Chapter Text
A pall of smoke hovered above what little remained of the Glanisuur refugee encampment. The structures erected by Starfleet had been set ablaze, as had the much sought after survival tents. The attackers had expended little effort distinguishing between those buildings supplied by the Federation relief groups, and those simpler structures cobbled together by Cardassian survivors. People here rooted through the debris, scraping through ash, twisted metal and melted polymers in search of food or water or usable refuse.
Tel Hizeal, a Cardassian physician, stooped to check yet another fallen relief worker’s neck for a pulse. Nothing. Tel marveled at his own species’ seemingly endless talent for dispensing death and destruction.
The Cardassian survivors of the insurgent attack on the camp wandered through the smoldering wreckage in a daze. Ruins and anguish. These had become the constants in their lives since the end of the war. Every time these hardy refugees had begun to dig themselves out from under the rubble of the past, even greater evils were visited upon them. Tel wondered idly if this was the universe’s revenge for the Cardassian occupation of Bajor and other vassal worlds. Perhaps there was some great karmic pool of energy somewhere beyond the stars, which had focused the sum off all the torment the Cardassian Union had caused the rest of the galaxy back onto his people. He could more easily believe that than the more mundane notion that the agony he and his countrymen were suffering was a result of something as obscure as galactic politics.
He found a shovel, clutched in the hands of a Betazoid medic. Hizeal wrenched it free of the man’s death grip as he silently apologized to the recently deceased for the horror that had been their reward for their good works. He began to dig a grave, the first of many. As he slung scoop after scoop of dirt, Tel swore to himself that the deaths here would not be in vain. Cardassia must have a future in which personal freedoms and peace were things to be embraced rather than shunned. When the insurgents next appeared, he vowed, they would find themselves facing at least one more enemy.
*****
“Bridge to Comman… uh, bridge to Captain.”
Ramirez was at her desk in the ready room, deep into a Starfleet Tactical primer on counterinsurgency operations. She rubbed her bleary eyes, “Go ahead.”
“Incoming message from Captain Sandhurst, sir.”
“Put him through.”
Sandhurst’s face sprang to life on her viewer. He inclined his head, “Morning, Captain.” Ramirez was momentarily flustered. Sandhurst had said it without a trace of sarcasm or irony.
“Good morning, sir.”
“How’s the decon coming?”
She reached for her mug of coffee and took a swig . “Better, actually. We’re close to being six hours ahead of schedule. Seventy-six percent of the ship is now habitable.”
“Good to hear. Anything else you need from me on this end?”
Ramirez said, “Not that I can think of, sir. Any luck with your new toy?”
Sandhurst smiled. “Yes. That’s one of the reasons I called. We’re putting the finishing touches on it right now. I’ll be sending Ashok over to assist with its installation.”
“Are we absolutely sure there’s nothing buried in the programming that we don’t know about?” Ramirez’s expression was tinged with concern.
“I’ve had Plazzi and Ashok sift through the programming line by line," Sandhurst replied. "It’s a complex code, but they haven’t seen anything that would indicate a booby-trap.” The captain leaned closer to the screen in an unconscious attempt to convey sincerity through proximity. “I wouldn’t dare place this device aboard Phoenix if I had any doubts as to its safety.”
The acting captain of the that ship found herself nodding, “Understood, sir.”
Sandhurst sat back and his mood grew visibly more somber. “Seeing as you’re our resident expert on the Cardassians, I wanted your opinion of our current predicament. Who are we dealing with here? What’s their endgame?”
Ramirez pondered the question for a long moment before answering. “My experience would lead me to believe that we’re dealing with military holdouts. Extremists who can’t stomach the idea of Cardassia existing under the authority of any foreign power.” She took another sip of coffee. “As for their endgame, that’s easy. They want control. They refuse to live in a free society where they don’t get to make the rules. They don’t want the Federation or Klingons in charge, and they don’t want to see a civilian government put in place. These guys are traditionalists, and in Cardassian society nothing is more traditional than despotism”
“They don’t care about the consequences of their actions for the rest of their people?” Sandhurst shook his head in near disbelief.
Ramirez's expression darkened. “These monsters don’t think like rational sentients, Captain. In their eyes, the average Cardassian citizen is chattel. They’ve no compunctions about sacrificing as many of their people as necessary if it gets them what they want.”
Sandhurst winced at the assessment. “Nice.” He glanced at a padd on his desk, which contained the latest updates from Medical on the state of Phoenix’s injured crew. “Any ideas as to how they got their hands on all the hardware they’ve been using against us?”
She looked less sure of her answer this time. “That I can only guess at, sir. I doubt they’re producing the weapons and countermeasures themselves. What industrial capacity the allies didn’t destroy during the war, the Jem’Hadar were more than happy to finish off. Somebody must be funneling these weapons to them, except I’ve never seen anything like these systems offered on the interstellar arms markets. I’ve been pouring over everything Intel has on weapons brokers and mercenary groups, but I haven’t found any matches.”
The captain shifted in his chair, frowning. “Conjecture?”
Ramirez gave a barely perceptible shrug. “Under normal circumstances, I’d say that maybe the Romulans were responsible. But I can’t see where supporting a Cardassian rebellion would help them, especially now. They’d have to know anything they started in our zone of control would only spill over into the areas of Cardassian space they’ve annexed.”
“I see. Well, maybe we’ve got a new player somewhere behind the scenes.”
“That’s always a possibility, sir.”
The red alert klaxons on both Phoenix and Gibraltar began to sound within seconds of one another. As both ship commanders rose from their seats, they shared a resigned look before they terminated the connection.
*****
Sandhurst stepped onto the bridge and moved to the command chair. Lar’ragos had already left it in favor of his post at the Tactical station. “Report.”
His friend responded, “Sensors just detected multiple threat vessels emerging from the far side of Lakesh’s larger moon. We are at red alert. Shields are up, all weapons standing by.”
“Type and number?”
“Reading one Galor-class cruiser and three Hideki-class pursuit vessels.”
Sandhurst sat forward slightly in his chair. “Helm, place us between the threats and the civilian ships.”
Ensign Lightner sprang from the turbolift. He maneuvered past the captain’s chair and hurried down into the well, where he seamlessly replaced the duty helm officer as he called out, “Aye, sir. Coming to 272-mark-041.”
“Tactical, issue challenge. Warn them off.” Sandhurst looked to Plazzi at the Science station. “Elisto, where did they come from?”
The older man appeared genuinely perplexed. “Unknown, Captain. We’ve scanned that moon at least a dozen times since arriving in orbit. Unless they’re equipped with cloaking devices, the enemy’s done one hell of a job of hiding them.”
From Operations, Juneau announced, “Now reading additional targets inbound, Captain. Looks like… seventeen single-seat fighters… Cardassian design, Ordis-class.” She checked her readings again. “Phoenix is matching our course and speed.”
At Tactical, Lar'ragos called out, “All inbounds running with shields up and weapons hot. They’ve received our challenge hails but are still closing.”
A warning chimed at Lar’ragos’ station. “They’re locking targets on Phoenix.”
The captain toggled a control on his armrest to open a channel to the other starship. “Sandhurst to Phoenix, you are weapons free. Repeat, engage enemy targets at will.”
Sandhurst watched the approaching ships on the view screen as his mind raced with various tactical calculations to include closing speed, maneuverability, pull from the planet's gravity well, shield power, competing weapons yields and ranges. He was not a natural tactician, but he had always found combat simulations to be relatively straight forward. They were equations of a sort and contained a limited number of variables in a given situation.
“Mister Lar’ragos, set photon torpedoes to proximity detonation, maximum dispersal pattern. Let’s take out those fighters before they can get at the civilians.”
“Aye, sir. Firing.”
Gibraltar’s opening salvo sent four photon torpedoes into the formation of interceptors. The projectiles blossomed brightly as the fighters executed violent evasive maneuvers and attempted to avoid the detonations.
Phoenix took advantage of her superior weapons range to loose a volley of five torpedoes at the enemy before she herself was in range of their weapons. Two torpedoes flared briefly against the forward shields of the Vintar, while the other three tracked towards the more maneuverable Hidekis, registering one hit and two misses.
Lar’ragos assessed, “Three enemy fighters destroyed, two disabled, and four others with varying degrees of damage.”
Sandhurst gritted his teeth. His blood pounded in his ears as his pulse increased in tempo. “Concentrate phasers on the fighters when they come in range. Target the Galor with torpedoes.”
*****
The Galor and Hidekis opened fire in unison, their destructive energies targeted exclusively on Phoenix. Multiple disruptor blasts and two torpedoes slammed into the Nebula-class starship’s shields. From somewhere on the bridge, a voice brittle with tension said, “Shields holding at eighty-three percent.”
Ramirez clung to the command chair as the ship jolted from enemy fire. She watched as the Hidekis maneuvered to envelope Phoenix while the Galor continued to bear down on them, trading blow for blow. She looked to her tactical officer, previously the ensign who manned the late watch, now the senior member of his department. Ramirez spoke to him in her most reassuring voice, “Keep up the fire on the cruiser, we’ll worry about the corsairs later.”
Sweat glistened on the ensign’s forehead, but he nodded and maintained his concentration. From somewhere off-screen, two photon torpedoes from Gibraltar flashed past and pummeled the Galor’s starboard shields.
*****
Gul Panor opened a channel to his fighter squadron and directed them to make a strafing run on the old Constitution-class, then break off and make a dash for the civilian relief ships. He surmised that should be enough of an inducement to draw Gibraltar away from the main fight long enough for them to finish Phoenix.
Panor grunted as Gibraltar’s torpedoes struck and threw him sideways against the armrest of his command seat while further sapping their precious shield strength. The warship trembled under Phoenix’s withering phaser fire. On his viewer, Vintar’s spiral wave disruptors answered in kind and lashed out at Phoenix again and again. Just a bit closer, he urged silently. “Prepare to engage the dimensional shift transporter,” he ordered.
“Target now in range,” his weapons officer declared.
“Forward and starboard shields are weakening,” proclaimed the engineer as his voice betrayed a hint of alarm. The new regenerative Son’a shields were a vast improvement over standard Cardassian technology, but repeated hits from high-yield Starfleet torpedoes and the constant phaser barrage were taking their toll.
Panor smiled mercilessly, “Initiate transport.”
*****
The Cardassian fighters swarmed over Gibraltar and peppered her shields with a fusillade of plasma blasts and guided missiles. The older ship’s phaser banks did not cycle as quickly as Sandhurst would have liked, and in the rapid exchange of fire Gibraltar only managed one kill and another fighter disabled.
From Ops, Juneau noted, “Sir, the attack squadron is breaking off and heading for the civilian ships.”
Sandhurst was momentarily torn. He wanted desperately to pursue the fighters in order to prevent any further civilian casualties, but he knew that the Galor must be dealt with first if they had any chance of surviving the engagement. “Ops, hail the task force. Order the most vulnerable ships to run while those with weapons keep the fighters busy.”
“Aye, sir.”
He turned his attention back on the Galor and ordered, “Target all weapons on that cruiser and fire.”
*****
Two torpedo casings emerged from within brilliant white flashes of light to materialize inside the perimeter of Phoenix’s shields. The first detonated just meters away from the ship’s triangular dorsal-mounted weapons pod. The resulting explosion decimated both the fore and aft torpedo launchers. The second device exploded on contact with the starship’s navigational deflector, and the initial blast reacted with the negatively charged anti-protons on the surface of the dish. The secondary hull of the Phoenix vanished in a concussive detonation that sent the vessel’s severely mauled saucer section spiraling away like a broken discus.
*****
The blossoming explosion on his view screen heralded the end of the starship Phoenix, and although it had not been Gul Panor’s intent to destroy the vessel completely, he was far from disappointed. His attack force was taking more damage than anticipated. However, with the Nebula-class ship finished, the battle would soon be over. “Bring us about, 301-mark-187. Route auxiliary power to shields and wea…”
Vintar bucked violently as another broadside of four photon torpedoes hammered her aft and starboard shields, followed by a phaser beam that punched through the Galor’s failing starboard grid and scythed across her engine blade.
*****
Gibraltar had landed a solid blow on the enemy, but Sandhurst took no satisfaction from it. He had just witnessed Phoenix torn asunder with what appeared to be contemptable ease.
From behind him, Plazzi remarked, “Registering dimensional rebound deflection, Captain. That cruiser’s equipped with a DST.” Admiral Salk’s classified data on the dimensional shift transporter had come complete with the techniques pioneered by Enterprise-D’s crew to track and pinpoint the use of the device.
“Keep up the fire, Mister Lar’ragos. I don’t want to give them opportunity to use it on us.”
“Aye, sir.”
*****
Vintar wheeled about to turn her wounded flank away from the oncoming starship and expose her most robust shield grid. Her Hideki-class escorts raced to her aid and battered Gibraltar’s defenses with a sustained fusillade of disruptor fire. This forced the Starfleet ship to break off its attack run and reposition for a follow-up assault.
As she withdrew, Gibraltar launched a salvo of torpedoes at the three corsairs from her aft torpedo tube, an advantageous addition of the recent overhaul. Two of the torpedoes struck their targets, destroying one Hideki and damaging the other.
Panor studied Vintar’s damage control board and noted that they would have to finish this battle quickly. The insurgency’s available resources for ship repair were minimal, and the damage accrued by the cruiser thus far would take weeks to fix. He read his tactical display and felt a vague sense of relief that the Hidekis had driven off Gibraltar for the moment. For a relic, the Constitution-class ship was proving surprisingly tenacious. He would have to do something about that.
“Charge the DST for another transport. I want you to put a torpedo onto their bridge with a five second delay.” He knew it was both petty and tactically unsound, but Panor wanted Gibraltar’s captain to have time to recognize his terrible fate before being consumed by the violent matter/anti-matter reaction.
*****
Ramirez had been thrown from the captain’s chair by the unexpectedly ferocious impact, only to crash headfirst into the base of the Operations console. Although still conscious, she was dazed, and didn’t immediately recognize the face that now appeared over her, its features distorted by her swimming vision.
“Sir, we’ve got to go.” Lieutenant Faltyne pulled her to her feet and allowed Ramirez to steady herself against him as she struggled to regain her equilibrium.
“Go? Where?” She was confused. The bridge was bathed in blood red emergency lighting, with intermittent strobe-like flashes from shattered, sparking consoles. The air was an acrid mix of smoke and the smell of charred flesh. Faltyne began directing her towards the emergency access hatch located behind a wall panel at the back of the bridge.
Ramirez struggled weakly against Faltyne’s grip. “I don’t understand. Why aren’t we returning fire?”
The lieutenant remained calm as he continued to assist her and guided her over the body of a fallen crewman whose features had been wrecked by an exploding console. “Sir, the ship is gone; we’re going to the escape pods.” He paused at a wall-mounted comms panel and activated the ship’s public address. “This is the XO. All hands, abandon ship. Report to designated evacuation areas and board the escape pods.”
The Andorian had lost a ship once before, in a doomed attempt to re-take Betazed from the Dominion’s clutches just hours after the Jem’Hadar had seized the planet. It wasn’t proving any easier the second time around. He took some small solace in the fact that most of Phoenix’s crew who had been struck down by the contagion days earlier were safely encapsulated within cryogenic stasis chambers aboard the civilian relief ships. At least Sandhurst had possessed the forethought to remove the injured from the two starships, the most likely targets of further attacks.
He helped Ramirez through the hatch and into the lifeboat access compartment. The lieutenant urged her towards the closest pod and then sealed her inside the tiny craft. Faltyne quickly input commands into the touch-pad beside the hatch and set the escape capsule for atmospheric entry and landing. The way this battle was going, a Federation lifeboat drifting helplessly in orbit might soon become a tempting target for victorious insurgent ships. Phoenix’s survivors would have better luck on the surface.
He pulled on the manual release lever which caused the explosive bolts holding the escape pod in place to discharge. This initiated the thrusters on the pod and launched the lifeboat away from the wreckage of the doomed ship. His task complete, Faltyne turned back towards the bridge. There were still others there too injured to reach the pods themselves, and he would be damned if anyone was going to be left behind.
*****
Gibraltar continued to spar with the nimbler Hidekis, exchanging fire with the corsairs as she turned to make another run at Vintar.
Sandhurst gripped the armrests of his seat as the ship was buffeted by disruptor impacts. Gibraltar was outnumbered, outgunned, and the momentum of the fight was shifting in the Cardassians’ favor. He stole a glance over his shoulder at Lar’ragos, who was working his Tactical console like a concert pianist, targeting and firing weapons, modulating shield strength, and generally giving a better account of the old ship than anyone had a right to expect. The captain noted that Pava was smiling to himself. The silly bastard’s actually enjoying this, he thought with grim amusement. Sandhurst envied the El-Aurian’s ability to lose himself in his duties despite the direness of their predicament.
He turned back to the viewer and forced himself to concentrate on their plight. Sandhurst crunched the numbers in his head, but repeatedly drew the same conclusion. Not enough time, not enough firepower, not enough speed. There were no easy answers here. If we had another ship. If only Sojourner hadn’t been…
The idea occurred to him like a lightning strike, a blazing white-hot kernel of inspiration. Sandhurst stood, “Helm, initiate evasive maneuvers. Tactical, keep up the fire on those pursuit ships.” The captain staggered across the trembling deck plates and seated himself at an unoccupied auxiliary console. He accessed Sojourner’s command codes and linked to the wounded starship’s main computer. He called up a quick diagnostic on the vessel’s operational systems which caused his heart to jump in his chest as the screen indicated that the Nova-class ship could still move under partial impulse power. Sandhurst silently thanked the engineering teams from the Phoenix who had restored some of Sojourner’s key systems before they themselves had been attacked.
Sandhurst started a slow power buildup in Sojourner’s impulse engines and hoped that the Cardassians would be too fixated on his ship to notice. He tied in the smaller ship’s reaction control thrusters, planning to squeeze every ounce of propulsion that he could out of the craft. He looked to Helm, “Mister Lightner, bring us within one kilometer of Sojourner’s bow, then hard turn to 042-mark-320 and reduce speed to one-sixth impulse. I want them in tight behind us.”
After he routed the other starship’s helm control to the interface on his command chair, Sandhurst resumed the center seat. “Lieutenant Lar’ragos, I want a full spread of torpedoes in the aft launcher. We’re going to employ Tanner’s gambit.”
“Aye, sir. Programming torpedoes now.” Lar’ragos didn’t bother to look up from his console. He set the warheads so that their detonation would translate mostly into electro-magnetic shockwaves, rather than kinetic force. This technique had first been used by a United Earth starship captain in the late 22nd century, Irene Tanner, in order to blind a pursuing Romulan warbird. The lieutenant deduced that it was the captain’s intent to confuse the Galor’s sensors for a few seconds, though he couldn’t guess why. “You’ve got a plan?” Lar’ragos asked. He sensed a surge of confidence in the captain’s tone and demeanor.
A grim smile took shape on Sandhurst’s lips. “Indeed, I do.”
****
Gul Panor watched Gibraltar flee before him. He surmised that her captain must have finally realized the seriousness of his predicament. The starship could still escape, of course, but what ship’s commander would be allowed to retain his rank after leaving helpless civilians behind to be slaughtered? No, Panor thought, this one would stay until his defenses had been whittled down and his options exhausted. The Cardassian had seen it before, during the war. Starfleet captains who, in their final moments, succumbed to panic and fear after running out of clever ideas.
Men and women who had made perfectly competent explorers and diplomats had been reduced to flailing like wounded animals because in the end they had not known when to cut and run. The gul could now see the telltale shimmering of Gibraltar’s weakening shields as a Cardassian torpedo punched into the retreating starship’s aft grid. “Status of DST?”
“Almost there, sir. Eight seconds remaining on the recharge cycle.”
*****
“Elisto, focus all sensor jamming capacity we have back at the Galor, every watt you can give me.”
“Aye, Captain.” Plazzi routed all available sensor power to the aft arrays and prayed quietly that the new captain knew what he was doing. The battle hardened Cardassians they were facing didn’t seem the type to show leniency to an inexperienced captain and crew.
Sandhurst watched the hulk of Sojourner grow larger on the main viewer. “Pava, aft torpedoes on my order…”
*****
“Gul, recharge cycle complete. Standing by to initiate transport!”
“Do it.” Panor felt the accumulated tension in his body ebb, and he settled back into his chair to watch the fruition of his efforts. He only wished he could see the Starfleet captain’s facial expression when their surprise package arrived.
“Transport complete.” A pulsing alarm at the weapons officer’s station caused Panor to look askance at the man. The younger officer’s face was a mix of disappointment and disbelief. “Sir… it looks like our transport has somehow been refracted away from the starship's hull!”
The combat information officer announced, “They’re trying to jam our tactical scans.”
Panor’s neck ridges tightened as his face contorted into a mask of dark rage. Not a miscalculation, he seethed. They have a defense against our most potent weapon. This ends now. “Weapons, all batteries forward." He leaned forward and raised a clenched fist, "Fire!”
*****
With surprisingly little force behind the words, Captain Sandhurst uttered, “Fire aft torpedoes.”
Lar’ragos gladly compensated for his friend’s lack of enthusiasm. He grinned wickedly as he announced, “Torpedoes away.”
Lightner tapped the conn control pad which initiated a nearly ninety-degree turn, “Coming to 042-mark-320, decelerating to…” His sentence terminated abruptly as Brett was thrown forward against his console in an impact that drove his breath from him. The deck lurched and bridge lighting flickered as a cacophony of thunderous impacts shredded what remained of their aft shielding. Crew went sprawling across the bridge, consoles sparked and died, and a clamor of panicked voices filled the compartment.
Somehow, Sandhurst managed to stay upright in his seat, his eyes fused to the abbreviated helm controls and sensor window displayed on his armrest console. Oblivious to the frenetic activity surrounding him, he watched the three torpedoes flare dazzlingly as they radiated interference across the electromagnetic spectrum. Sandhurst counted to five; the seconds grinding past in an excruciating torpor. Finally, he depressed forward thrust tab and sent the starship Sojourner on her final mission, in valiant defense of her older sister.
*****
Gul Panor braced himself as Gibraltar launched three torpedoes aft towards Vintar, an instant before the Cardassian cruiser’s salvo bludgeoned the old starship and sent her careening off course in a lateral spin. To his surprise, the missiles did not impact their forward grid, but instead erupted some hundreds of meters ahead to wash out the view screen and tactical sensors in a storm of electrons.
“Direct hit, sir. Their aft shields have failed.” The weapons officer shielded his eyes against the glare before the screen automatically adjusted to compensate. “We’ve lost sensor contact. Reading partial depolarization of the main sensor array.”
Panor leaned further forward in his seat as his taut muscles unconsciously yearned for some kind of physical release. This was it. The Starfleet captain’s final ruse. It was an old trick, one practiced by every star-faring species bred to war. Blind your opponent, then run like hell.
Gibraltar intended to confuse their sensors, cut behind the drifting hulk of the Nova-class ship, and accelerate away. Apparently, he hadn’t given the human commander enough credit; the man did know when to quit. Panor hoped Vintar’s last strike would delay the starship’s escape until his sensors cleared. “Conn, maintain course and speed.” He looked to the combat information officer, “Shut down the primary array and begin immediate restart cycle on the sensors. Uncover the auxiliary sensor node and power it up.”
A gasp from somewhere in the command center sent an unexpected chill through him. Gul Panor turned to the crackling, static filled view screen. A shadow loomed there, taking shape with frightening speed. Just as his mind identified the specter for what it was, a starship on a direct collision course, he was thrown off his feet by an impact that washed away all consciousness.
*****