To The Journey
Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it's not mine. This is an AU story.
Chapter Twenty-Six: Building Tension
"Natasha, there's something I need to discuss with you."
"Yeah, sure."
"Well, Starfleet wants us back to Earth for a maintenance upgrade sometime within the next few months. Apparently, they've come up with some modification or other designed to help us against the Dominion."
"Okay. What do you need me for?"
"Well, I thought, for security reasons of course, that I should consult with you on exactly when we want to get this done."
"Well, okay." She didn't remember him ever consulting her on such a thing before, but the Dominion War had caused everyone to change their plans. "Did you have anything in mind?"
"Well, I did have a predetermined schedule in mind. Let's see, today's what?"
Tasha began to rattle off the stardate but he stopped her. "No, I mean on the Earth calender. It's, ah, January 25th, if I recall correctly."
"So? Excuse me, sir, but I don't see how that's relevant."
"Well, it'll be another month at least before they're ready to put the modifications into effect," he continued as though he hadn't heard her, "I was thinking that we should get it done no later than six or seven weeks after the window opens. Say, arriving at Utopia Planitia on April twelfth? However, the procedure will take three weeks. The personnel would all have to find a way to spend a few weeks off." At this, he finally let his professional mask drop and a smile show through. "What do you think? Would that schedule be satisfactory to the needs of the security staff?"
Tasha was grinning now too, and she hugged him right in the middle of the hallway. "Thank you, Captain. Thank you so much."
"My pleasure."
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"If Starfleet had etiquette officers, they'd be furious," Geordi muttered under his breath, trying unsuccessfully to break the tension. Only Beverly, who had been attending to a minor medical problem in sickbay, was in uniform. Deanna was in her off-duty clothes. Will was short his shirt. Geordi was in his pajamas with a robe hastily thrown over them. Tasha and Data had been in the middle of a rather private activity and were completely naked under their respective robes. It would have been humorous had the reason for the situation not been so serious. Picard had called an immediate, emergency senior staff meeting.
Picard was in his own sleepwear and robe when he stepped in. His face was even grimmer than those of the others. Immediately, every eye in the room was on him. The same question was on all their minds, but no one wanted to say it.
It was Will who finally broke the silence. "Captain, what's going on?"
He glanced around the room, looking at every member of his senior staff, taking in their somber expressions. "I have major news, and I'm afraid it's not good. The Federation has lost Deep Space Nine."
The entire room erupted in shocked gasps and exclamations. Tasha realized suddenly that she was speaking too, though she didn't have a clue which of the many words were hers.
"All right, all right!" the Captain shouted over the din and they all fell silent.
"First of all, the Federation personnel were able to evacuate. Mass casualties were prevented. Most of the civilian population had already been evacuated to Bajor or other Federation posts, so the only people on the station were combatants and a few Bajoran and non-aligned civilians."
"Quark," said Will with a hint of a smile.
Picard continued as if his First Officer hadn't spoken. "Because the Dominion recently signed a nonaggression pact with Bajor, Bajoran personnel will be allowed to remain. The Federation was also able to mine the entrance to the wormhole, cutting the Dominion off from most of their reinforcements."
"Well that's something," Tasha said grimly.
"Natasha, this next is especially for you. Retaking the station has just become a tactical priority."
"Right." Most captains would have just provided that information so the tactical officer could be prepared for whatever came their way, but Tasha was not most tactical officers. She knew he expected her to come up with some sort of plan.
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"Lieutenant Commander Yar?"
Tasha snapped to attention when she heard Admiral Ross' voice. It had been now three weeks since they'd lost the station, and the Enterprise had joined the fleet at Starbase 375 to come up with a way to get it back. Tasha had been personally asked to assist in coming with a plan, but so far they couldn't come up with anything that was likely to work.
"Yes sir?"
"There's someone here who insists on speaking with you."
"With me? What do they want? Who is it?"
"As to the former, our guest refused to share his business with anyone but you. As to the latter, you had better see this for yourself."
Tasha began to follow him down the hall. He stopped at a door.
"Whatever he wants, try to handle this as delicately as possible. It's important to me that we stay on this man's good side."
"If you say so." She was now thoroughly confused.
"Good luck." Then he pressed the button to open the door.
She stepped in alone. A man stood in the room with his back to her. Her first thought was that he was Vulcan, but his clothing told otherwise. Romulan. What was a Romulan doing on a Federation Starbase, and what did he want with her?
He turned slowly, taking in. "So," he said finally, "it is true."
She dug deep in her memory for something to identify this man's rank. General.
"The first time I heard it, I was ready to write it off as a rumor or an error. But so many mentions of a name couldn't all be wrong."
"Sir?"
"Tasha Yar." It wasn't really a question. "Am I to take it you don't know who I am?"
"You could say that."
"Well, I never was one for temporal mechanics, I suppose."
It was a throwaway comment, but it resonated with Tasha, and suddenly it all clicked. "You're Sela's father."
He nodded serenely. "As you might have guessed, hearing your name after all these years was something of a shock. Don't look so surprised," he added, "you're one of the biggest up-and-coming tactical officers in the Federation. Romulan Intelligence would be stupid indeed if they didn't have your name. They didn't make the connection, but then they didn't live with you for five years."
She flinched at that reminder, and he looked at her sadly. "It's not what you think. I was attracted to her, I made the bargain with her, yes, but I never forced her to do anything. I never raped her."
"Manipulation is a kind of force too." Ross' warning was well out the window.
"I think you misunderstand. I asked her to live with me because I thought I could convince her to warm to me. And she did. She began to see me as more than just a Romulan. When she gave herself to me, it was of her own free will. Everyone around us thought she was a concubine, a slave, but I treated her as I would have treated any Romulan woman."
"You had her executed."
"I had nothing to do with that. It was a plan we made together. I knew my Sela would never be fully accepted on Romulus. Tasha and I agreed that she would take Sela and slip back to the Federation. We knew the Federation would accept her more readily than my own government. I would tell everyone that she had escaped and kidnapped our daughter. You probably have no way of knowing this, given what little I know about your interactions with my daughter, but Sela loved her mother, I thought it would work. I didn't count on her devotion to me," he added sadly. "If I could do it over, I would warn Sela, tell her I wanted her to go with her mother. When Sela screamed, the guards caught her and Tasha trying to flee, and it was out of my hands. I begged the courts to spare her life, to let me 'deal with her' - I would have found a way to smuggle her back to the Federation - but they wanted to make an example of her, and nothing I said made any difference."
"Why should I believe you?"
"Why would I have taken all the risks involved in getting out here if I was lying?"
"True," she admitted, and he smiled.
"That's what I liked about you. It wasn't about physical attractiveness. I could see that I'd met a person who was more than just a Starfleet officer."
"Let's say I believe you. That doesn't tell me what you're doing here."
"Well, let's just say I don't agree with my government's stance on the war. Those politicians are blind if they really think the Dominion will leave the Romulan Empire alone indefinitely. They want to control the Alpha Quadrant, and they will stop at nothing short of utter defeat. They leave the Romulan Empire be for now because they hope we will imitate Cardassia and join the Dominion. But I see what they refuse to; no alliance with the Dominion will allow us to be anything other that subservient. I will not see my homeland overcome by force. And I believe it was you who said that manipulation is also a type of force."
She couldn't help a smile at that. "Yes, I guess I did." She grew serious again. "But you haven't answered my question. What is it you want from me?"
"I want a chance to defend my homeland in the most effective way I can - by engaging the Dominion in battles we can win, not the suicide missions we would be undertaking if we tried to face them with our numbers. In return, I offer you my own fleet, such as it is. In addition, I have powerful friends who agree with my position."
"On one condition."
"What is that?"
"That we have a clear understanding. This is a business partnership. Maybe, in time, we can become friends. But I am not and will never be the woman who you took to your bed. In four months, I will be married. I love him, and that's final."
"Tasha, Tasha." He shook his head. "I didn't come here expecting to pick up with you where I left off."
"In that case, why insist on speaking to me, of all people? I'm not even a full commander."
"You're well-respected in the Federation."
"And you're avoiding the question."
"Well - two reasons, really. First of all, I wasn't sure at all how people would react to me. But, though I don't know everything about you in this timeline, I highly doubted you were a completely different person than the woman I knew, someone who saw people as people, not enemies just because of the race they belonged to. I wanted to talk to someone who would listen to me.
"And the other?"
"Well, at first I wasn't sure whether it was worth it to throw in my lot with the Federation. But as soon as I started hearing a certain name coming up more and more, I knew which side was the winning one." He stood. "Discuss my offer with your superiors. I will give you a secure frequency on which to contact me."
"General - may I ask a personal question?"
"Of course."
"What in the galaxy is your name?"
He threw back his head and laughed, the sound echoing all over the small room. "I am General Makar."
"General Makar." She tried the name in her mouth as if testing it out. "Now what's that frequency?"
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"How much help are we talking about?" Ross asked.
"The General himself has a fleet of sixty. In addition, he has friends with notable complements of their own who will support us. All in all, he says we can expect something in the neighborhood of two hundred."
"Two hundred ships," he repeated. "However did you do it?"
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you. Admiral, I hate to rain on your parade, as they say, but we still need a plan."
"With the Romulans, if we pull together everyone we can we might have a chance to punch through."
But Tasha was already shaking her head. "I don't like it. Too many things could go wrong. If they call for reinforcements, if something happens we're not anticipating, that could become a massacre. We need strategy, not power."
"What did you have in mind?"
"I - ah, I'll get back to you."
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Tasha paced slowly. Nothing made sense. She hated the idea of trying to blast through the Dominion, but she couldn't come up with a better one. The idea of a diversion had been tossed out there during a planning session but dismissed just as quickly. It was the oldest trick in the book. They couldn't possibly hope the Dominion wouldn't anticipate it.
"We beat the Borg," she mumbled to herself. "How is it we can't figure out how to beat the Dominion?"
She sat heavily, thinking aloud. "We didn't beat the Borg with numbers either. We tried that and they decimated us. We beat them with strategy. What strategy? We took back the Captain. Right. How did we do that?"
Suddenly, she heard Will's voice in her head, saying words he'd said all those years ago, as clearly as if he were standing right in front of her.
"I'm aware of that, Commander. In fact, I'm counting on it."
She sat up straight suddenly. "That's it!"
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All eyes were on Tasha now. She had told them she had a plan. Now she had to explain what it was.
"Okay," she began. "Captain Sisko, neglecting for the moment the Dominion fleet, how many ships would it take to engage just Deep Space Nine with a high probability of success?"
He frowned thoughtfully. "Well, obviously that varies depending on armament and firepower, but assuming we mean a Federation-Klingon force, I'd say you could do it with less than ten, and probably as few as six if they're good ships and the attack is well-coordinated. But we can't just ignore the fleet."
"I know that. Here's what I propose." She pulled up a map of the area. "We mass everything we can safely spare, including whatever support we get from the Klingons and the Romulans. We engage the Dominion fleet here," she indicated a spot on the map, "and hit them with everything we can. Once the battle is fully underway, a small strike team, about twenty-five ships, will attempt to slip through at this point."
"We've been through this," one Commander said exasperatedly. "That's the oldest trick in the book. They'll see right through it."
"I'm counting on that," Tasha replied. "They'll send ships to intercept the strike team, sure they figured out what we're up to and stopped us cold. Now, if I've analyzed Dominion battle strategy correctly, when they move to engage here and here," she indicated the spots she'd already pointed out, "they'll have to draw from other areas, and will leave this area here without solid protection. Once that happens, a second strike team, no more than six or seven will run the line at warp, drop out of warp here," she indicated a point only a few hundred meters from their objective, "and engage the station."
Silence.
Ross spoke first. "You know, it's so crazy it just might work."
Ben was nodding too. "It makes sense."
Ross gave a very small smile. "Commander, what will be the technical and personnel requirements?"
"All right, for purposes of this mission, Beta team is the actual strike force, Alpha team is the decoy strike force, and Main Fleet is what it sounds like. All ships in Main Fleet will have normal battle complements and armament. Alpha Team -" she swallowed hard. This was the part of the plan she had the most trouble with. "Minimal possible crew, one or two to a ship if we can manage to wage something of an effective battle with those numbers, and volunteers only if at all possible. It's likely that most or all of that team will be completely obliterated." She let that sink into her own mind and theirs. It was the first time she'd said it out loud. Gathering her thoughts, she went on. "We need a way to fool Dominion sensors into thinking those ships are fully manned, or they'll know something's up."
"Wait a second," someone interrupted. "You mean knowingly send people to their deaths?"
"It's not an easy choice for me either," she said softly, "but it makes the most sense, from a personal standpoint as well as a tactical one. A direct assault to punch through the line would cost far more lives than this stealth. It would be easier on our consciences, maybe, not to have to order people into near-certain death, but in the long run it would mean more lives lost. And who knows how many lives will be lost if we don't take back the station."
No one responded. They all saw the truth of her statement.
She swallowed hard and resumed. "Beta Team needs normal battle compliment plus extra combatants in case we have to board the station. Personnel trained in ground and/or hand-to-hand combat would be ideal. Also, we're going to have to bend some rules of thumb here. Specifically, to put it bluntly, if Beta Team can't make course corrections at warp, we're in big trouble. We may not know exactly where the Dominion ships will be until a few seconds in advance. The ships will need modifications to minimize stress damage from warp-speed maneuvers."
"Understood." Ross was somewhat grim now. "We'll keep everyone posted. Dismissed!"
The battle scene is giving me some trouble, so I decided to make that a new chapter and just get this out.
The opening scene doesn't quite fit, but I had to give a reason why pretty much the whole Enterprise crew would be at the wedding, and it does convey a nice "calm before the storm" sense.
The Romulan General stuff was entirely my idea. We don't really know anything about him from the TV show, but I kind of wanted to bring him and that alternate timeline in and to do that well I had to come up with a way he could have been a decent guy.
Any M*A*S*H fans, my tenth (!) story on this site is now available. It's a 3000 word oneshot called Saying Goodbye. You can find it on my page.
Please review.