USS POLARIS (USS HORIZON): assault against the Bird Of Prey

The low rocky plateau looked like a rock formation so eroded by time and elements that it shined like a polished stone between the intermittent curtains of dust moved by the eerily howling breeze around them. On the far side, behind the prefab plasteel encampement erected loomed the upward-winged silhouette of the Klingon assault vessel, like a monstrous bird perched on a cliff ready to plunge on an unsuspecting prey.

The diminutive one hundred meters starship was apparently on idle status, the engines softly humming and a few low red lights visible from the rare viewpoerts seen on the forward boom section. like all Klingon ships, it was made of a blocky main hull with spreaded out triangular wind ending in disruptors cannon while an elongated neck held forward the command centers over a photon torpedo tube. because of it's small size however, it's warp engines were within and underneath the main hull instead of at wing's end and the boom section traditionally made as a choke point against mutinies was barely a few tens of meters in lenght. This was obviously one of the early models as it didn't add the phasers seen on more modern versions produced during the later times of the Federation-Klingon alliance.

"I see one guard at the access ramp and some movement inside; at least one other, most probably one or two technicians working on repairs," Carmillia Julian reported from their vantage point in a rocky outcropping below the plateau's rim. " I expect possibly another guard on the bridge using sensors and looking out the viewports forward. The ship's disruptors seem operational but the torpedo tube has barely been cleared out of debris; the tube itself is still too out of shape to be usable."

"The ship appears space worthy but they haven't replaced the armor plating underneath," Jeonghun pointed out. "By the sound of their engine and theses plasma clouds coming from it, I would say they are working on their EPS conduits. Their sensors are at best working on very short range at about twenty percent max in this electrostatic-heavy atmosphere."

"All the more reason why they posted themselves up here to have a better view," the muscular woman added. "They flatened the whole plateau with disruptor fire; see the dark scoring marks all over the place. We have a hundred meters of flat, featureless open terrain between us and the Bird of Prey. Won't be easy to get the jump on them. best angle would be the port rear, away from the portholes and the access ramp."

"We'll leave two shooters in position to provide cover fire in case this goes badly, the rest of us will make a careful run for their blind spot and try to hold the boarding entrance."
 Redding pointed out two fairly good positions for cover fire.

"If anyone comes out and you even think they see us, shoot them. It's less likely that anyone inside the ship will hear the long range phaser blasts over a yell of alarm."

"When we make it to the ship, or you have to shoot anyone send the signal to the other teams to begin, then hold position here. It might take some time to make it to the bridge and I don't want you spotted until we do."

When everyone was in place Redding headed out with the remaining four including Julian and Jeonghun.

"Remember to set your phaser to heavy stun," the security chief said while adjusting her own. "It will knock them out fifteen minutes, not an hour, and minimal stun will have no effect on them. And I recommend we move downwind; Klingons have a keener sense of smell than Humans."

The muscular Woman and the six-limbed Edoan flanked their Commander so as to protect him against any surprise flank attack while he lead their assault. They were coming behind and to the right of the dark-skinned, short-bearded sentinel in his metallic mesh silver and black uniform of ages past, he was pacing before the ramp, disruptor rifle at the ready, a disuptor pistol at his hip, a d'ktagh protruding from his belt at his back and an old-fashioned communicator blinking on his left wrist.

A rough voice shouted something to him from inside the ship and he answered curtly before resuming his watch.

"Jeonghun, set up for a shot here. Julian and I will get as close to the ramp as possible before being spotted and rush the bay, if the guard see's us and he will,  take him out."

Without another word, he headed out with Julian and the remaining security officer following close behind him. Redding's stealthy but quick steps sounded heavy in his own ears and seemed to crash into the ground as he went. Julian's were barely audible to his ears.

They had almost made it to the ramp when the guard looked at what he might have heard or even seen before a stun beam from both Jeonghun and one of the snipers slammed into the man, one instantly after the other.

Redding and Julian tore into the bay, the security officer vaulting up the side of the ramp Much to his dismay this left him to unsteady for quick action. He found his first target holding a tool as he turned to face the ramp, the look of confusion replaced instantly with rage as he hurled himself at the human.

Realizing his officer's over eagerness, Redding held his position and fired his assault blaster at the flying Klingon sailing down at the back peddling man. The blast from the heavy pistol stopped the Klingon in mid flight knocking him back a few feet and down on the ramp, sliding down the the security officer's feet.

Meanwhile, Julian rushed up the ramp, scanning for a target and finding one drawing down on him with a quickly drawn disruptor pistol. The two exchanged shots, missing each other.

Redding looked at the officer.

"Back up, Lieutenant  Julian."

And so saying, he made a reckless dash through the bay, heading to the bridge as the Klingon and Julian exchanged fire. He couldn't allow the ship to be put into lock down by the ship's commander. A Klingon 'Lock down' was very different from a Federation one. 

And so were their security protocols, especially during the years of the Klingon split into two genetically different subspecies. In those days, the altered variety had all the weariness and distrustfulness of Human thugs; and being despized by the "pure blooded" original members of their society, they were often reduced to use alien mercenaries on their vessels that were not so prone to honor and duty for the Empire as readily as the average Klingon. Consequently, the danger of mutiny was very real and led to the distinctive design of Klingon starships, with their command points at the forward end separated by the rest of the ship by a long choke point neck-like structure. Even the smallish Bird of Prey, designed when the altered Klingons were almost extinct, retained this feature.

And of course, access to that part of the ship was severely restricted to klingon officers. Not surprisingly, the heavily reinforced access hatch to the ramp leading to the forward hull was locked down with a genetic and encoded lock supplemented by a force field. 

This meant two things; One, that no officer was on board; and two,  if the other teams failed in their own assaults, they would be trapped in an unusable ship... of which the commander  would have a remote self-destruct activation sequence prepared in case of mutiny and any attempt to steal his ship.

Upon seeing the secured hatch, Redding understood that taking the bridge would not be an option at this time.

There was a hard choice to be made. He could either clear and secure the Bird of Prey, relying on Aron'son's team to reach the Klingon Commander before he had a chance to remote detonate the ship's self destruct, or clear the bird and pull back in the event the Jem'Hadar failed.

Julian and the security officer managed to take down the last Klingon by forcing him into a cross fire position.

"Good work. Pull the Klingons away from the ship. I'm going to see if can remember how to disconnect the self destruct from engineering."

Jeonghun had just started up the ramp when he heard this.

"Shall I assist you, Commander? he asked with some small alarm at his commanding officer going off by himself. 

Redding changed out the charge clip in his weapon and re-holstered it.

"Three Klingons need three people to carry them, and can you even read native Klingon?"

"Well.. no, Sir, I can't."

"Don't worry about it. I've disconnected the self destruct on this kind of ship three times already, Klingons are bloody bad sports about losing their ships. I need you to secure the perimeter and make sure no one takes the ship back while I'm doing it."

He gave him a smile.

"Not that we'll need to; Aron'Son wont give them a chance to activate it anyway. Now, get moving."

And with that, he hurried towards the rear of the ship. When he got there, his trademark smirked returned to his face. This was the original Klingon engine designhe was most familiar with. And Klingons, even the Augment variety, were anything but efficient and consistent; and that meant they weren't much imaginative; they would not try to outguess a potential boarder or saboteur like Romulans would. The self-destruct on this vessel would be as standard as the rest of the ship itself.

He just had to defuse it in time.

When he got into the engine room, he found the usual cramped, low-beamed ceiling and curved pillared metal walls containing the heavy fumes of the heated  warp core. It was bigger than one found on a Defiant class destroyer because of it's horizontal arrangement, reminescent of the much larger one found in vessels of two centuries earlier like the legendary USS Enterprise. This one however glowed red instead of blue because of the different reactants and operative parameters of a small ship solely dedicated to agressive military operations. All that, redding was quite familiar with; and it was standard Klingon procedure to use it as a detonating device to destroy the aft section in case of mutiny, with the boom section with it,s fleeing officers separated... or to eliminate thieves fleeing with the ship... or bring down with them an invading force.

The first officer of the Horizon read Klingon easily enough; but he couldn't play much with the engineering computer program until he found and deciphered the right sequence to deactivate the self-destruct mechanism. So instead he went for the simpler solution.

Going to the manual release, he exerted all his strength to open the lower hatch and remove the clamps holding the central assembly. With a sound of ripping cables and connections, the dying whine of cooling reactants under an emergency automated hissing cloud of coolant gases, the entire vessel resounded wiht a powerful clang and rumble as the warp core was ejected and dumped inert under the belly of the Bird of Prey like a lifeless egg.

With a satisfied grin but an audible sigh of relief he could not contain, Redding sealed the hatch and returned to the access ramp to meet with Julian and Jheongun.

"The ship is ours, Sir," the woman confirmed as she was effortlessly dragging a stunned, bound and gagged Klingon in each hand out in the open like so many sacks of grain.. "And I see Mister Aron'Son and his team coming this way."

The six of them met at the base of the access ramp and S'tron was the first to report.

"Commander Redding, we should use this vessel to both avoid and keep at bay the incoming rest of the Klingons, deprive them of any transportation and means to pursue or escape, and reach the source of the spatio-temporal disturbances emanating from this planet."

"The source?" wondered the Edoan chief engineer of the Polaris. "I thought the Klingons were, some kind of technology of theirs..."

"Negative; it is neither technological nor biological... and maybe both at the same time. But the only way to understand it and deal with it is to go directly there," the Vulcan stated, looking directly at Redding as if he alone could already understand what he was talking about.

And indeed he did; even more than the Vulcan actually knew, for his ambiguous description had echoed precisely another one he had heard reading the famous USS Enterprise logs and reports of his own original century.

With a thumb jerk, he brought everyone aboard with him. Jheonghun went to the aft engineering section while the others jogged the short narrow corridor leading to the bridge aft. Taking their respective stations after a short glance to recognize them aboard this alien craft, they managed to decipher at least the basic activation controls, many of which were in standby already. Klingons liked to be ready in an instant to fly into battle; and Redding's intimate knowledge of Klingon ways and technologies, especially from this very era, brought them to speed in minutes. And not a moment too soon.

On the viewer, a group of Klingons were already entering the compound and discovering the remannts of Aron'Son's team attack, to the utter dismay of the one sentinel still standing at his post. Then, a voice barked in the comm system in angry Klingon.

"That would be our cue to exit the stage," commented the Deltan Doctor at the sensors.

Under Redding's experienced guidance, the Bird of Prey's thrusters roared to life and the entire vessel lifted off the ground, her swift departure saluted by numerous disruptor bolts that bounced harmlessly on her armored hull plating. And with what looked like disdain more hurting to Klingons than if she had fired upon them, the vessel turned around and flew away in the dark iridescent sky of the rogue planet.