ZE/D01 - Bridge

[Morad Ameen]

=

[Morad Ameen]

The steady, rhythmic hum of the warp drive pulsed through the deck plating of the USS Zephyr as the destroyer cut across the stars. On the main viewscreen, the elongated streaks of warp space stretched out ahead, marking the long, quiet trek back toward Deep Space Nine.

Commander Morad Ameen, acting CO, sat in the center chair, leaning back with an arm resting casually on the console. The chaotic rush of the Broken Arrow mission was behind them, the genomic data crystal had been secured, Apex Prime and the stasis pods were safely transferred to the USS Auberjonois, and the ship had finally settled into standard cruising operations.

Across the bridge, the quietness of a routine watch had resumed. Consoles chimed intermittently with standard navigational telemetry and passive sensor sweeps, the bridge crew working with relaxed efficiency.

After hours of high-stakes tension and first-contact diplomacy, the stillness was a welcome reprieve. Morad tapped a control on his armrest, bringing up the ship's current transit route and ETA to DS9, letting the quiet hum of the bridge wash over him while keeping a steady eye on the forward view.

I wonder if they will send me back to the Titania after we are done here or make this gig permanent... This old lady is starting to grow on me... She's seen a lot of miles, but still has a lot to give... Don't you Zee?

He gave the armrest of the Zephyr's command chair a gentle loving pat.

[Amila Ra'an]

Amila slipped onto the Bridge a solid forty minutes early for her Alpha shift rotation. She liked the quiet of the early morning, and it gave her one last opportunity to double check duty rotas before posting them out for the week. She was still putting a lot of pressure on herself to get things right on the administrative side of being the Chief Science Officer, and hadn't quite found herself willing to trade in any of her usual functions as a science officer to make space for the DH duties. It meant she often found herself pulling extra hours at the beginning and end of her shifts, but she enjoyed it.

She was also motivated for other reasons to make sure that she didn't miss a beat. Not only was it her first assignment as a Department Head, but it just so happened to be under Morad's first command. She not only wanted to make him look good as a commanding officer, but she didn't want to give the fleet commander any passing reason to think that they couldn't work together.

She sat at her station, her left leg bent underneath her so that she was actually perched more on her foot than the seat itself. She had multiple projects spinning in front of her. The duty roster for the science department that was finished, but she was still deciding if she wanted to make any tweaks. She was also monitoring long range sensors, short range sensors, and she was also running back-up sensors so that she could test out some modifications to see if they could improve efficiency. This is what she did best - working on multiple items at once. Split focus, big picture, small picture all at once. She was so wrapped up in her work, she was almost unaware of the background around her and the others working at their stations.

Almost. Morad's presence was impossible for her to ignore. She couldn't see him with her back to the command well, but she felt his presence. She simply used it as an excuse to become more engulfed in her work for the moment. There was also a simulation she was running in the lab she could check on...

No, that would be too much. Keep it to the Bridge, Amila. Don't spread yourself too think. You'll miss something.

[GM-CD]

[FROM: Commanding Officer, USS Lowry
TO: Any Federation Starship in range
Starbase 214 blockaded by Cardassian escort squadron. Cardassian invasion fleet crossing border. Fleet comprises three Escorts, three Battlecruisers, one Dreadnought. Lowry withdrawing. USS Yeager remains on-station. Current status, unknown. Immediate reinforcement requested.]

[Gath]

Gath stepped onto the Bridge and strode to his station to check in and put in a good show for the start of the shift. He had already been at it for almost an hour, preparing and giving his people a good turnover briefing from the previous shift. Turnover overlap began 30 minutes before the official start of shift, giving rise to the saying that on time was late. Gath had enjoyed a hot cup of coffee to start his day.

Gath was already caught up on work and was now busy trying to think of a new excuse to stop by Sickbay to see Evie. He didn't want to seem too eager, but just thinking about her made him grin, putting a proverbial crack in his armor. He was known for his stoic approach to matters while on duty, but she was going to make it very hard now. This thought made him focus even harder, yet having such difficulties were still a good thing. Such were in internal struggles these days.

He did have the presence of mind to glance to the CO and Lieutenant Ra'an, "Commander...Lieutenant..."

[Morad Ameen]

The bridge fell into a sharp, focused stillness the moment the automated distress header splashed across the central console.

[FROM: Commanding Officer, USS Lowry
TO: Any Federation Starship in range
Starbase 214 blockaded by Cardassian escort squadron. Cardassian invasion fleet crossing border. Fleet comprises three Escorts, three Battlecruisers, one Dreadnought. Lowry withdrawing. USS Yeager remains on-station. Current status, unknown. Immediate reinforcement requested.]

So it begins...

Morad leaned forward in the center chair, his eyes narrowing as he processed the composition of the enemy battlegroup. Three Escorts, three Battlecruisers, and a dreadnought.

A planetary assault force... Ameen thought, his jaw tightening slightly. Dropping in alone against that kind of firepower isn't courage, it's throwing away a starship and her crew for nothing. If the Yeager is still in one piece, chances are they're running silent and shadowing. If we drop out of warp guns blazing, we could compromise whatever stealth they have left and draw the whole fleet onto us. 

He looked up, shifting into command cadence. "Lieutenant Gath," Morad said, acknowledging the Chief of Security with a firm nod. "Bring the ship to Yellow Alert. Charge secondary defensive grids and ensure all three of our burst-fire torpedo launchers are loaded and placed on hot standby. I want our combat systems primed, but we keep our signatures tight."

Turning toward the science console, he addressed Amila. "Lieutenant Ra'an, pull passive long-range telemetry on the Starbase 214 sector. If the Yeager is operating in quiet mode or maintaining comms blackout, do not actively ping for them, we don't want to hand the Cardassians their coordinates on a platter. Instead, cross-reference known Starfleet fleet dispositions in this sector, try and see who else received this beacon, and check for their last known vector. I also want a full environmental survey of the sector, check for nebulae, asteroid belts, plasma fields, or local solar phenomena. Anything we can tuck into to mask our sensor profile and use to our tactical advantage if needs be."

He pivoted toward the communications console manned by the duty officer. "Comms, relay the Lowry’s distress packet directly to Starfleet Sector Command at Deep Space Nine on secure high priority channels. Inform them the Zephyr is en route toward the sector perimeter, standing by for task force integration, and request immediate tactical orders and rendezvous coordinates for a coordinated response fleet."

Finally, Morad looked to the flight control station. "Helm, adjust course toward Sector 214, but hold us along the outer sensor perimeter at high warp. Let's get into battle ready position without flying straight down their throat until we have new orders or fleet backup. We will stand by to provide the Yeager with assistance if they request it."

Let's hope Starfleet can muster a response fleet together quickly... this incursion cannot go unanswered...

== Tag ==

[Amila Ra'an]

Amila let the message contained in the distress signal sink in.

An invasion. Why now?

When Morad began giving out commands, Amila's casual posture shifted quickly from sitting comfortably almost curled up in her seat -- her left foot hit the floor, she was now perched on the edge of her chair full attention to her station. As the Commander spoke with Gath, she was already shutting down the extemporaneous projects that she was running, powering down her sensor experiments and closing out the duty roster to prepare her station to be fully alert.

When the orders came her way she was ready.

"Lieutenant Ra'an, pull passive long-range telemetry on the Starbase 214 sector. If the Yeager is operating in quiet mode or maintaining comms blackout, do not actively ping for them, we don't want to hand the Cardassians their coordinates on a platter. Instead, cross-reference known Starfleet fleet dispositions in this sector, try and see who else received this beacon, and check for their last known vector. I also want a full environmental survey of the sector, check for nebulae, asteroid belts, plasma fields, or local solar phenomena. Anything we can tuck into to mask our sensor profile and use to our tactical advantage if needs be.
 
"Yes, sir. I'm on it, Commander," Amila replied as her fingers began quickly typing in the commands to pull up the relevant data, her eyes scanning for anything useful.


==Tag for GM input please, Does science have any luck finding a way to mask our sensors and/or sneak out way in using any known telemetry/cartography information from the region? ==

[Sebastian Cortez]

Sebastian had finished up a few experiments in the Lab that Lt. Ra’an asked him to complete and she wanted him to bring her the result as he was finished.

Sebastian enjoyed his work, it was a welcome change after their last mission, he still had mixed feelings about his performance on that mission, But Lt. Ra’an said overall he did well, but he wasn’t completely convinced.

He stepped out onto the Bridge. He spotted Ra’an at the Science Station, the Bridge’s atmosphere was uneasy. One could cut the tension with a knife. He made his way over to Ra’an, He handed her the results of the chemical analysis of unique spores they had discovered on a passing asteroid. “ Did I hear that correctly, a Cardassian invasion fleet? “ He said to Ra’an as he handed her the test results.

Sebastian had never been a huge fan of the Cardassians. In fact, there was something about them that made him deeply uncomfortable. The parallels between what the Cardassians had done to the Bajorans and what his own ancestors, the Spanish Conquistadors, had done to the native peoples of the Americas were difficult for him to ignore.

The details were different, but the pattern was disturbingly familiar. The Conquistadors had arrived in the Americas, conquered indigenous civilizations, enslaved people, seized their lands, and exploited the natural resources of those territories for the benefit of Spain. Wealth, gold, silver, and other resources were extracted from the New World and shipped across the Atlantic to enrich a distant empire.

The Cardassians had followed a remarkably similar pattern on Bajor. They occupied the planet, subjugated its people, stripped its resources, and transported those resources back to Cardassia to benefit the Cardassian state. Bajor itself was treated less like a living world inhabited by people and more like a resource to be exploited.

Sebastian knew there were important differences between the two histories, and he wasn't trying to claim they were identical. History was rarely that simple. But the similarities were impossible to overlook: conquest justified by ideology, an occupied population treated as inferior, forced labor, exploitation of natural resources, and an occupying power convinced that it had the right to take what belonged to someone else.

Perhaps that was what bothered Sebastian most. The Cardassians weren't monsters from some ancient history book. They were people who had made choices. And when Sebastian thought about what the Conquistadors had done centuries earlier, he couldn't help wondering how easily people could convince themselves that conquest, exploitation, and oppression were somehow justified.

Different century. Different planets. Different empires.

Same ugly idea.



== Tag All. ==

[Amila Ra'an]

“Did I hear that correctly, a Cardassian invasion fleet? “ Science Officer Cortez said to Ra’an as he handed her the test results.

Ra'an nodded. "Yes, these will wait," she stated. "Take your station," she ordered.

"Right now we're using known data from the sector surrounding Starbase 214 to scan for anything that we might be able to use mask any sensors, comms, or even our arrival before we send out anything into the region that might be pinged by the Cardassians," she explained. "You'll help me look."


==Tag Cortez==

[Evie O’Fee]

Beinig the first time that Evie had to take a station on the Bridge she had no idea where to go, finally someone pointed her to a station with no designation. She was able to log in quickly gaining the information from Sickbay, there wasn't much to really go over. The biggest injury taken to sickbay lately was treated quickly and released, the engineers did a good job putting her Sickbay back together soon able to treat patients there again. 

Seeing there was no reason for her to be there Evie decided to enjoy the change of view for a bit, the orders were usually the same. Take care of the wounded was the only real order that Evie usually receives, there was little more for her to do unless going on an Away mission. It didn't take long before Evie heard most of the orders, for a second it felt like there was a distance between her and reality. Did I have some kind of stroke? Cardassians? Evie shook her head with a little nervous energy, it was something she wasn't used too. 

The big person she became concerned about wasn't on the Bridge, it was doubtful that he was going to at this point. Now that Evie had some idea about what was going on, she could get sickbay ready. Again going back to the original set of orders, take care of the wounded. Evie took a small look at Gath before turning her attention to the Captain, she composed herself a little before speaking.

"Captain by the time we get there Sickbay should be ready for anything, is there any other orders for me on this?" Evie wasn't sure if she was going to be required to do much else. 

==Keti==

Being called to the Bridge Keti was one of the last to come to the Bridge, Sebastian was already there as was Ra'an. He was happy for her, Ra'an had potential. Now that he was at his station Keti could figure out what was going on, soon he was looking back at his ignorance of the situation with fond nostalgia. Even with the occupation being before he was alive, he inherited some of the hate. If the monster inside him had a chance of getting out, this would be the very trigger.

"Hello my old friends." Keti said quietly to himself while rubbing the scar over his eye, something he had plans on removing one day he just wasn't sure when other than possibly before the wedding. "Lieutenant Ra'an." Keti soon realized there was an unintended amount of anger in his voice, that quickly went away after he started to speak again. "I apologies for the tone it got away from me temporarily." Keti wanted to compose himself better. "Permission to modify a couple of our stealth probes for communication purposes, at very least we can get a clear picture of what is going on." In reality he was just looking for a way to keep busy, there were probably a few things she might want him to do but it didn't hurt to ask.

==Tag==

[Gath]

Gath heard the order to go to Yellow Alert. He brought it up and it was Broadcast across all decks. The flashing Yellow indicators were hard to miss. The warning sound got the attention of everyone, then fell silent after three blast, as was common. It called everyone to General Quarters as a result and people would begin reporting in their information, as per protocols.

As the Captain had ordered, he charged up the defensive systems. If they went to Red Alert, Tactical would bring up the offensive systems and targeting. The exception here was that Gath was initializing the torpedo launchers to bring them to a hot and ready state. This made the crews that manned them ensure that the system was staged to continue to load torpedoes as required.

Gath dutifully reported, "Sir, Yellow Alert established, all decks. Defensive systems online. Launchers are prepped and standing by for use by Tactical. In addition, Security is all accounted for and my people are at their stations."

For just a moment, his eyes met Evie's. His face relaxed for just a minute, a hint of a grin there as he took a breath and let it out. There was so much more he wanted to say right then, but  this was not the time or place. They couldn't seriously be planning to lock horns with those Cardassian ships. The smaller ones, sure. They could hold their own against most of them, but a Dreadnought? He didn't even want to think about it. It wasn't worth trying to speak the statistics out loud, because it was that bad.

== Tag to all ==

[Sebastian Cortez]

Sebastian nodded and turned his attention to the sensor data, his expression becoming more focused as he began studying the readings. He knew how clever the Cardassians could be, but that meant he had to be smarter and more innovative.

“Yes, ma’am. I think our best option is to identify a naturally occurring source of sensor interference in the sector and determine whether we can use it to our advantage. We don't necessarily need to make the ship invisible. We need to make it difficult for the Cardassians to distinguish us from the environment.”

He began sorting through the data, comparing subspace fluctuations, stellar radiation, electromagnetic interference, asteroid concentrations, and other anomalies. “If we can find an area where their sensors are already dealing with significant background interference, we may be able to use it as a sensor shadow. We could then modify our deflector emissions to match the surrounding conditions rather than trying to overpower their sensors.”

Sebastian paused as another set of readings appeared on the display.

“We should also examine their known sensor and communications frequencies. If we understand what they're looking for, we may be able to minimize the specific signatures they're most likely to detect. The same principle might work for our communications—hide our transmissions inside naturally occurring interference rather than broadcasting through it.”

He looked back toward her. “If we're successful, the Cardassians won't necessarily see anything. They may simply see something that doesn't warrant further investigation.”

A faint, almost tentative smile crossed his face.

“And if we can make them spend their time investigating something that isn't us, I would consider that a successful use of the available science.”

He returned his attention to the display.

“I'll start by identifying the most promising anomalies and cross-reference them with the Cardassian sensor data. Once we find a suitable location, we can determine whether our systems can reproduce the conditions closely enough to conceal our arrival.” Said Sebastian, his voice filled with excitement.



== Tag Ra'an.==

[Amila Ra'an]

Keti was the first to arrive of the science officers and he immediately had ideas to share before he took his station.

"Lieutenant Ra'an." Keti soon realized there was an unintended amount of anger in his voice, that quickly went away after he started to speak again. Though the tone was barely clocked by Ra'an, who was too focused on work to be bothered by anything other than inefficiency, though she realized he must have thought he had done something by his apology.

"I apologies for the tone it got away from me temporarily." Keti wanted to compose himself better. "Permission to modify a couple of our stealth probes for communication purposes, at very least we can get a clear picture of what is going on."

Amila nodded to him. "We are under orders not to send anything out - no signals, no probes, until we are certain we have cover," Ra'an stated. "But, let's get something prepared for when we do."

Cortez walked in shortly after and took his spot to Amila's immediate right as she indicated. She still considered him impulsive and wanted to keep an eye on him. After she had given him orders to help him scan the known data he began to speak, thinking out loud she assumed as he began by suggested that they do precisely what she had just ordered him to do. She kept an eye on him somewhat anxiously, eager to get back to work, but well aware that she needed to listen to him carefully lest he slip something in that she agree to that wasn't correct.

“We should also examine their known sensor and communications frequencies. If we understand what they're looking for, we may be able to minimize the specific signatures they're most likely to detect. The same principle might work for our communications—hide our transmissions inside naturally occurring interference rather than broadcasting through it," he added.

"Known frequencies,"  she emphasized. "None of our sensors into the region under we have cover," she reminded him.

“And if we can make them spend their time investigating something that isn't us, I would consider that a successful use of the available science," Cortez added as returned his attention to the display. “I'll start by identifying the most promising anomalies and cross-reference them with the Cardassian sensor data. Once we find a suitable location, we can determine whether our systems can reproduce the conditions closely enough to conceal our arrival," he continued, his voice showing signs of excitement.

"Good idea, you focus on that, and I'll focus on how to hide us," she said, her mood softening as she also became enthusiastic about his input. "Nice work. No sensors into the regions under the Captain's orders, though" she reminded Cortez a third time. "Studying only for now."

"Lieutenant Keti," Ra'an said, now piggybacking off of Crotez's idea. "Did you hear that? Cortez may be on to something. If we do end up using one of our probes to get a comm into the region, it may be nice to have a double back-up. Not only use cover from natural phenomena, but assuming the Cardassians do read it, maybe make it look like something else to the Cardassians that isn't Federation that might seem innocuous to them, but that our people might get. Old Bajoran, Occupation era, or maybe even an ancient Earth radio signal, Navajo or something?"


==Tags to Keti and Cortez== 


==Tag also to the GM-CD now that we have had additional input from the Science team. Do any of us have any luck with our focused projects on determining if there are anomalies in the region that will work to our advantage, and does Cortez come up with any useful limitations to Cardassian technology? - Thanks!==

[Keir 77]

<<Engineering<<

Receiving notice of mission start catalyzed the young Hermat to get out of the funk s/he had been in since stepping down from hir position of First officer. S/he had tried to find a place in that role that s/he could make work for hir but the harder s/he tried that less comfortable it had become.

Keir knew hir place as Chief and threw hirself into it since stepping down. Focusing on the department had given the young Hermat a feeling of being centered that s/he had not felt and s/he knew now that Command was not the role s/he was made for.

Stepping off the lift and moving to the Engineering station Keir confirmed that all systems were operating well and once s/he was certain s/he turned and addressed the CO.

"All systems operating at optimal levels Captain. Engineering is ready Sir."

==Just a quick post to try and recapture the posting Mojo==

[GM-CD]

Unfortunately the area surrounding Starbase 214 contained several Light Years of nothing. Empty space or systems that lacked the raw materials, life, or stellar phenomena to make them interesting enough to study. It was one of the reasons why the base was located where it was - an almost unobstructed view into what had once been Talarian space, under Cardassian occupation now for the better part of a decade.

The biggest limitation to Cardassian technology, like the Klingons, was their scientific systems. Sensors used for navigation and fire control were first-rate and included multiple redundancies, but outside of dedicated scout or science vessels, sensor arrays dedicated to scientific study were considered second-line systems and their development was not a priority to the Cardassian military. Of the intelligence available to a relatively-junior Department Head and newly-minted Midshipman, which amounted to little more than citations from a Tactical School textbook, indicated that less than 1% of Cardassian military spending was utilised for the development of new scientific systems.

[Jukish Keti]

There were a lot of things still taught to Bajoran children that were not taught elsewhere, Earth had the same thing from the Jewish people. The differences between the two were negligible at best, the biggest differences were delivery systems that did the same job. The Navajo used their language to so they could basically talk freely over monitored channels, this was something that they wouldn't be able to do today. Keti mumbled something that wasn't understandable to everyone around him, his tone didn't suggest much of anything. 

Keti started to believe with the three of them they could come up with something, they already had the promise of something good. "Lieutenant the Beloti system isn't too far away from our Star Base, it could be used in a similar fassion to the Star Base two one four. The significance of this area is the five hundred colonists were being transported through the system until the mine hit, the Federation is known to study and restudy the same thing over and over again." Keti was thinking of using that as a cover, if they could get proper authorization.

"In order for this work proper we need to know who the Commanding Officer is, what we need is something that means something to them that others would dismiss. During the occupation we had a lot of ways to get a message out there under their noses, we can employ the same methods to accomplish the same thing." Right now it wasn't the best idea but it was something they could build on. 

==Tag==

[Sebastian Cortez]

Sebastian listened carefully as Lieutenant Keti and Ra’an discussed the possibility of disguising their communications. The idea immediately caught his attention. It was another piece of the puzzle, and perhaps one that could give them an advantage without requiring them to violate the Captain’s orders.

“An old Bajoran transmission could work,” Sebastian said, studying the data on his display. “Especially something from the Occupation era. The Cardassians would have encountered thousands of those signals. If we could reproduce the characteristics of one and make it appear sufficiently degraded, they might have little reason to investigate it.”

He paused, considering the other possibility.

“Although I think the ancient Earth transmission idea has some merit as well. Something predating the Federation would be difficult for them to associate with us. If we could reproduce the characteristics of an old terrestrial radio signal and then bury it within naturally occurring interference, it might appear to be nothing more than an old transmission passing through the region.”

Sebastian glanced toward Amila.

“And we can test all of this without transmitting anything. We could model the signals against the Cardassian sensor data we already have and determine what they would likely see from their perspective.”

His attention returned to the display.

“If we understand what their sensors are most likely to identify as unusual, we can make sure our deception doesn't accidentally create the very signature we're trying to hide.”

Sebastian considered the nearly empty region surrounding Starbase 214.

“It's almost ironic. There isn't much of scientific interest out there, but that may actually work in our favor. If the Cardassians are accustomed to seeing mostly empty space in this region, then an unusual signal might actually stand out more than we want.” Added Sebastian.

He began organizing the available data.

“So perhaps the best approach is to make the signal appear ordinary first, and then use the natural interference to obscure it further. If they do detect it, they should have no obvious reason to associate it with a Federation vessel.” Suggested Sebastian.

Sebastian smiled slightly.

“We aren't really trying to disappear. We're trying to give them something more interesting to investigate than us.” Stated Sebastian.

He looked toward Amila again.

“And I'll continue working strictly with the data we already have until you give us permission to do otherwise.”



== Tag Ra'an and Keti. ==

[Gath]

Gath listened to the chatter going on around him and it made him think of something, "I would be worried about any signal that would be out of the ordinary in their area of space. If we eventually must send a signal, We might consider launching a probe that would carry a message and send it to a different location before transmitting. At least then they would detect it coming from a direction other than us."

He wasn't sure how to phrase his second suggestion, "There is also something I learned from a pilot friend of mine that I'm not sure if it would apply in this instance or not. Once we drop out of warp, we can initially use the impulse drive as normal, but then there is a technique that I forget the name of, but you shut off the actual thrust, but continue to keep the mass drivers engaged so that the ship continues to drift at that speed without leaving an exhaust trail of any kind. He used it in combat to be able to continue drifting in the original direction, but could then rotate to fire behind him and attack his enemy with his forward firing weapons. If it is possible to maintain the inertial momentum without the cardassians able to track us by normal means, that could be useful. Such a drifting method would at least make us harder to spot."

== Tag to all ==

[Amila Ra'an]

Amila chimed in, "The area is wide open space, Commander."

"Nothing in the area that will be useful for cover," she continued.  "Once we're there they will know it. But they don't have the most sophisticated equipment. They've historically replied heavily on their brute force and their unwavering ruthlessness to defeat their enemies," she stated with some cold calculation.

"I hear what Lieutenant Gath is saying about not topping them off right now. Without cover to work with, we aren't getting a probe out ahead of us anyway. But Science may still be able to use our stealth probes to assist Tactical - something to use once we're there to make it seem like there are more of us," Amila looked at Gath. "If we had access to the right type of signals maybe even look like something that isn't Federation."

"Whatever you need, and we can coordinate with the other ships that are responding as well," she offered.

==Tags to Ameen, Gath, open==

[Jukish Keti]

There was a big bag of tricks that Keti could draw from, it was just this bag he thought it would be closed forever. Using the Science station keti started entering a chemical formula, as Ra'an would be able to tell that it wasn't harmful to anyone. "I think you are on to something about Bajoran solutions, many years after the Occupation ended both sides are still sore about it." Keti still entered the chemical formula into the computer.

"During the occupation we used this formula to mask life signs, after the Moquis would use it for shadow games. What was stealth now glows like one of those Earth Christmas trees, with presents for all the good little boys and girls." Keti started to pull up some of his personal files, they contained the Bajoran characters needed most of them were different than the ones in the Federation data base. Keti couldn't help but to laugh at a thought, it was more than a little silly.

"Lieutenants where there is nothing there is always something, you just don't know where to look." Keti set the scanners to look for small rogue asteroids, anything they could attach a probe too. "Imagine placing a probe on an asteroid won't do much good, the more we use the higher the odds. Program them to talk to each other using those codes it could bring their attention to the Asteroids, naturally they would be convinced they are small Bajoran ships." Keti pulled up a list of materials that were required to to make it look like a Bajoran ship.

"The hard part would be to alter the warp signatures to match, with some time I could reproduce these warp signatures. With the right programing we can also set them to explode like a proximity mine, old tricks from a distant past." Over all this wouldn't solve the big problem at hand, that would require a lot more than that. Keti had a couple in mind that were reserved for the leadership, those would gain more attention. 

Keti didn't like pulling up any of this information nor remembering a part of the past he buried, he knew at some point they were going to have to get up close and personal. While he was waiting on an answer Keti was working on a sling shot solution to create a sling shot effect, once in open space there would be nothing to slow it down. The path could be altered by an external force, he was just looking for ways to cut down on the odds of it not reaching the target. He wondered over all what their Security Chief would say, he might have a way to make it better or have a better one.

==Tag==

[Morad Ameen]

Morad absorbed the steady stream of reports coming across the command well, his gaze shifting between the main tactical display and the active stations across the bridge. The bridge was operating with the crisp, quiet energy of a crew locking into combat discipline.

That's when all that training kicks in, eh?...

First, he turned toward O'Fee. "Doctor, keep Sickbay on full trauma standby. Coordinate with your triage teams, prime the surgical suites, and ensure reserve bio-beds and emergency transport buffers are staged. If we end up engaging that battlegroup, we’re going to need every square meter of medical capacity you can muster. "

Then, Morad caught Keir’s eye and gave the Chief Engineer a firm, confident nod. "Good to have you dialed in, Keir. Work with propulsion to ensure we have maximum output routed to our structural integrity field and inertial dampeners. When we drop out of warp, I want every spare megawatt ready to surge into forward shielding and our burst launchers."

Turning his attention back toward the science console where Amila, Cortez, and Keti were analyzing the sector telemetry alongside Gath's tactical assessments, Morad leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees.

"So, several light-years of wide-open space with zero natural terrain to tuck into," Morad stated, his tone cool and pragmatic. "That takes diving into nebulae or asteroid fields off the table. But what the data confirms on Cardassian sensor doctrine plays directly into our hands, their scientific arrays are secondary systems compared to their tactical fire control. They look for direct, aggressive military signatures: warp flares, active targeting locks, and high-energy impulse blooms."

He looked around the bridge, his command tone hardening.

"The Zephyr doesn't have a built-in system to avoid detection, so we are going to do this the manual way: strictly silent running. The moment we drop out of warp well beyond their tactical sensor perimeter. Helm, use thrusters only for course corrections. We maintain inertial momentum and let the hull drift on our approach vector. Helm use thrusters only for course correction. Engineering, kill all non-essential internal systems, dim ambient lighting, throttle environmental controls to minimum operating baselines, shut down primary sensor telemetry, and restrict communications to passive receiver arrays only. Shutter the magnetic seals over the warp plasma vents so there's no heat bleed into the vacuum."

Morad turned back to the science trio and Gath. "Lieutenant Ra'an, coordinate with Cortez and Keti to prepare those probe packages. Rig a couple with Keti’s Occupation-era Bajoran comm signatures and degraded decoys, but keep them cold in secondary tubes. If we have to break our silent drift to draw their firing arcs away from friendly assets, or the Yeager, we launch them on offset vectors."

Straightening in the center chair, Ameen looked up at the main viewscreen. "Until Sector Command confirms the response fleet rendezvous or the other ships in the area check in, we drift along the perimeter, dark, cold, and watching. Let's make sure the Zephyr is a ghost until the moment we decide to strike."

I am a leaf on the wind, watch how I soar...

== Tag ==

[Torok Powl]

Powl was already in the turbolift to appear for his regularly scheduled shift with the Alpha rotation when the ambient lighting changed. The screens and alarms began their chorus, indicating the ship was at Yellow Alert. Still 15 minutes prior to the beginning of the schedule, he sat down at Operations immediately and started reviewing the data regarding the alert. A Cardassian fleet of that size was enough to give any individual the impression to immediately flee rather than fight.

"I am reviewing the tactical data regarding the Cardassian fleet now. Captain, I would prefer we bring Lieutenant Krandall to the Bridge for helm operations for this segment. His combat experience will make him invaluable during this incident."

Torok heard Lieutenant Gath speaking of a particular maneuver for silent running. Torok had used a similar technique during an engagement to allow him to perform a strafing run on several targets while maintaining his forward-firing weapons trained on targets as they flew past sideways.

"Lieutenant Gath is referring to a dead-drift. The basic principle is to create the inertia need to navigate at speed and then use no power to allow the ship to continue its travel without further use of the engines. Since there was little to no mass in space that would provide resistance that may slow the ship, the only bit of power usage and heat would come from further thrust or the use of the stopping mechanism, which would allow the Zephyr to decelerate. I agree that this would be an optimal strategy to reduce our sensor cross-section and long-distance detectability."

Powl paused to allow Ameen to process the information. His next orders came from a voice now appearing to be more matter-of-fact and authoritative. The quickly developing severity and gravity of their newly discovered mission was beginning to show.

"The Zephyr doesn't have a built-in system to avoid detection, so we are going to do this the manual way: strictly silent running. The moment we drop out of warp well beyond their tactical sensor perimeter. Helm, use thrusters only for course corrections. We maintain inertial momentum and let the hull drift on our approach vector. Helm use thrusters only for course correction. Engineering, kill all non-essential internal systems, dim ambient lighting, throttle environmental controls to minimum operating baselines, shut down primary sensor telemetry, and restrict communications to passive receiver arrays only. Shutter the magnetic seals over the warp plasma vents so there's no heat bleed into the vacuum."

Powl sat at his station and quietly surveyed the overall tactical situation and determined the likelihood of survival in a confrontation with an enemy force of that magnitude to be nearly zero. However, the Zephyr was a Steamrunner, and they proved to be highly effective at hit-and-run tactics.

"Captain, I recommend we use the time we have to prepare some slightly different ordnance for the Zephyr to bring to bear on that fleet that may help improve our odds. "I recommend we prepare anywhere from 20 to 30 Tricobalt torpedoes for increased effective power and yield, as well as increased effective range. We may be able to draw their attention with the use of the enemy fleet if such powerful weapons are being deployed."

[Gath]

== NPC Lt Tom Krandall, Tactical Officer ==
== Click link for more information... ==

in only a matter of a couple of minutes, Lt Krandall entered the Bridge, made a short but formal effort to pause in front of the CO,give a nod and the single word, "Sir..." Then, he swiftly went to the Helm and relieved the current pilot. He didn't look at the CTO, but said, "Lieutenant Powl, I have the Helm."

It took him only seconds for his hands to move swiftly and expertly over the console to bring up his unique configuration that he used. Those who understood and were familiar with such configurations, it resembled more that of a fighter craft, but was actually a hybrid that contained more controls and information than most Helm consoles did. There were small displays for shields and weapons configurations, even a few that indicated different pre-programmed types of micro warp jumps that would only last a fraction of a second, but hop them specific distances in local space as a maneuver. It was hard on the systems, but could be very effective in combat.

Once he had set things up to his liking, he stretched out a hand and lightly patted the top of his station and whispered, "Did you miss me?" He then grinned and began reviewing data about the path they were taking and the conditions of where they were going and specifics of the craft they expected to encounter.

After several minutes of review and listening to more conversation on the Bridge, Tom turned and said to the CO, "Sir, if I may. Obviously, a direct engagement is not recommended against such a force especially if they intend a static defense. However, if we have no choice, I will suggest using some very close contact tactics of flying right in among them. If we let them concentrate on us in a safe manner, we'll likely not survive the first volley. If we go right through the center of them, they risk shooting each other more than hitting us, reducing the actual amount of incoming fire. They also didn't bring enough ships to effectively establish a spherical defense. Their shields are spherical, but their firing arcs are not and many commanders of small squadrons or fleets are prone to more two dimensional formations, to focus on larger threats. The trick is getting in and out. A ship this size is designed for hit and run tactics and we can briefly do so with good effect. The variable will be how good their people are at adapting to the tactics. I can only surprise them so many times before they either guess right or get lucky. The more passes we make, the chances of us surviving decrease accordingly. We might get lucky, but when they manage to hit us, it's going to hurt. That's all I have, sir."

== Tag CO and all ==

[Evie O’Fee]

There was a level of comfort that wasn't available during Yellow alert, right now she was glad it wasn't the worst of all Red. Even when hiding the fact she was a little nervous, Evie knew there were a few people who could tell. ON the Bridge there were two people that Evie cared for both for the most part were more than capable, in this environment there was one she was concerned for more than the other. 

"Doctor, keep Sickbay on full trauma standby. Coordinate with your triage teams, prime the surgical suites, and ensure reserve bio-beds and emergency transport buffers are staged. If we end up engaging that battlegroup, we’re going to need every square meter of medical capacity you can muster. "

Hearing the Captain give her orders did bring some comfort to her, in Sickbay she knew exactly what to do. Being on the Bridge was for other people, now it was time for her to do what she dose best. After exchanging friendly glances at Gath, Evie got ready to leave the bridge. "Aya Captain Sickbay will be ready for anything." On her way out there was one last glance she took at Keti, he had a wedding to get too. 

>>>Sickbay>>>

[Jukish Keti]

Inputting the information into the computer Keti heard the order. "Lieutenant Ra'an, coordinate with Cortez and Keti to prepare those probe packages. Rig a couple with Keti’s Occupation-era Bajoran comm signatures and degraded decoys, but keep them cold in secondary tubes. If we have to break our silent drift to draw their firing arcs away from friendly assets, or the Yeager, we launch them on offset vectors."

Now that I am doing this, at least its for a cause I can be proud of. Keti thought to himself, at the end of this he might go for that procedure after all. The degraded decoys was a great touch, the resistance didn't exactly have the greatest of equipment available. Sometimes it was a combination of a few items that didn't work at all to one that worked, even if it was partially.

Keti continued to input the information into the computer with the main heading Spoon Head, it was a term Bajorans used for them during the Occupation. Like all racist slurs this one was born out of hate, if they were to read this it would add an extra layer of plausibility to this. "Lieutenant Ra'an I think we should include a recipe for Devils Food cake, if our people were to decode this they would know it isn't Bajoran." If they use this recipe in old Bajoran text, it should stand out in their mind essentially glowing like that Earth Christmas tree.

He still wasn't sure what the others would say, they have their orders now it was up to Ra'an to make the final conclusions for the team. He was just happy to be a part of it, almost like this is what he trained for before he entered the Academy.

==Tag==

[Amila Ra'an]

Amila stopped what she was doing and turned around to listen to Krandell's advice to Commander Ameen. She tried to imagine what she was suggesting in her head.

"So, Lieutenant... you don't think we should try to drift in at all, but change our course so that we drop out of warp right in the middle of them?" She asked, clarifying.

The thought made her queasy, but Cardassians firing at them was no different than a quantum rift trying to swallow them whole was it? The difference was that she knew better what to do about quantum rifts than angry armadas.

"If we're doing hit and run tactics like that, then maybe we use probes to ghost our own signal. We could try to control where we send them," she offered. "Buy you some more moves."

==Open Tags==

[Gath]

== NPC Lt Tom Krandall, Tactical Officer ==

Turning to face Ra'an, Tom couldn't help but smile. As a fighter pilot, pretty women were his only natural weakness, but he quickly took a breath and forced his composure to the front of his mind, "No, not at all. The initial drifting and using low key stealth tactics is certainly wise. We want to do everything we can to avoid escalating the situation. I'm no diplomat. I'm a tactician. I'm saying that if things turn ugly...I mean other than the fact that they're Cardassians...if you get into a fight, and you're this outgunned, you need to have one heck of a playbook, or it's over before it starts."

Tom looked thoughtful for a moment, "Fighting ship to ship is much like fighting someone bare knuckles. You have to be able to hit while avoiding being hit. In this case, everyone is much bigger than we are and any single hit means big trouble for us. So in this analogy, we need to be able to move in ways that they can't land a hit while we hit them. From a science point of view, I remind you that we mostly move through manipulation of warp fields. Even when using impulse, it is the driver coils that do the most work, there's little actual thrust involved. What I do is a bit like dodging plasma bolts being shot at me. So long as I manage to not be where they are shooting, I'm fine. Fields don't only let you go forward. If you have them preprogrammed, you can go any direction you want and you can specify how far. They might see where you are when you prepare for an attack run, but then you perform a micro-jump and you're somewhere else. You jump somewhere they aren't aiming yet and you get a shot. You're aimed at their formation and they have a gap, you jump through the gap and you're behind them to fire rear weapons arc at them and jump away. You can do this for quite a while, but sooner or later, they're going to get lucky or something will malfunction and that's the end of it. The only thing in our favor here is that this ship was designed for hit and run tactics. She's a bit bigger than a fighter, but she's more agile than you might think."

Tom looked at the CO and playfully, shook his fist and said, "She's a sassy one, with lots of fight to her!" He then blushed and looked back around to Ra'an for a moment, "Oh...um...Sorry, I meant the ship. Honestly, I did. Not that...um...never mind...I'll shut up now, while I'm still a Lieutenant." He suddenly was very focused on his control console again.

== Tag to Bridge Crew ==

[Amila Ra'an]

Amila somewhat contained her smirk as the tactical officer dumbed-down warp fields for her, and impulse thrust for her - a physicist. She could tell he meant well, might have even been trying to show off a little.

Bless his heart.

A simple clarification that he still wanted to check things out before warping in would have sufficed.

Tom looked at the CO and playfully, shook his fist and said, "She's a sassy one, with lots of fight to her!" He then blushed and looked back around to Ra'an for a moment, "Oh...um...Sorry, I meant the ship. Honestly, I did. Not that...um...never mind...I'll shut up now, while I'm still a Lieutenant." He suddenly was very focused on his control console again.

"Yeah, I gathered," she said dryly, though not without some amusement.

His response didn't seem to acknowledge her potential suggestion for how to adjust what science was working on to better assist the hit and run type tactict. She was quickly forming opinions of the brash Lieutenant and starting to stereotype the way he interacted with women, just based on the little data she had about him. She sighed internally and redirected her attention to Lieutent's Gath and Powl.

"I think it's fair to assume that when we get there we might find the Yeager already engaged. "Lieutenant Powl, did you understand what I was trying to say? If you think that Tom's recommendation - assuming we end up engaged in battle - is Zephyr's best tactic - if they are already engaged, and old Bajoran signal may be useless. They'd have had those codes for a long time by now..."

"But if we're going to be thinking microjumps, maybe we throw them off on our signal, or even make them think there are more of us - not knowing how quickly the fleet will be able to respond to the region," she continued. "We don't have a lot of information yet, but I'm assuming "blockade" means there are quite a few of them, and if the Yeager is already engaged, she could be getting pretty beat up."


==Tag to Powl, and Any==

[Sebastian Cortez]

Sebastian had been staring at the sensor display for several seconds, watching the proposed approach vector crawl across the tactical plot. The plan was sound in principle. The problem was that *space wasn't actually empty*. Even a ship that appeared to be doing absolutely nothing was still producing heat, electromagnetic leakage, life-support emissions, and a hundred other tiny signatures that a sufficiently attentive sensor operator could eventually notice.

He leaned forward, tapping a few controls on his console.

"Captain, I think we can make the silent-running approach considerably quieter." Sebastian glanced toward Morad, then back to the sensor display. "We shouldn't try to make the *Zephyr* invisible. We should make her look like something that doesn't matter."

He pulled up the deflector-control interface.

"The hull is going to radiate heat regardless of what we do. If we shut everything down completely, the temperature differential actually becomes more suspicious because the ship starts becoming an unusually cold object against the background. Instead, we use the deflector to manipulate the plasma and thermal emissions we're already producing."

Sebastian began outlining the concept on the tactical display. "We establish a very weak deflector envelope around the ship—not enough to register as an active deflector system, just enough to scatter our residual electromagnetic emissions and redirect waste heat along our flight vector. Basically, instead of broadcasting a nice, convenient thermal signature in every direction, we're smearing it across the background."

His finger moved to the projected asteroid field.

"And we don't make the mistake of maintaining a perfectly straight approach. That's another thing a computer could identify. Natural objects don't fly in perfectly controlled vectors. We can use the occasional tiny thruster pulse, timed with background radiation fluctuations or passing debris, to introduce microscopic course variations. Nothing large enough to look like maneuvering. Just enough to make our trajectory resemble a piece of debris that happens to be drifting in the right direction."

Sebastian paused, then smiled faintly.

"Then Keti's probes give us the second layer. We don't just send them toward the Cardassians. We scatter them across different vectors, with different apparent velocities and deliberately imperfect Bajoran signatures. If their sensors notice one, they'll have to decide whether it's a ship, debris, or some ancient Bajoran trick they thought they understood."

He looked toward Keti.

"And if they're still using occupation-era threat profiles, they're going to spend more time investigating something that looks familiar than something they don't recognize."

Sebastian turned back to Morad.

"So I'd recommend three layers: **thermal masking, passive drift, and controlled deception.** No active sensors. No communications. No sustained thruster burns. The deflector does the quiet work, while the probes create enough ambiguity that their computers can't easily isolate the *Zephyr* from the background."

He leaned back slightly.

"Basically, Captain, we don't need to become ghosts."

A small grin appeared.

"We just need to convince the Cardassians we're boring."

Sebastian looked at the tactical display again.

"Hopefully, it'll be enough to keep us from becoming the most interesting thing on their sensors."



== Tag Ameen/ all. ==

[Gath]

== NPC Lt Tom Krandall, Tactical Officer ==

Tom agreed, "I can deliver on the thruster part. It isn't going to be anything fancy, but manipulating the impulse driver coils leaves no thermal signature like a normal maneuvering thruster does. I can also use small gas jets to help adjust attitude as we move. We're going to be too far away for them to detect the density of the gas around us. Remember that their sensors are not as high of resolution as ours are, they would only be able to detect that at much closer range and would need to be looking for it with a tight beam scan. If they're looking elsewhere, we might be able to remain undetected, at least for a while."

[Morad Ameen]

Morad listened attentively as the bridge team synthesized their plans. The dynamic between the veterans and newer officers was finding its rhythm, Cortez’s thermal masking and deflector-smearing concepts meshing neatly with Krandall’s impulse coil handling and Powl’s ordnance recommendations.

"Good thinking across the board," Ameen said, his voice firm and measured from the center chair. "Ensign Cortez, coordinate with Lieutenant Ra'an to dial in that deflector envelope. Keep the output low and fuzzy; we want our heat bleed smeared across the background noise, exactly as you outlined. Prepare those decoy probes in the secondary tubes, but keep them cold until I give the word."

He glanced over toward tactical. "Lieutenant Powl, have the armory start prepping those heavy-yield Tricobalts as a secondary loadout. If this turns into a slugfest, we'll want every ounce of punch we can muster. But hold the tubes on standard burst-fire photon spreads for now, no sudden power spikes."

Morad leaned forward, tapping his armrest console to bring up the local sector map.

We will still need to find a way to communicate back with Star Fleet without blowing our cover... 

Ameen had to draw on his engineering background and experience to come up with something, and his idea was based on the MADL principle...

"We're going to execute this in a two-stage drop," Morad instructed, looking between Krandall, Cortez, and Comms. "First reversion point will be well outside the Cardassian sensor horizon. Drop one is strictly to deploy an auxiliary comms buoy. We slave it to our systems via a low probability of intercept, tight-beam optical data link using line-of-sight only, with zero omnidirectional bleed. That buoy will handle all high-power subspace comm and data traffic with DS9 or incoming fleet units, while keeping our own coordinates clean."

His gaze locked onto Lieutenant Krandall at the helm.

"Once the relay is seeded, Lieutenant Krandall, jump us into our second drop point on the outer rim of the sector. The split second we revert, kill main impulse thrust immediately. Bleed off our forward signature, engage your driver coil manipulation, and slip us into a ballistic dead-drift along Cortez's masked vector. Cold gas and thrusters only for micro-attitude adjustments."

Morad leaned back, his tone lowering into combat cadence.

"Engineering, execute silent running protocol upon final drop. Dim ambient lights, drop life support baselines, shutter warp plasma seals, and restrict all shipboard arrays to passive reception. Our only outbound communication will be that narrow line-of-sight link to our relay."

The steady hum of the warp drive began its familiar pitch shift as the ship approached the initial drop-out coordinates.

"Alright, people," Morad said quietly, the bridge lights dimming into low-power amber. "Let's see how quiet this leaf can drift."

== Tag Bridge ==

== GM Input: Did Starfleet Sector Command at DS9 acknowledge or respond to the Zephyr's priority relay? If so, what are our orders? What do our passive sensors pick up as we execute the drops and enter the sector? ==

[Jukish Keti]

"Then Keti's probes give us the second layer. We don't just send them toward the Cardassians. We scatter them across different vectors, with different apparent velocities and deliberately imperfect Bajoran signatures. If their sensors notice one, they'll have to decide whether it's a ship, debris, or some ancient Bajoran trick they thought they understood."

He looked toward Keti.

"And if they're still using occupation-era threat profiles, they're going to spend more time investigating something that looks familiar than something they don't recognize."

Keti knew that he was right the only thing he needed to do right now was remember that training, it was all part of their history now coming in handy. When they were sending communications in hidden places, shorthand communications were established. The smaller the communication the better, the longer the communication the higher the risk. The code was always the same, changed slightly over the years now it had to change a little more based off of past practice.

As Keti was working every code had to be perfect for this to work, they were using their language describing their aircraft as birds. It really threw them off for a while then it hit him, Keti realized that Ra'an basically described what he was doing perfectly. As he continued it was getting easier for him, then he heard something that Keti just couldn't unhear. It brought up the term foot in his mouth, why the phrase was coined Keti didn't understand. He still really didn't understand jokes either, but one day he might. Wait that is perfect, communications were often rushed to get out. Mistakes were made, if I add a mistake every now and again it could help. Keti thought to himself then he heard the amusement in her voice, she didn't exactly hate the remark it appeared to be more amusement. Keti was now distracted enough, shifting his focus to the task at hand.

In the end of it all the communications were going between all of the probes originating at a random probe, the communication wouldn't go to all the ships at once. Short coded messages sent to two destinations would be hard to spot, Keti programed three so it wouldn't look so obvious. He was going to require some time, doing these communications there couldn't just be a couple. There had to be quite a few so Keti was working on an adaptive communication, one that would change much like the flow of an actual conversation. "Cortez we also have to make sure these are not clustered too close together, we always made sure to travel in smaller groups. It made everything harder to detect, it also made communication lines shorter." In this case the smaller wouldn't be the better, they had to make it appear they got a little sloppy over the years. They didn't exactly have enough probes to make large groups anyways, so it really didn't matter.

Eventually Keti was going to have to place this into the probes themselves, the downloads could take a little time. As Keti waited for the work he completed was being finalized, there was still a couple more steps to complete. He really thought of what Cortez just said, it was impressive like at one time they could have been in class together. The first thing Keti wanted to do before going much further was let it finish, then phase two could start. "Captain how many probes should I have this ready for?" The only thing that Keti really didn't know was number of probes needed.

==Tag==

[Sebastian Cortez]

Sebastian listened carefully as Lieutenant Keti worked through the communications problem. The idea of using short, coded transmissions and constantly changing their origin points made sense. It was an old technique, but that was precisely what made it useful. The Cardassians would be looking for modern Starfleet communications patterns. Giving them something that resembled an outdated, improvised system might keep them searching in the wrong direction.

Sebastian studied the developing network on his console for several seconds before speaking.

“Lieutenant Keti, I think we can take what you're doing one step further.”

He brought up a representation of the probes and began linking them together on the display.

“Instead of having the probes follow a predictable communications schedule, we make the entire system adaptive. No probe should know the entire network. Each one only needs enough information to pass a message to the next available probe. The destination can change every time, and the route doesn't have to be the same twice.”

His fingers moved across the console as he began building the concept.

“We can also make the transmission timing dependent on the environment. If a Cardassian sensor sweep is approaching, the probe goes completely silent. If there's natural interference, sensor noise, or some other background activity, that's when it can transmit. We can even have some probes send meaningless fragments occasionally. That way, legitimate communications aren't the only thing moving through the network.”

Sebastian glanced toward Lieutenant Keti.

“And I think your idea about mistakes could actually make this more convincing. Perfect communications would be suspicious. If we're trying to make this appear to be an old Bajoran system that has been maintained and modified over decades, then it shouldn't be perfectly standardized.”

A faint smile crossed his face.

“Different abbreviations. Slightly different routing habits. An occasional formatting error. Maybe even a message that takes an unnecessarily long route. Nothing serious enough to interfere with the actual communication, but enough to make whoever intercepts it think they're looking at an old system that's been repaired and modified by different people over the years.”

He looked back at the display.

“Basically, we make it look like nobody ever bothered to completely standardize it.”

Sebastian paused as another possibility occurred to him.

“There is one other precaution I'd recommend, Captain. We shouldn't have every probe know where Starfleet is. The probes should use temporary identifiers rather than actual coordinates. Only the communications buoy should have the information necessary to reach Starfleet directly.”

He highlighted the auxiliary buoy on the display.

“That way, if the Cardassians capture one of these probes, they don't get the location of the ship, the buoy, or the rest of the network. They get one small piece of a conversation that doesn't tell them where the conversation ultimately ends.”

Sebastian considered the number of probes available.

“As for how many we need, Lieutenant Keti should use as many as we can reasonably spare, but we shouldn't deploy them as one large network. Smaller groups, spread across different vectors, would be harder to identify as connected. Some can carry legitimate traffic, some can relay it, some can simply listen, and a few can generate enough meaningless traffic to make the whole thing look chaotic.”

He leaned back slightly, watching the simulated network shift across the display.

“The important thing is that it shouldn't look like a communications network at all. It should look like a collection of unrelated transmissions that occasionally interact with one another.”

Sebastian looked toward Lieutenant Keti again.

“If the Cardassians see a pattern, they'll start pulling at it until they find us. But if every transmission gives them just enough information to suggest there's a pattern without ever revealing what that pattern actually is, they'll have to keep investigating.”

He gave a small nod.

“And that means they aren't looking for us. They're looking at the puzzle we're giving them.”



== Tag Keti/ all==

[Jukish Keti]

While you are doing something on a regular basis, you have no idea how much goes into it until you haven't done it for a while. Now that he has done it again for the first time in years, it really was a lot. Cortez again was showing they really could have been classmates, alter his nose a little he would look the part too. 

“Instead of having the probes follow a predictable communications schedule, we make the entire system adaptive. No probe should know the entire network. Each one only needs enough information to pass a message to the next available probe. The destination can change every time, and the route doesn't have to be the same twice.”

This was an impressive idea that was also part of phase two, if it wasn't before it would have been now. "You are correct like in the Occupation no one cell knew the entire network, if they did it would jeopardize the entire operation. Are you thinking along the lines probe one talking to probe two and three, while two talks to four and three talks to five." He could go on about how one would talk to two probes, it was a simplified version but it would suffice. 

During the Occupation the Cardassians did find some of the cells, again one of his points was great. No cell would use the same trick twice, it would become more predictable that would be like putting out a welcome matt at the front door. Keti was starting the programing for a less predictable route, like giving them a thread to pull. The longer the thread to pull the better, it would give them something to work on until its a dead end. 

"You are also correct that the Resistance would never clump into large groups, the bigger the group the larger the target." Keti was working on a way that would make small communication between two or more, while only one of them would send communications large distances. Keti set up a small display marking three numbers, two and three would talk to one while one sent a message to four. They would be clumps of three where only one would send a message to a different group, and only one group would send a message to the main group.

==Tag==

[Gath]

== NPC Lt Tom Krandall, Tactical Officer ==

Tom spoke up and offered his thoughts in a tone that made it almost an afterthought, "You know, to get even more miles out of your limited number of probes, you give them multiple designations that are a redundant feature, but then add a command that after a while, they lock out the original designation and rotate to one of the next in line. That new designation randomly falls into a different spot at the end of an existing chain and you create a never ending chain that can be randomized over time, each one connecting to two others. They will continue to recycle the process over time and if one is discovered, it has little to offer, but if one is destroyed, it doesn't matter, because they will all eventually reset and create a new link further down in the chain. It only functions for the number of alternate designations you give each one to use, but that can still be a very long list."

[GM-CD]

==Ameen==

DS9 had acknowledged receipt of the request, but no reply had been issued. Given the situation, it was possible that the resources were being utilized assembling a task force, and the needs of one ship were put aside in the name of the "big picture".

Dropping from warp at the edge of the area, the Zephyr would detect the following:

In the system itself:
Starbase 214 with shields up.
9x Hideki-class Escorts in three groups of three, patrolling in a spherical pattern just beyond weapons range of the starbase in a manner that would allow them to respond to any incursion immediately.

Beyond the furthest boundary of the system:
3x Hideki-class Escorts, deployed in a wide triangular formation.
3x Keldon-class Battlecruisers, deployed in a smaller triangle within that created by the Escorts.
1x Hutet-class Dreadnought, slightly behind the formation but catching up at impulse velocities.

As the reports came in, the Yeager's transponder appeared between the larger formation and directly ahead of the Dreadnought. Energy surges in the immediate area suggested that weapons fire was being exchanged, and the other Cardassian vessels were adjusting their formation to surround the smaller ship.

[A’kilees]

The turbolift doors opened and A’kilees had made it quietly to his station after the yellow alert had been broadcast aboard the Zephyr. It had taken him a while to get to the bridge due to his location. He had been helping out a fellow engineering ensign with a rather large and heavy panel deep in the jefferies tubes in the far edge of the ship when the yellow alert sounded and he quickly realized he was needed on the bridge immediately. He gave the Chief Engineer a quick friendly nod as he took his position nearby at the secondary engineering console. Listening intently, A’kilees was quickly caught up on the current situation they were heading into.

"Engineering, execute silent running protocol upon final drop. Dim ambient lights, drop life support baselines, shutter warp plasma seals, and restrict all shipboard arrays to passive reception. Our only outbound communication will be that narrow line-of-sight link to our relay." Commander Ameen ordered aloud.

“Yes sir! Switching to silent running protocol.” A’kilees responded and turned towards his station. Just like the master systems table back down in Engineering, everything on the ship could be controlled at the secondary engineering console on the bridge. Just a few switches between the Zephyr's systems and a handful of inputs on the screen and everything would be done quickly before dropping out of warp. Not wanting to waste any more time the saurian got straight to work.

First, the lights dimmed to low power amber ambiance as A’kilees swiped the dial down and began to quickly move through the other various systems on the screen diverting power away from non essential systems limiting life support signatures. Next, he toggled the warp plasma seals so that no access plasma would be detected when they entered the area.

“Life support baselines near flatline and all warp plasma seals are shut and secure.” A’kilees reported aloud.

He was making good time accomplishing his tasks but still on the clock. The Zephyr would be arriving soon so the saurian pushed himself harder. He narrowed down the broadband communication and deactivated all other active communications arrays shipwide. A’kilees looked up from his console towards the commander.

“*Gwar* Running silent sir.”

== Tag Morad Ameen et al ==

[Gath]

== Once we drop from warp ==

As they dropped from warp and began detecting the ships in the area, they appeared on the tactical display on the main display. Gath commented, "It appears that they are still holding to their Wolf Pack tactics to compensate for the inferior design of their Escorts. If they remain in groups of three, they are going to be much harder to get an advantage on. Passive sensors are beginning to show energy patterns that indicate weapons fire is being exchanged with the Yeager."

The rest of the ship positions also filled in on the Tactical display, giving relative positions and movement in real time.

== Tag Bridge Crew ==
== OOC: Just adding some context for us to begin using the information the GM gave above. I tried to leave some room for additional comments from others. ==

[Sebastian Cortez]

Sebastian still feeling a little embarrassed by his performance during their last mission was hoping that he was doing a better job than he did on the last mission,

The Zephyr dropped from warp at the edge of the designated area, and the first wave of sensor returns began appearing almost immediately.

Sebastian watched the data populate his console, his expression becoming increasingly serious.

Starbase 214 was already visible on the long-range display, its shields raised.

Around it were nine Hideki-class escorts, divided into three groups of three. They weren't simply circling the station. Their patrol pattern formed a loose spherical shell around the base, each group maintaining a position that would allow them to respond to an approaching vessel from almost any direction.

Beyond that defensive perimeter came the more concerning contacts.

Three additional Hideki-class escorts formed the points of a wide triangle.

Inside that formation were three Keldon-class battlecruisers, positioned in a much tighter triangle.

And behind them, still moving at impulse velocities, was a Hutet-class dreadnought.

Sebastian stared at the tactical display for a moment.

"This isn't a patrol," he said quietly.

He brought up the sensor data again, comparing the positions and movement vectors.

"It's layered."

The distinction suddenly seemed important.

The Cardassians weren't merely protecting Starbase 214. They had constructed a defensive formation designed to detect, classify, and respond to an intrusion before anything reached the station.

Their military sensors might not have been optimized for open-ended scientific investigation, but they clearly didn't need to be.

They had built this system around one question.

What is approaching us, and how quickly can we respond to it?

Sebastian was about to say something when another contact appeared.

His console immediately flagged it.

"Lieutenant."

The Yeager's transponder appeared on the display.

Sebastian's eyes narrowed.

The smaller ship had emerged between the larger Cardassian formation and the approaching dreadnought.

Then the sensor display changed.

"Energy surges."

He began pulling the sensor returns apart, separating background radiation from the much more distinct signatures.

"Weapons fire."

His fingers moved rapidly across the controls.

The three Keldons were already adjusting their vectors.

The outer Hidekis were doing the same.

The formation was changing.

Sebastian watched the tactical plot redraw itself.

"They're surrounding the Yeager."

There was something almost unsettling about how quickly the Cardassian formation responded.

No confusion.

No obvious hesitation.

No chaotic movement.

Each ship seemed to know exactly where it was supposed to go.

Sebastian looked toward Lieutenant Ra'an.

"Lieutenant, I think there's something important about the way they're deploying."

He brought the sensor data onto the main display.

"The outer Hidekis aren't moving directly toward the Yeager. They're closing the escape corridors."

He highlighted the three groups.

"The Keldons are moving in behind them. They're forcing the Yeager toward the center."

Sebastian paused, thinking through what he was seeing.

"The Cardassians don't appear to be using their scientific sensors to figure out what the Yeager is doing. They're using their military network to predict where it can go."

That distinction bothered him.

He had been thinking about Cardassian sensor capabilities ever since their work around the sector had begun. Federation science tended to approach a problem by gathering as much information as possible and then determining what the information meant.

The Cardassians seemed to approach the problem differently.

Identify the threat.

Limit its options.

Predict its behavior.

Then act.

Sebastian looked back at the display.

"And that may be why their sensor coverage is so difficult to exploit."

He hesitated before continuing.

"We've been thinking about their scientific sensors as the weakness. If their military sensors are built around redundancy and prediction instead of broad-spectrum analysis, then sending something into the region that they don't immediately recognize may not be enough."

His eyes followed the Hutet as it continued closing on the Yeager.

"Because they don't necessarily have to understand what we're doing."

A moment passed.

"They just have to notice that we're doing something they don't expect."

Sebastian leaned back slightly.

"And right now, the Yeager is giving them a very large problem to solve."

His attention returned to the tactical display.

For once, Sebastian wasn't looking at the Cardassians as simply an enemy with better or worse technology.

He was looking at the system behind the technology.

And that was considerably more dangerous.



== Tag All. ==

[Gath]

== NPC Lt Tom Krandall, Tactical Officer ==

Tom commented, "They're predatory by nature. That Hutet is slow, but powerful. It is their focal point. They don't have to move fast if they're a moving strong point defense. It's basically a trap where they can afford to sit and wait. They have what we want and they either get to keep it or we bring enough to make it an issue. That means they either intend to accomplish what they set out to do before we can get enough ships here to chase them off or destroy them, or this is a diversion to draw ship from somewhere else. They're not attacking the base. They probably want it, they prefer capturing the base of someone else if it can save them from having to build one of their own."

[Amila Ra'an]

"There's signs that they've exchanged weapons fire," Ra'an piped in urgently. "We need to drop our communications buoy now so that we can make our next jump."

"Keti, deploy the buoy on the Captain's mark," she ordered jumping up from her seat so that she could monitor her station, but also go back and forth between Keti's and Cortez's.

"Then we get to let our hot shot pilot start jumping us in there so we can help them out," she added. "That's still the plan right?"

Let's move, people.

==Tags to Keti and Tom==

[Jukish Keti]

Making the final revisions to the programming, Keti almost had everything set. The probes just needed to accept the download, then it would take just a few seconds for the program to work.

"Keti, deploy the buoy on the Captain's mark," she ordered jumping up from her seat so that she could monitor her station, but also go back and forth between Keti's and Cortez's.

The order came shortly after the final sequence, and as ordered they were being chilled to match the conditions of space. Keti wanted this to work just as much as anyone, or the cost would be too high.

Looking towards the Captain. "Probes ready for launch on your order." The program would work just as they talked about, with any luck it would create the opening they needed.

==Tag==

[GM-CD]

While the Zephyr waited, silently watching and listening, a pair of new sensor contacts resolved. The first transponder was identified as the USS Inaieu, an older mark of Sovereign-class Explorer. The second transponder was that of the Aquila, a Ross-class Explorer with a solid if unremarkable service record. The fleet registry had the Inaieu as flagship of Rear Admiral zh'Ollan, an aggressive combat officer newly promoted to flag rank, while the Aquila was now commanded by Captain Daniel Brooks, a rarity in Starfleet being that he was a Medical Doctor in command of something other than a Hospital Ship.

The two ships drove straight towards the Dreadnought, Inaieu and the Dreadnought exchanging heavy weapons fire. The Dreadnought's energy signature wavered slightly as shield generators failed and power was diverted. 

Then the Inaieu's transponder disappeared and passive sensors registered the energy spike of a large antimatter explosion.

The Dreadnought veered off its initial course as the Keldons moved between it and the oncoming Aquila. The Hidekis, smaller and faster, continued their pursuit of the withdrawing Yeager.

[Amila Ra'an]

Federation transponder signals appeared on the screen while Amila was monitoring the multiple stations. 

"Captain, we aren't alone out here," Ra'an announced. "USS Inaiue and USS Aquila just dropped out of warp, they are moving in to engage."

"If they weren't looking for us before, they will be now. We should move," she added. Urgency was at the top of Amila's priorities. They needed to move quickly and speak efficiently. She moved back to her station and focused on live sensors. 




==Tags Any==

[Morad Ameen]

On the main tactical plot, the bright golden primary beacon of the USS Inaieu suddenly flared white-hot with an unmistakable energy spike, and then abruptly vanished into the black.

A heavy, suffocating silence gripped the Zephyr's dimmed bridge. On the passive telemetry feeds, the signature was unmistakable: catastrophic antimatter containment breach. A Sovereign-class Explorer, erased in less than a minute.

Morad’s jaw tightened until the muscle twitched, his hands gripping the armrests of the center chair.

Admiral zh'Ollan... thrown away against that monster's nose in thirty seconds, Morad thought, cold fire burning behind his eyes. A frontal charge against a Hutet is suicide. But that explosion didn't happen in a vacuum; it took a massive bite out of that dreadnought's forward envelope...

He glanced over his shoulder toward the communications station. "Comms, encode a priority tactical update and tight-beam it directly to our communications buoy via the laser link. Inform Star Fleet Sector Command that the Inaieu has suffered a catastrophic antimatter breach and is lost. Report that the Zephyr, Aquila, and Yeager are actively engaging the Cardassian invasion battlegroup, and reiterate our request for immediate fleet reinforcements."

Turning back toward the command well, his voice cut through the room with quiet, razor-sharp authority.

"Steady, everyone. Eyes on your boards," Ameen commanded, grounding his crew before shock could take hold. "The Inaieu is gone, but her loss just handed us the opening we need. Look at the telemetry."

He stood up, stepping down into the command well toward the conn and tactical.

"The shockwave from that antimatter breach overloaded the Dreadnought's forward shield generators and forced power shunts across its primary grid," Morad pointed out, indicating the flickering displacement field on the display. "She's veering off course to cycle secondary emitters, and the three Keldons are breaking formation to screen her from the Aquila."

He pivoted directly to Lieutenant Powl at tactical.

"Change of plans on the ordnance, Lieutenant Powl. Load those maximum-yield Quantum Torpedoes into all three burst-fire launchers. We are not holding back. When a ship that size takes a direct antimatter detonation at point-blank range, those shield emitters will have micro-fractures. We hit that weakened arc with everything we have before those regenerative systems can seal the breach."

Turning forward, his eyes locked onto Lieutenant Krandall at the helm.

"Lieutenant Krandall, maintain our ballistic dead-drift along our masked vector until we align directly with that compromised shield arc. The second we hit our firing solution, bring impulse online, blow our cover with a full three-tube quantum spread, and immediately roll us into your micro-jump evasive maneuvers before the Keldons can pivot their disruptor banks."

Morad leaned toward the forward plot, tapping the icon of Starbase 214.

"Pay close attention to where the Cardassians are positioned; they've deliberately kept their heavy battlegroup beyond the Starbase's defensive perimeter. They want to avoid those station-grade phaser arrays and heavy torpedo batteries at all costs. When we strike, angle your attack runs and use our pressure to push and herd them closer into the station's firing envelope. If we can draw that Dreadnought or the Keldons within range of 214's grid, the station can help us crack their armor."

Morad glanced back toward the science station, catching Amila's eye, then Cortez and Keti. "Lieutenant Ra'an, keep passive sensors locked onto the Hutet's shield oscillation frequencies. Feed the exact weak point coordinates directly into Powl’s targeting queue. Keti, Cortez; stand by on those Bajoran decoy probes. The instant our warheads detonate, launch the decoys on divergent vectors to scramble Cardassian fire control and give us breathing room."

He glanced back over toward communications. "The second we break our silent run and light the fires, open encrypted battle channels directly with the Aquila and the Yeager. I want real-time tactical integration with 214, Captain Brooks and Captain Braggins. Transmit our intended attack vectors, target prioritization, and our plan to attempt to draw the battlegroup toward Starbase 214's weapon range. We need all of us pulling on the same rope if we're going to survive this."

Morad settled back into the command chair, his focus absolute.

"Stand by for combat engagement. Let's make sure the Inaieu didn't fall in vain."

== GM Input: As the Zephyr drifts into attack position, does Starfleet Sector Command acknowledge the loss of the Inaieu via the buoy link and that we have engaged the invaders?  What is the status of the Hutet's damaged forward arc before and after our hit?  ==
== Tag All / Bridge ==

[Gath]

Gath winced at the display, but didn't look away, "We can use the debris field as partial cover on our approach. Their sensors will be struggling in that area right now."


== NPC Lt Tom Krandall, Tactical Officer ==

Tom spoke up, "Sir, once we fire the forward torpedo spread I will perform a micro, jump 1.5 seconds later. They will be trying to put all of their power into those weakend shields. My jump with take us just past them and give us a shot with the aft launcher at the area they've pulled power from before I then jump us clear. Either way, we catch them with draining shields, but once we do that, they will be looking for it next time. The 1.5 second delay is to let them anticipate an impulse approach and attack run. When we jump in, we'll have about a 0.5 second gap before our aft launcher fires and then we'll be gone 1 second after that. We're not staying in the line of fire. We will be coming around for another run though, just not as directly as they will anticipate."

Krandall blew lightly on his fingertips, like a gambler at the craps table trying to make his dice lucky, then he squared his shoulders and prepared to work his magic.

== Here we go people... ==

[Sebastian Cortez]

Sebastian stared at the tactical display for a moment longer than he should have.

The golden beacon that had represented the Inaieu was simply... gone.

He swallowed hard, forcing his attention back to his station. There was no time to dwell on it. Admiral zh'Ollan and the Inaieu had just paid an enormous price, but Morad was right about one thing. Their sacrifice had changed the tactical situation.

Sebastian brought up the latest passive sensor data and began comparing the readings from before and after the explosion.

"Lieutenant Ra'an, I'm seeing the same displacement you're seeing. The forward shield grid is still trying to compensate, but there's a significant power imbalance across the Dreadnought's forward arc."

His fingers moved rapidly across the controls.

"And the Keldons breaking formation is making it worse. They're screening the damaged section, but that means they're concentrating their defensive coverage in one area."

Sebastian paused as another thought occurred to him.

"Captain, if we're trying to herd them toward Starbase 214, we might be able to use the decoy probes for more than just confusing their fire control."

He brought up several projected vectors.

"If Keti and I stagger their deployment instead of launching them simultaneously, we could make the Cardassians think we're attempting multiple attack runs from different directions. That might encourage them to shift their formation again."

He looked toward Morad.

"If we time that with the Aquila and Yeager attacks, we might be able to make the battlegroup maneuver where we want them without them realizing we're doing it."

Sebastian glanced once more at the tactical plot, then back to his instruments.

"I'll coordinate the probe vectors with Lieutenant Ra'an's targeting data and make sure the decoys don't interfere with the firing solutions."

There was a brief silence before Sebastian added, more quietly:

"The Inaieu gave us an opening. We should make it count."

Then he returned his full attention to the science station, pushing the shock of what he had just witnessed aside and concentrating on the task in front of him.



== Tag Ameen and Ra'an, ==

[Amila Ra'an]

Amila silently went to work. There was enough chatter on the Bridge as it were and Morad knew they would all be following orders quickly and providing informations as needed. She attempted to get a read on Hutet's shield oscillation frequencies as directed. Her live sensors readings had captured some data from when the Inaie and the Aquila first exchanged fire, but it likely wasn't going to be enough to predict the oscillating frequencies in any way that they could relay on.

The Keldons had moved in quickly. They were protecting their Dreadnought, or at least trying to. It had interfered with getting a good ead on how energy dissipated through their shields matrix.

"Captain, I'm going to have a hard time getting their oscillation frequencies unless we can target some more fire on them so I can get some more readings. Every hit they take gets us a step closer," she added. 

"Or you Cortez and Keti try to brut force hack into their systems. We could try it with one of these decoy buoys, rig a virus," she suggested throwing the suggesting out quickly before calling out to Torok and Tom. 

"Tactical, here's what I'm getting so far," Amila added without turning away from her station. "Tom, as much time as you can give me on sensors draining their shields before we jump, the better. I might be able to get those frequencies."


==Tag Bridge Crew==

==Tag GM, does Ra'an's scans give Tactical anything useful at this point?==

[A’kilees]

The Inaieu was gone.

The large antimatter explosion picked up after the barrage of fire from the Cardassian dreadnought which by the readings on the monitor had sustained minimal damage as their shield held against the core detonation. With an explosion that large and being within close proximity to nearby enemy vessels, A’kilees surmised that there would be very few survivors of the Inaieu if any remained.

A’kilees silently began preparing to switch the Zephyr over from running silent to combat readiness. Power would need to be diverted from other non essential systems for the Zephyr’s shields to withstand any heavy barrages from either the dreadnought or if faced by a concentrated attack from the smaller vessels defending it. Cardassian starship technology was certainly behind that of the Federation but underestimating an enemy you perceived as weaker than yourself had historically never ended in favor of those who viewed themselves superior.

The saurian was deep in thought as he worked. This was his first instance of combat and he was feeling nervous. Sure there had been multiple simulations at the Academy but nothing really prepares you for the real thing. His other thoughts were concerned about his Academy friend Taadun whom he knew was currently serving aboard the Aquila now locked in combat with the Cardassians. As part of the Tactical division, Taadun would be assisting in the skirmish keeping the shields up and the phasers online. Regardless, the saurian hoped that Taadun was alright and would be able to keep the Ross class vessel going under that heavy fire and the best he could do right now was stand by for any further instructions.

== Tag ==

[Ava Baldwin]

A short message came across the bridge Security station monitor:

[All security deployed to designated critical areas with side arms on stun as per General Quarters One - Yellow Alert. Time from alert to full deployment 6 min 32 sec.]

[Sebastian Cortez]

Sebastian listened carefully as Lieutenant Ra'an reported what her sensors were telling her. The problem was straightforward enough: they needed more data, and the Hutet was not exactly volunteering to provide it.

He glanced toward the tactical display, then back to his station.

“Lieutenant Ra'an, could you give me the raw readings from the Hutet's shields during the last engagement? Don't filter them. I want to compare the energy fluctuations against the weapon's impacts.”

Sebastian began pulling the available sensor data together, watching the various shield readings overlap on his display.

“If we can identify the sequence they're cycling through, we may not need the exact frequency. We might be able to predict the next phase of the oscillation.”

He turned slightly toward Keti.

“ Lieutenant Keti, I want to run something past you.”

Sebastian brought up a representation of the Cardassian network architecture.

“Lieutenant Ra'an suggested using one of the decoy buoys to get a virus into their systems. I'm wondering if there's a less aggressive approach.”

He highlighted the communications and tactical-control systems.

“ If the buoy can establish even a limited connection, is there a way to make the Hutet believe it's receiving legitimate telemetry? Nothing destructive. Just enough to get their system to respond to a controlled request.”

Sebastian paused, giving Keti the opportunity to consider the proposal.

“ If we could get a response from their shield-control system, we might be able to correlate what it's telling the computer with what Lieutenant Ra'an's sensors are seeing externally.”

He looked back at the tactical display.

“ I'm not suggesting we take control of anything. We just need information. If their system will answer a legitimate-looking request, that could give us another source of data without putting a virus aboard the Hutet.”

Sebastian glanced toward Lieutenant Ra'an's station.

“Then we compare the two. What her sensors see happening from the outside, and what their system reports internally. If they line up, we might have enough to identify the oscillation pattern.”

He looked back toward Keti.

“ What do you think, Lieutenant?"

Sebastian left the question there, waiting for Keti's assessment rather than assuming what the lieutenant would do.

“ Now we just need to find out whether the Cardassians have left us a door unlocked.”

“ If it's possible, I'd rather try that before we start putting anything malicious into their systems.”



== Tag Ra'an and Keti.==

[Jukish Keti]

Taking everything in consideration Keti knew that both of them were good plans, the issue was time frame. Even with a template of the virus it would take a lot of time to prepare for this situation. Keti wasn't sure even if they did make one in a reasonable time frame if it would work, if they program it wrong had consequences Keti didn't want to think about.

"The problem with programing the virus other than possible ethics is time, the three of us wired in meaning the only thing we can hear and see is code. In twelve hours or more we can hammer one out, for us to know for sure it is going to work it will take fifteen at least." The other issue with that as well, they would know its a cyber attack. It would also leave them open for a similar attack if reversed, it would be a hard thing to defend against.

"If we build on what we have already established, the two of us can perfect it in a little south of three hours. Your way would go undetected for long periods of time, I am sure we can get better results that way. Lieutenant Ra'an if we go virus I would suggest a Trajan Horse, again time would be the issue." No matter what the order was Keti was going to do it. 

==Tags==

[Amila Ra'an]

Cortez, Please try to focus," Amila turned to him and whispered more sharply than she intended, but never addressed the entire Bridge. "The Goal we were given is to get their Shield Modulation Frequencies, focus on that instead of wasting precious time telling me whether or not it's a bad idea to disable their ship when no one talked about it. Quite frankly, they just blew out flag ship out of the sky, with it's entire crew on board, I don't think we should care. This is kill or be killed."

"Keti, brut force may not be an option here. You and Cortez have proven you know how to code, if there is a way to disintegrate their systems - whether it's shutting them down, or just feeding us enough information so that we can do it, I want you to do work on that," she ordered. The intensity of the situation and the lost of one the fleet's most powerful ships was getting to Amila. She normally masked her stress in high pressure situations quite well, but the chatter - talking about sparing the Cardassians after that was too much for her.

=Tag Keti, Cortez=



==NPC Petty Officer 1st Class Isabelly Molina, Operations==

While Amila was coralling her science team, Isabel spoke up from main operations where she was also maining communications. "If we can coordinate with the other vessels, Sirs," she offered unclear if it was the Captain or Tactical that she was addressing. "We're clearly too outmanned for a man-to-man defense out here," she said thinking of her sports days. But if we could establish a clear zone defense and coordinate with the Aquila and the Yeager. Everytime they fire, they are not only giving a weak spot in their shields for us to get a shot in that might make a little more damage, but Lieutenant Ra'an is right, the longer we can hit their shields with anything - just force them to throw off energy, even if it's not making much a dent, we're getting data on their oscillating frequencies so it's helpful."

She had been intellectualized the entire scenario - the way that the Inaieu had come in hot. Communications were dark. Just fire fight. She was part of the team that kept computers, comms, sensors, even life support and shields operational with assistance from engineering. Lives were lost, but she wasn't thinking about that at the moment. It might as well have been a training scenario that she needed to beat for all that she was concerned.

"The problem is, I know if someone were doing that to us, I'd be suspicious that's what exactly what they were doing, and I'd be running down to the deflector grid with an engineering officer and trying to manually override the patterns," she explained. A valid concern. "If they're smart - and I don't think Cardassian's are dumb, we'll get a couple of shots each time before we have to learn the next pattern."

She was right, Amila knew. It wouldn't be too difficult for them to start changing frequencies. Whether it would be enough time to do any damage... Well that was more in Powl's department. Maybe even the engineers. Like Morad. She looked over toward him briefly, trying to catch a sign of worry, stress, anything. She was sure he was handling better than she was. She scolded herself for getting short earlier and turned back to her station.

"Right now, I've got no chatter between the Aquila and the Yeager, and no one has reached out to us," Izzy verfied. "I can try to establish a secure line. Request orders, unless you want me to do something else, Captain?"



==Tag Ameen, Any from Izzy== 

==Tag to Keti and Cortez from Amila above==

[Jukish Keti]

Simply raising an eyebrow at her remark, there wasn't a person on the Bridge who didn't know the consequences. Now that they had the green light, Keti started to work on the code. "Its a good idea you had, we should make the firewall protecting the communications hard to hack. Hard but not impossible, if its too easy no one would buy the lie." 

The code that Keti was working on would establish the link within the link, it would be low key enough to go un noticed while it was gathering the information. If they could gather information like shield frequency their weapons would go right through, just like the weapons coming from the Cardassian ship. Keti wanted to give Sebastians plan the best chance of success, to make sure the information was pure Keti was also establishing a stop gap. The information would go into an independent system with no link to the ships computer.

"Sebastian this is your idea I will follow your lead." Keti would support him every step of the way, he didn't really like the strongarm approach anyway.  The real way to gain anything of value would be through the shadows, Sebastian seemed to have the best plan for it. With any luck it could help the fleet, he just wished that they knew what the others were doing.

==Tag==

[Sebastian Cortez]

Sebastian's attention returned fully to the task when Amila's sharp reminder reached him.

She was right. They had been spending valuable time discussing what might be done when the actual objective was much narrower.

*Get the shield modulation frequencies.*

That was what mattered.

"Understood, Lieutenant," Sebastian said quietly. "I'll stay focused."

His attention shifted back to Keti's work. He watched as the developing code established the secondary link and began routing the information toward the isolated system Keti had created.

Sebastian considered it for a moment before speaking.

"I think you're right about keeping the firewall difficult, but not impossible. If we make it too easy, they'll know something isn't right. If it looks like someone had to work to get through it, that makes the intrusion more believable."

He paused.

"Maybe we can make the access pattern look less like we're breaking through and more like we're exploiting something that's already there. That would give us another layer of cover."

Sebastian glanced at Keti.

"What do you think?"

He looked back toward the display.

"And keeping the information isolated is probably a good precaution. If they detect the connection, I'd rather they find a dead end than a path leading directly into the Zephyr's systems."

The situation aboard the Bridge remained tense, and Sebastian's expression became more serious.

"We don't need to shut their ship down. If we can get the shield frequencies, we can give our weapons what they need to get through their defenses. That's enough."

He looked at Keti again.

"You've got the link working. I can help refine the intrusion profile while you work on the data collection. If you see a better way to disguise it, though, go with it. You're looking at the code from the other side of the problem."

A faint smile appeared.

"I'd rather have two programmers looking for the same solution than one programmer pretending he has all the answers."

Sebastian returned to his console.

"Let's see what we can get from them."



== Tag Ra'an and Keti.==

[Amila Ra'an]

==NPC Petty Officer 1st Class Isabel Molina, Operations==

"I've alerted engineering that we may be taxing the engines, Commander," Isabel called out loudly enough for the Chief and Ensign A'kilees to hear.

Without turning his way, she then muttered to Tom. "If we survive this, Raven's gonna kill you."

==Open Tag==

[Gath]

== NPC Ens Raven Singer ==

PO1 Molina's comm reply was quick, [Engineering copies all. I know what that hot-shot flyboy is up to up there. We'll run things down here, but you all are going to have to strap in, because there's no way to compensate for that much inertial shake and bake. He knows our limits, but let's hope the ship remembers what she should be capable of. I gotta go.]

The comm was cut off abruptly, but the comm badge of Ens A'kilees instantly came to life, [Raven to A'kilees, I need to to stop whatever you're doing and glue your face to a panel that can manage the warp coil cooling system up there. Begin augmenting the cryogenics now and manage the heat the best you can. The more you can stay ahead of it, the better it will be. If it hit red line, you still have about 10% grace before it will over pressure and start venting. If we start venting, we start losing cooling capability. Two jumps isn't double heat, it works exponentially. The rest is all you, kid. Good luck.]

== Tag Molina and A'kilees...though it might be heard by others... ==

[Evie O’Fee]

==NPC Ava O'Fee==

Anyone who looked at the turbo lift would think that Evie had returned to the Bridge, that was until they looked at her uniform. Her Blue Science Uniform would make it clear it was Ava, her red hair was tightly braided in the back. If they were going to face this level of danger, there wasn't a place Ava would want to be. The original intent for her trip was originally small, she loved the fact it got extended. 

The people on the Bridge were hard at work with Keti working closely with another, she wasn't sure what it was but she didn't need to at this time. Glancing over at Gath he could see her left eye wink, then giving her attention to Ra'an. She had a lot on the go at this time, and she was handling it well. Ava found an available work station, logging into the main data base. 

"Tell me what's out there." Ava quietly said to herself. Normally this area of space was boring, nothing much could be learned. With the blockade and battles that went on everything environmental could change, the recent destruction of another. This could have caused a chain event that could come in handy, anything that could be expanded would do. "Lieutenant Ra'an." Ava was getting ready to work. "I just wanted to make sure that there isn't something you would prefer I work on." It was a curtesy to make sure she wasn't over stepping her bounds.

==tag==

[Gath]

Gath had armed himself with a phaser, as was protocol, but he had also hung his own small tools from his belt as he preparation for battle. A'kilees would recognize them as the compact devices that he had used to deploy and open up the hull of the ship they had rescued the nearly extinct pod people.

A message came in from Baldwin:[All security deployed to designated critical areas with side arms on stun as per General Quarters One - Yellow Alert. Time from alert to full deployment 6 min 32 sec.]

Gath responded with a simple, "Acknowledged."

He was beginning to tense up a bit as they were arriving on the edge of the system and after all hell had started to unleash on the screen, his pulse was quickening. They came out of warp to quite a show. The CO had given his orders and they were about to turn on the lights and dive into the thick of it.

That was when Ava walked onto the Bridge. She gave him a wink and acted like it was just another day at the office. He didn't know it until that very moment, but that had been exactly what he had needed. It reminded him that he was right where he wanted to be. That helped clear his head and put him in the state of mind he knew he would do his best work.

Everything on the ship was as safe and green as he could make it. Now they had to see how they did in what had suddenly become the rougher part of the neighborhood.

[Morad Ameen]

Morad listened intently as the bridge hummed with sharp, tense focus. Amila’s note to Cortez and Keti was exactly the snap back to reality the room needed. Out here, with the tactical grid burning red, academic curiosity had to take a back seat to raw survival.

He stepped down into the center of the command well, his gaze sweeping across the displays.

"Lieutenant Ra'an is right," Morad said, his voice level, carrying steady command weight. "No fifteen hour coding marathons, no Trojan horses. We don't have the luxury of time. Cortez, Keti, keep your arrays locked onto the Hutet's real-time shield telemetry. When we strike, I want the oscillation frequency shift mapped the instant their secondary generators scramble to compensate."

Turning toward Operations, Morad met Petty Officer Molina's gaze and gave her a sharp nod.

"Good initiative, Molina. A zone defense is exactly how three smaller ships survive against a dreadnought and three battlecruisers. But we stay completely dark until the trigger is pulled. No active hails, no emissions. The split second we break silent running and light our main impulse drive, open that encrypted channel to the Aquila and the Yeager. Feed them our live firing telemetry, establish coordinated strike sectors, and initiate real-time tactical integration."

Morad stepped down between Krandall and Powl, gesturing at the chaotic swirl of weapon fire and expanding sensor signatures on the forward viewer.

"Look at that display," Morad pointed out quietly. "Disruptor fire, quantum spreads, collapsing shields, and expanding plasma blooms from the Inaieu. With all that electromagnetic violence lighting up their tactical boards, a dead-drifting Steamrunner running ice-cold won't register as a threat to their weak sensors. To Cardassian fire control, we’re just another tumbling chunk of debris from that fallen Inaieu, floating harmlessly through the field."

He paused, his engineering eye locking onto the propulsion readouts. Morad knew every creak and stress tolerance in the Zephyr’s aged superstructure.

She will give us all she's got... but it won't be enough... not for a plan this ambitious...

"Here is how we play it," Ameen ordered. "Lieutenant Krandall, keep us drifting on pure inertia until we align with that fractured forward shield seam. The moment Powl gets target lock, light main impulse to combat power. Powl, empty both forward burst tubes; maximum-yield quantum spread straight down their throat."

Morad leaned toward the conn, his expression hardening.

"Lieutenant Krandall, have bearing one-four-zero mark twelve pre-set for an immediate micro-warp hop the second those warheads clear the tubes. Another reality check; we are not a fresh-off-the-yard escort; these spaceframes and aged warp coils weren't built for repeated tactical hops. I estimate we have one, maybe two clean micro-jumps in her before we blow an EPS manifold or shear a field coil. So make this jump count."

He looked back to the viewer, visualizing the attack run.

"We fire forward, jump across their retaliatory firing arc, and drop out with our aft launcher bearing down on the Hutet's engines, or peeling the Hidekis off the Yeager's stern. We dump our aft payload, and only then evaluate whether to drag this fight into Starbase 214's defensive grid."

Morad straightened, settling into the center chair.

"Stay cold, people. Wait for the solution."

Hopefully, we can buy Star Fleet enough time to bring the main force here... if that dread manages to get within range of Starbase 214 and open fire... I don't even want to imagine the outcome. 

== Tag All ==

== GM Input: As the Zephyr drifts through the debris field on pure inertia toward weapon range, do the Cardassians mistake her for Sovereign wreckage, and does the forward firing solution on the Hutet's weakened shield arc hold? ==

[Ava Baldwin]

Ava Baldwin entered the Bridge and approached Lt Gath. She gave him a wink and acted like it was just another day at the office. The security setup for the entire ship was in place, and she had bee asked to come to the bridge. She looked at the view screen as she crossed the back of Bridge to where Lt Gath was stationed. He appearance changed slightly internally as she saw the wreckage floating in space on the view screen. The situation on the bridge was tense as Commander Ameen gave his orders.

Ava now stood with Lt Gath and asked in a quiet manner, "Where do you want me Lieutenant?"

==Tag Lt Gath ==

[Keir 77]

Keir had stepped off the bridge for what s/he had thought was only a short time to discover that all heck had broken out.

Listening to the preparation for the Zephyr's next move was impressive to say the least and not wanting to interrupt the fine-tuned machine that the bridge team was undertaking the Chief engineer moved to the damage control station and began looping in all stations to hir feed so that when the enemy did initiate any fire on the Zephyr then s/he could be ready to coordinate the crew's efforts.

S/he had filled hir team on where they would be needed knowing that they would be and Singer had her end completely under control.

"I am prepared to coordinate damage control Captain. Apologies for having stepped away."

==Taking baby steps folks trying to recover lost mojo==

[Sebastian Cortez]

Sebastian kept his attention on the tactical display as Captain Ameen laid out the plan. The micro-warp maneuver was risky, but given the Zephyr’s age and the situation they were facing, there was little value in pretending they had unlimited options.

His eyes shifted back to the science console, watching the Hutet’s shield telemetry scroll across the display.

"Understood, Captain. Keti and I will stay focused on the shield telemetry and look for the modulation changes when their secondary generators compensate."

He glanced toward Keti, then back to the display.

"We may be able to make the analysis a little more useful without trying to hack their systems. If we can correlate the shield frequency changes with the direction of incoming fire, we might be able to distinguish their normal cycling from the emergency compensation."

Sebastian paused, studying the telemetry.

"That could give us a cleaner picture of which frequencies they're using to reinforce the damaged sections. We can pass the information directly to Tactical as it develops rather than waiting for a complete solution."

He looked toward Captain Ameen.

"And if the first strike produces enough telemetry, we might be able to identify a usable pattern before the Hutet has time to change it."

Sebastian returned his attention to his console, settling back into his work.

"No guarantees, Captain, but it should give us something useful to work with while we wait for the opening."



== Tag Captain, tag all. ==

[GM-CD]

==Apologies for the delay in responses - life did life things.==

==Ra'an==

The one thing the sensors recorded that definitively could aid Tactical, was that the Hutet was generating a vast amount of power. Far more than intelligence reports, or the very few engagements where Starfleet vessels survived long enough to make scans, suggested.

Finding the source of that power would be the key to overcoming the Dreadnought, but its power plant was buried beneath primary and secondary shields, which appeared to be of a regenerative nature, plus several meters of battle armour.

==Ameen==

Deep Space Nine did not respond to any signals. Whether they were unable or unwilling to respond would be a mystery for solving later.

For a moment, the Zephyr went undetected; she was just another piece of interstellar flotsam. The moment the Zephyr's sensors went active to establish a weapons lock, however, it broadcast its position and status to everyone in the immediate vicinity like an old-style neon sign. While the Hutet was still turning away, now burning from several small impact sites having suffered further damage from the Yeager's torpedo barrage and improvised minefield, her weapons coverage was almost complete, and fire control systems immediately began to lock up the Zephyr. Given how quickly they had torn a Sovereign-class to pieces, the Zephyr's survival time under the attention of a full Dreadnought broadside could be measured in nanoseconds.

To add insult to future injury, the three Hidekis were now turning to face the immediate threat to their flagship.

[Morad Ameen]

The bridge remained draped in amber combat gloom, the silence broken only by the low, muffled hum of life support and the soft chime of passive sensor feeds.

Morad stood in the center of the command well, his gaze sweeping across his bridge team. He had rehearsed the sequence in his mind a dozen times, but out here, with the tactical grid burning red, timing was everything.

"Listen up, everyone," Morad said, his voice quiet, calm, and deliberate. "We are coasting into the pocket on ballistic inertia. In less than forty seconds, we cross their defensive perimeter. When we cross that line, there is no hesitation. Everyone knows their assignments. The second I give the word, we execute in sequence."

He looked at each station in turn, locking eyes with his officers.

"Molina, the moment we break silent running, open that encrypted channel and dump our strike vector straight to the Aquila and Yeager."

"Cortez, prep the decoy probes in the secondary tubes. Launch on my command to muddy their fire control."

"Ra'an, Ava, the instant their shields flare, sweep that dreadnought with every passive and active sensor array we have. Gather every scrap of power-grid telemetry, shield modulation, and core oscillation data you can pull."

"Powl, both forward burst tubes. Full quantum spread directly into that weakened forward seam."

"Krandall, lock your micro-jump coordinates directly to the Yeager’s perimeter. The split second those tubes clear, you punch it. We jump in right behind those pursuing Hidekis—if the Dreadnought wants to fire on us, she’ll have to blast right through her own escorts first to do it."

Morad turned to the damage control console, catching the Chief Engineer's eye. "Keir, Singer—keep those cryogenic lines ahead of the heat curve. She’s going to shake hard."

The seconds stretched thin as the distance indicator on the tactical display ticked down: thirty thousand kilometers... twenty thousand... ten thousand...

"Range threshold reached," Krandall reported in a tense murmur.

Morad gripped the back of the center chair, his jaw setting hard.

"Execute! Execute!"

The Zephyr roared to life. Main impulse reactors flared, defensive shields snapped up to full combat rating, and active targeting sensors locked on, illuminating the Hutet's scarred armor like a flare in the dark.

Instantly, the threat board screamed. As expected, the Cardassian fire control grid locked onto the Zephyr with lethal precision, while the three Hideki escorts banked hard, breaking off their pursuit of the Yeager to converge on the new Starfleet contact.

"Target locked!" A shout came from tactical over the wailing klaxons.

Ameen commanded without hesitation. "Fire everything!"

Magnetic accelerators slammed through the hull as the Zephyr dumped its forward burst launchers, sending a blinding volley of quantum warheads screaming straight into the Hutet’s fractured forward shield arc.

The viewscreen flared white-hot as the dreadnought’s counter-batteries began to cycle. Space bent violently around the Zephyr’s groaning hull as the micro-jump kicked in, tearing the ship away into warp a fraction of a second before the Cardassian broadside converged on, hopefully, the empty void.

This is it... all or nothing...

== Tag Bridge: Everyone should have the opportunity to do their pre-assigned task here before Krandall had slammed the helm control forward and jumped us to the Yeager's proximity. You can each request GM input on your own part. This still can go either way... so good luck! ==

[Gath]

When Ens Baldwin had asked where he wanted her, Gath glanced at a console and said, "Monitor the damage control teams. They're going to know who needs help evacuating areas of the ship and if we get damage, that means that area of shields have been compromised, meaning there could theoretically be intruders. If the shields are still intact, worry about assisting the crew in staying alive. As soon as the first shots are fired, all bets are off, so be ready to improvise."

The Captain shifted tactics only slightly, but it was an important change of plans. Gath braced himself for the moment that was swiftly approaching. He mouthed a silent prayer as they watched the distance counting down.


== NPC Lt Tom Krandall, Tactical Officer ==

Lt Krandall was prepared to shift jump points. When the CO directed him to drop in behind the ship coming in on the Yeager, he grinned and tapped that preset and adjusted only a tiny bit so they wound drop in right on the tail of those ships. If they were smart, they would break formation and that's when he would follow the odd man out or the one easiest for them to team up with the Yeager on.

He had not been overly excited about diving in and not sure if he could get a second jump out of this old girl. A single jump "Picard Maneuver" to get the drop on some bad guys, that was much more of an optimistic choice. It was still going to be a hostile work environment, but it was better to be on the outside of the wagon wheel than the target on the inside. he had no idea how long it would take for the tubes to fully reload. They might have to be happy with single or double fire until the system could catch up for a full burst again.

When the torps fired their glorious spread at the enemy, he hit to initiate the jump as soon as he knew the last torp was clear of their warp bubble. The computer had the jump distance automatically calculated, but fortunately it was relatively simple to perform if you had the time in advance to program it, as he had. You  just picked your target reference point and then added the variable of the distance from it on the desired approach vector. You couldn't do it with a standard helm console configuration, but that's where you could tell an experienced pilot. Everyone had their own special setups, and often variants designed for specific types of missions. This was the first live one he had done with the Zephyr. He had run simulations and done it with a similar craft, but not this specific ship.

As he hit the jump, he said to his console, "Come on baby. Show them how you can dance."

== Krandall would not have delayed in the least, but only the GM knows how close we cut it...and even if all went well, we're not out of this yet...GM Input on our jump and if we then begin lining up on new targets...or not... ==

[A’kilees]

[Raven to A'kilees, I need you to stop whatever you're doing and glue your face to a panel that can manage the warp coil cooling system up there. Begin augmenting the cryogenics now and manage the heat the best you can. The more you can stay ahead of it, the better it will be. If it hits the red line, you still have about 10% grace before it will overpressure and start venting. If we start venting, we start losing cooling capability. Two jumps isn't double heat, it works exponentially. The rest is all you, kid. Good luck.]

A’kilees tapped on his combadge.

[*Click* Acknowledged, bringing up cryogenics now. Be careful down there.] A'kilees replied as he switched his control console over to the warp coil cooling display. He was confident that Raven knew what to do in Engineering but doing such a maneuver would definitely create a tremendous amount of heat very quickly.

Looking carefully over the display, the saurian observed the current gas levels that would be fed into the core. If a multiple warp jump were to be possible, it would require a certain fluctuating amount of coolant at different points of the maneuver. Applying too little coolant and the excessive heat would melt the warp core resulting in a massive explosion comparable to the USS Inaieu, too much coolant and the core would abruptly shut down causing cryofractures leaking the gas into Engineering and similar decks in a flash freeze along with an equally destructive detonation.

Whatever the case, A'kilees began to program the console for manual adjustment of the warp cooling system so that the Zephyr’s maneuver would be successful to immediately engage in combat with the Cardassian fleet afterwards. He began to feel more anxious as he waited for the commanders mark to warp.

== Tag Raven Singer et al. ==

[Amila Ra'an]

"Commander O'fee," Amila looked a bit surprised to see the CMO's twin sister on the Bridge. She had forgotten that Ava had come aboard. Amila glanced at the other two science officers.

"Look, we've got a whole fleet of Cardassian ships out there willing to obliterate our ships," Amila thought for a moment, five ships, three classes, and four science officers on the task. "Why don't you take the Escort vessels," Amila suggest. "We've been pouring a lot of energy into figuring out how to get past the shield frequencies of the fighters, but we shouldn't ignore these other three ships. See what you can figure out about them," she suggested.

"Thanks for the help," Amila nodded.

==Tag Ava O'Fee==


Molina wasted no time establishing the encrypted line to the other two vessels as ordered, and began sending the telemetry, as soon as the ship fired up their engines as ordered. She watched for any signs of response from the other two ships.


= = Commander Ameen gives orders to move in, Sebastian dropping decoys, A. O'Fee and Amila on Dreadnaught readings = =

As the shift in orders came down, Amila nodded and began focusing her sensors on her target. As she manuevered her controls she muttered to Sebastian, "Don't sweat it, Ensign. You got this, just stay focused, and task oriented. This is about executing orders quickly. Things are going to start happening fast."

"Once those probes are dropped, Ensign, keep an eye on those Battlecruisers," Amila told him. "We don't know what they'll do when they move in. Keti - you watch the probes, see if they are taking the bait, and keep an eye on those escorts for us. I still want to know what they are about. Let's not underestimate them."

"Commander O'Fee, things are already not right with the dreadnaught, it's throwing off too much power," she called out loud enough for the Bridge to here. "You've got access to our initial scans with passive sensors. We need to figure out what's going on. Keti will take over on those escorts while he monitors ours probes."

"Initial reports suggest the Dreadnaught's shields may be regenerating. I think it's going to be difficult to punch a hole," Amila warned to everyone as Krandell was already executing his orders.

"The Hideki's are moving," Molina called out calmly. "I think we've been spotted."

Amila muttered a curse in her native tongue, "Cortez, the Battlecruisers. You're up."

She was anxious to leave such an important task with Cortez, but part of being a Chief was trusting your officers and being willing to delegate and not take a job back just because things were heating up. He had her and Keti on either side of him if he needed assistance.


==Tag Cortez, A. O'Fee, Keti== 


==GM Input, Are the Yeager and Aquila able to get the telemetry readings that Molina sent out, and do we get any response from them? ; What are Science Officers Ra'an and O'Fee able to glean from the Dreadnaught (if anything) as the Zephyr strikes/attempts to strike the dreadnaught? - Thanks==

[Evie O’Fee]

==NPC Ava O'Fee==

Given the circumstances there wasn't a place that Ava wanted to be more, her sister was facing danger and now so was Ava. When the call came out for volunteers to go to the Zephyr, the Captain wanted her to stay but didn't stand in the way because he understood her reasons. Soon after going to the station her first orders were heard. "Ra'an, Ava, the instant their shields flare, sweep that dreadnought with every passive and active sensor array we have. Gather every scrap of power-grid telemetry, shield modulation, and core oscillation data you can pull."

Not looking back Ava said. "Aye Captain." Activating every sensor like ordered, Ava was looking for every bit of information that she could get, she was looking for the power-grid telemetry, shield modulation and core oscillation she could find. One more thing Ava was looking for in this was heat, the Cardassians like things at thirty two degrees Celsius. That was hot enough for the equipment, if they had ventilation into space Ava wanted to find it. Then she would run an idea by Ra'an, attacks focused in those areas would disable the ventilation one way or another.

While she was gathering that information she heard Ra'an, Ava didn't have much for time to get to know her but now there was time sort of speaking. "Commander O'fee," Amila looked a bit surprised to see the CMO's twin sister on the Bridge. She had forgotten that Ava had come aboard. Ava gave a quick wave while listening to her next set of instructions. 

"Look, we've got a whole fleet of Cardassian ships out there willing to obliterate our ships," Amila thought for a moment, five ships, three classes, and four science officers on the task. "Why don't you take the Escort vessels," Amila suggest. "We've been pouring a lot of energy into figuring out how to get past the shield frequencies of the fighters, but we shouldn't ignore these other three ships. See what you can figure out about them," she suggested.

"Thanks for the help," Amila nodded. 

Ava replied. "There is no place I would rather be right now." From the very second Ava got on the ship, she had the feeling that this was where she was needed most. What do you say when the Prince of Death comes for you? Not today. Ava thought to herself it wasn't the fact she was ready to face what may come, she had a lot to protect.

Adding to her scans any damage that could have happened during any attack that happened prior to this, if they were to attack those same areas it would go further. Ava suddenly had an idea. "Lieutenant Ra'an the thought occurred to me about power." While she was talking Ava added to the scans power transfers from the three escort ships, a weapon that powerful would need a lot of power. In theory it would need a lot more power than one ship could generate, if they got rid of one then the weapon wouldn't pack as much of a punch. "What if we can prove that those Escorts are responsible for providing power to the Dreadnaught? If we were to naturalize one of them the weapon wouldn't be as powerful." If this proved to be true the Captain would be able to communicate it to the fleet. 

==Tag and GM input dose Ava find power-grid telemetry, shield modulation, and core oscillation data. Dose Ava detect any heat ventilation? Too much heat and everything shuts down. Lastly do those escort ships provide power to the Dreadnaught? ==

[Jukish Keti]

Keti didn't notice at first that Ava had entered the Bridge, then he heard her voice and it gave him some kind of comfort. After the probes were launched, Keti kept an eye on them. He wanted to make sure they were doing their jobs, if the sensors indicated the bait was taken Keti would know. Seeing where they were that kind of chatter would be expected, it wouldn't be the first time this happened. Bajorans fought them off once before, doing it again wouldn't be that much of a stretch.

"Checking on the status of our bait." Keti said while looking at the monitor, if they took the bait it wouldn't take him too long to know. He was growing more nervous about being targeted by the Cardassian fleet. "This is one time I would prefer not to stand out." Keti said quietly to himself. The shields would require a lot of power, they needed to figure out how to maximize the damage in certain areas. That would be up to Tactical to figure out, they could possibly provide some tools to use. 

Difficult to punch a hole in the shields was an understatement, the only true way is to collapse the whole array there would be nothing left to regenerate. If there was some truth to what Ava said, then it would give them a better chance. "Sebastian how much of a stretch would it be if this works, to change the shield frequency even in the slightest. If it is changed their next shot would attack their own shields." He wasn't sure if that was going to work or not, at very least it was worth a thought.

==GM input do they bite the bait?==

[Sebastian Cortez]

Sebastian heard the Captain's order and immediately brought the secondary launchers online.

"Yes, Captain."

His fingers moved quickly across the controls, confirming the probes were armed and ready.

"Decoy probes ready."

At the Captain's command to execute, Sebastian released them.

The secondary tubes opened, sending the probes away from the Zephyr along separate trajectories. Their telemetry appeared on his console as they accelerated away from the ship, broadcasting the false signatures they had been configured to generate.

"Probes away."

He kept his attention on their telemetry, watching for any indication that the Cardassian fire-control systems had noticed them.

Amila's next order came through almost immediately.

"Cortez, the Battlecruisers. You're up."

Sebastian acknowledged with a quick nod.

"Understood, Lieutenant."

He kept the probe telemetry active while bringing the Hideki contacts onto a secondary portion of his display.

"Watching both. I'll let you know the moment I see a response from the escorts or any indication the probes have taken their attention."

For now, there was nothing to analyze. The probes were out there, and Sebastian intended to find out whether the Cardassians had taken the bait before drawing any conclusions about what came next.



== Tag All.==

== GM Input: Did the Cardassians notice or in any way react to the probes being launched? ==

[Ava Baldwin]

Lt Gath glanced at a console and said, "Monitor the damage control teams. They're going to know who needs help evacuating areas of the ship and if we get damage, that means that area of shields have been compromised, meaning there could theoretically be intruders. If the shields are still intact, worry about assisting the crew in staying alive. As soon as the first shots are fired, all bets are off, so be ready to improvise."

"Aye Aye Lieutenant," Ens Baldwin replied and immediately moved to the console Lt Gath had indicated. From what she had overhead in her short time on the bridge the battle was beginning.

Your stoic composure and logic with stand you well... she heard in her mind, her deceased father say, as he had said many times when she was younger.

[Torok Powl]

Ameen had been forming a a very deliberate and precise plan of action.  The planning itself would take significantly more time to plan than it would to execute.  The Zephyr was going to be head to head with a significantly larger force and grossly outgunned and outmanned.  Their opponents looked to have an entire invasion force, and the Zephyr seemed to have the Yeager as an answer.  There was excitement on the horizon with the arrival of the Inaieu and the Aquila.  The Inaiue was an unfamiliar ship to Torok, but she was an older Sovereign class.  One of the most capable vessel designs to come from Star Fleet. But the Aquila was commanded by an old colleague, Captain Brooks.  Captain Brooks and Torok had served together for several years together aboard the Copernicus.  

Good to have another familiar face.

"Captain, I am attempting to use a wide all possible arc simultaneous burst to the target.   They will be used to target specific moments of possible vulnerability within their shields and the systems.  The may make all of our quantum torpedoes to be more effective."

And the scales tilt a little to our favor.  Although, the Federation battlegroup is still heavily outmatched, at least there were more frien.... 

Before Powl could finish the thought, Ameen was next to Powl as the data came spilling in as the dark space background erupted with with lights covering the full visible spectrum.  Large thunderous concussive blasts that would have been deafening if they had been audible at this range.  However, the telemetry that carried the same reports about how well the Sovereign class ship should be to handle situations that would ordinarily cripple others, now carried the grim news that the newly arrived Inaiue had been destroyed via an antimatter containment breach.

It was nearly time for Captain Ameen's plan to either succeed gleefully or...well that wasn't really much of another option.

When the critical moment was at hand, there was little to no instruction needed beyond a two simple words:

"Execute! Execute!"

Upon hearing that Torok began locking targets.  The phasers were used in conjunction with the telemetry that was received from the Science stations.  

Those targets started adding up quickly.  Once Powl was satisfied with the preprogrammed phaser targets, all that was left was the targeting for burst quantum torpedoes.  

"Target locked!" A shout came from tactical over the wailing klaxons.  Powl had his last lock needed for his programmed deployment of ordnance.  First the phasers would potentially create or find slightly weakened areas of the shields that may allow more of the destructive element to pierce the shields and hit directly in the hull.  The concept was valid, but time would reveal whether or not that it would be practical.

Ameen commanded without hesitation. "Fire everything!"

Torok had the programmed fireworks already primed, and now he pressed down hard on his LCARS keyboard "execute."

The phasers and torpedoes fire with their rainbow of colors towards their intended targets in a magnificent display.

[Ava Baldwin]

Ava, who actually preferred to be call by her Vulcan first name Viverrin, (or as humans like to shorten everything Viv was acceptable), knew she had little time to prepare before the battle began, so she needed to assess the information displayed on the console at which she was seated.

"Execute! Execute!" Ava heard the Commander's voice say. I have minutes, nay seconds before everything ponfo mirann. (Federation Standard Translation of Vulcan 'ponfo mirann' is '...goes to hell...')

She flipped through the menus looking at each screen and the information it displayed. That seems unusually logical for a human construction.

The Tactical officer responded loudly, "Target locked!", as the yellow alert klaxons continued to sound.

The immediate response for Commander Ameen came instantly, "Fire everything."

Ready or not, a few more seconds will be all the preparation I will get!

[Gath]

When the order was given, Gath moved them to Red Alert status and after allowing it to signal the status change, he then silenced the annoying sound for on the Bridge. They had enough noise going on and they were more than aware enough that they were now in the fight.

Seeing the torpedoes launching, in a rare and spectacularly brilliant display, was both beautiful and terrifying. Then, the screen dramatically changed with a flash of distorting space as they went to just to their new location.

[GM-CD]

==Krandall==

The micro-jump was successful, in most part. The thirty year old spaceframe groaned in protest as it went from sublight to light to sublight velocities in a matter of seconds, and inertial dampeners struggled to compensate. They failed entirely in the pod housing the deflector dish, and whichever poor souls had that as their battle station were killed instantly by the sudden acceleration and deceleration.

Error messages sprang up all over the console. The warp coils that weren't misaligned were ruptured, spraying an unhealthy amount of drive plasma into the void. 

==Ra'an==

The Zephyr's shots, powerful as they were, seemed to do nothing to the Dreadnought. Shield power dropped two percent, and sensors registered a secondary layer of shields had activated beneath the primary shields. Those shields were designed to protect the ship against planetary defense platforms or ground-based surface to orbit weapons; the relatively few torpedoes the Zephyr carried would be like proverbial bugs on the windshield, and better used against targets it could actually hurt.

==O'Fee==

The double shields prevented any meaningful data being collected. The fact that the escorts had pursued the Yeager and then the Zephyr indicated that they were not powering the Dreadnought in any way.

==Cortez==

While a novel idea, the issue with launching decoys mid-battle was that the enemy often saw them launch, and thus ignored them. One was picked off by an opportunistic disruptor blast, but the rest were ignored as the Cardassians continued to focus on their targets.

==All==

Consoles flickered and sparked as the Zephyr attempted to recover from its micro-jump, with consoles dedicated to the ship's more sensitive instruments displaying errors as they were shocked out of position or suffering power overloads.

The ship then rocked as it took a one-two punch of disruptor cannons from the closest two Hidekis. The jump had bamboozled them temporarily, but it had been a simple matter of turning around the moment the target reappeared to allow them to re-engage.

Shields dropped to 80%.

[Ava Baldwin]

Simultaneously, phasers and torpedoes fired towards their intended targets in a magnificent display. Yellow turned to Red Alert.

Ens Baldwin watched her console intently as the Zephyr made the micro Warp jump. Everything rattled and groaned as the ship came to it's new destination seconds latter, mostly in one piece. Her damage control console lit up like fireworks with error messages and reports of damage and information on the state of the ship. The information flash across her screen and she had to quickly decipher between false computer generated reports because of the stresses on the Zephyr from the micro Warp jump and real damage, which may indicate casualties.

One massage shocked her...[FAILURE: Inertial dampeners] the console shuddered and flickered... and return to normal function... the message now read [FAILURE: Inertial dampeners - Pod Housing - Deflector dish.]

Ava immediately contacted rescue teams near the two location with a short message " Rescue teams to pod housing and deflector control, Probable multiple causality, report when on scene."

[RT Gamma OR!]

[RT Beta OR]

This is just the beginning.

Within minutes, whilst battle got into full swing reports were received from the damaged areas'.

[RT Beta OS Pod Housing.Multiple casualties, no survivors.] and two seconds latter, [RT Gamma OS Defectors Dish, (there was along pause) Multiple casualties, no survivors.]

Ava closes her eye in spiritual pause for a second, I didn't think there would be.

RT's Beta and Gamma, identify, and report names of the deceased to me, leave the bodies there, seal the areas, 'No Entry - Hazardous to life' Your teams will be needed again very soon. The bodies can be removed at a safer time."

"Damage Control to Engineering, inertial dampeners failure in pod housing and deflector control"

Ava then reported what she knew the Commander Ameen, reporting the facts, with little emotion, "Commander, we have fatalities in pod housing and deflector control due to inertial dampeners failures during the Warp jump."


== GM, a humble request. (1)Number of soul lost in in pod housing and deflector control, please? (2) Any further damage reports coming through to the bridge and possible numbers of casualties and any information on types of injuries, please?==

[Sebastian Cortez]

Sebastian steadied himself against his console as the Zephyr rocked again. His eyes remained fixed on the sensor data rather than the tactical display.

Eighty percent shields.

The number concerned him, but something else caught his attention.

He pulled up the readings from the brief weapons exchange with the Dreadnought and began comparing them with the sensor data collected before and after the micro-jump.

"Lieutenant Ra'an, I think we're looking at the wrong problem."

Sebastian enlarged the Dreadnought's shield readings.

"The secondary shields activated almost immediately after our weapons fire reached the primary layer. That suggests they're not simply a second set of shields operating continuously. They may be responding to the type of energy they're detecting."

He quickly ran the numbers through the science console.

"If that's correct, then repeatedly firing at them is just giving the system more information about us."

Sebastian looked toward the Captain.

"We could test that without committing another torpedo. A controlled phaser pulse at a different frequency, followed by a sensor sweep, might tell us whether the secondary layer is adapting its modulation or simply switching between predetermined frequencies."

He paused, studying the readings.

"And if it is adapting..."

A small realization crossed his face.

"...then we may be able to give it the wrong information."

Sebastian brought up the decoy telemetry.

"The decoys failed because the Cardassians saw them launch. But their purpose doesn't necessarily have to be fooling the Cardassians themselves."

He looked back at the Dreadnought's shield readings.

"If we can make one of the decoys generate a controlled energy signature that resembles a weapon impact, we could use it to provoke the secondary shields without actually firing another torpedo."

Sebastian glanced around the bridge.

"Basically, we teach their shield system to expect the wrong thing. And if their defenses are adaptive, we may only need to make them adapt to the wrong answer once."



== Tag Ra'an and Ameen ==

== GM  Input Does Sebastian's suggestion work, will it confuse or otherwise beat the Cardassians, or give the Zephyr a clue as what to do next?==

[Gath]

== NPC Lt Tom Krandall, Tactical Officer ==

The ship had barely arrived at the new jump location when Tom said to himself, "That was a rougher ride than it should have been..."

The reports then started coming in about the failed inertial dampening system, causing Tom to thump a fist unto the console, yet trying to restrain himself, "Damn..."

Taking a breath, he spoke up, "Sir, that was the only one of those we get. If you want another of those, we're going to have to go to warp and keep going, then return normally. If we do another short jump, more people are going to die in the process. I'm sorry sir, the ship just can't deliver those kinds of moves like she once could."

He felt terrible and wanted to scream, but there was no time for such selfishness. He had already been thinking about his flying and the adrenaline of the old days in a fighter, but not thinking about if the ship had really been up to the task. He had just gotten some people killed. If he hadn't thought he could do the jump, they would have thought of something else and those people would still be alive. Shaking his head to clear the thoughts, he pushed himself to focus. They weren't out of this mess and if they made another such mistake, they might all die. There would be plenty of time for blame later. Save lives first...


== Lt Gath ==

Seeing the indications on the status board, closed his eyes briefly before saying, "Ensign Baldwin, I need you to take over the Security Station here on the Bridge and advise the Captain as needed. Coordinate with Ops to make sure whoever they send down to cover the main deflector operations now, there needs to be at least two of them and they need to be medically trained. They're not going to be prepared for what their work area is going to look like and they certainly can't be left there alone. I'm going to go there to assist until they are able to find people who can handle the job. I'll have to keep the deflector operating until they can manage to take it over." He paused and then said in a lower tone, "Most people have not seen the kind of thing they will see today. Even I don't want to see it, but I am prepared for it and have gotten used to such moments more than I care to admit."

Turning to the CO, "Sir, I'm moving to secure the Main Deflector until those stations are manned again. Baldwin will remain on the Bridge, sir."

While already beginning to move toward the door, he glanced at Ava. For what felt like a very long moment, Gath hesitated. For the first time, he felt was he had always known was a risk. His heart skipped a beat and he felt the sing that only comes with deep emotion. The brief thought of an icicle stabbed into his chest...but it was instantly chased away by the strength it gave him. The mental image of ice was replaced by fire. His emotions were not going to stop him, they would inspire him. He had people to protect and things to live for, so he needed to get to work. In reality, his hesitation was barely a blink. It only seemed a long moment in his mind. It was just long enough that his and Ava's eyes met before he exited the Bridge.


== Tag Bladwin, CO & Ava ==
== Unless there is anything that keeps him on the Bridge, he is going to head to head to the Secondary Hull. Even those with strong constitutions will be needing a moment to deposit their breakfast on the deck prior to being able to operate in a functioning capacity in that moment. Gath won't lose his breakfast and he knows it. ==

>>> Ancillary Locations >>>

[Amila Ra'an]

Amila was surprised for a moment by the way the power flickered in the console from the jump. She barely had time to brace herself against the blasts from the blasts before they were over. Baldwin's report on fatalities resonated through her mind as she composed herself and started focusing on what resources they still had to work with. Gath was leaving to try to secure the damaged area.

Cortez spoke up early into the chaos, "The decoys failed because the Cardassians saw them launch. But their purpose doesn't necessarily have to be fooling the Cardassians themselves. If we can make one of the decoys generate a controlled energy signature that resembles a weapon impact, we could use it to provoke the secondary shields without actually firing another torpedo."

"No," Amila said sharply. She had to wait for Baldwin and Gath to report before she could quickly explain herself.

"There's something with the Dreadnaught. The shields are regenerating too fast. Our torpedoes didn't touch it, probes aren't going to do anything," she added. "Ensign Cortez, you can try your idea, but send the probes toward the Hidekis that just tried to take out there. If we can take them out, we'll have less to worry about."

""Lieutenant Keti, help Cortez out. There's three of them. Let's see what we can learn about these battlecruiser's shields, and if there is anything we can do to take their shields - or ships out," Amila ordered. "Lives depend on it. Also, watch them. Any hit they take, we need that data. "

Amila looked over to Morad. "I know we need to take out the Dreadnaught too, but trust me," she pleaded. 

We might have to let the other ships handle that. We only have so much left. We need to do what we can. 

"Commander O'Fee and I will keep an eye on everything else out there," Amila promised.



==Tag Cortez and Keti; and the CO==  


==GM Input Please, How are our sensors working after the blast, is Science still able to get a good read on what's going on out there with the Cardassian Fleet and the Yeager and Aquila?==

[Charlotte Dawes]

Dr. O'Fee's commbadge chirped, then she heard Charlotte's voice:

[Dawes to Dr. O'Fee, I'm taking Petty Officer Jayne to Engineering. Reynolds has Sickbay for now.]


==Tag Evie O'Fee==

[Morad Ameen]

The deck pitched violently beneath Morad’s boots as a pair of disruptor blasts slammed into the Zephyr’s aft-quarter shields, sending a cascade of sparks raining down from an overhead EPS relay.

"Shields down to eighty percent!"

Morad caught himself on the armrest of the center chair, absorbing the reports hitting the bridge in rapid-fire succession. Inertial dampener failure in the pod housing and main deflector. Fatalities. Ruptured warp coils venting plasma.

That went... ugh... it could've gone better... but it could've been a lot worse too...

He took a slow, measured breath, forcing his voice to remain steady, solid, and utterly unshaken as he stepped down into the center of the bridge.

"Listen to me, all of you," Morad projected, his tone cutting cleanly through the wailing alarm boards. "Look at the telemetry. That strike was not in vain. Our torpedo strike on that arc stripped what was left of their primary shields down to the bone and even took a bite into their secondary planetary shield layer. We proved that monster can bleed. When Star Fleet battle groups arrive, they won’t be facing an invincible fortress, they’ll be facing a wounded leviathan with one less defensive perimeter to hide behind."

He paused, letting the reality settle over his shaken crew.

"The Zephyr made her contribution to that fight. Our job now is to focus on survival, protecting our own and helping the Yeager and the Aquila survive this battle until Star Fleet's task force shows up."

Morad turned sharply toward Tom Krandall at the conn, noting the tight, guilty posture of the pilot.

"Lieutenant Krandall, eyes on me," Morad commanded, his voice dropping into a firm, supportive register. "That order was mine, not yours. You executed a razor-thin combat jump and saved this ship from being vaporized in thirty seconds. You did your job, Lieutenant. No more micro-jumps. Now fly her on impulse and show them what an agile Destroyer is meant to do."

He glanced toward Ava Baldwin at the security station, acknowledging Gath’s departure. "Baldwin, assist damage control in sealing those compartments. We honor our dead by doing our very best to make sure no one else joins them today."

Morad tapped the engineering override on his armrest, bringing up the master systems display. 

"Keir, A'kilees; clamp down on those ruptured warp manifolds. Emergency-vent the damaged coil conduits and isolate the nacelle plasma feeds before we get a backflash into the core. Shunt every kilowatt of auxiliary power we just saved from the offline warp drive directly into the Structural Integrity Field and the aft shield emitters. Route secondary deflector control to the bridge until Gath secures the lower station."

Turning back to the science station, Morad met Amila Ra'an's gaze, nodding firmly. "Lieutenant Ra'an is right. Disengage all targeting from the Dreadnought. We leave the Hutet to the heavy hitters when they get here. We focus our fire on where we can do the most damage."

Morad stepped toward Cortez and Keti's consoles.

"Cortez, Keti; those decoy probes are already out in the field and the Cardassians are choosing to ignore them. We will take full advantage of that oversight. Don't worry about spoofing ship signatures anymore; the Cardassians know we're here. Re-task their transmitters immediately into active ECM noise-generators and put them in evasive maneuvers. Burn their emitter arrays on wide-band jamming frequencies. Cardassian sensors are notoriously sluggish in high-interference environments; flood their tactical bands and blind their target-acquisition arrays. Turn their lights off."

Morad pivoted to tactical and the helm.

"Powl, lock phasers and torpedoes onto the lead Hideki. Coordinate with the Yeager’s tactical feed. We focus our combined fire and eliminate them one by one."

He pointed toward the tactical plot, tracing an angled trajectory.

"Krandall, aggressive sublight maneuvers. Use our thrusters and impulse drive to try and keep those Hidekis positioned directly between our hull and the Dreadnought's forward firing arcs as much as possible. If the big guy decides to swat at us, he's going to have to shoot through his own escorts to do it. Angle our drift and push this fight steadily toward Starbase 214's perimeter. I bet they are eager to join the fight, so let's draw the Cardassians into the station's weapon batteries and give them something shiny to shoot at!"

Morad settled into the center chair, hands resting firmly on the controls.

"Let's show them how a Steamrunner Destroyer fights at knife range. Fire at will!"

Today, is not a good day to die... not yet... 

== Tag Bridge ==

[Morad Ameen]

== GM-Zephyr ==

The violent deceleration of the micro-jump rattles through the Zephyr’s aging superstructure like a physical blow. Even as the inertial dampeners across the primary hull strain to catch the violent shockwave, the internal telemetry boards light up with an unforgiving assessment of the cost.

Deep within the ship, the structural integrity failure was absolute. In the mission pod housing, the inertial field sheared completely during the spatial transition, instantly claiming the lives of the two technicians stationed there for sensor alignment. A deck below, main deflector control fared no better; the concussive force of the sudden revert crushed consoles and bulkhead mountings alike, killing three specialists at their stations before emergency forcefields slammed down. Five souls lost in a single heartbeat, their compartments sealed behind heavy containment doors to isolate localized venting and ruptured EPS trunk lines.

Throughout the rest of the ship, damage control feeds scream for attention. Lower decks are reporting severe structural bucking, with triage teams scrambling to treat concussions, lacerations, and fractured limbs from crew thrown across compartments. Deep in the engineering spaces, port nacelle coil coupling three has suffered a magnetic seal failure, spewing superheated plasma into the surrounding maintenance conduit and injuring two crewmen before emergency shutoffs could clamp the feed.

Yet despite the trauma echoing through her frame, the Zephyr’s essential combat systems claw their way back online. While the main sensor dome took an intense electromagnetic bath during the jump, auxiliary arrays along the saucer rim and ventral hull reboot within seconds. The expanding plasma haze from the Inaieu’s destruction still clutters long-range resolution, but at knife-fight range, tactical scans were sharp and clear.

On the bridge displays, the three small Hideki escorts are plainly visible, attempting to tighten their attack wedges, banks of disruptors cycling hot as they pivot and push hard to catch the Zephyr and Yeager in a deadly crossfire. Further out, the Hutet looms like a scarred monolith, turning with agonizing slow deliberation, its massive, planetary-grade power grid continuing to feed its secondary defenses, temporarily leaving the cleanup of the perimeter to its hunting dogs.

[Amila Ra'an]

Commander Ameen's commands were clear and direct as their wounded ship shifted their attack strategies. 

Everything was happening so fast, yet time seemed to slow down at the same time as a million thoughts raced through Amila's mind. If the dreadnaught left them alone, they were still severely outnumbered - all of them. There were still three escorts out there heavy enough to pack a punch if they came to life, and the Zephyr was hemorrhaging in the battlefield. They'd be luck to draw the ships toward the Starbase. Lucky if they made it there. She glanced around the Bridge and wondered if all of the faces she was looking at would make it out alive. She realized that she might not.

Commander Ameen's last command expressing the gravity of the situation. "Let's show them how a Steamrunner Destroyer fights at knife range. Fire at will!"

With Jukish and Cortez focusing on using the probes to try to blind the Cardassian cruisers, Amila focused her sensors on trying to assist tactical in real-time. "Lieutenant Powl, feeding you access to my feed on the Hidekis. With any luck, we'll get into their shield frequencies after a few hits, help you pack a punch. Scanning for weak spots now."

"O'Fee, can you back me up?" Amila asked. Three ships was a lot to keep an eye on, and between the two of them, they might be able to find something to help Powl. Especially if Jukish and Cortez were successful.


== Optional Tags to Powl, O'Fee==


==Request for GM input: Will initial scans show anything helpful for tactical, re targeting and what are A. O'Fee and Ra'an able to learn about shields?==

[Gath]

== NPC Lt Tom Krandall, Tactical Officer ==

Giving the CO a nod of understanding, Tom took a deep breath and focused on his console. The ship was still capable of some very quick impulse maneuvers. He felt like cautioning people not to use the main viewer for a forward view of the battle. They were likely to get an induced form of motion sickness if they did. For the moment, the display was showing the Tactical overlay and Tom was focused on his own readings. The ship slalomed through debris and avoiced shots with surprising grace. Tom even had to use a couple of rolls in his evasive tactics to try and keep the enemy guessing at where to try and land a hit on them. He couldn't avoid everything, but he was certainly going to make them work for every hit while trying to move them in the general direction of the base. Tom made sure not to fly in the same direction for more than two seconds. more than once, he deliberately maintained a line for two seconds and then would pitch up or down from his relative path and begin another series of turns. Predictably, he would often see a missed shot go past them when he did. It told him he was right and that they were still hot on his heels. He tried to notice when each one was firing, to possibly predict a pattern of which weapons were firing the most or if they appeared to have a weak side he might exploit, but so far there had been no such hints of anything to take advantage of.

[Sebastian Cortez]

The deck pitched violently beneath Sebastian's feet as a pair of disruptor blasts slammed into the Zephyr's aft-quarter shields, sending a cascade of sparks raining down from an overhead EPS relay.

"Shields down to eighty percent!"

Sebastian caught himself against the edge of his console as the bridge rocked around him. Casualty reports continued to populate his display alongside warnings of ruptured warp coils, damaged systems, and inertial dampener failures in the pod housing and main deflector.

*That went... ugh... it could've gone better... but it could've been a lot worse too.*

He forced himself to focus.

Morad's voice cut through the chaos as the Captain began issuing orders, first reassuring Krandall and then directing damage control and engineering efforts. Sebastian listened carefully, particularly when Morad turned toward Science and Tactical.

Lieutenant Ra'an is right. Disengage all targeting from the Dreadnought. We leave the Hutet to the heavy hitters when they get here. We focus our fire on where we can do the most damage.

Sebastian glanced toward Amila.

Her earlier suggestion had been straightforward: use one of the decoys to generate a controlled energy signature resembling a weapon's impact, potentially provoking the Dreadnought's secondary shields without firing another torpedo.

But she had immediately recognized the problem.

"No," Amila had said sharply. "There's something with the Dreadnaught. The shields are regenerating too fast. Our torpedoes didn't touch it, probes aren't going to do anything."

Sebastian understood the distinction.

The Dreadnought was not the target anymore.

The Hidekis were.

Amila had continued, "Ensign Cortez, you can try your idea, but send the probes toward the Hidekis that just tried to take out there. If we can take them out, we'll have less to worry about."

"Lieutenant Keti, help Cortez out. There are three of them. Let's see what we can learn about these battlecruiser's shields, and if there is anything we can do to take their shields - or ships out. Lives depend on it. Also, watch them. Any hit they take, we need that data."

Sebastian brought the probe telemetry onto his display.

"Understood, Lieutenant Ra'an."

He began redirecting the three probes toward the Hidekis.

"You're right about the Dreadnought. If its shield regeneration is occurring faster than we can damage it, trying to force another opening may just waste what we have left."

His fingers moved across the console, modifying the probes' sensor priorities.

"But the Hidekis are another matter. If we can study their shields while they're actually under fire, we might learn something useful."

Morad's subsequent order gave him an even clearer objective.

"Cortez, Keti; those decoy probes are already out in the field and the Cardassians are choosing to ignore them. We will take full advantage of that oversight. Don't worry about spoofing ship signatures anymore; the Cardassians know we're here. Re-task their transmitters immediately into active ECM noise-generators and put them in evasive maneuvers. Burn their emitter arrays on wide-band jamming frequencies. Cardassian sensors are notoriously sluggish in high-interference environments; flood their tactical bands and blind their target-acquisition arrays. Turn their lights off."

Sebastian immediately adjusted the probe configuration.

"Changing their mission profile now."

He glanced toward Keti.

"Lieutenant, I'll handle the sensor collection and probe telemetry. If you can work the ECM frequencies, we can compare the interference with the shield responses."

Sebastian pulled up the data gathered from their previous engagement.

"The important part for Science is what happens when they take a hit. Shield strength, frequency shifts, power redistribution, regeneration rate. If there's a pattern, we may be able to identify something Tactical can exploit."

He enlarged several sensor traces.

"Actually..."

His eyes narrowed.

"There is something here."

Sebastian compared the earlier shield data with the new returns coming from the Hidekis.

"The regeneration isn't completely uniform. They're compensating across multiple frequencies rather than simply restoring power to the damaged layer."

He looked toward Keti.

"If that's deliberate, there should be a measurable delay somewhere in the redistribution. I'll have the probes watch for it."

Another impact rocked the Zephyr.

Sebastian steadied himself against the console and continued working.

"And if one of those Hidekis takes a direct hit, I want the probes recording everything. We may learn more from watching their shields respond to weapons fire than we ever could from scanning them while they're sitting idle."

He glanced briefly toward Amila.

"That gives us something useful even if we can't take them out immediately."

The probes scattered into evasive patterns, their transmitters beginning to flood the Cardassian tactical frequencies with controlled interference.

Sebastian watched the sensor returns stabilize.

"Probes are in position."

He took a breath and focused on the three Hidekis.

"Let's see what they tell us."



== Tag Ra'an, and Keti.==

[Jennifer Braggins]

[This is Captain Braggins of the Yeager, I'm taking command of the engagement. Aquila, engage the Battlecruisers marked Contact 2 and 3. Zephyr, engage the Escorts. Do not engage the Dreadnought, do not engage the Dreadnought.]

Sensors would show the Yeager making violent maneuvers away from the Zephyr and the Hidekis, moving at full acceleration towards the Keldon marked "Contact 1".

[Amila Ra'an]

==NRC Petty Officer Isabel "Izzy" Molina, Operations==

Captain Braggin's voice came out over the comms, essentially affirming the plans that Commander Ameen had already put into effect. A few sarcastic comments threatened to slip off of Izzy's tongue, but she held them back, focusing instead what she could see of the battle front.

"Captain, the Yeager is disengaging from the escorts and heading toward the Dreadnaught," Isabel announced. "Diverting power from non-essential systems to maintaining shields. If Lieutenant Baldwin can order all crew to essential stations we can eck a little more power out of her if I shut down down power in unoccupied areas, she offered."


==Tag Commander, Tactical, & Security==

==GM Input Please - What are broad sensor sweeps showing with the other escorts? How close are the Aquila and the Battlecruisers?==

[A’kilees]

The engineering console sparked unexpectedly and A’kilees jumped back in his seat protecting his face with his arms. He had managed to keep the levels of the cryogenic coolant stable while they had performed the two microjumps but that was about it. He wasn’t aware about any of the Zephyr’s operational capabilities at this point. A few seconds passed and the saurian peered out between his arms towards the screen. The display was malfunctioning, it flickered slightly and the outlay was distorted while powered down and on again. A’kilees attempted to fix the console as best he could so that he could make a damage assessment but this was made harder by the somewhat nonfunctional operating system. It took a few moments to recalibrate and the engineering console soon became stable enough to give him some readings and notifications from all levels of the ship.

The Zephyr was, to say lightly, in a terrible state of affairs. The screen showed more than two clawfuls of errors and problems throughout the entire vessel. The microjumps they had performed hadn’t done the old Steamrunner any favors while also jumping into an intense combat situation with the Cardassian battle fleet. Structural integrity across multiple decks were compromised with other lower decks reporting structural buckling. Various consoles and control systems were destroyed and fried. EPS trunk lines were ruptured in different areas leaking plasma. Even reports of multiple injuries and seven crew fatalities had gotten his attention.

A fine mess we’ve got ourselves into…

Scanning through the operating systems, A’kilees was relieved to see that the Zephyr’s offensive and defensive capabilities were still operating. Shields were still functioning within acceptable parameters while both phaser cannons and torpedoes were operational.

Maybe we still have a fighting chance then.

A’kilees tapped on his combadge.

[A’kilees to Engineering, what's your current stat-?]

*BOOM, BOOM*

The Zephyr rocked suddenly and violently. A’kilees grabbed the console to steady himself and looked up towards the main display as the shaking subsided. Two disruptor blasts had impacted the forward deflectors and two Hideki class Cardassian ships had turned to engage them and were ready to open fire yet again.

"Keir, A'kilees; clamp down on those ruptured warp manifolds. Emergency-vent the damaged coil conduits and isolate the nacelle plasma feeds before we get a backflash into the core. Shunt every kilowatt of auxiliary power we just saved from the offline warp drive directly into the Structural Integrity Field and the aft shield emitters. Route secondary deflector control to the bridge until Gath secures the lower station." Morad ordered.

“Aye sir!” acknowledged A’kilees and got straight to work. The Commander knew more than anybody about the ship, except for Chief Keir and Raven in A’kilees’ opinion, and would be aware of how much the Zephyr could take in a combat situation such as this. He gave a glance over to Keir 77 sitting nearby, turned back to his console and tried his best to concentrate on the task at hand rather than the skirmish happening at that moment waiting for Gath to message the bridge.

== Tag Ameen Moren, Keir 77, Gath et al. ==

[Gath]

Gath finally reported in with Baldwin, [I've secured the Main Deflector Control]

A moment later Raven also confirmed with A'kilees, [We'vre restored control of deflectors and structural integrity. One of the generators is offline, but all things considered, we're still in business. We've got some coolant leaking from the warp coils, but we're sealing them off, so the core should be fine. We're not going to warp anytime soon. The Secondary Hull is currently off limits unless you have an EVA suit, at least until we can get this coolant under control. You did a good job on your end, this old girl just isn't what she once was. I'm going to inspect some support structures to make sure we don't have any more surprises, but keep me posted. Raven, out.]

Baldwin then heard Gath report that he was carrying someone out of the Secondary Hull area and was taking them to Sickbay. Access was very dangerous and should be restricted to emergency teams only. He closed the channel without waiting for an answer. It had sounded like he was calling it in while already carrying someone through the ship.

== Tag Baldwin and A'kilees for this mixed post for both Gath and Raven... ==

[Ava Baldwin]

"Baldwin, assist damage control in sealing those compartments. We honor our dead by doing our very best to make sure no one else joins them today." stated the Commander.

Deep within the ship, the structural integrity failure was absolute. In the mission pod housing, the inertial field sheared completely during the spatial transition. A deck below, main deflector control fared no better; the concussive force of the sudden revert crushed consoles and bulkhead mountings alike. Five Crew killed instantly. Baldwin had moved back to the Damage control station and immediately noted that emergency force fieldswhere now in place. Five souls lost in a single heartbeat, their compartments sealed behind heavy containment doors to isolate localized venting and ruptured EPS trunk lines. RT's Gamma amd Beta had none to save.

An announcement came through the bridge comms: [This is Captain Braggins of the Yeager, I'm taking command of the engagement. Aquila, engage the Battlecruisers marked Contact 2 and 3. Zephyr, engage the Escorts. Do not engage the Dreadnought, do not engage the Dreadnought.]

The Zephyr rocked suddenly and violently. Bridge crew grabbed anything they could hold. Two disruptor blasts had impacted the forward deflectors and two Hideki class Cardassian ships had turned to engage them and were ready to open fire yet again.

Ens Baldwin secured herself in her seat, and broadcast a ship wide message, that everyone needed to know, if they didn't already.

"All ships personnel to evacuate non essential areas as all power is required for the ship. Critically injured, red and yellow tags to sickbay, non life threatening injuries, yellow and green tags to 10 Forward / Crew mess."

Across Baldwin's station came a myriad of damage reports, major damage report where sorted and engineering advised, they would have a better understanding of what was required and what could wait.

Ens Baldwin received a message from her superior officer, Lt Gath, [I've secured the Main Deflector Control] and that he was carrying someone out of the Secondary Hull area and was taking them to Sickbay. Access was very dangerous and should be restricted to emergency teams only. He closed the channel without waiting for an answer. Ava immediately advise sickbay and then advise all that needed to know the Secondary Hull area was now restricted to emergency teams only.

The flow of communication exponentially grew and because of damage to communication lines some had to be rerouted through a number of station to get messages through.

And so the battle continued. To Ava it seemed as if the Zephyr was a Being, under attacked by bacteria, little by little systems where dieing or failing and the Zephyr's immune system, (the repair crews, rescue teams, medical personnel and command teams) tried to stem the tide of this anilating invasion. She had eyeballed death, face to face, as her father lay in her arms dying from a phaser blast. She felt so helpless then... But not here, she was determined that she would make a difference, even if it meant her own death.

We're a long way from that, Ava dear!

== GM input please? Has Ens Baldwin covered all the bases, not missed anything or overstepped her orders? Is there anything else she should be aware of? ==

[Sebastian Cortez]

Sebastian listened as Captain Braggins's transmission came across the bridge. He made no response to it. Braggins was the commanding officer of the Yeager, and any orders concerning the Zephyr would have to come through Captain Ameen.

His attention shifted to the sensor display as the Yeager abruptly broke away from the escorts.

"Captain," Sebastian said, keeping his voice even, "the Yeager is changing course. She's accelerating toward Contact One."

He watched the display for another moment.

"She's moving directly toward the Dreadnought."

Sebastian glanced toward the engineering readouts.

"Isabel's suggestion about shutting down non-essential systems would give us some reserve. We could also temporarily reduce the load on the environmental systems in unoccupied sections. If we lower atmospheric circulation and thermal regulation to their minimum safe levels, we should be able to divert some additional power to the shields and propulsion without affecting occupied areas."

He considered the numbers appearing on his console.

"Nothing drastic. Just enough to give Engineering a little more power to work with."

Sebastian settled back at his station, returning his attention to the sensor display.

"I'll monitor the power redistribution and make sure the environmental systems remain within safe parameters. I'll also keep an eye on the Yeager and report any changes."



== Tag Ameen, tag all. ==

[Evie O’Fee]

==NPC Ava O'Fee Science==

There was something odd about those shields, there was nothing for meaningful readings. There could be a number of factors that could have prevented their scans, right now wasn't the time to worry about that. The sudden shock when the ship was struck, it was a new feeling for Ava. It was the first time that she was on a ship like this, she had to keep up her nerve. Both Gath and Ava exchanged glances for a second, both could feel emptions that the others would miss. 

Now that he was handling the Deflector, there was room for improvement with the sensors. Suddenly she heard her name being called. "O'Fee, can you back me up?" Amila asked. Three ships was a lot to keep an eye on, and between the two of them, they might be able to find something to help Powl. Especially if Jukish and Cortez were successful.

She was there to back her up in anything she needed, Amila was quickly gaining her respect. She handled all of her responsibilities with some grace, it made it easier for her to maintain her own. "I will back you up Ra'an." Ava said while attempting to figure out what to do next. There wasn't much activities when it came to the probes, but they could come up with a working plan for them. With her other scans Ava was attempting to figure out a way to penetrate their shields, they were different ways to get through them. 

With the orders now in hand to concentrate on the escorts, Ava started her scans on them. They were not going to be able to do anything with the main threat, the Escorts would make the whole thing easier to manage. Ava was hoping to find an angle they could exploit, the three ships were going to be a bit much for one person to handle. Ava was just glad they were still in business, Ava wanted to make sure they stayed alive.

==GM input is there anything the Sensors could detect they could exploit?==

[Gath]

== NPC Lt Tom Krandall, Tactical Officer ==

Tom realized that if he was going to fly them through this, he had to adapt to the situation and pkay to his strengths. He was now in a dogfight. In a dogfight, you didn't use micro-jumps and in space, You weren't limited by atmospheric conditions.

Reaching over to the edge of his console, he pressed one of his buttons for an alternate console configuration. The majority of his display remained the same, but there were now two round displays that gave indication s on the of target locations. Each had a tiny designation of what Tactical had named them, as well as their relative direction and if they were headed toward or away fron his position. Tom would then use his fighter training to employ impulse dogfighting skills to gain firing positions on the enemy while being the most difficult target these Cardassians ever encountered.

Tom called out, "Lieutenant Powl, I 'm about to engage them as a heavy fighter, but would very much appreciate your weapons skills as my gunner. With your permission, I will be monitoring the weapons recharge and reload rates and do my best line them up if you could do your best to knock them down as quickly as possible.  If you have a target you favor, especially if you notice a weakness we can exploit, just call out the number and it will instantly become my new focus in life. Be aware that I will be lining up targets in our entire sphere of influence, so try to keep up on all targets at once. There will be excessive movement  to avoid possible incoming fire."

Tom had already began increasing his maneuvers. The constant swift rolls that then suddenly changed direction of exit were classic for small fighters that were being evasive. He could also drift briefly as the ship rotated quickly to a new heading and then stop drifting, suddenly moving in a perpendicular path to an enemy in pursuit. The Zephyr wasn't quite as agile as a fighter, but to any pilot who was not accustomed to fighting fighters in close proximity,  they would be at quite a disadvantage. Pilots of ships the size of the Zephyr and larger, they simply were not trained in such tactics. Using your maneuvering thrusters while drifting so you could line us a target in your firing arc, that was too "outside the box" for most to anticipate and counter. Even if one of their pilots had his same background, he doubted they had his kill count.

"Yep, time for a knife fight. Time to dance."

== Tag Powl...if you get too busy to post the combat, let me know and I can  combine our efforts. However, should you wish to combine Tom's tactics in your writing, please feel free to do so. This is both an effort to kill bad guys and give you more to work with as well. ==

== GM input: The inertial dampeners should be able to keep up, but let me know if we begin to suffer damage that impacts flight performance. The change in display is based on something old gamers might recall from a little game called Tie Fighter, which gave a reference of targets ahead and behind at the same time, but in a spherical context. ==

[Morad Ameen]

== GM-Zephyr ==

Ensign Baldwin's situational handling from the bridge is precise and timely. The ship-wide evacuation order for non-essential compartments clears secondary corridors just as power distribution shifts, significantly reducing localized casualty risks.

At the damage control board, the emergency forcefields isolating the pod housing and main deflector hold firm against ambient vacuum, though intermittent atmospheric scrubbing alarms flicker as localized life support lines burn out. Triage routing is operating smoothly: the Mess Hall secondary station is absorbing walking wounded with concussions and burns, keeping Sickbay free for critical trauma. However, with power being rapidly re-routed to shields and the Structural Integrity Field, secondary EPS junctions along Deck 3 and ventral Jefferies tubes are running hot, requiring Baldwin to keep automated fire-suppression networks on hair-trigger standby.

The Zephyr’s primary sublight drive and RCS maneuvering thrusters respond with surprising tenacity to Krandall’s fighter-style drift-and-roll maneuvers. With auxiliary power shunted from the offline warp drive directly into the Structural Integrity Field, the primary hull’s inertial dampeners are holding firm, preventing further internal structural shearing despite the violent multi-axis turns.

However, flight performance was not completely clean yet. The venting plasma and magnetic distortion from the ruptured port nacelle created a distinct yaw bias during hard port-side transitions, causing a slight lateral shudder through the helm controls whenever Krandall pivots across the drift plane. It was manageable for a skilled pilot, but required constant micro-corrections on the manual thruster controls to keep weapons locks true.

== FYI: For the time being, GM-CD will handle the battle theater related GM input requests while I'll take care of local/internal ship input. ==

[Morad Ameen]

Morad braced his boots against the deck as the Zephyr violently snapped through another high-G drift, the deck vibrating with the rhythmic thrum of hard-firing RCS thrusters. Krandall’s unconventional handling was pushing the Steamrunner well outside standard Starfleet operational doctrine, but out here against three hunting escorts, unpredictable meant alive.

"Good flying, Tom," Morad said over the roar of the impulse manifolds, his knuckles tightening briefly against the armrest as a slight port-side shudder rattled through the frame. "Compensate for that port nacelle drag on your exit vector. Keep us dancing."

"Incoming message from the Yeager Commander," the Comm officer announced. 

Finally, someone is answering us...

"Let's hear it!" Ameen replied as the message was routed to the overhead speakers.

[This is Captain Braggins of the Yeager, I'm taking command of the engagement. Aquila, engage the Battlecruisers marked Contact 2 and 3. Zephyr, engage the Escorts. Do not engage the Dreadnought, do not engage the Dreadnought.]

We are already on it, Jen... But I'm glad we are on the same wavelength at least...

"Signal the Yeager that we acknowledge the new orders," Ameen replied.

His eyes shifted across the bridge displays, processing the flood of tactical and internal data in rapid succession. On the main viewer, the Yeager’s drive signature flared as Captain Braggins swung her scarred ship away from the escorts, burning full impulse on an aggressive intercept vector straight toward the Keldon cruiser.

She is trying to draw their heavy line, Morad thought, his jaw tightening. Which means those three Hidekis are entirely our problem now...

Morad tapped his console, acknowledging the stream of internal routing reports.

"Izzy, Cortez: approved," Ameen ordered cleanly. "Drop atmospheric controls in all evacuated sections to survival minimums. Divert every spare watt into the SIF grid and keep those forward shields bolstered. Baldwin, outstanding work getting triage organized. Keep a close watch on those Deck Three EPS junctions; don't let a secondary surge take out our secondary sensor feeds."

Morad leaned forward, his focus locking onto the tactical and science consoles where Powl and Ra'an were synchronizing targeting solutions.

"Lieutenant Powl, take Krandall's lead," Morad commanded, his voice ringing with steady authority. "Coordinate with his firing arcs. The second he brings that lead Hideki across our nose, hammer her ventral shields with a concentrated phaser spread and follow up with a quantum torpedo strike. Cortez, Keti; keep those ECM probes screaming in their ears and alternate the frequencies. Let's peel these fighters apart before they figure out what hit them."

"Come on baby, you can do it," Ameen mumbled under his breath, hands resting gently on the console as he felt every tremor, hum, and rattle of the aged Steamrunner fighting for her life.

Destroyers were built to hunt down and destroy corvettes, escorts and frigates... the Zephyr would've handled three ships of this class with relative ease in her prime ... now however... it's a whole different ball game... 

== Tag Bridge ==

[Gath]

== NPC Lt Tom Krandall, Tactical Officer, Helm ==

Tom never looked away from his console now. This was what he did best. At that very moment he was what he liked to call "In the Zone" with all of his thoughts and movements hyperfocused on what he was doing.

He commented to the CO, "No worries boss. It makes her look a little less graceful, but she still goes where I want her."

Their primary target made a bank to th left and Tom called out, "Here we go, I was wondering how long it would be. He's about to bank right and we'll have a nice split-s intercept to line up on him. He's going to be all yours Powl."

Tom was effectively flying well proven attack patterns with centuries of historic performance behind them, he was just mixing in enough erratic movement that kept him from being predictable enough to get hit by most of the shots coming at him. In a dog fight, you needed to be firing at where you think the target will be a second after you fire. The more you can twitch around and make them unable to predict your seemingly random position, the more they miss. The more they miss, the more frustrated they get. At the same time, even in the vastness of space, ships tended to stay close to each other, using each other for cover and crossfire, but they also got in each other's way sometimes  and their target had started turning too close back into the formation, so it was about to be forced outside the wagon wheel again. Tom was ready for a z-axis change as well, it was a logical twist to add to the fake left then go hard right. Tom knew not to get rocky though, there was still going to be plenty more of these buggers trying hard to put holes in them. He really wished, just once, the numbers would be in their favor. This was going to be a long day, but he much preferred a long day where you win, than the alternative.

== Tag to the Bridge Crew...let's shoot a bad guy... ==

[Sebastian Cortez]

Sebastian kept his attention on the science console as the Zephyr rolled hard through another evasive maneuver. The deck seemed to vibrate beneath his boots, but he barely noticed anymore. His eyes moved between the sensor returns and the increasingly unstable readings coming from the ship's systems.

Captain Braggins had taken command of the engagement, and Ameen had acknowledged the orders. That left Sebastian with one job: find something the science department could do to keep the Zephyr alive.

His fingers moved quickly across the console.

"Captain, I'm seeing something interesting in the escorts' shield harmonics."

He enlarged the sensor display, isolating the three Hidekis from the background interference.

"Their shields are cycling through a relatively narrow range of modulation frequencies. They're compensating for our ECM probes, but they're doing it reactively rather than continuously."

Sebastian glanced toward Ameen.

"If we can get another clean sensor pass, I may be able to predict their next shield frequency before they actually switch to it."

He adjusted the sensor filters, suppressing the weapons fire and engine emissions that were flooding the display.

"That would give Tactical a much cleaner window to hit the shields while they're between modulation states. We wouldn't have to overpower the shields directly."

A burst of interference washed across his console. Sebastian waited for the sensors to stabilize before continuing.

"There's another possibility."

He pulled up the Zephyr's deflector-control interface.

"The ECM probes are already disrupting their sensor picture. If I retune the deflector array to produce a narrow-band gravimetric pulse at the same time, we might be able to make their targeting computers compensate for a false relative-motion reading."

He looked toward Ameen again.

"Not enough to fool them completely. Just enough to make their firing solutions slightly inaccurate."

Sebastian's expression remained focused as another impact shook the bridge.

"I'll need a few seconds to calculate the pulse parameters, but I can coordinate it with the probe frequencies. If it works, Tactical should get a better firing window without us having to divert additional power from the shields."

He returned his attention to the console.

"Give me the next clean sensor sweep, and I'll see what I can get you."



== Tag Ameen, tag all. ==

[Ava Baldwin]

Commander Ameen gave out his orders to the bridge crew, including to Ens Baldwin, "Baldwin, outstanding work getting triage organized. Keep a close watch on those Deck Three EPS junctions; don't let a secondary surge take out our secondary sensor feeds."

Ens Baldwin, felling a little out of her depth, was a security office now handling a tactical station on the bridge and receiving orders more suited to an Engineer. Both not included in her resume. One thing though, Baldwin, if not a tactical or engineering expert, was a logical Vulcan when she needed to be and a quick study. Ens Baldwin quickly brought up the Steamrunner class Star Ship technical manual on her console and began researching the Deck Three Electo-plasma System junctions, and secondary sensor feeds.

Within seconds she had established that she needed a mix of active bridge commands, physical engineering, and field maintenance and that she needed to reset the EPS manifold adjusters and cycle the manifold nozzles to balance the pressure and distribution lines across the grid, particularly for the Deck 3 junctions, otherwise it a battle it could go 'BANG' and damage or take out the secondary sensor feeds and possible the Science Dept below on Deck Four..

More quick investigation found some curious information. On a Steamrunner-class starship, the secondary sensor array elements situated near or routing through Deck 3 are uniquely tied to the ship's Diplomatic facilities, while the primary science laboratories and astrometric suites sit just below on Deck 4, because the Steamrunner-class was designed to operates as an electronic warfare and intelligence-gathering frigate, the sensor subsystems on Deck 3 serve highly specific, tactical-diplomatic roles. The tactical side being among other things telemetry to and from probes and other sauces.

The three probes! Now I understand the picture.

A course of action began to form in her mind.

If I reroute the power used for the protected the diplomatic rooms, to the secondary sensors near Deck Three that will enhance the probe telemetry and communication and could increase the effectiveness of the probes jamming signal. But those protections for the diplomatic room prevents unnotarized beaming in and out?... the shield are up so that's not a problem. Then surplus power to the unused areas on Deck Three could be rerouted to structural integrity. Can I do that from this station? I'll need to advise Engineering, as if they don't have enough to do? But that would lower the EPS flow through the junctions on Deck Three, reducing the risk of a power spike causing an explosion.

Baldwin advised Engineering of her activity and set the rerouting of power from her console.

== All this information I read online about the Steamrunner class of Star Ship, hopefully it's accurate for the Federation Space Steamrunner class and particularly for the USS Zephyr, other wise - OH NO! I've killed us all!. ==

==GM input, please. Hoping the actions of Ens Baldwin are arcuate and helpful for the battle.

1. Is the probes communication, telemetry and interreference enhanced?

2. Is Structural Integrity strengthened?

3. Do these action help reduce the likelihood of the EPS junctions exploding on Deck Three?

4. Are there any other tactical issued coming up on Ens Baldwin's console for her to deal with? ==

[Ava Baldwin]

Ens Baldwin overheard the conversation between Ens Cortez with Commander Ameen. Realising that they would need to know what she was doing, she announced on the bridge, "Attempting to reroute power away from the diplomatic facilities to the secondary sensor array near Deck Three, to enable clearer telemetry from the probes, and rerouting excess power from Deck Three to structural integrity. Hopefully that will reducing the risk of a power spike in the EPS junctions causing an explosion," Commander.