Skirmishcide (Part 2 of 2)

Posted on 12 Jun 2015 @ 4:35pm by Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & Commander Allyndra illm Warraquim & Lieutenant JG Grayson Jones & Commander Norvi Stace & Lieutenant Oren Idris Ph.D. & Ensign Jaana Voutilainen & Crewman Apprentice Sigrid Thelin & Lieutenant Benice Gyce Ph.D. & Chief Warrant Officer 3 Lamar Darius & Captain Jonathan Holliday & Lieutenant JG Drusilla McCarthy & Captain (HoD) Valkris & Captain (HoD) D'ghor

2,610 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: Episode 08 - NIMBUS
Location: Sector 053 - Various Starships
Timeline: MD 02 - 1620 hrs

Previously, on Skirmish (Part 1)...

"Hard right, go to cloak and then cut power. We go silent running again!" Valkris admonished. She had read Terran literature and especially had found the tactics of what had been called Wolf Packs in submarine warfare to be enlightening. Games of cat and mouse. While she preferred to be the cat right now they were the mouse.

The ship went silent again as the engines and all but the minimal essentials shut down. The crew worked furiously but as silently as they could. Her goal at this point was to drift past the Federation ships since being caught between them would be a bad idea. That little defiant class had taken her by surprise.

"Targeting seems to be moving away from us. The Federation ships seem to be concentrating their attention elsewhere."

"And the Defiant class?" Valkris asked.

The officer worked had for a moment and then looked up, "I don't understand. The sensors, they are not working properly. It is like a distortion of something."

And Now, the Continuation...

[ON]

Meanwhile, aboard USS Galileo...

Allyndra gripped the back of the science station chair as she kept her feet but instinct made her flutter wings as well as the ship moved to the simulated hits and registered damage.

"Can we get power to the new deflector?" She craned her head toward the engineering officer.

"Aye," Grayson began, he pressed a button on his console to bring the holodeck buffer modifications to standby, "say the word and the power within the holodeck can be transferred. We have even a little boosted power to send somewhere else, not much, but enough to keep the lights on a little longer."

"Captain, if we can modulate the new deflector enough it should throw off the targeting," she made a wry smile. "Presuming we 'last' long enough."

"Oh, she'll hold," came Stace's even reply as she cut a knowing glance to Allyndra. A gentle smile pulled the corners of her mouth upwards as the excitement and fear flooded her body. She steadied herself with a bracing breath and then turned to Grayson, giving him a curt nod to execute the power transfer.

"This is Commander Stace to the Fleet. We're bringing the secondary deflector online now. Keep an open comm. link to report any adverse side-effects. Stace out."

A few swift flicks of the wrists and fingers, the Chief Engineer was able to take the amount of power they had and run it right to the deflector dish. "Done," he called out, "beginning recharge sequence and making the current reserve power available to other systems on demand."

"Just keep an eye on the shields and structural integrity, Lieutenant," Stace called out, a glint in her eye. "Shut down all non-essential systems to keep that bank of power as stable and as full as we can maintain it. As much as I enjoy a porthole view with my replicated raktajino, I'd still like some ship about us. Even if this is simulated!"

Nodding to Grayson, Oren turned his attention to the console in front of him. Bringing up the deflector interface, he was happy to see that there was finally enough power to run it after a few seconds of waiting.

"The deflector is online, Commander," Oren announced, checking the energy reading and hoping they'll stay stable long enough for their plan to work.

Holding her breath Stace checked the power levels herself. "Lieutenant," she stated clearly. "Initiate the pulse!"

"Initiating" Jaana said as she she did just that. The pulse followed the trajectory she had entered. Straight to the last known location of the Klingon ships.

Somewhere among the chaos of Astrometrics, Sigrid was keeping a sharp eye on the interferometer readings and her striking blue eyes lit up with a sparkle when the first readings from the deflector came online. The pulse sweep that the bridge crew had initiated at first gave more information than Sigrid could sort out, but a few taps on the console brought up the relevant data they were looking for. Her brilliantly painted nails danced across the console as she pulled up the gravimetric readings. With the new deflector it was much easier to detect the waves than it had before and Sigrid was able to finally pin point and classify the signatures with the help of the astrometrics computer.

"Thelin to the bridge," Sigrid said brightly and with a lot of barely contained enthusiasm in her voice. "There's a lot of nois---Ooh! Ooh!" Sigrid squealed with delight. "We've got something. I'm plotting them on the grid maps for you now." Sigrid tapped a few buttons sending the updated tactical area maps with dots highlighting the different ships in the wargames area. The ones most likely to be Klingon ships were coloured with bright pink dots. A very 'Sigrid' thing to do.

Stace stood up from her chair and rounded the railings to join Gyce at Tactical with a strident march. She stood over her shoulder, conscious not to intrude of interfere, but to get a better view of the information relayed from Sigrid. "We have it, Siri," Stace called out over the comm with implied thanks. "Benice, relay this new information to the Fleet.

"Aye, aye. Sending new priority targets to the display now," Gyce answered and began to upload to Atlas and the other ships of the battlegroup. Then she opened a channel for only a moment. One to all the battlegroup.

=^= This is Lieutenant Benice of the Galileo. Be advised that all ships in the group have new priority targets. Benice out. =^=

Wintrow stood next to the helm, where Lamar was still manning the controls. He watched intently, his eyes all but glued to his instructor's hands, watching his every move. "Shouldn't we adjust course to new targets sir?" he asked carefully.

Lamar cursed under his breath but just loud enough that it could be heard by anyone sitting nearby while he received the linked tactical telemetry from the newly revealed Klingon vessel. He was already busy enough trying to pilot Galileo while simultaneously absorbing a plethora of navigational information from nearby starships, and the cadet's question added an unwelcome disruption of his concentration. "We have to wait for the captain's orders to engage. Maybe she wants us to lead-pursuit, maybe a direct-pursuit, maybe she has her own course for us to plot or an attack pattern to follow...in fact, why don't you ask her?"

Sensing the irritation, Wintrow nodded and walked up towards the command chair, where Stace was sitting. He was shaking still, still feeling that somewhere he had made a terrible mistake. "Ma'am?" he asked softly, drawing the Trill's attention. "Shouldn't we adjust course ma'am? Towards our new targets, I mean.. "

Stace broke her attention from the readout she was looking at, still unsure of her next plan of action. She didn't want to break formation as even though they had acquired the new targets, Galileo was still vulnerable to attack. They could still see their ship as easily as the crew could now see the Klingons. She quickly ran the scenarios through her head and took in a long, exaggerated breath. "No, we keep in line. Our Fleet is the only thing keeping us from holographically blowing apart. And they're not as nimble in flight as we are. Fire from our location and match the surrounding course and speed. Keep us in tight, Cadet."

"I'll relay it ma'am," Wintrow murmured and stepped back down to helm to tell Lamar what Stace had ordered.


USS Atlas, Main Bridge

The Orion admiral's light green eyes brightened when the transmission from Gyce came through across the comm, and she double-checked her tactical display to confirm the appearance of the new signatures. Sure enough, there were two strong intermittent contacts being illuminated on the scope, and the data looked sufficient enough to formulate at least a decent firing solution.

"All starships, mark the coordinates of the new signatures and ready photon torpedoes for spread volley with proximity fuses. Set phasers and targeting sensors to scan for hull impacts, and prepare tractor beams," she instructed. "Fire!"


USS Galileo, Bridge

Stace, now casually smiling, silently with one heavy hand patted the Bajoran on the shoulder to execute the admiral's command. She quickly left Gyce to fire and returned to her command chair to survey what was to unfold before her and her crew. As she stared squarely at the viewscreen, the volleys of torpedoes shooting in and out of her visual range delighted her. Not in a manner that a war-hungry veteran or sadist would enjoy, but the culmination of her crew's work, and the fleet's, made her proud to captain a starship again. The Gally surely didn't suffer the grandiose and formidable respect Janel's former Galaxy class engendered. But these were different times than the war-soaked years her former host commanded in. And these games, although aggressive and violent in practice, were the result of the peaceful relations and information-sharing that two former warring empires would enjoy, hopefully, for years to come.

"Firing quantums on engines and their necks," Gyce announced. Those were the weakest points of a Klingon ship.


USS Chronos

"You heard the lady - helm adjust heading, new course 080 mark 215."

Holliday called out as the flagship issued their new orders. It seemed that the little Galileo was going to save the day after all - he might not have been in the big chair over there, but he was proud of those that were operating his first command.

"Yes, captain," replied the helmsman. Yuulik's fingers tapped away at her console while she attempted to input the new heading coordinates as quickly as possible. "New course set, engaging," she confirmed.

"Tactical do you have a weapons lock?" John asked as he studied the tactical display on his console. There was nothing there in the visible spectrum, but the readings being fed through by the Galileo's uplink definitely showed a distortion in normal space.

The chocking field meant that Sarah was struggling to get an active lock on the ship in question. She had split her screen in two as as the tacion scan was showing. She was looking for the centre of the mass before manually locking on the weapons. "I have but I can't say for how long."

"Well in that case by all means - fire at will."

On her Captain's words, Sarah hit fire and watched the path of the polaran weapon, only milliseconds passing before it showed to be making an impact. On the viewscreen a vessel flickered across the stars as the cloaked ship begun to emerge, holding onto its cloak with fingertips as they tried to get it back up.

As the Chronos shuddered from simulated hits, an alarm suddenly began blaring in sickbay. Tuula quickly pushed herself over to the nearest terminal and tapped her screen, bringing up a damage report. "Ruptured plasma conduit on Deck Four," she called out. Knowing the carnage that could result from a ruptured plasma conduit, she went into action.

"Jonah, get down there and see if anyone needs help. Use the emergency transporters if you have to, beam any critical cases to sickbay." She turned towards Shras. "Shras, prepare for casualties. Likely plasma burns and smoke inhalation; prepare some triox compounds and dermal regenerators"


IKS QIb

Captain D'ghor blinked ferociously as his combat officer turned to face him with aggressively confused eyes. The bridge of the IKS QIb, now dulled down even more so with the cloak lights barely lighting the walkways, began to flicker as a slow but dreadful whirring sound began to permeate the bridge.

"We're losing the cloak!" he yelled, his guttural spray of spittle splashing across his console.

"What?! D'ghor screamed. "Impossible! How are they firing on us?"

Another volley of impacts shook the ship as the fading lights powered back up fully, the D8 pulling itself back into normal space.

"We're visible, Captain!"

D'ghor slammed his fists down on his armrests, breaking the right one. How could all of the Federation ships pinpoint their location and concentrate fire on them. It was impossible! The Klingons had perfected the cloak to be undetectable, even when firing. His anger raged through him as he slammed down hard again. He pulled the console over to him and quickly accessed the shield generators, trying to bring them online. But with the cloak offline and the power manifolds now fused, it was useless. If this had been a real battle, the IKS QIb would now be a sitting duck. Powerless to defend itself and victim to the Federation's firepower.


IKS HarqSith

Valkris watched as the Federation ships fired. The weapons fire was mostly directed at the new style ship which they had somehow found. She has suspected that little ship painted as Galileo had something to do with it as the other ships hovered around her like mother hens protecting a chick.

The Qlb took major hits with that many ships firing and would have been destroyed if this had not been 'games'.

It was obvious that the cloaks were now no good and neither was sitting here either. "Power up! Drop cloak and then fire everything we have!" Valkris commanded.

"Full power and helm set course for the asteroid again!"

"We are running?"

"For now, we have no chance here, let us confuse them as much as possible," Valkris felt the rage of having to run but sacrifice was good for only when it might be useful. If it had been a real situation perhaps blowing the warp core and taking as many of the compacted Federation ships or damaging as much as possible would be worth it.

"With the Qlb down we are best with hit and run tactics at this point."

The officer nodded and then replied, "Firing, widespread, disruptors set to proximity targets." He grabbed the station as the engines came online and the HarqSith powered up and began to gather speed away from the Federation ships.

The HarqSith had just started moving away, its weapons firing when a barrage hit it square in the tail section. Alarms screamed and there was that pandemonium that occurred with reports and all.

"Warp engines damaged and off line. Rear shields gone, as well as back torpedos and disruptors."

Valkris slumped in the chair. "Signal that we surrender."


Open Space

The simulated battle continued for close to twenty more minutes, eventually devolving into a chaotic furball of silver and green-hulled starships all jockeying for optimal firing position against each other. An elaborate light display of harmless phaser and disruptor fire brightened the dark cosmos and illuminated every starship in the vicinity, occasionally accented by a red photon torpedo volley or a cerulean quantum torpedo strike.

Once all the simulated torpedo ordinance had been exhausted and several starships had pulled out of the fight due to simulated catastrophic damage, both Lirha and Ja'taQ signaled their respective task groups to call an official cease fire to the exercises. The annual NIMBUS exercises had officially concluded, and now it was time to evaluate each side's performance before reporting back to the brass.

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]

HoD D'Ghor
Commanding Officer
IKS QIb
[PNPC Stace]

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