Episode Five: The Pursuit, Part II
By: Brandon Grasmick
Zetan Consultant: Chris Martin
Continued From Last Episode...
"Minor hull bucleing on the front end of the saucer."
Tumok reported.
"Tac, Tumok, can we break through that Dominion ship's cloak
with some kind of high-end ionic pulse?" Captain Grasmick
asked as the Sovereign was hit by another torpedo.
Tumok replied, "An ionic pulse may send their cloak through
a state of flux for long enough to allow us to get a weapons
lock.
A topedo hit the Sovereign again. "Make it
quick!" Grasmick said. Tumok began to ready the needed
equipment.
It only took 30 seconds for Tumok to set up the equipment, but it
seemed like an eternity to Grasmick. The Sovereign was
hit twice more in the mean time, once nearly throwing the Captain
out of his chair.
"Initiating ionic pulse!" Tumok exclaimed.
It wasn't much, but it was enough. "Unidentified sensor blip
off the starboard bow." Tac announced.
"By all means Tac, lock phasers and fire!" Grasmick
ordered.
Treyon was stunned at the fact that the Sovereign
detected his ship while cloaked. He still did have an open comm
line. "Very clever, Captain Grasmick, but not clever
enough."
"We'll see about that," Grasmick said even though he
knew that Treyon couldn't hear him, "Tac, throw a Quantom
torpedo at him please."
"No use, he decloaked and went into warp. The Mystic
just sent us a message saying the whole Dominion fleet just went
into warp." Tac said.
Grasmick asked, "Where are they heading?"
"Breen territory." Tac replied.
Grasmick went to his ready room and called Admiral Bennett,
"I just don't get it boss. Why would they go towards Breen
territory? I'll find out when we finish recovering the escape
pods from the 3 ships we lost."
Bennett said, "Good idea, go there and find out, but don't
cross the border. Wait, standby," a look of complete horror
came upon Bennett's face, "Don't bother. We just recieved a
communique from Deep Space Nine and command, the Breen have
joined the Dominion."
"Oh my God." That was all Grasmick could say.
"BREEN! Those frap'tehs fight without honor!"
Martok said when Grasmick told him about the Breen.
"All I regret now, General, is that you will be returning to
DS9." Grasmick said.
"Colonel Kurtok will take charge of your Klingon contingent,
Captain. One final thing, your Zetan resevere ships fought well,
and with honor." Martok said just before he closed his comm
line.
"I must agree with Martok," General Cereus said,
"but don't expect me to start agreeing with every Klingon.
"We launched a modified class-8 probe in the direction the
Dominion fleet withdrew. It is logical that we will recieve some
information on what the Dominion fleet, as well as its new Breen
allies, will do next." Tumok said.
"Logical, but not definate." Grasmick replied.
"Perhaps, Captain. Perhaps."
Grasmick wondered if he would ever see Earth again. He knew that
this new Dominion-Breen alliance would be strong, and probably
shift the balance of power in the quadrant, but now came word of
an ally on Cardassia, possibly Legate Damar himself, but also
came word that the Dominion was close to retakeing the Chintaka
system. "I don't know, I just don't know." Grasmick
said to himself.
"Captain, we are picking up a large Dominion fleet bearing
216 mark 1, and they are bringing their new Breen friends."
Tac said.
"Tumok, signal the fleet to get the hell out of here. If the
report from Chintaka is accurate, they will need help
evacutating." Grasmick himself shuddered when he heard
himself say that.
"Aye, Captain."
"Sir, 6 Breen ships and a number of Jemmie bugs are closing
in on us." Tac said.
"I wonder why they aren't engageing their whole fleet. Drop
to impulse, we'll slow them down," Grasmick said,
"Attack pattern Grasmick-charlie, let's hit the lead Breen
ship."
"Grasmick-charlie, confirmed." Tobin said.
"Tac, fire phasers." Grasmick said, but as Tac fired
the phasers, a Breen disruptor hit the phaser bank.
"REPORT!" Grasmick shouted.
Peterson called up to the bridge from engineer, "Captain,
that hit created an imbalance in the warp core, we are going to
have a massive power surge."
When the surge hit, even Grasmick, an acomplished engineer in his
own right, was stunned by its magnitude.
"SIR! The Breen just fired some kind of weapon at us!"
Tac shouted out.
The Breen weapon hit, when the power surge was at its peak, and
then the power levels dropped to near zero.
"Captain, what ever that was, it was ment to kill our power,
but with our power surge its results were not as
destructive." Tumok said.
"Tobin, do we have enough power to warp the hell out of
here?" Grasmick asked.
"Yes, sir."
"Then for God's sake plot course for the Chintaka evacuation
point and engage and warp nine."
The Sovereign flew out of there just before a Breen
energy-dampening weapon would have hit.
It wasn't long after the Sovereign arrived at the
evacuation point that it began retreiveing escape pods from the
massive fleet that Starfleet and her Federation allies had
erected in the Chintaka system, some of them to Grasmick's
surprise were from his friends ship Defiant.
"This changes everything, Alex." Grasmick said to his
first officer.
"How so? Knowing you, you'll find a way to stop them."
"Alexandra," Grasmick only called Commander Ryan by her
full first name when he was agitated, "We can't have a big
power surge all the time."
"You can use your Enterprise instincts."
Grasmick lauphed, "Perhaps. Maybe I should leave that up to
my friends on the Enterprise. I don't know. Now, we go to DS9 for
repairs, then we go out on patrol, or to Earth, Bennett's
choice."
"If it is up to Bob, we're doomed."
Grasmick lauphed again, "Of course, what other way is there
for a person to act in order to make the admiralty."
"And the Zetans? They aren't immune to this weapon. I heard
only two ships, us and a Klingon ship, survived being hit by that
thing. The one Zetan ship that got here in time to participate in
the battle was blown to pieces."
"Yeah, but like it says on the Y'nir Ra'min's
dediction plaque, 'Only a fool stands in the path of a rolling
bolder, but only the braver, with all dignity, throws the spear.'
"
"What does that mean, Brandon?"
"I don't know. Forget about that for now. What do you say we
go to the crew lounge and have something to drink? I'm damn
thristy."