IKS M’Char was on the hunt, and spoiled for choice of prey. Before her, settled in orbit and utterly oblivious as it focused on the market station being built on the surface, drifted a transport in service of one of the families of the Orion Syndicates. Further out, patrolling towards the edge of the system, was an Orion raider bearing the same insignia, and thus sworn to the same family. The two had clearly come to the To’puwI system together, joined in service and purpose, and now possibly in their fate.
On the bridge, HoD Qivra leaned forward in her seat. “Tactical display on viewer,” she ordered.
“Yes, HoD,” Soghla’ Os’ash replied, putting the display up on the main viewscreen.
The tactical display, translatable in all three dimensions, showed the breadth of the To’puwI system, before Os’ash zoomed in on the second planet. There, drifting in orbit, was a pair of markers, the first the transport and the other the hidden M’Char. Zooming back out, a third blip – the raider – came into view. Considering the telemetry, Sogh G’Rath spoke. “We should attack the raider now,” he said, eagerness at the prospect of battle clear in his voice.
“And risk the transport’s escape, so they can bring word of our presence? Bah!” Qivra replied.
“We should not fear-” G’Rath began to say, before la’ T’aroq rounded on him.
“Silence!” the first officer barked, then turned to face Qivra. “What do you order, HoD?” he asked.
“We start with the transport,” she said. “At our attack, it will cry for help like a mewling targ pup and the raider will come to save it. We then destroy the raider and force the transport to surrender, before landing to take the construction site.” As she spoke, Qivra looked each of her three bridge officers in the eye, gauging their reactions.
What she saw pleased her; all three seemed to realize the wisdom of her approach, and the promise of glory it offered. “Lock weapons onto the transport,” Qivra ordered Os’ash, having heard no objections. “Target engines and long-range communications.”
“Target locked,” Os’ash replied after a moment, eyes fixed on her station.
“Drop cloak! baH!”
Space behind and slightly above the transport wavered and resolved into the deep green and predatory form of a B’rel-class bird of prey as M’Char dropped her cloak. A moment later, bolts of green energy flashed from her twin disruptor cannons, tearing into the transport’s engines; her impulse drive flickered and died quickly, as her nacelles began venting plasma, the ship’s engines fully disabled. M’Char overflew her hapless prey before beginning to come about, the one or two desperate phaser beams that lanced out from the transport’s one weak weapons system missing wide astern. Another salvo from M’Char’s disruptors silenced the transport, its comms array destroyed, then the bird of prey’s form wavered and faded from view as her cloak re-engaged.
It was hard to say if the transport, now listing and losing speed and in jeopardy of no longer being able to sustain its orbit, had managed to get a distress call off. Regardless, though, the raider had certainly picked up the weapons fire and the appearing-and-disappearing warp signature. As Qivra had predicted, it came racing over, too late to prevent damage to the transport but not to attempt to render aid, or perhaps to seek vengeance should a target present itself. Its crew did not have to wait long, either; M’Char had invisibly circled, setting up on a lateral run, and was now coming in for round two against the Syndicate.
Space wavered again as the bird of prey shed her cloak once more. Unlike the hapless transport, the raider was ready for her; while the cloak concealed M’Char’s approach, the raider was still nimble enough to at least start swinging its bow in the direction of the bird of prey. Phaser fire lashed out from the raider, passing inbound disruptor bolts from M’Char’s twin cannons, each ship taking hits as they flew past each other and began to turn for another pass. The bird of prey bucked, as did her target; in the bridge, Qivra held firmly to the arms of her chair, eyes afire. Now this was a proper battle. “Damage report!” she barked.
“Shields at 84%,” T’aroq said, having crossed to the weapons station to coordinate the ship’s status. “Two power relays ruptured, one damaged. Transporters offline.”
Qivra huffed; the shields may have been down nearly a fifth of their intensity, but otherwise M’Char was still in fine shape. “Bring us in behind them; stand by torpedoes!”
As all B’rels were, M’Char was a nimble ship. So was her opponent. G’Rath was able to get in behind the raider, but only for a moment before it twisted away, not enough time for a torpedo solution, and M’Char’s next disruptor volley flew wide. As the bird of prey turned to try and follow her quarry, the raider suddenly cut back the other direction, shaking her pursuer for just long enough to come around and take a deflection shot mid-turn. Phaser beams lanced out once more, joined this time by a torpedo. “BRACE!” T’aroq bellowed.
M’Char rocked powerfully, a conduit running through the port forward bulkhead of the bridge blowing and sending rubble across the room. Qivra was very nearly launched from her chair, but was able to maintain her seat through both strong grip and sheer will. Os’ash was not so lucky, though, as she was thrown over her console, landing hard with a sickening crunch. “Shields, 47%! Hull breach, deck 5; emergency barriers engaged. Port thrusters offline,” T’aroq announced.
“Bring us around!” Qivra shouted, ignoring her weapons officer, who struggled to her feet holding one arm with the other and gamely returned to her station. “Weapons lock!”
M’Char swung around, her bow coming into line as the raider began to twist and evade. “Locked on!” Os’ash said through gritted teeth, running her console with one hand as her other arm was broken.
“Fire at will!”
M’Char’s disruptors flashed emerald fury as quickly as their capacitors could cycle, as a torpedo spat out of the forward launcher mounted just below the bridge. Disruptor fire hammered into the raider, sending her staggering long enough for the torpedo to come in and impact. The raider’s shields flared precipitously, but held; however, the same could not be said of her impulse drive, as a power surge triggered by the torpedo knocked out its fusion reactor. The raider could still move and fight, but with uneven thrust it could no longer maneuver as effectively.
In a fight between a Klingon bird of prey and a peer-type vessel, any vulnerability can become the pivot upon which the outcome of the action swings. A partial loss of maneuverability was quite a vulnerability. The raider could no longer effectively force M’Char off of her stern. To her captain’s credit, they tried their best, but the bird of prey just refused to be shaken loose. Worse still, M’Char continued to pound away with disruptors and torpedoes, tearing steadily through the raider’s shields and then her hull. The ship bulged, then erupted, as her core went critical, torn apart in cascading explosions and leaving the damaged bird of prey as the only viable ship in orbit.
“Begin repairs!” Qivra called. “Weapons, any other targets?”
“No, HoD,” Os’ash replied as T’aroq got on the intercom with Grek to begin coordinating damage control efforts. “The transport is falling out of orbit,” she added, calling the scene up on the viewscreen.
The viewer was damaged, static distorting the image, but sure enough the transport had fallen out of orbit, and was already beginning to be enveloped in plasma as it started to enter To’puwI II’s atmosphere. Watching it fall, Qivra scowled in annoyance; it would have made a useful addition to the House of R’Veq’s shipping capabilities, and now it was just scrap. “Inform me when the hull breach is sealed,” she said. “We must capture the market site.”
