Just before coming within sensor range of the Mulluran forces guarding Rostella, the Ronin dropped out of warp just long enough to deposit the six Banshees, like a giant hen laying six silver eggs, before continuing on. Freed of the mother chicken, the six eggs sprouted wings and talons and zoomed onward on their own.
"Form up!" called Carter across their secure comm. "Tight line astern formation. Refractive shields double front. Maybe we can take them by surprise."
Off in her own cockpit, Jazz worked to comply with Carter's orders, pulling her plane into the number six position directly behind Dalton. She was relieved to hear their Wing Commander conduct herself with complete professionalism -- she'd been dreading more buffoonery from these modern-day Banshees, and wasn't sure she could take any more. But now that matters were rapidly heading towards life-and-death, this flying circus had transmogrified itself into a lean, mean, fighting machine. She found herself grinning fiercely with anticipation of the coming fight.
"Report status by the numbers," snapped Carter's voice across the comm. The responses were immediate.
"Banshee Two, back at you," snapped Max.
"Banshee Three, that's me," replied Sam.
"Banshee Four, ready for more," quipped Jo.
"Banshee Five, still alive!" recited Alex gleefully, clearly a big fan of their 'by-the-numbers' schtick.
Jazz rolled her eyes and groaned inwardly, shaking her head sadly. And she'd had such high hopes. "Banshee Six reporting all systems go," she said into her mic, refusing to play along with this stupid game.
Carter heard the frown in her voice though and remonstrated her uncooperative wingmate, though not too severely. "Lighten up, Jazz," she said. "We're just trying to stay relaxed before the fun starts."
"The fun's about to start, boss," interrupted Jo. "My sensors have just picked up the leading ships of the Mulluran Fleet."
"Where are the Nausicaans heading?" asked Carter.
"That big battlewagon of theirs is heading straight down the middle. The Yukon Synthetics merchantmen are taking up flanking positions, and the Ronin is heading to join up with the other Starfleet ships."
Carter deliberated for a moment, then began snapping out orders. "Burn in full thrust. As soon as we're spotted, equalize shields and break and attack. The Mullurans will have so many targets to shoot at that it'll take some of the heat off the merchantmen."
A chorus of Yo's acknowledged Carter's instructions, and the six Banshee starfighters ignited their thrusters and roared ahead of the bulky Nausicaan battleship and its merchantman escort. Ahead, the Mulluran fleet lay spread out across several hundred kilometers of space, the ships on the left end of the formation already engaging the Starfleet vessels. The Nausicaans were targeting the center Mulluran ship, the largest, Carter noted, so that was the ship she made the Banshees' initial target as well.
The range was less than five kilometers now, and Carter was beginning to think that they might be able to sneak in close enough for them to get off the first shot when all hell broke loose. The Mulluran ship's gun ports suddenly flared to life, filling space with a veritable wall of deadly green energy. Carter flinched at the brilliance of the beams, momentarily blinded, and threw her fighter into a twisting evasive maneuver. It took a few moments for her to realize that the attack had not been directed at the Banshees, but rather the hulking Nausicaan battlecruiser behind them. The Nausicaan was returning fire now, adding its own distinctively-colored weapons-fire to the soup.
It was becoming increasing difficult to maneuver between the criss-crossing disruptors and phasers there were so many of them. "Everyone lob a couple of quantum blasts into that ship and let's get out of here!" she yelled into her comm, straining to be heard above the din of her engines and the exploding plasma outside.
One by one, the Banshees emptied their quantum capacitors into the shields of the big Mulluran vessel, watching them sputter and flash an angry purple in response, before pealing away to safer climes. The lead Mulluran ship and big Nausicaan battlecruiser were fully engaged now, looking like a pair of ancient Earth navy ships turning their broadsides to each other, the sharp report from cannons and white puffs of smoke filling the air.
Carter looked around for fresh game, and immediately spotted one of the Yukon Synthetics merchantmen taking a pummeling from another Mulluran ship. "Follow me!" she called to the others. The six Banshees swarmed around the Mulluran vessel like angry hornets, stinging with their phasers at vulnerable spots, while the Mulluran gunners tried frantically to bring the big ship's massive cannons to bear on the tiny, darting planes, to no avail. Momentarily forgotten as a result of this fresh onslaught, the merchantman channeled all its energy into one huge phaser burst and poured it into the Mulluran's shields. They glowed vermilion for a split second before overloading, followed moments later by the vessel's hull splitting open like a dropped watermelon. The ship's innards and hapless crew spewed out into space, and were engulfed in the resulting explosion, which at least granted them a swift death.
The merchantman immediately swung about and headed off to lend support to its brethren, but several Mulluran ships gave pursuit, seeking revenge for their lost sibling. Carter set off after them. "Standard attack plan!" she called into her mic. "Let's see if we can keep the death toll down and just disable a few of these guys."
Jazz pushed her throttle forward and raced after Carter and the others. Dalton and Schmidt were in the lead, heading straight in, and dropped four quantum matrices simultaneously into the Mulluran's shields -- the equivalent of four quantum torpedo detonations -- causing the shields to burn out. They peeled away to a safer distance to let their capacitors recharge, while Carter, Vasser Beckett and herself followed up their attack with pinpoint phaser work, relentlessly taking out engines and weapons, crippling the vessel without destroying it.
An enemy disruptor beam flashed past Jazz's cockpit, then another on the opposite side, slamming her first this way then that inside her cockpit as her battle computer automatically jinked to avoid the fire. Jazz banged her head against the roll bar above her seat and had a sudden flashback to that terrible day twelve years ago when she'd been ambushed by Jem'Hadar battlebugs and taken prisoner -- it had started just like this. She found herself suddenly sweating profusely, her hand losing its grip on the joystick through the perspiration. She frowned in confusion and tried wiping the sweat away with the back of her hand, but it was no use. Her vision swam and she felt light-headed, fear threatening to overwhelm her reason.
No! It was all happening again! she thought frantically, panic rising. The damn Jem'Hadar and Cardassians won't take me alive this time! Before her glazed eyes, the Mulluran warship was magically no longer there, replaced instead by a looming Cardassian Galor class; the five other Banshees transposed into swooping Jem'Hadar battlebugs -- just like on that day twelve years ago.
They won't take me alive this time, she repeated to herself, clenching her jaw in resolve. I'm not going back to prison! Tightening her grip on the joystick again, trigger finger poised, she gunned her engine and swooped in.
Carter was regrouping her wing in preparation for their attack on another Mulluran warship when she noticed the blip in her HUD that represented Jazz's Banshee move radically away and head straight for the warship they had just disabled. Flipping on the comm, she queried her errant wingmate. "Jazz, where are you going?" Her request was met only by silence.
"Jazz, what are you doing?" she called again, but still there was no answer, and still Jazz's blip was on a direct course for the disabled Mulluran warship, bobbing and weaving as though it was dodging invisible weapons fire. "Commander Phoenix! Join formation! That's an order!"
Finally, a barely understandable signal came through from Jazz's Banshee. Won't let them take me alive... Cardassian butchers... Those were the only words she could make out. The rest was mostly incoherent mumbling.
'Cardassians'?!? What was Jazz talking about? There were no Cardassians here. That could only mean one thing, she realized with a sudden flash of insight. Jazz was having some sort of mental episode; something to do with her horrible experiences back during the Dominion War when she was captured and tortured by the Cardassians. She was reliving that somehow!
Jamming her joystick over so hard she threatened to break it off, Carter banked her Banshee around in a tight loop and raced to the rescue. Max, ever alert, saw the unexpected maneuver and followed suit along with Sam, Jo and Alex. They saw Jazz's Banshee go into a steep dive, its wingtips beginning to sparkle as the quantum cannons mounted there charged to full power. The cannons discharged at almost point-blank range, the quantum bolts impacting the unshielded hull of the already-neutralized Mulluran ship a mere second after leaving the muzzle. Huge gouts of flame blossomed forth from the impact points like fiery geysers as the defenseless warship began breaking apart, and headed right for Jazz.
"Nooo!!!" cried Max, horrified not so much at the terrible loss of life aboard the doomed Mulluran vessel, but at the imminent destruction of her friend, so recently returned from the dead.
A huge explosion engulfed the entire Mulluran vessel and ballooned rapidly outward, encompassing everything nearby, including Jazz's Banshee, which was still too close. Carter watched in morbid fascination as Jazz's starfighter was swallowed by the roiling orange flames, powerless to do anything to help. But suddenly she had her own problems.
Whatever was fueling the Mulluran ship's death throes was much more volatile than she'd expected -- certainly no ordinary matter/antimatter reactor -- the wall of burning plasma was still lurching outward like a small supernova, propelled by new and even more powerful explosions within, and before she could take evasive action, was caught up in it herself, as were the other Banshees as well. The last sight she saw were of orange flames all around and a screaming in her ears...
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