Chapter Text
Go Time
“Klothos in position.”
“D’ressa ready.”
“Belladonna to Spoiled Princess, You girls ready to party?” A thick Magyar accented voice sounded from the open comm.
“Ready when you are.” Nelia replied from her position at the center chair of the Spoiled Princess.
“All right.” Captain Rosza announced, “Let’s do this. Beginning attack run. Give me max impulse, Mister Barnes. Sito…”
“Give the word, Captain, and I’ll kick those barrowbugs in the nuts.”
Watching as the Lafayette-class recon destroyer darted ever closer to the frigates, Ashley muttered, “How close is she going to get before she fires?”
“Close enough to kick ‘em in the ‘nads.” Shelana replied with a laugh as the Princess’s crew watched the flamboyant Hungarian captain’s seemingly mad attack run.
“Be ready to move.” Nelia commanded, “Belen…you’ve got control…girls…everyone armed and armored?”
“Yep.” Twesata replied, Rana nodding in agreement with her lover.
“Ready to go.” Shelana acknowledged in the flat tone of a veteran who’s seen her share of combat.
“Locked and loaded.” Ashley declared, also in a voice tone that revealed her time in the trenches.
“I’ll keep the light on for you.” Belen announced, the Ferengi bartender also pleading, “Come back in one piece—all of you.”
“All right.” Nelia nodded, “Everyone to the transporter room. Our backup is already there waiting for us. Time to do a little gate crashing.”
USS Belladonna
“Now!” Zsuzsanna ordered leaning forward on her command chair, long strawberry-blonde hair seemingly untamed as she brushed a lock back. “Target that frigate screen. Fire at will! Eliza, love…” she called out to her executive officer, “Give me a torpedo spread—maximum possible dispersion. T’Vrel…be ready with that gravity rift. I want all those seggfej pissed off at us.”
“Firing phasers…” Sito announced, the Bajoran tactical officer's voice tinged with anticipation at the coming action.
“Quantum torpedoes away.” Eliza called out as blue blobs arced towards their targets.
Smirking as the energy beams and torpedoes found their marks, destroying one frigate immediately, Zsa-Zsa commanded as the remaining five began to move towards her destroyer. “Now, T’Vrel.”
“Gravity rift outgoing.” The Vulcan science officer laconically replied as a beam of energy erupted from the Belladonna’s deflector dish.
“Frigates are avoiding the rift, but we caught three of the battlestations.” Elisa reported as the ship shook under the Nausicaan vessels’ weapons fire.
“Shields holding at 85 percent.” Pearson, the chief engineer, reported from his station.
“The frigates are taking the bait.” Elisa exclaimed as the Belladonna, maneuvering through and around the ferocious weapons fire coming from the pirates, launched another spread of torpedoes.
“Good.” Zsuzsanna purred, “Open a channel to that battleship.”
“You know they’re not going to respond.” Sito, the communications and tactical officer pointed out.
“Of course, dragam.” Zsa-Zsa answered back with an amused chuckle, “But they’ll hear it…”
“Communications channel open.” Sito acknowledged with an eye roll.
“Captain of the Nausicaan battleship…” Zsuzsanna announced, her voice dripping with contempt, “This is Captain Zsuzsanna Rozsa of the USS Belladonna and I say to you…Basszon agyon a kenkoves istennyila!”
“Ummm…Boss…” Lieutenant Sito commented with a slight note of amusement, “I don’t think they understood what you just said. For that matter, I don’t either.”
“I told him to get fucked to death by lightning from sulfuric stones. It's an old Hungarian curse.” Zsa-Zsa laughed, “Don’t worry…his translator will pick up on it.”
“It worked, Captain.” Eliza declared as the Talon began to move towards the Belladonna. “You pissed him off.”
“Good.” The Magyar captain responded with a wicked grin. “Launch our special torpedoes in the next spread and then take us to the nebula—but let’s not completely outrun our pursuers. I don’t want them to get discouraged and turn around.” Switching channels as the torpedoes sped towards their target, Zsuzsanna announced to the crew of the Spoiled Princess, “You’re on! Good hunting!” Switching to yet another channel, she exclaimed to her fellow captains, “The party guests are coming and they’re bringing their apa with them.”
Spoiled Princess
“The torpedoes worked!” Belen announced, his voice coming through loud and clear on the comm speaker, “If you’re gonna go…go now and good luck!”
“Energize!” Nelia commanded, adding as a farewell as she dematerialized, “Take care of my baby.”
“Always do.” The loyal Ferengi muttered in a low voice, his words unheard by his old friend. “You and the others just take care of yourselves.”
Landing party
“Hit ‘em!” Nelia commanded as she and the others in the assault force fired their weapons at the Nausicaan pirates manning the transporter console.
“We’ve got to move quickly.” Shelana declared after she and Ashley secured the immediate area, clearing it of any pirates still standing.
“Now…where would a Ferengi hide during a fight?” Rana queried with a sly grin.
“Why…the safest spot on the station…of course.” Twesata joked back.
“We’ll cover more ground if we split up.” Ashley proposed, the Orion team leader nodding in agreement.
“Good idea, Ash. You take Rana, S’vol, and our Klingon friend…”
“Malak.” The ridged Klingon declared with a scowl as he brandished his bat’leth. “It is time to soak our blades in the bodies of our foes.”
“Yeah…” Ashley deadpanned, “Right. Gonna be a lot of blood soaking today. You want us to take command and control, Nel?
“Right.” Nelia nodded, “I’ll go with Shels, Twes and our Romulan guest…”
“R’ann.” The female Romulan security officer interjected helpfully.
Nodding once in acknowledgement, Nelia continued to lay out her strategy. “We’ll secure engineering and weapons. Everyone watch out for that Lethian. He’s around here somewhere.”
“Probably close to Mok.” Shelana observed, further admonishing, “Don’t let him cold-cock you. You see him…take him down at once.”
“With pleasure.” R’ann replied with a scowl, “A Lethian killed my niece.”
“Ready, team?” Ashley called out, rallying her people to her side
“Yeah.” Let’s go. Rana answered for the others.
“You all ready to go?” Nelia then asked her team.
“Let’s get this show on the road.” Shelana exclaimed, the rest of the team echoing her response.
The Battle of the Nebula
“Shields down to 70 percent.” Pearson called out from his station, the engineer half-joking, "I hope you've got something up your sleeve, Boss."
“They’re slowing down.” Eliza reported, “Looks like they’re gonna break off pursuit.”
“Release an ion trail from the starboard engine.” Zsuzsanna commanded, “All goes well…they’ll think their last volley damaged us.”
Sito's lips turned up in a sly grin, “Nausicaan’s are so predictable. They’re like a pack of sinoraptors. Once they think their prey is injured…”
“They’ll rush in for the kill.” Eliza finished with an even wickeder grin.
“Right.” The Belladonna’s captain smirked as her engineer carried out her last order.
“Releasing ion trail.” Liam announced.
“They’re taking the bait.” Eliza grinned.
“We’ve got ‘em.” Zsa-Zsa triumphantly exclaimed, “Let’s lead them into the trap.”
Entering the nebula, T’Vrel called out from her station, “Sensors are scrambled."
“We’re counting on that.” Zsuzsanna replied in a calm, reassuring voice, “Switch to a lower wavelength. They’ll still be scrambled, but there’ll be enough for our weapons to lock on.”
“They’re in position.” Eliza reported.
“Now!” Captain Rosza commanded, lowering her hand in a chopping motion, “180 degrees about, fire all weapons, open another gravity rift.”
“Sito?”
“Signaling Klothos and D’ressa. Both ships decloaking and firing.”
“Qul dah!” Captain Korath barked, giving the command to open fire. “Concentrate on the Talon.”
The Romulan commander, with a single nod of his head, commanded in a level voice, “Target the Talon. Fire heavy plasma torpedo.”
A vicious smirk on her face as she saw her allies decloak and fire on the battleship, the Hungarian captain exclaimed, “Now we’re really gonna have fun.”
Assault on the Station—Team Ashley
“We will need to cut through security holding to get to the bridge.” S’vol pointed out after Ashley and her team cleared a hastily thrown together Nausicaan choke point.
His bat’leth dripping Nausicaan blood, the Klingon member of the team, Malak, wiping away traces of blood from his mouth, cautioned, “We caught this group by surprise. It would be foolish to count on that it future encounters.” Turning to the blue-skinned woman standing next to him, the warrior flashed a toothy grin, “That was a brave thing you did, interposing yourself between me and that pet’aQ. He would have stabbed me in the back.”
Still quivering from her close encounter with the Nausicaan now lying dead on the floor, Rana stammered, “Thank you. I was just lucky I was able to throw up a stasis bubble in time for you to take out your first opponent and turn on him.” Lowering her voice so that only Ashley could hear her words, she further remarked, “I think I shit my pants.”
“You did.” Ashley whispered back with an amused grin, “But that’s okay. We all have at one time or another. You did good. S’vol?” She called out to the Vulcan member of her team. “What’s that tricorder of yours telling you? Right or left?”
“Either direction will take us to our destination and the Nausicaans have fortified both passageways equally.”
“So whichever way we go we’re going to have a fight.” Ashley grimly responded as she checked her phaser rifle.
“Correct.” S’vol laconically affirmed.
“Good.” Malak grinned, “My bat’leth is getting thirsty again.”
Heaving a sigh at the Klingon warrior’s desire for action, Ashley gestured in the direction of the left corridor, “All right. Move out!”
Base Assault—Nelia’s Team
“Shit!” Nelia grimaced as she quickly set up a shield generator to replace the one that had just died. “How many of those bastards are there?”
“Too many.” Twesata replied as she fired her phaser sniper rifle, disintegrating a Nausicaan engineer as he was in the process of setting up a mortar. “Fucker.” The Betazoid telepath cursed as she sighted in her next target.
“Photon grenade outbound!” Shelana warned as she tossed her grenade and ducked for cover. Quickly springing from her position moments after the grenade exploded, the Andorian soldier and her Romulan teammate fired their automatic rifles, phaser beams joining plasma bolts in creating a killing zone that mowed down any opposition foolish enough to be caught in the open.
“Corridor cleared!” R’ann, the Romulan security officer, shouted as the Nausicaans that weren’t killed withdrew, leaving the passageway in the hands of Nelia and her team.
“They’ve fallen back to their next line.” Shelana cautioned, “The closer we get to engineering and weapons, the harder they’re gonna fight. We need a way to flank them.”
Spying an access panel, Nelia grinned, “I think I might have found our way around them—or at the very least to take them by surprise.”
Crinkling her nose, Twesata grumbled, “I hate crawling through maintenance tunnels. Voles nest there if you don’t keep them clean.”
“You know that clean and Nausicaan don’t go together—right?” Shelana chuckled, ribbing her old friend.
“I was afraid you were going to say that.” Twesata moaned as Nelia removed the access hatch. Her lips now turning up in an evil grin, the lovely Betazoid quipped, “You first, Shels.”
“Yeah…yeah…” Shelana grumbled as she got down on her hands and knees and began crawling into the narrow corridor. “Send the red shirt in first.”
“I’m next.” Nelia announced before also entering the tunnel. “Twes…you and R’ann bring up the rear.”
“You owe me a trip to Belen’s spa when we get back.” Twesata quipped as she and the Romulan security officer joined their friends in creeping down the passageway. Taking a deep breath, she muttered in an inaudible tone, “Please…please…don’t let there be any voles in here.”
Assault on the Base—Mok’s Safe Room
“The intruders are closing on command and engineering and our ships are engaged in battle against an enemy task force.” The Nausicaan mercenary captain announced as he entered his employer’s office.
Sitting on a luxurious chair behind his desk, his Lethian bodyguard standing on one side of him and a giant Nausicaan on the other, Daimon Mok scowled as he regarded the captain. “So…stop the invaders! And as for the starships—that’s what that giant battleship I paid too much latinum for is supposed to do! Send it out to deal with them!”
“It’s already moving towards the intruder.” The captain defiantly announced. “And as for the invaders…we’ve set up fortified defenses at checkpoints, but they’ve brought a great deal of force. They are very well trained and equipped. I think we’re dealing with commando teams.”
“I’m not paying you to whine!" The Ferengi shouted, “I’m paying you to stop them! So stop them!”
Glancing at the Lethian, the mercenary captain answered back in a belligerent tone, “It would help us if you would let us use the Lethian instead of keeping him here.”
“No! The Lethian stays with me.” Mok yelled as he pointed to the door, “Now get out there and do your job!”
“Fuck you! The loot we’re getting is not worth it.” The Nausicaan captain growled as he quickly drew his disruptor and pointed it at the Ferengi’s skull. I’m leaving and I’m taking my crew with…”
Before the mercenary could utter his threat, he froze in place. Then, as if it had a will of its own, his hand holding the disruptor turned it on himself and pulled the trigger. Watching in grim satisfaction as the Nausicaan pirate disintegrated, Mok turned to the dead captain’s lieutenant, “You’re in command now. Stop the intruders!”
Gulping nervously, the newly promoted pirate deferentially responded, bowing his head, “At once.”
After his new captain had left the office, Mok spoke to the Lethian, “Prepare my escape shuttle. It’s time to leave.”