Fan Fiction/Labor Day 2009/BG: 7 Report
The following is a short fiction written by General Christina Doane and several members of the M.F.S. Liberty crew.
General Trenin Anara of bajor was wearing her standard, rumpled black BDU's (Battle Dress Uniform). A bajoran phaser in a low slug holster at her waist. She had seen Star Wars, an old earth film and decided that Solo had a good idea. The whole movie made her smile. She wasn't smiling now, she was glaring at the yard dog as her ship waited in Drydock. “You gotta be kidding me, I don't have another hour. There's a battle we're supposed to be at very soon, we've got a deadline...empathsis on the word 'dead'.” She glared and he glared back. He responded, “These new torps are no joke, onboard AI and with the tech to 'walk through' shields. It's hard to incorporate. It'd be a lot harder if your engineer was less of a wiz but this Major of yours has sped it up. An hour is a lot better then it would have been.” He softened, “I know you're eager to get going but with the Exocet AM60 torps and the new cloaking device on loan it's going to take as long as it takes.”
He shrugged and allowed himself to be called away when all Trentin did was nod, annoyed but understanding. Hands on her hips she turned and looked out of the window of the facility to her little nova class. Like with much the Maquis had it had been 'borrowed' from a previous user and retooled to suite their needs. It was battered but it was fast and hid a lot under that battered exterior. And now it was hiding even more, all because of criminals and rogue cardies. It would forever surprise her how the Maquis was still not supported by the Federation and the like. How can the others lump the Maquis in with Orions and Rouge Cardies. Sighing she headed back to her ship. Remembering when they first got this mission.
Her motley crew, or at least the senior staff was assembled in various civvie or New Maquis Government Uniforms..or pieces thereof. The main link was all was mainly black with a Maquis symbol somewhere on their person. Anara was angry, old memories of the Cardassian Occupation flew in her mind as she read the orders out loud. Her eyes sparked as she had said, “So it's simple we kill the Cardies we can, try to avoid killing anyone else, free who we can, and steal whats not nailed down.”
M'rao pipped up, “So the normal plan then?”
There were snickers and things went off track as Trentin tried to get control again. Major Saruk talked about the new temporary weapon and cloaking upgrades. Ensign Hawthorne and 1Lt. D'zart gave an Intel briefing. On an on the meeting went the plans and back up plans but all knew how things could change on a dime.
The briefing went as most briefings do, a lot of important information interspersed with snide comments and jokes. The cardies were active on the border again and this time they appeared to be working with Orion slavers. The very thought of it enraged M'Rao greatly, especially after her recent experience. She listened intently as plans were laid out and a plan of her own emerged.
“Skipperr, I have an idea. I am fairrly cerrtain that Kait and I can come up with a way to hack into the Orrrion ships' computerrs and disable their self-destruct systems. That could save the lives of any prisonerrrs.”
“Good. You two get to work on that. Maybe you can share your info with others in the fleet.” Trentin answered.
One of the big surprises was Lt. General Chad Etter, the CO of Starbase Kalamazoo and his Security Chief Commander Barry Etter were hitching a ride. This was a great surprise though. Lt. General Etter was a good friend from way back and a fair pilot with Barry on weapons Trentin was pleased Lt. General Etter agreed to pilot the Nova. His response to her request being a grin and an, “I can make her dance..”
Anara did not doubt it, his love for air units and piloting skills was well known to her. And she knew if anyone could fly circles around whatever the reserve fleet would throw at them.
The basic plan was to pop in and start firing at multiple targets to sow confusion. Then as soon as the Cardassian fleet went down, General Trentin would lead her Tactical Forces to do a Search and Destroy for anything related to the 27th Guards planetside with anyone who could be spared from the combat in space.
The planning continued back and forth as plans were hammered out, Anara sat there commenting as needed and every so often rubbing her clan earring in a thoughtful but absent-minded gesture. Finally they finished and she dismissed the crew and they broke off to finish their plotting.
Shaking herself mentally from her thoughts she entered the bridge of her ship to get things going.
As soon as the meeting was over, M'Rao contacted Kaitlyn McIntyre, her deputy, and asked her to come to her office. She briefed Kait on what she wanted to do. Kait's sharp mind began formulating the needed programming almost immediately. The two worked for several hours before Kait suggested they take a break.
“But we need to finish...” M'Rao protested.
Kait stretched. “We will, but I need a break and yer whiskers be droopin'.”
M'Rao sighed and nodded. “Okay, and I could do with a bite to eat.”
~*~
“Okay, we've run it through the simulator fifteen times now. Isn't that enough?”
“And it failed on five of those simulations, Kait.” The Caitian woman's tail twitched in frustration. “Sixty-seven perrrcent isn't good enough. We must be missing ssomething.”
M'Rao turned to the computer console and pressed the print button.
“A hard copy? Nobody ever does that anymore.” Kait said.
“It is easierr for me to see prroblems if I can see the whole prrogrram and not just parrts of it.”
M'Rao laid the papers out so that she could see all of it, scanning for anything that caught her attention. There was nothing at first, but then about halfway through she found an error. “Found it.”
The error was small, but enough to throw the programming off. Kait looked over M'Rao's shoulder. “We were only off by a couple of numbers. That's an easy fix.”
~*~
“Finally!” Kait looked tired, but excited. “That's seventeen out of twenty. Eighty-five percent!”
“And that is good enough.” M'Rao nodded and tapped her commbadge. “Skipper, we'rre rrready.”
Trentin responds, "Well done, spread the word and prepare to move out. We've just got word we're all ready to go. May the Prophets smile on our desire to blow the living crud out of those who desperately deserve it..."
{Earlier}
Anara stopped at the shuttle's hatch as some of the ship's tactical forces were taking their seats. She turned and faced her XO, “I know you don't like me going off but I need a senior officer to command the Liberty during phase two..” Korel Tan nodded, “I know afterwards if something happens to you..”
Anara grinned, “Come and get me..” Tan returned the smiled, “What and ruin my new ship..?”
He sobered up and continued, “Don't worry skipper we'll pound the cardies into dust and swing by to help with the group mop up as planned.”
Trentin Anara, CO of the Liberty nodded. “Good luck.” She turned and entered the shuttle that would take her and her team to the MFS Serendipity, a Maquis Vessel on loan from Admiral ten of nine. She nodded at 1Lt. D'Zart, Lt. M'Rao, and Sgt. Major Scott. Dr. Cire Those members of her senior staff that would be assisting in this leg of the mission. and the others would remain on the Liberty to help with that part of the plan.
{Go time}
Maquis forces in the area were pulled very thin indeed so the forces that were there were needing to split to hit all the bases. The Liberty and the Areinnye would hit the reserve fleet and Trentin with the Serendipity would hit the orions. As soon as the signal to attack was received, both the MFS Lierty-A and MRV Areinnye charged out of the nearby nebula cloud. Just as was planned, both ships started out targeting the Keldon-class battleship Ardryl since it was the most powerful of the Cardassian fleet. Both the Liberty and the Areinnye let loose with the first of the new and experimental torpedoes that they had been given prior to this battle. Because of surprise, daring and not a little bit of luck, the Ardryl exploded mere seconds after the first few shots were fired.
The Liberty and the other ship peeled off from their attack run, flying in opposite directions now to draw the remaining ships away from each other in case they could detect through the cloaking device that blanketed both Maquis vessels. As the Liberty was locking her weapons on the nearest of the Cardassian ships, the little Nova-class shuttlebay doors opened for the briefest of moments to allow a small scout/shuttle to launch. The Commander of the Ship's Tactical Forces, Marine Captain Xiannah expertly piloted her little shuttle, adding her weapons effectiveness to that of the Liberty. It helped that it was a Romulan shuttle and had it's own cloaking device. In another moment, the Cardassian Damar-class destroyer exploded under the onslaught of both the Liberty and Xiannah's shuttle.
Unfortunately the moment the Liberty opened her doors the enemy carrier ship took full advantage, no one else could because of the sheer chaos reigning as the rest of their remaining reserve fleet quickly managed pull themselves together trying to fight targets they really couldn't see. The fighter carrier spat out one-man fighter craft almost seeming to have an endless supply. The tiny warp-fighters peeled away from the carrier, each one on a target path of its' own. They began buzzing the two Maquis cruisers like Terran mosquitoes, making strafing runs along the hulls of each, or at least where they were estimating them. They got a few lucky shots on both vessels and tried to press home their limited advantage. As their cloak flickered one random-seeming Cardassian fighter managed to get an accidental lock on the Liberty's starboard nacelle, a moment later flying through the escaping plasma that began venting from the aforementioned nacelle. The Cardassian pilot did not get the opportunity to enjoy his success, though, as Xiannah dropped in from 'above' and destroyed the offending fighter with one shot.
In the engineering spaces Major Saruk was cursing fluently. “What the hell are they doing up there!? Whose flying, a blind man?!” He continued to mutter curses even though he knew whoever was piloting was doing a damn fine job considering. He was shaken about making his way to the cloaking device. “The auto locking uplinks are out of phase, damnit...” He sent a warning to the bridge that the cardies may be able to detect them off and on as he tried to manually keep it in phase so the energy of the cloak and the ships energy would match exactly, hiding them. If only the technology was more capable, he thought to himself as he continued to work.
Barely a hairsbreath away, by galactic standards, the MRV Areinnye managed to get a weapons lock on the carrier ship itself. In another moment, the carrier became a larger version of the expanding super-heated gasses that was all that was left of the little fighter craft.
For her own part, the Liberty quickly moved in to cover the exposed flank of the Areinnye, it seeming to leak energy as well. Locking weapons on the KMV Marereon as the Janissary-class assault ship tried to do the same to the MRV Areinnye, the Cardie ships were firing randomly now in the hopes of actually hitting something, trying to get a lock whenever a glimmer of energy seeped through. Mere seconds before the Marereon would have fired, twin lancets of phased energy arced out from the MFS Liberty-A as if caressing the Cardassian assault ship. That first shot, expertly targeted, took out the shields and two more shots in quick succession destroyed the KMV Marereon.....
An hour later, both Maquis cruisers were regrouping and flying through the wreckage of what remained of the Cardassian fleet. Xiannah flew her shuttle around and held position between the two larger maquis vessels. As the engineering crews of both ships were franticly skimming and scanning the wreckages and dead in the water vessels for usable parts or ships. Lt. General Chad Etter sat back with a smile knowing his piloting skills were as sharp as ever.
On the bridge of the Liberty, Commander Berry Etter, acting as the the tactical officer pointed to the viewscreen. "Sir! One ship seems to have survived completely intact." Displayed on the forward viewer, the tiny Cardassian repair ship, Cogrorn, was limping off the battlefield at a fraction of impulse power. The officer looked down to the TAC console, anticipating the order to blast the little repair ship to spacedust but looked up as he heard the shout from the Liberty's XO.
"Wait," Lieutenant Commander Korel Tan ordered as he stood from the command chair, still uncomfortable with sitting where the skipper would normally be. A small and mischievous-looking grin crossed his features then. "I want a tractor lock on that ship and I want it yesterday," he ordered as he began turning around to look to the TAC console.
Even before the XO was finished speaking, the officer at the TAC had already begun complying with the new order. On the viewscreen, the bluish-white of the Federation-designed tractor beam lanced out, taking hold of the Cardassian repair ship. "Tractor locked on target vessel, Sir." The officer glanced back to the TAC for an instant before continuing, "As it turns out, they are not unscathed after all. According to damage scans of their ship, they have no weapons to speak of and life support is all but gone."
Korel nodded as he turned back to Trentin, "I think we and the Maquis...mostly we," he added in an aside before continuing, "could always use a decent repair ship. All we have to do is wait for the Cardassian infestation to expire and we can send over repair teams to fix her up."His earlier mischievous grin returned full force now, obviously thinking about the nice little haul of the repair ship and that it was well worth their time in this little endeavor.
MORE TO COME
