A Hero Falls: The Last Twilight Descends

Posted on Thu Mar 12th, 2020 @ 3:02am by Captain Javier Morales & Commander Rachel Haig. The Eighteenth Lady of Haig & Commander Saia Azuresteel & Commander Nathan Duhamel & Commander Pava Sh'Andoo & Commander Rachael Falanner & Lieutenant Commander Hae Min Lee & Commander Jiao Anderson-Smithson & Lieutenant Toris Jaest & Master Chief Petty Officer Fred Ellsworth & Chief Petty Officer Forion "Patches" Sorel & Fleet Captain Torilla Yamaguchi & Command Master Chief Petty Officer James Mandala & Lieutenant Commander Daniel MacRae & Lieutenant Lasarra "Silverbolt" Yamaguchi & Major Cheol-hee "Razor" Lee & Lieutenant Colonel Brigitte "Crusader" Abbendis & Colonel Naota "Anakin" Unal & Colonel Thel "Arbiter" Vadam'ee & Colonel Nicole "Kraken" Vollen & First Sergeant Grade Two Kelly "Rabbit" Shaddock & Sergeant Major Frederick Bishop

Mission: Mission 86: A Hero Falls
Location: Various Locations - USS Courageous
Timeline: 1200Hrs - May 17th, 2392

Down in the guts of the Courageous, the ships Chief Engineer could be found pulling the cover off of a set of isolinier rods underneath a console in the ship's command center which had replaced the old bridge up on deck one, the command area was now on deck six and was quite heavily armored. However, that didn't make it invulnerable and the ship simply wasn't designed for this new age of warfare either.

Lt Commander Rachael Falanner let out a soft sigh as she paused, her thoughts turning to her wife and young daughter. Lieutenant Hae Min Lee had been reassigned away from the Courageous due to wounded and people killed in action elsewhere. Falannar missed the presence of her wife but their young child had been left behind on B Kayor with the rest of the civilians and Falanner knew that bringing her child into a war zone was nothing short of outright foolish at best and stupid at worst.

Falanner blinked as she brought her attention back to what it was that she was doing, chasing down a computer glitch that had never been repaired after the last firefight that saw over a half dozen Federation ships get reduced to floating scrap metal and another dozen or so damaged to some degree or another.

Master Chief Petty Officer Fred Ellsworth appeared next to her before he handed the Chief a PADD. "Chief." he addressed her a moment later.

"Mmm. Oh right." she paused as she accepted the PADD from him, it was an updated version of the repair list. "Well, things are improving. Such as they are." she sighed softly.

"Yeah. Considering we're stuck with convoy duty." Ellsworth commented evenly. "I'm not sure of whats worse, the fact that its convoy duty or that they sent us along with Roanoke's remaining destroyers to handle things." he regarded her as he spoke.

"I'll bet the skipper is in a lovely mood," Falannar responded, a grin on her lovely face.

Meanwhile up on the bridge, the mood could be best described as tense as Captain Torilla Yamaguchi was not in the best of moods, her sour disposition left her feeling irritated and annoyed, however she was not venting or bellyaching to anyone, she was standing by the master systems display, located at the back of the bridge in a freestanding display, all its own.

Yamaguchi sighed softly, she recalled when this bridge and this ship had her husband sitting in its center seat and she was just a Lieutenant then, the Courageous had endured trial after trial but she always came out the other side, battered at times but in one piece and with her crew intact.

She shifted her attention. "Jiao. Anything on sensors?"

"No unwanted party crashers in sight." the pregnant Asian female responded in a light tone. "It's almost nerve-wracking."

"Tell me about it." Yamaguchi quipped lightly.

Morales regarded the two women before him. "Well. We should be approaching our destination soon. The destroyers are also not reporting anything major to worry about." he reported.

Yamaguchi raised an eyebrow. "How many of our guys are on the combat air patrol?"

"All of third wing at present," Morales answered.

"Alright. How long before they are due to be relieved?" Yamaguchi inquired.

"In a little under an hours time." came the response from the flight staff who was present on the bridge. Master Pilot Officer Cheol-hee "Razor" Lee who was the Group XO regarded Yamaguchi as he spoke.

Yamaguchi nodded her head. "Anything from the convoy Jiao?"

"Not a peep since their last check-in an hour ago. I could query them?" the Asian looking female commented.

"No. No need to spook anyone. We're all jittery enough being out here alone like this." Yamaguchi responded. "Let's not make things worse than we need to," she added.

Morales regarded Yamaguchi with a careful eye. He knew that the Courageous and the few ships present were all that was really available to escort this convoy of some forty ships that was presently en-route to Goranar. The convoy itself, designated as GR-1 was the first of several major convoys heading into the Gorn Hegemony to start the process of rebuilding what the Klingons had destroyed in this short but violent war and now with the Goranar System back in the hands of the Hegemony, it was now up to the Federation and its allies to start rebuilding.

Commander Pava Sh'Andoo turned her head. "Skipper. I'm reading chatter on Klingon frequencies. It's coming from nearby.."

"Someone screwed up and is about to make us look stupid or someone goofed and we're about to capitalize on it," Yamaguchi commented. "Launch all starfighters, take us to battle stations please?"

Morales tapped the display. "All starfighters, scramble!" before the lights dimmed and the alert sirens activated. Meanwhile across the convoy and the attendant Federation destroyers, more of the same was taking place, ships and their crews were going to alert, just in case.

It was Anderson who supplied the bad news, that this was no drill and the Klingons were here in force. "Klingons ships uncloaking." before a force of twenty Klingon ships attacked en-mass. The convoy scattered as all of the ships attempted to reverse course and backtrack out of the sudden combat zone as the Courageous lashed out with her weapons, attacking the Klingon ships with her own weapons, but either by chance or by design, one of the sixteen birds of prey rammed the Courageous, demolishing her starboard nacelle pylon, destroying the nacelle and everything within, producing a truly impressive fireball.

The ship shook as a loud scream could be heard through the hull, of metal being torn apart at the atomic level with the force of the blast.

One of the Destroyers, watching the near demolitions of their carrier, sent out an emergency plea for aid from anyone nearby, the plea was received as several nearby Federation ships were stripped from other missions and came screaming to the aid of the convo, however, they would not make it in time to affect the outcome of the battle.

Meanwhile, near Main Engineering. Rachael Falanner suddenly found herself airborne as she flew down the hallway before smashing into the far bulkhead, she slid down to the deck, stunned and dazed before she spat out a mouthful of blood, she would be one of the hundreds of wounded this day.

Meanwhile, up on the bridge. Lieutenant Commander Nathan Duhamel didn't wait for orders, he simply went to work in shooting at the Klingons all around him, one of the Klingon ships was a heavy cruiser, two more were light cruisers and the last was a destroyer while the remaining fifteen, minus the idiot who had crippled the Courageous with his ramming maneuver, were all Birds of Prey variants. Suddenly one of the destroyers exploded followed by a Klingon light cruiser as the six Federation destroyers engaged them with massed missile volleys.

Commander Morales found himself, down on his face with the force of the impact. He hauled himself back to his feet. "Jiao. How bad is it?" he regarded Anderson at Operations.

Anderson shook her head in dismay. "The starboard nacelle has been destroyed along with much of the pylon., we have heavy damage to the secondary hull as a result, but all of our starfighters are out the hanger and in the battle," Anderson reported. "Shields are down and so are most of our aft weapons," she added.

Yamaguchi nodded. "Helm, initiate-" was as far as she got before there was a sudden loud popping sound as an explosion raced through the bridge as an explosion took place at the front, sending a hail of razor sharp metallic shards and other debris, racing through the bridge, most of the personnel present were affected, Jiao felt two of them, slice into her right arm and her left leg, causing her to scream loudly. Smithson also took one shard to his left arm, it caused a large amount of blood to pour from the wound but the worst of them all went through the chest and side of Captain Yamaguchi.

She had time to look down, to see the large hole in her chest and side. "Shit," she whispered before she dropped to the ground, a large blood pool began to expand from where she lay as she gasped softly as Torilla Yamaguchi died.

Neither Morales or anyone else had time to mourn her passing as they found themselves fighting to save a very badly damaged ship and a battered crew Morales turned to Duhamel. "Nathan. I don't care what it takes. I want those bastards dead!"

"You got it," Duhamel responded as he tapped away at his displays, while dozens of missiles left their tracks and sped downrange into the sides of Klingon birds of prey and the Heavy Cruiser which suddenly ignited in a truly massive explosion as its magazine detonated.

"Incoming!" Anderson screamed before she threw her hands over her face, as the ship took first one and then two ramming attacks in quick succession, the first was on the front of the saucer and left a truly impressive hull breach that would span a tenth of the saucer section but the one that would really finish off the Courageous was the destruction of the port nacelle and its strut.

When the shaking stopped, the starfighters stepped in and helped to clean up the battle site before the Klingons could do any more damage to their parent starship, the last remaining Klingons all fell in short order but the damage had been extensive and in some cases, irreparable.