The Goldfinch soared at last out of the atmosphere, reaching the aft of the Moorpark as the rumblings of the tug drew to a close. Boudreaux turned to the helm, placing his hand on the shoulder of the ensign piloting as he stated, “We’re set, start putting distance between us and the group, we have got to separate ourselves from that mess. I want to be towing one wreckage, not eighty pieces of a wreckage.”
The Moorpark came about, its impulse engines coming to a jog as the vessel careened itself from the tumult of the fight, knowing that her siblings had the little duel under control.
Lieutenant Omur stared at the sparking mess of the new distribution matrix. His arms were crossed, taking the whole nasty spectacle in. After a moment, he glanced over at Hathaway who was cooling herself with the cold exterior of a replicated water canteen.
“Mirian, is that what they’re teaching you at the academy these days?” he jested, pointing a thumb to the composite-wire-matrix lasagna behind him.
Hathaway lazily looked at him with narrowed eyes, “Bold words from someone in gut punch range.”
“You’d deck an old man like me?” Omur replied innocently.
Hathaway set down her canteen, the faintest of smirks forming at the corner of her mouth, “Do you wanna find out?”
With one of the birds of prey now destroyed – its sister quickly joining it at the hands of the Starfleet newcomer, as she could no longer cloak due to damage taken – the destroyer now faced attack from three ships. Even the most valiantly fought of ships would, in those circumstances, find mere survival, to say nothing of victory, an impossible proposition. Despite this, though, the destroyer’s crew did not flee, but instead rounded on the Kerala-class ship as both Slivin and Kormoran were cloaked at the moment. A vicious firefight ensued, each turning on and past the other as they sought advantage. The advantage eventually came in the form of the decloaking Kormoran, swooping in and hammering the destroyer with disruptor fire that knocked out her shields and engines; seizing the chance, the Kerala-class ship – badly damaged, but viable still – swiftly destroyed her opponent with a pair of torpedoes.
Meanwhile, Appalachia remained engaged in her own duel against the battlecruiser. Despite a clearly talented and aggressive pilot, the Klingon ship was simply too far behind technologically, her weapons doing damage to the Starfleet ship’s shields but not draining them fast enough. Caught on an overzealous pass, Phillips brought Appalachia suddenly to starboard, allowing sh’Livo to rake the Klingon ship with the starboard phasers. The battlcruiser reeled, venting plasma and attempting to come around, but its engines were damaged and it was now maneuvering sluggishly. It was only partway through its turn when Appalachia’s bow came to bear and a pair of torpedoes streaked out; one impacted dead center on the dorsal side of the secondary hull, and the other right at the juncture of the neck to the secondary hull, blowing the battlecruiser apart in a flash of light.
A fraction of a second later the Slivin decloaked behind the large rear section of now crippled ship and loosed a full fusilade of cannon fire and a pair of torpedoes, ripping the D7 asunder.
Silence fell. It was only then that another new arrival, albeit one that had not joined the battle, finally was noticed; seeing the sensor data, Tiza visibly blanched. “Umm… there’s…”
“What’s up?” K’lev asked.
In reply, Tiza simply pulled up the newcomers onscreen. Seeing them – their eerie, otherworldly form, the long trailing tentacles – K’lev felt his heart jump into his throat as he stood involuntarily. “Are those…?”
Lotharys nodded. “The Loom…”
“Maybe they’re just passing by?” sh’Livo asked, in a tone that suggested even she didn’t believe her own question.
K’lev shook his head. “Remember what Captain Boudreaux said the Traveler said?” he asked, his voice hollow as the reality of what the situation now required set in.
As if on cue, an alert sounded from Tiza’s console. “That Kerala-class ship’s hailing us,” he said.
K’lev nodded. “Tell the others to get out of here; we’ll catch up with them.” He sighed. “Then patch us in.”
Tiza quickly sent the message off; on the viewscreen, a trio of flashes heralded the departures of the Slivin, the Kormoran, and the Moorpark, the latter one towing the wrecked form of the Goldfinch behind her. “The Loom’ll be here in three minutes,” sh’Livo said softly as Tiza then brought the incoming hail up on the viewscreen.
