Prelude To The Second Battle

Posted on Tue Mar 10th, 2020 @ 5:37am by Rear Admiral Carl "Thunderhead" Patterson & Division Admiral Thomas Lasky & Commander Moni Nasao PhD

Mission: Mission 82: It Is War’s Prize to Take All Vantage.
Location: Goronar System
Timeline: Apr 20th 2392

It had been 8 days since their fleet had initially entered the Gorn system and K'Miras was in the fighter corps command and control center studying what klingon fleet movements he could find. The Klingons had so far avoided any further engagements, aside from the occasional skirmishes between the fighters of both fleets. Otherwise the klingons made no attempt to retake the orbital space. Their ground assault had at least been halted, but they still held the majority of the planet, and the Klingon ground troops where digging in, preparing for a protracted engagement. K'miras knew the klingons would attempt to attack again, but where and when, was the big question, Klag didn't make himself the most predictable klingon out there.

Meanwhile elsewhere in the system was General Klag, he smiled as he watched the displays of where his various forces were located, he knew the time was almost upon them for their effort to drive the Federation out of the system. He grinned. "Soon we shall see what you people are capable of..." the old Klingon growled softly.

Meanwhile, seated in his command chair on the USS Leviathan. Admiral Carl Patterson had been studying and watching the Klingons fleet movements in the system and while he knew that the battle was turning into a long winded slugging match, he was also sure that Klag was up to something. "Maybe I'm just being paranoid."

"Sir?" one of his aides inqured.

"Nothing Lieutenant, I was just thinking aloud." Patterson commented quietly. "If you were Klag... where would you be?"

The Lieutenant paused. "Honestly sir.. I'd want to be in the outer system, near by strong point in the system so I could direct the flow of my forces in this battle... But most Klingons simply charge in headfirst... Klag might be a good deal more subtle then that."

Patterson nodded. "Klag isn't the average..." he responded. "So... you think he'll stage here... at this world?"

"I do... Its not easy to approach and he'll see us coming." the Lieutenant paused. "Doesn't Klingon honor demand that you come out and meet your enemies face to face or... something like that?"

"It does Lieutenant. Klag is not the usual... thats for sure."

Meanwhile out on the edges of the System, Katrina "Wicked Witch" Brown was leading a flight of 8 fighters, 6 of them drones. All their fighters where equipped for maximum stealth role. Her fighters kept their active sensors powered down, and along with the newly developed cloaking pod, their fighters where made very difficult to detect. But likewise, without active sensors, spotting any klingon ships would be a difficult task, but not impossible. So when a large cluster of warp signatures appeared suddenly on her scopes, she knew something was coming. She couldn't make out how many warp signatures nor the size of the vessels, and she couldn't chance contacting the fleet just yet, as that would give her position away. Fortunately, she had the drones, and they were relatively expendable.

Wicked witch informed her wingman Keal "Flash" Virin of the situation and had her hold position to cover her line of retreat, and she then cautiously had two of her drones mover forward to the suspected area. In addition to cloak pods, her flight also carried strong sensor pods. While this meant her flights fighters had very little expendable ordinance for defense, their best defense was to not get spotted in the first place. But, since she needed to find out the composition of the enemy force, she had to be ready to sacrifice a drone or two. So once they got to the suspected position, she had the drone fire up its active sensors, and it revealed a whole lot of Klingon ships.

Kumirae walked into the flagships command and control center where K'Miras was, she asked. "So everything quiet."

K'Miras nodded. "Looks like, the Klingon's haven't made a peep in the last 48 hours, not even a skirmish with their fighters. What do you think of the situation."

Kumirae thought about the situation for a minute then gave her take," Well, if these guys where anyone else, I would say their behavior suggests that they dont have sufficient forces to push us out of the system and they are waiting for reinforcements. But these are klingons after all, and they have been known to not show any heed to being outmatched in battle before."

K'Miras nodded," Yeah, I'm thinking the same thing, its as if we aren't fighting klingon's at all. So if they are waiting for reinforcements, then how long do we have before they show up."

Kumirae shrugged. "Who knows, but from what I know about Klag, he hasn't revealed all the surprises the klingons have developed since the dominion war.

Predictably, the drone that used its active sensors got disintegrated moments later, but Wicked Witch got the data she needed, and now, she needed to escape. Unfortunately, the klingon fighter patrols had revealed a few tricks of their own. One of them was a jamming system that was affecting her communications system. The other was an EWAC fighter of some kind, and it chased her with dogged persistence, along with another group of fighters. Fortunately she was keeping her own bird at near maximum range, but with her having to run her fighter at full impulse, her cloak couldn't mask everything. The enemy fighters opened fire with a dozen missiles, and though two thirds failed to track her and her two remaining drones, four did, and Wicked witch had to expend decoys to throw the missiles off course.

Undeterred, the klingon patrol fired another volley of missiles, another 12. This time half of them effectively tracked, but again Wicked Witches fighters where able to lure them all away with decoys. But Wicked witch knew the decoys wouldn't last forever, and with the third volley, seven missiles successfully locked on, she knew she was running out of time, the klingons where analyzing her cloaking system and figuring out a way through. Her own computers where busy analyzing the jamming signal, trying to find a way through, but fighter computers weren't as fast as a starships, and she didn't have a trained engineer to help her break the signal, so this would take time.

Then suddenly, after the Klingon fired their fourth volley, Flash broke out of cloak, and opened fired with Anti Radiation missiles, catching their EWAC by total surprise and blowing him out of the sky. She then said over the Comm. "Your Clear Witch, transmit."

Wicked Witch nodded and immediately transmitted her data to the fleet, letting them know of the threat.

Moments later, communications systems on ships all over the fleet began receiving the message from Wicked Witch's patrol, various ships began going to red alert on their own as carriers began launching fighters and warships began squaring off for battle.

Patterson regarded the display. "Looks like a large fleet of reinforcements for Klag." he paused as he sighed. "Great..."

K'Miras immediately put his ships and craft on alert as did Kumirae, however the enemy fleet did not give a sign that it was attacking right away. However K'Miras ordered the carriers to double their Combat Space patrol and have other fighters ready to sortie once needed.

Meanwhile Wicked Witch was having to fight for her life. One of her escorting drones had already been shot down, and she was down to just one left. Flash was little better off, she had two drones left and all their birds were running out of decoys, and the Klingon's weren't giving up. Ad when another Klingon patrol appeared in front of her, she was left with no choice, but to fire her missiles and go out fighting. She managed to kill 4 enemy fighters, destroying every fighter in the patrol. Suddenly her own flighter took a hard hit, Flash managed to use her emergency transporter to get to a nearby unspotted friendly Delta Flyer. Wicked Witch herself, wasn't so fortunate as she was in the process of banging out when her fighter was consumed in a fireball.

Back at the fleet, Teval arrived on Roanoke's bridge saying, "What's the report."

Rykar gave the news. "Wicked Witches patrol spotted a large group of Klingon ships entering the system, bigger than our own fleet."

Teval nodded. "Anything else?."

Rykar then added slowly. "Well, our patrol has been wiped out, Flash made it out alive, Wicked Witch did not."

Lasky sat in silence, he had flown with Katrina Brown and while he had not always liked dealing with her, he had always respected her. "Damn." Lasky sighed softly. "Whats the status of Flash?" he inquired. "What did they find?"

Rykar repeated herself, not particularly enjoying it, "Flash is alright, and its a large klingon fleet."

"Alright.." Lasky paused. "Mmmm.. right.. okay." as he cleared his head, before he returned his attention to here and now where it belonged. "Where are they heading.... for us?"

"Can't Tell," Rykar answered. "All we were really able to get was they entered the system, haven't been able to track their movements since then."

"Alright.." Lasky responded. "We can expect an attack on our forces soon. Klag now has the numbers to be a really serious threat this time... Even if he decides to be subtle.." he paused. "Wait.. a minute... What the fuck... Klag is not subtle... He doesn't know the meaning of the word."

Moni Nasao peered down at Commander Lasky from where she was standing. "Art of war.."

"Exactly." he paused. "But that's not for me to deal with... Not today anyway." Lasky added.

"So.. relax and let the guys who are handling it, worry about this shit. you just worry about this ship.. which honestly is more then a full time job considering her issues." Nasao said to Lasky, she was right and he knew it.

Teval looked at Lasky saying, "Let the admirals deal with the strategic issue. They not only have the experience, but they have plenty of experts around them as well. It's better for you to simply worry about the ship, don't worry too much about the fleet action."

"Yeah... your right.. I've known Carl far too long for him to fuck it up now." Lasky admitted.