Chapter Eleven
The Federation squadron was larger, and its numbers gave it great power. The Klingons were powerful in quite another way. Their much smaller group of ships – half a dozen, not even half of Fox's force – were led by the imposing bulk of a ship of the line, supported by two cruisers and three birds of prey. A small force, but the line-of-battle ship was a mighty power, and there was nothing in the Federation squadron that came close to matching it. Thunderer was the biggest, most powerful ship at Fox's disposal, and Starfleet rated that a heavy cruiser. The battleship was well out of his league.
Nevertheless there was no possibility of declining the engagement – to allow a powerful and clearly hostile Klingon force to roam the sector unopposed was unthinkable – and Fox signalled for his ships to form up and prepare to engage the enemy. It was an order followed without a moment's pause by his captains, and the line came about to meet the foe.
Fox disliked Drake intensely, but he knew the man's reputation as a successful fighting captain, and with the odds against him he could not afford to waste a moment on personal vendettas. He commanded Drake to take the Miranda-class cruiser Detroit and the frigates Cunning and Unite as wing mates and attack the Klingon cruisers. Thunderer and the Miranda-class Atlante, Phoenix and Namur would tackle the battleship, while the rest of the frigates engaged the birds of prey. It was an optimistic plan, despite the heavy weight of numbers advantage – Klingon ships were on the whole better armed than their Federation counterparts, and could take substantially more pounding. However, it was the best that could be attempted and the squadron's captains set their minds to their duties.
"Close with the near cruiser amidships, Alix. Lay us alongside at point blank range. Brok, fire as your weapons come to bear."
Amidst a storm of phaser and torpedo fire, the Endeavour closed on her enemy. The Klingon ship retaliated with shots of her own, but they lacked the accuracy or rate of fire that the starship could boast. Now the long months of training, uninterrupted by the starship's squadron duties, paid off. Old though she might be, and poorly armed by the standards of modern ships, the Endeavour pounded her opponent again and again, smashing through the younger ship's reinforced shields and raking phaser beams across her bare hull. The cruiser's response was mostly pointless, as the Federation ship would not sit still long enough to let her land a shot home. Alix was a brilliant pilot, she knew her ship perfectly, and she caused the great starship to dance, springing nimbly around the flashes of disruptor fire that the Klingons sent their way, all the time closing in on her prey.
Elsewhere, the battle was not going so prettily. Captain had blundered straight into a salvo from the battleship and had been mauled horribly, forced to withdraw or risk utter destruction. The Phoenix had lost her forward shields in closing with her target, and when the ship-of-the-line fired again a lucky shot struck the cruiser's bridge, blowing it apart and killing everyone unfortunate enough to be there. The ship stumbled, lost her way, and was immediately set upon by a bird of prey. She would have been plucked to death, had Commander Butcher not come rushing to the rescue, harassing the bird of prey with his frigate and forcing her to break off her attack.
The second cruiser, engaged by the Detroit and Cunning, was more interested in battering the craft attacking the Klingon pendant ship than in defending itself. The light cruiser and frigate were barely able to make a dent in the warship's shields, anyway – annoying gnats, nothing more – they could be dealt with in time. The heavy cruiser chased Thunderer and her wing mates, firing steadily.
Endeavour ducked across her target's dorsal, rolled through ninety degrees and presented her entire array of ventral guns to the ship (the starship having been flying at a right angle relative to the orientation of the warship to begin with). Brok's cannons spoke, and the Klingon had nothing, absolutely nothing, to protect herself. Phased energy beams cut through the ship from top to bottom, tearing up her insides, breaking her apart. The cruiser shuddered once, before exploding in a mighty ball of plasma that would have done immense damage to Endeavour, had she not been far away at that particular moment and accelerating towards her next target, the second cruiser.
"Report," Drake requested.
"Captain, Phoenix, San Pablo and Excellent are too damaged to fight on, sir. Ronald Reagan and Unite have been destroyed. We've accounted for one cruiser and two birds of prey," said McDonald, monitoring the changing face of the conflict from communications.
"The cruisers and destroyers aren't the problem," opined Alix. "It's that battleship. It's swatting us like flies."
There wasn't any time for further discussion, as they came into weapons' range of their target. Detroit and Cunning were still fighting, and by now Conquestada had joined them, but they had so far done minimal damage to the warship. Endeavour added her cannons to the attack, and the Klingon vessel was at last forced to stop harassing the Thunderer and worry about her own safety. After sending two volleys of torpedoes at the Endeavour and hitting nothing but stars, the Klingons switched their attention to the slower moving Detroit.
"Captain Li is reporting heavy damage, sir," warned McDonald. "Detroit has lost main power and has hull breaches on decks three and four."
"Alix, put us between Detroit and the cruiser."
The massive bulk of the starship slid into place, absorbing the Klingon's next thunderous assault at near point blank range. A terrible blow and the starship felt it keenly, but her shields were at full strength and she was able to turn aside the deadly attack with minimal damage.
"Fire."
Endeavour's retaliation was utterly brutal. An immense eruption of phaser fire that drained the Klingon's shields and kept right on cutting, smashing apart her starboard nacelle. The starship's gun crews were working like maniacs to keep up this unparalleled rate of fire, and thanks to their hard work the Klingon K'tinga-class cruiser, a modern and tough ship, was knocked out of the fight.
"They have lost power," reported Sarn. "Switching to auxiliary circuits. They have partial shields and weapons. Limited manoeuvrability."
"Second salvo, Mr. Brok. Finish them off."
"Phasers ready."
"Fi –"
"Oh my God!" Cried McDonald, before the order could be completed or carried out. "They've destroyed Thunderer! She's coming apart!"
"On screen."
He could see the ship breaking up, her decks aflame and great holes punched through her hull. A trio of frigates were buzzing around the doomed starship, evacuating everyone that they could while there was time. Even though the ship was tearing herself apart, the Klingon battleship kept firing into her hulk, barbarically sending shot after shot into her to kill as many of her people as she could. Drake felt his blood boiling, and could do nothing to bring his temper under control. The Klingons' behaviour was atrocious, deplorable.
It was all over a moment later. The new ship went up in a great ball of fire, and when it cleared there was nothing left of her; not even a scattering of debris. Antimatter annihilation. Nothing could have survived that blast.
Radio checks started flooding in from the three frigates, reporting all those who had been beamed to safety – a tiny fraction of the starship's eight hundred. Fox had survived the destruction of his ship, but he was unconscious, bleeding profusely, and there was no guarantee that he would last much longer. With the commodore out of action, command of the squadron shifted to the next senior-most officer – Drake. He had never been in a situation like this before, never had this kind of responsibility on his shoulders. He expected the knowledge of it to hit him all at once and crush him, but it never came: he was strangely calm.
"This is Endeavour. All ships, maintain attack. Give them everything you've got."
That was not much. There were few true fighters in the squadron, and far too few of the captains had really trained their crews to battle. There was confusion, slow, inefficient firing, poor combat manoeuvres, and a lack of teamwork. With one or two exceptions – Captains Solvak and Jervis being a pair of notable ones, which was surprising given their mutual animosity. No one knew how to get the best out of his or her ship. The Starfleet squadron's numerical advantage was entirely squandered by the ineptitude of the ships involved. Half as many craft, more competently manned and controlled, would have had far greater effect.
Meanwhile, the Klingon battleship continued to throw heavy disruptor bolts in every conceivable direction, slapping at anything and everything that came into range. She was a massively powerful ship, crewed by people who knew her well and knew how to fight with her, and she was punishing her opponents.
"It's no good, Will," Alix said. "If we're going to win this we've got to take that big bastard out."
"We don't have the means to take her," he replied, but a thought started to form in his mind as soon as he said those words. It was crazy, something rarely attempted in a space battle, and never in such an engagement as this, but that very craziness might work – the Klingons would never expect it.
A hell of a risk, and if he was wrong…but there was no other choice, no realistic alternative. Even while one part of his mind was still weighing it up, picking out the flaws, the ridiculous risks, the rest of him was already committed: a snap decision – no time to even hope that it was the right one.
"All hands, this is the captain. We are about to engage the Klingon line-of-battle ship. We'll be knocked around, but have courage. Keep to your posts, keep the ship moving and the guns firing, and we'll survive. We're going to close to point blank range, and then we're going to board the enemy!"
It was a bold plan, a tactic that harked back to the age of sail, when an attacker would close yardarm to yardarm with his target, let her have a thundering broadside and then swarm aboard in the smoke to have at the crew until she struck her colours. Even in those times there were few examples of a smaller ship taking a larger one, but it had been done: Lord Cochrane of the British brig Speedy of fourteen four-pound guns had tackled and captured the Spanish xebec-frigate El Gamo, mounting twenty-two twelve-pounders and eight eight-pounders. Drake hoped that some of Lord Cochrane's luck would come his way in this caper.
No one in Starfleet had ever heard of such a manoeuvre, but the Endeavours had absolute confidence in their captain, and if he was going aboard that big Klingon bastard, they would be going right along with him. Already there were men and women flocking to the armouries, pulling on combat gear and helping themselves to phasers. Everyone knew that there were few more fierce warriors than Klingons, that the battleship had nearly twice their numbers, but such facts in no way dampened the spirits of the boarding parties as they prepared for action. Friends had been lost in this battle, and no one had forgotten the atrocious attack on Herminie. There wasn't a soul aboard the starship who wasn't keen to get into close action and serve the Klingons back some of their own brutality. Even Yeoman Hope, who had never even kicked a cat in her life, rushed for a phaser and a belt of photon grenades.
"You'll want me in a boarding party," announced Alix.
That was a no-brainer; Drake had never encountered someone with as much aptitude or enthusiasm for close fighting as his friend. "Of course. But first I need you to get us into boarding range in one piece."
"On it."
The starship tore towards the line-of-battle ship, her phasers erupting in a steady stream of fire that made Drake proud of each and every member of his gun crews. They may have been slow and ill-disciplined when he had first received them, but now they worked their phaser cannons earnestly. The memory of the Herminie massacre drove the gunners to work harder, fire faster, and be doubly sure that their shots were going to go home and kill some of the monsters that had been behind that attack.
The battleship was spreading her fire amongst all the ships in the squadron at first, but when she noticed the Endeavour barrelling down on her in earnest she made the starship a priority. Despite Alix's best efforts, blasts struck the old girl and caused her to stumble: terrible, horrifically powerful shots; but she hadn't survived fifty years of Starfleet service by being weak, and she could take a few hits. Relentlessly the old starship ploughed on, chewing up the miles between herself and her intended victim, until they were no longer miles but mere yards. At point blank range the starship's phasers cut up the battleship's shields, and the warship was frustrated by her inability to fire back, Alix having positioned the starship in a blind spot where no guns could reach her.
"Boarding parties," instructed Drake, his tactic unaltered. His ship couldn't stay out of the line of fire forever, and neither could she win in a slugging match with that juggernaut, although she was certainly willing to try. "Alix, Wolf, with me. Vicki, you have the con."
"Captain, I should go."
"No." In an action such as this it was the captain's responsibility to be at the front and leading the charge: asking, not demanding, that his men came with him. McDonald was still unpopular – the crew would not follow her. "My decision, my responsibility. Carry on."
Drake's strategy was as unexpected as he had believed it would be. At first the Klingon crew were completely unaware of what was happening, and by the time they worked it out it was already too late. More than a hundred Endeavours were already aboard the battleship, and more were coming every three seconds with each fresh transporter cycle. Not just security officers, but an army of volunteers: anyone the ship could spare – scientists, helmsmen, shuttle technicians, communications specialists, anyone not vital in keeping the ship moving and shooting. They came aboard in waves, the transporters constantly at work, and while the boarders were outnumbered they had righteous fury to power them into battle, and a bond with each other that their opponents could not match. The attackers worked in teams, friends standing alongside one another to help each other survive, while the defenders were out for themselves and for personal glory. They had no chance.
The Klingons fought courageously, but they were utterly unprepared for the attack. Very few of them had close-quarter weapons to hand, and all of the boarders carried some model of phaser. Alix Nain, who led the group closing in on the ship's bridge, was ambidextrous and wielded a pistol in each hand. With these two weapons she was an angel of death, cutting down any Klingon in her path, blue beams of fire pinning her enemies even behind cover. Her party all carried phaser rifles, and they picked off the few that escaped their lieutenant's shots. Methodically, with the cold efficiency of a machine, they swept the decks on the way to their target.
"Exhilarating, isn't it, Alix? There's nothing like a good boarding action to get the blood racing. On your right." The human turned and fired, eviscerating the Klingons that had attempted to flank them through a joining corridor. Kana laughed wickedly, savouring the carnage, the smell of blood and burn flesh, the screams of the dying and the moans of the injured: little gave her greater pleasure.
From the bodies of the defeated Klingons, Alix helped herself to a pair of mek'leth short swords, and it was wielding these that she burst onto the bridge of the Klingon ship. The officers were better prepared than their crew, and they counterattacked the Starfleet force immediately. Alix decapitated the first officer and disembowelled the master gunner, before turning her attention to the ship's captain. He came at her with a bat'leth, an aggressive charge that had identical results to Grownel's rush against Kana: Alix stepped out of the direct line of the charge, slipped her left sword into the middle of the three grips on the bat'leth, and wrenched the weapon from its owner. Her right sword she drove through the Klingon's throat, killing him instantly.
"I see you paid attention. Very nice footwork, and a smooth killing blow."
She looked around and saw her party engaged in a bitter struggle with the remaining Klingon officers. In hand-to-hand combat the Klingons had the advantage, being bigger and stronger, and the Starfleet crewmen were being battered. She launched herself into the melee, swords whistling through the air in deadly sweeps. Alix had no real idea of what was happening, what she was doing, it was all purely instinct – thrust, block, slice, stab, block, hack, hack, block, stab... Her uniform became sodden with blood, her arms tired and sore from the repeated motions (feelings that went entirely unnoticed at the time, adrenaline making her invincible and indefatigable), but eventually it was over, the Klingons all lying dead, no one left to fight. She inspected her team. They were beaten and bloody, but all were present and correct.
"Secure the bridge," Alix instructed, and as her people moved to cover all the entrance points in case of a counteroffensive, she observed the Destroyer smiling at her. "You're a mess. There isn't a part of your body that isn't stained with blood."
"I know. I can feel it."
"You can, can't you? Feel it, I mean? The exhilaration of battle; the delight of this slaughter. You relish it."
Alix ignored her dark counterpart and walked away. Kana was entirely wrong: Alix felt no pleasure in this action, but then she felt nothing at all right now. Her cold, practical evil was quite firmly in control of her.
The bridge had been taken, but fighting continued elsewhere in the ship. Drake's party met with enormous resistance storming the engine room, and would have been wiped out completely if it hadn't been for the killing machine that was Lieutenant Wolf. She launched herself at her foes, fast and vicious as a cheetah, her claws slashing and her teeth closing around throats, tearing out windpipes. She was a murderous blur of motion, surging from Klingon to Klingon, ripping them apart, but even with her it was hard work. Half a dozen members of Drake's team were killed, including Crewman Lewis, who died valiantly defending his captain from the chief engineer, stabbed through the chest by a d'k'tagh dagger. The chief died a moment later, his heart torn out by Wolf, but it was too late to save the crewman. A human might have felt guilt, might have blamed herself for being too slow, but Wolf had no such feelings, and she sought out another victim without a moment's pause.
The Klingons would not surrender, but no one had ever expected them to. They fought until they died, or until they were too badly wounded to fight on. Decks flowed with blood, and the boarders found themselves stumbling over the bodies of their enemies as they pressed on forward. The fighting continued for close to half-an-hour, but long before the end the situation had become utterly hopeless for the Klingons. By now the other ships in the squadron had sent over their own teams to assist the Endeavours, and hundreds of Atlantes, Detroits, Namurs and Cunnings swarmed the ship; but even with more than a thousand armed Starfleet crewmen aboard their ship, the heavily depleted body of Klingons refused to consider surrender.
Finally, after a fight that seemed to last forever, the whole bloody ordeal was over. There were no Klingons left on the pennant ship capable of resisting, and the exhausted but victorious Starfleet force took possession. Those Klingons who had survived, a mere handful, were transferred to the squadron's ships to receive medical care, along with the Federation's own wounded.
Drake came onto the Klingon bridge and found it under the control of a group of Endeavours, led by Alix Nain. They had already begun to clean up the mess made by the capture, and Nain had posted hands at vital workstations. She turned when she heard him enter, tried to smile. "The ship's ours?"
"Yes."
"How many?"
"We've twenty-six confirmed dead, nearly fifty in sickbay."
Given the ferocity of the fighting, the enormity of the victory, Alix considered their losses to be very small indeed, but she refrained from saying so. The captain looked old and tired, emotionally as well as physically exhausted. He felt those deaths very heavily.
"Swords?" He said, noticing the weapons in Alix's hands.
"Seemed more appropriate for a boarding action. Besides, Klingons prefer to fight hand-to-hand."
"True."
Alix went to put a hand on her hurting friend's shoulders, but stopped when she saw how gory her hands were. Instead she told him tenderly, "You did what had to be done, Will. We've achieved a monumental victory here today. A Klingon line-of-battle ship taken out of commission by the Endeavour. Our people didn't die in vain. Because of their courage, this ship and its wingmates can no longer threaten this sector. The Endeavours are heroes today, Will. Even the dead."
His smile was a small and sad one, but some light returned to his eyes, some colour to his face. "Where would I be without you?"
Alix Nain said nothing. Kana Nain, however, had an answer: "Dead and buried, most likely."
