STAR TREK:
THE NO-WIN SCENARIO
By Darrin Colbourne
The Enterprise re-entered normal space in the outer reaches of the Mutara Nebula. Silas was startled by the image on the main viewer. "Wow," she said, "it's even twice as creepy up close.""Mutara is Vulcan for 'death's head,'" Goren volunteered.
"Nice grasp of the obvious they have," Silas said. The Mutara Nebula was the gaseous remains of a long-dead supergiant star. In the time since that star exploded two smaller stars had formed above the main part of the mass. Those stars were drawing in material from the nebula, making the cloud look, from certain angles, like a giant, red, misshapen skull with glowing eyes rising up from a shadowy sea.
"Only reading the two stars at this distance," the Sensor Officer said, "as well as several planetessimals scattered around the nebula."
"No sign of the Kobayashi?" Silas said.
"No, Sir. I'm not reading any spacecraft nearby. No signs of a battle, no warp contacts out to three light-years."
"I'm still reading the distress signal," the Communicator said. "It's clearer now."
"On speaker," Silas said.
A second later, over a background of static, the frightened voice said, "Mayday, Mayday! All ships! This is the Kobayashi Maru! We're under attack from unknown hostile forces! Please help us! Mayday, Mayday…"
Silas motioned for the Communicator to cut the playback as the Sensor Officer said, "I've got a better fix on the signal source. It's coming from about three degrees to starboard, one-and-a-third A.U. distant." He paused. "What I'm reading is too small to be an ore carrier."
Silas turned to him. "Define 'too small'."
The Sensor Officer shook his head. "It looks like a subspace relay, but that would mean…" Suddenly his attention was drawn to a flashing light and an alarm coming from his control panel. "New contact! Fire control beam! We just got painted!"
"New signal!" The Communicator said. "The relay just sent a comm burst into the cloud!"
"VAMPIRE! VAMPIRE!" Sensors called out. "Missiles inbound, forward low, spread across the bow!"
Silas's eyes darted to the main viewer. "I don't see them!"
"They're just coming out of the outer layers of the cloud!" Sensors said. Another alarm sounded. "They just lit off their search scanners!"
Silas checked the Sensor repeater and cursed. "Helm, up twenty and Ahead Flank! Countermeasures, deflectors full intensity and prepare to launch a full spread of drones on my mark! Weapons, charge the point defenses, deploy the particle cannons and set Mounts Three and Four to counterfire mode!"
The Enterprise darted up and forward as twenty missiles roared out of the cloud at nearly half the speed of light and began a determined search for her. As the starship flew the four particle cannons mounted under the perimeter of the Command Section deployed on their flexible mounts and began scanning for targets. The rearmost cannons, Mounts Three and Four, began specifically looking for the missiles that Silas knew would soon be on their tail."Another fire control beam!" Sensors called out. "The missiles caught the return! They're maneuvering to pursue!"
Silas pounded her fist on the armrest of the center chair, aggravated at being right. "Countermeasures, launch the drones!"
"Drones away!" Countermeasures called out. Two small robot probes launched from the countermeasures tubes in Enterprise's tail. The devices backtracked their mothership, crisscrossing her wake and broadcasting enough high-frequency EM and infrared energy to fool an incoming missile into thinking it had found its target, at least for a few seconds. A few seconds was all a drone needed to get close enough to the missile to destroy it with proximity-fused explosives.
Silas counted the seconds as the missiles closed in and the drones went out to meet them. She was gratified when the little kamikazes took out two of the pursuers. Eighteen to go. "Keep 'em coming, Countermeasures!" The officer complied, managing to send ten more pairs of drones at the inbounds before the more sophisticated missiles in the group began evasive tactics and started dodging them. Six more missiles were destroyed. That left twelve that had managed to avoid the defenses and accelerate toward Enterprise, blasting away at her with their targeting scanners. "Secure off-board countermeasures!" Silas called out in frustration, wishing in the back of her mind that she were in her nice, tiny, black tactical craft instead of flying the big, blue-gray target. "Weps, the cannons can join in any time now!"
"Almost in range!" Weapons called back. At least the firing solutions would be easy. The remaining missiles were trying to run up Enterprise's spine, most likely targeting her sub-light engines, the brightest, hottest targets on the Command Section while she was running flat out. Silas contemplated shutting down the engines and coasting, but decided the payoff in a reduced scanner cross section would be small compared to the loss of constant acceleration, something Enterprise sorely needed to outrun missiles that were already overtaking her.
It seemed to take forever, but Mounts Three and Four soon began targeting and shooting at the inbounds, scything hundreds of particle beams a minute in the missiles' paths. The missiles, in turn, did their best to dodge the fire, jinking left, right, up, and down in a ballet of survival. Eventually the particle cannons started winning. Silas cheered silently every time one of the missiles winked off the Sensor repeater. It looked as if the cannons would finish what the drones started…until the last missile put on a final burst of speed and went into its terminal maneuver too swiftly for the mounts to track it.
"One's gonna get through!" Sensors called out.
The missile barreled toward the sub-light engines, then "popped-up" at the last second and described an arc that would end right in the center of the Command Section. Unfortunately for the weapon, that maneuver also put it right in the firing cone of the topside point-defense lasers. The missile was soon showered in free-electron beams that slashed through its fuselage and penetrated its warhead and fuel cells. The resulting explosion rattled teeth all the way through the ship to the Life-Support deck.
"Splash all inbound vampires," Sensors said.
Silas let out a breath and settled back in the chair. "Slow engines to stop," she said. "Switch all mounts to standby." She closed her eyes as the sudden rush of adrenaline faded, and she might have fallen asleep for a few seconds if she hadn't felt someone put their hand on her shoulder.
It was Captain Pike. "Nice work," he said. "I'll take over now."
Silas hurried out of the chair and stood at attention in front of Pike. "Yes, Sir," she said. "Thank you, Sir."
"Get down to the Flight Bay. I want both Cavaliers loaded for anti-ship and anti-air missions and at plus-five, ASAP."
"Aye, Sir!" Silas wasted no time leaving the control room after that, only sparing Montoya a worried glance as she headed for the portside passage.
Pike waited until she was gone before turning to the viewer and calling out, "Battle Stations!" He settled into his chair as the lighting in Control turned red and Montoya and McDonald took over their respective stations. As of that moment, training was over. "Number One, get us turned around and headed for the area of the cloud those missiles came from! Weapons, I want all the cannons set to counterfire mode and I want Mark 24s loaded in the tubes! Communicator, I want those Cavaliers off the deck as soon as they're ready!" All the officers acknowledged and McDonald pitched the ship 180 degrees, then fire-walled the sub-light throttle. The ship began to slow down and would soon accelerate back the way it had come. While he waited for that, Pike turned to Montoya. "Science, I want confirmation! Who just attacked us?"
"Working on it," Montoya said as she ran the frequencies and magnitudes of the missiles' search scanners and the fire control beam through the intelligence database. It didn't take long at all. "There's no doubt, Captain. The fire control scanner and the weapons were all Klingon technology."
Pike sneered as he muttered, "Our friends, the Klingons." He'd suspected it as soon as he'd analyzed the missiles' attack. Ever since the Reunification War, Klingons had been programming their weapons to attack starships in just that manner. He let that sink in as McDonald made another course correction, pitching up a few degrees until Enterprise was barreling toward the missiles' launch point in the red and black expanse beneath them.
Just as the correction was completed, the Communicator called out, "New signal! The relay just sent another packet into the cloud!"
Pike grimaced. "Where the hell are my Cavaliers?!"
Silas got to the Hangar Deck in time to see a plane crew loading Rider Two with See-Saws and preparing to tow it onto the Flight Deck. "No, No!" She called out. " Full anti-air and Mark 18s, both ships, right the hell now!"
The entire deck turned on a dime to carry out her orders, rushing to reload Rider Two with anti-aerospace missiles, Mark 18 anti-shipping torpedoes and nose-mounted lasers and equip Rider One in the same manner. As the deck and plane crews worked, someone retrieved Silas's flight suit and helmet. She pulled them on while standing in front of her ship. Her WSO, Pete Shanahan, was already in the cockpit. "What's going on?" He asked as she zipped up.
"We just got ambushed!" Silas said. She strapped on her helmet and climbed into the cockpit, then sped through her pre-flight.
"By who?" Shanahan asked, incredulous.
Silas turned her head to answer him. "20 missiles ran up our ass gunning for the sub-lights and the top of the saucer! Who do you think it was?"
At that moment, somewhere in the cloud, an officer reported to his commander. "Update from the forward control relay. Enterprise survived the first salvo and is moving this way."
"That was to be expected," the commander said with a thoughtful nod. After all, Enterprise and all her sisters were primarily aerospace defense ships. It would take more than twenty missiles and one salvo to completely overwhelm her defenses.
Fortunately, he had more to throw at her. Much more.
The officer reported something else. "If they've survived, they must surely have analyzed the attack by now. They know who we are."
The commander smiled. "They may know who, but not how many we are. Let's keep them guessing a while longer."
The officer smiled back and nodded, then went to carry out his orders.
As he waited, Kor, captain of the Imperial Klingon Ship Gowron and commander of the First Special Armada of the Klingon Fleet, let a feral grin crawl across his face. It had been a very long time since he matched wits and strengths with a Human commander. He would enjoy this victory immensely.
"New racket!" The Sensor Officer said. "Somebody just started jamming everything hard!"
"Confirm!" The Communicator said. "We're getting ECM interference on all subspace and short-range frequencies! Working on burn-through now!"
"We still have basic optics," Number One said, looking at the main viewer.
"And our Mark One Eyeballs," Pike said. "Okay, so Mister Klingon knows we know who he is, so he's trying to make us as blind as possible before he takes his next shot…" He had a sudden thought. "Communicator, before those Cavaliers launch, make sure you task Rider One with taking out that relay!" There was no sense trying to give the order after launch if comms were still being jammed.
"Rider One, Prize," Silas heard as the plane crews cleared the Flight Deck. "Take track designate Spy One on launch. Spy One is at 23 by 95 at 1.66 A.U. out."
"Roger that, Prize," Silas radioed back. "Take track Spy One on launch. Rider One and Rider Two are on the line and Go for launch."
"Roger that, Rider One. Sortie your ships and good hunting!"
With that the Flight Deck went through its launch cycle. Rider One was through the airlock doors first and Silas pointed it in the direction of the relay and lit off the sub-light engines.
Shanahan cursed after a second or two of flight. "Somebody's dumping electromagnetic garbage all over our sensors and comms!"
"Can you burn through?"
"Maybe enough to track the target, but you gotta get me closer!"
"'Closer' I can do." Silas fire-walled the sub-light throttles, adding their momentum to that taken from Enterprise and sending the Cavalier screaming toward the relay.
After a few seconds, Shanahan called out, "I'm getting a return…!"
Another second, and a high-pitched warbling sounded in Silas's ear. "It's toast! I've got good tone!"
"We're gonna have to stare at it!" Shanahan said. "The missile's own scanners won't be able to compensate if they lose lock in this soup!"
"I'll keep us pointed right at the relay!" She switched from internal to external comms and announced to the universe, "Rider One, Fox Three!" A pull of the trigger launched one of the two large, anti-air missiles mounted on the Cavalier's flanks, sending it burning through space toward what its launch point's scanner told it was a solid target. A microsecond later the missile's own tracking system kicked on, adding its own energy to the return. The relay's scanner warning systems let it know it was being tracked hard. It started to execute a pre-programmed evasive maneuver, but couldn't build up momentum quickly enough. Before long, Rider One's missile tore through the center of the satellite, disintegrating it on impact.
"Hot Damn!" Shanahan called out. "Everything just cleared up! Nice of the Klingons to put their jammers on the same platform as their scanners for us!"
Silas grinned under her breath mask as she radioed to the ship, "Prize, Rider One, Splash Spy One, awaiting tasking, over!"
Pike worked some controls on his armrest as he gave the next set of orders. "Communicator, send Riders One and Two to the coordinates I'm sending you. A short jump each ought to do it."
"May I ask what you're planning?" McDonald called out.
"I'm sending them to the other side of the cloud from us. That'll put them on the other side of whoever's in there. When the Cavs are in position we're all going to active search the hell out of that nebula."
"You may not get much of a return," Montoya volunteered. "The material of the nebula will create heavy interference with the scans."
"True," Pike said, "which means we may not be able to tell ship types and loadouts, but some return will at least give us an idea of the numbers. We need to know how many bad guys are out there."
Kor brooded as he sat in his command chair. The armada had been blind ever since its forward control relay was destroyed, and he only knew about that because the relay had broadcast a distress signal in its final seconds. Now he waited, though his less experienced officers were unsure what he was waiting for. He didn't bother telling them. Everyone would know soon enough.
A moment after he thought that an alarm sounded throughout Gowron's control room. "Scanner warning!" An officer called out. "The Humans are conducting a bi-static search!"
"That would be their ham-fisted attempt to determine our numbers," Kor said. "The time for deception is over. If they want to know so much about what they're facing" - his face broke out in a fang-bearing grin - "let's show them! Have all ships decloak and run out of the cloud. Set your course for the most powerful scanner track. That will be the Enterprise!"
The Sensor Officer saw them as he was trying to analyze the data from the bi-static search. "New Contacts, dead ahead, coming out of the cloud and spread across the bow!" A pause as he identified the tracks. "ID as four Kahless-class cruisers and six Bird-Of-Prey type frigates! It also looks like they've got all their Raptors deployed, for a total of eighteen Raptors in the air!"
Everyone's gaze turned to the main viewer as the ten ships and attendant smallcraft of the First Special Armada got close enough to see while the lone starship and the fleet closed the distance between themselves. "Bugger me," Number One muttered at the screen, her voice tinged with both fear and anger.
Pike turned to the Communicator. "Can we call for assistance?"
"No, Sir," she said. "The Klingons have resumed subspace jamming. It will take time for me to burn through enough to get a signal out of the system."
"So we're on our own," Pike said as he settled back in his chair. His brow furrowed and he steepled the fingers of his hands in front of his face as he watched the approaching Klingon force.
"Fine," he sneered, "time to earn our pay for the month."