USS Endeavour NCC-71805
The bird-of-prey on the viewscreen – at least, it looked like one although it was much bigger than any ship of that class that Mackenzie had seen before – banked sharply, coming round in a graceful turn that kept it between the stricken freighter and the attacking ships. Wings lowered into that menacing-looking fighting stance that was so typical of its class, it was putting up a good fight, disruptor cannons spitting out a stream of deadly emerald fire.
Constrained by the need to keep between the enemy and its prey, the Klingon ship was unable to manoeuvre freely and was taking blow after blow from the Jem'Hadar ships. Mackenzie winced as explosions bloomed along one wing, causing it to vent plasma and veer to one side. The Klingons were fighting valiantly and with honour, but it was one ship against four and the odds were not good.
Two ships against four, he thought resolutely, glancing round the bridge to gauge the readiness of his crew and finding all to his satisfaction. Yes, they were ready. Once again, Endeavour and her crew would give all they had.
"We're within range, sir." Stationed at tactical, Griffiths correctly anticipated his captain's next order. "Ready to open fire on your command."
"Best to announce our presence first," Speares said dryly. "It would be a bit embarrassing if we accidentally got blown out of the sky by the Klingons."
That was a good point and Mackenzie stifled a grin. Friendly fire was a real thing where their Klingon allies were concerned. Comms, open a channel."
"Hailing frequencies open, sir."
"Klingon ship, this is Captain James Mackenzie of the Federation Starship Endeavour. Do you require assistance?"
IKS Hegh'Ta
As the ship lurched again, another console exploded, causing the unlucky officer leaning over it, to scream with pain as his face was burned. The fire suppression system cut in, putting out the flames before they could take hold and spread but several of the control panels on the bridge were now completely unusable.
Blinking to see through the acrid smoke that was stinging his eyes and catching at the back of his throat. making it hard to breathe, Krang looked around him. "Kehlan, inc…" He stopped as a coughing fit took him, and then tried again. "Kehlan, increase ventilation in here, would you?"
"I'm already working on it," she responded tersely. "Nothing is responding properly… ah, got it, I think."
The ship shook again, more violently this time, although thankfully, other than a few sparks, any consoles which were inclined to explode, had already done so.
Nobody seemed to be moving or doing anything, and glancing at the main viewscreen, Krang realised that the ship was drifting. With their captain dead and with nobody telling them what to do, the bridge crew were close to panic. Kay'vin's death, Krang realised with some dismay, meant that Ch'vok was now the senior officer present. Kahless help them with that incompetent young fool in command. Looking around again, he realised he could not see the first officer. "Where is Ch'vok?"
There was no answer at first, and Krang was about to repeat the question when a weak voice emanated from what sounded like ground level, behind one of the support struts at the rear of the bridge. "I… I'm over here. There's something trapping my leg – a fallen beam, I think. I can't get up."
Kargan started to rise from his seat, intending to go and help, but Krang stopped him with a growl. Stay where you are and concentrate on your assigned job. There is an enemy still out there and a freighter full of refugees to protect." Turning, he pointed at a pair of bekks who had been standing guard at the rear of the bridge. "You and you. Get that beam off Ch'vok."
They did so quickly and easily. The beam was heavy, but they only had to lift it a few inches, and with the weight of it gone, the first officer was able to slither out from underneath it. His leg was not broken with the aid of the outstretched hand one of the bekks held out to him, he was able to pull himself to his feet.
"Well, Ch'vok?" Krang watched, his expression impassive as the first officer swayed a little before regaining his balance and limped a few paces to lean on the nearest console. "What are your orders?"
"Orders?" Ch'vok lifted a hand to wipe away the blood that was trickling from a shallow gash along the front of his cranial ridges. "But… the captain…"
"Is dead," Krang said harshly.
"But…" Shaking his head, the first officer stepped back, staggering and almost falling as his injured leg buckled and gave way. "I can't," he confessed miserably, lowering his head in shame. "I don't know what to do. Can't you…?"
With an annoyed growl, Krang turned his back on the disgraced young man. He had no intention of dying on this benighted ship, or of letting these young officers die, not if he could avoid it. Not on his watch. He was not and never had been, a Defence Force officer and technically had no jurisdiction. He did however know how to command, how to give orders and have them obeyed. Very well, it was up to him,
"Vareq!" He shouted the name in a harsh tone that was designed to grab the young man's attention and compel instant obedience. "Why are you not still firing? "Not waiting for an answer, he turned his attention to the helm. "Kargan! Why are we not moving? Get this ship under way again!
He stopped dead as something occurred to him and turning to face the viewscreen, he studied the scene, taking note of the Jem'Hadar fighters who for the moment, had stopped firing and seemed to be doing little more than circling. The image came to mind of the scavenger birds he'd seen in the Terran desert, vultures he thought they were called. But Hegh'Ta was neither dead nor helpless.
"Actually… Kargan, Vareq, belay those orders. Change of plan. Kargan, can you make it look like we're drifting? Dead in the water, so to speak?"
"Oh!" Seeing the Jem'Hadar ships heading towards them, Kargan thought he understood what Krang wanted to do. Making it look as though they were doing what they actually were doing was the easy bit, he thought with some irony; regaining control of the helm and getting it working again was going to be slightly more difficult. Still, Krang had given him an order, and he would do it or die in the attempt. "Yes, sir."
"I've got weapons control again," Vareq reported. "Portside disruptors are damaged but everything else is functional."
"Good. Hold fire but be ready. They're going to come in close and take a good look at us… gloat at their victory before they deliver the final shot. And that… when you can see their faces in the window… is when you will open fire with everything you have. Do you understand?"
"Sir…" Not knowing what else to do, Ch'vok had taken his previous place at the now only partly functional ops console. Painfully aware of how badly he had failed in his duty, he spoke hesitantly, not at all certain that any ideas he had would be welcomed. "I… there's a plasma build up in manifold three."
"What about it?" Not particularly interested in anything the disgraced first officer had to say, Krang did not even bother to turn round.
"It needs to be vented, sir." It was Kehlan who came to Ch'vok's aid now, as with the same data available on her own screen, she guessed what he was thinking."
Ch'vok nodded. "And if it's vented through the damaged wing, it will not only add to the illusion of our helplessness, but it will swing the ship round a few degrees and…"
"…And leave the ship facing just the right way for us to accelerate and open fire," Kargan interrupted with some excitement. "Sir, that would actually work!"
His eyes still on the forward viewscreen, Krang breathed a sigh of relief. They had recovered better than he had hoped. Klingon warriors they might be, but they were young and inexperienced. Kay'vin's untimely death had shocked them senseless, causing them to momentarily panic. but finally they were pulling together as a team.
Their plan worked exactly as they had hoped. Just as Krang had predicted, the Jem'Hadar fighters came in close. Gloating maybe? Preparing for the kill? He did not know what was going through their reptilian minds, nor did he care; he just wanted them dead. Whatever their reasons, they did hold off from firing, exactly as he had hoped.
At what seemed like the absolute last minute, when it seemed they were so close that their hulls would bump, Vareq opened fire on the nearest of the four ships, and to everyone's satisfaction, it spun away, knocked into its neighbour and exploded in a spectacular fireball, causing extreme damage to the second ship and putting it out of the fight, but not quite destroying it.
Krang watched with satisfaction as Kargan brought the ship round a few more degrees, allowing Vareq to get in a shot that caused the damage ship to explode in a fireball almost as spectacular as the previous one. That left two more to deal with. The odds were still not great but were far better than they had been only a few minutes ago, and he needed to…
"Sir…" Kehlan's voice disturbed his train of thought. "We have an incoming message."
"From Orinoco?" Krang queried sharply, wondering what in Gre'thor the freighter wanted right now. Couldn't the other ship see that they were busy defending them?
"No, sir," Kehlan said, a note of surprise in her voice. "It's from a Federation ship."
"Put it through on audio only. I want the enemy kept on screen."
A masculine voice came crackling over the comm system, speaking Federation Standard English. "This is Captain James Mackenzie of the Federation Starship Endeavour. Do you require assistance?"
Did they require assistance? In other words, Krang thought, hello, we're here to help, please don't mistake us for the enemy and attack us. He gave a harsh laugh before replying in the same language, which thanks to his Terran wife, he spoke fluently and with only a light accent. "We are doing just fine, Captain. You are, however, welcome to join the battle. There is still plenty of fighting to do."
Quickly and efficiently changing his battle plan to take advantage of the unexpected ally, he continued, "Take an attack vector on heading one-one-two, mark six. Target the ship to starboard and fire on my command."
With the assistance of the Federation starship the battle was quickly over. Endeavour came in hard and fast, all weapons firing, and when the third Jem'Hadar vessel blew up, the remaining ship, realising that it was now outnumbered and could not win, changed course and retreated. Regretfully, Krang gave the order not to pursue them. Hegh'Ta had taken some serious damage which was going to take some time to repair, and there was a freighter full of refugees in need of medical and technical help, not to mention protection on the rest of its journey.
Bringing the Hegh'Ta to a stop, Krang moved around the bridge, congratulating each of the crew on their performance. They had fought well and if Kay'vin was watching from Sto-vo-kor, he would be proud of them.
A pang of sadness assailed him at the thought of his old friend. All Kay'vin had ever wanted, other than his mate, was to command a bird-of-prey, and he had died doing what he loved best An Imperial Intelligence officer through and through, Krang had never quite comprehended Kay'vin's love of the Defence Force, but now that it was too late to tell him so, having commanded his first space battle, and experienced the exhilaration and the danger first-hand, he thought he finally understood.
Cargo bay, SS Orinoco
Despite the best efforts of their Klingon protectors, a stray volley got through the defences, causing the elderly freighter to shudder and the frightened refugees huddled together in the middle of the cargo bay to cry out in fright. From her limited viewpoint, Jen Maren could not see where the strike had landed but from the angle and intensity of the shuddering, it could not have been too far away from her current location. One bird-of-prey was putting up a valiant effort, but it could not be everywhere at once – although it appeared to be trying hard to do just that – and it was, she thought philosophically, inevitable that at least some shots would get through. She wondered momentarily if it might not be wise to move away from the window and then decided that she was being silly. If the shields failed and the hull breached, explosive decompression would kill everyone in the hold. At least here she could see some, if not all, of what was happening outside.
A few other souls, braver or maybe just foolhardier than the rest, seemed to be of the same opinion. A couple of men stood at the next window along from hers, and the one after that was occupied by a bunch of teenagers who were jostling for the best view as they ignored the exhortations of their mothers to come away to safety.
The Klingon ship seemed to be in trouble, and she bit her lip hard enough to make it bleed as she saw it drifting, a series of fires blooming along one wing before the vacuum of space extinguished the flames. If their only defender was out of the fight, they were doomed. Who did the Klingons pray to, she wondered suddenly? Kahless… yes, that was it. She was not one for praying but if Kahless was out there and paying attention, maybe he could watch over that ship and grant it victory.
Kosst! The trajectory of the drifting ship was taking it around the back of the Orinoco, out of her line of sight. There was nothing more she could do but wait, and muttering a very rude word under her breath, she started to turn away, only to stop dead as another ship, Federation this time, –a nebula class she thought it might be from the look of it, although Starfleet ship classes were not her area of expertise – shot across the area that had just been vacated by the Klingons, all guns blazing.
A silent explosion bloomed, the brightness and intensity of the blast causing Jen Maren to instinctively close her eyes and throw up a hand to protect her vision, and then the Klingon ship came back into view. The teenagers at the other window let out a ragged cheer, jumping up and down in excitement as they shouted encouragement to the allied ships. Another explosion lit up the sky and then the battle moved to the front of the ship, and all went quiet again.
It stayed that way for what felt like forever, although it probably wasn't very long at all. Silence fell inside the hold as its residents waited for the outcome to make itself known. Either they were safe, or these were the last few moments of their lives. It was as though the universe held its breath, the only sounds being the wails of an infant and the occasional sharp cry of a pregnant woman who had picked the worst possible time to go into labour.
Long and anxious, the moments stretched out, and then… and then the cargo bay doors slid open with what seemed liked an unearthly, unnaturally loud screech, and a group of people wearing the teal blue medical uniforms of Starfleet strode into the hold.
The battle was over, the cavalry had won, and for the moment at least, they were safe. Deciding that she owed the Klingon messiah a big thank you, Jen Maren breathed a sigh of relief.