Green hate licked by the Moorpark as the tumble of the tug continued on. Boudreaux paced to and fro, his eyes locked upon the Appalachia and the attacking ships. Sitting was not something he preferred, but there was not much else they could do without risking the loss of the tractor beam. Weapons had yet to come online, and shields likewise. He could only hope that Engineering could get things situated in time.

In the cardiac cavity of the beast, Hathaway radiated beat red like a stoked coal. The conduit relay for the new matrix was beyond rushed, and it’d likely be burned out if used in the way it was being set up. That fact annoyed her greatly, but it was the only way to get power effectively to the systems beyond a direct system shunt, and she wasn’t going to risk overloading the subsystems by the latter. Methodically, she prodded at the system, attempting to bring her to life. A spark leaped out from the matrix, then a flicker.

Then the organ came to life. It had some fibrillations about it, but it was alive.

Hathaway exhaled long and forcefully through her nose, cooling off as she smacked her combadge, “Captain, the matrix is up. You should have limited shields and weapons.”

A weight lifted from Boudreaux’s shoulders as he stopped pacing, replying to the message, “Understood, and thank you Lieutenant Commander. Shields up! Ready phasers! If they bite at us, we bite back.”

The remaining viable enemy bird of prey cut to starboard and dove, hoping to shake the Slivin off of it and set up an attack run from the larger Qugh-class destroyer against the tenacious B’rel and her opportunistic and wraithlike Malem-class cohort.  The destroyer fired its disruptors and a torpedo, then proximity alerts on the sensors of both the Slivin and the Kormoran presaged a series of blue bolts impacting the destroyer’s ventral shields as a new entrant to the fight appeared.  This new entrant passed astern of the Qugh before swinging around to join the fray fully, revealing herself by her lines to be a Kerala-class ship, the 23rd-century precursor of the Gagarin-class of Starfleet’s 25th century.

The newcomer moved aggressively, constantly turning to try and keep her phasers and torpedoes to bear on the Qugh-class ship.  Without knowing what took place on her bridge, it was impossible to say what her captain or crew thought of these clearly modern ships, and of Romulan and Klingon ships helping Starfleet against other Klingon ships, but for whatever reason the captain of the Kerala-class ship chose to focus her attention – at least for the moment – on a known enemy, instead of moving against what could be at least an ally of convenience.

The Slivin had not been able to disengage or re-cloak due to the amount of fire she was receiving. As the ship rocked from a torpedo volley from their targets rear launchers.

“New contact…it’s a Starfleet ship, appears native to this timeline. They’re moving to engage the Qugh-class destroyer sir.” Ka’hor reported.

“Strange…” Kerak wondered why they weren’t attacking them. The Kerala-class ship had careening past them before striking the other Bird of Prey. Just then their target fired another torpedo from its rear launcher that slammed into the Forward shields and caused everyone on the bridge crew to be lurched for forward with a brief shudder.

“Come now Brork you should have dodged that one! Ka’hor, finish that old garbage scow off, now.” Kerak’s gaze never flinched away from the juking and jinking old Bird of Prey on the viewscreen.

“Aye HoD, firing!” The de facto first officer replied as he fired several bursts from their cannons and a high yield photon torpedo from their forward tube. All but one of the cannon bolts missed, the slower but target homing torpedo however, slammed home, crunching through the rear impulse drive of the the foe and exploding with such force that most of ship, save the cannons and the ends of the wingtips were atomized in a burst of light.

“Brork get us cleared, and re-engage our cloak, quickly.” The old Captain bellowed.