Chapter Three: The Battle of Vlugta Field
Admiral Jameson was going to lead the attack himself, with Ramilies, Ajax, Rabin and Spector joining him. Intelligence had said that Vlugta was lightly defended, and our long range probes had reported the same. A small cruiser flotilla was the only thing defending the mines, but there was a large power signature coming from a large asteroid. I mean, 40 miles across. It was huge. The plan was to wipe out the cruiser formation and then approach the asteroid carefully, investigate the source of power and find a way to either use it or disable it. Tavistock was going to be deployed on the edge of the belt to keep us informed of any incoming reinforcements. I had a funny feeling about that unknown power signature. I couldn't pin it down, but something was off about it.
Regardless, 3 days after Ramilies arrival, at 06:00, Tavistock departed under cloak to take up a surveillance position on the edge of the field, and informed us that the cruiser squadron appeared to be on a lazy patrol. That doesn't mean that they weren't moving, a lazy patrol refers to the fact that they weren't zigging, they weren't masking themselves, they were just in a basic loop. My bad feeling got worse at that. The Dominion had to know that Vlugta was a huge strategic asset, why would they be lazy patrolling? Admiral Jameson disagreed, and ordered the group to charge in and remove the cruisers before they decided to wake.
Ramillies and Challenger jumped into the area of operations first, and engaged the two Galor Class cruisers. Challenger had been refitted with a much more powerful phaser system, Type 12 I think, and it just tore the Galor apart. And Ramillies… I don't know where Captain Neraea was assigned before the war, but the woman knew how to fight. I led Rabin and Spector in fighting the lone Jem'Hadar Heavy Escort and her fighter wings. It seemed that we caught them on the hop, because the escort didn't even have a CAP up. Ajax opened fire with a full spread of quantum torpedoes, 15 in total, proximity detonation, to rip the enemy vessels apart. Rabin and Spector opened up with phaser and photon torpedo fire, which tore into the hull of the vessel, struck the warp core and completely destroyed the ship. I was still wary, so I pulled Ajax away from the main mine towards the large asteroid and the unknown power signature. Looking back on it now, it's a blatant trap. But at the time, it's in a dilithium mine field. It could have been the power generators for the mining equipment for all I knew.
So we enter orbit of the asteroid and I order my people to begin scanning. SOP. Also a big mistake. They had saturated the asteroid with a vast array of power generators, fusion generators and shuttle warp cores - Probably from the shuttles and runabouts on DS9. We scanned the asteroid, and they all went up. Picture a warp core breach, multiply it by 10, and put an Akira Class 15,000 metres away from it when it explodes. Now, it wasn't the explosion that wrecked the Ajax, though that didn't help. An asteroid chunk, maybe 20 metres long, hit our starboard nacelle. Now, we had shields up, which probably saved the ship, but we still felt it. EPS conduits across the ship exploded, the nacelle was cracked and leaking plasma, and we had to shut the core down to prevent feedback from causing a core breach. That's why they were lazy patrolling. I think they thought they'd get more than one ship with the explosion. And that's when Tavistock decided to add insult to injury: "Tavistock to Challenger… I know this isn't the best time, but… we've got more problems. I've got an extremely large Jem'Hadar signature on sensors… I can't tell clearly through all the debris but I think there's a pair of Galors on her wing." After the battle, back on Starbase 117, Commander M'Rella was incredibly disappointed. When I asked why, she commented that she missed a chance to make a pun. When I asked her to elaborate, she just shrugged and said 'I guess we had … problems Galor.'
[i]Making herself heard for the first time, K'Meiuu can be heard laughing. "I'd forgotten about that…"[/i]
Now, despite the fact that we were heavily out-gunned, Ajax wasn't going to be able to warp for 40 minutes, minimum. Rabin and Spector, I'd already ordered out of the system, but I couldn't order Challenger or Ramillies to leave. Admiral Jameson took the Challenger to meet the Jem'Hadar head on, while Ramillies came to tow us at warp back to Starbase 117. Now, Challenger was a Galaxy Class, but she'd been heavily uparmed during her time at Utopia Planetia. By the time she limped back to 117, she'd taken out two Galors, a Keldon, and a flight of Jem'Hadar fighters. She wasn't going to make a dent against the Jem'Hadar battleship, but she didn't have too. We had survived the battle, but we hadn't managed to secure the dilithium mines. Fortunately for the war effort, Coridan had volunteered to ship three quarters of its monthly harvest to Starbase 117, so we wouldn't be starved of fuel. Admiral Jameson had been knocked unconscious during Challenger's fight, and by the time Challenger arrived, he'd slipped into a coma, due to swelling on the brain. Starbase 117's doctors were confident he'd pull through, but they didn't know when. Captain Neraea took command of the task force, and begun running battle drills and patrols. Ajax had taken a lot of damage during the battle, and wouldn't be battle ready for months. Captain Neraea ordered me to report to Challenger as it's Commanding Officer, stating my knowledge of warfare and my experience in command as the reason when both myself and Challenger's first officer brought up my assignment. With a smirk on her lips, a smirk I'd come to see more as the war progressed, she merely shrugged, stood, and placed a half-pip on my collar. "There, now you're a brevet Captain, Captain Adams. Any further issues?" Well.. what can you say to that? We both shook our heads, looked at each other and walked off to the Challenger. I'm not gonna lie, I was not looking forward to commanding a Galaxy Class. Not at all. Especially not considering that a man I greatly looked up, Admiral Geordi La Forge transferred off her to his death. Maybe I was a little a superstitious, but I wasn't really looking forward to having the same thing happen to me. Bright side, if you can call it that, was that it was only until the Admiral was back on his feet. It made sense, in a way. I was the Second Officer, so with Captain Neraea taking command, I had to step up, and I needed a ship.
It seemed the attack on the Vlugta Mines angered the Dominion, because 19 hours after I took command of Challenger, they arrived in orbit of Betazed, again. I took Challenger, Yamaguchi and the Fast Attack Wing to intercept, try and hold them off. We succeeded, but not before three attack ships crashed into the surface of the planet. Millions dead. Starfleet and the Federation couldn't sustain this. The Klingons were called up, and we were bolstered by 40 Klingon warships, led by Chancellor Martok aboard the Negh'Var. He didn't stay, of course, he retreated to Starbase 24, where most of the co-ordination took place. The Klingons didn't really fit into the 17th, but they followed orders regardless. The Klingons had the idea of attacking a Jem'Hadar planet, that wasn't that well reinforced yet: Lilsis III, 30 light-years from Starbase 117. A year after they'd arrived, we were, perhaps, going to be able to turn the war around and start pushing the Dominion back towards Deep Space Nine.
Even now, in 2435, we don't really know why the Prophets released the 2800 Dominion ships when they did. Maybe we'd gotten complacent in their eyes? Maybe they couldn't hold them anymore. Maybe they just wanted to play a game. Who knows? Without an Emissary, there's no-one to talk to them, and I don't think anyone particularly wants to know. But I don't think the Prophets saw the Dominion bombarding Bajor from orbit. I don't think any of us did.
