startrek76

Commander Kudomi of the IKS Dagobah sounded battle stations on detecting the jamming signal, Dagobah accelerated to emergency sub-light velocity, her chief engineer carefully fiddling with controls to get a fraction more power to the impulse emitters without blowing out the dilithium crystal convertrers. Up in weapons control, crews tried for a lockon and prepared the new extended-range terminal-homing plasma torpedoes for a battle test.

The extended-range plasma torpedoes worked perfectly this time, all homing on the targeted alien ship, rather than each other. Coincidentally, they arrived at the same time as the disrupter barrage from Wahmact-charr, backed up immediately by a rotation of phaser fire from
the Enterprise at extreme range, a full three light seconds away.

Still the Wamach-charr and its two surviving K-42 warbird escort corvettes, the IKS Dagobah and IKS Trungeon continued to accelorate toward the Cylon baseship, firing their weapons as they came. Suddenly the Cylon baseship belched out a cloud of deteris and debris at high sub-light velocity directly in the path of Dagobah.

"Gah-CHAR!" Kudomi, the starboard wingship commander swore in surprise as the cloud of ionized gases and dust suddenly appeared in his line of flight.

"Helmsman! Hard to starboard! Course 075 mark 25. Engineer! Reduce thrust to one-half impulse. Tactical Officer! INCREASE deflector density to maximum!" The bridge crew of the IKS Dagobah responded soundlessly to their Commander's orders. No acknowledgments were necessary, the Commander knew his orders would be carried out without hesitation or question. It was the way of the Empire. Dagobah rode up and over the majority of the strange cloud of debris that had come into being out of Cylon baseship at a sizable fraction of the speed of light.

Commodore Kevar's rugged visage appeared on the main screen. "Report, Kudomi! Your status?"

"Combat ready, Commodore, no damage."

"Good, then continue attack vector Cha-defja. Victory for the Empire!"

"For the Empire," Kudomi raised his clenched fist in salute. The screen returned to its tactical function. On it, their target, the Cylon megaship glowed in enhanced video resolution, enlarged 25,000 times from the pin-prick smear of light it would have been to the naked eye at this range.

"Tactical Officer," Commander Kudomi said in a low and dangerous voice. "Bring disrupters on line, MAXIMUM intensity, zero beam divergence. A softly glowing gun-sight appeared on the screen. Kudomi used the dual joysticks built into the arms of his command chair to line up the sight on the Cylon vessel.

"Engineer! Full Impulse! VICTORY FOR THE EMPIRE!"

"VICTORY!!!!!" the crew echoed.


Commodore Kevar once again felt the strange emotion that came whenever he was,
surprisingly, going to live for a while longer. A wave of dizziness swept over him and he saw the bridge go grayish. "Am I getting old?" he thought. "That never happened before." He locked his knees, not wanting to show any weakness, and strowed quickly to his quarterdeck and sat heavily in the command chair. Kevar watched the small tactical screen repeater on the armrest of his command chair as his warriors performed a perfectly coordinated attack. A flash appeared on the Cylon baseship, another and still another.

"Incoming message from the Federation Commander," the com officer said.

The main screen filled with the image of the Federation bridge; Picard was standing beside his ops officer's station.

"Commodore Kevar, our anaylsis of the Cylon CPAW beam shows it to be anti-protons in composition, you should adjust your shields as much as possible. Also it appears that the weapon has a MINIMUM range of 1,000 kilometers and cannot be brought to bear on a target within that radius."

"My thanks, Picard. 1,000 kilometers ... about 500 kellikams, that's cutting it pretty close to the enemy, but the Red Claw Squadron can handle it. Thank you. Kevar out." Picard's image nodded at him before the screen returned to tactical display. "Relay that data to the Dagobah and the Trunchon."

His head was begining to clear now, the dizziness was fading.

"Helmsman, take us within the 500 kellikam limit. Weapons officer, fire on targets of opportunity."

"Commodore, the Cylon is launching more of those tiny interceptors."

"Pah, they cannot penitrait our shields, ignore them!" Kevar again took to stalking back and forth behind the helm and tactical officer's station.

"The commander of the Alien 'battlestar' is hailing us, Commodore."

"On screen."

The screen shifted to communication mode and a very, very crowded control center, manned by at least a dozen technicians and officers appeared on the screen. The human looking out at him might well have been an earther for all Kevar could tell by looking at him. A small part of Kevar's mind wondered why it was that there were so many races spread all across the galaxy that resembled the earthers.

"Commodore ... er .... Kevar is it? I am Commander Cain of the Battlestar Pegasus."

"Yes, we saw your victory over the other alien vessel. Good shooting!"

"Yes, we did not have a chance to say more than VICTORY at the time. Now however, I can do you a service. My Vipers will mop up the Cylon attack craft currently attempting to penitrait your shields, we should work together ...."

"Ah, yes. 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend.' An old earth proverb." Kevar grinned.

"I'm glad we understand each other," Commander Cain said, a woilfish smile touching his eyes only. "Cain out."


TO BE CONTINUED