((Slivin Bridge))

“Captain, message from the flagship they are ordering us to avoid destroying any of the enemy ships and to focus our fire on their weapons and propulsion systems only.” Ka’hor reported the tactical console.

“Acknowledge the signal. Follow the command as close as possible, but do not let it adversely affect our offensive outputs, Lieutenant.” Kerak leaned forward in his chair, the bloodlust of battle taking hold once more.

The Slivin accompanied the Appalachia back into the fight, using their cloak until they got into a good position to perform an attack run. After decloaking and streaking in and knocking out the engines of one of their foes’ smaller ships, they returned to screening the Appalachia from any threats that emerged.

The Nanir ships seemed to have the same sort of tactical limitations on the use of their stealth tech as the Klingon and Romulan cloaking devices, in that they were not showing any ability to fire their weapons while they were invisible. By the time the Slivin had entered the mix, the battle had drastically descended into a mottled melee that resembled a frantic furball accented by the various different weapons types and their striking array of colours. The light blue tetryon based beams of the Nanirs lashed out at random angles, and were answered by the orange of the Starfleet phasers, the green beams and bolts of the Romulan weapons and the Slivins own disruptor cannons, all the while, here and there, the red and shimmering turquoise spheres of torpedoes danced around in the chaos of combat.

“The Malem just took several hits from one of the larger ships sir.” Ka’hor added, noticing the warbird whirl away from the heart of the maelstrom after being struck by a barrage of Nanir beams.

“Move to cover them Ba’met. Target their forward weapons Ka’hor, fire at your discretion.” Kerak ordered.

The da Vinci, Salvation, Hurricane, and her fighters had weathered the initial moments well as the battle was joined. But they were being pressed hard now, with the numeric superiority of the Nanir vessels allowing them the ability to maneuver more freely, and work the flanks of the Allies formation.

((Malem Bridge))

The timely arrival and shock effect of the Malem and Ganelax, decloaking and zipping through the lead vessels of the opponents fleet had given the Starfleet ships a brief but impactful respite from the opening onslaught. But the shield stripping properties of the Nanirs tetryon based weapons had ground down the ships defensive screens to less then 40% as a result.

“Re-route all auxiliary power to structural integrity. Continue evasive maneuvers helm.” The Commander ordered.

“Sir, the Nanir cruiser is altering course towards us. They’re firing.” Viran reported.

“Return fire with the rear disruptors. Head away from the Hurricane. If we can pull off that vessel, it will give them and the other Starfleet ships an opening and a chance to shatter the centre of the enemy’s lines.” The vessel shuddered a few times in rapid succession as 2 of the smaller Nanir ships joined the larger one in focusing their fire on the Malem.

“Shields are down to 30% sir.” The tactical officers reported.

Just then the telltale green bolts of Klingon disruptors streaked across the Malems viewscreen and were quickly followed by a view of the Bird of Prey as she swooped past and engaged the larger cruiser that was pursuing them.

“Their penchant for late, heroic arrivals continues. Lets not waste the opportunity, keep heading away from the enemy, and when we have put enough range between us and them engage the cloak.” The commander told his helm officer.

A moment later, around the battlespace, an odd and unexpected series of explosions of Nanir ships was noticed by all the tactical officers of all the Alpha Alliance vessels, and quickly relayed to their fellow bridge crews. And though they would not comprehend why, or how the ships had been destroyed until long after the fight had concluded, the effect on the morale of both sides was quickly apparent. The alliance vessels rallied and gained a tactical advantage, as one of the Nanirs larger cruiser types ships was among the conspicuous casualties. The Nanirs on the other hand seemed to scatter slightly, as if they were members of a bee hive that had just had a large stream of insecticide sprayed at it.

((Hurricane Bridge))

“Have our vessels check their fires, and ensure they aren’t firing on critical systems as we ordered. We aren’t here to massacre a species we’ve never met before if we can avoid it.” Krey shouted to the comms officer.

“Aye.”

No sooner had he grunted in consternation, when another pair of smaller Nanir vessels were pierced and gored clean through by a series of Klingon cannon salvoes.

“Fucking Klingons…call off the Slivin, order them to disengage, now!” Krey groaned.

“Done sir…wait, the enemy ships are displaying…rapidly, they’re disengaging and moving away sir.”

“Do not pursue them. Have all our ships pull back and rally on us.” Krey said. Mobra and him shared a glance at each other, each of their faces was filled with equal parts relief and amazement at what had just occurred.

((Nanir ship Nimby))

“Supreme Karaan! The cruiser Entitlement has been disabled, they are calling for assistance.” Reported one of the fertilizers from the tactical pit of the command deck.

“Send our reserve flight of cutters to cover them.”

“I…that…they…that is no longer necessary my leader, the Entitlement is gone.”

“What? Where did they go? How dare they leave the lines.” Replied the leader of the Nanir race, who was entirely inexperienced in combat, and ignorant of much of how her own military actually operated.

“It has been destroyed…6 of our cutters are also. 2 more are disabled and adrift.” The senior fertilizer in the Tactical pit informed her.

Just then, a pair of Nor ‘easters were seen rapidly weaving their way towards them in the viewport. They both loosed a flurry of phaser cannon fire and a pair of micro torpedoes each that effectively disabled all but one of the Nimby’s forward firing weapon emplacements before spitting off and streaking away.

“My love. We have lost over a quarter of our fleet…our entire Navy is present here today. We are outmatched even though we have more vessels. Withdraw and regroup, we must defend our homeworld. If we lose everything here today, our species is doomed.” Said the person who had provided the seedings that had produced all of her 9 offspring.

The Supreme Karaan who hadn’t looked away from the scene unfolding through the window, shrieked and hurled her ornate ceremonial baton at the viewport in a display of pure unhinged rage. She then turned towards her mate who had never before spoken to her in that manner in their over 30 years of being bonded. She bared her teeth at him, let out another shriek and raised her left hand as if to strike him.

“Leader! Despite his impertinence, your fertilizer is correct, and I support his recommendation to withdraw.” The words came from her left. It was the Chairperson of the Defense and Strategy Committee, a woman she trusted more than most others. The Chairperson had even been her Deputy Karaan during her first term in the role decades prior.

“I also agree with your seeder, Supreme Karaan.” This time it was the Senior Compliance Manager(Political Commissar) of the Nimby who spoke. The leader didn’t know the woman, and the fact that she had openly spoken to her, The Supreme Karaan, against rules regarding their hierarchy and all social norms, in support of the recommendation that her own mate had so rudely and inappropriately delivered, had an effect. If this woman was willing to risk being sentenced to internal exile, and revocation of her right to speak in public, then she obviously felt that their predicament was reaching an existential level.

After a deep sigh the leader slumped in her chair and muttered, “Do it. Pull our ships back to the interior line of outposts.” She dejecteldly pointed to her baton which was laying on the deck at the base of the viewport and her fertilizer dutifully retrieved it for her.

She knew ornate symbol of her station would not be hers for much longer, as, in one skirmish she had just overseen the loss of more ships and persons then her loudmouth predeccessor had in a nearly year long full scale war with the Seltians. She would undoubtedly be summoned to an inquisition in the Hall of Accusations and face the wrath of the entire Conclave of Karaans. In fact, she presumed she would be lucky to retain her own right to speak in public. Knowing what awaited her caused a part of her to burn with spite and a lust for vengeance over the demonic intruders and their blasphemus innanir(equivalent of inhuman) actions. For several moments she fought the urge to countermand her orders and have them all make an all out assault and fight it out to the last. Death almost seemed preferable to the infamy and utter ostracizism she would endure.

“Exalted leader, our sonic analysts have completed their preliminary review of the messages that the intruders sent us.” The Local Apex(female Nanir, equivalent of a ships Captain) reported with a bow of respect. Only when the Supreme Karaan eventually shifted her gaze to the subordinate and waved a finger expressing permission, did the underling continue, “They had to magnify the volume of the audio portions(the Hurricanes subspace comm using “all language” forms) by a factor of near 500, before they identified what they suspect to be primitive gutteral and possibly vocal grunts and conjugations indicative of organized language…so far they have identified over 2000 variations or possibly dialects, that were transmitted simultaneously during their attempt at contact all within the same ultra low volume range. Our technical researchers are also reasonably certain the original pattern of audible tones that preceded the transmission is some form of targeted signal, or perhaps a type of primitive rangefinding or targeting system(the actual “Hail”). The fact that the audio portions flooded the entire subspace frequency spectrum could also be evidence that it may be some form of communication jamming.”

“They pretend to talk, jam, and target us and then goad us into an ambush… fiends!” The sullen leader slammed her fist into her armrest.