On the Slivin Kerak ordered the ship to wheel about and prepare to decloak for a strike.
“Disruptors and torpedoes fire at will.” Kerak barked.
“Aye sir. A Bird of Prey has locked on to us sir. They’re firing.” Ka’hor replied as the ship shuddered from cannon strike on its wing.
“Evasive maneuvers. Target that Bird of Prey, before it re-cloaks for another strike.” The Captain shouted.
“Cha’vey.” Brork finished the strafing run against the Qugh-class ship.
The ship rocked from a few more disruptor cannon blasts that hit their mark. The Slivin loosed a salvo of her own cannons aimed at the neck of the D7 as Brork whirled the ship around and weaved it way into a firing solo on the enemy ship that had been targeting them.
As Slivin came about on one of the enemy birds of prey, the other began to appear as if from nowhere, dropping its cloak as it attempted to slot in behind its successor. In the control room of the Kormoran, Commander Temoris studied the tactical display that Subcommander Sovikruk had put up on the main viewer. “Commander,” said Subcommander Sovikruk in his low, rumbling voice, “An enemy vessel is attempting to get behind the Slivin.”
Temoris smiled, a rather eerie thing as the low light of her control room created curious shadows across her face and rendered her green eyes almost as though twin pools of darkness. “Slashing run, disruptors only, three second firing window. Decloak at close range, and recloak as you pull away. Don’t let them anticipate our attack pattern.”
“Yes, Commander!” her senior officers – Sovikruk, plus Centurion Keval and Sub-Centurion Vesan – along with a pair of uhlans at the aft auxiliary consoles, said almost in unison.
As the Klingon bird of prey settled in behind the Slivin, a waver in space resolved itself into the predatory form of a Malem-class bird of prey as Kormoran decloaked, relatively close aboard. She swept down from above and starboard-aft of her prey, a quartet of disruptor cannons belching emerald fury. The bolts slammed into their target, swiftly tearing through its shields and hammering its starboard wing. While her Klingon target may have been an intimidating bird of prey in its day, the simple truth was that Kormoran – and indeed every ship in the little allied formation – was over one hundred years more advanced, and the bird of prey simply could not withstand her. Large chunks of hull plating, including the Klingon ship’s starboard disruptor cannon, were blasted away as the Romulan ship flashed by just astern of her prey, another wavering distortion in the stars heralding Kormoran‘s re-engaging her cloaking device and disappearing from view as the ship she hit staggered to port and broke away, reeling from the short but vicious pummeling it had taken. Invisibly, Kormoran swooped around, seeking her next opportunity to strike.
One of the two inbound birds of prey was reeling, and the other taken well under fire by Slivin‘s skilled gunner and was taking hits, unable to shake Captain Kerak’s relentless pursuit and so turned instead to meet him head-on. The Qugh-class ship joined as well, lending some more serious firepower to the attack, though in truth it probably still wasn’t enough against the two far more modern birds of prey. The D7, meanwhile, pressed onwards, closing on Appalachia and Moorpark in orbit. Her forward disruptors flashed, bolts of green streaking past the larger California-class ship.
“Ari, keep us between Moorpark and that ship!” K’lev called. “Tyrisa, you’re up; fire at will.”
Appalachia surged ahead towards the D7, returning with her forward phasers as three amber beams lanced out towards the inbound battlecruiser. Two of the beams hit as the Klingon ship attempted to evade, her shields flaring precipitously; if the smaller Starfleet ship’s charge hadn’t drawn the battlecruiser’s attention, the hits certainly did. Whoever was in command of the D7, though, was not so easily impressed, and the battlecruiser wheeled back around on another strafing run, adding a pair of torpedoes to the mix.
Phillips put Appalachia hard to starboard and climbed, though not quite fast enough to avoid all of the battlecruiser’s fire. Several of the disruptor bolts, plus one torpedo, impacted, not doing as much damage perhaps as the battlecruiser’s captain might have hoped; their ship’s weapons were, while modern for their own era, underpowered compared to what Appalachia was designed to face. Lieutenant (jg) sh’Livo returned with Appalachia‘s ventral phasers, followed by a torpedo of her own as the Steamrunner-class ship’s stern launcher came to bear before Phillips wheeled her back around. The volley was a full success, overloading the battlecruiser’s shield emitters and knocking her shields offline.
Unnoticed by K’lev, or anyone on the bridge, as Phillips began the evasive turn the turbolift doors swished open, and a single figure stepped out into the small bridge vestibule. Vasira looked around in confusion, the darkened ceiling lights, strobing red alert lighting, and the wheeling vista on the viewscreen combining with the last vestiges of the medicines in her system to render her rather discombobulated. As the ship shuddered from incoming fire, a shower of sparks shot out of a power conduit in the bridge ceiling, drawing her gaze towards the center of the room as she attempted to cling to the bulkhead.
What, or rather who, she saw there made her heart both skip a beat and soar: seated in the starboard-side seat of the two-seat command well was her younger brother. He looked perhaps a few years older than when she’d last seen him, but neither the years nor the mileage could hide the family resemblance. Time seemed to slow for a moment, the sparks from the conduit seeming almost as fireflies drifting on the night air around K’lev as he looked at something on a small pedestal-looking console by his chair and spoke. She did not hear the order, or much else in that moment, as all sound seemed muffled to her ears in this moment as she beheld the tableau of a Starfleet bridge in the middle of the fight, and her baby brother seated at its center – she could see the anxiety, but that was because she’d known him his whole life and knew his tells – carrying on as though the conductor of the orchestras she’d occasionally performed with during her musical career. Hands and a voice she could hardly understand drew her away from the moment as a medtech arrived on the turbolift to retrieve her and return her to sickbay, but her eyes never left her brother’s form until the turbolift door swishing closed removed him from her sight.
