Firefight!

Posted on Thu Mar 30, 2017 @ 5:15pm by Commodore Michael Aravan & Lieutenant Colonel S'er'in'e & Lieutenant Marisa Cheshire & Lieutenant Commander Arrda & Lieutenant Martha Cusack & Lieutenant Commander Alex Rho & Master Chief Petty Officer Thomas Barnes & Lieutenant Xylia Lischka & Lieutenant JG Theodore Bowman

Mission: An Orion to Die For
Location: Above Stameris
Timeline: MD 4 || 1500 Hours

"Captain!" the Deltan ensign at the communications station called out, looking back to the Lieutenant. "We're picking up a message from Petrova!"

"Put it through," Xylia ordered.

"Aye, Captain," replied the Ops Chief, quickly routing the transmission through the bridge's speakers.

The Russian woman's voice came through seconds later. "We're in need of assistance on the surface! The coordinates are.." She proceeded to call out the vehicles position, making adjustments for movement.

Xylia didn't hesitate for a second. "Tactical... get a lock on those coordinates and fire!" She snapped.

John was on the Tactical station and he had been looking forward to getting involved in the action ever since arriving on board. With both sets of co-ordinates locked in he charged the disruptor cannons and fired.

"Firing" John replied.

Another sensor went off and warned of a group of fighters coming from the other side of the planet leading a old and battered Jem'Hadar battlecruiser that looked like a remnant of the Dominion War.

Hearing the spike in the comm traffic, the Deltan Ensign couldn't help but sigh. He quickly checked the sensors to confirm what he was seeing. "Captain, you're not going to believe this one. I'm picking up a handful of fighters and a Jem'Hadar Battleship. Where the hell do they get these things?" He half expected a handful of old Mirandas and Constitutions to show up next.

"They might be old but they've been retrofitted pretty well. This is going to be tough...targeting the Jem'Hadar battleship's shield generators...firing disruptor cannons now" John replied.

"Rules of Engagement, do not fire unless I have given you the order to fire," Xylia said, clasping her hands behind her back. Firing down at the planet let those around her know they weren't exactly who they were pretending to be, but what was she supposed to do? Allow two hundred and fifty souls to die alone with the prisoners? No. She'd made the right call, and she'd do it again if she had to. Now it was a waiting game.

Realising he'd jumped the gun a little John knew he was in trouble - although he hoped an apology would be enough to avoid getting a major dressing down later.

"Sorry...I guess I got a bit excited. It won't happen again" John replied.

"That's all I ask," Xylia said. "Lischka to Triumphant."

"Report, Lieutenant," the Captain's voice replied after the transmission had been encrypted and sent via subspace burst.

"We have an enemy ship and fighters closing in on us. Ground troops were in need of assistance, so our cover has officially been blown. We're in need of some assistance," the German woman stated.

"We're on our way," the Captain said before the transmission ended.

The Hideki fighters closed to within firing distance, but the aging Jem'Hadar cruiser was still too far away. A male voice came over the com. "Raimus, what are you doing firing on Shol'Tar? Have you lost your mind?!"

=^=Petrova to Lischka... mission accomplished. We're at the pickup site and ready to begin transport.=^= came the voice of the Russian woman on the surface.

Xylia breathed an internal sigh if relief. They'd done it. =^=It's good to hear your voice, Major. Congratulations on a job well done. Stand by for transport.=^= She looked to the Operations officer. "Begin bringing them back. We'll deal with the cruiser once that's done."

The Deltan nodded, his hands beginning to fly across the console. "Transporter Chiefs, energize," he ordered over the comm. They'd only brought along two transporter operators for the ship's four transporters, so the Deltan joined the fray from the console, manipulating what he could to initiate transporter.

After the last of the Marines and freed personnel had been beamed up, a transmission once more came across on the bridge of the Galor. =^=I repeat, Raimus, what are you doing? This is your last warning. Put your shields down and prepare to be boarded."

This was going to get sketchy, and it was her job to make sure everyone remained safe. "Red alert! Tactical... prepare to return fire!" Xylia ordered, taking a mental breath before she answered.

Nodding to the woman before turning to his console John carefully selected his aim before charging up the weapons to maximum and firing at will.

"You've got it - firing all weapons" John replied.

The moment the Galor class opened fire, the Hideki fighters split apart and came around in a port and starboard pincer formation, easily evading the disruptor cannons from the ship. They opened fire with their own disruptors, blasting away as the shields before they did a quick warp jump away from the much larger ship. Alarms went off as the hits took effect and the shields dropped thirty percent in power.

"Raimus is currently unavailable, but I am seeing to things in his absence," the German said. "I'm afraid we cannot lower our shields."

"It no longer matters," the voice on the other end responded. "By order of the Emerald Empress, you now have a price on your head for assaulting the forces at Shol'Tar, carrying Federation personnel, theft of slaves and posing as someone you are obviously not. Prepare to be boarded."

The old Jem'Hadar battle cruiser began to power up its polaron beams and set course for the Galor.

Shit! Xylia mentally cursed. Why the hell did this have to happen when she was the one in command. She'd been trying to buy some time until their backup arrived, but it seemed she didn't have that kind of luck. "I said prepare to fire! You're relieved of duty, now get the hell off of my bridge!" She snapped, muscling her way to the tactical console. This was obviously something she would have to deal with herself. Taking a deep breath, she moved her hands over the console and prepared their weapons. "Increase power to shields!"

Nodding, the Deltan gave a bassy acknowledgement as he entered commands to shut down non-essential systems, including the finished transporters and shunted that power into the Galor's shields.

Meanwhile, the Marines worked on getting the freed slaves settled down wherever they could and Gage looked the massive Caitian over. "Sit tight, Sir," he said. "It sounds like things are getting bad out there."

"If you have need of an extra set of hands, I am here." While he wanted to feel of some use, a state he was devoid of the last 6 months he understood that others may already have the situation in hand and he, may just be in the way.

"Just hang on, Colonel," Gage said. "That's all any of us can do right now."

In space, the Hideki fighters veered off to face the Starfleet fighters, but the Jem'Hadar battlecruiser unleashed a barrage of polaron beams and rocked the Galor.

Xylia fired all weapons toward the Jem'Hadar battle cruiser. The quicker they could get rid of it, the better off they would be. They couldn't take too many hits with their shields already down by thirty percent. Time wasn't on their side, but heavy hitters were.

===USS Victorious===

Reactivating the cloak after the Security and Tactical personnel were transported explained why the Victorious hadn't been spotted. But when the Galor opened fire on the surface, that changed everything. "Ops, keep a lock on the away team as best as possible. Helm, bring us around. They'll never expect an attack from the rear. Arm all weapons and target the fighters. Standby to drop the cloak." Alex then spoke the Vulcan Intel Analyst's mind, V'Les, how are we on the computer download from the Galor?

Demetrius has almost completed his task. We will have everything we came for. And more.

Excellent, was all he said.

"Doing my best, Captain," Tom said, having made likely more than a thousand adjustments over the period of the mission. Tracking a handful of personnel was easy. Having to track so many others had proven vastly difficult.

The Helmsman engaged the impulse drive of the Victorious and brought the small destroyer around as he maneuvered for the other side of the planet where the Galor was.

Elizabeth sat on the Tactical station and waited for further orders. It was quite an interesting situation they were in and felt proud that Martha had selected her to work aboard the Victorious' tactical station for this mission. She just hoped Martha's team would make it out with the hostages alright.

As the Victorious came around the planet, Alex watched the rear of the fighters and the old Jem'Hadar cruiser come into view. "Helm, take us above the Hideki fighters and prepare for attack pattern Beta-One on my mark. Tactical, I want to hit as many of them as we can in the group before we recloak. Throw them off a bit. Understood?"

Elizabeth merely nodded and gave confirmation she would be ready to hit as many targets as possible - already preparing to get a target lock on the enemy but holding fire until the order came through.

The helmsman set a course for the Galor and engaged as the Victorious accelerated and came into view of what was obviously a swarm attack by a squadron of Hideki fighters and a Jem'Hadar battlecruiser not far behind them.

"Alex," said V'Les, "I'm picking up a transmission from the cruiser to Galor."

"Put it through," replied Alex, listening to the male voice. "This could be helpful. They think it's still Raimus. So...I wonder..." He looked around to the woman at Tactical. "Status of their shields and weapons?"

Elizabeth quickly scanned the target vessel and ascertained it was holding well but a few well placed hits would soon change that.

"Holding steady but we can soon make that change. Just say the word sir" Elizabeth replied.

"Drop the cloak! Attack pattern Beta One and fire all weapons!" yelled Alex. "I want to see fighter debris in the next ten minutes!" He scooted up to the edge of his chair. Battle had been enjoined. Though, it did strike him odd the sequence of events....

The helmsman dropped the Victorious between a Hideki fighter and the Jem'Hadar battlecruiser just long enough to give the Tactical person time to fire and accelerated away again.

Elizabeth saw the brief window she was given and made the most of it - firing at the Jem'Hadar battlecruiser's impulse manifold with a brace of torpedoes and some phaser fire.

"Direct hit to the impulse manifold" Elizabeth reported.

The Jem'Hadar broke off it's attack against the Galor for a moment and unleashed the energy dampening beam on the Victorious, but the upgraded codes for the shields shrugged it off.

Alex grinned, "Outdated weapons...let's see if we can't keep their attention on us. Tactical, target their impulse engines again. Put all four of these pulse phaser cannons to good use."

Charging up the phaser cannons to maximum she targeted the impulse engines again and prepared to fire. With the target locked she again fired the cannons.

"You've got it...target locked. Firing again" Elizabeth confirmed.

===USS Triumphant===

The huge Odyssey class ship dropped out of warp and headed into the Stameris system at full impulse, the red alert colors still on every holographic display and the siren still going off.

"Target that battlecruiser!" Michael ordered when he saw the Jem'Hadar vessel on the viewscreen.

Martha had been waiting for a chance to give that Jem'Hadar battlecruiser some stick and now she'd been ordered to target it. Captain Ainscow was right when she said those things were a nasty piece of work - they still were even just shy of two decades later. With the Jem'Hadar's shield generators targeted Martha pulled the trigger and unleashed a volley

"Target locked - firing phasers and torpedoes" Martha replied.

The Jem'Hadar battlecruiser bucked and rolled under the assault from the three ships now attacking it and tried to veer off.

Michael stood up from his chair and advanced towards Tactical. "Get the engines," he said.

Martha said nothing as her fingers danced over the holographic console and within seconds another barrage of phaser and torpedo fire struck the enemy ship - this time hitting its engines as ordered.

"Direct hit to their engines" Martha reported.

==Fighters==

In her cockpit Marisa quickly tapped a few keys hear her throttle and overrode the Triumphant's controls. The fighter wing pulled off from their formation with the carrier and quickly boosted away before she started combat maneuvers.

=A=Triumphant, Garm-Alpha. We're going after the fighters, let us know if you need assistance.=A= Marisa said as she corrected her vector towards the enemy formation. =A=Allied vessels, this is the Commander of the Triumphant's fighter wing, call sign Garm-Alpha. Request that you synchronise tactical data with our ESM Squadron and check your lanes of fire. We would like to avoid getting shot by friendly fire.=A=

=^=Garm-Alpha... acknowledged.=^= Xylia said.

=^=USS Victorious acknowledges, Garm-Alpha. And welcome to battle.=^= said Alex.

Between the concentrated fire of the Triumphant, Victorious and the Galor class, the Jem'Hadar battlecruiser blew up in space. The Hideki fighters immediately disengaged with the Federation fighters and made a run for the planet again.

"Open a three way channel to Lieutenant Lischka and Rho," Michael ordered.

Ensign eh'Paveress tapped a couple buttons to open a three-way channel between the Galor, Victorious and Triumphant. After the tell-tale chime confirmed the channel was open, the Andorian announced in redundancy, "Channel open, Captain."

When the images of the others came up, Michael nodded to them. "I suspect we're going to have more company here very soon," he said. "Lieutenant Lischka, prepare to beam back to the Triumphant with the Marines and whoever you managed to save."

"Acknowledged, Captain." Xylia tapped her combadge to make a ship wide announcement. =^=Attention all hands... prepare to beam back to the Triumphant immediately.=^= She tapped her badge again to end the transmission, then saw to it that everyone began getting beamed back to the ship. While that was going on, she set the Galor class vessel to self destruct twenty minutes from their current time. With Federation technology on board, she wasn't taking any chances, not to mention, Raimus wasn't going to need it any longer.

"Lieutenant Rho, dock the Victorious and get aboard as soon as you and your people can," the Captain said to the Intel Chief a moment later.

"Understood, Captain," said Alex. "We are en route."

The helmsman brought the Aquarius class destroyer around in a tight arc and approached so fast that everyone thought it was going to crash into the Triumphant, reducing to coasting in at the last moment while pulling in the nacelles to dock with a gentle bump.

"Tactical, be prepared." The Captain said after the comms closed. "Security, make sure that the protocols for boarders are in place. We'll be going to warp as soon as the others board us."

Martha nodded - the weapons were still fully charged and ready to go at the Captain's command. They'd certainly done very well in this particular instance with a lot more heavier hitting opponents than the last time the Triumphant was in a combat situation. She'd enjoyed giving the Triumphant a chance to prove its worth in a more challenging situation and personally Martha was happy with what was at her disposal.

"Weapons are charged and ready if we need them Captain" Martha reported.

Douglas acknowledged the captain's order, sending instructions to his teams all across the ship. Each one reported back almost instantly, and he looked back up at the captain. "Security teams at the ready, sir."

Michael looked over at the person at the Engineering console next. "Engineering, is the ship ready for warp?"

"Aye Sir," replied the Ensign, sitting at the Engineering Console. "All three cores active and ready."

"Cheshire," Michael called over the comm. "Pull the fighters back in. We'll be going to warp soon."

=A=Copy, have the deck cleared for combat landings. Give us two minutes=A= Marisa replied, pulling back on the flight stick to veer off from her pursuit of the fighters. =A=All units, All units. RTB. Combat landings approved. Half squadrons at a time. Razors are up first.=A=

Eight by eight the fighters landed in the fighter hangar with out assistance. The deck crew were ran ragged for the whole experience, as soon they had gotten one group out of the way another had landed. The larger support ships diverted to the shuttle bay.

Bowman brought in his Victory wing. A couple were just a bit unsteady, landing a bit harder than ever before. He was very grateful for the arresting beam. They had functioned well throughout the fight, but would definitely need some down time for repair. When Theo was able to shut down his engine, he leaned back and closed his eyes for a second just to relax before completing the lockdown of his craft.

Marisa's flight landed last, coming in at 150 meters per second, lining up her fighter with the tiny opening at the back of the triumphant with 3 other fighters in formation. Though she had some assistance from her navigational computer most of her attention was on the old, redundant analog instruments. As they passed the shutter doors Marisa set her drives to full reverse, forcing jets of thrust out from 2 thrusters either side of her canopy. It was only when they were caught by the arresting beam that they jolted forward in their seats, causing their harnesses to dig into their flesh.

=A=Cheshire to Captain Aravan. We're all aboard.=A= she said with a slight wince as she adjusted her harness.

She looked out on to the flight deck, fighters were parked where ever they had space in a disordered mess, a few Pilots were hobbling away for their fighters and there were a couple of new gashes along the run way.

The moment it was reported that the last fighter and crewman was aboard the ship, Michael ordered the Triumphant to warp. While there were still Orion ships in the sector, none of them were equipped to handle the massive Federation starship and the cleanup would take them some time to figure out their losses.