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The Battle of
Altorus
Iluvar gripped the edge of his chair as the Tethys rocked again under the fire from the Elyshan battleship. A console to one side of the bridge overloaded, drawing the commodore’s attention as a young crewman was thrown backward onto the deck. “Damage report,” he yelled over the noise of battle. "It's like we don't have shields," Earlond shouted back. "Their subspace weapons are going right through, and our own weapons can't penetrate their shields!" Earlond bit back a curse as another volley of torpedoes did almost no damage to the enemy ship. "Sir, our shields are holding at near a hundred percent!" Jennifer reported, dumbfounded. "They're just not doing anything! The only things I've heard of being able to do this are either subspace or temporal torpedoes." She ran a scan of the projectiles that one of the ships had just fired at one of the other Starfleet vessels. "I'm picking up no temporal or chroniton signals, so that rules out temporal weapons." “Quantum torpedoes, full spread,” Iluvar ordered, “Attack pattern Sierra-two.” The Tethys banked a hard right, then pulled around to come up from below. Shimmering blue orbs streaked out to impact the battleship’s shields, but it was clear that they had no effect whatsoever. "We have casualty reports coming in from Decks 2, 8, and 12, Commodore," McNeil shouted over the thundering of the weapons impacts against the ship's outer hull. He typed in another command, frantically looking up the information available on the Elyshan's weapons and defensive systems. They had to have SOMETHING that could break through those shields. With their subspace technology, the Elyshan’s seemed impervious to attack. It seemed as if this might be a losing battle after all, but Iluvar wasn’t about to give up. They needed to succeed if they were to find out the truth about these events.
And on the Bridge of the USS Tigris... Everyone watched as the Federation ships fired an impressive volley at the Elyshans. Remarkably, their shields took the hits and held. "Weapons are doing nothing to those shields!" Monroe said. "Helm, evasive maneuvers!" Joe ordered. "Don't let them get a good shot." Drake's hands flew over the console, moving the Tigris in a mixture of memorized maneuvers. The Elyshans fired back and shots hit the Explorer and Midnight. The added power to the hulls helped absorbed the blows but marks could still be seen from where they were hit. Then the Tigris jerked to the right. Two Elyshan frigates were headed their way, and without hesitation, they fired upon the Tigris again. "Hull is still holding 160% Sir," she was flipping switches and giving orders to Engineering, trying to keep things up. "Try concentrating your fire, Mr. Willings," Joe said. "First on target Alpha, then on Bravo." "Copy that... direct hits, no effect!" The Midnight tried the same thing with her disruptor fire and plasma torpedoes. Unfortunately, the Elyshan shields took the hits with no damage. Seconds later, though, one of the frigates fired back, hitting the saucer section. This time the four beams created an explosions and four holes could bee seen on the Midnight's saucer section. "Captain, the Midnight has suffered a couple of hull breaches," Mike announced. "Fire at will, Mr. Willings," Joe said. "See if you can draw their fire." "Damn it all! Weapons still can't do anything! Its like throwing pebbles at a force field, sir!" "We're drawing them off," Cain reported, "but their heading toward us now!" The Frigates moved closer to the Tigris, both firing upon her. The subspace weapons were making marks but so far the Tigris held together. Then two shots finally made there mark on the bottom of the port side of the saucer section. Two explosions left holes in the hull and a small plasma fire could be seen from one of them. Ellana stared at the console not believing what she was seeing "Dalharuk del natha Elg'caress!" it slipped out before she could stop herself. "Sir, we have a hull breach on deck 13!" She started to flip on the emergency shields in that area.
Then,
in Main Engineering onboard the USS
Tizona... K'Palla looked at her boards on the Main Console, then hit her combadge.
"Milquetoast, am I reading this right? Our shields are at 93% after that
one hit?!"
Back on the Tigris... "Sir!" Cain shouted over the chaotic bridge chatter. "The Wandering Explorer has broken through their lines, they're headed towards the shuttle. Recommend we give her some cover." "Keep her covered Mr. Willings." Joe said as another hit caused a console to explode. Monroe shielded his eyes as sparks rained down. "Copy that, Firing phasers." "Sir I'm needed in Sickbay," Tybek urged. "Understood, Doctor." Joe replied as he watched his ship take another hull breach this time on the starboard side of the engineering section, just missing the deflector dish. "That was a little too close for comfort sir," Ella shook her head, still trying to shore up the shields. Moments later, the Wandering Explorer fired her phasers as she out flanked the Frigates unfortunately they did no damage to the Elyshans shields but it was enough to get past the two ships. She quickly headed for the shuttle as the Elyshan battleship Terodock followed close behind. After a daring maneuver to try and shake the enemy ships, the Explorer opened fire with all her weapons, but alas, it was in vain. Nothing was getting through the Elyshan shields. And so, wasting little time, the Wandering Explorer quickly came about in an attempt to tractor the shuttle away. It was then the Terodock opened fire with her massive weapons.
At the same time, on the Tizona's Bridge...
"Sir, our weapons are just impacting harmlessly on their shields, with no
effect. I recommend concentrating all of our fire on one spot - we may
have better luck if we put all of our firepower into one area, rather than
targeting generally," Kyle recommended, trying to find some way to
actually do some damage to the Elyshan vessels. He was cut off as he watched the Wandering Explorer try desperately to roll to the port, but it was too little too late... the first strike caught the starboard warp nacelle causing it to explode. The second hit the top of the saucer section and went clean through, leaving a massive, gaping hole just to the side of the bridge. The last glanced off the port side of the Engineering section but caused a hull breach along the whole side of the ship.
On the Tigris... "Sir, the Explorer's warp drive is offline, main power is failing, she's starting to loose life support in a couple of decks. That blast has crippled her." The crew watched as the Wandering Explorer began to limp away from the battle, then suddenly something shot out of the bottom of the ship. "It's their warp core, it's in open space!" Cain was genuinely concerned now, and it showed in his tone of voice. The core moved away from the ship and then exploded. Joe thought if it was a little closer to the Terodock, maybe it would have damaged her. "Helm, get us in between the Terodock and the Explorer," Joe ordered. "Mr. Willings, lock weapons and fire!" "Sir?!" Cain inquired in his best 'what the hell are you doing' voice. "XO, the Explorer can't take another hit... we can," Joe said, looking to him as the ship jarred again. "We didn't come all this way to watch them die." Drake abandoned his previous maneuver and sent the Tigris flying between the two battling vessels.
Cut back to
the Tizona...
And back on the USS Tethys... "The Tigris is breaking off to cover the Wandering Explorer," Earlond reported. “Order the Carthage to pursue the frigates,” Iluvar commanded. “Continue firing on the battleship.” The space between the two fleets was filled with deadly energy as phasers, torpedoes, and subspace weapons continued to fly about. The Tethys, like many others in the fleet, continued to take on heavy damage without making much of an impact on the Elyshans at all, if any. "The Carthage is taking heavy damage," Earlond reported. "The frigates are targeting her warp nacelles!"
On the Bridge of the
Tizona...
Finally, on the USS Tethys... "We've got two ships decloaking directly ahead of the Carthage," Earlond suddenly announced... "It's the USS Frontier and a Klingon Bird-of-Prey..."
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