M’Char floated in orbit of To’puwI II, occupying much the same position as the Syndicate transport had once held, geostationary over the market being built on the planet’s surface. Her hull, already scorched and pockmarked from her history of proud service to the Empire, now bore new wounds, carbon scoring and a gash whose residual scars would eventually stand testimony to another glorious victory. However, at the moment those wounds were fresh, and were being tended to by her crew.
With as small a crew as M’Char carried – only 18 people, including her boarding party – virtually all able-bodied hands were put to the repairs, under the auspices of Sogh Grek and his two engineer’s mates. To HoD Qivra, as she sat with increasing impatience in her command chair, the wait was intolerable. But she knew it was necessary; without sealing the hull breach at minimum M’Char could not safely land, and having the ship planetside would be more useful to the assault on the market site than beaming down. Qivra jabbed at a control with a thumb. “How much longer, Grek?”
“Finishing the patch now, HoD,” he replied.
Finally! “Take us down!” she barked towards Sogh G’Rath, who had also remained at his station, before opening a shipwide channel. “Prepare for ground action.”
“Yes, HoD,” he replied.
M’Char’s thrusters fired, nudging the bird of prey out of orbit and onto a downward course. As she descended, a ball of plasma began to form around the ship, a product of the thickening air under her hull as she entered the atmosphere. Fortunately, her shields – revitalized while repairs were ongoing – held, keeping the superheated gas from her hull, but for those on the ground the image of her fireball streaking across the sky towards them must have been an ominous vision.
Breaking out of the plasma as she decelerated, M’Char circled the construction site in a wide arc, to bleed off additional velocity before landing. While the first fireball to descend may have given hope to those planetside – at least those few who were affiliates of the Syndicate family – that perhaps their escort had downed some prying eyes, the sight of a Klingon bird of prey wheeling about in the sky above them certainly turned that hope to fear. An Orion or Nausicaan pirate or slaver could, potentially, be a capable fighter; there was, however, a significant gap between them and trained Klingon warriors, something that they were apparently about to learn first-hand.
G’Rath set the ship down approximately one qell’qam from the main site. There the bulk of the crew – including Qivra herself – disembarked, carrying an assortment of disruptor rifles and pistols, as well as bat’leths and mek’leths for close combat. Led by their HoD, the fifteen Klingons – G’Rath, as well as lagh B’Mak and Soghla’ Os’ash, were the only three to remain behind – advanced on the construction site, weapons ready. Facing them was a force perhaps two or three times their size, but Syndicate pirates and slavers were – in Qivra’s mind – not equal in either skill or ferocity to trained Klingon warriors, so the odds felt proper. Not that she would have withheld the attack even if they had felt skewed in the Syndicate’s favor; after all, victory in the face of long odds was an even sweeter thing.
As they approached the outskirts of the construction site, Qivra stopped, turning to la’ T’aroq and bu’ Ronaz. “Show no mercy to the Syndicate’s soldiers, but spare their toy’wI’’a’ if you can.”
“Yes, HoD,” T’aroq replied
“Prepare for battle!”
At their HoD’s order, the fifteen warriors drew disruptors and loosened blades in sheathes or on harnesses. “The troops are ready,” Ronaz reported.
“Heghlu’meH QaQ jajvam! CHARGE!”
With a mighty roar, the warriors of the House of R’Veq broke into a run. Long strides, spurred on by eagerness at the opening battle, brought them swiftly to effective disruptor range. Bolts of green energy lanced out as several members of the assault force raised their weapons and opened fire; those first shots didn’t hit much, but they certainly did catch the Syndicate’s forces by surprise. One moment, overseers were keeping watch over workers as they built, or conversing with each other about any number of topics; the next, they were diving for cover as trained Klingon soldiers quickly closed the distance on them.
At range, if the Syndicate forces had time to rally and organize, they could have posed a significant threat to M’Char’s oncoming complement. However, the phaser lashes carried by those used to using them to dispense discipline against recalcitrant or slow-moving slaves posed little danger to soldiers trained with painsticks and armed with bat’leths and mek’leths, and a battle that opened at range quickly became a melee brawl as the two forces collided. Disruptors were holstered or slung, and blades now flashed in the sunlight as a hand to hand action began.
Shortly after contact, Qivra found herself engaged by two Syndicate soldiers, one a Nausicaan and the other an Orion. The Nausicaan, wielding a phaser rifle as a club, took a wild swing, ferocious but not exactly skilled. Leaning back, Qivra felt the slipstream of the improvised club brush her face as it narrowly missed, then stepped back in with one of her bat’leth’s outer points leading. The point buried itself deep into the Nausicaan’s chest, a gush of blood coming forth from the wound as Qivra tore it free. As the Nausicaan collapsed with a fatal wound, she felt pain across one shoulder as the phaser lash in the Orion’s hand struck her. It only made her laugh, though, as the cut a tight circle, blade extended out long in her hand. It caught the Orion – seemingly one of the higher-ranking overseers, not that she cared – in the neck, neatly parting head from shoulders; the Orion’s body crumpled to the ground, adding his life’s blood to the soil.
The battle was not particularly long. No match for the Klingons and quickly overwhelmed, it ended with some two-thirds of the Syndicate’s forces dead and the remaining captured, at the cost of two dead and five wounded among M’Char’s complement. Standing in victory, Qivra lowered her bat’leth and began to survey the field. Her crew, as she had expected they would, had fought valiantly, and their valorous conduct was a fitting contribution to their legacy.
Taking out her communicator, she opened a channel. “HoD to M’Char. Inform Qa’ljI III that we have destroyed a Syndicate presence in this system and claimed it for the House of R’Veq. Reinforcements are required, so we can continue with our mission. And break out the good bloodwine; tonight we celebrate a glorious victory!”
