The Trenton was about to finish the final leg of its long movement to the Hodian Belt. It had taken the vessel just under a month at high warp to travel from their initial assembly area in the heart of the Federation to their new AO. The restive region known as the Hodian Belt was near the bottom of the narrow neck of the Federation that led to its coreward frontiers and the spinward edge of the Gamma Quadrant beyond.
Within a few minutes they would hopefully be in orbit and beginning to unload the last few dozen Federation miners, Provosts and customs officials on the colony. The two Provost cutters they were carrying down in Hangar Bay 3 would help with local security and escorting convoys to and from the belt. The miners would help the dilithium ore facility on the edge of the system recover from the Meade’s raid a few weeks prior. The trade and customs officials were there to help in the final stages of bringing a new customs post and commercial ore transfer station at El Doradia online. The Trenton carried several crucial components for both the expansion of the both the colony’s planetside and orbital infrastructure.
“Haproshing dee Delta Hodaya h’system and Hel Doradia colonay sar.” Lasage reported from the helm.
“Slow to impulse Lasage,” Mee IH ordered before tapping his comm badge with his flipper, “All hands, this is the bridge, we are approaching Delta Hodia.”
After seeing the ship slow to sublight speed he continued, “Yellow alert, CAP fighters, you are go for launch. All crew prepare for cargo unloading operations. To all our civilian passengers, please gather your belongings and prepare to disembark when we arrive in orbit, thank you flying with the Starfleet stagecoach and postal service. We hope you enjoyed your trip and didn’t clog our waste water filters, bridge out.” Mee IH closed the channel as he heard Dawes chuckling behind him at the tactical console.
“Well done sir.” Dawes chided the cetacean XO as the Captain emerged from his ready room.
“Thank you Commander, just because we’re dealing with a tense situation doesn’t mean we should lose our sense of humor.” Mee IH grinned at Dawes before turning his attention to the CO.
“Nice speech, not sure where you were going with that last bit though.” Danny said in a hushed tone as he took his seat in the centre chair.
“I’m glad you recognized my comedic genius then sir, because it was a simple statement of fact and I wasn’t going anywhere with it, just a bit of levity, sir, heehehehehe.” Mee IH giggled as the two watched a pair of the Trentons Valkyries race out in front of them. Another pair of fighters would form-up on their rear quarters as they made the short run in to the colony at impulse.
“Hail the colony please Mr Singh, inform them we will be arriving momentarily and request priority clearance to enter orbit. Let them know the Vor’nak will be showing up right behind too.” The Captain pulled up a status report on one of his armrest consoles.
“Aye sir. Transmitting now.” replied Lt. Ashish Singh, the ship’s head of communication.
“Whoa, it’s a busy day at the colony sir. I’m picking up signals from over 50 different ships in orbit of the planet and clusters of vessels, shuttles, platforms and barges moving about at another half a dozen locations around the perimeter of the system.” Dawes reported from the rear of the bridge.
“Put the sensor plot up onscreen Commander.” Mee IH squeaked from his pool just a few feet to the left of the Captain. That didn’t compare with any system with a sizable population, but out here on the frontier with a colony only equipped to House roughly 20000, those were huge numbers.
As the Tactical officer compiled with the command Singh called out, “Sahib, orbital control is responding they welcome us to El Doradia and are transmitting an approach vector and transport coordinates for the cargo and equipment we’re hauling.”
“Forward the coordinates to the helm Lt, and acknowledge the signal.” Wong nodded to the young officer.
Dawes console chirped several warning tones, “Sir I’m picking a massive energy spike from a Korvalan freighter in orbit near the new weighstation sir.”
“Onscreen!” Mee IH squeeled.
Another setting of more fervent beeped sounded, Dawes hollered, “She’s gonna blow sir.”
The sensor plot shifted to a view of the platform style weighstation with its small, central, control and operations module that was surrounded by 4 large rectangular pads that were all filled with an assortment of shipping containers and holding tanks. And right next to it, the Korvalan freighter appeared to lose attitude control before exploding in a massive pink and red fireball. There was nothing any of them could do from this distance, being a few AUs away still.
The concussive shockwave of the ship’s rapid and violent disassembly smashed hard into the weighstation and one of the rectangular holding pads was perfected by several hit pieces of molten debris. The pad was hit hard enough to send several dozen shipping containers of various shapes and sizes hurtling outward into chaotic and unstable orbits. The bridge crew watched in horror as several small secondary explosions could be seen popping up and cooking off all over the weighstation. A nearby Vantaxian transport had its shields completely knocked out, and a Federation Tanker on the other side of the station had its starboard nacelle sawed in half by another chunk of super-heated hurtling debris.
A half second of shocked silence was quickly shattered with a flurry of orders, and officer and crew to or from their stations.
Mee IH flipped down his headset and opened a channel to the Hangar decks, “Emergency scramble, all fighters and runabouts, emergency scramble.”
“Red alert. Singh hail the station, tell them we are en route. Let them know we are standing by to render assistance.”
“Aye sir. I’m picking up multiple distress calls from the weigh station and nearby vessels.” Singh replied.
Ingram’s voice came through the ship’s internal comm. “Bridge this is Ingram, alert fighters are launching now, I’m spinning up the Hatchet, Imjin, and a flight of Peregrines. What’s going on out there?” Being the ship’s CAG, he had been busy overseeing the launch of the CAP fighters and had no idea what had just occurred. It was clear by the background noise that Ingram was in the process of running across the flight deck of Hangar Bay 1.
“A Korvalan freighter has just exploded near the colony’s weighstation Commander. Prepare for search and rescue and possible combat.” Wong replied.
“Woof, Roger that sir. I’ll be spaceborne aboard the Hatchet in less than 2 mikes.” Ingram replied before closing the channel.
