The ship shook. Violently. The shields were starting to give way, and a pair of Valdores had gotten up behind them, slamming the ventral section hard.
“We can’t take much more of this, captain!” Lieutenant Ward shouted from tactical as she let loose a volley from their rear launchers. A direct hit to one of the Valdores, peeling away as a couple smaller birds too its place.
But then another hit from the other Valdore, and this time, a console exploded off to the left, while a pylon gave way on the right, crashing just meters from the command island.
“I’m running out of squares to dance on!” Lieutenant McIntyre grumbled from the conn, the window narrowing between a pair of D’deridex warbirds that were pinching them in from dead ahead. He could still run the gap, but they were going to take it on the chin if he did.
Smoke began to fill the bridge.
Then the captain’s combadge chirped to life, the usually calm Lieutenant Commander Jackson’s voice now a measure more frenetic than he’d ever heard her before. “Anthony, I don’t know how much longer I’m going to hold this barge together. We’re venting plasma, and I’m starting to lose the grid.”
And then another hit, and this time, it was followed by a series of concussive aftershocks, secondary explosions as a chain reaction of plasma conduits tore through consecutive sections below deck.
“We’ve got breaches on decks 19, 20, and 21!” Lieutenant Aaronson reported. “Damage control teams en route.”
Captain Knight looked down at the display in his armrest, his eyes on the Malem class warbird just sitting motionless in the midst of the melee. He leaned over to Commander Sirona. “Anything from the Decius?” There was a sense of desperation in his voice. “Anything at all?”
“Not a word,” Commander Sirona replied. “Not that I even know why we’re trying.” At this point, she had no doubt that Colonel Nethak was responsible for all of this. “They’re probably just enjoying the lightshow.”
Behind them, Commander Castillo stumbled up onto the command island as the ship continued to shake. He came up next to the pair and said what needed to be said. “Boss, we really need to consider running before we have no feet left to stand on.”
Captain Knight looked back down at his display again, and then back up at them. They were right. If they stayed any longer, they’d be carved to pieces. He’d probably already let it go on too long, but he’d been hanging on the hope that Nethak would change his mind, or that Satrin and Irulan might find a solution. But it didn’t look like that was going to happen. He tapped his combadge. “Izzy, can you still give me max warp?”
“For the moment,” Lieutenant Commander Jackson responded.
Then they really had no other choice. He looked over at his old friends. “I hate this, but…” He turned to the conn. “Dash, ready to run? Break for the nebula’s edge, and get us out of here, maximum warp!”
“On it!” Lieutenant McIntyre replied, all too ready to get the fuck outta here. He glanced over at the navigational screen, noting the shortest distance to the nebula’s edge. “Hang onto your hats!”
And then, with an aggressive gesture, Lieutenant McIntyre went port engines full forward and starboard engines full reverse, whipping the Glenn on its axis so hard that Commander Castillo, the only one standing, lost his footing, only the railing to his left keeping him from hitting the deck.
But as the USS Juno came about, that’s when suddenly everything changed.
Out of nowhere, and completely without warning, suddenly they were everywhere, not the darkened hulls and green underlighting of their Romulan nemeses, but the blues, reds and greys of a Starfleet squadron, emerging from high warp right on top of them.
Captain Knight blinked. Those weren’t Starfleet ships of this reality, stunted by a decade of non-stop war. They were familiar, bright and shining beacons of Federation optimism, and all he could do was smile. Of course they were here. Of course they had found them. Of course it was all going to be okay.
“Hold onto your hats, gentlemen!” came a voice he’d so dearly missed. And then, to the rest of her squadron, Fleet Admiral Reyes gave the order. “All ships, break and attack!”
At the front of the vanguard, the USS Diligent barreled forward.
Commander Ryan Hunt was never shy on the trigger, but today, he let it all loose, the big fourteens, the torpedo tubes, and every one of the Alita’s fifteen Type-XII arrays and cannons. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Commander Matthew Coleman put the structural limits of the Alita class to the test, the throttle locked full forward even as he pitched and rolled the ship straight into the thick of the enemy. And Captain Dorian Vox kept the calls coming, always forward, never back, closing the distance to the Juno and the Decius and then pushing beyond it.
The USS Ingenuity, the USS Lincoln and the USS Kennedy dove after it.
A shy young engineer when first she’d taken command, three years with Polaris Squadron had changed Captain Cora Lee, and now she called the shots like a seasoned pro, the USS Ingenuity carving up the more nimble birds the USS Diligent had missed in its charge.
On the opposite flank, Captain Cayde and the crew of the USS Lincoln, hardened by the frontier, made quick work of the birds it came in contact with. For them, this was all in a day’s work, although this time it mattered a bit more, as these were their people on the other side.
For the USS Kennedy, this was the first real test of its firepower, and it delivered. While its idealist captain dreamed of a better tomorrow, to get there, first they had to save today, and Captain Alleyne, with Ambassador Drake by her side, unloaded all the Obena had to offer.
And then over the top came the USS Polaris.
Standing at the center of the bridge, Fleet Admiral Reyes let the others call the shots. Fleet Captain Gérard Devreux, no longer just a dreamy explorer, had the ship, with Captain Titus Bishop on the trigger and Commander Omar Reza at the wheel.
This had all become muscle memory, and they operated now like a well-oiled machine.
While her people did their thing, Fleet Admiral Reyes’ were on the battlespace as a whole. Or they were until she noticed something odd. The Decius. Just sitting idle and unscathed, even as the melee unfolded all around them.
The colonel. That fucking colonel. Had he really tapped out when his colleagues needed him?
But she set that aside. She’d deal with it later. There would be much for him to explain. First, though, they had to wrap this up and make the jump back through the portal to Starbase 80 with their friends in tow.
She tapped her combadge. “Diligent CIC, report.”
Back from the bridge on the USS Diligent, Commander Jordyn Kerrigan was jacked in, her fingers dancing over the keys as her eyes flitted across a 360 display, choreographing the entire affair.
“Alpha wing, on the bird at your eight o’clock… Diligent actual, get back around towards Polaris… Ingenuity, come about two six zero, cut off…” she was saying as the admiral’s voice came over the ship-to-ship. But the admiral could wait. “Cut off that T’varo coming around on Kennedy’s stern.”
Once she saw the Ingenuity begin to make the turn, she addressed the admiral.
“We’re looking good ma’am. Should transition to mop up soon.”
From the bridge of the Polaris, Fleet Admiral Reyes nodded, pleased with the outcome. It could have been so much worse. If they hadn’t gotten a beat on the layer of the multiverse the USS Juno had found itself in, or even if it’d taken even just a little longer, it would have been too late.
Suddenly, every bogey still standing suddenly began to turn on queue, their engines coming alight.
“Looks like they’re running,” Captain Bishop said from behind her.
That was it. It was over. “Let them go,” Fleet Admiral Reyes ordered. “Our battle is not with them.” She knew too that the less damage they did , the less likely the Loom would perceive it as contradiction enough to eradicate. Their mission had been only to do the minimum amount of damage to retrieve the USS Juno and the RRW Decius. While she’d do it to save her people, she had no interest in effectuating the end of an entire universe if she could help it.
And so they watched them go.
Fleet Captain Devreux looked over at her an exhaled. “We did it.”
“Through space and time, and across the multiverse, yes… yes, we did,” Fleet Admiral Reyes smiled. They had tracked them down, their fellow sailors lost in the displacement, and now it was time to take them home. “No man left behind.”
Aboard the Decius, Colonel Nethak watched with restrained disappointment as it all came to an end. There had been so much opportunity here, an Empire still in its prime, but with the arrival of Polaris Squadron, that door was closed. For now. The future would just have to wait for another day.
“You look disappointed,” Satrin observed.
“What’re you insinuating?” Nethak pushed back, eying her discerningly.
“Oh, nothing,” she shrugged.
But she knew, and he knew she knew.
Now I see why you have so many ships. Epic space battles.
This was awesome