Chapter Text
Davula stepped into the ready room at Trujillo’s prompting, coming to attention in front of her desk.
“At ease, Commander. How go the preparations?”
Davula relaxed fractionally. “Lt. Commander Reinhart and the stellar probe have come aboard, sir. Ordinance division is loading the device in the forward-center tube. We’re fifteen minutes away from launching the attack.”
Trujillo nodded distractedly, turning her monitor screen towards the former science officer. “I’ve been toying with something, and I need to know if it has any merit?”
Davula instantly gathered that the device displayed on the screen was a modified communications buoy.
“Could we mass produce enough of these buoys to mimic the broadcast from the spheres? I thought we might be able to drop them at the system’s edge and activate them at the same time as we’re attacking the spheres. Hopefully we might draw the Tholians away from the stellar flare and spare them the fate of the spheres themselves.”
Davula surmised where this was going and took the opportunity to seat herself across from Trujillo, unbidden. “Sir, respectfully, I absolutely understand your wanting to save lives, but we just don’t have time to assemble these devices before our attack. Even if we could, the Tholians are right on top of the spheres themselves. They’ll be engulfed by the flare within seconds of the spheres and there wouldn’t be time for them to react, even if our broadcast was strong enough to catch their attention.”
Trujillo’s expression hardened and she blushed, embarrassed. “Of course, Commander. I’m sorry, I…” she trailed off lamely.
“I’m torn by the necessity of attacking the Tholians, too, sir,” Davula confessed. “It certainly appears they’re innocents caught up in someone else’s scheme. But we don’t know if the destruction of the spheres will break whatever grip that broadcast has on them. Even if your idea worked as you hoped, we could end up drawing still hostile Tholians to the edge of the system and having to fight all of them there, rather than allowing the stellar flare to do the job for us.”
Trujillo shook her head slightly, an ironic smirk drawing across her lips. “I knew you were the right choice, XO. I appreciate your putting my head back on straight.”
Davula mustered an awkward smile in response. “I appreciate the compliment, sir. For the record, I’m of the opinion that whoever set this plan in motion might have been counting on our inherent decency to tie our hands until it was too late.”
Trujillo stood suddenly and Davula followed suit.
“I should be on the bridge finalizing our attack plan. Thank you for hearing me out.”
“My pleasure, sir.”
* * *
“We’re holding at Phase Line Alpha, sir,” Naifeh reported from the Helm station.
Shukla added, “All Gauntlet vessels report ready, sir.”
Trujillo activated her chair’s safety restraints and ordered her subordinates to do the same. She looked to Davula. “XO, initiate countdown to launch.”
“Aye, sir. Fifteen seconds… mark.”
Trujillo brought her swingarm console interface up, over and into her lap, having already checked and rechecked all possible task force attack formations. She could reorganize the squadron with the push of a single icon mid-battle, if necessary.
She opened the intraship. “This is the commodore. Stand to red alert, all hands maintain battle-stations, damage control and casualty collection teams stand ready.”
“…three, two, one… mark,” Davula announced. “Helm, execute.”
Reykjavík and the task force jumped to warp in unison, initiating an emergency deceleration after only twenty seconds at warp five.
Like Gol had done hours earlier, the ships of Task Force Gauntlet risked critical engine failure and a host of other catastrophic possibilities for the advantage of surprise. Warping into a star’s gravity well was not advisable under any circumstances, but this was the only way to arrive within weapons range without alerting their adversaries.
“We’ve decelerated to sub-light,” Naifeh advised. “Impulse engines to full.”
“This is Gauntlet-Actual, all ships open fire,” Trujillo communicated via direct laser-link, given that subspace communications were now impossible due to the cacophony of the spheres’ broadcast.
Eighty-four photon torpedoes and twelve tri-cobalt missiles flashed towards the twin disk formations of the spheres and their slowly rotating Tholian satellites. This veritable wall of anti-matter warheads began to track towards individual targets and was followed by a fusillade of phaser beams, lancing ribbons of energy that briefly connected aggressor and target.
The torpedoes impacted against the spheres and among the wildly maneuvering Tholian ships intent on sacrificing their own hulls to absorb the incoming ordinance. Phaser blasts shattered Tholian hulls where shields had been compromised and torpedo detonations savaged multiple vessels among the madly scrambling fleet whose ships were now racing in all directions.
From Ops, Shukla called out, “Sir, Gol reports an unrecoverable critical pressure control failure in their warp reactor. They’re having to eject their core.”
“Acknowledged, tell them to proceed under impulse power until we’ve cleared the star’s gravity well, then we’ll tow them out of the system,” Trujillo ordered, tapping commands into her console to account for that new variable. She suppressed a surge of concern for Glal, Jarrod, and their stalwart crew. She’d worried that the stress of repeated stellar proximity warp jumps might prove more than that ship’s engines could take.
“Salvo two away,” Helvia noted dispassionately from the Tactical board.
From the Science station, Garrett announced, “Tholian ships have abandoned their web-structure and are coming about, I’m seeing warp engine initiation indicators in multip—”
“Evasive maneuvers, all ships!” Trujillo called out over the squadron laser-link, cutting Garrett off mid-sentence. “Kamikaze protocol!”
A half-dozen Tholian ships jumped to warp on deliberate collision courses.
Robau, an invaluable Abbe-class missile cruiser, proved a scant three seconds too slow on her slewing course to port. One moment she was ripple-firing volleys of torpedoes, the next there was an intense flash of light and a corona of superluminal debris fanning out in all directions. The quickly dying flare marked the final resting place of her crew of two-hundred and seventy-seven souls.
An instant later, the sturdy Shras followed suit, annihilated by the FTL impact with a Tholian frigate. In less than three seconds, both of Gauntlet’s dedicated missile cruisers had been destroyed, cutting the squadron’s torpedo capacity by one-quarter.
“Robau and Shras are gone!” Shukla cried, cracks forming in the young man’s normally imperturbable demeanor.
“Understood,” Trujillo grunted as a thermionic warhead crashed against Reykjavík’s forward shields, followed by a tetryon beam impact. She toggled a pre-set icon on her board, ordering the task force’s two Excelsiors, Yorktown and Yi Sun-Sin to assume the former positions of their fallen brethren.
“All ships, close with the Tholian formation to prevent further warp-collisions,” Trujillo commanded over Gauntlet’s comm-net. “Time until we’re in firing range with the stellar probe?”
“Sixty seconds, sir,” Helvia replied.
This will be the longest minute ever, Trujillo reflected mordantly.
Waves of fire and counter-fire slashed between the quickly merging formations. Starfleet had struck first and hard, destroying or damaging numerous Tholian craft, but the crystalline aliens still held the numerical advantage, and their voluminous return fire began to draw blood.
The Chandley-class frigate Churchill stove in the bow of a Tholian destroyer with concentrated torpedo and phaser fire, only to have five thermionic torpedoes from three different ships impact almost simultaneously, shredding her shields. A barrage of follow-on tetryon blasts pierced her fractured hull, causing the ship to yaw wildly to starboard as she shed escape pods.
Reykjavík’s port and starboard forward torpedo launchers continued to unleash flights of crimson missiles while the center tube remained silent, biding its time with the precious stellar probe.
The attack-cruiser had been designed for battle, with dedicated power-systems intended to support a reinforced shield grid and near-constant phaser fire. As such, her phasers lashed out repeatedly in concert with her blistering photon volleys, clearing a path through the maelstrom of darting Tholian ships.
“Reading multiple photon and tri-cobalt impacts among the spheres, sir,” Garrett reported. “I’m seeing tri-cobalt matter consumption cascades on at least two of the spheres, while seven others show significant surface damage.”
“Distress call from Itoman, Commodore,” Shukla announced, seeming to have recovered some of his composure. “They report they’ve taken catastrophic damage to propulsion systems and their shields are failing. They’re adrift.”
“Acknowledged,” Trujillo answered by rote, her mind compartmentalizing the desperation of the scout’s almost certainly doomed crew as she realized none of the squadron’s other ships could take her in tow with their shields raised. “Tell them to play dead until one of us can come back for them."
“Five seconds until we’re in firing range with the stellar probe, sir,” Helvia said.
“Maintain course,” she instructed, glancing down at the command console in her lap where individual starship icons had begun to flash yellow, orange, and in the cases of those destroyed, crimson. Multiple impacts against their shields threw Trujillo against her chair’s restraints.
“Enemy fire increasing as we close with the spheres,” Helvia observed. “Shields holding, sixty-five percent across the grid.”
Trujillo ordered, “Weaps, deploy decoys and countermeasures.”
Specialized ports opened along the trailing edges of Reykjavík’s saucer, disgorging all manner of decoy drones, sensor-spoofing pods, and micro-torpedo sub-munitions designed to intercept enemy missiles in flight.
The rate of incoming fire slackened as Tholian tactical sensors were jammed, duped, and otherwise discombobulated.
Trujillo turned to look at Lt. Commander Reinhart, the science officer on loan from Orion and the designer of the stellar probe, seated at an auxiliary console on the bridge’s upper level. “We’re in range, Commander. Do your thing.”
“Aye, sir,” he replied, gesturing to Helvia at Tactical. “Fire the probe, Lieutenant.”
“Probe away. All available ships are firing torpedoes and decoy munitions to the same coordinates to cover the probe.”
Trujillo input a new set of coordinates into her console, directing those Gauntlet ships still able to adjust course to initiate a looping strafing run on the spheres, now that the task force had sliced through the Tholian formation which was scrambling to pursue.
She desperately hoped the probe would function as advertised, but had to continue to execute their attack as if it would fail.
“Maintain fire on those spheres, Weaps,” Trujillo directed to Helvia at Tactical. “I want to see them burning.”
With the center photorp launcher now free of the probe, Helvia unlimbered the full might of Reykjavík’s tactical suite. The ship disgorged a seemingly endless stream of torpedoes as phaser blasts fanned out in all directions, striking spheres and Tholian ships alike.
“Structural compromise in nine of the spheres now, sir,” Garrett noted as a weapons impact jostled her in her seat.
“Shields still holding,” Helvia reported. “Fifty-two percent, and I'm compensating for our overtaxed forward and dorsal generators with auxiliary power.”
Reinhart called, “The probe has just penetrated the star’s photosphere. The warhead is detonating… now!”
“Helm, bring us around to zero-two-five, mark three-zero-seven and maintain full impulse. Weaps, deploy a second round of decoys and target pursuing threat vessels exclusively.”
Reykjavík came hard about, shooting past the remaining Gauntlet ships that had been following her lead and expelling a salvo of ordinance and collimated energy toward the madly corkscrewing formation of Tholians following in their wake.
The wildly firing Reykjavík tore through the pursuing ships, scattering them in all directions as she made a beeline for the Itoman.
“Engineering, does Itoman have sufficient structural integrity left to survive a tractor-tow at warp speeds?”
The junior lieutenant manning the bridge’s Engineering station shook his head vigorously. “No, sir, she’ll come apart if we try.”
“Weaps, drop some mines behind us and get ready to lower the shields. Ops, inform all transporter rooms that we’re going to be beaming Itoman’s survivors aboard.”
On the main viewer, the burning hulk of the destroyer Honolulu drifted briefly into view and then was gone from sight, fleeting testament to the loss of her compliment.
“Commodore!” Reinhart yelped from his station. “A level X-Nine stellar flare is erupting from the star’s surface.”
“I’m going to presume that’s a good thing, Commander,” Trujillo replied dryly, inputting a series of coordinates and sending them to the Tactical station. “Weaps, before we lower shields for evac, the Tholian destroyer at these coordinates, make it disappear.”
“Aye, sir.”
The station’s weapons-firing alert was warbling almost continuously now.
“Vessel neutralized, ready to lower shields.”
“Drop shields and initiate transport.”
“The stellar flare will reach the coordinates of the spheres in seventy-three seconds,” Reinhart said.
Trujillo toggled open the laser-link to the task force. “Gauntlet, we’ve done what we came here to do. If you’re still intact, take any disabled ships or escape pods in your vicinity in tow and let’s get the hell out of here.”
Reykjavík rocked savagely as a tetryon beam slammed into her naked superstructure, fracturing the saucer’s dorsal ablative armor matrix. Any bridge crew not lashed to their seats were thrown to the deck, with the exception of Helvia, who held on to his standing console like a piece of duranium statuary.
"Hull breach on decks two and three, pressure doors and forcefields in place, sir.”
“Weaps, set phasers to intercept incoming torpedoes. I don’t want to eat one of their warheads with our shields down!” Trujillo exclaimed.
“Aye, Commodore.”
“Twenty seconds until we’ve got all Itoman’s survivors aboard, sir!”
Shukla advised, “Yorktown reports they have Gol in tow and are egressing the system, sir.”
Thank you, Demora, Trujillo silently acknowledged.
“We’ve got Tholians inbound, sir. Three cruisers and a frigate approaching from two-nine-seven, mark one-zero-four. They’ll be in weapons range in ten seconds.”
Trujillo looked expectantly at Shukla, the man’s turban-adorned head low over his console in focused concentration.
He looked up suddenly, “Transporter room reports thirty-six survivors recovered, Commodore. They’re moving several of them to Sickbay.”
“Shields up. Helm, evasive course away from those ships until we’re clear of the gravity well, then kick us up to warp five.”
Reykjavík shot ahead and then arced away from the pursuing ships, powering out of the star’s gravitational grasp as her aft torpedo launcher and phaser banks mauled the trailing warships.
Trujillo leaned back in her seat, feeling the slack in her shoulder restraints and realizing they had been restricting the blood flow to her arms and hands. She opened and closed her fingers as her eyes were drawn to the task force status display on her laptop console.
Five of sixteen ships lost, nearly twelve-hundred Starfleet personnel dead, not counting the casualties among the surviving ships. None of them had escaped damage in the melee. Suddenly Trujillo imagined those very same hands coated in blood, the end result of her strategy and tactics. She had consigned well over a thousand people and countless Tholians to their deaths in this otherwise unremarkable star system.
The bridge had fallen quiet as the individual crew absorbed recent events and came to terms with their own survival.
“Sir,” Reinhart said, shattering the silence. “The stellar flare has consumed the spheres and nearly all the remaining Tholian vessels.” He looked up from his displays, his face registering disbelief. “They didn’t even try to evade it.”
“No,” she breathed, her voice heavy with loss. “Of course they didn’t.”
* * *