Star Trek: Dominion - Part 10

10

Glinn Dobran stared at the screen before him. He was searching

for something that had been there before for a few moments but

appeared now to be gone.

“Sir, I swear I saw something on the sensors.”

“What did you see?,” asked Gul Elan.

“Well for a moment it looked like a Defiant-class ship but now

all the sensors are showing is a massive debris field moving.”

“Where was the contact?”

“Right beside that Galaxy-class saucer section that’s collapsing.”

Dobran indicated the area that he had seen the contact. He enlarged the area and performed another sensor sweep of the area. All the sensors could pick up were parts of destroyed ships. There was so much debris that they would have found it hard to differentiate between a piece of debris or an actual starship. The two Cardassian officers watched the screen intently for a few more minutes. Nothing changed.

“Run an energy scan. See if there are any active power emanations. If there are we will know for certain.”

It was as just as Dobran ran the energy scan that the Hunter’s

main power failed. That little accident saved them from detection. If

they had been spotted they would have been immediately destroyed by

the marauding Cardassian patrol craft. They had been assigned the

ignominious task of patrolling the ruins to see if any ships had

survived the Dominion fleet’s assault and to terminate any that had.

So far all they had found was dead hulks and a few escape pods that

had not been picked up by the retreating Federation Alliance fleet. These survivors had been beamed aboard and held in the detention cells for interrogation later. They numbered twenty-seven so far. Gul Elan had been extremely put out that his vessel was not permitted to take part in the liberation of Chin’Toka. That honour was being left to their Breen allies.

“Alert me the instant that contact reappears.”

“Yes sir.”

If it is a surviving Federation ship, Elan thought to himself as he returned to his command seat, I intend to take it intact. That will take the smug look off that damned Vorta!

The Cardassian Galor-class cruiser, Dinok, swept back and forth across the debris field like a bloodhound that had lost the scent of quarry and desperately wanted to reacquire it. Back on the Hunter things were finally starting to look up.

To Be Continued....

Star Trek: Dominion - Part 9

9

While all the commotion was going on aboard the Hunter Crewman

Richmond was being dragged and carried back to the ship over the

destroyed hulks of the devastated fleet, all the while his precious

oxygen was slowly bleeding from his torn suit. They could not call

for help because it would not arrive in time and the Away Teams were

unaware of the Hunter ’s predicament.

When they arrived back at the saucer section they found, to

their delight, that the ship had emerged from its hiding spot and was

much easier to gain access to. They hauled the, by now, inert form of

Crewman Richmond through the airlock and waited for the atmosphere to

be returned to the room so that they could remove their helmets. As

soon as they did they called for a Medical team to meet them in the

airlock. While they awaited their arrival Crewman Richmond was

attended to. His helmet was released and removed so that he could

breathe and a tricorder was scanned over his body. It revealed what

they had expected but were hoping against. They were too late.

“Bridge, Crewman Richmond didn’t make it.”

When that message came over the comm system the bridge became

deathly quiet. Everyone looked to Jim to see how he would respond.

Richmond was the first crewman to die under his command. He swallowed

hard and gently pushed the comm button on his chair.

“Understood. Report to me on the bridge as soon as you can.”

“Aye sir.”

It was the hardest thing that Jim had ever had to do to keep

his voice level as he gave his orders.

“Alright people. We still have jobs to do. Let’s get to it.”

He then slowly made his way to the Ready Room leaving

Lieutenant Flynn in command. No sooner had the doors closed behind

him than the tears began to fall. He stifled the sobs in his left arm

as he wrapped his arms around his head. He had never had to deal with

something like this before. The closest he had come was when his uncle died when the Borg had decimated a forty vessel strong Federation fleet at Wolf-359 years earlier.

Five minutes later as Ensign Blackman exited the turbolift onto the bridge Jim re-emerged from the Ready Room. He had taken the time to compose himself before he stepped back onto the bridge. Blackman spotted him coming from the Ready Room and walked over to him and gave him a brief account of what had happened.

To Be Continued....

Star Trek: Dominion - Part 8

8

The crew just couldn’t believe it. Everything had been going

well up to this point, perhaps too well. The final warhead inspected

proved to be the only one, of the seven their reduced sensor

capability, discovered that was even remotely salvageable. The Chief

Engineer, Lieutenant Granger, was there at the moment inspecting it

and was just starting to extract it from its housing aboard the

destroyed USS Victory. He, himself, risked a quick message to his

ship over a comm channel so he could cheer up the crew.

“Granger to Hunter, I think we’ve struck gold here. The warhead

will have to be manually extracted from the housing, the autosequencer

is out, but initial scans are positive. Granger out.“

That had set the bridge crew cheering and clapping like crazy.

How strange it was that they were now celebrating the demise of a

fellow Starship and its crew that only a few months before would have

been horrific to them. But that was all the recent months of war had

done to their outlooks on life. And death. But no sooner had the

cheering begun on the bridge than the alert klaxons sounded and

drowned them out. Everyone stopped their cheering and concentrated on

their duty stations.

“What the hell is going on?,“ asked Jim from the command seat.

“Multiple systems failure, sir,“ answered Lieutenant Flynn,

shouting to be heard over the wail of the klaxons.

“Shut off that damn noise!“ Jim shouted. The sudden silence

that descended across the bridge was almost deafening, then suddenly

the damage reports flooded in.

“The structural integrity field is failing.”

“Life support is failing on decks 3 and 4.“

“Emergency forcefields have collapsed, we’re venting atmosphere

out through the hull breaches.“

“What’s causing it? Are we being fired on?.“

T’Vral scanned the surrounding space for enemy vessels.

“No sir. The damaged saucer section we have been hiding in is

collapsing all around us.“

“The deck structure must have been weaker than we imagined

before we bored in here. Damn it, we’ll have to get out of here

before it crushes us!“

“Propulsion is off-line sir!“

“What? Get it back on-line, now!”

“I’m trying to sir! The engines are not responding.”

Jim stabbed the button on the control panel on the arm of the command

chair that opened the communications channel to Engineering.

“Bridge to Engineering. Get those engines back on-line now!”

“We’re working on it sir!”

“Hull pressure is increasing sir. She can’t take much more of

this!”

“Do we have anything left in the forward RCS thrusters?”

Lieutenant Flynn accessed the computer and smiled when she saw that

the Reaction Control System had just enough fuel left to nudge them out of their hiding place.

“Yes sir. Engaging RCS thrusters... now!”

At that instant the expelled gas from the RCS thruster ports on the

bow pushed the compact starship out of the collapsing saucer section. They were fortunate that the shattering saucer section spread enough debris around to keep them covered.

To Be Continued....

Star Trek: Dominion - Part 7

7

Although she had suffered terrible damage and was split in

half, from the bridge section forward, the ship was still in one

piece while the aft section had been blown to pieces. Ensign Caldwell

crossed his fingers as he accessed his tricorder. He opened it up and

began its scanning cycle. Please, please, please, he kept saying

softly, chanting it over and over again like a mantra. His tricorder

vibrated softly in his hand to indicate that it had finished its scan

cycle. The tricorders had been modified to use vibrations to alert

the user because they would not hear the tell-tale little beeps that

had become second nature to them when the used the little scanning

device. Now that there was no little beep Ensign Caldwell suddenly

found that he missed its reassuring little sounds. Deciding that he

could not ignore his tricorder’s insistent vibrating he looked at the

read-out. He couldn’t believe his eyes at first and performed the

scan again. The exact same reading as before was there. He reacted

without thinking out of sheer enthusiasm.

“Ensign Caldwell to Hunter . The Victory has come through for

us! We have a functioning warhead here!”

He looked at the display read-out again. The tricorder had

actually found an energy signature. There was a chance that they

could salvage the warhead from the Victory for use on the Hunter

enabling them to engage their warp drive and escape. Everything

depended on them now getting the massive section of the starship

detached from the Victory , moved over to and attached to the Hunter.

But there was now a bigger chance of them being detected because

Lieutenant Granger and his assistant jetted over to assist Ensign

Caldwell. The risk was deemed worth taking if it sped up their

chances of getting away before being discovered by a marauding

Jem’Hadar, Cardassian or Breen warship.

To Be Continued....

Star Trek: Dominion - Part 6

6

That then left them with only two ships to search and their

teams were just arriving at them. One was the USS Victory , which had

been on the Hunter ’s port wing during the initial attack run, and was

now drifting 50 kilometres away, and the other was the USS Swiftsure

which was slightly closer in. The Victory had been blown in half by

multiple torpedo strikes directly amidships from above and below from

several Cardassian warships but she had not been hit by the energy

dissipaters. The status of the Swiftsure was largely unknown. The

Hunter ’s sensors had been off-line when she had been destroyed so it

was not known whether or not she had succumbed to Breen energy

dissipater fire. If she had, then all their hopes were pinned on the

Victory because their sole remaining shuttlepod could not carry all

40 survivors of the Hunter ’s original 73 person crew.

The Victory and Swiftsure search teams had left at the same

time to investigate the vessels. Lieutenant Granger was checking over

the Swiftsure with his tricorder. He did not look too happily at the

readout on its display screen.

“Nothing. Not a damn thing. Not one bloody system has an ounce

of juice left in it. Everything is drained. It’s just like during

World War III when the nukes went off and the EMP blast killed

anything with an electrical circuit within the blast radius,” he said

to his assistant. Rather than use his suit’s comm unit, so the crew

wouldn’t hear the defeat in his voice, he sent a message and his

tricorder readings to the Hunter . Everything now depended on the

Victory but only those on the bridge of the Hunter and Lieutenant

Granger, who had been kept informed of the search teams’ progress,

were aware of this fact.

Hovering over the wreckage of the starship that resembled his

own ship in almost every respect, except that his ship wasn’t all

‘shot to hell’ as his assistant had put it when they saw the state of

the Swiftsure , Granger said a quiet prayer and gripped the lucky

charm that he always carried inside his equipment pocket when he

performed EVAs even harder. Please God, don’t let it end like this.

Don’t let me fail my shipmates and condemn them all to death!

To Be Continued...

Star Trek: Dominion - Part 5

5

It was 1000 hours on the second day that the USS Hunter was

spending in the Chin’Toka system when her small army of engineers,

armed with all the necessary tools to remove the warhead from

whichever ship proved to have an operational or reparable deflector

assembly, stood ready for a hard day’s labour. Everyone hoped that

they would be lucky enough to find that one of the closer vessels

would be salvageable. The teams that had to travel out to the

farthest vessels went first. They started out from the shuttlebay,

stepping out through the atmospheric forcefield into the vacuum of

space. They crawled out to the edge of the remnants of the saucer

that concealed their vessel. Taking a visual aim on the area of space

that contained their target vessel they pushed off into the debris

field only using short, controlled bursts from the manoeuvring jets

on their environment suits to alter their trajectory as necessary to

avoid a large price of debris, or a hulk that was once a beautiful

and mighty starship, and to maintain their velocity. It was difficult

and tiring work for the engineering teams, as well as slow going, as

they were crawling across the devastated hulls as much as possible

both to conserve propellant and to remain as hidden as possible. Just

before they moved from one vessel to another they performed a quick

tricorder scan of the debris field to ensure that no enemy vessels

were about.

It took just over an hour for the perimeter teams to travel the

full five hundred kilometres out to their target vessels. Given the

same return time, or a little longer depending on fatigue, the three

hour oxygen supply in their environment suits would be almost gone by

the time that they got back if they took too long to search the ship,

and/or remove the warhead. Almost as soon as they got their the bad

news began to filter back to the Hunter .

The three outermost vessels were utterly useless. They had been

incapacitated by the Breen energy dissipater weapon. Not one single

system aboard the vessel had the slightest erg of power in it. Even

the independently powered hand phasers that were in the storage

lockers that were checked when the engineering teams boarded them

were drained of all their energy. There was nothing that could be

salvaged from them and one team member was carrying an injury on the

return trip. Crewman Richmond had tripped while crawling over the

hull of a Romulan Warbird and broken his left arm in two places and

twisted his right ankle. The fall had also opened a small tear in his

environment suit when he caught it on a jagged outcropping of hull

where a Cardassian torpedo had penetrated the ship’s outer plating

which was rendered as fragile as an eggshell with no power to its

Structural Integrity Field, or its shields. The relentless Cardassian

fire ravaged the helpless Romulan vessel killing all on board. The

leak in Richmond’s suit was not immediately life threatening in and

of itself, but coupled with his injuries the leak and the distance he

had to travel back would tax the young engineer’s strength to its

very limit.

The two mid-range ships were not in much better shape. They had

some salvageable parts but their warheads had been damaged either by

weapons fire or by drifting into another ship and were beyond repair.

The two teams gathered what they could from Lieutenant Granger’s

wish-list that he had generated before they had set out. It was a

list of spares that the teams were to look for as a secondary option

should the warhead prove of no value. Things like plasma relays, bioneural

gel packs and any power-packs that contained any energy at all

in them were on the list. Hope was fading fast on board the Hunter

that the search teams would find a salvageable deflector assembly as

the time ticked slowly along. All they could do was wait. Wait and

hope and pray to God, or the Prophets or whatever deity was in one’s

faith for help.

To Be Continued...

Star Trek: Dominion - Part 4

4

Three hours had passed since the last Dominion vessel passed by

the Hunter ’s hiding place. It was 0200 hours and frayed nerves were

beginning to show themselves. Several minor disputes had broken out

among the crew. Mainly they were disputes over points of view as to

how to best repair certain systems. These were quickly stamped out

because, much like an untended camp fire, they were liable to blow

out of all proportion and burn down the forest.

Jim was exhausted. He had been on his feet for about fourteen

hours before his newly promoted First Officer, Lieutenant Andrea

Flynn, had told him to get some rest before she ‘relieved him of

command‘ and threw him in what was left of the brig. So here he was

lying on his own bunk in his own quarters. He may be the Commanding

Officer of the Federation starship Hunter but he would not take the

Captain’s quarters. To do that would be to dishonour the great man

who had been, not just a leader, but a friend to all his officers

whether they were Senior or Junior officers. Before his worn out

brain even realised what was happening Jim fell asleep. His crew

worked on through the night in four hour shifts. They worked for four

hours, rested for four hours and were back on duty for another four

hours. Several who were supposed to have been ‘resting’ quietly

sneaked back out to finish the jobs they had started on their

previous duty shifts.

Lieutenant Flynn, a good friend of Jim’s since their Academy

days, made sure he wasn’t disturbed until he had at least six full

hours of sleep. At least the sedative she had slipped into his tea

had broken down the defences that Jim had built up against the

onslaught of his fatigued body enabling him to get some rest. After

all, she told herself with some mirth, that was her duty as First

Officer. At precisely 0800 hours she entered Jim’s quarters and woke

him.

They had a breakfast of Combat Rations (ComRats) and cold

coffee in the Mess Hall while Andrea brought Jim up to speed on the

status of the repairs. For a small crew they had done a magnificent

job in getting as much done as they had. They were now able to

manoeuvre, at impulse speed at least, and fight. Her photon launchers

were out of commission as was her dorsal phaser strip. However, her

quantum torpedo launchers and pulse phaser cannons were fully

operational. She was still a ship with teeth and she would use them

again in defence of herself and the Federation.

The sensor grid had been returned to an operating efficiency of

75%. This meant that the ship’s eyes had developed a few blind spots.

This could prove a very dangerous prospect if they had to fight

against more than one enemy vessel at a time. When Jim and Andrea

took the short trip on the turbolift to the bridge half an hour later

Jim was mightily surprised. The bridge had been transformed from a

scene of utter of carnage, after her earlier battering, to one of

quiet efficiency. Every duty station was manned and operating, despite

the fact that several consoles were doubling up on their duties

because several terminals had been damaged beyond the crew’s ability

to repair.

Jim took his place in the command seat. It still felt a little

uncomfortable for him to be there. He looked approvingly around the

bridge at his crew, receiving a few proud nods from the officers

manning their stations. They were proud of their accomplishments in

getting so much of the ship repaired in so short a time, and quite

rightly too.

“Tactical. Any Dominion ships on sensors?“

“None sir,“ replied Ensign T’Vral. “But we are operating on

passive systems only. It is highly unlikely that a Dominion vessel

would detect our passive scans.“

Jim mulled this over for a few seconds. It was entirely

possible for a Dominion vessel to be hiding among the debris like a

spider just waiting for an unsuspecting fly to tip off the web and

spring the trap. The problem was he needed information before they

could dare to move the Hunter from her concealment. He needed to know

if, in fact, there were any Dominion vessels in the vicinity and also

if there were any Federation starships still around, hiding like

themselves. More importantly he needed to know if there were any

other Defiant-class vessels near to them because, as much as he felt

like a grave robber, they needed to extract its warhead – providing

it was operational – and attach it to the Hunter in order for them to

use the warp drive to escape back to Federation space. Trying to get

there on impulse was out of the question. Not only would it take them

hundreds of years but there was absolutely no chance of them even

getting out of the Chin’Toka system undetected. Unable to wait any

longer Jim ordered a quick, but low powered, active scan of the

vicinity of the battlefield. A few tense seconds passed before Ensign

T’Vral gave his report with typical Vulcan stoicism.

“Captain,“ he began, using the correct title for Jim even

though it made Jim a little uncomfortable, “there are no Dominion

ships within sensor range. They either have withdrawn back to the

planets to support their ground forces or they are hiding within our

sensor holes. It is possible, though unlikely, that there are cloaked

Breen vessels hiding out there among the debris. I am detecting the

remains of approximately 311 Federation, Klingon and Romulan vessels.

I am unable to ascertain the number of Dominion casualties due to the

low power of the sensor scan.“

Jim waited, a little impatiently, as the Vulcan Tactical

Officer slowly gave a rundown of the results of the sensor scan. It

ranged from the amount of radiation that was still present and

affecting the sensors to how many escape pods were destroyed while

they were evacuating crews from dying starships. Finally he got to

the information Jim was waiting on.

“I have detected the remains of seven Defiant-class vessels

ranging from 5 to 500 kilometres from our current location. I am,

however, unable to determine the status of their navigational

deflector arrays from such a low power scan.“

Seven. That was more than Jim had dared hope for and he

suddenly realised he had been holding his breath. He exhaled slowly

and forced himself to calm down, to approach this ‘logically’.

“We can’t take the Hunter out to check out those ships so how

do we found out if there is a suitable warhead out there that we can

salvage? Suggestions?“

“The only thing I can think of is to go EVA. We can hop from

hull to hull, using minimal thrusters, to get there. A two man team

can easily manage it sir without being detected. It might take us a

while but it’s better than revealing the presence of the ship,“

volunteered the Hunter ’s Chief Engineer, Lieutenant Granger.

“We might not have enough time for a two-man team to search all

seven vessels. We can send seven teams out which will minimise the

search time,“ replied Jim. “Each team can send their tricorder data

on a narrow-band comm line back here. Anyone not in line of sight

should not be able to pick up their transmissions.” He didn’t add the

‘I hope’ that he felt like saying and probably everyone on the bridge

was thinking.

“Okay Granger, have your teams prepped for departure within the

hour. First team to find one wins a prize,“ he said with a wry smile,

hoping to ease the tension on the bridge. Everyone knew that sending

out one team would take longer but would be infinitely safer, as it

would draw less attention than fourteen environment-suited

individuals jetting about the debris like ants.

To Be Continued....