SEASON 3: EPISODE 04

TO DELIGHT IN THE INHUMAN WORD: Part One

  “Report, ensign,” ordered Captain Masters as he stepped onto the bridge.

  Ensign Frank Cole sat in the flight controller’s station, his station, at the front of the bridge and without turning to face his commanding officer gave his report.  “We’re one minute and forty-seven seconds away from the target.  It’s still emitting a distress signal on all frequencies.”

  “Weapons?  Shields?” continued the captain.

  “Shields are at 100% and weapons are powered and ready,” reported Lieutenant Commander Whitechapel from near the rear of the bridge pretty much directly behind Cole.

  “Are we getting a clear picture yet?”

  “No, there’s a lot of interference at the source.  We just have what the distress call tells us.”

  “I don’t like going into situations having to rely on unverified information,” stated the captain.

  Cole agreed.  Anything could be awaiting them at their location.  It made him more alert as he would have to be ready for whatever they might find. 

  The counter slowly counted down and as it approached zero he said, “Dropping out of warp.”  With a press of a button the ship exited warp and dropped to sublight speed.  Cole resisted the urge to look up at the viewscreen before he checked out the sensor reading coming into his station.  It was a lesson drilled into him from his days at Starfleet Academy.

  He remembered a simulation where when the ship dropped out of warp he looked up at the viewscreen to see the ships waiting for them.  He saw a brief image of the other vessels before the holographic bridge shook violently, throwing him from his chair as the simulation froze.  His lecturer stepped onto the bridge from the now visible doorway.

  “What happened?” he had asked.

  “You’re dead, cadet,” said his Zakdorn instructor.  “You dropped out of warp near an asteroid and flew into its path.  The impact pierced the shields and tore through the ship rupturing the warp core.”

  “There were no asteroids on the long range sensors,” he said in his defence.

  “It appeared on your sensors when you dropped to impulse.  You had two seconds in which you could have easily adjusted the ship’s course to avoid the impact.  However, you were admiring the view on the viewscreen and missed it.”

  “The proximity sensors should have gone off,” he argued.

  “But they did not.  Now the ship is destroyed and the crew are dead in an entirely avoidable accident.”  The Zakdorn paused as he left what he said sink into Cole.  “Do you know what the lesson is?”

  “Be prepared?” he guessed.

  “In a sense.  It is also that you cannot rely on what you see on the viewscreen when you are piloting a ship.  That view could be from anywhere; it might be close to the ship, it could be distant or from any angle around the vessel.  The ship’s sensors are your eyes.  You must check them first before you take in what the viewscreen may display.  Now, back on your feet we will be running this simulation again.”

  Cole’s thoughts returned to the present.  His sensors detected five vessels, one Klingon and four Jem’Hadar.

  “Looks pretty much right, except there’s only one Klingon ship and three Jem’Hadar attack ships,” stated Commander Core.

  “There’s also a Jem’Hadar destroyer,” pointed out Whitechapel.  Cole realised that Core had been going off what she could see on the viewscreen.  “It’s round the remains of a large Klingon warship.  Got an ID on the Klingon vessel, it is the IKS MalbeB.”

  That had been the ship they received the distress call from.  It was a B’rel class bird-of-prey and from his sensors he could see it was not fairing well.

  “Hail the Klingon ship, lieutenant,” ordered the captain.  “Klingon vessel this is the USS Swiftfire, we are entering the fray watch your fire.  Ensign, take us towards that destroyer.”

  Cole acknowledged the order and sent the ship straight at the Jem’Hadar destroyer.  These vessels were one of the less common designs fielded by the Dominion in the Alpha Quadrant, so while there were hundreds maybe over a thousand destroyers fielded by the Dominion that was still small compared to the mass of large battle cruisers and the almost plague proportions of attack ships that made up the vast bulk of the Dominion fleet.  While the Dominion might seem to have a very limited range of vessels they did make up for their compatibly small range of mid-sized vessels with those of the Cardassian fleet. 

  The destroyers were smaller than the Swiftfire at three hundred and eight metres in length.  They were somewhat similar in appearance to the smaller Jem’Hadar strike cruiser, but had a thinner profile.  Its nacelles also swept backwards towards the aft of the vessel making it appear sleeker.  That was a bit of a false image given that the strike cruiser had the ability to quickly and briefly accelerate allowing it to pierce through defensive lines, which was why it had the “strike” designation in its name.

  Cole had to admit the designation for the strike cruiser confused him a bit.  It was smaller and less capable than the destroyer but was classified as a cruiser, which he generally considered to be larger and more capable vessels than destroyers.  It had been something he wondered about since he was younger as to why some classifications, particularly cruisers, could vary so much in size and capabilities.  They often did not seem any different to other vessels that had other designations, such as frigates.  Sometimes he thought that the designers just spun a wheel and whatever it landed on would be the ship’s classification.

  The destroyer was fairly well armed with three torpedo launchers, two fore and one aft, and six polaron emitters that gave it a pretty much complete weapons coverage around the vessel.  However, it was not a match for an Akira, though that did not mean he could be complacent.  Just because you had the most ships or weapons did not mean you automatically won an engagement, the victor would only be known when the dust settled, until then you had to be prepared and ready to fight for your life.

  Cole took the ship directly at the destroyer.  In a head to head the Akira vastly out matched the Jem’Hadar vessel.  The destroyer had been running almost perpendicular to them and was turning towards them, so Cole used the thrusters to push the Swiftfire in the same direction as the destroyer was turning.  That forced the destroyer to have to turn further.  This allowed the Swiftfire to get closer before the Jem’Hadar vessel would be head on, which was usually the most dangerous profile as most species arranged their firepower so that a ship could deliver its most damaging assault to the fore of the vessel.  The destroyer fired one of its polaron beams that could target the ship.  The blasts dissipated against the shields.  Whitechapel replied with the phaser arrays on the dorsal and ventral side of the saucer.  Four phaser blasts lanced out and struck the enemy ship.  There was little he could do to avoid enemy fire so he focused on keeping the bulk of the ship’s weapons on target.

  Cole noted that two of the attack ship had stopped attacking the MalbeB and were heading towards the Swiftfire.  They were vectoring in so to head in from the rear and below the ship.  It was a smart tactic as only one of the ship’s arrays could target the enemy vessels.

  “Two attack ships are heading our way,” Cole reported, though he was sure that this fact had not escaped Whitechapel’s notice.  While she was the only tactical officer he had served with, discounting holographic training simulations and his training cruise, Cole thought that few others would be as skilled as Whitechapel was.

  I guess every crew thinks they’re the best or at least close to it, he briefly mused.

  “Knock out that destroyer quickly, Whitechapel,” was the captain’s orders.

  The ship’s tactical officer replied with a spread of quantum torpedoes, backed by numerous phaser blasts.  The destroyer was already weakened by the battle with the Klingons and its shields gave way quickly.  Once they did Whitechapel adjusted her aim and focused fire on the bridge, destroying it.  Several torpedoes swept in and ripped into the ship, its burning hulk was left to continue in its turning manoeuvre lacking any command and control, additional explosions continued to shred the hull.  Cole’s readings showed that they had also knocked the ship’s main power offline and the ship was effectively disabled and out of the fight.

  The two attack ships had reached them and were now attacking the rear quarter of the ship.  Cole tapped the thrusters and swung the aft of the ship at the attack ships.  It was the quickest way to bring more weapons to bear on the smaller vessels.  The two phaser arrays located along the aft rim of the ship’s saucer fired.  It was an unusual placement for phaser arrays but it gave greater weapons coverage to the lower aft of the ship as the unique engineering section design and nacelle placement hampered the main arrays along the dorsal and ventral sides of the saucer from getting a clear target lock on vessel behind the ship.  The aft facing torpedo launchers launched several photon torpedoes.  The assault quickly overwhelmed one of the attack ships, completely destroying it.  Cole used the thrusters to flip the ship to present the dorsal side to the remaining attack ship.  While it was the ship’s largest profile it also allowed the phaser array on the top of the weapons pod and the main array on the dorsal side of the saucer to target the attack ship.  With surprising ease Whitechapel quickly sliced the attack ship into rapidly exploding pieces.

  Cole continued to flip the ship over to take it back towards the surviving Klingon vessel as it struggled to lose the attack ship pursuing it.  He did not know what the Klingons were up to.  They seemed to be more interested in running from the Jem’Hadar vessel than turning the tables on it, which seemed to be very un-Klingon-like.  Nor did it seem were they making any real efforts to head towards the Swiftfire and help, which meant he was going to have to chase them both down.

  The Jem’Hadar ship did not appear to have much difficulty matching the Klingons manoeuvres and fired.  The polaron beam pierced the ship’s rear shield and struck near the impulse engines of the bird of prey.  The engines spluttered and died.  The Jem’Hadar had succeeded in disabling the ship’s engines making it a far easier target.

  “Take out that ship,” urged Commander Core.

  Whitechapel hammered at the Jem’Hadar ship with the phasers forcing it into evasive manoeuvres instead of finishing off the drifting Klingon ship.  A pair of quantum torpedoes lashed towards the Jem’Hadar ship.  The attack ship managed to avoid the first but the second struck the ship towards the fore of the craft.  It breached the shields and impacted the nose of the Jem’Hadar attack ship, exploding.  Several phaser blasts finished off the attack ship leaving no hostile vessels left in the immediate area.

  “That’s four-nil to the Swiftfire.  All enemy ships down and out,” reported Whitechapel, a hint of pride in her voice.

  “Report on the Klingon ship?” ordered the captain.

  “She’s dead in space.  Her hull is torn apart, her main power’s offline.  Its life support will hold for maybe twenty minutes, depending if the ship’s internal bulkheads hold and the hull ruptures don’t get worse.  I have seventeen life signs, six are weak,” reported Lieutenant Letac.

  “Karak, hail the Klingon vessel and tell them we are prepared to assist.”

  “A Commander Thopok has accepted our offer,” said Karak to his right.

  “Organise with him to evacuate that vessel.  What about other Klingon survivors?”

  It took Letac a second to answer.  “I’m not picking up any more life signs out there.  I’m detecting some hulled escape pods.  The Jem’Hadar weren’t interested in taking any prisoners today.”

  Damn murderous bastards, thought Cole venomously.

  “What about that Jem’Hadar destroyer?” asked the captain.

  “She’s drifting.  It’s a wreck, not worth salvaging,” said Letac.  “I’m detecting...thirty-eight survivors.”

  “Contact them and tell them to surrender and we’ll evacuate them from their vessel.”

  Karak did so.  Cole was wondering why they bothered.  The Jem’Hadar were not worth the effort of rescuing, especially as they did not seem to give the same courtesy to the Klingons.

  “I have received no reply,” stated Karak.

  “Scratch that, here’s your reply,” said Letac.

  Cole looked up at the viewscreen just in time to see the destroyer be consumed by an explosion.  When it faded nothing remained of the stricken Dominion vessel apart from a rapidly exploding debris field.

  “They blew up their own ship,” said Core showing little surprise.  “There’s that never give in, never surrender attitude that make the Jem’Hadar so popular at parties,” she joked.  Core could always be relied on to chip in with a joke.

  Good, he thought.  The only good Jem’Hadar is a dead one.

  “That solves one issue,” said the captain more diplomatically.  “Commander Whitechapel, keep an eye for more Dominion vessels.  Let’s get these Klingons onboard as quickly as possible and move on from here just in case more Jem’Hadar come looking for their buddies.  Good work everyone.  Nice piloting there, Ensign Cole,” praised the captain.  “I liked the flip.”

  Cole turned to face the captain.  A wide smile came to his face; any positive comments from his superiors always raised his spirits.  Like any young officer he had a certain craving to be seen as more than just the fresh face out of the academy.  He wanted people to know he was skilled and that he could handle the tasks he was given.  “The Swiftfire can dance when she has to,” he said.

  “It always helps to have a partner who knows what they’re doing,” said the captain.

  Cole smiled and turned back to his console.  He glanced over to Karak to drop a comment about getting some acknowledgement, not that Karak really cared about ego stroking.  He saw that Karak was still engrossed in handling getting the Klingons off their ship and filed it away for later.  It had been a good day so far and he could look forward to the gamma shift a bit later with his girlfriend.   He had a feeling that today was going to be a good day.