Chapter Text
Prologue
War had a bad reputation.
It was commonly referred to as a bringer of pain and suffering, and misery. It destroyed life with little prejudice, its final aim always destruction, its objective always to conquer or to destroy. It was an altogether heartless, cold, and brutal affair that above all favored the stronger and more determined side. Those who didn’t perish, those few who seemed fortunate enough to survive a long and bitter conflict, oftentimes would never be able to forget the horrors they had witnessed or the friends and loved ones they had lost. Instead, they would carry with them the deep scars of war for the remainder of their lives. Nobody seemed to want war and yet few generations were spared from it.
Wegnour was well aware of this reputation.
He knew that many of the races in the Alpha Quadrant had exactly this attitude toward war. It was their greatest weakness.
Above all else they lacked faith.
Faith that war was not a bad thing. He knew from long-learned experience that war was a glorious undertaking. It was of course only a means to an end. War was chaos but chaos was a necessity to establish order. And order was everything. Nobody understood this better than Wegnour.
Without order the universe would simply fall apart. Without order any sentient species was no better than a bunch of savages. Without order there could be no progress, no technology, no culture or industry, nor in fact anything worth living for. Order meant peace for all and for exactly that reason war was nothing less than a glorious undertaking. The logic of it was undeniable. It was, after all, the Founders’ logic. And the Founders were order and more. They were gods. The enemy didn’t seem to understand this concept but that was hardly surprising.
They lacked faith.
The war with the Federation had been in full swing for over a month now and as predicted by the Founders, their enemy was retreating on all fronts. It was true that the campaign to bring order to the Alpha and Beta Quadrants had been one of the grandest undertakings in the history of the Dominion and it had become quickly apparent that nobody would be able to stop them. Within a few more months, Wegnour speculated, Earth and Qu’noS would be conquered and after that, it was only a matter of time until order had spread throughout both quadrants.
“We have achieved our destination.”
The Vorta was ripped out of his thoughts by the booming voice of First Telaka’clan, the leader of the Jem’Hadar squadron under his command. Physically ‘Clan was a credit to his race. The genetically-engineered super soldier stood nearly two meters tall, with wide shoulders, and a muscle-covered body perfectly trimmed to be a killing machine. His hard eyes, gray skin, and pebble-like ridges protruding through his skull were all designed for one reason. To make the enemy tremble at his sight. And they did. Wegnour, of course, had no such trepidations. The Jem’Hadar were his servants, programmed to follow his every command. It was the will of the Founders; it was the order of things.
“What is our plan of engagement?”
Wegnour frowned. Even though Telaka’clan was a flawless killer and leader to his men, his attitude toward authority, toward his authority, in particular, was not nearly as perfect. Wegnour believed this to be due to an impurity in his genetic makeup. Such inconveniences were to be expected when cloning thousands of warriors in mere weeks. Whatever his flaws, Wegnour would need to rely on his strength and battle experience. And the strictly rationed ketracel-white drug would ensure his total obedience. The Jem’Hadar soldier’s imperfection was nothing but a minor complication to an otherwise flawless plan.
“You must not concern yourself with the arrangement,” he said while putting on a headset that allowed him to get a visual of the ship’s surroundings. As expected, he found what he had been looking for. “All you need to do is to follow my orders to the letter.”
“I must know our first step to prepare the men.”
Wegnour turned to face the Jem’Hadar, doing his level best to hide his irritation. “I am the Vorta, you are the Jem’Hadar. I will tell you exactly what you need to know and nothing more. It is the will of the Founders. You wouldn’t want to defy the Founders, would you?”
“No,” came the prompt reply.
Wegnour smiled. Perhaps he had misjudged the Jem’Hadar leader. After all, he was still young, especially for a First. Less than six years old and yet he had seen plenty of combat. He had not been a First for long and he lacked experience dealing directly with the Vorta.
“Of course not. Prepare your men for a landing mission. And do not worry, you will face the enemy soon enough.”
The First nodded. It was obvious from the gleam in his eye that he was more than ready to fight. To do the thing that he had been born to do.
As he turned to ready his men, Wegnour spoke again. “This war has barely begun but our efforts here will ensure that it will soon come to an end. Thanks entirely to the wisdom of the Founders we will be victorious once again.”
“Victory is life,” all the Jem’Hadar echoed in unison.
Wegnour’s lips curled up into a smile once more as he enjoyed the booming choir of voices filling the command center of the ship. He smiled because he knew every single word he had spoken was the truth. The Federation, the Klingons, and all the others, they wouldn’t even realize what had been unleashed onto them until long after their utter destruction.
“Yes, yes it is, indeed.”
* * *
A million billion stars dotted the immeasurable vastness of space. In that incredible abundance of planets, it seemed impossible that any single one could hold such significance that people of all races were willing to fight and die for them. And yet they did so now more than they had ever done before. Even in such places that appeared to be void of any noteworthy resources or strategic values.
A blast of orange and red light shot across the serenity of space in one of such places. It was quickly followed by another and was answered by a dozen bursts of cobalt-colored energy lances. Various beams of destructive energy created a striking visual of light and color in this dark pocket of space. But there was nothing beautiful about this. It was nothing less than a battle for the right of existence.
Three gray, bug-shaped attack ships had their sights firmly set on a single starship. The vessel under attack, with its sharp, streamlined look and large saucer-shaped front, possessed an awesome arsenal of deadly weapons. The Jem’Hadar fighters, however, like the soldiers commanding them, had been designed for one purpose and one purpose alone. To destroy. The odds may not have been in Agamemnon’s favor but the sturdy ship showed no signs of giving up. Like a cornered animal it unleashed its fury left and right, more often than not connecting with the pack of predators tightly on its heels.
But the Jem’Hadar’s poloron beams and torpedoes were beginning to take their toll. Agamemnon’s aft shields were dangerously close to buckling and the attackers were not letting up. On the contrary, they increased their efforts to overpower the ship’s protective shields by escalating their rate of fire. With the shields gone, the Jem’Hadar weapons would easily be able to slice through Agamemnon’s exposed hull, sending her to her inevitable doom.
The Federation ship banked sharply to starboard so suddenly that only one of the pursuing attackers could adjust in time. It would take less than a minute for the additional two attack ships to be back in the fight but in battles like these, mere seconds could make the difference between victory and defeat.
The battered ship took full advantage of the few moments that had shifted the fight in its favor. The six quantum torpedoes catapulted out of Agamemnon’s aft launcher were dead on target. The first three anti-matter-filled projectiles exploded against their attacker’s shields, obliterating them in the process while the last torpedoes impacted directly with the hull. It was the last one that dealt the death knell. It bore itself deep into the ship and ripped it to pieces from the inside out. Only dead and burning debris remained.
The victory was short-lived. The two remaining attack vessels had promptly changed course and made a rapid beeline for the ailing Starfleet ship, their beam emitters firing relentlessly.
Agamemnon tried desperately to roll away from the incoming fire to shield its weakened dorsal section from the attack. She wasn’t fast enough. The super-charged beams collapsed their shields in mere instances. By the time the second attacker had fired, Agamemnon had managed to flip over completely, protecting its weakest spot. The next blasts of energy sliced their way across the ship’s belly, leaving behind deep cuts that almost immediately began to bleed plasma and oxygen. The lethal combination quickly caught fire only to be put out seconds later by the empty vacuum of space.
The damage was significant nevertheless; the hull had been breached and was now utterly exposed. Emergency force fields snapped into place to maintain the ship’s atmosphere and structural integrity but not before three unfortunate crewmen were blown into space.
The bridge was dead silent.
Captain Amaya Donners knew that the last hit had been bad. Since the very beginning of the war, Agamemnonhad been in battle with little pause and she had quickly learned to read the shudders and jolts that coursed through her ship. Agamemnon was still a relatively new vessel—just two years out of the shipyard—she knew that in this war her ship would age months for every single day under fire.
She afforded herself a few seconds to look around her bridge. All her officers were entirely focused on the battle, a few consoles were dark due to a recent power loss but all in all the bridge was in fairly good condition still. The real damage was on the opposite side of the ship and it was more than enough to doom Agamemnon and her four hundred sixty crewmembers.
She had always dreamed of having her own ship and for the last two years that dream had been reality. She had come to think of the brave men and women under her command as her extended family. She had nothing but love and admiration for those who served under her. But the war had made her dreams turn into nightmares. She had seen her ship suffer and her people die and every day she knew she was getting closer to the moment she’d lose everything.
Today could be that day.
“Hull breaches on deck twenty-four, twenty-three, and twenty-two, emergency force fields are in place. Casualty reports are coming in from all decks,” said the ship’s Bolian first officer, his voice cutting through the momentary silence that had existed only in the captain’s mind.
“Transfer all auxiliary power to the shields. Helm, hold your heading. Tactical, stand by to fire all weapons.”
The bridge shook again. She had to fight to remain seated in her chair.
Come on, baby, hold together just a little longer.
Just a little longer was all she needed, she thought.
As she had expected, the Jem’Hadar ship that had sliced open Agamemnon just seconds before was now diving up from under the ship and coming directly into their main cone of fire.
Time for payback.
“Fire.”
Agamemnon unleashed everything she had. Phaser beams, quantum torpedoes, even high-yield and precious tri-cobalt devices were sacrificed to quickly do away with the enemy and in hopes of finally evening the odds.
Nearly all of the devastatingly destructive force found its target.
The enemy’s shields were no match for such a concentrated and vicious attack and quickly buckled. The crimson-red phaser beams sliced through the hull as though it was made of paper. Explosions quickly followed, then the attack ship lost all attitudinal control and began to spin wildly out of control. Soon all that was left was a burned-out, empty husk of a ship.
But the odds were not yet even.
Not even close. Agamemnon was limping; her impulse engines had taken a beating and barely managed to keep the large vessel moving at all. Half the phaser banks and torpedo launchers had lost power after that last desperate attack and Agamemnon’s shields were nearly non-existent. The third and final Jem’Hadar attack ship on the other hand was in near-perfect condition still. It had stayed clear of the battle until now and for good reason, as it now appeared. The Starfleet vessel had fought valiantly, dishing out far more damage than it had absorbed but in the end, it hadn’t been enough.
The bug-shaped ship came about, setting its sight determinedly onto Agamemnon. Its own shields easily absorbed the two desperate phaser barrages hurled its way.
It didn’t deter the Jem’Hadar in the least and they continued to close in on their prey. The final strike would be close and personal. No mistakes. Agamemnon was destined to come to a violent end.