Confronting the Draxx

Redding immediately turned to Aron'son. "Target all abandoned hulls within our forward escape vector with a full salvo of torpedoes, and stand by to fire. Captain, If were going to get out of this trap, it has to be now before they reach detonation." He realized full well there would be no time to retrieve Mr. Moore or the Governor.

"I'd have to agree with that assesment, Captain." The engineer stated.  "We have no idea what sort of weapon the Draxx are charging. Our data on their combat style is too limited. This could just be a simple explosion, which with reinforcement of the forward shields could allow us to weather the storm. Or it could be an electromagnetic pulse, which could cripple our engines and doom us to descent onto the planet, or destruction in it's protective shield. We need to plow the road in front of us and escape immediately."

Falling back reflexively into his seat, Kheren took both officers' words in; detonation of enemy ships imminent; exact nature of the attack unknown; the trap about to spring; and then, there were still Sufra, Moore, Oseno and McGregor out there, half of them in vehicles without any shield or armoring... not enough time for even an emergency beam out...

"Bow Z axis 180 degrees! Fire at will!"

As Aron'Son opened fire with the full array of torpedoes, covering the entire forward arc, the gigantic starship leveled up it's bow from it's initial angle to a full vertical plane. The four remaining enemy ships exploded under their own power surge much sooner than they planned for, flared up by the Jem'Hadar's precise attack. Still, despite the distance and the aborted deployement, the quadruple conflagration hit the Federation starship's energy shields. For a moment, they held, shimmering under the impact; and then, they collapsed from the overwhelming power of the explosions. The remaining destructive force pushed onward to hit squarely the underbelly of the Horizon.

The entire ship shook like a titanic gong, the impact creating a deafening vibration. Only each crewmember's integrated individual PID barely managed to compensate the prolonged shockwave. Everyone up had to brace oneself on bulkheads and consoles while seated people reflexively grasped their chair's armrest or their own boards to avoid being thrown out. Lights blinked on and off on all decks and a few didn't even come back on.

Then, silence was total until everyone'hearing stopped buzzing and the chirps and whistles of automated systems coming back online reached them.

"... and regenerative armor replicating material stored all accross our lowest deck took the rest," reported Valencia Irksos, only the end of her report audible to everyone else.

"Damage and casualty report!" shouted Kheren, louder than necessary. His own antennae were barely coming out from their unique telescopic reflex action to bring his hearing back. "Status of pods and shuttle!"

His silvery eyes were looking at Aron'son's board... but there was no enemy signature showing on it's tactical screen anymore.

"Both pods and the shuttle... they're adrift behind us but undamaged, Captain," reported Aguk Snow, a shaking hand accross his sweating brow. "At the distance they were, the new angle of the ship shielded them completely from the explosions. "

"Still, pretty frightening back there..." counselor Lyrya stated, her blind eyes blinking. "The entire mass of the ship rising seemingly to fall on them... the maelstrom of fire envelopping and passing them by... the following darkness..."

"Was pretty frightening up here!" Elliago grumbled, still gripping the bridge's rail.

"I have seen worse.." Aron'Son commented, his memory filled with fleets of starships that a few Dominion cruisers had simply brushed aside as if they were playthings.

S'Tan shook his head in disgust.

"Damage report coming in Sir. Internal sensors are down on the lower decks. Power is slowly being restored, but I am dispatching repair crews to investigate every deck. All engineers are now called to service and are being issued orders for system diagnostics. I can't see any major damage. The armor plating held back most of the damage, just a lot of turbulence. It could have been much much worse."

"So far, reports coming in show no casualties or even serious injuries beyond a few bumps and bruises, some dizziness and quite a scare," Doctor Nasaro-Myth added, looking over Lyrya's shoulder at the ship's internal sensor readout. "yes, I agree with Solius; it could have been much worse, if not for that Zorro signature move you did here, your Yeoman just commented to me. I'll head over to sickbay to attend any more serious one that might pop up."

Kheren looked at the Deltan exiting the bridge with a puzzled look in his metallic-hued eyes.

"Is that one of the colonists?"

"Who, Sir?" asked Yeoman Blackbird.

"This person named Zorro..."

Aboard the shuttle Oseno was trying to get the craft's systems to come back online while Mac was covering the still mostly groggy colonists with his weapon as the force field securing them in the cargo section had shorted out along with the rest of the shuttle's power.

"Any luck Sir? They're startin ta' wake up." 

"I'm trying Mac, but I'm not an engineer, working on cold starting the power core. My communicator might still work though, we're close enough to Horizon."

"Aye that we are," Mac replied looking out the viewer for a moment at the enormous starship that filled it.

Oseno tapped the combadge on his chest.

"Oseno to Horizon; can you hear me up there?"

"Glad to hear you're still with us, Mister Oseno," came the flagship's reply through the deep, soft voice of her commanding officer. "This close we can all beam you all back into the main hangar bay. What is the status of the two workpods?"

"We are still here Sir, though the shuttle's power systems are not responding just yet. As for the work pods..adrift as far as I can tell, though Sufra used a transport inhibitor to keep us from retrieving them. I can't tell if it is still active or not. If it is you'll have to retrieve her with a tractor beam, the woman belongs in the brig Sir." 

"I'm thinking of a place further back and lower..." the Andorian grumbled.

His comment elicited a mixture of cheeks reddening and hiding smiles accross the bridge. All except Chief of Science K'Leysha who remained icily glued to her monitors, dar-skinned elfin  features drawn into a scowl. But if it was because of the captain's rude remark or because the civilians had betrayed her trust in them, none could tell. Either way, her commanding officer was as oblivious to her reaction as he was to the unplanned humor of his own words.

And he was given no time to realize anything.

"Captain!" suddenly exclaimed Irksos, looking up from her beeping scanner board; "the workpods are locked together and drifting fast into the planet's gravity well!"

"I've still got no primary power Sir," Oseno said calmly having heard the exchange over the open calm channel "and even if I got it back I don't know if I could get enough to power our emitter, if you do an emergency launch of the Polaris with Lieutenant Hunter, and Lieutenant T'lana aboard they could possibly get to the pods in time."

The engineer growled in frustration. He wanted to imprison the now-former governor. He wanted to use Romulan interrogation techniques to pull any and all information out of her. They had a plan. He knew they did. He was not a security officer, but he understood the risk they were all still under. There were other colonists on board, and he would be the first one to nominate throwing them out of the airlock and returning home. Treason was unacceptable to a Romulan, and it made his blood boil with the ferocity of a Klingon.

"Sir, if we move quickly, we can beam someone to the governor's workpod. The inhibitor is protecting her, not her surroundings. A Smash and Grab, as they called it in the movies. Beam in, EMP her suit and beam out. Should take 30 seconds maximum. Besides that, we could try a minimum power tractor beam, but I fear crushing her pod."

"Too late" Redding said as he watched the screen. They have already entered the field, any beaming now would be one way."

He had a restrained look of concern on his face. The Sphinx had managed to connect with the work pod just seconds before the explosion knocked out its primary power, it had been silent ever since. But, as it drifted seemingly out of control, it's micro-impulse drive briefly flared up; not enough to regain control and fly back towards the starship, but just enough to angle itself towards the planet right in the path of the lost Draxx vessel.

The two ships started to tumble as they entered the planet's atmosphere, the red-white glow of an uncontrolled reentry could already be seem forming against the combined ships hull.At the end of the second rotation the paired vehicles stopped with the heavier pod side down, facing the planet.

"Commander..." Operation officer Cheonghi relayed as best he could. "Mr. Moore has managed to activate the Sphinx's chemical thrusters, although I'm not sure how without a powered control panel... and is aligning the pod to be used as a heat shield."

(We'll finish later, as soon as I check on something with Kheren.)