Final Battle : Battlelines

Captain Taybar sat in the Command chair, feeling somewhat nervous. She'd been in other battles, but this was against a superior foe. All that stood between them and destruction was a handful of Starfleet and Dominion shuttles. The crew and the Jem'Hadar had worked fiercely to get as many vessels out into space as possible and now they were all ready to spring the trap.

The Bridge crew watched as the Jem'Hadar transport disappeared into the outer reaches of the Bopak system. With them were six smaller vessel, three Jem'Hadar shuttles and three shuttles from the Leviathan. They watched as the transport shimmered and suddenly changed into the Leviathan.

"What's the status of the transport ?" Aki asked.

"The sensor systems are working perfectly." Lieutenant Marco Borealiou announced from the Ops station on the Bridge. "The holoemitters are projecting the image of the Leviathan. As far as anyone can tell that is the Leviathan heading out of the system."

The real Leviathan was still in orbit above Bopak III, with its refractive shielding active, hiding it from detection. Hidden somewhere in the system, the Hellcat and several shuttles remained hidden.

"Helm, break orbit and follow the transport." Aki ordered. "One quarter impulse."

"Captain, the rogue vessel has just dropped out of warp and is altering course to intercept the transport." Garrett Loh announced from the Tactical station. "It looks like they've taken the bait."

"Inform the Hellcat." Aki ordered. "Prepare to raise shields and fire on my mark. Helm increase speed to full impulse, intercept course."

The Leviathan increased speed and within five minutes they had the image of the rogue Jem'Hadar vessel on the viewscreen, growing ever closer to the 'dummy' Leviathan.

"The vessel is about a minute from weapons range." Loh announced. "Looks like they've not discovered our ruse."

"What's the status of the Hellcat ?" Aki enquired.

"They report on station and ready." Marco reported.

"Time to spring this mouse trap." Aki stated. "Red alert, battle stations. Raise shield and prepare to fire."

"Ready." Loh announced.

"All stations report ready." Marco stated.

"Engineering reports that the auxiliary warp core is online and integrated into the main power grid. Shields at one-twenty percent." Lieutenant Luwall announced from the Engineering console.

"Fire." Aki ordered.

Moments later, the Jem'Hadar vessel was hit by a stream of quantum torpedoes and phaser fire as if from nowhere. Although the ship was rocked, its course did not alter.

"Direct hit." Garrett announced. "Their shields are down by ten percent."

"Helm evasive manoeuvres; take us to the other side." Aki ordered. "Prepare to fire again on my mark."

The vessel moved away from the rogue vessel just in time, as it attempted to fire blindly at whatever had attacked them. The Leviathan was however still too far out of range for the Jem'Hadar's sensors to break through the refractive shielding.

Seconds later, the vessel was fit again from out of nowhere and again it fired blindly at its foe. However, its course never faltered and it grew ever closer to the bait.

"Captain, the rogue vessel is in weapons range of the transport." Loh reported. "They're firing."

The transport stood no chance against the superior weapons of the rogue Jem'Hadar vessel and exploded into a thousand pieces. The shuttles that had been escorting it, creating the false sensor readings and the holographic image of the Leviathan, all peeled off and re-grouped. Flying in pairs, they turned to face the rogue vessel, phasers firing. The small shuttles may not have been a match for the Jem'Hadar vessel weapons, but they were small and manoeuvrable, making them hard targets to hit. As each vessel passed by, they continued in a long arc, coming around for another run at the vessel.

"Their shields are down to sixty percent." Garret Loh announced as the fourth volley of shots from the Leviathan was fired at the rogue vessel. Suddenly the rogue vessel turned to face the Leviathan.

"I think they've spotted use." Loh reported as for the first time the Leviathan was rocked by the weapons of the Jem'Hadar vessel.

"Evasive manoeuvres keep firing." Aki ordered. "Contact the Hellcat and tell them to spring the trap."

From behind the rogue vessel, several small vessels appeared, having been previously hidden by the cloak of the USS Hellcat. Almost immediately, the Hellcat disappeared back into the background, awaiting the opportunity to fire.

The shuttles meanwhile attacked the rogue Dominion vessel from behind, joined now by the shuttles that had been escorting the decoy transport. The Leviathan, raced ahead of them all, its weapons platform and rear weapons firing at the advancing threat.

"The vessel in gaining on us." Loh announced, as the Leviathan was rocked by the weapons fire. "Shields are down to ninety percent."

Suddenly there was a loud thud as the vessel was hit once more and the emergency lights came on. Consoles on the Bridge started to spark and immediately the fire-control measures came online.

"Report." Aki ordered.

"All systems are OK." Loh announced. "Shields are down to sixty-five percent, but we're still fighting."

"Main power is down to eighty percent." Rachel Luwall announced. "The auxiliary warp core was hit and is off-line. We've got minor hull breaches on the upper decks, but forcefields are in place."

"What's the status of the rogue vessel ?" Aki enquired.

"Their shields are at thirty percent, our window of opportunity in close." Marco reported from the Ops console.

Just at that moment, the main lights came back on. On the viewscreen, the Bridge crew saw the Hellcat emerge from its cloak, very close to the rogue vessel. It fired with every weapon it had, targeting one spot then disappeared once more. The rogue vessel didn't have a chance to react.

It wasn't common to target the Bridge of an enemy vessel in battle, but Aki knew that the only way to stop this vessel was to cut off its 'head'. She knew that given the chance, the rogue vessel would have had no hesitation in doing the same to the Leviathan. From the reports made by the crew of the USS Taurus, they rogue vessel had attacked the Bridge's of the two Dominion battlecruisers as a primary target.

The hull of the rogue vessel was hit by the full force of the weapons fire, which ripped a huge hole in the upper hull of the vessel, causing debris and bodies to fly out. Injured, but still operational the rogue vessel pulled away from it's pursuit of the Leviathan, looking for cover.

"They missed." Garrett suddenly announced from his station. "They missed the Bridge by about two metres."

This was not good news. Captain Taybar had been relying on a first-strike on the Bridge, using the cloaked Hellcat to get very close to the rogue vessel before firing. They wouldn't get another chance at it now.

"Inform all groups to target the vessel." Aki ordered. "But tell them to be careful, this vessel maybe wounded, but it's at this time that it will be at its most dangerous. They have nothing left to lose now."

Just then Logan McQueen pointed something out on the viewscreen.

"Captain, the vessel is heading straight for us." He announced.

"Evasive manoeuvres." Aki ordered.

Lily Barker, who was manning the helm turned the Leviathan away from the oncoming vessel, but it was too late to avoid a collision. The two vessels collided, with the rogue vessel sheering off the weapons pod, which floated off on it's own, inert and no longer firing.

"Damage report." Aki requested.

"Major damage to the dorsal hull, we've lost the weapons pod and most of the turret support system." Luwall announced. "Main power is still operational, but the slipstream drive is damaged."

"Heims, what's the problem with the drive ?" Aki enquired.

"Some of the control systems have been severed and the reaction is becoming unstable." Juran announced. "I'll head down to Engineering and stabilise from there. I should have it under control in about ten minutes."

With that the slipstream engineer left his station on the Bridge and headed for the turbolift.

"Weapons and shields ?" Aki asked.

"Shields are down to twenty percent, all dorsal weapons are offline." Garrett announced. "Engineering is working on the problem and we should have the forward torpedo tubes and dorsal phaser back in five minutes."

*In five minutes, we could all be dead.* Aki thought.

"Where's the rogue vessel ?" Aki asked.

"It's heading for Bopak III." Borealiou announced. "The shuttles and the Hellcat are following, but they'll never catch up in time."

"Pursuit course…….." Aki ordered. "………..Maximum speed."

"Warp and slipstream are off-line." Lily announced. "And we can only get half impulse."

"As fast as you can Helm." Aki stated, watching the viewscreen. Suddenly she noticed something in orbit above Bopak III.

*What's Goran'Agar upto ?* Aki thought as she realised it was the second Jem'Hadar transport, making a run for it away from the battle.

When the Leviathan's engineers had looked at the transports, they had agreed that it would have taken at least two days to get the second transport operational and spaceworthy, so had concentrated all their efforts in getting the decoy vessel ready. As soon as the vessel jumped to warp, it would have disintegrated, Aki was surprised it had even made it into orbit.

"Contact the second transport." Aki ordered.

"No reply." Marco reported. "Capatin, the transport is altering course…. They're on a collision course with the rogue vessel."

The Bridge crew all watched as the transport turned to meet the oncoming rogue vessels. The rogue vessels weapon systems must have been damaged, because it made no real effort to attack the oncoming transport.

Moments later, it was all over, the transport crashed head-long into the rogue vessel, which must have realised what was happening too late to alter their course.

"Contact the shuttles." Aki ordered as she watched the two vessels continue to be ripped apart as the explosive power of the two vessels continued to release itself into space. "Tell them to search for survivors."

Three hours later, the full extent of the battle was revealed. Three of the Jem'Hadar shuttles and one of the Leviathan's own shuttles had been destroyed by flying debris from the explosion, five more had been damaged. The weapons pod and main turret were gone, lost beyond repair and most of the upper hull plating on the Engineering section had either been ripped off or was buckled and bent.

The Engineering teams were already at work repairing and patching up the rest of the ship as it continued to orbit Bopak III. Captain Taybar had contacted Goran'Agar, only to find that he had been the pilot of the transport. He'd sacrificed his own life to save his followers.

The remaining shuttles had scoured the debris from the collision and found nothing but bodies. Goran'Agar's second requested that all the Jem'Hadar bodies, both friend and rogue be collected and taken to the planet's surface. The body of the Leviathan shuttle pilot was found in the debris of the cockpit and brought back home.

The Leviathan had been lucky, she had suffered heavy damage during the battle, but only the one fatality. There had been over a hundred injured, but only thirty had been serious and only three had been life-threatening. Rahel and the rest of the medical staff had coped well with the injured.

True to her word, Aki started to allow the Jem'Hadar to move through the device and set-up camp on the alien planet. She provided supplies and equipment so that they could survive and prosper.

Lieutenant Commander J'Ross finally reported in. It had taken her a day and a half to reach the centre of the shield system and she'd found a large complex, itself shielded. She made a request to investigate further, which given the fact that the rogue Jem'Hadar threat had passed the Captain granted, but M'eko only had one day.

Little did anyone know that something was coming to change everything.