard assigned to him by the Council of Elders, the other was a Nortanian Mystic Warrior who had sworn an oath of protection to him during his tenure on Nortania and now served as his personal bodyguard. O'Camp slid off his Datalink and asked the two to excuse them for five minutes. Jarrad paused for a moment and then handed his Datalink to the Ranger who served as his council-appointed guard and all three left the room as O'Camp requested CARIN to secure the room and institute privacy mode. Then the Fleet Admiral slid a PADD out of his utility pocket and said,
"Chief, I understand you reassigned the PRIMUS to investigate and scan the area in which we were attacked."
"Yes I did Brian. We haven't had much activity lately in the area of Nortania, and I figured an Alliance-class warship would be the best choice to do the job."
"Not a problem. They are also better able to divert the Shadowlands using plasma charges since the Jerichans likely knew about the void that was left. I got their results back a few days ago and found something disturbing that jibes with an investigation I had the SHROUD do some time ago. I held these back since my work with intelligence I wanted to be sure what I suspected was on track rather than an assumption. Along with that the recent developments left me with some grave concerns if the information ever got out. Even the captain of the SHROUD was ordered not to speculate in his logs unless he wanted a transfer to the intelligence service, which he insisted he did not want." Jarrad laughed at this and replied,
"Well I've heard some whisperings from some of my sources that the Jerichans were concerned about the loss of contact with one of their vessels. I can see why as we really got lucky when we defeated that ship last week."
"Right, which is why I debated holding back this information as if it becomes part of any record, it could create a problem for us and could jeopardize our hold on the balance of power in this war."
"I don't understand…"
"Simply put, if someone were to find out that we really had a serious fight on our hands with the two best ships at our disposal rather than…" Jarrad interrupted with sudden comprehension,
"Rather than suffering a design flaw or being destroyed by being outclassed by two surprised opponents or encountering problems in the Shadowlands. The Jerichans would divert resources to following up on their problem instead of instituting production, which would likely catch our attention now that we know about its existence." O'Camp nodded and Jarrad sighed,
"While I don't care for misleading my command staff, I can understand why this would be prudent. I'll have ZIGGY modify the pertinent databases so that the intelligence is consistent." O'Camp drummed his fingertips on the edge of the PADD he was holding and looked at the floor with his eyes focused on infinity for a few seconds. Jarrad started to say something but O'Camp spoke and he stopped short,
"This is the results of the two investigations. It details specifics about the new weapon we encountered and there is a very disturbing conclusion which was reached. I saw from the data where the evidence was heading and completed it myself by comparing the damage to the ARCHANGEL's hull against the residue from the other vessel's." Confused, Jarrad asked,
"Residue? Other vessel? What are you…?" Without a word, O'Camp handed over the PADD. Jarrad's eyes began flicking rapidly as he speed-read the stale report in his hand. O'Camp could tell he was getting to the important part as the Star Corps' Commandant's other hand reached up to hold onto the edge of the device. The knuckles on both hands began to turn white, and Jarrad's countenance turned ashen and his eyes widened as his brow furrowed and his breathing went shallow. Jarrad gasped for breath as he whispered hoarsely,
"That new weapon…has the same frequency rebound…as a black star!" He swallowed hard—twice—to find his voice. When he spoke again, his voice was trembling with grief and anger,
"We never could find the plasma variations…we assumed that the gravity well caused the Shadowlands to wash them away…it was thought that a freak of physics allowed there to be any wreckage at all…" His eyes teared up and he couldn't speak any more. O'Camp nodded in understanding and paused a moment before softly asking,
"Now you know the conclusion I came to and why I've kept everyone out of the loop. Do you know what this means?" Jarrad nodded slowly,
"Vitro was murdered!"
The flagship departed as scheduled. O'Camp followed its progress until it was at the extreme range of long-range scanners. Before he'd boarded, Jarrad had informed O'Camp the next Alliance-class warship would be placed under his jurisdiction and he'd be allowed to name it. O'Camp smiled as he was looking forward to having space legs again. The ARCHANGEL was a fine ship, but it wasn't designed for extended patrols or other varied mission parameters. He enjoyed being a station administrator and had gotten quite good at it, but it wasn't what he'd signed up for. Besides, their patrol route would include Etumia and he knew his wife would love to see home again. As he watched the blip that was the TANELORN fade out of range he said almost a prayer,
"Godspeed, my old friend."
NOTES: This story actually was part one of three-story collection called 'A Trilogy of Shorts' and was only intended to close out the genre and fill in some holes. I purposely left it in a 'rough draft' format in case I get enough feedback, I may rewrite and expand on the story. To those who are curious, the name of the flagship's computer is a tribute to the computer from Quantum Leap. When Joe Vitro passed away, a story was written where his character tried to escape from a Jerichan Warship by using a shuttle. His distress call is picked up by a patrol but when they arrive, all they find is wreckage. There is a lot of gravitic shear stress on the debris and it is though that he tried to go into warp and got torn apart in the gravity well of a nearby black star.
With this story I intended to: bring to light the death of the Vitro character since Joe died of Liver failure in real life, have a joint Tanelorn-Archangel mission and have one final caracter/combat driven story.