Huh. So the Odyssey might survive this one? Or at least, IF they manage to evade that one suicide bugship...
Well...
- - -
The transport ship arrived: A
London-class transport, USS
Lagos. And after some final consultations with the tactical officer aboard the
Odyssey, Keiko was beamed aboard with the rest of the squadron. The cargo bays of the ship were wide, almost completely empty, with their ships safely secured: A welcome surprise given the last time.
They got to work on prepping their fighters, Andross smoothly taking sliding into the cockpit and running the pre-flight check for their own. Keiko made to get in too, but a hand on her shoulder stopped her. Zira was there, smiling sunnily up at Andross.
“Just need to borrow Keiko for a moment, be right back,” she said. The pretty Orion led Keiko away, near her fighter. “Keiko, can you double check the sensors on my ship? I don’t want Hajar to yell at me.”
“I guess I can do that,” Keiko replied hurriedly. Zira led her up to a console hastily set up alongside the Peregrine. Keiko ran through the checks on the sensors and other systems, just to be thorough, as Zira leaned in close.
“So… About the job Commander Sisko offered,” Zira began. Keiko rolled her eyes. Of course.
“I haven’t decided yet,” she said stiffly. “And your timing sucks.”
“We’re going into battle, we can’t just put it off,” Zira pointed out. Keiko sighed, running another diagnostic on the tactical systems.
“Maybe,” she admitted. Zira leaned in.
“Keiko, I get that you want to save the Federation. I really do. I admire that about you,” she said, her eyes showing nothing but sincerity. “So I understand the conflict.”
“And?” Keiko asked, glaring at her. “Why do I have to make the decision right now? Why do I have to do anything? I might decide not to, you know!”
Zira nodded. “I know,” she said. “But if it’s twisting you up inside with just the option? Maybe you need to pull back and let it go. At least,” she held up her hands, “for a little bit. Especially since we are about to enter combat.”
Keiko sighed, and slowly nodded. “It’s not my first time,” she reminded the Orion. Zira nodded.
“I know,” she said. “I just don’t want to see you die because you were too wrapped up in yourself.”
Keiko turned to Zira. The Orion woman looked solemn: An unusual sight. Keiko shook her head.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” she said, “but let’s try to assume we’re going to live through this. All right?”
“I never assume anything,” Zira said. “Life can be so short, and I just want you to not have any regrets. They’ll haunt you and everyone else after death.”
Keiko sighed softly. She did a final check on all systems. “You’re good to go,” she told Zira. “And… I’ll try.”
Zira beamed, and hugged her. “Good,” she said. She then gave her a quick peck on the lips, making Keiko flush and stutter.
“H-Hey! Don’t get so familiar!” She cried, pulling away. Zira laughed.
“Ah, uptight humans! You’re always so much fun,” she giggled. She headed off, climbing into her fighter behind the annoyed looking Hajar. “Take care out there!” She said with a wave. Keiko returned it, a small smile on her face.
“You too.”
- - -
It didn’t take long after that for their little flotilla to head for the wormhole. Keiko herself had seen footage of it, of course. They all had. To actually go through the swirling, blue and white maelstrom was something else entirely.
“It’s incredible,” she breathed, looking around the vast swirling energies, to the strange event horizon beyond that seemed to ripple like water. “It’s… Nothing like the theories we had.”
“Well, it was built by people a lot smarter than us,” Andross said. Keiko nodded, gazing in wonder around the strange passage.
All too soon, the trip ended and they exited out on the other side of the galaxy. The mighty
Odyssey followed after their four fighters, with the runabouts
Mekong, Orinoco and
Farbanti in tow. The group of ships set course for the system Commander Sisko was supposed to have gone to for his son’s camping trip, and they jumped to warp.
They reached the system in only around 20 minutes, and cruised at impulse towards the inner worlds. Only one planet was habitable, and the trail left by the runabout
Rio Grande led right for it, so they followed the path.
It was at this time their sensors went off, and Keiko checked the readings of the intruders against what they’d gotten off the Jem’hadar ship that had come through the wormhole.
“Confirmed: I read three… No, four Jem’hadar vessels,” Keiko reported, the data confirmed along the communications links between all the Federation ships. “Approaching at high impulse speed.”
“Red alert. Shields up. Arm weapons,” Keogh ordered.
“Chevalier Flight, increase speed,” Shran ordered. Andross complied, and soon the four ships were accelerating. The runabouts trailed behind, staying near the
Odyssey.
“Fan out and stay with your wingmates.”
“Acknowledged,” Andross returned.
The Jem’hadar ships screamed into view, moving fast in a tight formation. By her readings, each of the vessels were about four to five times the mass of their Peregrines at least, but had a much higher power output. That said, the readings were getting more difficult to analyze.
“Chevalier 1 to
Orinoco, my sensors are being jammed,” Keiko reported. “What are you seeing?”
“Looks like active ECM. I’m sort through it and-Power spike! Break off! Break off!” Dax shouted. Andross imediately pulled hard to starboard, a barrage of white energy blasts erupting from the Jem’hadar ships. The smallcraft evaded, the Jem’Hadar ships flying like they were one vessel and plowing through their formations. Andross reacted on instinct, flipping around to get behind the ships and chase them. Suref’s Peregrine followed, sticking close. The Mekong wasn’t able to evade fast enough, so opened up with hers phasers at the Jem’hadar ships while trying to dive below them. The Jem’hadar vessels responded with a withering hail of fire, a few shots of which hit the runabout’s engines and sent it spiralling away.
“Mekong! Mekong,
do you read?” Shran barked.
“We read! Engines are offline, we’ve got a hull breach in the rear compartment!” Bashir shouted over the comms.
“Farbanti
, assist the Mekong
and get out of there. We’ve got this,” Keogh ordered, and the
Odyssey’s powerful phasers lashed out, her two massive saucer emitters lit up and letting loose two powerful beams. The Jem’hadar shifted in their formation, one vessel breaking and taking the fire. The beams kept punishing the lone attack ship, until they punched through and struck the little ship dead on. It went up into a massive fireball, the debris flying everywhere. Keiko found herself cheering…
Until the other three ships, using the opening presented by their fellow’s sacrificed, opened up with a furious storm of beam weapon fire. The blasts shot right to the hull of the
Galaxy-class starship, pummeling the joint of where the engineering hull met the neck of the ship. They kept this fire concentrated, more shots striking across the neck all the way to the stardrive’s impulse drive. A final flurry of shots in the Jem’hadar’s pass struck the port nacelles, gouging out craters in the warp field coils.
The lights of the
Odyssey abruptly dimmed, her port warp nacelle flickering like a burnt out lightbulb. The ship’s attitude control began to suffer, as her thrusters fired frantically to right the mighty ship. Keiko’s cheer died, her jaw dropping.
“Odyssey! Odyssey,
this is Orinoco!
What happened?” Dax’s voice shouted over the comms.
“Their weapons went right through our shields! Some kind of polaron beam!” Keogh reported, the faint sounds of people shouting and the ship rumbling going on in the background.
“Main power has been taken out, along with our forward torpedo launcher! Power distribution systems are offline, trying to re-route!”
The Jem’hadar ships swung back around, still with that eerie, incredible precision. Andross accelerated to full impulse, shooting past the
Odyssey.
“Hang on
Odyssey!” Andross called. “I’ve got you…” He locked phasers and pulled the trigger, orange beams lashing out at the Jem’hadar ships and hitting… Nothing. “What?! Keiko!”
“Engaging,” Suref said, but his fighter’s phasers also hit nothing. The Jem’hadar returned fire, and the fighters broke out of the path of the beams. Once again, they flew by, still tight in their formation.
“I have missed.”
Keiko’s fingers flew over the console. She checked the sensors-No, they were working fine except for…
“It’s the active jamming!” Keiko shouted. “They’re actively jamming our targeting sensors when we try to lock on!”
“All ships, close to point blank range and engage the Jem’hadar! Protect the Odyssey!” Shran ordered.
“Orinoco
to Odyssey,
did you try changing shield frequencies?” Dax asked, her runabout throwing phaser fire at the Jem’hadar fighters from a close orbit around the mighty starship.
“We went through the entire electromagnetic spectrum! No effect at all!” Keogh shouted.
“We are diverting shield power to the weapons!”
“We’re picking up the Rio Grande,
Captain,” Dax continued. “
We’re going to rendeavous!”
“All right! Get the runabout, get Sisko and then let’s get the hell out of here!” Keogh ordered.
“Shran, buy us time!”
“Understood!” Shran responded.
“Split them up, people!”
Andross, Suref at his side, closed the range with the nearest Jem’hadar ship making another run at the
Odyssey. The two fighters opened up, their beams finally making contact with the Jem’hadar vessel and lighting up its shields. It turned, staying in formation and firing its beams backwards. Andross pulled up hard, Suref breaking with him to avoid the shots. Shran’s fighter, along with Hajar’s were attacking from the other side, the same result. It did mean the next pass, only one Jem’hadar fighter was hitting the
Odyssey-Raking its beams across its engineering section.
The
Odyssey returned fire with a few weak phaser blasts-Pulsing the beams to try and get them functioning with what they could get out of the shield generators. It wasn’t much, but it did force the Jem’hadar to break. One of them streaked for the
Mekong, the
Farbanti already orbiting it.
“Suref, I’m going to play bait. Get ready with the micro-photons,” Andross ordered.
“Acknowledged,” Suref replied.
Andross pursued this one, firing phasers. The beams lashed out and struck the rear of the scarab-shaped vessel, and it swung about to engage them directly. Andross dove hard, as Suref went high. The Jem’hadar ship dove after Andross, its beam pulsing around them and filling space with deadly energy.
All the while, Keiko’s fingers were furiously working, her mind accelerating. “Suref, throw every micro torpedo you have at the junction between the generators on the back! Quickly!” She shouted.
“Understood,” Suref replied. A moment later, Suref’s fighter dove down on the Jem’hadar vessel like an avenging angel, its microphoton pods launching a rain of death. The shots landed like hail on a roof, the shields of the Jem’hadar fighter lighting up before giving up the ghost. The shields were down.
“Andross!” Keiko shouted. Andross flipped the Peregrine around and launched his own microphotons, pulling the ship down beneath the beams of the fighter. Every shot landed on the unshielded ventral hull of the vessel, puncturing and exploding into the vulnerable hull.
The Jem’hadar ship flew past them, tumbling as internal explosions began to rock and shake it from within. Until ultimately, the vessel exploded. The shockwave rattled the Peregrine’s hull, but Andross kept control as he pushed his impulse engines to full. Andross finally let out the breath he was holding, panting hard.
“Got him!” Andross gasped. Keiko nodded, checking her sensors again. Another communication came through, on the general band.
“Rio Grande
to all ships, we’ve got Commander Sisko and everyone else,” O’Brien called. Keogh sounded relieved.
“Understood! Everyone, withdrawal! Back to the wormhole!” Keogh ordered.
“We’ve got what we came for!”
Keiko checked on everyone else: Shran’s Jem’hadar attack ships had been forced away from the
Odyssey, Shran’s lone fighter pursuing them to keep harassing them with bold attacks. Hajar and Zira’s fighter was back nearer the
Odyssey, working with the
Orinoco to provide protection for the massive starship as it slowly limped away. The
Farbanti was towing the
Mekong with its tractor beam, leading the way for the withdrawal.
Abruptly, one of the Jem’hadar fighters broke from the engagement, and screamed at the
Odyssey at full impulse. A dark feeling settled into Keiko’s gut.
“
Odyssey, incoming Jem’hadar!” She shouted.
“This is Chevalier 4, we’ve got them,” Zira called out over the comms. Her fighter charged at the Jem’hadar ship, firing its phasers, determined to drive them away. Just as before.
The distance closed, smaller, smaller… Keiko gripped her console harder. The Jem’hadar fighter had to break, it was taking damage. Why wasn’t it-?
“Chevalier 4! Break! Break!” Shran ordered. The Peregrine finally pulled away, but too late: The Jem’hadar fighter put on even more speed, and smashed through the fighter, cutting it in half and sending the pieces spinning away into large plasma explosions. Keiko’s gut fell into oblivion, her body going cold.
“Zira! Zira, respond, respond-!”
The horror wasn’t over yet though. The
Orinoco fired her own phasers, missing the fast moving purple starship that was already damaged. The
Odyssey herself fired another few weak blasts, striking the fighter’s starboard nacelle. Yet its purpose, what it had intended from the start, was fulfilled.
The Jem’hadar ship rammed into the
Odyssey’s forward engineering hull, vanishing into a gigantic explosion of heat, light and debris. The starboard nacelle was struck by the largest pieces of the doomed ship, shattering it and causing another explosion as the warp coils buckled and bled plasma. The explosion diminished, just enough to see the raw, burning remains of the forward engineering hull of the
Odyssey. All her power systems and transmissions died as power abruptly failed every system. The ship buckled, shuddered, and began to drift. Keiko hit the communications key.
“
Odyssey! Odyssey! Please respond! Please-!”
The warp core went up like a nova, and the entire
Odyssey exploded into a massive, short lived sun. The flames died in the vacuum, as quickly as they appeared, leaving only the white hot corpse of the once mighty vessel. Keiko ran through her sensors, the shock leaving her disconnected but still functional. Her slim hope evaporated: No lifesigns detected.
None in the debris field of the
Odyssey. None in the pieces of Zira and Hajar’s fighter.
Nothing but death.
“... Shran to all ships,” the Andorian commander said, his voice grim.
“Set course for the wormhole.”
“Understood,” Andross responded softly. He set course, his fingers stiff. “... Keiko? Keiko?”
Keiko didn’t respond. She found her arms encircling herself tightly as she shivered.
She was so
cold right now…
- - -
... No. She didn't survive this time. The Jem'hadar are still fully willing to kamikaze.