Paint and Powder

A Star Trek anthology by Andrew Joshua Talon

DISCLAIMER: This is a non-profit fan based work of prose. Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager et al are the property of CBS Television, and creation of Gene Roddenberry. Please support the official release.

Defiant: Sacrifice of Angels

It occurs to me that, with how much of a chuuni/hot blooded weeaboo Defiant is, she is lacking something. Something all hotblooded shonen heroes need!

But given it's Star Trek, it's something she also wouldn't get to use very often...

Operation: Return was looking like it would turn into a massive failure. Only Defiant and her brave crew had gotten past the Dominion fleet to Deep Space Nine, in order to try and prevent them from bringing down the minefield to bring Dominion reinforcements in through the wormhole.

And unfortunately, they had been too late. Defiant had entered the system just in time to see the minefield go up in a gigantic explosion thanks to the weapons of one of the nearby Dominion ships.

Not Terok herself, interestingly enough. She tried linking to her old friend via the Borderlands, but the station AI didn't respond.

Well... That was a shame, but... There was nothing for it.

"Take us into the wormhole," Captain Sisko ordered, standing on her bridge. The crew grimly obeyed his orders, and Defiant flew into the bizarre subspace phenomena. The tunnel through the stars was as turbulent and bizarre as ever, with huge streams of not plasma darting around like streamers.

Ahead lay the Dominion reinforcements: Over two thousand ships, at least, all coming through.

And all there was... Was her.

Sisko turned to Defiant. She looked up at her captain... Her father in all but name and blood. He slowly nodded.

"Defiant... Control Limit Zero."

It was likely they would all die here, in a hopeless last stand to delay the Dominion reinforcements. But Defiant was calm. Almost giddy. She nodded, and her eyes glowed red.

Six months ago...

Captain Sisko looked over the diagrams on the PADDs, presented by Rom, O'Brien, Dax and Defiant. He raised an eyebrow at the two engineers, science officer, and starship AI.

"I take it you've had some time on your hands," he quipped.

"Rom worked out the geometries for the warp coils," O'Brien explained, "and with Dax's calculations, we found we could decouple her coils-Just enough for, well... Multivector warp strafing."

Defiant looked like she was fit to burst, grinning from ear to ear.

"That sounds sooo cool and I even know what it is!" She practically squealed.

Dax bit back a wry grin, and looked at Sisko.

"Main trouble is that we'll need to make some modifications for this to work without her tearing herself apart, overloading and exploding, or squishing everyone inside her into paste," she explained. "And even with those modifications, I wouldn't recommend her either using it while anyone's aboard, or for longer than five minutes."

"Five minutes is an eternity for an AI," Defiant said happily.

"You do realize that if you use this, it would most likely be as a last resort? A very

last resort," Sisko stated calmly. Defiant nodded vigorously, trying to look serious and almost succeeding.

"Oh-I-I know, Captain. I really do... But I'm a warship. You built me to be a warship. And being able to push myself to my maximum potential, to become an even better warrior? I am content with that. Happy, even."

Sisko stared at her for a minute more, before nodding.

"All right. We'll make the modifications," he said, "but! This is as an absolute

last resort, understand?"

Defiant nodded.

"Absolutely. I won't abuse it."

"Not that you could, we've put three layers of security locks around it," O'Brien quipped. Defiant scowled.

"Is that really necessary-?"

"Yes," said everyone in the room. Defiant pouted.

"Hmph..."

Well... She had that, and many, many other happy memories to go out on.

On the outside of Defiant's hull, a number of hull plates opened up and extended, increasing the subspace heat transfer rate to improve performance. Her plasma vents began spewing excess heat into space, making her look like she was burning red and blue. The safeties on her phaser cannons fully released, and her capacitors were overcharged.

More hull plates with armor opened up, making it look like Defiant had small metallic wings... And bunny ears, given the placement of some of the vents. But she didn't mind this.

Her bridge lightning became darker, more red. Her holographic avatar's eyes burned, as she went to full cyber warfare mode. She was ready to begin mass cyber attacks on all the Dominion ships, all at once.

She was already calculating millions of warp trajectories, to strafe and attack and dodge.

She estimated that she wouldn't be able to destroy more than 20-45 percent of the enemy fleet before her destruction... But maybe it would be enough.

Maybe she would get lucky.

Maybe Enterprise's spirit was with her.

"There must be thousands of them," Nog gasped. She saw him, desperately fighting his fear, as strong as ever. She admired that about him so much.

"And half of them have locked weapons onto us," Garak commented. Even if she didn't like him very much, she admired his ability to stay cool in the face of certain death.

"Limit Control Zero: Super Defiant Mode Online," Defiant stated, "ready for combat!"

"Shields at one hundred percent! All weapons ready!" Worf reported.

Sisko... Stared into space. For a moment, it looked like he wasn't paying any attention. The moment passed, and he nodded.

"Prepare to-"

"Benjamin, look!" Dax pointed out urgently. Defiant paused, the readings making little sense to her too.

The Dominion ships... Seemed to flicker, like candles in the wind. Then, abruptly, they all vanished.

"They cloaked?!" O'Brien cried.

"I'm not picking up any subspace resonance!" Dax said. "Defiant?"

Defiant ran her scans thousands of times, and shook her head. She was just as perplexed.

"There's... Nothing. They're all gone!"

"Where did they go?" Bashir asked, amazed.

"I don't know," Sisko said, "but wherever they went? I don't think they're coming back." He sucked in a breath. "Defiant? Stand down from Control Limit Zero. Take us back to the station."

"Aye sir," Defiant and Dax both said.

Defiant still kept scanning the wormhole. There wasn't a single sign of the enemy.

Whatever had happened... Well... She certainly wasn't complaining.

Later, after the station had been retaken and everything settled back into some kind of normalcy, Defiant and Sisko sat in his office.

"The repairs to my systems are almost complete, Captain," she chirped happily, "Chief O'Brien will deliver the full report in two hours!"

"Good, good," Sisko said. She made to get up and leave, but he spoke again.

"One last thing," he said.

"Yes?"

"... 'Super Defiant Mode?'" Sisko asked.

Defiant blushed heavily... But grinned.

"Doesn't it sound so awesome?! I wanted to go with 'Super Defiance Zero Mode Ultimate!' But Rom said that was too long."

Sisko chuckled, and smiled warmly at his daughter in all but blood.

"It sure does," he said. "Well! We've got two hours. Baseball in the holosuite? We can meet Jake there."

"Works for me!" Defiant said cheerfully. "Super Defiant will be there!"

Sisko shook his head and sighed. But he was still smiling.

Basically, every time Defiant gets a chance to use her new Super Mode... Something interferes and she doesn't get to use it! It becomes rather frustrating.