The Battle of Latari (Part 4 of 6)

Posted on 06 Jul 2019 @ 11:48am by Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & Chief Warrant Officer 3 Lamar Darius & Commander Luke Wyatt & Lieutenant Amaranai Franklin & Lieutenant JG Matthew Plumeri & Lieutenant Commander Ryan Alexander & Ensign Callin Mastrel & Lieutenant JG Sofie Ullswater & Captain Hiroshi Tanakata & Senior Chief Petty Officer Goldie Brown
Edited on on 06 Jul 2019 @ 12:00pm

4,060 words; about a 20 minute read

Mission: Episode 17 - Crystal of Life
Location: Latari System - Latari A III Orbit
Timeline: MD 01, 0529 hrs

Previously, on The Battle of Latari (Part 3)...

Jones saw how the Tholian weapons were continuing to penetrate the shield frequencies. As Plumeri said, if they didn't do something immediately, they'd be destroyed. "Receiving reports of multiple hull breaches. Starboard nacelle is offline." She looked at the captain. "Picking up more inbound ships, sir."

Hiroshi was still in his chair but gripping the side arms tightly as the ship rocked. Reports were coming in everyplace and the ship was in trouble. They had lost the the starboard nacelle and already had hull breaches. Even worse the ship was returning and with friends. It did not look good but he would be damned if they went down without a fight.

And Now, the Continuation...

[ON]

USS Galileo

The Orion captain quickly tapped her green fingers against the center LCARS console to reconfigure the sensor display for a CQB engagement. When the Tholian frigate finished its attack run and sped away, she received the preliminary damage report from Trial and watched it turn back to re-engage with a damaged nacelle. "Helm, maneuver about-face to stay with Trial!"

Lamar manually entered a new course plot then synched its bearings with the Miranda-class. "Coming around, new course one-nine-nine mark two-zero. Eight seconds," he reported. On the main viewscreen, the stars shifted then started to streak to the side as Galileo performed a sharp, coordinated maneuver with her larger support ship.

"Callin," Lirha added during the turn, "can you find a way through their shields?" It was an order phrased as a question yet a critical necessity for their imminent survival.

Callin didn't have an answer right away, but did have a firm grip on his console to keep himself upright and sweat beading on his furrowed brow. Everything was happening too fast, the data coming in on his screens, the attack and counterattack, the surge of the inertial dampeners as they caught up to the ship. One of the scanners registered a clear report at last, just for a moment before the Tholian's compensated showing him the hard numbers: they were on the most efficient frequency to dissipate the Galileo's attacks. He called out, "Until we can get ahead of their scanners, Captain, I recommend switching to a rotating frequency on the phasers. Hit them as fast as we can even if we aren't charging up to full strength."

The bridge's other science ensign was frantically looking through the scans from the most recent attack on Trial. Now that they were in close enough range it was clear that the Tholian sensors were able to scan the shield frequencies of the Miranda-class vessel and account for them. If they couldn't work out some way to protect the other ship Trial and her crew would soon be looking a lot less alive. Taking all this in Ullswater set to work on trying to find a solution - between the flexibility of the shield systems and the remaining effectiveness of the sensor countermeasures there must be something in the toolboxes of the two science ships that could save them.


USS Trial

On the plus side, the Trial now had enough hits on her from the Tholian frigates that Plumeri could get a proper reading on the amplitude and energy signature of the Tholian weapons used to do so much damage to the Trial. And on the minus side was time; they were running out of it.

The environmental control had been damaged and so the bridge of the Trial was hazy with acrid smoke. It stung his eyes and Matt wiped his face with the sleeve of his uniform. It was hot in here now and that didn't help. Working as fast as he could, he plotted a formula to calculate the next few hits from the Tholians and derive from that the energy needed and the correct polarization field necessary. He focused on his work and tried his best not to think about the fact that explosions and death surrounded the bridge of the Trial. "This is the last damn time I make any more housecalls!" He said to himself. Finally! The derived formula came through with a range and Plumeri entered it into the hull plating enerons and capacitors and activated the field. It would take twenty to forty seconds for the outer skin of the hull - that parts that didn't have gaping holes in them at least - to charge up. And when they did - the Tholians would start getting a resonance feedback along their phaser emitters. The more they fired, the stronger their weapons were would feeback along their phaser arcs and hopefully stop them from firing. "Captain, ship's hull polarizing now! Twenty to forty seconds before full resonance charge!" Plumeri stated in his best strong voice he could muster.

"Lieutenant Plumeri, Ullsworth here." Came the ensign's voice through the comms system using a moment of levity to hide anxiety. Back on Galileo's bridge she had, pulled up on her station, the schematics for Trial's deflector grid and all the information she could find on Tholian weaponry. They were going to find a way out of this. "We need to find a way to re-modulate the shields before..." Ullswater paused not wanting to continue the sentence.

An auxillary Engineering panel exploded on the Trial's bridge as if to accentuate Sofie's point. Sparks and a mushroom cloud of smoke erupted from the panel and sent the crewman manning it flying back. Burns and cuts not withstanding; he was OK. Matthew could not hide his surprise nor his joy at hearing a friendly voice, "Ullsworth?!" Matthew smiled and almost laughed. If he didn't hack her first name; he hacked her last name. "Ullswater...yeah, yeah...Good to hear your voice Ensign. Before we blow up? Yeah. That thought occurred to me as well!"

Another hit and the Trial started to vent warp plasma from her starboard nacelle. "Oh that ain't good" Matt said. "UUuhhhh...our shield emitters are kinda fried. And our ventral axis has more holes than grampa's underwear. Can you ask the Tholians to only fire on our topside?" He said as he worked on Sofie's plan. The problem now was power. Shields or weapons - it was coming down to that.

"Look - I've got some ideas." Ullswater replied from Galileo, calmed a bit from hearing that her friend still sounded somewhat alive "Well, one idea so far. We might still be able to get come effectiveness out of Galileo's ECM. I'm going to try and create a signature that the Tholian's sensors will match as the new shield modulation," as she was saying it here fingers dashed across her console putting the plan into action "I hope it can hide the new modulations just long enough for the Tholians to fire before they realise the trick."

Again working while talking she sent off a list through a secure channel directly to Plumeri's console on the Trial. "I'm sending you a list of real modulations that should be most effective with shadow ones that I'll use."

On his right hand panel, through a long vertical crack on the surafce of the panel that made reading it difficult, Plumeri read off the shield modulations that Sofie was sending. "I'm getting your modulations. I think. Send them again please? Half the screen resolution? Only half my panel is readable."

Sitting in front of her fully readable screen on Galileo Ullswater suddenly felt slightly taken aback. Clearly things were even worse than she thought aboard the other ship. "They're coming through again." She responded opting for a more compact visualisation this time.

Following Sofie's remodulation algorithm, Matt entered the commands. His panel lit up and it was all in red and then - it went completely black. It looked like it was dead. Someone yelled from the OPS station, "The shields have collapsed!" It made Matt's heart sink. Then, with a sudden flash, the broken LCARS panel at Plumeri's station started up again and the shield emitters were in a constant state of rotating frequencies. It was working! "Ullsworth! I mean Ullswater! You did it! The re-modulated shield emitters...I don't know what you did...I don't know how...but we're getting our shields back. 10%....12%...15% and climbing!" The bridge shuddered as the Tholians landed another hit - but the shields held. "Shields are back online!" someone yelled. "You did it Ullswater! I mean Ullsworth. I mean, no, Ullswater!. Thank you!" Matthew typed into the panel and sent the reply, "THANK YOU! I owe you your favorite coffee!" This time he did smile - knowing full well that she didn't drink coffee.


Above Latari A III

In space, Galileo and Trial completed their turn and initiated another head-on attack run against the Tholian three-ship formation. Puffy tendrils of warp plasma trailed from the Miranda-class' damaged nacelle as it maneuvered down on the Y-axis to present its dorsal shields to the enemy and protect its damaged underside. Galileo's single impulse engine glowed bright red while it descended to match the three-dimensional descent.

Lirha glanced up from her console to watch the image of the three Tholians starships rapidly closing. She'd witnessed the damage done to Trial from a single tetryon barrage and knew her smaller vessel couldn't survive the same. She'd also overheard the comms between Ullswater and Plumeri, the two science officers attempting to lock down the shield grids. "Amaranai, ready quantum torpedoes and target the lead ship," she said to her tactical officer before looking to Ullswater. "Sofie, shield status!"

Amaranai turned her attention to a secondary panel and brought up a new screen. She began loading the quantum torpedoes and pressed a few buttons to set their target. The panel beeped briefly giving Amaranai the information she needed.

"Quantum torpedoes ready, captain," she said. "Target locked. On your mark."

"Shields are active for both us and Trial Captain." Came the report from Ullswater's science station. Though Plumeri sounded eager to celebrate already she still had little idea how well Trial's shields would actually hold and she was not yet feeling much confidence at all.

Over the comms, the Trial's captain could be heard, "We have two loaded full size torpedoes loaded and ready and with functioning launchers Captain Lirha. Turning over firing and coordination to the Galileo."

Galileo's captain put her green hand on Luke's large forearm. Even with the shields re-modulated, it would be a tough fight. "If we survive this, I'll give you the rest of my Romulan Ale," she weakly offered. The command console between them showed the Tholains now entering optimal weapons range.

Luke gave the Orion Captain a firm grip as she steadied herself before turning to the Amaranai, "Fire, Let's give them something to doubt the next time they decide to fire at us." The venom in his voice was easily noticeable, it was clear to the crew he wasn't happy with the current situation, who would be?

Amaranai heard the commander's call and pressed the fire button. The quantum torpedoes let loose and Amaranai felt the jolt in the ship. She watched as they approached their target.

The two opposing formations once again merged head-to-head. Galileo's forward launchers flared and sent her quantum torpedoes on target while the Trial's rollbar added its own salvos. The torpedo fire was accompanied by a full frontal phaser assault against the lead Tholian ship, but was simultaneously returned in force by the silicon enemy. Coordinated tetryon beams slammed into the forward shields of both Galileo and Trial, repeatedly striking them in methodical sequence. The Starfleet vessels' phasers converged on the lead ship and tried to penetrate its shields, but each hit was efficiently absorbed by the Tholian shield grid.

The Tholian ships then snapped from their formation into opposite directions with surprising speed and agility to evade the incoming projectiles. The Starfleet torpedoes attempted to track the swift movements and adjust course, but with such high-velocity maneuvers, they streaked above and behind their targets.

The security officer watched the sensors and tilted her head as she realized what was happening.

"Dammit!" she yelled. "They missed!"

The starships continued firing on each other as each ship now entered point-blank range and maneuvered to gain the turn advantage. Galileo and Trial again targeted the designated Tholian ship but only managed to do minimal damage. In return, they were peppered with precise and penetrating blue beams which started to collapse their shields.

"We're merged, captain!" Lamar called out from the conn. The Nova-class jolted from each shield impact while his dark fingers tapped furiously across the helm console to keep the frigate in an offensive position. He quickly noticed one Tholian vessel breaking off to present a good pursuit course, then noticed the other two enemy starships continuing their turn to maneuver behind them. "They're coming around!" he reported.

The ship was taking a beating. Too much of a beating. Amaranai was hanging on and keeping an eye on the shields. The most recent hit was enough for the brunette to pay attention.

"Captain!" Amaranai said. "Shields down to 50%."

Regardless of the status of the shields, Amaranai continued her firing pattern.

"Damage reports coming in," Ryan said as he relayed what he saw, "looks like we sustained light damage to engines. Damage control teams dispatched." Ryan relayed to the bridge.

"The Tholian's have adapted their attacks again." Ullswater reported, somewhat dismayed in how short the lifespan of her plan had been. "They have calibrated weapons to be able to deal with our shields."

Right on his friend's heels, Callin called out, "Phaser adaptations aren't working either. It's almost as if they know before we do what frequency to block!" Just to be safe he started a new scan to see if he could pick up any low-level communication bands they were transmitting, but the dismay in his tone was plain; Callin couldn't figure the dilemma out and the fear was getting to him. Just about the only thing he could think of now was that somehow someone or something on board both Starfleet ships was feeding their opponents information.

The forward deflector array of one trailing Tholian frigate started to glow and suddenly the Galileo and Trial's computer systems started to experience visual distortion accompanied by intense audible screeching. Similar to the previous crystalline sounds, this one was more pronounced and now rendered all nearby Starfleet communications and targeting systems inoperable.

Ryan fought to keep is footing as the audible screeching roared through ship. He tried his previous trick, but he wasn't able to get frequency just right to counter act the sound as he had before, though he dampen the sound slightly. He quickly ran though he screens, trying to reconnect with the Trial. "Captain, commutations and our targeting sensors are being jammed by the Tholians." Ryan called out. As he attempted to reroute power to the affected systems to brute force there way through the jamming. "Attempting to circumvent the jamming now."

"Captain," Lamar yelled over the commotion from the helm, "do we take the bait?"

The multitude of reports coming in threatened to overwhelm Lirha if not for the constantly-chirping tactical display to her immediate left. Centered between her and her acting XO, it displayed the most pertinent situational awareness filters and allowed her to observe the immediate battlefield. In the absence of comms, she couldn't communicate with Tanakata, so she fell back on Starfleet tactical protocol.

"No, stay with the Trial and protect her flank," Lirha half-yelled in reply. The Orion captain looked up to the main viewscreen to witness the larger Miranda-class' port shields being pounded and about to fail. The Tholians laid down sustained beam fire while maneuvering around past their four-o-clock and outside of the torpedo firing envelope. Smaller and more maneuverable, the polygonal starships pressed their turn advantage which neither Galileo nor Trial could match.

At the fore of the bridge, Chief Darius swallowed a lump of fear as he executed the captain's orders. He boosted impulse power for a short burst then manipulated the maneuvering thrusters to put their tiny starship directly in between Trial's port side and the Tholian firing angles.

"Divert all shield power to the port grids!" Saalm added, then thumbed the internal comm. "All hands, brace for impact!" she called throughout the small science vessel.

On reflex, Ryan rerouted all the power that he had been using to try and counter the Tholian jamming, and moved to the shields. He pulled every watt and amp that he had available to him to try and boost the shields.

Amaranai began pulling power from damaged areas to boost the shields. She hoped it would be enough to sustain them just a little longer.

Grimacing at the thought of bracing for impact Ullswater scrambled to make a last attempt to use her skills to buy their shields any little advantage. As her hands flailed around her station in increasing panic she began to recite a prayer under her breath - she did not want to die today.

Callin spared one look across the Bridge for Sofie, too far away for him to help, too far away for her to help him. He spared a second for a guilty thought, that if he couldn't figure out a way past the Tholian shields they were all going to perish, then got as good a grip on his console as he could to ready himself for the impact.

Luke found himself gripping the chair his eyes scanning the bridge as other around him hung on to whatever object they could get their hands or arms around. It seemed silent as the bridge entered the infinitesimal moment that always seemed to happen before all hell broke loose.

In space, Galileo slid into her defensive position and maneuvered to present her entire 3-o'clock to the enemy to act as a shield to protect her larger companion. Within mere seconds, a coordinated burst of Tholian tetryon fire forcefully slammed into the Nova-class. Four sustained beams impacted the tiny ship's shields and collapsed them before tearing through the hull.

The outer and inner spaceframe protecting the mess hall on Deck 2 was suddenly penetrated by weapons fire and exploded out into space from the side of Galileo. The familiar lounge chairs and viewports the crew had come to know as home over the past months were sucked out into the cosmos as the room decompressed and the bulkhead circuitry exploded into electrical flames. Located two decks below the ship's mess, the port RCS thruster quad was subsequently hit and was sheared off from the side of the spaceframe with a violent explosion. The starship lurched to the side and the inertial dampers briefly failed, sending its occupants slamming into the walls and consoles with extreme G forces.

EPS overloads surged throughout the bridge and the conn station exploded into fire and debris. Sitting directly in front of his console, Lamar took a direct hit and was blasted backwards out of his seat from the concussive shockwave. He briefly flailed in the air before hitting the ground to the side of his station, laying motionless with shrapnel now embedded into his neck and chest. The Mission Ops console was the next to overload and quickly sizzled before exploding outward where Goldie was standing.

Brown, too, flew backwards, hitting the deck with concussive force. She bounced once, then lay still.

The hits from the Tholian ships kept coming and no matter what the bridge crew did, their efforts to keep the shields up were failing. Amaranai knew the hull breach before her LCARS indicated it.

Charlotte!

The concern for her sister was stalled by the sudden alert on her panel.

"Shields down, captain!"

Amaranai attempted any effort to grab power from somewhere but they were dead in the water. The Tholians were smart enough to know exactly where to hit them, so she had to hope they could get out of this. Several bridge consoles exploded, sending crew flying. There was a lot going on but she had a job.

Protect the ship.

Callin's vision cleared - he hadn't realized he'd blacked out - for him to see a red drip from above his brow and the splatter on his station where his skull must've bounced during the impact. Somehow he was still standing though, but the console was black and cold. If they were getting power to the sensors still he wasn't going to be able to operate them from here. Where was Sofie? He couldn't see her through the smoke, and he wanted to find her, fervently wished she could hear the call of his mind somehow, but he could see other fallen bodies.

Instead he pried off the wall panel nearby to get to one of the emergency kits - either engineering or medical, he couldn't remember which with the way his head was pounding - and pulled it free. The caduceus on the cover seemed strange, but he recognized the medical tricorder inside. A moment later he headed down from the aft section of the Bridge and dropped to his knees next to the crumpled and impaled form of their helmsman, muttering while he scanned, "Please be alive, please be alive, please be alive..."

Luke should have realised that even being in a secure seat he wouldn't be entirely safe, blood dropped from a gash above his eye obsurcing his vision and his shirt was ripped and scorched by sparks that were still illuminating the bridge in fantastic whites, blues and oranges. Adranaline pumping he didn't notice the shard of console embedded into his abdomen and the latch of red surrounding it as he stood to check the health of his captain. "Lirha" he said informally looking to her seat.

The red-collared Orion officer scrambled from the floor back to her feet then hastily back into her command chair. She looked up at Luke in the process and held onto his arm for support, not noticing his wound amid the smokey haze of electrical fires. The bridge was in bad shape and her initial glances around the room made her stomach drop. "Damage report!" she yelled to Ops - or whoever was still standing behind her in the rear alcove.

For the beating that ship had endured, Ryan wasn't quite sure how he managed to remain upright throughout it all. He quickly recovered from his slight daze and his fingers danced across his terminal. "Captain, I am reading hull breaches on decks 3 and 4, port maneuvering thrusters are currently offline, and structural integrity is down to 40%. I am also reading numerous EPS conduit ruptures on the damaged decks, and on decks 5 and 6." Ryan said as he started to reroute power around the damaged conduits and order damage control teams to the most serious damage. "I am trying to bypass the damaged systems now," He said before adding. "Damage control teams are reporting injuries."

Helping Lirha to her feet, Luke was next to ask a question to anyone who was able to answer either due to still having a working console or still standing. "What is the status of the Trial." The question was simple enough but in thier damaged state he wondered if they could even get any external information.

The captain wiped stray locks of disheveled hair from her eyes then used her hand to swipe the center console clean of debris. The LCARS tactical display fizzled in and out of function, making it hard for Saalm to read the shimmering readouts.

"They're losing port shields," Lirha finally answered, "..she's being outmaneuvered..."

To Be Continued...

[OFF]

--

All Crew
USS Galileo-A

All Crew
USS Trial

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