SEASON 3: EPISODE 04

TO DELIGHT IN THE INHUMAN WORD: Part Three

  Captain Jonathan Masters attempted to rub the weariness from his eyes.  He saved the work he was doing and leant back, stretching his arms above his head.  He caught a glimpse of the date stamp for when he saved his file.  52296.1808, which equated to very late ship’s time, which explained why he was tired and struggling to fight off the draw to close his eyes and sleep.  Masters sat in his darkened quarters at his work station running through numerous simulations concerning Operation Chestnut.  Operation Chestnut was an operation created by him, Captain Amphlett and Captain Werfel for the liberation of Griffith II.  The plan was originally slated for three months time but recent events had changed that timetable, now he had four days to finalise the plans for the operation, which was to be launched within the next two weeks.

  For three months after the Federation Alliance captured the Chin’toka system the war had entered a strangely balanced state.  The Dominion were able to rally and tie the alliance down in Chin’toka, while forays to extend past the system had met with little to no success.  Elsewhere gains made by one side were often counterbalanced by gains by the other, so while the lines still fluctuated neither side could claim to have an upper hand.  However, the Dominion, which had started to look vulnerable once the Romulans entered the war, now did not seem as weak. 

  Masters had overheard one of the few Bajorans on the crew say that it was tied to the disappearance of the Bajoran wormhole.  He did not see how it was possible the two events could possibly be related.  The Prophet’s only involvement in the war so far was that they had dealt with the Dominion reinforcements from the Gamma Quadrant during Operation Return at the behest of Captain Sisko.  The Bajoran also said that the Prophets were preventing any more attempts by the Dominion to send reinforcements but Masters had more faith in the new cloaked minefield that had been placed at the mouth of the wormhole.  While his faith in the Prophets was not high he wondered if the Bajorans were not actually on to something.  Rather than the Prophets being the cause he wondered if it was simply that the disappearance of the wormhole had made the Dominion more desperate.  Before while the wormhole was inaccessible there was still the possibility to unblock it, now with it gone any possibility of reinforcements from the Gamma Quadrant had truly disappeared.  So like a cornered animal the Dominion fought back with ferocity to show that it could still hurt the Federation Alliance despite its situation.

  Adding fuel to the Bajoran’s theory was that after three months the wormhole was reopened and the war returned to the state it was in when Chin’toka fell, with the momentum again behind the allies.  The Dominion shipyards at Monac IV had been destroyed, the lines in Chin’toka seemed more secure and the Federation Alliance made their first serious inroads into the Kalandra sector with the liberation of the Kalandra system.  The final point was the reason why Operation Chestnut had been pushed forwards.

  The Kalandra system was the heart of the sector.  It was the most densely populated system and was the industrial, trade and economic hub of the sector.  Two of the planets in the system and three of the moons were inhabited, with another planet and four moons containing various outposts.  The principle planet was Kalandra IV (referred to as Kalandra Prime), it had a population of over two billion and was the most populated planet in the system and hence the sector.  Its orbit contained numerous stations and the facilities to maintain half a dozen starships.  Also Lisarta, a moon around Kalandra IX, had a ground based facility to build starships.  While it had not built combat or science ships for Starfleet it did build Starfleet support ships such as tugs and transports before the sector fell to the Dominion.

  Despite this the system did not have much in the way of defences before it was invaded.  It had the standard planetary defences a world of its stature as a sector capital required.  Apart from that it had little in terms of Starfleet defences at the time of the first battle of the system.  Only twelve Starfleet starships had been in the sector when the Dominion’s Kalandra Offensive had begun when they invaded with no less than two strike fleets.  Three ships had managed to fall back to the Kalandra system to offer it some protection.  Of them only the USS Thy’lek Shran was a modern vessel been an Andoria class explorer.  The other two vessels, the USS Hri-tak and USS Questing were older vessels, a Merced class light escort and Chimera class fast frigate.  Despite been hopelessly outnumbered they did not flee from Kalandra; instead they stood in defence of that system.  They had nipped at the edges of the Jem’Hadar’s vast formation as it approached Kalandra Prime and once they reached the planet the ships stood with the planetary defences and were slaughtered.  For their valiant sacrifice the crews were posthumously awarded Christopher Pike Medals of Valour.  It was an unfortunately statistic that not one ship from the Kalandra sector escaped the invasion.  That did not mean all the crews were killed, it was very possible that some were capture.  It was impossible to know as the Dominion, to his knowledge, had never admitted to having captured an enemy vessel.  To Masters that was fate worse than death.  He could not imagine would it would be like to be a prisoner of war, especially one of the Dominion or the Cardassians.

  The system had remained in Dominion hands until a short time ago when the second battle of the Kalandra system or the Liberation of the Kalandra system (which was the more popular term) was fought.  It was the first major victory in what was now dubbed the Kalandra Campaign, which was the Federation Alliance’s military campaign to drive the Dominion from the Kalandra sector.   Gathered intelligence had revealed that the sector was being held by the Cardassian Thirteenth Order and the Jem’Hadar Fourth Division but that they had pulled several key units, which included the Twenty-Ninth Shodar, which made up around a third of the Thirteenth Order’s fleet, and over three quarters of the Jem’Hadar fleet, out of the sector to help keep the Alliance forces in the Chin’toka system bottled up following the loss of the Monac shipyards.  Once where nearly a thousand starships held the sector only just over four-hundred remained.  With this weakening of the defences the decision was made to strike at the heart of the sector: the Kalandra system itself.

  The Dominion had tried to hide this fact with fake warp signatures, falsified transmissions and other gambits to hide the departure nearly two thirds of their fleet.  Or at least that was what Starfleet Intelligence claimed.  It was a big risk to attack the sector if the full complement of defenders were still on station.  However, they must have been sure that the signs they read were correct and that it was not a trap to lure the Alliance into an assault that was doomed to fail.  The confidence of the intelligence community was seemingly matched by that of the defenders.

  With the redeployment of the Jem’Hadar the Cardassian Thirteenth Order had become the main defenders making up around two-thirds of the sectors space based defences.  The Cardassians believed their positions secure and had deployed their forces throughout the sector.  Intelligence also knew their exact deployments; patrol schedules and strength.  Masters was not sure how they knew this, he guessed that they had infiltrated the Cardassian forces in the sector or had an informant supplying the information.  He gave outside odds for the possibility that they had cracked the Cardassian’s codes, though the Cardassians were right up there with the Romulans in terms of the quality of the encryption of their military transmissions, so he did not put much faith in the latter.

  Another major factor in the decision that the Kalandra system would be the main target was that it had been plagued with ionic storms that had knocked out some of its long range sensors.  Overconfident and partially blind the defenders of the Kalandra system were in for a major surprise.

  The first sign the defenders received that anything was amiss was when the Seventh Fleet exited warp in the system.  With no warning the Cardassians had no time to take up a defensive formation or make any basic preparations for battle.  Masters would have loved to see the look on Legate Atanar’s face when the three hundred and forty-eight starships of the Seventh Fleet dropped out of warp in combat formation in the system.

  The Seventh hit Lisarta first, where they destroyed the 101st Tar’elk that had been tasked with protecting the moon.  They then fast deployed a battalion of Starfleet Marines to capture the facility, which the Dominion had greatly expanded during their tenure making it far more valuable to capture than destroy.  The Seventh’s deployment was precise and they were quickly able to overwhelm the outer outposts and deploy forces to the inhabited moons.  The fleet was quickly able to isolate Kalandra Prime and Kalandra V, the two most populated and heaviest defended locations in the system.

  Legate Atanar was not idle while this happened.  While there was little he could do to prevent his outer defences falling quickly he had been presented with an option by the Seventh Fleet.  A clear gap was left in the Seventh’s formation that he could use to retreat his forces with not much trouble, allowing him to yield the system with minimal losses to his forces.  However, he instead chose to contest the system, which was what most of the operation’s planners had expected Atanar to do.  He had the entire Thirteenth Shodar in system at the start of the battle, a hundred and fifty-one ships, and while he had lost thirty-three when the 101st Tar’elk was destroyed and a further seven ships that were caught out in open space early, he still had the bulk of his forces intact.  The only problem was that they were split, the 56th 102nd, and 187th Tar’elkor, eighty-five warships, were defending Kalandra Prime and the remaining thirty-nine vessels of the 217th Tar’elk were at Kalandra V.  While Atanar was outnumbered almost three to one, the defences around Kalandra Prime were formidable and he had around two hundred and fifty ships to call on to reinforce his position.   So while retreat was an option, it did not seem to be the most prudent option in Atanar’s mind, so he held his position and sent out a call for reinforcements.

  However, Atanar was not aware that the Klingon Ninth Battlegroup and the Romulan Fourth Command Fleet were also involved.  They had dispatched cloaked hunting parties throughout the sector and with detailed knowledge of the enemy’s deployments and even their responses they attacked.  Dominion and Cardassian warships left their positions in response for the call of aid from the Kalandra system only to have the base or facility they were defending be attacked by Klingon or Romulan ships.  They grouped at rally points to find themselves ambushed by cloaked warships and small groups at warp would suddenly have cloaked ships appear behind them and attack.  The sector descended into chaos.  The Fourth Division and Thirteenth Order’s ships were bombarded with conflicting cries for immediate assistance and reports of numerous attacks.  The Cardassians soon found they could not reach Atanar due to Federation communication jamming and one of the Klingons initial targets had been the Jem’Hadar heavy battle cruiser carrying Chelek’toran Vinala, the Vorta left in command of the Fourth Division, they destroyed it and killed the Dominion fleet commander.  A power vacuum then existed and as the other commanders fought over control, sowing even more chaos.

  In the Kalandra system Admiral Valerie Umstead of the Seventh Fleet pushed on with her assault.  Instead of behaving like Atanar would have thought by splitting her forces to attack both planets at once she instead struck at Kalandra V with the full force of the Seventh Fleet, save for the ships involved in operations assisting Starfleet Marines and Ground Forces in securing their targets.  It was the weaker of the two planets with fewer ships and a much weaker planetary defence system; the fleet obliterated the defenders quickly and mercilessly.  Part of the ploy was to try and draw out the defenders of Kalandra Prime so to engage them away from the much stronger Kalandra Prime planetary defences but Atanar did not fall for it, instead waiting for the reinforcements to arrive and bolster his position.

  By the time the Seventh had cleared the orbit of Kalandra V and reformed for the final push and much to Atanar’s disappointment only fifteen vessels had arrived to strengthen his position, half of those lucky survivors from Kalandra V that had managed to slip through the Seventh’s formation and escape the lopsided battle, and with the other ships came the news of the chaos besieging the sector.

  Atanar was not one to give up easily and he dug in, whether just because of pure Cardassian stubbornness or he hoped that his reinforcements would still come, Masters could not be sure.  The Seventh hit the planetary defence system like an anvil.  The powerful weapons platforms dealt a great deal of death and destruction on the Seventh Fleet but the pure weight of firepower blasted the fleet through.  Atanar and Umstead then got to match tactics.  Both experienced and skilled commanders they clashed in orbit, though neither directly engaged the other.  Atanar held as long as he could and by the time he ordered the retreat the Cardassians had lost over a hundred and ten ships trying to hold the Kalandra system, over a third of their total forces in the sector.  In comparison the Seventh Fleet lost thirty-six ships securing the system, though many more were at various states of damage.

  Elsewhere the Romulans and Klingons pounded Dominion positions destroying a nearly equal number of vessels, mostly Jem’Hadar.  They had also struck at numerous bases destroying some and damaging others.  In the end their role was not to cause maximum damage but to create maximum chaos, which they more than met.  The Klingons lost twenty-seven ships and the Romulans only eleven.  This disparity was due to the Klingons more aggressive tactics.  Despite what he was sure the Romulans would call a needless waste of ships the Klingons had also dealt out more damage to the Dominion forces in the sector.

  By the time the operation came to an end the Alliance had a firm foothold in the Kalandra sector and the Dominion had lost around half its space forces in the sector.  Further weakened the Dominion had to consolidate what it still held as it no longer had the forces to oust the Alliance from Kalandra without reinforcement.

  Now with the Federation Alliance having a firm foothold in the sector Operation Chestnut was pushed forward.  Originally touted as an attack to gain a minor foothold in the system so to raid Dominion supply lines and weaken their hold, it was now an attack to sure up the Alliance’s hold in the sector.  Not only was it close to Dominion supply lines it was now uncomfortably close to the Alliance’s lines running to and from the Kalandra system.  That was the reason his superiors were anxious to get the operation under way as quickly as possible, plus to take advantage of the losses dealt out to the enemy in the sector.

  He had been given updated tactical information, as had Amphlett and Werfel and they were all working on an updated plan, which they would get together and compare in a day or two.  The Dominion’s strength in the system had changed since the attack on Kalandra.  The losses suffered meant that around four wings of Jem’Hadar vessels had been pulled out of the system, leaving around sixty ships.  Also the readjustment saw the number of wings close enough to respond in a timely manner drop to ten.  This meant the alliance forces had a much weaker force to defeat.

  Thankfully ships for the operation were not a problem.  He had received good news that the Seventh Fleet would give him the extra tactical wing the operation required, which plus Task Force 59 meant they had a force that could match that of the defenders.  The Ninth Battlegroup could meet their requirements of three wings, though there were a higher percentage of lesser capital ships due to their losses, and the Romulans had committed their four wings.  They were going to have a stronger numerical advantage over the defenders than he had originally planned and a force strong enough to deal with the possible reinforcements.  However, the Klingons and Romulans were only willing to give him half the ships he initially wanted for the distraction missions, citing the need for ships to patrol and maintain positions elsewhere in the sector over his operation.  He was a bit disappointed by that news but a few cloaked ships were better than none.

  The more significant issue was on the surface part of the operation.  The Dominion had deployed two extra brigades of Jem’Hadar, over twelve thousand troops, to the garrison of eight thousand already deployed.  Originally the ground assault put a lot of focus on the fact that three-quarters of the force were Cardassians and that they would surrender easier, however now that the Cardassians were only a third of the force forcing a surrender quickly was pretty much out the window.  As far as he knew Jem’Hadar ground forces had yet to surrender when cut off or surrounded.  They had always fought to the death no matter how useless their situation was.

  At the moment supplying the ground force seemed to be the bigger issue than the availability of fighting ships.  The situation in the Kalandra system had yet to be resolved with Jem’Hadar and Cardassian troops still resisting.  Masters had wanted an entire division for the attack.  This way they would have numbers parity with the enemy and thanks to their control of the skies above they would still hold a significant tactical advantage.  Unfortunately Masters had been told that he might not get the 15,000 he originally slotted for the operation.  In fact the number he had been given a lot closer to 10,000.  It seemed that the Romulan’s tresh’val, their equivalent to a brigade, which they had originally said they would supply, was unlikely to be available within the time span that this mission would be launched.  There was little he could do about that he had to put together a plan with the forces available and it was not like he had not had to revise his numbers for this operation before.  He was tossing up between getting the Romulans to strike first with an orbital bombardment of Jem’Hadar ground bases before the rest of the fleet arrived or the deployment of Special Forces units to do that job from the surface.  That was his main quandary at this point in time.

  He yawned looking up from his computer and over to his bed.  Rachel Daley, the woman he was currently in a relationship with was sprawled across the entirety of his bed, its sheets intertwined with her body like a climbing vine on a tree.  The soft light from his end of the room bathed over her exposed skin.  She looked completely relaxed and he longed to be next to her, though it had more to do with wanting to get some sleep than actually being with her, which he had to admit was a very pleasant plus.

  However, he could not sleep yet.  Masters stood and walked over to his room’s replicator.

  “Coffee, white,” Masters ordered.

  The light within the replicator slot flashed and there was a whirl of life before it suddenly stopped.  Masters looking into the slot and saw it was empty.

  “Coffee, white,” Masters repeated.

  The replicator again seemed to make an effort but produced no result.

  He sighed loudly and used the manual controls to bring up a diagnostic of his replicator.  He could not see a problem and manually ordered his coffee, again the replicator failed to produce anything.

  Note to self: get Pavlo to kick my replicator, Masters thought deciding to give up on the machine.  It looked like he would have to go out of his quarters to get a drink.  Masters went to his console and downloaded the plans he was working onto one of the encrypted PADDs on his desk.

  “What are you doing?” came a very sleepy question.

  Masters looked up to see Rachel had stirred.  Her face was still half buried in a pillow but he could see one of her eyes was just open.

  “The stupid replicator’s playing up,” Masters explained as he turned off his work station.  “I’m going to go to Fire to get a drink and do a bit more work.”

  “I have a better idea, come to bed,” Rachel half murmured, still not fully awake.  She rose her hand in what he guess was meant to be a sexy come hither gestured but it looked more like she was suffering a hand spasm.

  Masters made his way to the bed and sat on the edge.  “If I don’t get this done now I’ll just have to stay awake late tomorrow night as well.”

  “Tonight,” Rachel said.  Masters gave her a perplexed look.  “It would be tonight.”

  Masters glanced at the time and saw she was technically right.  Masters reached out and lightly cupped her cheek, his thumb lightly rubbing it.  Rachel nuzzled into his hand, letting out a low moan signifying that she was enjoying his touch.

  “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  Rachel mumbled a nonsensical reply and Masters stood exiting the room.  He grabbed the nearest turbolift and headed headed up one deck to deck 6.  It was not until he was at the doors to the Fire lounge that he realised that he had left his PADD at his desk.  He admonished himself but decided that he might as well just get his drink and go back and finish his work in his quarters.

  When the doors open Masters was assaulted by a ruckus.  He looked around and saw seven Klingons thumping a table while one stood tall bellowing out a song at the top of his voice.  The Klingon reached the end and all the other Klingons thrust their tankards high into the air, spilling what by the smell of it could only be bloodwine, yelled and then downed their drinks.

  The standing Klingon, who Masters tried to recall what his name was from Core’s report, noticed him.  “Captain, you’ve come to join us in celebration!”

  The rest of the Klingons let out a mighty roar.

  “Not quite.  I’m just grabbing a drink.”  The Klingon went to grab a bottle of bloodwine.  “A non-alcoholic drink,” he clarified.  “Are you celebrating a victorious battle?”

  To Masters’ surprise that comment had the entire table of Klingons laughing.  “Victory?” said the standing Klingon between laughs.  “We managed to get through the entire battle without destroying a single enemy vessel.  We had to be rescued by a Federation vessel and we get to continue living our barely bearable existence!  No, captain.  We’re drinking to the joke that we are still HERE!”  He raised his tankard high and the other Klingons followed suit, roaring in approval.

  “Be silent, Mon’kor.”

  Masters glanced behind him to see there was a eighth Klingon in the lounge.  He recognised the lone Klingon as Commander Thopok, the ranking Klingon officer.

  “Why?” challenged Mon’kor.  “You of all people should have been looking forward to dying in battle.  It is the only chance you have to regain a micron of respect.”

  “I at least have the sense to not flaunt myself around like a petaQ!”

  Mon’kor dismissed Thopok with a wave of his hand, turned back to the other Klingons and started to sing another song.  Masters looked around the room and saw that apart from the Klingons and him only one of his crew was in the lounge.  That was unusual, no matter what the time there seemed to be always a few crew in the lounge.  He guessed that the Klingons celebrating had probably driven off anybody looking to have a meal or drink the lounge.

  Masters turned his attention back to Thopok.  Core had said he seemed odd for a Klingon and he was starting to see it.  Actually seeing Thopok’s behaviour rather than hearing about it left him even more perplexed by it.  He had not seen such disrespect from a subordinate in the Klingon military that did not end in the superior officer attacking him.  He had been prepared for weapons to be drawn and the very possibility that Klingon blood would coat his walls.  Masters looked at Thopok closely.  For a Klingon he looked extremely defeated and if not a bit depressed.

  Masters went to a replicator and got a coffee and headed to Thopok’s table.

  “May I sit?” Masters asked.

  “This is your vessel,” responded Thopok, the disinterest in his voice was clear for anyone to hear.

  “I thought you were the ranking Klingon officer to survive?” Masters asked.

  Thopok nodded.  “I was third officer of the MalbeB but that is like saying I was third officer on a garbage scow.  It was a mangy targ of a vessel.  I am surprised it was not the first ship to be destroyed.  It is manned by the dregs of our society.  Klingons barely worthy of gazing on a bat’leth let along wielding one in war.”

  “And you count yourself as one?”

  “Of course.  I know my worth,” said Thopok plainly.

  Masters had to admit he did not have much experience with Klingons but he could not understand Thopok’s attitude.  He seemed bitter and depressed which war could make anyone, but Klingons were meant to be a warrior people.  They were one of the few people that looked forward to the war with the Dominion.  Masters did not know why it should matter to him but he wanted to understand this Klingon a bit better.