The Sky's the Limit - Marco Palmieri [143]
Will Riker, my first officer, was directing the battle. To our tactical officer, Lieutenant Daniels, he said, “Full torpedo spread to their engines on my mark.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Ensign Perim,” he said to the conn officer, “change course to 197 mark 5, but at full impulse.” After a second, “Mark!”
I nodded my approval of Will’s plan. The Enterprise had been at one-eighth impulse, and the sudden burst of speed would catch the Cardassians off guard. It also gave Daniels only a slim window of opportunity to fire on the Elokar. Of the spread of six quantum torpedoes, two missed their mark. However, the other four struck, the detonations flowering across the Cardassian cruiser.
From the operations station, Data reported calmly, “The Elokar has suffered catastrophic engine damage. Their warp core will breach in seven minutes.”
Will got up from his seat to my right and walked around to the tactical station behind him. Standing next to Daniels, he said, “Ready tractor beam—as soon as the Cardassians eject the core, lock onto it and send it right at the Jem’Hadar.”
I added, “Mister Data, alert the other vessels—particularly the Klingons—of that tactic.”
Data nodded and said, again calmly, “Aye, sir.” Not for the first time, I envied him his ability to switch his emotions off at will.
Data continued: “U.S.S. Vaklar and I.K.S. Kortir closing in on third Jem’Hadar vessel. I.K.S. Worvig and U.S.S. T’Mala engaging second Jem’Hadar vessel. I.K.S. Ya’Vang taking heavy damage from fourth Jem’Hadar vessel.”
“The Cardassians have ejected the core,” Daniels said from behind me. “Engaging tractor beam.”
“First Jem’Hadar vessel coming about,” Data said. That was the one that destroyed the Grissom.
“Do it, Mr. Daniels,” Will said.
“Aye, sir.”
The blue tractor beam engulfed the Elokar’s critical warp core and redirected it toward the Grissom’s murderer.
It would seem I was indeed anthropomorphizing.
Even as the Elokar’s warp core destroyed one Jem’Hadar ship, two others were taking considerable damage from the four allied vessels.
But then they changed course.
I felt the blood drain from my face. I rose to my feet and said, “Data, warn them, they’re about to—”
But it was too late.
The Jem’Hadar introduced themselves to the Alpha Quadrant five years ago in a suicide run against the U.S.S. Odyssey, a sister ship to the EnterpriseD. These two Dominion attack ships did likewise, taking out three of their enemy at the same time. Only the T’Mala recognized the tactic as I did and veered away in time, though they took on considerable hull damage from the explosion.
After a moment of quiet on the bridge, Data spoke. “The Ya’Vang’s impulse engines are off-line and their warp drive has engaged emergency shutdown. They are—”
My second officer cut off his report when the final Jem’Hadar ship went to warp.
“Ensign, heading?” I asked Perim.
“Their heading is 111 mark 19—back to Dominion territory.”
Will came back around to the center of the bridge to stand next to me. “Do we pursue?”
I hesitated. It was tempting to hunt them down, but nothing would be gained. The Dominion’s attempt to take Ricktor Prime had failed. Our enemy would gain no new intelligence from this endeavor—all the ships involved were surely already known to the Dominion, and no particularly inventive tactics were used—so we had nothing to lose by allowing one ship full of Jem’Hadar to escape.
Besides, even if we did pursue them and destroy them, the Dominion would simply make more.
Staring at the screen, I saw only death. The debris clouds of vaporized vessels, the dimmed lights of the ships that were damaged. The only real survivor was the planet below: Ricktor Prime, the Zaldan colony we were trying to protect.
Daniels said, “Incoming hail from the T’Mala, sir—it’s Captain Dell’Orso.”
I nodded and sat back down in my chair;