The Chase

Posted on Tue Mar 10th, 2020 @ 5:16am by Captain Aurelian Saunders & Captain Worf, Son of Mogh & Lieutenant Tial Lamek & Lieutenant Charles "Chick" Chappel

Mission: Mission 53: Last March of the Enterprise-E
Location: Enterprise-E - somewhere in the maze
Timeline: Apr 17th 2392

For over a month, the crew had been on the run. Chased by an unknown enemy, the Enterprise and a task force of Klingon ships were forced to run from an enemy they didn't know. They didn't know why these people were chasing them. They didn't even know what they looked like.

Norsvin, meanwhile, had lost track of how many wormholes they had traversed. He knew they had gone through over a dozen. They had managed to keep ahead of their enemy. Aside from the few extreme range missile volleys, the Enterprise-E and the Klingon had succeeded in staying out of enemy effective weapons range. But a month of constantly being on the run was wearing down on their ships and crews.

Alyssa Mckinley had been doing her best to keep the 20-year-old engines together. But having to run them at full power nearly constantly was wearing hard on them. She wondered how much longer they would hold together. However, Zeri had just made a discovery that meant they would be unlikely to push the engines to the point of failure, because their enemy had just found a way to catch them. One of the numerous probes that Xeri had been using to keep tabs on the enemy vessels just spotted a new addition to their fleet. The vessel didn't look as threatening as the others to the untrained eye, lacking the many obvious gun turrets and missile launchers of the other ships. But in its place where numerous hangar bays, which could only mean one thing, a carrier.

Worf meanwhile was seated in his chair, like the quiet and calm officer that he was most days, the last three weeks had worn even his patience down. "Status?"

"That carrier is still gaining on us, sir..." Chappel answered quietly, as he brushed the soot from his face, part of his station had been destroyed in an earlier attack

Saunders sighed. "Whats the status of the Klingon ships?" she inquired.
"Sir... We can't keep running,.. eventually, we are going to have to pick a location to stand and fight... We need to select where and when.."

Worf nodded his craggy head in a tired admittance of the truth, they were being hunted and they were in bad shape with no sign of any friendlies in the area.

Xeri gave the warning. "carrier is launching fighters, they are heading straight for us, no way we can outrun them."

Norsvin offered the suggestion. "Well, either way, we still don't want to attempt to fight their fighters and their warships at the same time. the only way we will have a chance is to engage them separately."

Alyssa agreed with Norsvin's assessment, however, the situation was still very grim. Enterprise-E had not received a full refit like many other vessels in the fleet. They had 20 Anti-fighter VLS modules installed and at least a quarter of those missiles were already expanded from previous engagements. On top of that, Enterprise-E had very few point defense turrets installed. The Bortasque was not much better off. She did not have anywhere near the anti-fighter weapons complement that a Guardian class had, and her point defenses were very spare. The only consolation that they seemed to have from this situation is that the enemy carrier didn't appear to be a full-sized fleet carrier, but rather just a light carrier.

Worf paused a moment. "How many fighters are they launching at us?" he inquired. "Where is the nearest wormhole?" It galled him to run but he could clearly see they had no choice. He wanted to stand and fight but they were so badly outnumbered that they had no choice but to keep going.

Saunders sighed. "Red Alert... All hands to battle stations... Not they aren't already." she muttered the second half under her statement. "Tactical... Load your guns.."

Zeri did a quick count of the number of fighters being deployed. "Looks like roughly 4 to 5 hundred. However, based on the size of that ship, I estimate its full capacity could be up to 1200. I can't tell how many are fighters and how many are attack yet from this distance."

Saunders sighed. "Shit..." she commented. "As soon as they are inside range of our phasers... open up... save our ordinance for the really stupid moments." she turned. "Inform all allied ships to do the same."

All of the fighters approached and as they got close enough, Zeri confirmed," They are all attack craft."

Enterprise E began to fire what long-range anti-fighter missiles they had, but they were only able to kill roughly 55 fighters before they fired their ordinance. Two of the escorting birds of prey, the Enterprise-E, and the Bortasque where their targets. Both the Birds of Prey evaporated under the attack while Enterprises point defenses managed to shoot down a number of missiles, but Xeri knew somewhere going to get through.

Worf knew this was going to get stupid. "All hands, brace for fire," he growled over the now active com system.

Enterprise-E and her crew did her best to shoot down the incoming warhead swarm but many got through and started crashing into the ship's shield from multiple points.

The ship began to echo the beginning of explosions from outside as well as the shaking from kinetic impacts, some missiles were still being intercepted but many were getting through.

"Captain, shield strength is being eroded away.." came the call from Chappel.

The shields managed to hold against most of the missiles, but four of the missiles made it through the shields and hit the hull. One missile hit near the bridge, and though it didn't punch a hole in the bridge hull, it did send spalling into the bridge and spraying shrapnel everywhere. The shards echoed through the bridge with the force of old style ballistic rounds. One of them went through Worf and he went down, two went through the chair of Aurelian Saunders except the debris missed her, but she was one of only a few.

Michael Ward was down on the ground as he was rapidly bleeding out from a rather sizeable wound on his neck. "Uhhh. What.." he got out as his eyes glassed over and he died.

Saunders moved to the tactical station. "Helm, start evasive maneuvers."

"Aye Captain." came the response.

Chappel remained at his post except he had a slash wound on his right arm, just below the shoulder and one on his leg, both of which had left him with several gouge wounds. "Uhh... I got the shields back up... I don't know how long they will hold... we have only a few casualties.. mostly due to damage to the outer hull... We have over a dozen hull breaches, however."

Saunders tapped the firing button as more weapons fire from the Enterprise-E began shooting down more enemy missiles and enemy fighters.

The enemy fighters withdrew, heading back to their carrier to rearm. The battlegroup succeeds in eliminating a further 30 of them before they successfully retreated out of weapons range.

Alyssa noticed a piece of shrapnel embedded in her arm, but aside from that, she had no other injuries. Nearby Norsvin was lying on the ground, next to Worf, a piece of shrapnel in his side and another in his leg. However, he wasn't completely incapacitated and he went to check Worf. Unfortunately, he could immediately tell, it was too late for the captain, he had a large piece of shrapnel driven straight through his chest. With the amount of blood. Norsvin could tell the chunk went straight through his heart. He looked up at Saunders saying. "He's gone."

Saunders sighed softly. "Dammit," she whispered. "We need to get back on our feet and get away from these bastards.." as she tapped the display. "Medical team ... to the bridge.." she said softly, her voice cracking under the weight of her grief.

Alyssa moved to assess the other casualties. Zeri only came out with what appeared to be a small cut to her side, and she was only bleeding lightly. But Massae was much worse off. She had a dozen small shrapnel wounds across her body but the most apparent one was the two injuries on her lower back, both of which were bleeding extremely profusely. Alyssa did a quick scan with her tricorder and found out quickly, both Massae's kidneys had been perforated with shrapnel.

The turbolift doors opened and out came the medical guys. "Who needs us?" she called.

Saunders pointed to Massae. "Her first... leave the dead... They can be moved later... including.. the skipper." she sat down in the big chair. "Dammit. this is not how I wanted to get my command.." she was angry and it showed. "Those bastards killed our friends... and all we can do is run away.."

Massae was still conscious and only just now the immense wave of pain started to hit her, and hard. She slipped out of her chair and fell to the ground, whimpering in pain. Zeri wanted to do something to help her, but the medic's shooed her way and she returned to her station.

Norsvin struggled to get up and take the empty tactical station, but it was difficult for him to get into the chair due to his leg injury.

Alyssa resumed her station and reported," We can still make full impulse, the engines aren't damaged, though one of the warp nacelles is completely wrecked, not that it will do us any good anyway."

Xeri did a scan and made an estimate, by my estimate, it should take them an hour or two to rearm. The nearest wormhole, if we push the engines as hard as they can, we could make it in two hours."

Norsvin had a suggestion. "We still have a very large complement of the older style quantum torpedoes. if we get to that wormhole, we and the Bortasque can unload our entire payload of quantum and use them as mines at the entrance of the wormhole. That should disable or destroy their ships if they try to get through. and give us time to get away proper."

Saunders nodded her head. "Do it.." she responded quickly. "Helm, get us to that wormhole." she turned to the Master Chief. "Proceed with your plan Master Chief."