Silent Stalker

The officers on the Spectre could not have noticed the massive behemoth that would have looked like a bird with a large hammerhead slowly creep around behind the relatively smaller vessel. When, in what seemed like hours, the stern finally came to a stop after it's long, sweeping drift, the cloaked monster sat, waiting on its prey to make a move.

Finally, the tactical officer on board responded to his Captain's command. "Weapons lock confirmed, Sir. Ready to fire disrupters on your order."

"Hold," Ja'rod said quietly in Klingon. He was waiting for something to happen, but the officers weren't sure what yet.

"Tell our escorts to flank the lead ship and hold position. And tell them that if anyone gets an itchy trigger finger, I will personally cut out and eat their heart," he added with a sneer.

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On the USS Spectre bridge Captain Summers assessed the situation that happened 30 minutes prior and thought it best to contact the Lotus and find out if anything similar happened to them and go from there. "Get a hold of the Lotus" Daniel said as he stood up straightening his uniform jacket
awaiting a reply from Captain Gould.

Aboard the Lotus Lt. Sainthill looked up from his readings "Sorry sir, I've lost the reading, and the Spectre's hailing us."

"Put them on" he said facing the screen, as the image of captain summers appeared. "We've detected the presence of at least one cloaked vessel in the area Summers, but we expect as many as three, I'm going to try and flush them out. What's your situation aboard the Spectre? do you require any assistance?"

"Negative Captain we should be fine here and our fighters are ready to fly, I suggest letting out some fighters to assist you, Commander Rogers get a report from the area of the explosion, Commander O'Connor get the flight teams prepped and ready for launch if the Lotus' hunch is correct we are gonna need as much fire power we can muster, from us and the fighters" Summers said as he strode back to his seat and sat down.

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"Understood captain Summers, as much as I'd rather do this diplomatically we just don't have the time for cat and mouse conversations. Ill begin my sweep in two minuets, good luck captain."

After Gould closed the channel he went to Vincent "Prepare a firing patter of torpedoes at maximum spread starting from that signals last know position, I'll see if I can get them to leave the area the easy way first, but be ready for a strike lieutenant."

"Sainthill, give me an open channel" Sainthill did so and nodded to his captain.

"Unidentified ship, This captain Gould of the Federation star ship Lotus. Cloaked vessels are not permitted within Federation space and so your presence here is considered hostile, you are ordered to reveal yourselves immediately and explain your presence and purpose within this area. You have one minuet to do so or we will act to defend ourselves, please respond now."

"Fore tubes are loaded with photon torpedoes and a full spread is programmed," Josh responded to the captain. "If there are any ships out there, they'll get a good shock from us, sir."

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On the Spectre O'Connor tapped his commbadge in reply. "O'Conner here sir. We are ready down here. Lieutenant Corrett and her crew finished the last of the refits." O'Conner had also locked all major ship engineering functions to his section heads and of course himself and the other chief officers. Just as a precaution he had also spread his engineering officers out through out the ship in teams of 3 keep any sabotage from his department in check.

After hearing O'Connor's report, David strode back to the tactical station above and behind captain Summers to look over the status. Confident that the launch bay two was ready, he gave instructions to the CAG officers down there.

"Lieutenant Gariman. Launch stingray squadron and take CAP over the Lotus. Lieutenant Tess, follow with epsilon squadron for cap on us."

Firefly squadron was the one that had hit the force field, and would still need to regroup into launch bay two with it's remaining fighters. David was confident that the teams in the bays would be hard at work getting those remaining fighters transferred over to the second bay in record time. Then, just as he was about to return to his chair, Lieutenant Andrews spoke up.

"Sir! Reading a massive disturbance in the anomaly, quadrant two! Holy ...! It's lighting up the entire area! Distance, one point three five parsecs. It can't be a nova, but definitely an tremendous explosion of some sort."

Looking at science two now, David thought a moment.

"Captain, that is the Alsea's and Artemis's theater of operations."

Summers immediately rose from his seat as his heart sank to his toes. Kheren I hope you and all those with you are alright he thought promptly "Get me any and all info on that explosion for lack of a better term so we can make sure nothing of the like happens here, everyone else get back to work we can not afford to worry too much about what is going on over in quadrant two we have our own problems to deal with. Rogers and Tritter make sure all weapons are ready to fire, load torpedo bays to the maximum well try a spread pattern first then a volley if we find a target, I get the feeling we are walking into a firestorm to put it nicely, go to Amber Alert lets hope its just me being paranoid" Daniel said as he himself walked around the bridge over to the science station to see what he himself could help find out about the incident in quadrant two.

On the flight deck, unaware of the going on the bridge O'Conner watch the fighters launch with a smile. On the Thunderchild he had been a fight engineer and see those bird fly made him feel at home.

Behind him Rikki had join him watch the launch. "Them's stick jockeys better keep my birds safe." She said firmly.

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The waiting was making the First Officer on the Ghawran distressed.

"Sir, why do we not attack? We have the advantage!" he hissed to his Captain, but in a low voice that only he could hear.

"Are you questioning my willingness to fight?" Ja'rod shot back.

"Of course not, Captain," the First Officer apologized. "It's just that... I would be lapse in my duties not to point out the opportunity for a clear victory when it presents itself."

"Patience, my friend," Ja'rod said, calmly, as he continued to stare straight forward through the viewscreen at the stern of the Spectre. "We will bide our time until our friends are ready. Then we shall strike. Q'aplah!"

"Q'aplah!" responded the First Officer and began to tap out a rhythm on the nearest console as he sang,

Qoy qeylIs puqloD.

Qoy puqbe'pu'.

yoHbogh matlhbogh je SuvwI'

Say'moHchu' may' 'Iw.

The song honoring both Kahless and the warriors on their ship at the same time, reverberated throughout the bridge, proudly sung by the Klingon warriors within; proud but also anxious for battle! The only one not singing was Ja'rod as he brooded over the ship in his viewscreen, wanting to strike, but knowing it would compromise their true mission.

A little while later as the singing diminished, he got his chance. Through an encrypted comm channel, the message he was waiting for came through. "In place" was all it said.

"Now, we shall send these petaQ to their rightful place on the Barge of the Dishonored Dead! Decloak, shields, fire all disrupters!"

As the Klingons cheered, the officers carried out their orders swiftly. The three ships circling the Lotus remained cloaked, but the ship that appeared behind the Spectre was nothing they ever expected.

The Bortas dreadnaught was a closely guarded secret the Klingons had been working on for years while their good relationship with the Federation and lack of prying eyes afforded them the luxury of easy security and secrecy of the project. The original prototype of the class, it had been renamed "Ghawran", which meant "Horizon", in honor of its first mission.

What the officers on the Spectre saw appear right behind them was a ship very similar in shape and style to a standard Negh'var, but being about 150% bigger, its massive girth between its two nacelles spanned that of the Spectre -- the second largest ship in Lotus Fleet -- twofold.

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"Sir, a ship is decloaking behind the Spectre," Josh reported on the bridge of the Lotus. "It's...it's huge."

"Oh my god!" The Lotus's navigator yelled out at the same time as his screen lit up from not just the multiple readings, but the vary large blip appearing behind the Spectre. "Three ships sir, and.. and i don't know what.." Gould jumped from his chair "put it on screen" The image of the dreadnought filled the screen for a second until it auto adjusted to a more viewable size.

Josh's fingers ran across the console as he double-checked the readings on the monstrosity that had appeared.

"The readings are correct. It is much larger than a Negh'var class, but similar in appearance," he said. "There is nothing in Starfleet records about this ship. I don't think that this is the ship that brushed into our sensors either, it is much too large to have maneuvered between us and the Spectre."

Although Gould was surprised that it was not the ship he had been expecting, it might have well of been for all its size. "Vincent, use those torpedoes to blind it, lets give the Spectre a chance to get under way!" at best the wide spread photon barrage would buy them a few seconds, blinding their sensors, but it was better than nothing.

And then the disrupter fire started in on them. "Helm, try and keep the smaller ships between us and the bigger ship, tactical coordinate fire with the Spectre, we need to increase our odds and take out some of the smaller ships, inform captain Summers of this tactic, once we've taken out the little one's we can out maneuver the big one."

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On the Spectre a young Ensign let out a screech and in a shaky voice "Ca...Ca...CAPTAIN" he yelled. "We have a problem" the ensign stated as Summers turned around to face him "Extraordinarily large klingon vessel just decloaked behind us, something the likes of which Starfleet has never seen before"

"Onscreen" Summers stated and as the image of the massive ship appeared his jaw dropped, "Red Alert evasive maneuvers get us away from that thing and get me a read out on its armament, load everything and start firing, aim for weapons first" Daniel ran towards his seat as he blurted out that statement.

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On cue, the Birds of Prey around the Lotus decloaked and began firing on the smaller science ship just as the Spectre took the full brunt of the Ghawran's weapons array. The smaller ship put up a good fight with its own set of phasers and the full complement of their fighters streaked out and split into two groups, one toward the Lotus and the other to the massive ship. A few were shot down instantly due to the disruptor fire that began to pepper the back of the Spectre, but most had already exited prior to the shooting. They then began circling the large ship, attempting to take out its weapons array first and the large ship's phasers just could not keep up with the fast maneuvers of the fighters. Although it was like bees buzzing around a large, thick-skinned elephant, their distraction was sufficient to allow the Spectre to maneuver away before their shields were down even fifty percent.

Unfortunately the messages must have been lost because the Spectre continued to fire on the larger ship's weapons as it maneuvered, against the plan set forth by Captain Gould and the Birds of Prey were able to more easily shoot down the fighters from that squadron. The Bird of Prey their fire was focused on shortly lost shields, however, and it struggled to cloak and escape from being the prime target for the vastly refit Intrepid.

“Aye sir,” Josh replied as he began putting commands into his console.

As the Lotus swung towards the Klingon behemoth several Birds of Prey decloaked around the ship. A full spread of photon torpedoes shot from the fore tubes of the Lotus and detonated just before impact with the giant battleship, giving the Spectre a few seconds to maneuver without being pulverized by disruptor fire.

On the bridge, Josh was furiously tapping his console to track each of the targets and fire on them without hitting any of the Spectre’s fighters as they buzzed around like hornets attacking the enemy.

“Torpedo spread away; the battleship should be disoriented for a few seconds,” Josh reported. “Our shields have taken hits from the Birds of Prey, but most of their fire is concentrated on the Spectre and its fighters.”

As he was reporting to the captain the Lotus’s phasers struck another target, punching through its shields in a matter of seconds and causing minor damage.

“We’ve punched through the shields on one of the ships, sir,” Josh said, “but we’ve cause only minor damage to its hull. I’m sending another message to the Lotus to maneuver away from the battleship.”

He set phasers to a pre-programmed firing pattern on the Bird of Prey and began his message:

To USS Spectre, Tactical:

Captain Gould has ordered us to coordinate attacks for maximum effect. Concentrate first on the remaining Birds of Prey. When they are disabled or retreated we, and your fighter squadrons, will be able to outmaneuver the massive battleship for more effective attacks.

Lt. JG Vincent

"Message is away sir," Josh reported upon resuming phaser control.

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The Spectre shutter violently as the Ghawran's pounded away on it's back side, O'Conner grasped the console near by to steady himself as he tapped his commbadge. "Kurt Report!"

"Dorsal shields at 75% and falling. Minor damage to EPS systems on decks 3-7, repair teams 4, 7, 16, and 21 responding."

"Keep me up to date with any major failures." Not awaiting Kurt's response he then turned to Rikki, who was over looking a console.

"Stingray 2, 5 and Epsilon 7 down, boss. Stingray 3 and Epsilon 5 reporting major damage." After hearing her report O'Conner nodded.

Even with their new metaphasic shielding, the federation attack fighter was an out dated design from when his parents were fighting the dominion wars and only worked in large groups. O'Conner tapped his commbadge again. "O'Conner to the bridge, Sir we need to launch the rest of the fighters they are getting pounded out there."

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Receiving a nod from Summers on Commander O'Conner's request, David replied to the launch bay.

"Go ahead Commander. Launch them."

Turning back to the tactical station, Rogers looked over the display, trying to correlate some pattern from the flurry of ships and fighters. Then, the message arrived from the Lotus.

Quickly scanning the display again, David noted the weakened shields on a bird of prey that took direct fire from the flag ship. Tapping the icon on the tactical display. Rogers motioned for concentrated fire on that ship.

"Fire torpedoes. Pattern 'Punch-three-one."

The main launchers on the Spectre spat out three photon torpedoes, one after another in rapid succession. A half second later, a polaron torpedo launched in their wake. Reaching the small bird of prey, the first trio of weapons did a one, two three punch on the same forward ventral shield on the Klingon ship, punching through on the final hit. Quickly behind it, the polaron torpedo swept in past the now collapsed shield and hit the bird of prey in the engineering hull, just abaft of the neck. The resulting explosion split the small green ship in two, spinning out of control and eventually, the larger aft section disappeared in a jarring explosion when its core reached critical.

"Good shot. Concentrate phasers on the Lotus' target. Helm! Mirror our position in opposition to the Lotus. Well pincer them."

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"One Bird of Pray down sir" Sainthill relayed off his sensor readings. The navigation officer made a happy "yes" sound.

Vincent confirmed that the Spectre was moving into position on the second Bird of Pray but was taking heavy fire from the Dreadnaught. "Targets Port forward shield is moderately damaged captain, there tuning away from us.."

Gould shouted out "Helm heading 125, full impulse, Mr. Vincent hold photons until my order , continue phaser barrage."

As the more maneuverable Bird of Pray began to adjust its course it found itself turning into the Spectre, its port forward shield exposed to either one ship or the other. Their commander did the only thing left to him.

At the moment the Bird stopped correcting its course Gould yelled out "Fire Photons!"

Without hesitation Vincent did so, and the two torpedoes streaked along at their intended target.

Too late the commander of the Bird picked up their launch signal as his ship began to fade into nothingness, vanishing from the Lotus's viewscreen, only to reappear a split second after the torpedoes struck its unshielded port aft section, ripping off it's port nodule and half of the secondary hull.

Vincent smiled "Ship disabled sir" But Gould didn't pause for congratulation. "Helm, get us between the Dreadnaught and the spectre, lets see if we can put a fresh shield to it."

Sainthill reported "Captain the remaining Bird of Pray has cloaked and the Spectre took another hit to their engineering section from the Klingon warship, it's unlikely they could take another hit there sir."

"That's accounted for" Gould moved over to Vincent "The Bird of Pray will be going for the Spectre's aft section, plot the most likely course from its last location.." *the ship shakes from disrupter fire* Sainthill reported in "Forward shield down to 60% captain, minor damage to the primary hull" but Gould went on "Once you think you have it fire a barrage, lets see if we can give captain Summers a target to work with" he gave Vincent a reassuring shoulder squeeze and went back to the command chair.

Another round of weapons fire rocked the ship "Shields down to 43%" Gould shook his head "Understood"

Josh began furiously tapping his console as he calculated the most likely approach vector for the Klingon vessel and after a few seconds he was ready.

"Position calculated, firing torpedoes now," he reported as he hit the launch button.

Torpedoes burst forth from the front of the Lotus and raced towards empty space just behind the Spectre. They all burst in fiery explosions a few meters apart and soon their flashes were joined by a larger flash from the decloaking Bird of Prey.

"Direct hit sir," Josh said, "we've disabled their cloak and caused severe damage to their hull."

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"Captain, the Lotus just found a cloaked Bird and hit it with photons it is decloaking aft" the conn officer reported.

"Fire torpedo spread alpha omega seven and all aft phasers"

"Aye Sir" as the young officer responded his fingers flashed across his terminal and just as quickly the firing ensued bombarding the Bird of Prey

"Bring us around complete 180 facing the target and lets finish this one off and start on the big boy before we end up like their friends" Summers ordered before tapping the commbadge "O'Conner report how we doing down there"

"Goose dive right!" the chatter of Spectre's fighters echoed through out the fight control room, as O'Conner watched over the commotion with calm resolve. This had been his place for many of battles on the Thunderchild. Then O'Conner jumped sightly at the captain's message, he then quickly stepped up and moved out side of the room with a PADD in hand.

"All fighters away sir, we have lost 8 birds, 5 heavily damaged and 6 crew members, but squadron leaders report port shield to 10% on what ever that thing is." Seeing as the lotus was taking care of the bird of prey the chief fight operations officer had directed the remaining fighters to the dreadnought. O'Conner couldn't help but see it as swarm of wasps attacking a bear.

O'Conner paused a moment at that thought but then looked down at the real time report Kurt was giving him. "As for us sir, aft shield down to 10%, hull breaches on deck 4, 8, and 11, aft phaser bank heavily damaged and the AFT EPS grid is a mess. But, emergency forcefields are holding and repair teams reporting. Though if we keep getting hammered like this sir, their won't be any ship for those crazed cultists to sabotage."

"Thank you Commander, Helm bring us to that larger ships port side and fire everything we've got maybe if we damage them enough they will flee for their lives"

"Aye sir"

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A million kilometers away, nearer to the Azimuth Horizon, five Birds of Prey suddenly decloaked. They were positioned at various intervals around the arc of the AH closest to Klingon territory. As they decloaked they sent a message indicating readiness to Ja'rod on the Ghawran and he responded with the command, "Begin Ion pulse bombardment."

The ships had been waiting the whole time, but would not be able to use their Ion pulse generator with the cloaks eating up all their auxiliary power. The distraction afforded them by the attack by the Bortas-class ship allowed them to begin their primary mission.

Meanwhile on the Ghawran, Ja'rod grinned maliciously as he ordered another large photon torpedo attack on the Spectre's aft section, but the ship had luckily just maneuvered out of the way toward the larger ship's port side. "Fire all disruptors from the port array!" the Captain raged, standing and shouting Klingon curses at being deprived of his killing strike.

All three supporting Birds of Prey had been disposed of by now by the Lotus and it was coming in to make itself a target to the Ghawran. "Focus remaining fire and torpedoes on the Interpid-class," Ja'rod ordered and their helm officer maneuvered to directly face off the opponent.

Calming down a bit, he motioned for his Tactical Officer. "Once you get the Spectre's shields down completely, send a boarding party. Since they can outmaneuver and avoid our torpedoes, it's the only chance we have to destroy them... from the inside out."

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As the Ghawran continued it's assault on the agile Spectre, O'Conner could only smile as he listened the fighter chatter. "So that's your play." The Klingons have finally shown their hand and it was a good play that would have worked with any other ship in the fleet, but while neither the Lotus or the Spectre could do much to dismay the 5 new bird of prey, there was still 36 fighters with 39 remaining photon torpedoes that could.

As fighters broke away from the Klingon bear and swarmed towards the fresh target new targets, the Klingons had a choice of duty or battle. A choice needing to be made quickly as the Spectre's fighter laced their way through the fissures of fire, to bare down on their targets.

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Another volley of torpedoes shot forth from the Lotus and tore through the remaining bird of prey, which erupted in a burst of flame.

“Sir, the target has been destroyed and the Spectre is now concentrating fir on the large ship,” Josh reported on the bridge. “Five more targets have just decloaked near the Horizon; the Spectre’s fighters are moving to engage. They got the port shield on this behemoth down to 10% before breaking off. I suggest we try to keep it busy while the fighters take care of the new contacts.”

"Agreed, concentrate all fire on that shield and bring us into a parallel course with the Spectre, try to keep both ships on the same weapon arc so as to divide their overall strength."

Gould turned to the helm officer "Helm, be ready to cover the Spectre's turn away so we don't leave their aft shield open to return fire."

The ship rocked again from weapons fire and Sainthill spoke up with more stress in his voice than usual "Captain, shields down to 23% I advise we go to full armor form."

Gould shook his head "Not yet Opps, if we do then the Spectre gets all the attention and we'll lose phaser capability, that port shield needs to come down first, after the turn we'll put the armor up."

The two ships started their run, phaser's and photons lashed out at the larger ship all striking the same area of the behemoth. In response the IKS Ghawran unleashed it's own barrage visibly shuttering the Lotus's main hull creating disrupter burn marks across the hull, breaching he shields.

Sainthill yelled out "Shields down, hull breach on deck 5!" But Gould had already activated the Ablative armor from his override control panel. "Helm! keep us between in rear guard of the Spectre!" the helm officer gritted his teeth and held on to his panel "Aye aye sir!" the ship labored to remain on its course as the ablative armor formed over the hull but before it could fully coat the ship a final disrupter blast struck the secondary hull just above the port warp pylon.The effect was devastating, slicing into engineering.

The impact on the bridge was barley felt, but the effect was wide spread. main power was down, weapons, helm and main sensor's were off line, the Lotus was effectively dead.

Josh reached for the type-II phaser on his belt and pulled it to the ready as soon as main power went down. He'd seen enough reports about Klingon combat practices to know what happened when a ship's defensive systems went down.

"All security teams on high alert," he ordered across the comms, hoping that they were still functioning. "Sensors are down, so we won't be able to see them coming."

"Sir, tactical systems are down and I think there is a gap in our armor where that disruptor struck. I can't be sure because sensors went down so fast, but I think that we best be prepared for boarding parties," he reported to the captain.

"Captain.." Sainthill added in. "The armor will prevent beam in's when fully deployed but it only reached 93% completion, there are gaps on deck's 4, 8, and 13 that may be to small to actively target with ships weapons that can permit boarding attempts, but such an attempt would be highly hazardous."

"Risk hardly ever slows down a Klingon, Mr. Vincent concentrate your efforts in those areas, I'll head to engineering and see what I can do to get the lights back on. Mr. Tomah, you have the Conn."

As the captain and chief of security headed out Tomah looked around at the bridge officers that were left. "Well.. at lest look busy people, we need to be ready when the time comes." and went to man the security station.

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"Captain the Lotus took a hit that prevented their armor from fully deploying" reported to conn officer.

"Crap, alrighty then lets give her as much cover as possible, move into position and start firing everything aim for the shields that are down to 10%"

"Aye sir"

"Commander Rogers see if you can get a hold of the Lotus and see what help we can provide"

After a quick glance at his PADD O'Conner tapped his badge and called the bridge. "O'Conner to the bridge. We are running on fumes down here, Captain. Aft shields are down, Lt. Noack is keeping the bow and port shields up with reinforcement from deflector, but they won't last to much longer if we keep getting pounded like this."

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The Birds of Prey around the Azimuth Horizon released their first set of ion pulses toward the anomaly, which froze it in place just in that small arc, but the swells and tendrils began to increase in speed go outward in every other direction than toward the Birds of Prey. While they were moving on away from the battle nearby toward their next objective point, their sensors picked up the Spectre's fighters speeding toward them.

The Captain of the lead ship contacted Ja'rod. "Sir, the fighters will be here before we are able to release our second set of pulses. Shall we engage them?"

"No, we have a mission to complete. I order you to stand ground and focus whatever auxiliary power you have into shields and your ion pulses."

"But Sir--"

"Are you questioning my order!" raged the Klingon Captain in charge of the operation.

"No, Sir..." said the other Klingon and cut off communications.

While they were charging their Ion pulses, the fighters reached the first ship and began to engage.

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On the Ghawran, Ja'rod saw an opportunity. The Federation ships were vastly outmatched, and the Lotus was no longer fighting back. The Spectre was still hitting them on the port side, but it was a slow process that was hardly chipping away at the massive outer hull.

"Lotus' shields are down, Sir," reported the Tactical officer, "but there's some sort of hull that is very resilient to our torpedoes. It appears propulsion and weapons are down too."

"Can we transport through that hull?" asked Ja'rod.

"Negative, Sir. However, it appears there are some small portions where it was not fully deployed that we may be able to squeeze a transport beam through."

"Send a boarding party. I want that ship in-tact. Kill all the crew."

The Tactical officer nodded. After some setup, five teams of a half dozen Klingons were ready to be beamed in to various points in the Lotus, including crew quarters, near the holodecks, and just outside Engineering.

"Sir, we're going to have to do this one at a time for each group," the Engineer noted. "It will take about a minute per warrior, because we're going to have to realign the transporter after each beam-in due to the pinpoint accuracy we need to squeeze through these gaps."

"Do it," Ja'rod ordered. "It should take them several minutes to organize their forces and a bit longer to reach the destination. We should have enough warriors beamed in to each location by then."

"Sir, we'll have to lower shields," the Tactical officer advised.

"I know that," Ja'rod seethed. "This ship will hold out long enough even without shields."

"But the officers near the port hull--"

"Will earn their honored place in Sto'vo'kor."

With the order given by the Klingon Captain, the warriors began boarding the Lotus with disruptor pistols and bat'leths in hand.

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Vincent and captain Gould exited the turbo lift on deck 4. "Lieutenant, Ill take a squad to engineering, secure it and see what I can do to get us running again, you secure the other two gaps in the armor. And while I want you to be efficient there's no need to hurry, the longer we can hold them off in here the more time we'll have for repairs before they start shooting at us again." He waited to see if Vincent had any questions before taking five officers with him and heading off to engineering. Gould reasoned that both crew and holodecks areas would be clear of non-combatants, as most of the crew would be at their stations.

On the way there his communicator went off *Sainthill to Gould, it's audio only but we have the Spectre on the line sir.* Gould tapped his badge "Patch me through" a second passed *Go ahead sir.*

"Spectre this is Gould, abort your attack on the Ghawran and support your fighters, stopping the expansion of the Horizon takes priority, we'll hold the dreadnought here as long as possible but direct combat against it would be futile with just our two ships.. I repeat, engage Birds of Pray and prepare to begin your run, do you comply Spectre?"

One of the security team yelled out a warning and shoved Gould up against the wall as a disrupter shot buzzed passed him from one of a pair of Klingons positioned down the hall way. A fire fight broke out between the two groups.

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"Their not... fighting... back..." One dumbfounded pilot spoke over the radio. The spectre's fighters had began their attack with standard tactics but with moments it was clear that the birds of prey weren't going to shoot back. So instead of weaving and dodging between the warships, they formed up behind the lead bird of prey and concentrated their fire and while each fighter was no stronger then a well equipped runabout, 36 of them were a force to feared. With their coordinated fire, they easy ripped through the aging bird of prey's aft shield and wave of 10 photons to the kilingon engines set it on course to overload it's core.

With one down and 4 to go the 36 fighters slipped behind their next target and continued their assault, though as they did not one of the pilots trusted that it would be this easy.

In the short time it took the fighters to destroy the Bird of Prey, the other four were able to release another volley of Ion pulses, and they were slowly forming a shell to protect Klingon territory from the effects the rest of the quadrant would suffer. Had they known it was only a stopgap measure and that the Anomaly was still going to take over the whole Galaxy, including the Klingon Empire in a matter of years, they might've seen how stupid and foolish this action was.

One Klingon, the Captain leading the squadron, did see something foolhardy however. He did see his fellow Klingons dying with no honor. They did not fight back and died for the sake of a scientific experiment! It was something the Federations would do... sacrifice themselves for the "greater good" regardless of their personal honor. This he could not stand for. He ordered a Bird of Prey to follow him toward the fighters and for the other two to continue in the opposite direction... to fire more Ion pulses closer to Klingon territory.

He ordered the other ship and his own tactical officer to fire at will, and the dozens of fighters swirling around them began to feel the full force of disruptor fire and photon torpedoes that two outdated, but nevertheless powerful Klingon warships could muster.

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"Sir, two of the Birds are breaking formation," the Tactical officer on the Ghawran reported.

"What!?" roared Ja'rod. "Hail the squadron leader."

"What are you doing?" he growled when the face of the Klingon appeared on his viewscreen.

"We can do away with these Federation pests and continue our mission later."

"You will get back in formation and complete the mission. That is an order!" Ja'rod raged.

"My apologies, but I will sacrifice no more of our kinsmen to dishonored death. We will only die fighting!"

The communication cut off and Ja'rod scowled, "Disgraceful, disobedient targ. I will hasten his journey myself. Focus all fire on the traitorous Bird of Prey. Let the other one live to see the punishment for defiance!"

"Yes, sir," the Tactical officer said with hesitation. He knew they were traitors, but still... it was a fellow Klingon ship. His internal struggle did not stop him from doing his duty, however, and he fired all disruptors and torpedoes past the Lotus and the Spectre and in several seconds destroyed the Bird of Prey and several of the Spectre's fighters that were unfortunately too close to the explosion or in the line of fire during the barrage.

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"I copy you Captain Gould, good luck we will be back soon, Summers out, O'Conner do what you can we are breaking away from the Lotus to take out the other two Birds of Prey at the Horizon and help our fighters"

"Captain the Ghawran just fired on one of its own Birds and destroyed it, it appears they were starting to engage our fighters" the conn officer stated

"Very well get us over there Ensign maximum speed"

"Aye Captain"

"Commander Rogers get as much info as you can and meet me in the ready room to prep we will have a few minutes to get a game plan together"