A Desperate Last Stand

Posted on Tue Mar 10th, 2020 @ 5:21am 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: Enterpise E - somewhere in the maze
Timeline: Apr 17th 2392

"Time to the wormhole, 20 minutes," Alyssa estimated.

Zeri came to the quick realization that they wouldn't get the chance to make it to the wormhole before the second fighter attack. "Shit, their carrier is launching again. Bigger wave, this time, estimate about 5-600."

Saunders growled. "How long before that attack wave gets here?" she inquired. "Whats the status of the Klingon ships?" she added a moment later.

"15 minutes at most," Zeri answered, "we only have one surviving bird of prey with us, Bortasque is undamaged, but they are nearly out of anti-fighter missiles."

"Naturally. We're not much better off... Our opposition knows this... which is why they threw five to six hundred birds at us..." Saunders responded evenly. "Who's the main target of this attack... Us or Bortasque?"

Zeri took a moment to assess their attack pattern, roughly 80 going for us, the rest going for Bortasque.

Alyssa reported the rest of the bad news. "the last attack had knocked one of our shield generators, we only have half our normal shield capacity."

Saunders sighed softly. "Whats our ordinance loadout look like?." she inquired. "Can we handle those eighty?"

Norsvin shook his head, "I doubt it, we are down to 93 missiles, and it definitely takes more than one missile to kill a fighter."

Saunders tapped the all hands com toggle on the display at her right hand. "Bridge to all hands... Prepare for turbulence. Secure your stations and evacuate the outer sections of the hull.... " the older woman let out a soft whimper. "Time to wormhole event horizon?"

"18 minutes," Alyssa reported.

Everyone on the ship knew they wouldn't make it in time, but that didn't stop the crews from trying. However many in the crew had already resigned themselves to the fact that they will die to an enemy that they never even knew. Even the Klingons didn't go through their usual rhetoric, indicating the very poor morale among the rest of the ships.

The minutes seemed to turn into hours and even days as the enemy fighters crept ever and ever closer. And sure enough, not 5 minutes away from the wormhole, they entered weapons range.

Norsvin tried his best, firing off any remaining missiles, hoping to shoot down as many fighters as possible before they released their payload, but he felt like he was throwing pebbles into a tidal wave for all the good it seemed to be doing. only 23 enemy fighters went down after the last missile was expended, and now the Enterprise-E was defenseless.

The enemy fighters moved into phaser range, launching an impressive volley everyone knew 57 enemy fighters launched their missiles before they would obliterate the Enterprise-E.

Then suddenly at the last second, the lone surviving bird of prey deliberately threw itself into the path of the incoming missiles, though it was obliterated by the missiles, the ships sacrifice took out more than half of the incoming missiles in the process, making the attack survivable.

The shields managed to absorb much of the remaining missiles in the process, but over a dozen got through. two hit the port nacelle pylon, completely severing the nacelle in the process. one struck the starboard nacelle, destroying it. Two more hit the aft hangar deck, three amidships in the stardrive and four hit the saucer section, but none hit the impulse engines, allowing the Enterprise-E to continue at full speed. However one inflicted severe damage to the warp core and surrounding systems.

"Shit, I have to eject the warp core and the antimatter pods," Alyssa reported," Otherwise they will detonate in less than a minute."

"Do it!" Saunders shouted back to Alyssa. "Status of weapons?" she added as she watched the Master System display suddenly scream red and began flashing with critical systems down or destroyed.

"We are out of anti-fighter missiles," Norsvin replied. "We still have 80% of our phaser arrays operations, two of our forward torpedo launchers are down."

Alyssa quickly ejected the warp core and the antimatter pods. The enemy fighters, however, realizing they failed to slow Enterprise-E down, but also recognizing her lack of missiles, decided to attack her with their guns, aiming for the impulse engines. Enterprise-E could only fight them off with her phasers, which wasn't overly effective.

Bortasque was faring little better. Also out of any anti-fighter missiles, she resorted to attempting to fight off the fighters using only her disruptors, but her shields were down and she had multiple hull breaches. However, her armor plating made it nearly impossible for the fighter's guns to inflict any meaningful damage. Enterprise-E, however, wasn't so fortunate, her armor plating was still quite light so fighter guns at close range could punch through.

"2 minutes from the wormhole," Xeri reported. Suddenly, one of the fighters rounds hit near the bridge section with the round settling not far away from the rear of the bridge. Though the round didn't explode in the bridge, it exploded on the armor plate behind Zeri's console, sending a chunk of shrapnel into her midsection.

Saunders tapped her combadge. "Medical assistance to the bridge." she deliberately left out the word 'again'. Just in case this turned into another case of someone dying like the skipper did.

"If we got any of the old Quantum torpedoes left Norsvin... Now's the time to expand them... don't you think?" Saunders inquired of the ships Chief of the Boat.

The enemy fighters broke off their attack the moment the two ships approached the wormhole. and once they did, Norsvin began setting the mines. Meanwhile, Ayssa went to help Zeri, who was bleeding extremely profusely.

Bortasque was the first ship to go through the wormhole, followed by the extremely crippled Enterprise-E. Due to the sustained battle damage, the transition was much rougher than normal.

Once they reached the other side, Norsvin began setting more mines until one of the junior officers at the sensor station reported. "Sir we have new contacts ahead of us. My god, one of them is massive."

Saunders regarded the display before her, her lips began to quiver in outright terror. "Shit..." she whimpered. "Uhh... evasive maneuvers!" she called. "Do we have any weapons left?" she called, she felt a warm liquid trickle down her left leg as she realized that she had pissed herself. "We're so screwed..." she whimpered softly.

Norsvin threw up his hands saying. "Seriously, what the fuck. Yeah, we might as well shoot spitballs at that thing for all the good it will do us."

Alyssa commented. "Yep, we are dead, might as well accept it, we are so dead, no way of getting around it. We are all so dead."

At the same tine, the Bortasque hailed the Enterprise-E

Saunders nodded. "Put him up"

Martok's face came on screen with him commenting. "Well friends, it looks like we will be joining Worf in Sto'Vo'Kor very soon, do we want to die to the ones in front of us or the guys behind us."

Saunders sighed, she sniffed gently as Worf had been her friend and mentor. "Indeed we will." she paused. "Singing songs with Worf forever around a camp fire in Sto'Vo'Kor sounds very appealing. If we are to die.. Then we have come this far... We fight the guys behind us... I will run no longer..." she paused. "If we're gonna go out... Let's make sure they always remember us.." she turned. "Norsvin, tell me about the guys here... including that... thing." she indicated the large warship that dwarfed everything else.

Norsvin briefly scanned the unknowns in front of them then reported. "Um, they are not targeting us, their shields don't appear to be active, also they don't appear to be the same design philosophy as the guys behind."

Saunders turned her head. "What?" she asked quietly. "How so?"

Then with the explosion of several mines, the first enemy ship from behind appeared, followed by several others. They however briefly paused at the sight of the massive fleet in front of them, then opened fire on the huge ship at the centerpiece of the fleet. The big ship responded by turning its massive gun turrets and opening fire with hundreds of individual weapon systems. Enterprise-E and Bortasque, however, were within the line of fire of the two fleets.

Saunders pointed to the helm officer as she screamed. "Get us the hell away from them!" as she watched the ordinance fly, her eyes went wide with terror. "SHHHHIIIIITTTT!!!!" she screamed.

Norsvin sighed and closed his eyes, resigning himself to their fate. However, the explosions never came, as the shots from the big ship flew right past Enterprise-E and Bortasque, impacting the pursuing group and obliterating their fleet in minutes. then once they were down, the big ship ceased firing, leaving Bortasque and Enterprise-E unharmed.

Saunders blinked as she felt the terror subside. "What!"

Norsvin looked down at his sensors with sheer disbelief. "Nope, they are not firing at us, and the pursuers are now little more than floating wrecks." Norsvin suddenly felt a warm trickle down his side and he looked down, finally realizing he had managed to reopen his previous shrapnel injury.

Alyssa then recognized some of the ships in the formation. "Wait some of these ships are nearly identical to the design of that Akurian ship that was with us in Roanoke's battlegroup. I think these may be Akurian vessels. If they are anything like the guys I dealt with, they are not hostile, and quite cute if I might add."

"Wait... So these guys are... Akurians?" Saunders responded quietly. "Right. I'm going to go back to my quarters... assuming they still exist.. and change... Alyssa, the bridge... such as it is... is yours." and with that Saunders departed the bridge.

Saunders went back to her quarters to change and clean herself off, she felt somewhat disgraced as she had pissed herself so she proceeded to handle things.

Saunders came back to the bridge about ten minutes later, feeling much cleaner and refreshed. "Status?" she inquired of everyone present. "Norsvin. Go and get yourself checked.." she added a moment later.

Norsvin tried to get up, but the moment he did, he instantly became lightheaded and the pain in his leg hit at the same time, causing him to fall over. A nearby medic rushed over to help him out while Alyssa reported. "I think we are being hailed, the lead ship is sending some kind of tachyon beam at us."

Saunders raised an eyebrow. "Okay... Run it through the com system and open the channel... If you can." the older woman sat down in the command chair, she felt truly old and ancient as she let out a soft sigh. "Thank you Enterprise..." she said softly as she looked up. "Thanks for getting us here and.. for not letting us down.."

With Saunders's statement, one of the Ceiling panels fell to the deck with a loud clang.

Saunders sighed softly. "Yeah... I hear ya girl."

Alyssa managed to route the comm signal through into something they could use, though they only got an audio feed. "Alright, I got them."

"This is the Akurian Super Heavy Starship Noble, please identify yourselves."

"I'm... Commander Aurelian Saunders, commanding the Federation starship Enterprise... The other ship remaining with us is the Klingon Heavy Battleship Bortasque, we.... " she paused a moment, suddenly unsure of what to say. "We... we come in peace.." she felt it was a stupid thing to say as the Noble alone outgunned Enterprise by about a million to one.

Minske Hyuro, the current commander of the Noble introduced herself.
"I'm Minske Hyuro, commander of the Noble, you say your federation right?"

"Yes... United Federation of Planets." Saunders responded quietly. "Why do you ask?" she inquired a moment later.

Minske turned to her senior officer, Tom Ryan," Can you confirm that."

the Small kurokuri did a thorough scan of the vessel, then confirmed, "Yep, definitely a federation starship. Sovereign class, USS Enterprise, NCC 1701-E. All previous contacts with UFP ships are confirmed to be friendly."

"and the other ship," Minske asked."

Tom turned his attention to the much larger Klingon ship," Definitely a Klingon ship, unknown class, previous encounters with this species, some are hostile some are friendly. They have known as a warrior race after all."

Minske then turned her attention back to the Enterprise. "Alright Enterprise, you might as well bring your ship in for docking and come onboard, we have some explaining for you. But I do have one question, are the Klingons with you hostile, because not all of our encounters with them have been peaceful."

Saunders paused as she found she could not speak for the Klingons themselves. "The Klingon Chancellor is commanding their warship...They will comport themselves with honor.." Saunders explained. "Wait... you've ... encountered Klingons before?"

Minske nodded. "And federation ships before, as I said, your people are better off coming onboard, besides, your ship looks like it's about to fly apart at the seams anyway."

Saunders nodded. "Yeah.." she let out a sigh. "Helm... take us in and... dock with.. them."

The young Ensign nodded his head. "Aye skipper," he responded softly.

Minske nodded then contacted the Klingons, and after determining that this group of Klingons wasn't hostile, she allowed them to approach as well. Though they would be unable to dock due to the width of their ship.

Alyssa smacked the console when another problem came up. "Well, I hope their docking procedures are quick because our life support system just took a dump."

"Well... I guess that's it then." Saunders sighed softly. "Enterprise gave all she had got us here... It's up to us now to finish the job."