War in Practice (Part 4 of 4)

Posted on 31 May 2015 @ 3:36pm by Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & Captain Jonathan Holliday & Lieutenant JG Drusilla McCarthy & Lieutenant Tuula Voutilainen M.D. & Captain (HoD) Valkris & Chief Warrant Officer 3 Lamar Darius & Lieutenant JG Emmarie (E'Ma'ri) & Commander Norvi Stace & Lieutenant Benice Gyce Ph.D. & Commander Allyndra illm Warraquim & Senior Chief Petty Officer Keval zh'Erinov & Ensign K'os Beaumont & Lieutenant JG Grayson Jones & Petty Officer 1st Class Unit Cu-47 "Copper" & Commander Luke Wyatt & Lieutenant Jared Nicholas

2,590 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: Episode 08 - NIMBUS
Location: Sector 053 - Various Starships
Timeline: MD 02 - 1530 hrs

Previously, in War in Practice (Part 3)...

John knew Klingons - specifically their fighting style. They preferred to strike in packs, deal damage, and then run. Therefore he knew the most likely tactic they would use, especially against the larger ships in the fleet, including the Admiral's flagship.

"They'll try to engage the Atlas from one of her flanks - most likely her ventral side where her shields are weakest. Keep us within weapons range and ready a full barrage of quantum torpedoes."

As the helm moved them away from the rest of the fleet, Sarah activated the cloak, watching as the ripple effect was momentarily reflected on their view screen, the lights on the bridge dimming accordingly. Soon their chance to shine would come.

And Now, the Continuation...

[ON]

USS Chronos, Sickbay

Having prepared for any simulated casualties, Tuula anxiously awaited the beginning of this exercise. But being cooped up in sickbay, waiting while the bridge crew had all the fun, was beginning to get to her. "Computer," she called out, "patch me through to the bridge on the auxiliary console. I want to see what's going on."


IKS HarqSith

Valkris watched the attack and waited with patience to see how the Star Fleet types would handle the attack. The formation began to change but she noted how the ships shifted and one ship seemed to stand out as being protected.

It was not the one that had taken the most damage but the small one. She had to bring up the name. "Galileo," the display indicated.

"Helm, plot course toward the Galileo. Tactical prefer a firing solution on that target. On my mark as fast and as silent we sweep in and hit that ship." Everyone just nodded remember her command not to speak.

"Ready, Mark!" The systems sprang to life and Valkris could feel the push as the sudden acceleration pushed her back into the command chair. A near feral smile on her face as she focused on her prey.


USS Galileo

"Admiral Saalm requests we disable the tachyon grid," Emmarie said. She linked her ankles as best she could around chair and console in order to prevent being unceremoniously tossed aside if things went to hell.

"Do it!" Stace called out as she looked to her little display, an eruption of sparks showering out of the MSD behind her. The lights flickered and jumped as the Trill leant forward automatically to shield herself. It took a lot now for the former Science Chief not to rely on the ears and eyes of her crew. She had to gain purchase on what was unfolding herself as she noticed the formation of the Task Group changing.

"The task group have now taken defensive positions around us," Gyce noted, and smiled a bit when she watched Lirha's ship take lead.

Stace breathed a sigh of relief. "We may be small, but we're precious," she said, more to herself. "Try and keep her steady!"

Lamar peered intently over Wintrow's shoulder, watching him attempt to keep the starship on its designated flight path which was always easier said than done. Now, however, he noticed some major deviations in the ship's actual course as well as a few proximity warning panels which began to fiercely blink in bright red pulses. "Watch your vectors, kid... Watch your vectors...! WATCH YO--"

Amidst all the commotion and discombobulation of simulated combat, Galileo began to slowly drift a bit too close to the giant Sovereign-class now protecting her, and the Nova-class' dorsal shields scraped violently against the ventral ones protecting Atlas' hull. Had it not been for the protective deflectors protecting both ships, the collision would have been catastrophic for the small science ships, but fortunately it only resulted in a total collapse of the dorsal shield grid.

"I can't!" Wintrow called out desperately, still fighting to regain control over flying the ship, "We hit something...aside from torpedoes. I don't know what but we hit something!"

"Captain!" called out Lamar who had been jolted to the ground from the violent impact and was now just getting back to his feel. "Collision with USS Atlas!"

Collision with the Atlas? Wintrow looked up, his eyes wide with shock. Had he just steered the Galileo right into another vessel? Why hadn't there been a proximity alert? "I'm sorry..." he stammered fearfully, "I didn't mean to, I'm sorry..."

Lamar, now recovered, practically hauled the young Betazoid out of the station's chair by gripping the back of his uniform's collar while pulling it to the side and quickly settled into the seat in order to correct the starship's dangerously deviated course. "It ain't your fault, shit happens kid, just don't do it again!" he yelled to the cadet while tapping furiously on the helm console in manual mode to try and re-initialize the flight control system and gain separation from Atlas.

Wintrow stumbled as he was hauled from the pilot's seat. It wasn't his fault; but that didn't make him feel any better. What was he supposed to do now? A little forlorn, he collected himself and waited for further orders.

Allyndra stepped over. "Steady, it is alright. The shields took the brunt. Watch Lamar and learn." She patted his shoulder quickly and said quietly, "We will work more later." She then turned to keep an eye on the science monitor.

"We just lost dorsal shields," Gyce reported as she looked at the tactical reports coming in. She rubbed her right leg, as it did not like that jerk all that much.

"Sir," Keval said, we have damage reports coming in from all over the ship, shields down to 63%. It looks like we hit something."

While the crew of the Nova-class scrambled to get the starship back on course and assess the damage, yet another volley of incoming torpedo fire came screeching through space from their cloaked assailants, this time from a much closer range.

Klingons were a strange race -- overly aggressive at times, arrogant, and pompous -- but they were excellent warriors, and the KDF produced arguably the finest warship commanders in the galaxy. And as such, the commanders of the two flanking warships did not repeat their same targeting mistake from earlier, and had readjusted the warheads of their weapons to a proximity fuse which would allow the most area damage against a small and nimble target like Galileo. Impacting the close surrounding space on all sides of the Nova-class, the torpedoes broke apart and scored severe simulated damage on the science ship.

Back down in the belly of Galileo, in the middle of chaos that was the engineering department, K'os was again in mid sprint as he ran back towards the main control panel to assess the damage reports coming in. "Bridge, this is Beaumont. I have the subspace field emitters online, driver coils are operational, helm control should be close to a hundred percent now. Also, the ECM systems on the deflector are back online for target jamming--" At that moment, in mid sprint, the ship rocked violently throwing him to the ground hard. K'os' body rolled from the momentum of his sprint and he slammed his head hard against a console. He slowly sat up and an instant ringing followed with a bit of vertigo as the room spun a bit.

Emmarie was suddenly glad she'd anchored herself, as the ship rocked under the forces of torpedo impacts. "Damage reports, sir. "Port and Forward shields down, minor hull breaches to our secondary hull. Erecting emergency forcefields!"

K'os pulled himself off the floor of engineering and staggered towards the main systems display where simulated damage was reflected by red and yellow lights flashing all over the bisected image of the ship. "Bridge, this is Beaumont." His voice came out a bit hoarse from the smoke from overloaded EPS conduits. Blood slowly ran down his left temple and down his cheek. "The ECM capabilities of the deflector dish are still operational, but you'll have to prioritize power distribution. We can still disrupt their target acquisition considerably but it'll take up a lot of power. I'm confident Copper can find another way to get shields back up if we go that route."

Grayson released his grip from his station, which he had somehow managed to used to brace himself from falling on the floor. "Beaumont, Jones," he began, "See what reserve power is in the back up reactors and the impulse drives, channel it into the holodeck buffers and get a redirect subroutine in there." Grayson finished his sentence to further explain to his Assistant Chief and the Captain at the same time, "Whatever small power we can pull from anywhere in the ship, I want it there. Even if it is fractions of a percent per second. We are going to treat the holodeck systems like a buffer or a capacitor and pull power from there when we need it to anywhere, saves us time looking for it all around the ship and chasing power around." His final statement was to pre-empt any concerns, "The system can take it, don't worry. It won't be charged that much or for that long to do any damage. At least nothing a little polish and clean won't fix later."

"Better make it quick," Stace confirmed, nodding to him with a flash of a knowing smile. She had never been an engineer in any of her lifetimes and it astounded the Trill how other people thought around certain problems. It also took a lot to impress her after a seasoned five lifetimes. But Jones certainly just had and it was refreshing. "Don't wait for my authorisation to bring the modifications online once you have completed them. Just get it up and running!"

Before Jones had finished explaining his orders, K'os was already in full swing to get things enacted. Much like he'd done under Asahi Kita, K'os was very good at anticipating orders and needs. He let Jones go on about what it was they were doing, knowing it was more for the benefit of the bridge than K'os himself, and it allowed him time to get things set up. The way the ship was currently being flown, K'os figured they could use all the power they could get in the impulse drives, however he did a very quick calculation in his head and determined what level of power needed to stay in the drives and pulled all the remaining reserve power out.

He sent orders to the exocomp to continue working on keeping all available shield emitters operational before he began typing up a quick subroutine to put in place for the capacitor he was setting up. A beep from his console drew his attention and he smiled. "Copper has reinforced structural integrity fields to use in conjunction with the shields. I've set up another redirect subroutine that will shunt power to the shields from an auxiliary source that Copper is monitoring. All available reserve power is now stored in the holodeck buffer." K'os wiped his forehead absently with the sleeve of his hand, and was surprised to see his uniform sleeve soaked with blood rather than sweat.

The ship seemed to rumble beneath Stace as the workings of the power distribution seemed to take affect. Stace got up from her chair and ventured a little out to the middle of the decked platform. She stood in the centre of everything. "Good! Now let's bring that deflector online." She paused and then turned to Ops. "Put me through to the Task Group." As she turned back to face Jones, she nodded. "Stace to the Fleet. Deflector coming online now."


USS Aventia

Luke watched as the Galileo was hit by another volley of torpedoes the flanking stuck had stunned the formation so much that they hadn't put into place their plan. "Helm set a course of the Galileo, increase power to our shields and ready torpedoes, all tubes full spread when in tame fire on the Klingon ship" he ordered. "Ready phasers but don't fire I want to get behind the Klingons shops but first keys protect our own"

The ships bridge staff went to work immediately and the ship lurched back around towards the Galileo where they could now see the destruction. "Adjust course to 2-3-0 full thrusters ready our shield to absorb the torpedo hits and fire when ready"

"With pleasure," T'Vanna replied as she watched the CONN adjust their course. "I'm tracking tachyon emissions sir," she reported after a few seconds, "targeting scanners have a lock sir. Readying simulated photonic torpedoes."

As she spoke, her hands were traveling across her console, her eyes following the movements on her own scanners. "Firing tube one and two."


IKS HarqSith

The Vorcha leaped around the asteroid heading for that one ship that the rest of the Starfleet had started to gather around as the new ships tormented it. That meant it was valuable, there was something on that ship that the rest wanted to protect and thus an asset to remove from the game.

"Charge forward disruptors!" Valkris commanded. Though there would not be real disruptor fire, the computers would gauge what effect a full volley would have. "I want target between the nacelles."

"Aye Captain," the tactical officer replied his movements swift on the board.

"Engineering cut drive!" Valkris commanded.

Many of the crew on the bridge looked at her with that command. "They may be able to detect our engines even cloaked. We use our momentum, come in silently and strike."

The quick explanation sank in and the crew turned to their tasks. The Starfleet ship called Galileo according the targeting came closer and closer.

"Ships are moving in we will loose our window." Tactical said flatly.

Valkris muttered an obscenity and ordered, "Fire then and then engines full power and down to the left. We cannot hit our own ships."

Tactical looked at the screen, "Firing now!"


USS Aventia

Watching as the ship their torpedoes headed towards Luke could see them fire another volley towards the Galileo "Helm adjust course full thrust take those torpedoes we can hold them better than the Galileo" He ordered looking across the bridge staff "Fire remaining tubes critical hits only please" Once we have fired an their torpedoes have hit lower shield to 50% and send us into a drifting course towards the Klingon ships make it look like were in trouble as soon as the first ship is past raise shield and fire all torpedoes and phaser!"


USS Chronos

Holliday saw the battle unfolding in front of him - the Klingons had done exactly what he expected of them and had gone after the weaker Nova class as opposed to a direct confrontation with the the Fleet leader at this time. From their cloaked vantage point the Defiant-class had seen exactly where the torpedoes had come from, and had a target in their sights.

"Now!! Drop cloak - target that bird of prey and hit them with everything we have!" He shouted out, leaning forward in his chair as the orders rang out around him.

To Be Continued...

[OFF]

--

Various Characters aboard:
USS Atlas
USS Aventia
USS Nautilus
USS Chronos
USS Galileo

HoD Valkris
Commanding Officer
IKS HarqSith
[PNPC Warraquim]

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