This Chapter's a bit longer...
Chapter Seven
The milky glaze that had been growing on the fore viewer now dominated the entire square viewscreen. The star streaks of warp travel terminated, depositing the USS Cleopatra back into real space next to the Tellurian Rift. She floated there, silent and still, as her crew mustered to battlestations to the tune of an electronic klaxon.
“Weapons hot and ready, Captain!”
“Shields up, sir!”
“Engineering reports systems stabilizing. Full power available to defensive systems.”
Captain Sharp glanced to the tactical screen. The last transmission from the recon drone had shown Rell’s ship nearing the intercept zone. The D-5 had slowed to a leisurely warp two as the ship took up its patrol zone again. In another minute, the drone would update the scout’s position and he would make his final adjustments to his plan.
“Report coil temperatures.” He projected to the portside stations.
“Temperatures dropping to 1,200 Celsius. Primary and reserve coolant has been directed to the nacelles. Temperatures will return to nominal in seven minutes.”
Would they have seven minutes?
“Drone signal incoming, Captain.” Came from Ensign Lania.
The tactical map updated. The D-5 had moved even closer to the rift’s perimeter. Were they avoiding a navigational hazard or had they begun to pick up the probe’s sensor emissions? Surely they hadn’t detected its directional comm signal…
The Klingon ship would be passing in three minutes.
“Mister Ford, take us to maximum warp. Mister Davenport, your course is 357 mark 010. Watch your deflector readings for debris.”
Again the Cleo shot into warp. The haze before them enveloped the viewer, blotted out even the energetic field effect of warped space. Mister Ford began calling out their increasing velocity, ending when the ship edged back up to warp 5.1. That was all the old ship could bear to give them.
“Stand by to acquire target. We’re only going to be in weapons range for three seconds.”
His officers nodded, eyes on their monitors and control boards. The engines continued to howl. Speed dipped to below 5.1, then returned fully. The deck took on an unstable tremor.
“Estimate one minute to target!” Commander Ellyson reported.
Sharp tapped a predesignated intercom control.
“Stand by.”
“Standing by, sir.”
The ship shuddered. The Rift was affecting the Cleo’s warp field. The cloud before them was beginning to lighten, returning to the dark of space. Soon, the enemy would be picking up their warp signature as they emerged from the Rift.
He tapped the intercom panel again.
“Stand by to energize!”
“Detecting a subspace signal to starboard, Commander.”
Commander Rell descended from his chair and stood beside his comm officer. The soldier pointed out a weak, intermittent energy pattern on his board.
“A communication?”
“Likely. Semi-directional, perhaps.”
“Starfleet?”
The officer began to analyze the signal frequency against known enemy bandwidths. “Not a standard carrier band, sir. Civilian perhaps.”
Rell looked to the area map atop the comm station and adjusted its zoom. The transmission source was close to the edge of the gas cloud. To transmit into the cloud meant a receiver within or beyond that cloud. Suspicion took root in the cagey commander.
“Tactics Officer!”
“Sir!”
“Relay the last known position of Sharp’s vessel.”
A blinking yellow dot appeared at the far end of the cloud, on the other side. It had left the Earth colony and was heading back into the sector core.
“Now estimate his course.”
A pulsing green line shown out before the Federation cruiser.
Sharp had been headed toward his patrol zone, but was skating closer to the cloud than previously. He could have been heading this way…
The Earth captain was planning something.
“Science Officer! Scan for the source of that transmission!”
“Yes, Commander!”
Rell whirled for his command seat. His battle instincts were up. Now was not the time to act. He’d have plenty of time to get his shields up before any attack could materialize from within the cloud, and raising them now would only foil Sharp’s plan, force him into another direction.
He looked to the spot where his First Officer had died yesterday.
Looks like you should have been more patient, Turak.”
“Commander! Recording subspace surge within our ship!”
Rell snapped his head toward the science officer before sitting.
“Source!”
“Unknown!”
“Run an internal scan! Check all ship systems! Call Battle Alert!”
The ship’s klaxon began to bellow out its monotone. All non-essential systems powered themselves down to channel power to the combat systems. The shields came up as weapons charged.
“Sir!” Shouted the ship’s Gunnery Officer. “Ship approaching!”
Too many things had drawn his attention in too many directions in too short a span of time. Rell could only hold on as his peripheral vision saw the blue torpedoes zip in and nail his forward screens. The ship staggered and reeled under the force as the missiles punished its shields. Damage alarms cried out in anger.
“We’re dropping out of warp!”
Rell clambered into his chair as gravity righted itself on the bridge. He could see his adversary; that saucer ship with the red-tipped nacelles slung beneath it and the blue deflector array atop; snap out of warp space and into reality. Its weapon ports glowed angrily.
“Thought to catch me unawares, Captain Sharp? You are guileful.” To his men he said: “Acquire target! Close in and fire from beneath his saucer!”
Again in combat armor, Lieutenant Mike Fujiwara hunkered low in the darkened, spacious corridor and fanned his rifle before him. His team of four kept their lights off. No one had reported their safe arrival. For now, stealth was paramount.
They were deep within the interior of the Klingon battlecruiser, beamed there while still marginally at warp speed and while just coming out of the Rift. Mike could not have been less comfortable with the situation.
A quick scan from his tricorder picked up the energy emissions he was after. He dropped the scanner to dangle on its lanyard and gave the hand signal to move up. His team leap-frogged from corner to corner. They would not go undiscovered long, and had to make distance quickly. Luckily, they were on the right deck.
This was a non-critical area of the ship. With every Klingon soldier at his battle station, no one moved about in the halls. So long as they didn’t encounter an odd guard post or get noticed on internal cameras, they should make it to their destination without witnesses. Mike figured their chances of that as 50/50.
Another 90 degree turn. Fujiwara grabbed up his scanner and probed the way. The compartment they were after lay ahead. Two guards stood in their path. He’d really expected more. He conveyed their number to his team. One readied the electronic infiltration device they would soon need. The other two unbelted two grenades apiece.
The Klingon’s return fire was fierce. Their initial barrage of photons had done little more than destabilize the D-5’s warp field. Dropping out of warp in front of them had made the Cleopatra look like she was spoiling for a fight.
Thus far, the plan was solid.
“Shields holding at 80%!” Davenport called out. “They’re coming in low!”
“She’s faster than us, but we’re more maneuverable,” Ford added, fighting the helm as his phasers lashed out on auto-fire. “I can keep him from getting under our torpedoes.”
Sharp eyed the trade of crimson and blue Starfleet weapons for the blue and red of Klingon. His ship shuddered and pitched with each hit. That D-5 packed some serious cannon. How long could his shields withstand the strain?
Commander Ellyson looked back to the captain from her readouts.
“Captain! Rell’s shields are holding at 90%. Our phasers aren’t going to bring them down at the standard setting!”
As the battlecruiser approached, still trying to bank and turn beneath the Cleo’s saucer, Davenport unleashed his third volley of photon torpedoes. The weapons, combined with Ford’s phasers, punched the enemy craft in the jaw, splashing across powerful force fields.
“Our phasers can operate at twice that output.” He called back to the XO.
“But can the power system sustain it?”
“It’ll have to.” He hit the waiting comm panel. “Engineering!”
“Bornet!”
“Increase charge rate to the phasers, we’re increasing to full power.”
“Alright, Captain. Recharge might be spotty, but you’ll get everything we have!”
“Mister Ford, set phasers to full!”
The ship’s new main phasers were designed for the far newer Constitution-Class starships. At half power, they were still 20% more powerful than the Cleo’s original weaponry. Ford smiled with glee unknown till now as he flipped a series of toggles.
“Full power, aye!”
The next barrage of phaser fire was blinding to behold against the spinning stars and the dull green hull of the Klingon ship.
Rell was hurled out of his chair as the strike slammed into his ship like a cage fighter’s spin-kick to the face. He tumbled down the raised dais to the main deck and glared back to the enemy ship. It had grown new fangs…
“Fore shields down to half!” Called one of his men.
“Reinforce power! Helm, get us under that ship!”
“I cannot, Commander. They turn too quickly!”
Quick on the heels of the last salvo, another began to rain home, and this one did not relent. The ship was battered and hammered.
“Turn us to starboard! Maximum thrusters!”
The D-5 turned, veering away from the surprising armament of the aged enemy ship. The move sent many of the incoming shots wide, but they soon began to trace the Klingons’ path. But now they hit fresher shields.
Rell retook his seat.
“Reroute auxiliary power from engines to forward shields. Gunnery, when I bear on him again, target that ship’s port nacelle. All weapons, concentrated fire!”
“Yes, Commander!”
“Commander! We have intruders near the computer core!”
Both Fujiwara’s subordinates stepped out and tossed their grenades as one. The Klingon sentries reacted quickly, ducking into shooting positions when they saw the humans, then leaping into the corners at either edge of the corridor when they recognized the grenades.
The explosives went off, their thud slapping Mike in the heart. He bolted around the corner. Both Klingons were mangled, the formerly red hallway panels aflame about them. Fujiwara put a shot into the Klingon closest to him to ensure his cooperation and knelt by the completely intact hatch the aliens had just given their lives for.
“Hatch is sealed. Charges!”
The charges were set by the lieutenant’s number two. She drew the zip-pin and the team withdrew 30 feet. The blast was not as terrible as the grenades had been, but no less effective. The hatch caved in nicely.
“Claymours!”
Mike’s number two knelt and deposited her mines at the mouth of the red-marked security corridor leading to the computer chamber. She lined the entire length of the hallway with mines, retreating with her men as she went.
Mike and another man moved into the smoke filled computer room swift as wind. They shot down the technicians operating the controls there, one stun blast each. It would not due for them to wreck the memory banks with too powerful a shot. Another shot to each man proved necessary, however. Klingons were robust.
Fujiwara’s entire team hunkered within the tiny chamber as Gunnery Officer Lo’sii laid out her infiltrator gear and began stabbing its hard connections into several open device ports. The tiny keyboard and screen lit up before the Tenatran noncom and she set to work.
Mike knew better than to ask how long it would take her to penetrate the computer’s security. He merely knelt in behind his other two men and readied to repel enemy soldiers.
“Deploying smoke!”
The man on Mike’s left slid a hockey puck shaped dispenser down the way in front of them. It popped, filling the confined space before them with a localized aerosol meant to foil the eye and infrared scan. Everything that could be done to prepare had just been done.
“They’re targeting our nacelles!” Susan shouted from the science station. Several of her arrays were reduced to static from the interference of repeated weapon hits and enemy jamming. She was working like mad to counter the Klingons’ electronic measures, but the Cleo’s best systems were 20 years out of date.
Another severe hit nearly rocked her out of her chair.
“Port nacelle shields are failing!”
Sharp barely stirred in the conn. His eyes were the only animate part of his being. “Redirect starboard shield power to the port nacelle! We can’t lose warp drive!”
Another brace of torpedoes slammed into the ship, rippling down her flanks and the Cleo’s beleaguered warp engine. The bridge lighting failed, replaced by emergencies. His order had been too late.
“Warp drive offline!”
Sharp shot his eyes to Ellyson.
“How bad?” He barked.
Commander Ellyson turned her console over to her relief and lunged across the bridge. She clung to the railing till she reached the engineering station and began toggling through indicators. What she read puzzled her.
“No direct hull damage to the nacelle, Captain! There’s not enough damage to knock out the drive!”
The tech manning the controls pointed to his main panel.
“Warp drive is down, though, sir! There’s no plasma reaching the engines!”
Captain Sharp savagely attacked his intercom again.
“Engineering! Mister Bornet report!”
“Here, Captain! I’m on it!”
“What’s going on down there?”
“I can’t find a reason for warp failure… I’m looking!”
Lieutenant Bornet cast a wary glance off at the fire across his engine bay, which was being fought by three of his best damage control specs. Turbine gear oil could be messy… He plied his wide eyes to the console again, looking for a fault or indicator.
“I have no pressure to the coolant mains!” He reported through the open communicator in his hairy hand. He traded this console for the next one ten feet away.
“It’s got to be a safety valve, but the valve indicators tell me they’re all open and operational!”
“Engineer, we’ve got to have warp speed to make this plan work! Get it back online!”
“Aye, aye, Captain, sir!!” The Tellarite slapped the comm shut and took off at a run to his damage control team leaders.
“Get moving! Visually check every single damn cutoff valve in this plant! Reset them manually, and make sure they work!”
“Aye, aye, sir!”
Jave’s men and women dispersed. There were 167 coolant main valves within this engine room that could affect the warp drive in this way. A faulty monitor on any one or more of them could have caused this. He didn’t want to die because of a faulty bit of wire.
Captain Sharp clambered forth and took hold of the helm console’s side so he could look closely at Mister Ford.
“Helmsman, we need a gap in those shields.”
“I know, sir. He keeps turning his stronger shields toward us after he makes a run. He’s faster than us and won’t come into point blank range.”
Ford’s phasers were even then chattering away, punctuated by the navigator’s photon volleys. A stray explosion tore away a sensor antenna from the Klingon ship’s dorsal. But still her shields would not give way for more than an instant.
“You’ve got to get us closer, Lieutenant. We can’t beam our team out unless their shields are down.”
Ford squinted, concentrating on the enemy.
“I might have a plan, sir.”
“Do it.”
Ford reached up and pulled the impulse drive throttle back to half power. Combined with the maneuver he was still implementing, the Cleo’s speed fell off drastically. He reversed his turn then, banking suddenly away from the enemy ship.
“This is your plan?”
“Makes us look hurt, sir. When the away team’s ready, I’ll be ready.”
Sharp nodded.
“Reroute impulse power to shields!” He called, returning to the conn. “Begin evasive Delta Five!”
“They lose power, Commander!”
Rell peered closely at the now running enemy starship. The humans had almost lost all their shields, and now they had lost half their speed. The blackened vessel was looking like a target recovered from a long day down-range.
“Plot strafing patterns to run flank to flank from her stern quarters! That class of ship has no aft torpedo launcher and only two aft phasers.”
As the saucer shaped craft ran away, injured, his own nimble ship turned and gained distance, then swooped in, firing hard into the center of the main hull. The Earthers’ maneuvers were slower, totally defensive. Their weapons fire was limited to sporadic bursts from the rear guns. The battle would not be long now.
“Stand by boarding parties!”
Lieutenant Fujiwara ducked low and withdrew into cover as the first shot zipped out from the smoke-filled hall. One of his men returned fire, sparking a general trade of shots back and forth. The enemy was using stun energy, wary of damaging their computer core. The advantage remained with his team so long as the Klingons didn’t get close enough to lob a stun grenade through the open door.
Mike learned out and fired off a series of rapid shots toward likely targets. More azure beams responded, slapping the bulkhead before him. The sound of heavy boots made him and his men pull back quickly.
The Claymour was far more frightening in an enclosed space. Ball bearings ricocheted about fiercely, even rebounding back into the computer bay.
Mike glanced back to Lo’sii. The Tenatran had worked her way through several firewalls and was falsifying pass codes to enter the encrypted data core. She had minutes left. How many, he still didn’t know.
An angry shout and screams of a wounded man came from the smoke. Heated fire poured forth, battering the secondary core control station with stun energy. Leaning insanely low, he and his men returned fire, rifles set to lethal effect. Specialist Stanley hurled a grenade down the way.
None of the intruders had yet noticed the waft of smoke coming from the bulkhead beneath the main computer bank interface. Gunnery Officer Lo’sii continued to work, completely unawares.
“I’m past their security. Got complete control!”
“Good!” Mike shouted back. “Finish up!”
“Downloading all transporter and communications records for the past month—“
Lo’sii’s shout jerked Mike about where he was hunkering. Two arms had protruded from beneath the console she stood at and had yanked her down from her feet. A disruptor stabbed forth as she fought to bring her rifle up. She’d landed on the weapon, and was defenseless to prevent her demise. The blue blast took the top of her head off, helmet and all.
Fujiwara knew what was coming next. He and his men whirled and opened fire on the open hatch the Klingons had diligently cut through from a maintenance tunnel beyond. They opened fire on the tiny opening even as the disruptor’s owner reared back to throw his grenade. The deluge of phaser blasts knocked the Klingon’s upper torso into shreds and the grenade went off in his limp hand.
The lieutenant was up immediately, mad as hell. He stepped over his dead crewmate, comm in hand as he dropped his rifle for the blackened infiltrator on the console desktop.
“Cleopatra! Mission accomplished! Beam us out of here!”
“Now Mister Ford!”
Lieutenant Chevis Ford jammed the throttle forth with meaning and keyed in the turn he’d been planning for some minutes now. The enemy was following, strafing from port to starboard behind them. The D-5 was coming about on another starboard run.
The Cleopatra, suddenly accelerating to full impulse power, lurched out of her reverie and leapt upon the unprepared warship. She fired everything she had.
“Coming to port again,” the helm was calling out. “Increasing to full speed.”
Rell was almost bored with the repetition.
“The enemy is closing!”
He blinked.
“What?!”
The D-5 was hit, this time from close range. The little old cruiser had cleared the distance between them within seconds, and was shown bearing in on the main viewscreen. It’s weapons blazed, several impacting the shields protecting the bridge. The ship lolled and thundered.
“Forward shields down!”
“Energize!”
Commander Ellyson watched the transporter indicators on her auxiliary panel. “Transport complete! We’ve got them!”
“Restore shields! Helm, turn us back to the Rift!”
Ford did so reluctantly. The enemy was taking their first real damage in this fight, and the feeling was glorious. But even then, the Klingons were cannibalizing shield coverage to protect the injured bow. He yanked the Cleo away and accelerated the ship away from her adversaries.
“Reroute all remaining power to the aft shields.” Sharp was commanding. He again found the intercom controls.
“Engineering, we need warp speed!”
The first of the next wave of weapon strikes found the Cleopatra’s rear end.
“All coolant main valves operational, Lieutenant!”
Jave glared at the fearful confusion on the DC chief’s face.
“We can’t find any faults!”
“Did you check every one?”
“Yes, sir! We even looked in the manual!”
Bornet growled. Manuals be damned! The manual on this ship was little more than toilet paper. His mind flashed through the thousands of possible components that could cause warp drive failure. He kept coming up with only one thing that caused a pressure failure without line damage…
Ensign Mianar flipped herself up on the railing beside the snarling engineer. The Mienieni’s little cilia were pointing up and aft.
“Ooomii-na-nooo, la-noorinooo!”
“sh*t! Why didn’t you remind me of that sooner!”
Jave took off at a run. He cleared two runs of stairs and barreled past his damage control team. He was headed for the section behind the EPS grid, at the far end of engineering.
Two years before, he’d found a bit of un-chronicled jury-rigging within the coolant system. Such an innocuous thing, a single valve in the midst of the gas pressure monitor system leading to the EPS array. That same valve was part of the grid of piping that regulated the pressure monitor for the coolant plant. If that stupid valve had flipped closed, the sudden lack of gas pressure would have disabled the entire coolant distribution system.
And that damn valve didn’t have a single monitoring relay on it!
Jave reached the pipe segment, saw the greasy valve. It was just a tiny thing, just four inches wide with a seven-inch long lever. The trigger showed it to be shut. He tried to work the valve handle. It didn’t budge.
“Spanner!”
His men looked up at him, confused. They couldn’t even hear him from so far below him. He pantomimed working a spanner.
“Throw me a f*cking wrench!”
Motion from portside caught his eye as Ensign Mianar flowed down the catwalk on her mop of tendrils. Above her head was held a dirty, colorless pipe wrench. He snatched it up from her.
“You’re getting a raise!”
Turning, he drew down the wrench with all his might.
Rell watched with growing anticipation as the Federation starship limped ahead, running from him. They’d turned tail, intent on escaping into the gas cloud with their reclaimed boarding crew.
Obviously, their warp capability was impaired. Otherwise, this would have turned into a faster than light chase, where his own ship could outrun Sharp’s by four warp factors.
Sharp had penetrated Rell’s shields, reclaimed his boarding party and whatever they’d been after in the computer core. For what good it would do them. It would take them a week to decode it, and in a few minutes, Rell’s men would be boarding that ship to take it back from them anyway.
Blue disruptor bolts flew down on the enemy cruiser, pummeling away patiently at its shields. Do what they may, the humans would not be able to keep them up much longer. Rell knew he could destroy them. But he wanted to know how they’d beamed aboard his ship from a ship moving at warp speed. Such knowledge would be most advantageous.
“Enemy shields have failed, Commander.”
“Prepare tractor beams—“
The human ship leapt away.
Amazed, dumbfounded, Rell sat looking at his viewer and the gray white cloud the humans had just blasted away toward. He kept his mind working.
“I have their course, sir. Ready to overtake.”
Rell made a dark face, sure of what he’d find on the other side of that cloud.
“I think not, helmsman. When we emerged on the other side of that anomaly, we would find the USS Constantinople bearing in on us to reinforce the humans. This Sharp does not act without a plan.”
Rell stood up, his pride tarnished.
“Return us to our patrol zone. I will inspect the computer core and make my report to General Tor.”
(And yes...the misspelling of Claymore is still intentional.)
--guv
Topic: Cleopatra #2 (Read 14272 times)