SEASON 2: EPISODE 09

WAITING FOR THE SUN: Part Eight

  Commander Core rushed onto the bridge from the ready room after the red alert sounded.  “Report!”

  “We have received a priority communication from the Venture,” explained Karak.  “Jem’Hadar vessels have been detected heading towards our position; estimated time of arrival is four minutes.”

  “Turn that alarm off,” she ordered and silence came back to the bridge, but the flashing red remained.  “Raise shields and prepare the weapons’ array.  Hail the Fairstar.”

  Captain Smith appeared on the viewscreen.  “What is happening, Commander?  We’ve detected that your ships have raised shields and are preparing weapons!”

  “The Jem’Hadar have found us and are coming.  What is the status of your repairs?”

  “They are still ongoing.  I’ll patch you through to your chief engineer.”

  “I hear we have hostile’s incoming,” came Lt. Commander Celcho’s voice over the speakers.

  “We do indeed, if you can get that ship ready now it would be fantastic.”

  “Not going to happen, Commander.  I need another hour or two still to get the warp drive back online.”

  “How about shields and weapons?”

  “Shields and weapons should be fine…as long as the diagnostic is correct this time.  Well, at least the shields work.”

  She looked over to Lieutenant Letac who signalled that the cruise ship’s shields had been engaged.

  “Good work, keep working and we’ll deal with the Jem’Hadar.”

  “I hope so, this isn’t a military ship and our shields aren’t going to be up to a heavy engagement.  Celcho out.”

  Captain Smith who was quietly listened nodded.  “Your engineer is correct.  One Cardassian raider managed to deal us significant damage…we are not a fighting vessel.”

  Well, you shouldn’t be in a war zone, thought Susan.  “We’ll do our best to keep the enemy from getting to you.  Core out.”

  “Enemy ships dropping out of warp,” reported Karak who put the image onscreen.

  The enemy force comprised of a pair of Jem’Hadar battle cruisers and fifteen attack ships.  The battle cruisers held the centre of the formation with the attack ships split into two groups flanking the battle cruisers.  The Starfleet forces were arrayed in three lines, the faster and smaller destroyer wing at the outer, the larger Excelsiors in the middle and the two wings of cruisers at the rear with the Fairstar.  Blockading in space was a difficult task given the freedom of movement ships had and the small size of the Starfleet force made it much more difficult.  A battle such as the battle to retake DS9 and Chin’toka showed mobile groups of ships could penetrate into static enemy formations and keep pushing forward.  The task force’s best option was to engage the enemy quickly and constantly and whittle down the enemy force.

  The first line of Starfleet defender was the task force’s 2nd Destroyer wing or the Fast Destroyer wing, it was made up of the smaller Defiant and Sabre class vessels that often acted as a recon force and escorts for the task force.  The five vessels spread out into a wide line and charged at the Jem’Hadar ships, the force was also one ship down after Chin’toka where the Sabre class, USS Young had been destroyed, unfortunately most of the crew had died as well.  They split into two groups of three and two and attacked the flanks of the Dominion formation where the attack ships were located.  The fast and small Starfleet ships closed quickly on the Jem’Hadar and fired until they flew past the formation and started to loop back to attack again. 

  The Excelsior wing closed on the Jem’Hadar, but in a much tighter formation and straight down the centre.  They had suffered the worst at Chin’toka and were down to just three vessels, the Pacific, Mabo and Resolution, half their pre-battle strength.  The USS Brisbane was repairable and would rejoin the force; however the USS Cunningham and USS Midway would not.  The Cunningham was so badly damaged that its service in Starfleet was over, while the Midway had been destroyed.  They had little chance to halt the attack ships since the smaller vessels could easily manoeuvre around the larger cruisers and use their speed to get away from the Excelsiors before they could turn and engage.  Their main task was to hold up the two larger battle cruisers.  They engaged at maximum range with their torpedoes.

  Once the destroyer wing had past the Jem’Hadar formation the attack ships broke formation with their larger brethren and accelerated forward.  The sudden change in speed and with the smaller Starfleet ships having to turn back around the Jem’Hadar would be able to get a good head start on their pursuers.  They swept wide of the Excelsiors giving the larger ships a difficult task to hit the fast moving ships at a distance.  The Excelsiors did not change course and try to intercept the attack ships as they approached, they continued forward to engage the battle cruisers.

  “The Venture and her wing are moving forward to engage the attack ships and assist the Pacific’s wing,” said Karak.

  Core checked the captain’s chair display that showed the five ship wing made up of the largest ships of the task force, including the two Galaxy class ships, Venture and James Cook, the Ambassador class, Horatio, which was an older vessel that was renamed and reactivated for the war, the Nebula class, Zeus and the battle cruiser Swiftsure, were indeed moving out of close formation with the Fairstar as they moved to engage.

  “Captain Werfel has ordered us to remain in position,” conveyed Karak.

  This left five ships to defend the Fairstar at close range.  The 2nd Cruiser wing was made up of the group’s three Akira class heavy cruisers, Swiftfire, Fury and Hawk, a second Nebula, the Torres Strait and the El Dorado frigate, Quivira.  This gave the wing a significant torpedo attack, which was good for assaulting large vessels or static installations such as starbases, it also had a fighter contingent second only to the carrier wing.  The Akiras all carried a large number of fighters and the El Dorado was a frigate-carrier vessel similar to the Akira but without the large number of torpedo launchers.

  Part of Task Force 59’s deadliness was that while it was only around thirty-odd capital ships it had a very large contingent of fighter craft that gave it a much more significant punch.  The only problem was that there were no fighter squadrons in system.  All the ships in system that would have carried fighters had their squadrons requisitioned for the operations in Chin’toka.  The carriers also had around half their fighters taken to aid in Chin’toka and Admiral Douglas had decided that the remaining fighters should remain with the carriers, in case they were attacked.  The safe ferry of civilians was far more important then saving the Fairstar.  Even so Core had to admit that right now these fighters would have been useful as addition lines of defence.

  Captain Werfel had deployed the five ships to cover the Fairstar.  His USS Fury took point forward from the bow of the ship to cover the forward approach.  The USS Hawk took the ventral side while the Torres Straitand the Quivira took the port and starboard respectively.  This left the Swiftfire hanging above the ship covering the dorsel section of the huge vessel.

  It was obvious that the Jem’Hadar were aiming to destroy the Fairstar.  They had insufficient strength to destroy the task force, even with a third of its forces gone.  The weakness of the Jem’Hadar attack ships meant that any of the Starfleet vessels was a match for at least two of the attack ships.  Plus their tactic to divide their forces and throw the attack ships straight towards the Fairstar was a dead give anyway.  The Jem’Hadar had obviously thought that the vessel was more important then it was since it was guarded by a significant number of ships.  The fact that it could be full of thousands of civilians did not seem to give the Jem’Hadar pause.

  By the time they passed the Venture’s wing only five attack ships remained.  They headed straight towards the Fairstar and straight into the fire zones of all five protecting ships.  Phaser blasts lanced out and stabbed at the approaching Jem’Hadar.  The Jem’Hadar evaded as much of the fire as they could but the combined assault destroyed one attack ship.  Once they got close enough the angle they were coming in from meant that the ventral and starboard Starfleet ship could not bring their weapons to bear on the vessels.  The Torres Strait’s and the Fury’s phaser banks ran red hot as they fired at the Jem’Hadar.  The Swiftfire’s ventral phaser array also spat fire at the Jem’Hadar.  A second Jem’Hadar attack ship had one of its nacelles carved off by a phaser blast from the Torres Strait and spun out of control and was finished by the Fury.  That left three of the fast moving ships that reached firing range of the Fairstar.  The Fury drifted as much as it could into the path of the Jem’Hadar but the attack ships found it easy enough to zip around the vessel.  Purple waves of energy coursed out of the noses of the vessels and struck the Fairstar’s shield.  Because of the speed that the attack ships were approaching they only got two shots in before they broke around the humongous ship.  As they passed onto the starboard side of the vessel the USS Quivira reengaged them.  One vessel passed under the great ship and the USS Hawk also reengaged the Jem’Hadar.

  The pursuing 2nd Destroyer wing also reached the Fairstar.  Lead by the Defiant class USS Renown and USS Tirpitz they shot over the top of the Fairstar.  The Sabre class USS Sparrow followed the two Defiants.  The other two Sabres, the USS Lissom and USS Kenilorea went under the ship after the lone Jem’Hadar attack ship.  This attack ship must have received damage as its speed had decreased by enough that in the process of turning back it allowed the two Sabre class vessels to close to within weapons’ range.  The phaser fire from the Sabres smashed into the dorsel shields and quickly depleted them before ripping into the top hull of the ship.  The attack ship never completed its turn as it was ripped apart from the explosions caused by the weapons fire.

  The remaining two attack ships managed to be far enough ahead of their pursuers that they managed to turn around and head back towards the Fairstar before they were engaged.  They charged straight at their pursuers.  The two Defiant class vessels lined up with one each of the attack ships.  Their pulse phaser cannons thumped as they threw a wall of fire into the path of the attack ships.  The attack ships manoeuvred madly to avoid the fire.  The USS Tirpitz was rewarded first as its pulse phasers stripped the attack ship of its shields and quickly chewed it apart.  The Renown was having much more trouble with its target as the attack ship successful managed to avoid most of the hostile fire.  The two ships closed rapidly on a collision course.  The Renown held its course and kept up the fire but at the last moment it swerved out of the path of the Jem’Hadar ship.  The USS Sparrow fired on the ship and managed to hit the vessel and damage it before it shot past.  The attack ship screamed towards the Fairstar.  The Swiftfire and Quivira fired on the vessel.  The Swiftfire scored a hit on the rear of the vessel, shredding the rear of the ship but not destroying it.  The attack ship was then stuck to its course as it slammed into the shields of the Fairstar.  The ship’s shields were never designed to withstand such an impact and they buckled.  The remains of the attack ship crashed into the dome, breaking through before ploughing into the central lake, sending up a surreal amount of water and sand into the air before the attack ship exploded, ripping into the heart of the giant vessel.

  On the bridge of the Swiftfire Commander Core was quick to act.  “Beam the remaining crew off the ship!” she ordered.

  “Already on it!” replied Letac.  “The radiation from the explosion of the Jem’Hadar ship’s warp core is causing problems with locking onto targets to beam out.”

  “The other ships are reported that they have also engaged in beaming out the crew,” reported Karak.  “From the reports coming in I can surmise that all the crew have been beamed to safety.  Members of our engineering department are reporting in from the other ships in the wing.”

  There was a collective sigh of relief on the bridge with the news that their shipmates were safe.  With the Fairstar severely damaged and the Venture’s wing engaging them with the real prospect of two more joining the fight the Jem’Hadar battle cruisers turned and departed the area, satisfied that they had completed their task.

  “Organise with the other ships to have our crew beamed back to us,” ordered Core now that the situation was resolved.

  She looked at the viewscreen at the ailing hulk of the Fairstar.  The force of the impact and the explosive decompression of the dome was enough that the static vessel was now drifting down towards the planet.  At the centre of the ship there were still explosions.  Despite their efforts to save the ship they had failed, the ship was lost.  The only shining light was that all the crew had been rescued and the Dominion attack force was smashed.