Rain in the Night - Part Two

Posted on Thu Mar 19th, 2020 @ 2:22am by Colonel Lee Antilles & Commander William Sherman & Commander Pyre Sh'shritress & Lieutenant Commander Courtney Hammond-Brown & Lieutenant Commander Risiass Ch'kirhath & Lieutenant T'Mala & Lieutenant Fuzold Vissa & Lieutenant Grinn Xawa & Commander Cefa Alka & Lieutenant JG Lilar Sal & Master Chief Petty Officer Bernadette Williams & Fleet Captain Coral 'Icecrown' Yamaguchi-Antilles & Lieutenant Commander Eegyu Rhelag & Major Ulysses Hazel

Mission: Mission 101: The Restless Shades of the Past
Location: Various Locations - USS Pegasus, In the Utgarde System
Timeline: 1100Hrs - April 19th, 2387

The USS Pegasus rushed at high warp towards her destination as the Venturi Pirates were busy shooting at four armed freighters who at this point were laughably outgunned by the Venturi Pirate group that had a half-dozen capital class warships from various nations, mostly Klingon and Romulan but one of them was an older Federation ship that had been decommissioned and presumed scrapped several years earlier. The collection of ships was a really motley collection.

The Pegasus class destroyer, USS Mayhem had been stolen from out of a Starfleet surplus yard and was refitted by the Venturi pirates to expand their own fleet. Now they were in the process of capturing the four freighters from the Diputs Squadron which belonged to a Federation member world in running supplies to a nearby Federation base that was about to start construction.

The Pirate leader smiled while he regarded the half-dozen disabled shuttles on the visual display before him. "Take their supplies first, take the crews too. Those we can enslave and then sell in the Romulan Empire, they pay good rates for slaves," he explained. "Then board and capture those four freighters. We can always use those for our own goals."

"Yes, sir. right away." the lead henchman turned to give orders as the tactical officer turned. "Sir. I'm reading a Starfleet vessel approaching at high warp. It'll be here in under ten minutes."

The leader smiled. "Yes, Let's prepare to receive guests." what he assumed would happen was that the Federation ship would simply drop from warp, then start talking and use their size and mass to be intimidating but nothing would actually happen.

"Prepare to capture that ship. If we can bag us that ship then we can really begin to become a power in the region." the leader said.

"Yessir. I'll have everyone alerted." the henchman answered.

Meanwhile over on the Pegasus. The crew was on alert and everyone was at their posts. "Skipper. It looks like the entire pirate band has come out to play."

"Hmm. Do they have prisoners?" Coral Antilles inquired in an easy tone but her body language was tense, indicating she was ready for battle.

"Yessir. Three out of the four freighters have been disabled and the fourth is slowly maneuvering on thrusters." Ch'kirhath explained, his antennae drooping, he wasn't in a good mood. "Orders skipper.?"

"As soon as we come out of warp. Start shooting to disable but if they want to play, feel free to escalate this." Captain Antilles responded as she leaned forward, clearly eager to get this dance going.

Sherman raised an eyebrow. "Is this wise?. We can get them to back down without opening fire if we hail them and demand their return of prisoners."

"It doesn't work and these pirates have shown intent on hostile force and I assume they are using lethal force against their prisoners," Ch'kirhath responded in a blunt tone of voice.

"Sir, they will escalate force against us if we attack." Sherman protested.

"They are the Venturi Pirate band Commander. They do not take prisoners easily. Most they enslave or simply kill for themselves." came the voice of Lieutenant Grinn Xawa. Coral's second Bolian officer on her senior staff and it was seldom that he spoke during his time on the bridge, he tended to prefer to sit in silence and observe everything. "If they are taking prisoners, it's for the purposes of trafficking them to slaving site elsewhere." he paused. "We have to recover them, even if its just on principle."

"Time to arrival?" Coral Antilles commented in a gentle tone. Ending the conversation in one swift stroke.

"One minute Captain." came the response from Sal, seated at Conn. "They seem to be preparing for our arrival." the younger Bajoran female added.

"As they should." Captain Antilles paused. "Stand by and... Now. Raise shields and standby phasers and quantum torpedoes." she slowly smiled.

Ch'kirhath nodded. "Weapons are ready."

Master Chief Petty Officer Bernadette Williams turned from her panel. "Captain, they are scanning us, attempting to find out our crew numbers and locations throughout the ships hull."

"Are they now?" Captain Antilles responded. "Well. Looks like they won't be talking anyway." she shrugged her shoulders as the matter was more or less concerned.

"Arrival in ten seconds," Sal added. "Brace for chop." as she tapped the emergency deceleration button, the starlines faded back to stars as the Pegasus arrived one second short of her destination, the Venturi ships began shooting at where they assumed the Pegasus was going to arrive but not one of their weapons impacted a target as the Pegasus was roughly ten thousand kilometers shy of her destination.

"Right then. Fire at will," Captain Antilles responded. With that the Pegasus opened up with her ordinance, as she blasted away at the assembled Venturi pirate fleet with violent, ruthless force, moments later one of the smaller Venturi ships exploded followed by a second.

A moment later as the second ships hull disintegrated, the Pegasus moved forward into warp for four seconds before she emerged a second time and she began opening fire, several torpedoes smashed into the large Venturi flagship, ripping holes in her shields and armor with equal ferocity as phaser blasts lashed out at the Venturi who gave as good as they got, however, the Pegasus was far larger and more capable than any particular one ship from the Venturi fleet.

On the Pegasus bridge, the sounds of battle were loud and deafening as the roar of weapons fire drowned out anything the crew tried to shout at each other. "Shields at forty percent," screamed Sh'shritress. "We're taking damage down here," she added.

Coral Antilles knew she was overmatched and her mind contemplated retreat. "Helm, break off, evasive maneuvers Gamma Two." she turned her head as she regarded her tactical officer. "Concentrate fire on those two former Federation ships." Coral Antilles added a moment later.

"Aye sir." the young woman at Conn responded, in a loud and strident tone to be heard over the sounds of weapons fire. Suddenly one of the larger Venturi ships exploded in a truly impressive fireball, the resulting debris cloud damaged two other ships, one of which quickly fell to the weapons of the Pegasus.

"Sir. I'm reading a subspace distortion forming." came the report from the science officer, a Bajoran male named Eegyu Rhelag. "It appears to be a Keer loop, made from superstring material."

"What does that all mean?" Captain Antilles responded. "Helm, take us around it," she commented as she watched another half a dozen quantum torpedoes fly into the side of the largest remaining Venturi pirate vessel, shredding its superstructure and causing massive damage to the ship.

The Pegasus shook, right before there was the sound of something snapping loudly. "Shields have failed." came the voice of Lieutenant Cefa Alka from Operations. "The pirates have begun boarding us, skipper."

Captain Antilles sighed softly as the intruder alarm started wailing, it reminded Coral Antilles of her youngest child who she missed, her younger sister Heather was babysitting her children "Antilles to Antilles. Repel boarders." Coral Antilles demanded of her husband and his marines over the ships com system.

"We've been monitoring, we're on it. Antilles out." as Coral turned her attention back to the space battle. "Helm, evasive maneuvers. Ch'kirhath, kill those bastards. I don't care how. I need them dead."

Lieutenant Ulysses Hazel was watching his panel. "Sir, we have an escape attempt on the Venturi flagship."

Captain Antilles turned. "Let's help them along. Target them."

"Yessir," Ch'kirhath responded, before launching another dozen or so quantum torpedoes, many of which crashed into the flagship and the rest smashed into the former USS Mayhem, demolishing her for real this time and sending debris into the flank of the wounded flagship, causing yet more damage, the flagship vomited a large gout of fire and debris as an internal explosion tore a hole in her side.

"Their shields are down," Alka reported from Operations. "I have locks."

"Get those people over here. Captain Antilles responded. "When they are aboard, beam a nuke over there," she added.

"I have them all sir." the Bajoran female explained. "I can also raise our shields again but they won't last long against the fire from the enemy," she added.

Ch'kirhath turned his head. "I've set the warhead to go off five seconds after activation."

"Send it over, then get us the hell out of here," Captain Antilles ordered.

The Andorian nodded. "The weapon is away," he commented as the Venturi flagship exploded in a truly impressive fireball as the last two pirate ships began chasing the Pegasus who took three hits to her port impulse engines, the return fire demolished one of them but the second was able to ram the Pegasus, severing her port nacelle from the rest of the ship in a truly impressive explosion. All of which knocked the Pegasus off of her original course, the result of which was that the Pegasus flew into the keer loop which suddenly collapsed behind her.

The crippled pirate vessel that had collided with the Pegasus careened off of its original course before the severed nacelle from the Pegasus collided with it, the explosion destroyed the nacelle and crippled the pirate ship which suddenly exploded a moment later.

A Starfleet investigation would find that the USS Pegasus fought to the death, exterminating the entire Venturi pirate group but dying in the process. Coral's file was marked with a posthumous promotion to Commodore and she was awarded the medal of honor, her entire crew was also awarded the same medals and many were promoted but what they didn't know was that the USS Pegasus was not so easily slain.