Chapter Text
Kriosian-flagged freighter SS Draskaar
E’Mdifarr Asteroid Belt, E’Mdifarr system
Sector 21508
Alliance Occupied Cardassian Territory
As Lar’ragos’ adrenaline ebbed, the severity of his injuries became more apparent. While Ramirez was dispatching Ashok to recover the away team’s confiscated equipment, Lar’ragos tried to rise and stumbled again, nearly toppling over. Ramirez and Taiee moved to assist him to the floor. Ramirez handed off Pava’s rifle to Petty Officer Saihra Dunleavy who took up a defensive position behind a cargo container and oriented herself towards the turbolift.
Still awaiting her medical instrumentation, Taiee nonetheless managed to diagnose the most serious of the man’s injuries. Lar’ragos was suffering a concussion, three fractured ribs, multiple bruised internal organs, a broken right hand, and a hyper-extended left knee.
“What the devil happened in there, Pava?” Ramirez asked as she waited for Taiee to finish her assessment.
Lar’ragos grimaced. “No room to maneuver in there. Plus, I’m pretty sure one of them used to be a Starfleet Marine. He sure as hell fought like one.”
Ramirez shook her head as she chided him gently. “That was brave, Pava. Incredibly reckless and stupid, but brave.”
Lar'ragos craned his head to look at what remained of the two men he had shot, though he winced and gritted his teeth with the effort. “The three in the lift car are alive, and I’m sorry about those two.” He gestured towards the rifle in Ramirez’s hands. “No stun setting, and I wasn’t in any shape for another fight.”
“You did what you had to, Pava.” Ramirez glanced up at the open turbolift door, just visible in the shadows. The bodies splayed on the car’s floor were still motionless. Almost wistfully, she whispered, “What you always do, in fact.”
He coughed painfully. “Just make sure the captain knows… he’s keeping me on a short leash these days.”
Ashok arrived with their gear and handed the medical kit to Taiee who proceeded to scan Lar’ragos with her tricorder as the other personnel retrieved their phasers. Ramirez looked to the Bolian. “Ashok, find a computer access junction and hack in. I want to see what we can find out about these people.”
She glanced back down at Lar’ragos. “Your tactical assessment, Lieutenant?”
“They’re not pirates, Commander. That crowd usually runs with Orions, Nausicaans or Chalnoth as muscle.” He gave her a meaningful look. “Federation nationals in civilian vessels geared for combat. Who does that sound like to you?”
She nodded dourly. “I’d hoped those reports of a Maquis resurgence were overstated. Looks like they weren’t.”
Ramirez motioned towards Dunleavy and Ashok’s engineering assistant as she called out, "Get those men out of the turbolift and frisk them for additional weapons and comms. Then let Taiee treat them.”
“What about the bridge?” Lar’ragos asked.
“The bridge can wait,” Ramirez answered thoughtfully. “Our opponents just jumped a few levels higher in the threat column. We’d better have a workable plan before we take these people on.”
*****
USS Gibraltar
E’Mdifarr Asteroid Belt, E’Mdifarr system
Sector 21508
Alliance Occupied Cardassian Territory
Disruptor pulses, phaser beams and merculite rockets flared against Gibraltar’s forward shields in a maelstrom of fury as the starship bore down on her would-be pursuers. Gibraltar’s return fire, however, was much more discriminating, focusing on the ersatz-warship’s shield generators with punishing blows from her photon torpedoes and surgically pinpointed blasts from her phaser banks.
“Right on the mark, Master Chief, keep it up,” encouraged Sandhurst.
“Their shield strength will have to be no higher than forty percent for this to work,” Shanthi reminded the bridge crew unnecessarily.
“I was at the briefing, thanks,” Juneau replied snidely, too focused on the looming asteroids on the viewscreen to add her customary eye roll.
“Focus, children,” Sandhurst admonished from the center seat as the ship was buffeted by another enemy salvo. He glanced at Shanthi to double check that the young ensign’s hand was well away from the release toggle for the IFEW. ‘No sense in making this whole party for nothing,’ he reflected mordantly. Even if the experimental device was unsuccessful, every moment these brigands spent chasing his ship was another percentage of a parsec distance the convoy put between themselves and the pirates.
Juneau announced, “Five seconds until all FTL capable threat vessels are within range, sir.”
“Five seconds, mark,” Sandhurst acknowledged as he engaged the chronometer on his chair’s armrest. He looked up and his eyes grew wide as a giant asteroid hove into view ahead of them. Sandhurst gestured futilely at the viewer as his command persona slipped several notches. "Rock!" he gasped. "Big rock!”
Purposefully looking back at the ashen-faced captain as he nimbly skirted the two kilometer wide obstruction, Ensign Lightner smiled widely. “I’m on it, sir. No worries.”
Sandhurst sank back into his chair, cursing the young pilot silently in his head as he fought to salvage his composure. Just in time, he noticed the chronometer reaching ‘1.’ “Launch the weapon,” he ordered, his voice regaining its authoritative timbre.
Shanthi tapped his panel to initiate release of the ten meter long cylinder sitting in its launch cradle in the aft-most section of the shuttle bay. The object slid out behind the starship and began to spin slowly end-over-end, its reflective surface glinting weakly in the diffused starlight.
“Emergency shutdown of engineering mains,” Sandhurst ordered. "Route all auxiliary power to the structural integrity field in the engine nacelles.”
The bridge duty engineer answered in the affirmative as Juneau announced, “Detonation in four… three… two…”
There was the faintest pulse of whitish light from the object and then it self-destructed in a small, ridiculously anti-climactic explosion.
Alarms began to wail from the engineering station, and the officer manning the board began a damage assessment. At Sciences, Shanthi announced, “Ion pulse confirmed, Captain. Strength and duration are within expected parameters.”
“Confirmed, sir,” Juneau agreed. “The warp nacelles of all vessels within one-million kilometers have been depolarized.”
“Including ours,” the duty engineer added. “Though thanks to our emergency shutdown and SIF reinforcement, we took less of a hit, sir. Crews are being dispatched to begin repairs, and we’ll have a head start over the threat vessels.”
“Understood,” Sandhurst said tersely. “Launch a full spread of photons, Master Chief. Mister Lightner, get us the hell out of here while they’re still trying to figure out what just happened.”
Pell looked up from her board and fixed Sandhurst with a cautiously worried expression. “What about the away team, Captain?”
Sandhurst was unable to keep the glare forming on his features in check, causing Pell to blanch. “You better than anyone should know I don’t leave our people behind, Commander. For the moment, however, we don’t even know which of those four freighters they’re aboard.” He turned his face, now laden with resolve, towards the viewscreen as a flurry of photons arced towards the scattering enemy craft. “We will be back for them.”
As Gibraltar fled deeper into the asteroid field, Sandhurst allowed himself a brief moment of muted satisfaction. Thanks to the successful deployment of the device, a weapon of his own design, their attackers would be unable to pursue the aid ships. Regardless of the fate that ultimately befell Gibraltar, the convoy would be safe, and the relief supplies they carried would make it to the suffering Cardassians clinging to life amidst the rubble of their devastated colonies.
*****
USS Bluefin
En route to E’Mdifarr system, Warp 9.2
Alliance Occupied Cardassian Territory
Akinola’s ready room door chimed, and he invited the visitor inside. Inga Strauss entered to find the captain reclining in his desk chair, arms crossed behind his head as the strains of classic Terran jazz played in the compartment. A half-finished wood carving of what appeared to be a starship sat atop the desk amidst a pile of wood shavings and a host of various wood-working tools.
Strauss was young for her rank, just into her early 30’s, a petite blond with piercing blue eyes that hinted at the carefully restrained intensity lurking beneath the surface. Her hair was elaborately braided, and her stylized Border Service combadge gleamed with a newness indicative of her recent transfer from the regular fleet.
“What do you have for me, XO?”
“Pre-engagement diagnostics complete, sir. All weapons and defensive systems are functioning nominally, and I’ve got the crew running damage control drills.”
“Very good, Commander.” Akinola sat forward slowly, a calm smile on his face. “ETA to the E’Mdifarr system?”
“Seventeen minutes, sir.” Strauss observed her captain’s relaxed demeanor and envied the older man’s composure in the face of imminent combat. She had seen more than her share of warfare, but still found herself keyed up every time before an engagement.
“Anything noteworthy on sensors?”
“We detected what appears to have been a sizeable ionic discharge somewhere within the system’s asteroid field and it’s been playing hell with our sensors, sir. We’ve been unable to identify any spacecraft within the system so far, and comms are still being jammed locally.”
Akinola nodded fractionally. “Sounds like our comrades are giving the enemy a good fight.”
“You think Gibraltar’s still in one piece, Captain?" Strauss looked skeptical. "From the brief distress call they got off before the jamming started, it sounded as if these pirates got the jump on them. Not to mention the fact that they're outnumbered and outgunned.”
Akinola activated his desktop terminal and turned the screen for Strauss to see. A cross section of a Constitution-class starship was displayed, along with the lean face of a man who appeared to be in his mid-forties, the ship’s captain presumably. “I’ve been reading up on the ship and its crew, and do you know what I’ve discovered?”
“What’s that, sir?”
“That despite their ship’s limitations they’re a wily bunch who’ve managed to turn the tables on stronger opponents more than once in the past.” Akinola gave Strauss an expectant look, “Remind you of anyone?”
She smiled in response. “Now that you mention it, sir, it does.”
Akinola switched off the terminal and rose from his chair. “I’m counting on them to stay in the fight until we get there, Commander. Then Bluefin and Gibraltar are going to make these sorry sons-of-bitches wish they’d selected a different life path.”
Strauss nodded enthusiastically. “Aye, sir.”
*****