Extremum Proelium - Part III - The Storm Breaks

Posted on Wed May 14, 2025 @ 7:22am by Commodore T'mpest Michaels & Lieutenant Alanna Wells & Colonel Nicholas Means III & Major K'doc Valadorn & Lieutenant T'Lul & Lieutenant JG Anson Lee & Civilian Hydel Turvan & Civilian Dorian Torel
Edited on on Wed May 14, 2025 @ 7:34am

2,249 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Tergum In Tempus

[PREVIOUSLY]

Hydel nodded. He had complete faith that Gul Kyreen and Gul Vashur were traveling to the planet with all deliberate speed. However, he also understood the lack of communication. The implementation of Project Oasis throughout the 127th Tactical Wing as well as the Xi'Cadian Expeditionary Fleet represented the epicenter of Cardassian scientific and tactical innovation. Once the transphasic drive begins the acceleration process beyond the standard subspace field, the respective vessels would activate their Dominion technology-inspired metaphasic drive to create a superluminal overlapping subspace field. The overlapping fields provided the protection necessary to survive the intense stress that would have otherwise torn the vessels to pieces.

[CONTINUED]

The feat is what would allow the combined fleet to travel the distance between Xi'Cadian space and arrive on the front doorstep of Pangaea within the span of 2 days, nearly halving the fleet's travel time. The silence in communication was necessary to prevent Starfleet from anticipating what was about to happen to them.

Glinn Marel turned to the room; however, her face appeared filled with concern and hints of aggravation. "Our agents on the station were ordered to report to us that they were in position and standing by for further instructions" She said. "However, due to the communication issues, we have not received an updated status report from them." She said.

Hydel's slight annoyance had grown into full aggravation as he looked up from a wall panel and scowled. While his massive fleet was preparing to descend on the planet, Cardassian soldiers were to be in position both on the planet's surface and within the station itself preparing to take action.

"Well!?" Turvan nearly shouted across the room. "Were they able to install the energy dissipator devices within the station's shield and torpedo systems?" The former Ambassador asked with obvious edge and impatience in his voice. from the device used by the Breen during the Dominion War.

The insertion team had been tasked with the objective of activating an energy dissipation device within the station, taking its tactical systems offline. In the nearly 30 years since the last war, the Federation had learned how to overcome the effects of the Breen draining device that had cost them the Chin'Toka system. The dissipator device was reversed-engineered by the Research & Development facility owned by the Raddon Corporation on Xi'Cadia. The current device was able to accomplish the goal of depowering various systems in the same fashion as the Breen device without needing to be fired from a ship-based weapon.

"I'm unsure, sir." Glinn Marel responded fully, but hesitantly. "The last transmission from the indicated that the communications virus was still active within their system; however, they believe that the Starfleet forces were working to clear it out. I do not know how much of their communication functions are still working on board the station." She added.

Turvan could feel the vein in his forehead pulsing as he processed what he was hearing. "Are our Troopers dead, captured, missing? Does anybody know anything definitive at the moment!?" He yelled in an abrasive tone to the gathered Cardassians.

"Sir," Glinn Brovek interrupted. "We're detecting the 127th dropping out of warp, followed by the Xi'Cadians," Glinn Brovek announced.

[USS Tiahuanaco]

"Ma'am, multiple ships just dropped out of warp." there was a long pause. "Twelve Cardassian ships. And..." the security officer swore. "A dozen Xi'Cadian ships are right behind them."

This was it. T'mpest opened an encrypted channel to the other ships in their tiny task group. "Our guests have arrived. Remember, let them attack first. We are here as backup. If you get in trouble, call for help."

[Pangaea]

On the planet, Alanna was listening. She needed to keep on top of the communications jamming and interference, bouncing the source so it couldn't be located. At the moment, it was coming from a desert area. She'd also noticed that the Marines were doing some jamming of their own. The more the merrier, she thought. It would make it that much harder for the Cardassians to located where the interference came from.

She sent a message to Colonel Means, letting him know the ships had arrived and that she was getting Cardassian communications from the Raddon building on the planet so he could keep an eye on that as well.

Means acknowledged the update. From his command post he had two units tasked to target the Raddon building.

[DS5 Deck 57 - Torpedo Control]

Burra K'suro hurriedly raced down the corridor with his bag held tightly around his shoulder. Nothing had gone according to the plan that had been laid out for the Xi'Cadian and Cardassian infiltration team. He stopped as he came to a junction and slid against the wall and waited for the pair of Security Officers to pass by without noticing him.

The increase in security patrols...the sudden change in security protocols. . .it seemed as if everything that wasn't supposed to happen had suddenly changed in the past 48 hours.

Once he felt that enough time had passed, he withdrew from his bag his datalink and inserted it into the junction within the wall panel. He studied the padd in his hand for several moments to ensure that the program had begun running and was decompiling the necessary files into the computer system. The Xi'Cadian Computer Technician and spent a considerable amount of time studying the wreckage of the USS Accession after it was destroyed by Xi'Cadian forces. The time spent had given him further insight into Starfleet computer system designs as well as their suite of counter-virus programming. In any other time, the program would have worked flawlessly, but somehow the Starfleet Operations department had managed to change the security passcodes and remove certain portions of his program before they were able to activate.

*COM* "K'suro to Ti'Xha, I haven't been able to take lower torpedo control offline. What is the status of your team?" The Xi'Cadian Soldier said in a low but obvious disheveled tone into his tight beam communicator. It had taken a significant amount of time to identify a channel they infiltration team could utilize that would not be detected by Starfleet sensors. Unfortunately, it required each team be within a certain proximity to one another for any kind of effectiveness. The second infiltration team was two decks above in the Primary Shield Generator chamber.

*COM* [silence]

K'suro knew that their tight beam communicators were working correctly. If there was no response, then that meant the second team had not made it to their objective or had to displace to avoid detection from Starfleet. K'suro had no choice but to continue his task and hope that the other team would be able to complete their end as well.

He withdrew an isolinear discriminator and inserted it through the hole he had managed to drill through the outer mercassium plating in front of him. for the emitter. The device scrambled typical control functions and allowed a local user to take over administrative function as long as they remained hardwired into the particular device.

The original plan was to take torpedoes for the station completely offline. However, K'suro had found himself completely locked out of the necessary control sub-routines, so he was forced to result to the backup plan. Ordinarily, Starfleet tactical systems would have prohibited any command that ordered it to fire on a Federation vessel. However, the Xi'Cadian and Cardassian fleet had effectively studied the friend or foe system taken from the destroyed USS Ascension(**). The Xi'Cadians had managed to study the wreckage of the Starfleet vessel and understand how its tactical system's friend or foe system discriminated amongst possible targets and had determined a method of deactivating the protocol; thus, allowing them to use Starfleet's own weapons system freely against any target.

[Cardassian Facility - Pangaea]

Turvan saw the sensors reporting the arrival of the full fleet. Finally, something was going according to plan He thought to himself as he straightened his uniform to address the TOC.

"Attention!" Hydel said firmly to the gathering. "As a people, we currently face one of the greatest threats to our way of life since we began this long climb from the swamps of Cardassia Prime all the way to the stars. This battle that we are about to pursue is not just for this planet, but instead it is a battle for our way of freedom!

"If we merely give up and submit to the directions and boundaries imposed by the Federation, then we shall lose so much of who we are as a people, and in so doing history will record with the greatest astonishment that those who had the most to lose did the least to prevent its happening!" Hydel said with a raised fist.

"You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of Cardassia, or else we will have sentenced them to a thousand years of darkness," Hydel said, his voice rising with passion. "The martyrs of our history were not fools. Today we honor our dead with our actions to seize our future!" he said as he turned to his communications officer.

"Get me a direct line to the Commander of Deep Space 5, broadcast the signal to the arriving fleet as well." He dictated. "Also, send a communique to the Romulan and Ferengi Compounds. Let them know that we have no need for a quarrel with their respective governments. Inform them that this limited engagement will not endanger their people or their ongoing research. We only wish to co-exist with them peacefully," Legate Turvan dictated.

He knew that this battle would go much smoother without adding extra combatants to the theater of battle. He was not certain what the Romulans would attack with; however, he knew that they would certainly have an easier time bringing in reinforcements and supplying those lines than the other two major powers on this planet.

He needed to keep them at arm's length.

[DS5 Deck 57 - Torpedo Control]

The information he had been given was spot on and Dorian watched as the saboteur finished his task and departed. He could have easily killed him but they had wanted to allow the saboteur to think they had succeeded so they would move on...so that's what he did. Emerging from where he had been hiding he moved to the junction panel and opened the panel with the code he had been given.

After examining what had been done he restored control of the stations weapons systems to the station. Closing the panel, he chuckled to himself as he closed the reentered the Jefferies tube, "he he...they aren't going to expect that." Disappearing once again he moving to his next target and let T'Lul know the stations torpedoes were operational.

[DS5 Deck 880]

One of the advantages of the helmet was that it compensated a bit for the red alert lighting. One of the disadvantages was the way it trapped heat. Anson could feel — and smell — the sweat running down his back, sour with adrenaline. They had yet to run into any resistance, only briefly crossing paths with another past team heading away from the area. But that wasn’t going to last. He saw Lt. Tessaro’s tense up in front of him.

[Research Colony - Pangaea]

Ferengi Section:
The Ferengi had already been evacuated. One of the Marines grinned. Downloading the message and sending it to the Colonel he replied with, "There is no profit in war. Unless you are the business of selling weapons."

"What did you do?"

"Took this section of the compound off their targeting map."

"How?

"Rule of Acquisition number 76 - Every once in a while, declare peace. It confuses the hell out of your enemies."

"Nice..."

Romulan section:
The signal from the Cardassians came in and the mixed group of Marines and Romulans looked to the console. Holstering his weapon senior Romulan read the communique and replied stating that they cared little for the fate of the others, as long as no harm came to their people they would remain neutral in any conflict.

A Marine Staff Sergeant looked at him when he returns to his position. "What was that?"

The Cardassians said that they had no quarrel with the Romulan Empire and only wanted peaceful co-existence. Which is what they have told your Federation more than once I believe."

Shrugging, "I guess that would be both the previous treaties in a nut shell."

"That is exactly why I told them as long as no harm came to my people we would stay out of the coming conflict. That way we will not be a target and won't be expecting hostilities from this area."

Grinning, the Marine nodded slowly. "When this is all over the ale is on me."

[Approaching DS5]

One of the Xi'Cadian destroyers broke formation and moved in at high impulse and fired a photon torpedo and two disruptors which had little impact upon the station as a whole, but the message was clear.

A Post By

Ambassador Hydel Turvan
Cardassian Ambassador
Deep Space 5

Glinn Marel
Cardassian

Glinn Brovek
Cardassian

Captain T'mpest Michaels
Commanding Officer
USS Tiahuanaco

Lieutenant Alanna Wells
Chief Science Officer
Deep Space 5 & Pangaea

Lieutenant Colonel Nicholas Means III
Marine CO
Deep Space 5

Burra K'suro
Xi'Cadian Computer Technician (Saboteur)

Dorian Torel
Geral Lasuma's Bodyguard
Deep Space 5

Lieutenant JG Anson Lee
Assistant Chief Security Officer
Deep Space 5

Various Marine NPCs

 

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