"We'll contact the Molindrans via subspace, given their unknowns, all communication will be through subspace" ordered Marie to her diplomatic attache. "As you wish majesty, we looking at a potential first contact here?" answered Marie's attache. "We are so things must go smoothly" replied Marie calmly looking up. "Of course majesty" answered the attache as he saluted Marie and left her to her reading.
Commander Tuvok presented her findings about Molindran ruins across the empire and Marie listened carefully to what Tuvok said. "Head up a archaeological team, find out everything you can about their history, culture and technology but keep those pods dormant. You'll answer to me directly" ordered Marie and Tuvok accepted her assignment and left the room after saluting. Captain Iodokar was brought in and Marie read the charge sheet. "It's you, you illegitimate brat" said Jodi but Marie didn't respond to the jab. After reading the evidence, Marie found Jodi guilty and had her demoted to ensign and reassigned to Terok Nor as a nurse. Jodi protested but Marie made the judgement final and Jodi was escorted off Terra for her reassignment. The Lot sisters were to be kept separate at all times.
In orbit, Solat got the shock of her life when 200 Klingon dreadnoughts, heavy and light battle cruisers joined the royal fleet. 100 bird of preys joined the fleet two hours later. "We stand by the empress" said General Jm'pok as Solat received her new orders from the empress. Solat added the Klingon ships and soldiers to the royal fleet, Terra was also fortified with new upgraded orbital defense platforms to secure it from attack.
Marie now decided to take a day off and leave her parliament to run things for the day. Breaking out a soccer ball, Marie organized a guards vs servants soccer match and she was team captain for the servants. The servants won 4-2 with Marie scoring one of the goals using her quickness, Marie got cleaned up and then spent the rest of the day with the citizenry granting press interviews and telling the people of new education reforms, health reforms and the need to be vigilant. All citizens now had access to free education and healthcare, no longer was it the preserve of the rich.
Marie now sat down with the ordinary citizens and asked them what they needed taking down their needs at an open forum at the palace. At the end of the day, Marie put her feet up and said "computer, Marie playlist one" and relaxed.
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"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Teanna Bray had escaped, seducing a guard she managed to beam up and take an Excelsior Class starship, the ISS Okinawa. Fleeing Terra she now declared for Leeta gathering a fleet from the Draylon and Mino Korvos sectors to oppose her daughters. Marie moved quickly and prepared to face her mother, assigning the shadows to remove any enemy support she decided on a conventional/unconventional strategy to oppose her mother.
B'Vat kept his word and the loyalist fleets were bolstered by wings of Klingon and Romulan ships. All systems in the empire swore loyalty to Marie denying Teanna any support though the Cardassians declared for Teanna and added their fleet to Teanna's forces. Marie knew this was a fight or die situation as she was faced no choice other than to declare her mother a criminal, Marie knew whoever made the first move would start the second Terran Civil War so she asked Grand Admiral Solat to be an adviser on military strategy.
Playing everything by ear, she read the reports from her commanders. This had to be dealt with swiftly and decisively, the empire could not afford a civil war at this time. Knowing Terra would be Teanna's objective, Marie decided on a defensive strategy conventionally and use the Klingons as her offensive forces with unconventional warfare to hit enemy supply, communication lines and military bases avoiding major fleet engagements. Collateral damage was to be avoided if possible so the fighting had to be contained away from major population centres as she would funnel her mother's forces towards Sol and into a trap.
Teanna made the first move with an offensive aimed straight at Terra after a declaration of war, Marie was ready and deployed a strong garrison fleet to Terra supported by the orbital defense grid. Taking command from the Agincourt, Marie prepared for war and briefed her troops and commanders. The Second Terran Civil War had started but it would be over as soon as it began, blocking her mother's advance and acting on hard won experience learnt from the Battle of Antares. Marie deployed a rotating defensive sphere using the asteroid belts between Jupiter and Mars to protect her flanks as B'Vat's forces harried Teanna all the way. Deployed in the asteroid belt were 200 Bird of Preys cloaked and ready to break into the enemy flanks.
Marie now watched and waited. She ordered that she wanted the enemy ships disabled not destroyed, heavy casualties were to be avoided on both sides. All ships prepared their energy dissipation weapons and conventional weapons with orders to destroy engines, weapons and shields. She sent a challenge to her mother, if Teanna wanted the throne, she would have to go through Marie at the Battle of the Belt.
Post edited by theraven2378 on
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
People on the observation deck looked out at the strange collection of ships parked in orbit. Klingon, Romulan, Cardassian, and Dominion sat there mixed in with Starfleet vessels. All waiting for something. Heath looked at the holo display. One hundred and fifty icons surrounded the one that indicated the Los Lobos. "All our problem children are here," she commented. "Yes ma'am," R'shee her first officer agreed. "What shall we do with all of them? I have a few ideas." "I'm sure you do, and the answers no." "You're no fun anymore." "They aren't ready to handle you." "I'll have to break them in. Don't worry, I'll be gentle, maybe." "Prophets above, let's get going." They exited the room and entered the bridge." "Admiral on the bridge." "Truzena, stop saying that." "We were told we're supposed to say that when you enter." "New orders, don't." "Thank you ma'am. That gets old quick." "Tell me about it. Now put me on fleet wide." "Your audience awaits." "Thank you." Heath cleared her throat. "Attention all ships. Welcome to the 113th. We are not your standard fleet. Our purpose is to deal with the problems that others can't. If that solution be use of force, guile, subterfuge we will find it and use it with extreme prejudice. I don't believe in acceptable losses, no one is expendable. We celebrate every victory, and losses... Well we won't have any of those so why worry about that? We are now heading out on our first group shakedown training mission to practice a few things we might need in the future. Form up and prepare to move out." She turned to the helm. "Aunlel, set course for the Bassen Rift." "Ma'am?" "The Romulan government as given us permission to use it as our training ground. We'll be shielded from all prying eyes there." "All report ready," R'shee announced. "All ships, move out." Those on the observation deck watched the strange collection from up in to waves and form up behind a Sovereign as it pulled away. They were even more surprised as all the ships shimmered then disappeared as if they were never there.
Marie was with her military commanders studying the the situation closely in order to gain an advantage as she prepared for battle. For over a week, loyalist and allied forces streamed into Sol as Marie's Klingon allies hounded and harassed Teanna's fleet and convoys constantly with hit and run strikes avoiding head on engagements.
Enraged by resistance slowing down her advance, Teanna kept pushing her 550 ships onwards to Terra despite the attacks. One cruiser squadron of 20 defected and joined up with the Klingons in attacking Teanna's supply base on Tellar, the loss of key war supplies hit the Dowager's fleet hard as their supply transports were disabled and then destroyed after the crews had been given five minutes to abandon ship. Marie read the reports and remaining calm ordered more hit and run strikes in.
The longer she could delay her mother, the more time she had to evacuate civilians from the war zone and and path of the Dowager's advance. On Terra, the civil population prepared for war as volunteers streamed into recruitment offices swearing loyalty to the empress. At Andoria, Teanna faced stiff resistance from the Andorian guard who sliced into her advance to slow her down. Teanna's forces were being ground down slowly as her supply lines were being cut forcing her towards Sol.
Teanna personally executed her Admiral and took personal command and pushed on threatening her commanders with death if they did not follow her orders. In the Alpha quadrant, Teanna's sectors were all hit by loyalist assaults ordered by Marie, Draylon was stormed and the garrison surrendered then their forces and fleets were absorbed into Marie's forces. Mino Korvos was secured by Trill, Bajoran and Betazoid troops as the enemy garrison surrendered without a fight. Teanna had lost her territory in a series of blitzkreig assaults and was left with no support as more loyalists pushed her into Marie's trap.
At the belt three days later, both sides met and Marie studied her mother's deployment carefully. Teanna had deployed her 500 ships into columns facing Marie's 450 ships in the sphere. Over the next three days both side postured trying to provoke the other into firing first, Teanna struck first launching an assault on Marie's sphere formation. Marie countered with a volley of weapon fire disabling the first wave as she planned her counter-attack. Marie encouraged the crew on the Agincourt's bridge speaking to each officer individually to keep their morale up. It paid off as Marie's counter-attack went in causing disruption in Teanna's fleet. Teanna had underestimated her daughter and it showed.
Marie now brought the sphere formation to bear and sprung the trap, as she engaged Teanna's fleet from the front as the Romulan and Klingon fleet of 600 tore into the rear. The 200 Bird of preys hidden in the asteroid now pinned the flanks leaving Teanna surrounded on all sides. Teanna was now facing 1250 ships. Marie gave the order to fire and the energy dissipation weapons disabled the trapped fleet. Marie now sent a hail, “This is the Empress, surrender or be boarded. Consider your lives and families” forcefully. Teanna refused surrender so Marie deployed a boarding assault to capture her mother.
Fighting their through the Okinawa's crew with heavy stun settings, they eventually fought their way to the bridge stunning the crew and capturing Teanna alive. Seeing the fall of the flagship the rest of the Teanna's fleet surrendered. Marie had won but at a cost of 5,000 on both sides but there was zero collateral casualties, after absorbing Teanna's fleet and it's troops, Marie now informed the empire that the Second Terran Civil War was over. All POWs taken were paroled on a oath to only serve Marie. Teanna was not so fortunate, Marie planned to make an example of her.
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Marie was sat in her office with her advisors, she now had to work out what to do with her mother and she decided to make an example of her. For her treason and declaring for Leeta, Teanna was stripped of her authority and wealth then forced into retirement to live out her days in prison on Tantalus IV as a prison nurse. It was a small mercy, Tantalus was a death sentence and everyone knew that. Marie now made an executive order putting inquisition commissars onboard all Imperial ships to stop anything like this happening again.
Marie now decided to punish Minos Korvos and Draylon for siding with Teanna by making them repair the damage caused in the brief war. They were also ordered to pay war reparations by increased taxation of the wealthy, the ordinary citizens were exempt from the increased taxation and military occupation was ordered short term while new governments were installed. Marie's orders were simple, soldiers had to be on best behaviour around civilians at all times.
Now Marie had the defeated captains assembled, those who refused to swear loyalty were separated from those who had sworn their loyalty. 100 of the most disloyal were put against a wall in the gardens and Marie had 10 sentenced to life inprisonment, the other 90 were stripped of their ranks and demoted to crewmen. Marie made sure the message got out, decimation through life in prison and/or loss of rank for the offenders was the fate for officers who committed treason.
Marie had shown restraint to a large degree but she showed she could be tough at the same time when required. The citizenry all cheered as Marie under close watch from her guards visited the wounded from both sides talking with them and pardoning the wounded who fought for her mother. Marie was starting to mend the wounds of the brief war, the civil and military infrastructure was intact at least as Marie granted an interview with the Imperial news service. In the interview she stressed the importance of unity for the empire and it's people now more than ever.
For their part in aiding Marie, the Klingons and Romulans were given more favoured status within the empire as reward, the Cardassians however got punished financially by paying war reparations to the empire. On the Entrei'ls, Trianna and Shade had watched the conduct of the war and the punishments handed out to the defeated and both nodded to each in agreement with Trianna saying “well played sister” to an “indeed” by Shade. “Mother should not have underestimated Marie, I hope she enjoys prison, Imperial prisons have a low life expectancy among inmates. Tantalus of all places” replied Trianna with a smile.
Shade just smirked and answered “remind me never to get on your sister's bad side.” “Agreed, Marie is someone you don't underestimate or anger. The citizenry love her though” answered Trianna. “The People's Empress according to the news service” replied Shade to which Trianna added “indeed.” Shade and Trianna then beamed down to the palace to discuss plans to remove the former Dowager's supporters with Marie in person.
After many hours of deliberation, it was agreed, a purge would take place. All of the former Dowager's supporters were rounded up, stripped of their wealth, lands and titles and sentenced to life on Tantalus IV under the lash of the Imperial military. They would be put to work along with rest of the criminals. Any who refused to come to Terra for their judgement were tried in absentia then Shade and Trianna were handed lists of execution warrants. Marie had ended this crisis with the least amount of deaths.
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
On board the USS Resurrection, Heath surveyed the carnage in front of her. A week of training has lead to this, she thought. Bodies of all the various member races of the 113th lay strewn about the floor in front of her. Some had tried to make it to the door only to fail, their bodies stacked near her. One person in the room however was still moving. Stepping over the bodies she made her way to the table where the lone person sat. "Well..." She started. "For the second time, the winner of the 113th's drinking contest is Captain Papela Lot." Papela smiled up at Heath and burped politely. "Oh, excuse me. Next time I hope to have some real competition." A loud snore ripped through the room. "So what's your secret?" "Having children," Papela answered. "Three daughters all in their teens at the same time." She looked down at the snoring Naynta and Jodi. "These two alone... Their teen years are responsible for at least 75% of my alcohol tolerance. *burp* Oh excuse me. That Romulan ale always did disagree with me." She stood, only slightly shakey. "Now is you'll excuse me Capt... sorry Admiral. I need to have my staff transport these lightweights to one of the medbays so they can sleep this off." "By all means."
Captain Dexter Smith was sat in the command chair slightly nervous, he was 34 years old and it was his first command. He had been given the U.S.S. Kamakura, a modified Pathfinder Class starship. She was new but with Intrepid Class pylons and had never seen action. Sat in the XO's chair was Cmdr Lwasana Sidis, she was Betazoid and the Kamakura's first officer, Sidis was a wise woman for her age of 29 but had not spent much time around humans. At helm was Ensign Isoisa Hetal, Hetal was confident, crazy and had terrified every flight instructor at the academy. She found her fellow Betazoids easier to scare though Humans were far more entertaining when terrified.
Sat at tactical was Lt Antoinette Leclerc, a 22 year old human female from Dunkirk, France. Leclerc had never served on a starship before, the faster tempo would be a test. On operations was Lt Cmdr T'Panmi, a veteran of the Iconian War. Her cold Vulcan demeanour often offended people with her brutal honesty and logic. At science was Ensign Annalee Wilkinson, a recent academy graduate from Earth aged 19. She was naïve to the nature of the universe but adaptable all the same.
In charge of security was Cmdr Chall, a tough no nonsense Andorian. She frequently argued with the ship's doctor Lt Cmdr Mereu, Mereu was Orion but had developed a way to control her pheromones and her rivalry with Chall went all the way to the academy. Both had a somewhat antagonistic working relationship. Down in Engineering, Cmdr Ibarid Pitaskli made sure the ship was running efficiently. He was Betazoid with 25 years of engineering experience, his crew was inventive and somewhat crazy. Lucky for Pitaskli, his number two was Three of Six, a liberated Borg drone. She was efficient but also cold towards others, a trait that made the other crew wary of her.
In the counsellor's chair was Lt Tam Reno, his job was to watch the mental health of the crew and often he had tried to calm Hetal down but with no success, Hetal would always find a way to play practical jokes on Reno back. Her most imaginative prank was to enter Reno's quarters via the Jeffries tube and rearrange his quarters before slipping out the same way and covering her tracks. It was an ongoing issue with a constant “HETAL!!!” being yelled down the corridor and Hetal laughing in the next section.
On the bridge, it was the usual chatter with Hetal and Leclerc exchanging banter. They were friends from the academy. Sidis was speaking with Reno on matters of spirituality and ethics as Wilkinson and T'Panmi argued logic in the background. To Captain Smith it was something new as he checked his orders from Command. A tech team from Jupiter Station had been upgrading the computer grid on the Kamakura.
After retreating to the relative safety of his ready room, Smith was heard laughing. Sidis entered the ready room and saw Smith listening and laughing to Monty Python songs while doing his paperwork. She could never understand the Human sense of humor especially British humor. “Surreal” thought Sidis when she heard “Always look on the bright side of life” as she asked Smith “what is the reasoning behind Human humor?” “First time around Humans?” answered Smith with a question. “Yes sir” replied Sidis, Smith decided to explain Human humor to Sidis with “it's simple really, call it a survival mechanism. Having a sense of humor has kept us sane in stressful times, this one is all about irony. Even on your bad days, always take a look on the bright side of life.” “Humans will take some getting used to” replied Sidis to which Smith answered “Won't take long, we're just a bit crazy at times.” “This'll be interesting” replied Sidis. She finished passing the reports to Smith and left the ready room to supervise bridge operations.
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Captain Dexter Smith settled down in the command chair of the Kamakura, an Imperial Pathfinder. With the backing of the crew, he had removed his captain from command stranding him in a shuttle in the middle of nowhere. For now he was secure as captain of the Kamakura as he looked around the bridge. Smith was well known by Imperial police over his less than legal occupations as a young man, things like contraband smuggling within reason and piracy. He had been conscripted to avoid prison.
Lt Cmdr Lwasana Sidis was the new first officer. Sidis had a vicious streak in her, she had already served time in prison for assault and three bank heists before being drafted into the military. At helm was Hetal, Hetal was a recent draftee from the penal colony on Tantalus IV, the charge list included four shuttle thefts and two runabout thefts. What spared her from the mines was her piloting skill and she was completely crazy. Leclerc and T'Panmi were both drafted into the military for illegal gambling, theft and bet rigging.
In engineering Pitaskli kept the crew in line, he had been arrested on numerous occasions for destruction of property and illegal engine boosting. When given the choice of military service or the gallows, he chose military service. Three of Six kept the crew in line, Three was tough on standards and she ran engineering with an iron fist. In sickbay, Mereu was the CMO. A former member of the Orion Sydicate, she had smuggling, extortion and laundering on the charge sheet. She had been drafted due to her medical skills. Lt Cmdr Chall was security chief, when it came to maintaining order, she was tough.
Tam Reno had the unenviable job of being the ship's commissar, no one dared cross him though Hetal once found herself in the booth when she crossed Reno. A former prison guard on Betazed, he had transferred to Starfleet and taken the commissar's course. Reno and Chall were fearsome when together.
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Smith and his gang of of rogues were sat in the former captain's dining room sharing stories. Smith started with how he fell foul of the law, “got caught kemocite smuggling six years ago, the Imperials were waiting for me at Andoria in a sting operation and well there was no talking my way out of it. Hetal laughed and then explained how she got caught, “Dex, I got caught for stealing the Regent of Betazed's personal runabout four years ago. I've already stolen four shuttles and one runabout before that and before the age of 17”, Hetal was now 22 having already served four years in jail.
“Try doing three bank jobs on three different planets. I got busted after pulling the heist of the century on Betazed, turns out that it was the Regent's personal bank and well Regent Lot was none too happy about it to say the least” said Sidis with a smile. “Illegal gambling, bet fixing and theft of public property for me and T'Pamne” said Wilkinson to which T'Pamne added “it was the gambling device on the Dabo table at Terok Nor that got us caught.” “Illegal engine boosting and destruction of property, I blew up the Regent's statue in Rixx while drunk and ended up waking up in a cell. The illegal engine boosting came from my racing days until I got caught by a Imperial starship” said Pitaskli.
“We should ditch the military, we have a ship here so let's go into business for ourselves” suggested Hetal and everyone agreed. Smith decided to confine all the prison guards to cells in a quick purge, the crew all helped and Commissar Reno, Chall and Three of Six along with the rest of the guards were stunned and confined to cells. Smith and his crew realized that an Imperial ship would not go unnoticed so they decided to find a new ship, ditiching the military uniforms and getting changed in civilian clothing, they took the Kamakura to the Rigel shipyards and stole a confiscated Ferengi Nandi Class ship. The crew transferred to the Nandi which they renamed “Bounty.” The Kamakura's warp core was then set to overload, exploding destroying the ship, the guards and crew who refused to come with them.
Smith now ordered a course change and looting the shipyards for weapons, spare parts and supplies leaving nothing behind for the Imperials. Taking the Bounty to Regula, they arrived two weeks later avoiding Imperial patrols on the way. At Regula, the Bounty was modified with improved phasers, photons, hull armour, improved engines and system as well as a more powerful warp core and a stolen Imperial prototype unamatrix shielding system. The Bounty was also modified with improved Imperial sensors and more cargo capacity and stolen Imperial transporters which were also modified to mass transport cargo from their prey's cargo holds.
After six weeks, the Bounty was ready and they had found a target. A prisoner transport was heading to Tantalus. Smith intercepted the transport knocking out the shields and communications then beaming the prisoners out. Among them was the former Dowager and Inmate Nayta Lot. The Bounty then left the area masking their energy signature after remotely wiping the transport's computers. False warp trails were also left in different directions, the Imperials would be left on a wild goose chase across the empire.
Smith then set course to Terok Nor, arriving a month later they beamed Jodi Iodokar up and quietly left the system. The Lot sisters suggested to Smith that he help them on a job, the plan was that the Bounty would slip across the Awarath rift into Federation space and break Papela Lot out of Facility 4028. Smith told the Lot sisters what the price was for the job, “800k bars of gold pressed latinum, the nature of this job includes the danger fees.” “What about 500k?” asked Naynta to which Smith compromised at 650k. “Deal, now lets break my mother out” answered Naynta.
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
“Such mindless sheep this empire’s population.”
“Indeed. They cheered the previous ones brutality the same way they cheer her.”
“Are they just conditioned to cheer whoever wears the crown?”
“It would appear so.”
“They don’t care as long as they are not the ones being abused.”
“That would make things all the easier.”
Near Trillus Prime(MU)
“All stop.”
“Ma’am?”
“All stop, now!”
The ISS Enterprise dropped out of warp and came to stop.
“Where are we?” Heath asked.
“About three light years from the Trill system.” Aunlel replied
“Scan the area,” Heath ordered.
“Yes ma’am,” Paris complied. She was as confused as the rest as to why the captain had ordered them to suddenly stop.
“There’s an asteroid field about…”
“Scan for any structures.”
“Its highly unlikely… what the hell… ma’am how’d you know? there’s an old mining station there.”
“Set a course for it Aunlel.”
“Yes Ma’am, but why?”
“I’d like to know that to,” Sito asked coming on to the bridge. “We’re due on Trill in a few hours. Why are we stopped?”
“Can’t you feel it?” Heath asked her.
“Feel what?”
“There’s an orb on that station.”
They all looked at Heath in surprise
“An orb?” repeated Sito. “You mean one of the devices sent by those wormhole aliens?”
“The Prophets, yes.”
“What’s it doing there?”
“I don’t know. Back there the Prophets made ten of them and delivered them on to Bajor. But the Cardassians stole most of them. But here they’ve only found the one we encountered on Bajor. ”
“So there could be more of them out there somewhere… but why is it here?”
“Maybe they want us to find it,” Paris suggested.
“But why us?” asked Sito. “This sounds like a trap.”
“A trap for who? Spiritually aware Bajorans? There aren’t many of those here.”
“Still… I don’t like it.”
“We have to check it out. If it’s real, we can’t leave it there. It’s too powerful an item to be left out here.”
“Very well. Set course for it.”
A few minutes later the Enterprise pulled up near the station.
“Its on minimum power,” Paris reported. “To keep the systems from freezing up. Life support is there but barely.”
“Any signs of life?”
“Just the usual station vermin. Hook spiders and rodents.
Sito suppressed a shudder.
“Alright, let’s go.” Heath said heading for the lift
“I’m coming with you,” Sito insisted. “And we’re bring a full security team as well. You’re being far too trusting about this.”
“Fine with me.”
The interior of the station was dimly lit under the emergency power lighting. The six figures appeared on the processing level. Two of them switched on their wrist mounted flash lights while the others turned on the ones mounted on their rifles. They swept the area with the lights while Sito held up her tricorder.
“I’m not reading any strange energy signatures,” Sito announced
“You won’t,” Heath replied. “It won’t register.”
“Then how do we find it?”
“You can feel it. That tingling in the air.”
“I don’t feel anything.”
“I can feel it too ma’am,” Oorz, one of Heath’s Bajoran MACOs that had come over with her spoke up. “It’s… that way. In that room over there.”
Heath nodded in agreement.
“This really bothers me,” Sito said out loud. “It may be more a trap for Prime universe Bajorans.” She touched her comm badge. “Sito to Enterprise. Maintain constant transporter lock. If you start to lose the lock for any reason, beam us all back at once.”
“Why would someone want them?”
“You lot are famous throughout the Empire. Capturing any of you would be quite the prize for some people. But if you insist on doing this, let’s get this over with.”
They moved in the direction that the feeling felt strongest in, that storage room in the back. They were halfway across the room when Heath grabbed Sito’s arm.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m stuck.”
Sito shone her light down.
“Your boot heels are stuck in the floor.”
“Drozona all over again,” she sighed. “I… HEY!”
The shout came as Sito pulled out her knife and sliced the laces on her boots.
“I’ll get you another pair when we get back. For now safety first.”
Heath stepped out of her boots on to the cold metal floor.
“Let’s keep going.”
“What do you intend to do once you've found the orb?” Sito asked. “I’m not a fan of these wormhole aliens interfering in our affairs.”
“I want to keep it out of the hands of those who would misuse it's power,” Heath answered. “Also There's one that allows for time travel. Imagine, being able to go anywhere in space and time undetected? Maybe it can get you back home if we ask it respectfully. Barring that take it back to Bajor and lock it up to keep others from abusing it's power.”
“From what I've read about the prophets, they have a habit of altering ones ego and personalities when one asks them for something. Don't take this the wrong way, but I would rather die before I submit to them.”
“Don’t worry. I'm was a good little Bajoran girl growing up. I know the proper way of asking while minimizing the possibility of side effects.”
“You're free to do what you will, but let them know if they don't return you to me the way you are, I'll destroy their little wormhole.”
“Nothing says you care like high explosives fired in retribution. It will be fine... I think... pretty sure anyway.”
“I really don't like this, these things you worship seem to have unlimited power.”
“Not all things with power are corrupt, but I don't want that kind of power laying around for anyone to use. I'd feel better if it was somewhere safe.”
“Perhaps, I'll leave it for you to deal with.” Sito looked in the direction of the room. “Still feels like a trap. Oorz, check out that room first.”
Oorz unzipped her boots, stepped out of them and padded barefoot over to the door.
“I still don’t understand why half your crew insist on wearing those boots like you do,” Sito complained.
Heath shrugged.
“We have our quirks.”
Oorz came back.
"There’s a huge nest of spiders in there and something behind all of them,” she reported. “I’m sure that’s it.”
Sito managed to keep her voice calm.
“Yeah ... I'll wait out here.”
“I'll take care of this,” Heath said stepping forward. She looked back at Sito. “You’re not afraid of them are you?”
“N…no!”
“You do know that I used to send clutches of hook spiders eggs to people who annoyed me? That reminds me I need to stock up for use over here.”
“Bring even one of those things on my ship, and your butt cheeks will be red before you know what hit you! I swear ... if I so much as hear a rumor there is a spider on my ship ... your butt will be sore! Not one Layress!”
“Yes ma’am.”
“I saw that smile! I swear to those gods you believe in... You bring even one back I'm going to damage that pretty posterior of yours!”
Heath said nothing as she, Oorz and Truzena went in to room.
Sito heard a constant barrage of Phaser fire for about thirty seconds, then silence.
“Lazy?”
Heath emerge from the room carrying the ornate box. She was covered from head to two in thick spider webs.
“Found it,” she called. “They had built there nest around it. I’ll have to clean it up before I can tell which one it is.”
“I'm going to have nightmares about this,” Truzena complained equally covered in webs.
“You didn’t have to run in ahead of me.”
“You could have stood back and shot them. That’s what I did,” The completely web free Oorz said smiled.
“Speaking of which we should leave now,” Heath said.
“Why?” Sito asked.
“We only stunned them,” Oorz said. “They’ll be waking up soon.”
“Most likely very upset as well,” Truzena added.
“Probably come storming out of there looking for us,” Oorz added
“Well, so long as we never have to come back here. Sito to Enterprise, Bring us back!
“Oh look here they come.”
“BEAM OUT NOW!”
Smith and his rogues were practicing for the Facility 4028 job. "5,4,3,2,1, hit it" said Smith and a bulkhead around a door blew with Hetal and Smith both covered in dirt and dust. "Your're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off" said Smith face palming and Hetal giving the "oops" expression. "Maybe a little less next time" joked Smith as dusted himself off. Duty called when both Smith and Hetal were called to the bridge, Pitaskli approached Smith with news. Pitaskli reported they had found a supply convoy consisting of three transports carrying refined dilithium, food, medical supplies and engineering parts near Trill.
Smith considered the move, get in and remove the shields and beamed the cargoes out on masse. The Bounty ambushed the convoy, collapsed their shields and beamed out all the cargoes before leaving with full haste leaving false warp trails from the attack site. Smith now set the Bounty on course to Arawath and into Federation space, one week later they infiltrated into Federation space. For the job, the crew brought up illegally downloaded design schematics of the prison. Each crew member had their skills, Smith would chart a route to Facility 4028 avoiding all shipping lanes. Sidis looked at every detail of the schematics looking for any flaws in their security, Hetal was to get the Bounty as close as possible to the target undetected.
Wilkinson and T'Pamne would break into the security net and bring down the guards. Smith would lead the team breaking in and spring the regent out, he had drafted both Lot sisters into his crew. Naynta and Jodi had been told that everyone pulls their weight and they were no different. They assisted Mereu in the infirmary but would be on the team breaking the regent out. The mission was practiced again and again until the entry teams got it right. Breaking into Federation comms nets, Wilkinson found the Regent's location. She was being held in solitary at Facility 4028 in section Alpha three. The Bounty evaded Federation patrols all the way to Facility 4028, Hetal even played cat and mouse with two Nebula class starships using a nebula to hide the Bounty away from prying eyes.
The Lot Sisters were speaking with Dowager Empress Teanna Bray, they were plotting revenge against the Empress, breaking Regent Lot out was part of that plan. "When Papela is free, we'll retake Betazed first then consolidate our position by returning Betazed to Lot control" said Teanna telepathically to the Lot sisters. "Agreed but can we trust this crew to aid us?" asked Jodi telepathically. "They rescued us, by aiding us, these people have now become the Empire's most wanted. They're in the same boat as us, it's in their interest to help us" replied Naynta telepathically. "OK, Once the job is done and we're back on our Betazed, they will get paid, treat them as allies" ordered Teanna telepathically. "Agreed" said both Naynta and Jodi telepathically.
Post edited by theraven2378 on
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
The Bounty slipped into the system undetected as Hetal weaved the ship through the asteroid belts to avoid the Federation sensors. Smith now put his plan into action, Sidis had been handling the break in phase looking at ways security could be bypassed and they had found a way in. The answer was Antionette Leclerc, Leclerc was one of the prisoners rescued along with the former Dowager and the Lot sisters, Leclerc had been caught for illegally breaking into Imperial computers.
Leclerc found her back door in and she disabled the security as Smith readied his boarding party. "Everyone suit up, straight in and extract the VIP. We have 15 minutes to get in, break the regent out and leave before security comes back online" he said to his team in the brief. Both Lot sisters also suited up and grabbed disruptor pistols. With security taken down, the team went in, Sidis' team took care of the computer core as Smith blasted open the Regent's cell. "Naynta, Jodi, it took you two long enough to break me out" said Papela looking at the the Lot sisters. "We had help, no time to explain, we'll tell you on the ship" said Naynta with a smile as she threw Papela a spare disruptor.
"Security back online in 5 minutes, Dex my team is ready to leave" reported Sidis over the radio. "Dex to Bounty, mass beam up now" ordered Smith and both teams and the regent were beamed to the Bounty. On the ship, Smith showed Papela the bridge. Smith now plotted a course out of the system as Hetal weaved her way out of the system as the alarms set off on Facility 4028, the Bounty would now have to evade the Federation starfleet all the way back to Arawath. Meeting up with Teanna Bray, Papela and the Lot sisters now planned their move to retake Betazed. Meanwhile Smith and Hetal were plotting a course away from Federation and Alliance shipping routes as they intercepted a lone Federation frigate, the U.S.S. Setak. Sweeping in, Smith knocked out communications and shields before beaming the Setak's phaser relays, plasma injectors as well as food and medical supplies.
Leclerc wiped the Setak's computer remotely as Hetal hit the warp engines leaving false trails leading towards the Badlands. On Los Lobos, the news got out that Regent Lot had escaped prison. Lt Trianna Valdez was worried, after all it was her testimony that put the regent in prison. On Earth, Councilor Valdez and the rest of the family were moved to a safe location under witness protection. A month later, the Bounty was back in Imperial space and on course for Betazed. Arriving three weeks later, Papela struck, Regent Wray was deposed and killed with Kestrella being broke out by Smith and his team. The Lots now had revenge on their minds.
On Terra, the empress flew into a rage at hearing about the Lot sisters being free, with Papela back on Betazed, Marie had to act quickly and she responded mobilizing a blockade squadron to cut Betazed itself off from all military supply. Food and medical shipments would be allowed in but weapons and spare parts were considered contraband. This suited Smith and his crew, having given the crew their share of the profits from the 4028 job, Smith then set up weapons production on the Bounty. He would run the blockade to deliver weapons and other key military supplies to the Regent.
The crew braced themselves as they started their first run. Evading the Enterprise on their way from Trill, the Bounty crew started their run. Leclerc disabled the first blockading squadron remotely as Hetal brought the Bounty within 10 metres of the I.S.S. Hound. "So far, so good" he noted privately as the Bounty evaded the Imperial Starfleet. After 12 hours, the Bounty was through the blockade and making it's weapons deliveries. Evading more Imperial patrols, Smith's crew worked around the clock as they made blockade run after blockade run staying one step ahead of the Imperial authorities. A month into the blockade, more smugglers and privateers joined up in running the blockade to the point the Imperial commander defying orders from the Empress broke the blockade, breaking the siege of Betazed.
On Betazed, Papela regained control of her fleet, from now on, the Lots and the Bounty crew had an agreement. The Bounty would not attack any supply ships coming into Betazed, the Lot family business interests were also immune from Smith and his crew. Smith now considered everything else fair game. On Terra, the empress had the imperial blockade commander killed for defying orders and now placed a bounty on Smith and his crew. They would be the most wanted in the empire though they could count Betazed as a safe port as long as they kept on the Lot family's good side.
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
The Empress was not in a good mood, Betazed had defied her and she planned a punitive strike on Betazed. The royal fleet was to go to Betazed themselves and remove the Lots from power, it was a regime change. Assuming command of the operation, Marie would lead the strike on Betazed. As she read the reports from her intel networks, Marie planned her strategy. All civilian population centres were not to be attacked, military bases and power generation were the key targets.
Betazed would be then closed off from the Empire and quarantined until the Lot family stepped down and handed themselves over to Imperial authorities. Shadow teams were deployed to Betazed with orders to assassinate key military leaders, Teanna Bray was on the list as was Papela's military command. The Lots were to be left alone to face their people's wrath, Marie now put a bounty on Papela, Naynta and Jodi's heads. 50,000 for each one alive and 25,000 for confirmed proof they were dead, the call was put out across the empire as all Imperial systems stopped all shipping to Betazed. The Royal fleet set course for Betazed and took up position cutting all routes in.
The crew of the Bounty had noticed Imperial fleet movements heading to Betazed, they reacted accordingly and prepared the ship for blockade running. On Betazed, Teanna noted the fleet movements to Papela. "The Royal fleet outnumbers us 10-1, my daughter is not messing around" said Teanna to Papela. "Expect Klingon and Romulan ships too, they have favored status within the empire" replied Papela watching the movements from her palace, "The Royal fleet will arrive in four days, add another two days for the Klingons and Romulans to link their fleets up with the Royal fleet. We have six days to prepare for siege" answered Teanna looking at the map.
Jodi and Naynta were in orbit having regained the Los Lobos, they would fight the battle in space if it came down to armed conflict. Papela now declared Betazed would fight to remove the Empress from power. The crew of the Bounty joined Papela's rebellion, they would run supplies past the Imperial blockade to Betazed and avoid entanglements with the Imperial fleet. If it came down to a fight, the Bounty would join a rebel fleet of Ferengi, Breen and Lukari ships and fight their way through the blockade. Both sides geared up for the inevitable confrontation, if the Lots did not surrender Betazed, the Empress would show no mercy to Papela's military. Any ships attempting to leave Betazed would be disabled and their crews interned at a network of penal colonies.
Post edited by theraven2378 on
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Showered and clean Heath sat on the floor of her quarters. The similarly clean orb sat on a small table in front of her. Several PADDs lay scattered around her as she stared at the ornate container. Every few minutes she would take an image of part of it, run the image through the one of the PADDs, then transfer the results her personal one.
The language is similar but slightly different to the ancient Bajoran from back home, she thought.. Wonder if that was another side effect of wiping out the Iconians over here? Anyway the translations aren’t matching up…
She hear the door open and close behind her.
“Enjoy your time on Trill Thay?”
“How were you sure it was me?”
“I locked the door. Only you have the override.”
“And if someone had bypassed it?”
“Our security is better than that. You know that.”
Sito walked up behind her.
“Still sitting with your back to the door is dangerous.”
“If I’m not safe on this ship, then where would I be safe?”
Sito knelt down, put her arms around Heath, and rested her head on her shoulder.
“You worry me Lazy. I don’t think you realize how dangerous it is for you over here. If they found out about us, you’d be in even more trouble.”
“What do you mean?”
“With everything you’ve done, you’re becoming popular. Little girls look up to you as a role model. There’s talk of wanting to use you as a poster girl for recruitment.”
Heath stopped her work.
“Me? Why me?”
“Are you kidding? The entire crew loves you, like literally, Paris, Vaylin, R'Shee ... most of the ladies want to be with you, while the men are devoted to your cause. I might be the admiral of this fleet, but you will go a lot further than I ever could, I foresee you being the greatest asset the Terran Empire will ever have.
A Federation captain, labelled a traitor by her own kind, seeks refugee in our universe. This fleet thrives on the diversity of those who man the ships under my banner, if the Empire worked under a similar tactic…”
Sito paused.
“You know ... I've always cursed your universes involvement with our affairs, you're the only thing I can truly say I was wrong about.”
“I'll take that as a compliment. ’The story of the Traitorous Busty Bajoran captain’ sounds like on of R'shee’s Holo programs.”
“And I don’t like it. It puts you in the public eye too much. I want you safe… I don’t want to lose you.”
“You’re not going to. And I’m not poster girl material. I’m just a simple Bajoran girl who right now wishes she paid more attention in history class.”
Sito smiled.
“Having problems?”
“For some reason ancient Bajoran is different here than over there, I’m having trouble with the translation. That and it won’t open.”
“Not opening is a bad thing?”
“All orbs open to whoever approaches them. Whether or not something happens is in the Prophets hands. But this one refuses to.”
“Have you considered the simple solution?”
“You don’t shoot or try to blow open an orb.”
“I meant that you have it backwards.”
“Oh. No this is the front.” Heath ran a finger down the side. “See this line here, that’s a door hinge.”
“I see,” Sito reaching out to touch the other side. “And this would be the other…”
As she touched it the front of the container split open. The doors swung open revealing the glowing hourglass shaped object inside. The slowing rotating object bathe them in its light. In the light they saw images of the temples on Bajor, other planets some known others not.
The outline of a figure appeared before them.
“Children of Bajor, but not of Bajor. Let your joined Pah’s guide your path.”
The figure and light disappeared.
They sat there for a minute trying to process what had happened.
“I… damn wormhole aliens.” Sito complained
“I… I can read this now.” Heath said.
“What? They did something to you?”
“What? No... I mean… maybe… it doesn’t matter.”
“Yes it does!”
“Thay, this is the orb of the Emissary.”
“What does that have to do…
“It can only be found and opened by the Emissary.’
“I repeat, what does…”
“It opened when we both touched it. Thay, that means that we’re the Emissary!”
“The what?”
“The Emissary. The messenger for the Prophets.”
“And I should care why?”
“Because with the Prophets behind you, you can fight Leeta and her Pah Wraiths on a level playing field.”
Sito was quiet for a moment.
“I’ve heard of some of the tricks she’s pulled… Ok, I won’t deny that, that wouldn’t be useful. But doesn’t that make us some religious figure to them?”
“I suppose…”
“I hate this! Why did you insist that we look for that thing? This just makes you an even bigger target!”
“I already have Temporal Investigations after me to erase me. I’m not going to spend the rest of my life hiding.”
“I will lock you in this room and forbid you to leave it if I have to to keep you alive.”
“On this ship I am surrounded by people I trust, I know that’s a foreign concept here. But I do trust them with my life. That includes you. I trust that they will keep me safe.”
“…”
“Well?”
“Your stubbornness is both endearing and annoying.”
“Don’t forget, you’re going to be in the spotlight just as much as I am.”
“I’m used to it. Alright you win. But one attempt on you and I’ll lock you in here and tie you to your bed by your hair.”
“Is that what I have to look forward to being married to you?”
“Yes it is.”
“Alright then.”
The Royal fleet took up position on the outer edge of the system as Romulan and Klingon ships moved around the system entering it's outer edge. The empress now directed her first major strike of the campaign, waves of fighter and runabouts made precision attacks on Betazoid military bases throughout the system before retreating, arriving two minutes after the first wave left, the second wave attacked the military installations in orbit of Betazed as well as ground targets of interest, they then retreated after knocking out power across the planet.
Marie recalled the fighters and runabouts and set up the blockade around the middle core of the system, ground troops secured the outer planets and colonies battering down resistance quickly. The outer colonies soon surrendered and their garrisons taken as POWs, these bases now were used to house fighters and runabouts for strikes deeper in the system. In orbit, the defending fleet saw the planet go dark as back up generators overloaded from damage caused in the earlier strikes. Regent Lot had accounted for a strike on the power grid and brought geothermal plants online to ease the strain on the population. Marie now studied Betazed's defenses closely, a planetary assault was considered but then dismissed due to the chance of unacceptable losses on both sides.
Outside the system, The Bounty in company with a rebel fleet consisting of Ferengi, Lukari, Breen and Cardassian ships prepared to run the blockade. They were carrying power generators, industrial replicators, food, weapons and troops to Betazed. Rather than just punch through, the rebel and privateer fleet decided on a sneakier approach to draw away Imperial ships. Hideki squadrons would draw away Imperial frigates to create a gap, once enough Imperial ships had gone after the Hidekis, the rest of the rebel fleet would rush the gap and run to Betazed at all haste. Legate Madred would lead the rebel fleet on what appeared to be a suicide mission. Getting in would be the "easy" part, breaking out of the blockade would be the hard part.
Dex Smith volunteered to lead the relief column from the Bounty as Madred would bring the heavier Keldon, Galors and Rezreths against the Imperial fleet as a wedge at the head of the column. The relief column consisted of 30 Ferengi Nandis and D'Koras, 20 Chell Gretts and 10 Lukari ships, they would escort the 8 Sarr Theln carriers all the way to Betazed. The carriers would provide close in fighter support for the column. Onboard the Imperial flagship Agincourt, Marie noted the increase in ship traffic and deployed scouts as early warning of any relief attempt or breakout attempt. That night in her quarters, Marie read the reports of the first day as news about a discovery were made. The orb of time had been found and it was on it's way to the Agincourt, it arrived in great secrecy as Solat took delivery 8 hours later.
For the rebel relief fleet, they would need another three days to get the column going as they gathered the fleet together. All knew that Betazed's food and medical stocks would run out in a matter of weeks given the strength of the blockade, Smith decided to take what he had with him. Leading the 68 ship column, Smith worked his way into a gap in the Imperial lines closest to Betazed. The carriers deployed their fighter to draw away Imperial ships as the rest of the fleet just barreled through the gap at all haste. All made it through and began making supply drops to the planet. The Bounty dove into the atmosphere opening ventral cargo doors as it got above Rixx, the cargo was then deployed to the surface by drop modules as the doors closed and the Bounty made it's run back into orbit. The 68 ships now scattered and left the system evading Imperial ships every step of the way.
Day two
Marie was irate at the squadron commander in charge of the section of front that was breached, the gap was swiftly closed. Marie changed strategy, the middle planets and moons apart from Betazed were hit by planetary assault landings as the noose began to tighten around Betazed, the siege lines were in range of the defense fleet as Naynta launched quick strikes on the Imperial fleet to bring them off balance. Marie now deployed her heaviest ships to punch through the defending fleet and gain orbital supremacy, Naynta seeing the danger decided to roll with the punches maintaining an elastic mobile defense to wear down the Imperials. The Rebel fleet made another blockade run resupplying Naynta with phaser relays, food, medical supplies and extra photon torpedoes. The food and medical ships began mass transports of supplies to the defenders on the ground.
Marie was being bogged down in a fight of attrition by Naynta, it was a fight Naynta had no hope of winning as one by one her ships were all disabled and taken out out of the battle. Naynta and Jodi had both escaped down to Betazed as the Imperial fleet now began to blacken the skies. Marie now had victory in her sights as the planet was now completely surrounded, only the fastest blockade runners were allowed to make supply runs, slower ships were too vulnerable given the tightness of the Imperial siege lines. The Shadow teams were now deployed, using a telepathic inhibitor provided to her by Trianna, Shade infiltrated the Regent's palace and now moved to carry out her objectives
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
The "Admiral" walked into O'Briens and their quarters- sharing Rishis' body was tiresome but better than being dead they supposed. "Commander Zalnous, I was watching a rather strange group of events taking place... Involving an old foe of mine."
The admiral leaned over the desk the time trailer sat at. "You wouldn know anything about that would you?"
Marion sighed, "If the events in question are what I think you're referring to occurred at Synthesis then I assure you that I certainly had no involvement in for example altering the Romulans orders to force he Reapers to make mistakes. I certainly would never have elimnated key individuals who were sympathetic to their cause.... no admiral, the only direct involvement you're aware I had was to warn the imperial forces they were about to go off into an ambush.... yes I certainly didn't do everything in my power to safeguard the empire from Star Union."
Why do I still play and put money into STO?
The Foundry, and my love of Star Trek
A container was rushed to the Empress's quarters under heavy guard, "Is this what I think it is?" asked Marie as she studied the container carefully. "It is majesty, it's the orb of time" answered Solat as a Bajoran crewman checked the ancient Bajoran records confirming it. "This cannot get into the wrong hands" said Marie as she looked up at Solat. "Fleet Admiral Sito was sighted near Trill with another orb" reported Solat, this got Marie concerned. "Sito is not to know I have the orb of time in my possession" she told Solat bluntly.
"Majesty, the Bajoran wormhole aliens could be a problem. Our scientists studying the wormhole may have a solution to permanently close it forever" replied Solat. "How?" asked Marie calmly to which Solat answered "we detonate a quantum singularity device in the mouth of the wormhole, the micro black hole then collapses it forever." "Would it have adverse effects on Bajor in terms of physical damage?" asked Marie. Solat answered "a slight radiation spike but nothing fatal to life." Marie nodded and authorized the mission, a Miranda class ship would transport the device and detonate it. The I.S.S. Tiger arrived at the wormhole mouth 16 hours later and detonated the device as they entered the wormhole. The micro black hole destabilized the wormhole as radiation spikes emanated from the collapse, it was followed by a subspace shock wave wiping out the Denorios belt.
Back on the Agincourt, Marie smiled as the mission reports came in. The wormhole had been destroyed and all was left was a neutrino field. Marie now turned her attention back to Betazed as she ordered around the clock strikes on ground positions occupied by Betazoid military units. Power was also hit again and again with waves of strikes as AAA fire attempted to keep the fighters and runabouts away from the damaged sectors. Any position that revealed itself was silenced by orbital fire in pinpoint strikes. Next hit were roads and bridges as the defender's lines of supply and communication were cut by orbital and air strikes. Marie now demanded that Papela Lot unconditionally surrender her forces and hand herself over to Imperial authorities, Naynta and Jodi were also to be handed over.
Monitoring the situation was the Bounty crew, consulting rebel fleet command, the crew had an idea. They would masquerade as an Imperial ship in order to infiltrate the blockade and then dart into the atmosphere to launch a rescue mission. The plan was crazy but illogical at the same time, the Bounty after getting through the blockade would get as close to the Regent's palace as possible then beam out the entire family in one sweep. They would then escape Betazed's atmosphere jumping to warp after running the blockade. Dex Smith and his crew set off and finding a small gap in the blockade took up position over the planet's magnetic pole. They then dived into the atmosphere towards the palace.
On Betazed, The Lots ignored the surrender order and prepared to fight. Little did they know, they were in the cross hairs of Trianna/Ghost's sniper rifle. Ghost fired her TR-116 dropping a guard with the bullet missing Kestrella's head by a matter of inches. Ghost then changed positions before dropping Papela's bodyguards in a series of accurate shots, the call "SNIPER!!!" went out as guards rushed to where the first shot had originated. Ghost was long gone by this point as she deployed her stealth drones to cause more mayhem. This was part of the plan, with the guards distracted by Ghost's long range fire, Shade took care of Teanna with a quick and merciful strike with her nanopulse as Ghost sniped Papela's commanders using Shade's camera drone to spot for her. With their mission done, the Shadow teams left as Imperial troopships began to land outside major cities.
Meanwhile the Bounty streaked in, Smith using Naynta's DNA as a lock on source beamed the entire family onto the Bounty and made their escape. Blasting their way through the blockade supported by a rebel assault on the Imperial line, Smith trusted Hetal to use her best judgement to get them out of the system. Hetal closed to within 20 metres of the Agincourt using it to shield the Bounty from Imperial fire as she punched the warp drive. The Imperials could not fire for fear of hitting their own ships as the rebel fleet also withdrew from the system. Facing total defeat, Betazed surrendered as Imperial troops disarmed all military units and took them as POWs. Betazed would be under military occupation for the foreseeable future. The Lots however were still free and they took leadership of the rebellion using the Bounty as their command ship.
Papela now conscripted Smith and his crew to her cause, she would create a liberation fleet to retake Betazed. Smith did however tell Papela that everyone pulls their weight on his ship, the Lots were no different. At crew dinner, the Lots schemed at how to liberate their home as the Bounty crew had a drinking contest. Naynta and Jodi were both invited to take part in the drinking contest, it went on into the night before Mereu went hypospray happy sobering up the crew, from now on the Bounty and her crew and passengers would have to avoid any Imperial trouble as they made a run away from the Betazed sector.
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"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
On the command deck of the Bounty, Dex Smith was plotting a course to Regula when Papela walked up to the table looking at the Bounty's course. "Captain Smith, your course will add six weeks to our journey" noted Papela to Smith. "First things first, there are no ranks on this ship, my crew call me Dex. We're taking the long route to throw off any Imperials attempting to track us, going in a straight line to Regula will reveal our base to the Imperials hence why we're taking the long route" replied Smith. "We need allies" pointed out Papela and Smith agreed.
In medical, Mereu was working with Naynta and Jodi looking at ways of making their medical supplies last, "we're down to two weeks of medical supplies" noted to Jodi to Mereu. "I'll bring it up with Dex" replied Mereu. "I'll do it" answered Naynta and she left for the command deck. Naynta told Smith the supply issues and Smith had Wilkinson check for any transports in the vicinity, they found an Imperial supply convoy escorted by one frigate. The Bounty set course and ambushed the convoy destroying the frigate and then looted the transports of their fuel, medical and food supplies before destroying them. The Bounty left at maximum warp leaving false warp trails having fully restocked their supplies.
Smith now had to work out a job for Kestrella, he found an ideal job for her having found out about her organization skills. Kestrella became quarter mistress on the supplies, nothing would be issued out without her permission. Papela became the public face of the rebellion, Smith became her second in command. After six weeks, the Bounty arrived at Regula and entered the dock inside the planetoid. The rest of the rebel fleet arrived five days later joined by Orion Syndicate and Gorn ships, the rebel fleet was now 100 ships strong. Looking at her forces, Papela noted 100 ships was not enough to face the Imperial military. "Dex, I need you to make a secure call for me" asked Papela to Smith, Smith was a bit surprised at the request and asked "where to and whom?" "The Enterprise, contact Fleet Admiral Sito and get her to bring the Enterprise here" answered Papela.
"Consider it done, I'll have to tell them to take an indirect route here to avoid suspicion and to disable her tracking device" replied Smith. Papela nodded and gave the go ahead. The message was sent out, now the rebels waited on Sito's response, in the meantime Smith began looking for more allies among the empire's subject races. The Ask'Kaar were quietly asked to aid them and they threw their support behind the rebellion as their fleets moved to Regula arriving a month later having evaded Imperial patrols. On Terra, the empress put Betazed under martial law. Now she made an example of her mother and the Betazoid commanders. Teanna's body was hung from gallows as were the Lot's betazoid commanders in the centre of Rixx, the surviving Betazoid commanders were then executed and their enlisted crews and troops sent to the dilithium mines as slave labor. In a press statement, the Lots were declared traitoris excommunicatus and Betazed a closed military zone.
At Regula, Wilkinson picked up an Imperial transmission and made Papela aware of it's contents. Papela read the transmission and realized what it meant, it said "scorched earth" and that meant one thing, the empress would turn any Imperial world's defense grid against it if it dared to defy her. The Imperial secret police were also out in force detaining and then executing anyone suspected of dissent as well as their entire families to extinguish their bloodlines. The empress was now ruled through fear and intimidation as the entire Imperial senate was put to death and all political opposition was declared sedition. On Bajor, Terran troops under orders from the empress blew up all temples and massacred the priests to break the Bajoran people's will to oppose the empress's will. It had the opposite effect as the Bajorans began attacking Imperial troops in the streets as band of guerrillas began to form in the provinces.
The Imperial response was rapid, after evacuating all Imperial troops and admin staff, the empress turned the defense grid on Bajor and remotely fired. Hathon was obliterated in the first volley as the second volley reduced Bajor's farmland to ashes on a planetary scale. For their defiance the Bajorans would be denied food and shelter as all water sources were contaminated with a mutagenic virus. The Bajoran survivors were then expelled from their home world leaving behind the ruins of the Bajoran civilization. Bajorans who could fight made their way to Regula avoiding Imperial ships and joined the rebellion to avenge their lost home world. The rest of the empire fearful of retaliations all decided not to resist the empress given the examples made of Betazed and Bajor. If the empress was to be defeated, each system would have to be liberated and secured from Imperial reprisals.
In a war council at Regula, it was agreed. Civilians were not to be punished for the empress' actions, any Imperial commander and troops who chose to defect were to be given a chance to swear loyalty to Papela. The rebel commanders then all agreed on something else, they declared Papela empress and they would fight and die if necessary for her. Papela was now appointed by consensus as commander in chief of the rebellion. In Terran orbit, Trianna told Shade about the empress' growing insanity and how she planned to reduce the empire to ash showing Shade the transmissions from the palace.
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"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Trianna along with her guard saw how her sister had treated their mother, as she struggled to contain her anger she ordered "cut them down, NOW!!!" to the Imperial troops in square. Her instructions were obeyed and making sure Betazoid death rituals were followed, she had her mother cremated on a funeral pyre along with the Betazoid commanders. "She's gone too far" thought Trianna angry and bitter at her sister's actions. Already the empress was being called kinslayer by her enemies.
Trianna now had a tough choice, stand by her sister or defect to the rebellion. Her compassion resurfaced as she helped smuggle her sister's enemies off world. Commandeering a ship, she linked up with the Bajoran refugees heading to Regula after faking her own death to keep the shadows off her. Arriving at Regula, she was arrested and brought before Papela. At first Naynta tried to attack her but she gave Naynta a telepathic shock before bluntly pointing out she could break into the Imperial defense grid network. To prove her point, she sliced her hand open and swore loyalty until death to Papela. Papela having scanned her accepted her oath but on one condition, she would be monitored at all times and always supervised.
To further distance herself from her sister, she changed her last name to Romanov and declared her sister a kinslayer. Papela insisted on interrogating Trianna herself with Naynta and Jodi applying physical and mental pain on Trianna. Trianna having been trained in withstanding interrogation stayed strong and refused to rescind her statement. The interrogation lasted for hours but Trianna did not break. Papela satisfied ended the interrogation and told her daughter to leave. Papela then removed Trianna's restraints. Naynta and Jodi were both satisfied that they got payback on Trianna for breaking Naynta's arms on the Enterprise. "Miss Romanov, welcome to the resistance BUT remember this, any disloyalty from you and I will have you killed" said Papela bluntly. "Regent, my sister has destroyed my family and it's honor. I intend to regain the family's honor by aiding you in your war, my sister has to be stopped to save billions. She has gone insane" replied Trianna bluntly.
"Can you convince the Imperial fleet to change sides?" asked Papela to which Trianna answered "my sister has put commissars onboard to stop dissent, if the commissars get the slightest scent of disloyalty, they will execute the senior staffs of those ships. No one will oppose my sister because if they do, she'll kill their entire family to extinguish their bloodlines. Betazed and Bajor are just the beginning. Any world could be next if my sister decides to make more examples, get me to a computer. I can at least slow her down to a point." Papela only sensed brutal honesty from Trianna and put her in front of a computer under supervision. Throughout the night, Trianna broke into the Imperial command and control networks shutting down defense grids of the nearby systems. After confirming the defense grid shutdowns, a rebel liberation fleet moved in liberating the Mutara sector systems and securing them without resistance from the small backwater garrisons.
The Imperial fleet defending Mutara sector overthrew the commissars and had them killed before they defected joining the rebellion. More Imperial commanders followed suit and defected to Papela's banner, The rebel fleet now swelled to 300 ships as they provided industrial replicators, power generators and food replicators to ease the supply issues. The rebellion was gaining momentum as the Romulan Aristocracy also declared for Papela bringing their military to protect Mutara sector, the Klingons stayed loyal to the empress. To make things worse for the empress, Andoria, Sauria and Vulcan seceded from the empire until a time when the empress was removed from office. In a rage she ordered Solat to wipe Vulcan out but Solat took her most loyal ships and defected to Papela's cause. The empress was losing her allies and she began planning revenge on Vulcan but under the cover of a natural disaster, the Vulcans abandoned their world and their ships and troops joined Papela. Andoria also sent a fleet of Kumaris to Papela.
Papela was now ready to begin her offensive as Trianna shut down defense grids in Papela's advance path and began jamming Imperial communications.
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"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Galatt has made three more Mirror slides (find in op)
I.S.S. Athena (Bajor Sector)
The screams and pleadings for mercy echoed the corridors of the Athena. Admiral Lot and her advisor from the Ask'kaar Sovereignty, Commander Pelagia, were conducting a series of experiments on Federation prisoners, each more painful than the one before it.
"Your agony booths are quite capable of administering pain to these spotted fools," Pelagia said, watching the monitors of various federation officers being tortured.
"The booths are quite useful, but they spoil the subject," Naynta responded, letting out a grin.
Pelagia glanced at a PADD on the desk in front of her. "Look on the bright side, so long as Sito's Federation pet remains unaware of this, you'll be enjoying their screams for a long, long time."
Naynta grinned at the thought of the pain she had and would inflict onto each of these officers. "The Federation cost me my old ship, they cost me my rank, and they nearly cost me my life."
For her actions during the 'Battle of Antares' Admiral Lot launched a surprise attack on the Federation, while victory was inevitable to be hers, her moment was stolen by Admiral Sito, whom for reasons unknown to Naynta, saved the lives of the crew of the U.S.S. Los Lobos.
Furious with Naynta's actions, Sito had her stripped of her rank and thrown into one of the Enterprise's cells for over a month. During which time she would suffer greatly at the hands of both her Terran and Federation oppressors, Admiral Sito had allowed for the crew of the Los Lobos to perform whatever barbaric act they desired to inflict onto her, so long as she survived.
However months later, Lot was approached by Sito in private, in which her rank and old crew were returned to her. Promoted back to the rank of Admiral, Naynta Lot and the crew of the I.S.S. Athena continue their journey to seek out new life and new civilizations, to expand the influence of the Terran Empire!
Sito sat on the bridge with her arms crossed tapping her foot. "What's keeping her?" "Buracracy most likely," Heath answered. "The diplomatic types are probably going crazy about what they should do." "I know. How you got anything done over there is beyond me." "There comes a point when you have to..." "Ma'am," Callie interrupted. "I've got multiple contacts coming through rift." "Yeah about now is when I'd lose it with them." Heath concluded. Sito smiled. "Hail them." A face indentical to the one seated next to her appeared. "You took your time." "They were arguing over whether a treaty signed with someone who didn't exist anymore was still valid. I told them I was going to go save innocent lives and they could yell at me later. With that, the 113th is here to help. What's the situation?" "Simply put," Sito explained. "The opposition forces or closing in on Terra. But the crazy brat would rather see everything burn than surrender." "Here's the tactical," Heath said. The screen split and the system and ship positions appeared. "Any ideas?" "Yes," Admiral Heath replied. "We'll slipstream in here, behind Terra. Take out the orbital defenses before they know we're there." "You came up with that awfully fast," Sito commented. "Let's just say that bombing them back into a pre-warp state has been on the table for quite some time." "You see," Sito said smiling at her Heath. "Its not my influence, under all that Starfleet dogma you're naturally ruthless." "Anyway, you have all your ships here?" "All six hundred are here. Strangest thing, all their political officers came down with Bourgia plant poisoning. That Tamiko of yours. She's so useful." "That she is. We'll form up around you and create a slipstream bubble to transport you with us." "And while you deal with the orbital frames we'll attack their fleet from behind," Sito concluded. "I like this plan. We should all celebrate in my quarters afterwards." "Speaking of afterwards," Admiral Heath added. "I have a pain stick that has a date with parts of your anatomy Admiral over your little 'gift'." "What? You don't like them?" Sito said playfully. "I'm sure your crew does." "We'll continue this later. Now all ships form up and prepare. We jump when the battle starts."
The liberation fleet closed in on Terra, during their advance more systems had joined them as more Imperial fleets defected and joined them. Papela, leading the multi- species fleet gave the go ahead. Meanwhile Dex Smith led a a special ops to Terra itself, they would infiltrate the palace and take down the empress one way or another. Leading the palace attack was Naynta and Jodi with a squad of commandos, Smith would get them in.
The Bounty using a cloaking device ran the defense fleet and dived into the atmosphere and landed, it's crew joined the attack and fought their way into the place. In orbit the liberation fleet opened the assault on the Terra defense perimeter and the armada opened fire. On the Breen dreadnought Regent One, the Breen ops officer picked up 600 new signatures and they were closing in from the rear of the loyalist lines. "Is the Enterprise?" asked Papela and the Breen ops officer reported "it is." Papela sent a secure hail to the Enterprise.
Papela explained the situation, "This battle is to buy time for a ground assault on the palace, we may have a way of closing down the orbital defenses, something the empress won't expect." "How, the empress won't surrender" replied Heath, "Me, I can bring them down remotely, we bring the empress down and then make sure Papela is named empress " said Trianna. The liberation fleets now combined their forces and attacked. At the palace, Smith and his ground assault were clearing each room as the defenders held the ground. The Empress however had turned the defense grid on Terra itself and aimed at every major city, two platforms fired wiping out New York and London. In the 113th, Trianna and the computer warfare team began shutting down platforms as mirror Trianna on the Regent One fought her way through walls of encryption and managed to to take control of the active platforms and turn it on her sister's forces.
"Push through and link up with Sito" ordered Papela to the fleet. The liberation fleet pushed on and despite heavy losses, they were pushing back the loyalists and some loyalist commander began to surrender, seeing her fleet switch sides the empress downloaded all historical data and took her most advanced ships and made for the Sol star. She then executed a slingshot into the past to the mid 24th century, her destination, Bajor. Smith having found the empress had escaped, sent a signal to Sito and the rest of the liberation fleet. "Terra surrenders, I repeat Terra surrenders." Trianna using her authority as princess then ordered all loyalist ships to stand down. Those who stood down were to be spared, those who refused to surrender were shot down without mercy.
At the palace, Smith found the computers and reported all historical data downloaded of the computer. He did however find with Trianna's assistance what the empress has planned. She had gone to Bajor, somewhere in the 2370s to hand over the data to the Klingon/Cardassian alliance. It raised an ugly question, would the empress attempt to stop the empire's rebirth? , It also put the Sito and Lot families at risk. The empress might attempt to wipe out the Lot and Sito bloodlines in the past to make sure Sito Thay and Papela Lot were removed from the timeline. "Would she do it?" asked Papela to Trianna and Trianna answered "she would, your family is in grave danger as is Sito's and she won't stop until they are all dead." "We need to stop her before she carries out her plan" noted Papela, "As much as it pains me, my sister must die. Majesty, I here step down from my title of princess" replied Trianna with a heavy heart.
At the Imperial palace, Papela was crowned by the victorious allies with a "all hail the empress, long may she reign" and and a cheer from the crowd.
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Mirror Trianna came aboard with her kit only to be greeted by Admiral Heath and her counterpart. "Admiral, Lt" said Mirror Trianna as she kept a close eye on her equipment. "Miss Bray, nice move turning the defense grid on your sister's forces" said Heath smiling. "Likewise, your team did a superb job on your end" replied Mirror Trianna with a smirk, "Trianna, I see you've grown your hair long" said Mirror Trianna to her counterpart. "At least people can tell the difference between us" replied Prime Trianna as she showed Mirror Trianna to her quarters.
"I hope you don't mind sharing" said Prime Trianna to her counterpart. "Not at all, how is my baby sister doing?" answered Mirror Trianna looking at the Valdez family photo smiling. "She's doing great, dad told me yesterday she was trying to put words together" replied Prime Trianna smiling. "Good to know my baby sister is doing well" answered Mirror Trianna with a slight smile. "Come on, your equipment will be safe here" said Prime Trianna as Mirror Trianna stowed her equipment in a locked wardrobe. Both Triannas went to the mess hall and worked out a plan between them to present to Admiral Heath as Naynta and Tamiko joined them. "Naynta, Tamiko" said Mirror Trianna which was answered by "Trianna, feels weird having two Triannas here" from Naynta.
"Naynta, take this DNA sample and give it to your commanding officer. We can track my sister's movements more efficiently" said Mirror Trianna handing Naynta a knife with her blood on it. The knife was put into a sealed container and sent straight to Heath and Naynta put four glasses on the table with Tamiko adding two bottles of Saki and whiskey onto the table. "Our Tri can hold her drink, can you?" asked Tamiko sliding the glass over to Mirror Trianna, "Tri?" asked Mirror Trianna taking a drink. "Don't ask, Mr Frost gave me that nickname, it's stuck ever since" answered Prime Trianna after drinking her her glass. The drinking contest continued even as Heath walked into the mess hall and just quietly observed as two bottles became four bottles then six bottles and the drinking contest continued with Naynta and Tamiko passed out as both Triannas kept pace with each other before they both passed out at the same time.
In sickbay, Naynta, Tamkio and both Triannas were sobered up with a hypospray jab each. Both Triannas hit on an idea, "my dad told me all warfare is based on deception" said Prime Trianna as Mirror Trianna suggested that she disguise herself as Bajoran and infiltrate Alliance held Hathon. "Let's bring this up with the admiral, it's the Los Lobos level of crazy" replied Prime Trianna and both Triannas went to see Heath and presented their plan. "I disguise myself as a Bajoran then infiltrate Hathon, when my sister appears, my counterpart causes a distraction by bringing down her computer network as a small team flushes the kinslayer out. I then takes the shot and we get out of dodge as quickly as possible leaving no trace we were there" said Mirror Trianna. "The problem is we have to engage her five ships to buy time for my counterpart to achieve her mission" added Prime Trianna. "Sito was kind enough to provide a DNA sample which we put into a false beacon, we then beam it into Hathon as bait" added Mirror Trianna.
"We could use that DNA to lock onto Sito's family to transport them up to the Los Lobos before we beam the bait down, yeah I know, temporal investigations won't like it but it's the best way to keep them safe" added Prime Trianna. "Captain Smith has taken his ship to Betazed to secure the Lot family via a slingshot around Sol's star" added Mirror Trianna. Heath listened carefully and agreed though she voiced her disapproval of assassination. "I'll load up a sedative round instead, knock my sister out and extract her to be handed over to Empress Lot" suggested Mirror Trianna. Heath approved Mirror Trianna's compromise and gave the plan the go ahead.
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Papela sat in her quarters on board her flagship enjoying her cup of tea. A good tea calms the mind, she thought. And after all this I need one. "Excuse me ma'am," came through the door. "So many interrupted cups in my life." "Ma'am?" "Nothing. Is it something needs my immediate attention?" "Admiral Sito wishes to speak with you." Papela smiled. "By all means, send her in right away." She finished her cup and set it down as Sito came in. "My Empress." "What have I told you about that? It's mother, and nothing else. Now what do you want little one?" "I wanted to talk to you about security arrangements in case they fail to stop..." "You already have that well in hand. What is the real reason your here?" "How do you do that?" "I'm your mother. Now what is it?" "Apparently I'm now some sort of messenger for those wormhole aliens near Bajor." "Really?" "Yes, well Lazy and I both are. And there's another one of those orbs down there on Terra." "And how do you know that?" "Those aliens showed us where they are and... we feel then when we get close to them." "I see. And you want to return it to those poor displaced people to give them some hope? Very compassionate of you little one." "Lazy's a bad influence on me. If only she weren't so damn adorable... oh... Speaking of Bajor... Lazy did have a request." "And that is?" "She wants to use that time weapon ship they built to restore Bajor and all the other damaged world's." "Could it undo the damage done to Betazed?" "Yes. It hasn't been that long. It could be done without any damage to the time line." Papela was quiet for a moment. "Do you trust her?" "Yes." "You didn't hesitate to answer. That was more telling than the answer itself. Permission for both is granted. Tell her that I'm entrusting her with the safety of the populace." "Oh she'll love that," Sito laughed. "I imagine so. Now go take care of ensuring that we'll continue to exist. And when you see Mr. Smith tell him that he and his crew are now in charge of planetary security across the Empire. They found so many holes in the security grids, and I want them to find and close them." "As you wish," Sito said as she left.
The plan was put into action, making a quick run, Dex Smith transported the Lot family and kept them in Sickbay. "Mereu, make sure you wipe their memories before we return them to their homes asleep" asked Smith. "Consider it done Dex" replied Mereu. The Lots were safe at least. At Bajor, the Los Lobos beamed the Sito family aboard and into Naynta's care. "I'll wipe their memories just before we return them" said Naynta to Heath. "Good, time to set a trap" replied Heath.
The beacon was beamed down with a Bajoran and Betazoid MACO team who took up ambush positions. Trianna meanwhile was beamed to a good vantage point and now she waited for the target to arrive. Marie took the bait as the MACOs pinned her down with accurate suppression fire. Trianna loaded a sedative round and took aim, she fired and hit Marie in the arm, the sedative was fast acting and it knocked Marie out. Trianna and the MACOs now with their prize beamed up as the Sito's were beamed into their home with no memory of what had happened.
Trianna now erased the 25th Century Imperial ships' computers remotely and set them to self destruct on a 10 second timer. The five ships were torn apart by warp core breaches. Alliance computers were also broken into and erased. At Betazed, the Lots were returned with no memory of their time on the Bounty as Both Los Lobos and Bounty linked up and Los Lobos give Bounty a lift back through the rift. So far so good, they were in and out undetected, they arrived at Terra five minutes after they left and transferred Marie into Imperial custody. Having achieved their objectives, both Triannas parted ways with Prime Trianna giving Mirror Trianna a photo of her baby sister as a parting gift.
The 113th were given a honor guard all the way out of Imperial space and to the rift. On the Empress's flagship, Marie was brought to under restraint and facing Naynta and Jodi, Papela would decide her fate. On the Bounty, Smith was dismayed at his "promotion" but he accepted his orders. Working with Imperial agents, he began closing gaps in security starting at Terra before setting off to make sure other planets were watertight security wise.
For Trianna however, she was heavy hearted, she had no family left.
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"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Captain Heath had come aboard the Bounty to brief Dex Smith on his new job, "Mr. Smith, since you now work for the empress, don't abuse the privilege or I'll shove a pain stick up your backside" said Heath. "I've had worse" joked Smith but Heath replied "sideways" and Smith answered "yes ma'am." Hetal burst out laughing and said, "she's got you there Dex." "Funny" answered Smith with a smile. On Terra, Papela knocked on the door to Trianna's room and Trianna opened the door. "So you're a shadow Miss Bray" said Papela seeing the rifle on the wall. "I deal with the empire's enemies by any means possible" answered Trianna as she worked on a drone.
"Anyone can shoot to kill, how well can you shoot to disable? Shooting the fork out of someone's hand is infinitely more effective as persuasion than a dead body" advised Papela and Trianna listened carefully before answering "I've been working on a new round, a sedative round. It incapacitates but is non lethal. I'll work on my skills in the gardens for three hours each day to keep in practice." "Good, I may observe every so often. Trianna, get changed into your best dinner wear and be at the hall in 15 minutes" replied Papela and she left the room. Trianna got changed and left for the great hall, at dinner Naynta, Jodi and Kestrella were told to treat Trianna as a sister from now on.
"Naynta, consider us even for the Enterprise" said Trianna as she called a peace settlement with Naynta and Jodi. "Considering we have to live under the same roof, fair enough" answered Naynta as Jodi and Kestrella agreed. "Good, now that's settled, Trianna, you will only fire to disable not to kill" said Papela and Trianna nodded and agreed. "What is to be done with my sister?" asked Trianna to which Papela answered "she'll face trial." "Make sure it's public, let the empire know her for the kin-slayer she is" replied Trianna after disowning her sister. "You hate her that much?" asked Naynta and Trianna answered "she left my mother to hang, I won't forgive her. I gave mother and your commanders a funeral pyre according to Betazoid customs, I feel ashamed of my actions. Kestrella, I'm sorry for scaring you with that bullet"
"Accepted, fresh start?" replied Kestrella. "Agreed" answered Trianna shaking Kestrella's hand. "Naynta, Jodi. Fresh start?" asked Trianna and both Naynta and Jodi accepted the offer with a "welcome to the family" from Naynta. On the Bounty, Smith had a joke with his crew over dinner. "So we work for the empress, this'll be fun" said Pitaskli to which Sidis added "no more bank heists then." "Yep, let's not get on the empress' bad side" replied Smith. "We can still find new ways of having fun" added Hetal. "Breaking into computers to improve cyber security will be interesting" added Leclerc, "we can still rig gambling devices" added T'Panme and Wilkinson laughed. "Just no weapons smuggling" added Mereu.
"Ladies, gentlemen, we have a job. A legitimate job that pays well which suits our talents" said Smith. "At least this is better than prison" replied Hetal. "Agreed, though the pain stick comment from Heath was funny" added Pitaskli. "Thanks, I didn't know you all cared" joked Smith as they all had a chuckle. "Hetal, did you copy Kestrella's recipes?" asked Smith. "I may have done, don't worry, I asked her permission first" answered Hetal. "Look what we found" said Leclerc activating a Admiral Leeta hologram.
"Why is the hologram walking into bulkheads?" asked Smith. "We just made it stupid and it always suffers simulated pain" answered Leclerc with a smile. "Funny, are the French always this funny?" asked Smith sarcastically, "yes and I though you English were crazy" joked Leclerc with a smirk. "Let's see if you can handle your drink and not wine either" replied Smith breaking out some tequila. The shots were lined up on the table for everyone who wanted to take part, by the end of the night Mereu noted nothing but passed out bodies and jabbed them with hyposprays. "Go get some sleep all of you, that's an order, Dex your quarters or mine?" said Mereu.
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"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
The time ship hung in orbit over the devastated planet. "Does this ship even have a name?" Heath asked from the captain's chair. "The just referred to it as 'the weapon' ma'am," the helmsman responded. "Typical. We'll think of one later. Now is everything ready?" "We just need the final parameters," the chief engineer asked. "We're reverting the entire biosphere bringing back all life forms." "I see. We seem to have an audience." "Ah good. The refugee fleet has arrived in time to see the magic." "It's not magic ma'am. It's a temporal incursion." "You know Vulcans are the same in both universes." "I find that comforting." "Are we ready?" "The temporal core is charged. We can fire at your command." "Well then, let's give them back their home. Fire." The ship's massive cannon discharged and the beam struck the planet. Countless eyes watched as the mottled planet slowly reverted back to its normal. The beam turned off. "Incursion complete. The biosphere has been restored. I am reading multiple life forms across all species. Contratulations, you have restored Bajor." "Good. Now rotate 50° starboard. "Ma'am?" "Do it." "Yes ma'am." The huge ship rotated and pointed itself at... nothing. "Now set beam to wide angle and Target the neutrino cloud out there. Set for reversal." "I don't understand, but it's ready." "Just watch. Fire." The beam spread out and enveloped the area. Nothing happened for a few seconds, then there was an explosion of light as the wormhole reappeared. "What is..." "Cease fire." The swirling lights in front of them bathe them in it's glow. The inert cases at Heath's feet began to glow in response. They swung open as their own light came bursting out. " And now we are done. Set course for Betazed." " Yes ma'am."
Trianna was in the palace gardens on the practice range honing her skills as she instructed a servant to set up life size targets of ballistic gel with accurate internal position of organs and blood vessels of different species at varying ranges. After signalling the servant to withdraw to a safe location, she put a round in the simulated Terran target's arm at 500m. "Looks messy" said Naynta as she examined the target dummy afterwards. "Fatal or none fatal?" asked Trianna as she prepared another round.
"From medical experience, not fatal but the arm is lost for good. Why use such a an old fashioned concept of a rifle and bullet?" answered Naynta with a question, impressed at the destruction the bullet caused. "Personal shields cannot stop it, they've been designed to stop particle weapons, not bullets or any other kinetic type" answered Trianna as she put another round into another target at 700m. "He's had a bad day" joked Naynta as she looked at the wound caused and patted the dummy on the head. "You're going to have to cut short your practice, mother wishes to see us" said Naynta and Trianna packed her rifle up and moved it back to her room. Afterwards in Papela's office, Papela had all five of her girls in to discuss the Klingon problem.
"They won't surrender" said Sito to which Jodi answered "they only respect violence." "They respect strength with honor, surrender is not even a word to them" added Kestrella, "we could remove their leadership, cut off the head and the rest of the snake will die" suggested Trianna. "Not very honorable" added Kestrella to which Trianna answered "it's better than unnecessary losses in the long run." "I'm in agreement with Trianna on this, if we face them in battle, our losses will be great" pointed out Naynta. "Our ships have energy dissipation weapons, we disable their ships in battle then force a settlement that is honorable to both parties" suggested Kestrella. Papela listened to the arguments carefully as Sito, Naynta, Jodi and Trianna all realized Kestrella had a valid point. "What if they don't come to the bargaining table?" asked Jodi to which Trianna answered "destroy their ships and military facilities to weaken them then set phasers to stun and coat the planet in phaser fire. Once the population is stunned, send in the ground troops to secure all cities and place Qon'oS under military occupation. We allow the Klingons to keep their culture on the condition they fight only for us." "Works for me" replied Sito. Papela approved Kestrella's idea and dispatched Sito to deal with the problem. "As you wish, mother" said Sito and she beamed up to the Enterprise.
"Concerning my predecessor, she'll be executed then we'll send her body to a race called the Kobali" said Papela. "The body snatchers" pointed out Jodi. "My sister's personality will be erased as her body is reborn, a living death. She'll hate it" added Trianna. "That she will, who will carry out sentence?" asked Papela, Trianna raised her hand and said "I'll do it." "Make it mercifully quick" ordered Papela. Marie was brought out, tied to a post and but refused the blindfold, "any last words?" asked Papela to which Marie said "I sent the Dominion all the information they needed on the empire, I hope they wipe you all out" and she spat at Papela. Trianna fired one round straight at the heart and Naynta confirmed the sentence was carried out. "Put the body in stasis, send word to Captain Heath, she's got a delivery to make to the Kobali" ordered Papela and the call was sent out. "Well done little one, you did what was best for the empire" said Papela afterwards as Trianna's hands began to shake. "Permission to join Sito on the Enterprise?" asked Trianna and Papela declined permission with "I need that eagle eye of yours here on Terra, take the rest of the day off. Find something calming to do."
Trianna went back to her room and put the rifle away under lock and key. She then picked up her electric guitar and using Slipknot as backing tracks, removed the guitar from the music and played her guitar. Kestrella knocked on the door and was let in only to be hit with a wall of sound, "so much anger in this music" she noted afterwards as she said "computer, end playback." Kestrella had come to talk with Trianna and both shared stories of growing up for the next few hours. Kestrella noticed the photo of Trianna's baby sister on the desk and Trianna pointed out that her baby sister was being raised by the other Trianna as part of the Valdez family. Kestrella smiled knowing that an innocent was being kept safe.
Post edited by theraven2378 on
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Trianna was at her practice range with a couple of rifles when Kestrella asked what she was doing. "Practicing, you want to join me?" answered Trianna as she picked up her TR-116. "Mother's watching" said Kestrella as Trianna passed her another TR-116 rifle, "I'm used to particle weapons" said Kestrella as Trianna showed her the basics. "It's not all that different, you just have to take wind and humidity into account, those can affect a bullet's path" said Trianna as she helped Kestrella get used to handling the weapon.
Instructing a servant to set up targets at varying distances, Trianna let Kestella take aim as the servant cleared off to a safe distance. "Never aim for the head, it's a small target, aim center mass and just above, gravity will take care of the rest" advised Trianna. Kestrella took the safety off and fired taking a jolt from the recoil, "not bad, a liver shot. But it won't incapacitate either, the target can still operate their weapon. What you need is a clean shot that stops them being able to fire back, try again" instructed Trianna. Trianna showed Kestrella how to reload and passed the rifle back to her, Kestrella fired again and hit the shoulder on another dummy. "Non-lethal and renders that arm useless, you're getting there. Keep it up" said Trianna encouraging Kestrella.
Papela asked "you two having fun?" to which Trianna answered "just some sisterly bonding." "Trianna's letting me loose on her rifle" added Kestrella. "How's Kestrella doing?" asked Papela and Trianna answered "getting there, so far I've got her hitting targets at 100m, with more practice I may graduate her to 300m." "Good, both of you pack the rifles up and take a break. It's been 4 hours" instructed Papela. Trianna and Kestrella packed the rifles away and both decided to be creative, using a computer modelling programme they began designing a memorial to those who died at Marie's hand and to those who gave their lives liberating the empire.
"Let's also do a memorial for Betazed, Trianna, how about having a statue of your mother in the centre of Rixx?" suggested Kestrella to which Trianna answered "she was from Medara, your mother's commanders as a memorial statue in Rixx and my mother's statue as a memorial in Medara." Kestrella agreed and both got to work starting the artwork to present to Papela. "One for Bajor as well" suggested Kestrella and Trianna agreed. They got to work, each bouncing ideas off the other.
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Comments
"We'll contact the Molindrans via subspace, given their unknowns, all communication will be through subspace" ordered Marie to her diplomatic attache. "As you wish majesty, we looking at a potential first contact here?" answered Marie's attache. "We are so things must go smoothly" replied Marie calmly looking up. "Of course majesty" answered the attache as he saluted Marie and left her to her reading.
Commander Tuvok presented her findings about Molindran ruins across the empire and Marie listened carefully to what Tuvok said. "Head up a archaeological team, find out everything you can about their history, culture and technology but keep those pods dormant. You'll answer to me directly" ordered Marie and Tuvok accepted her assignment and left the room after saluting. Captain Iodokar was brought in and Marie read the charge sheet. "It's you, you illegitimate brat" said Jodi but Marie didn't respond to the jab. After reading the evidence, Marie found Jodi guilty and had her demoted to ensign and reassigned to Terok Nor as a nurse. Jodi protested but Marie made the judgement final and Jodi was escorted off Terra for her reassignment. The Lot sisters were to be kept separate at all times.
In orbit, Solat got the shock of her life when 200 Klingon dreadnoughts, heavy and light battle cruisers joined the royal fleet. 100 bird of preys joined the fleet two hours later. "We stand by the empress" said General Jm'pok as Solat received her new orders from the empress. Solat added the Klingon ships and soldiers to the royal fleet, Terra was also fortified with new upgraded orbital defense platforms to secure it from attack.
Marie now decided to take a day off and leave her parliament to run things for the day. Breaking out a soccer ball, Marie organized a guards vs servants soccer match and she was team captain for the servants. The servants won 4-2 with Marie scoring one of the goals using her quickness, Marie got cleaned up and then spent the rest of the day with the citizenry granting press interviews and telling the people of new education reforms, health reforms and the need to be vigilant. All citizens now had access to free education and healthcare, no longer was it the preserve of the rich.
Marie now sat down with the ordinary citizens and asked them what they needed taking down their needs at an open forum at the palace. At the end of the day, Marie put her feet up and said "computer, Marie playlist one" and relaxed.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Teanna Bray had escaped, seducing a guard she managed to beam up and take an Excelsior Class starship, the ISS Okinawa. Fleeing Terra she now declared for Leeta gathering a fleet from the Draylon and Mino Korvos sectors to oppose her daughters. Marie moved quickly and prepared to face her mother, assigning the shadows to remove any enemy support she decided on a conventional/unconventional strategy to oppose her mother.
B'Vat kept his word and the loyalist fleets were bolstered by wings of Klingon and Romulan ships. All systems in the empire swore loyalty to Marie denying Teanna any support though the Cardassians declared for Teanna and added their fleet to Teanna's forces. Marie knew this was a fight or die situation as she was faced no choice other than to declare her mother a criminal, Marie knew whoever made the first move would start the second Terran Civil War so she asked Grand Admiral Solat to be an adviser on military strategy.
Playing everything by ear, she read the reports from her commanders. This had to be dealt with swiftly and decisively, the empire could not afford a civil war at this time. Knowing Terra would be Teanna's objective, Marie decided on a defensive strategy conventionally and use the Klingons as her offensive forces with unconventional warfare to hit enemy supply, communication lines and military bases avoiding major fleet engagements. Collateral damage was to be avoided if possible so the fighting had to be contained away from major population centres as she would funnel her mother's forces towards Sol and into a trap.
Teanna made the first move with an offensive aimed straight at Terra after a declaration of war, Marie was ready and deployed a strong garrison fleet to Terra supported by the orbital defense grid. Taking command from the Agincourt, Marie prepared for war and briefed her troops and commanders. The Second Terran Civil War had started but it would be over as soon as it began, blocking her mother's advance and acting on hard won experience learnt from the Battle of Antares. Marie deployed a rotating defensive sphere using the asteroid belts between Jupiter and Mars to protect her flanks as B'Vat's forces harried Teanna all the way. Deployed in the asteroid belt were 200 Bird of Preys cloaked and ready to break into the enemy flanks.
Marie now watched and waited. She ordered that she wanted the enemy ships disabled not destroyed, heavy casualties were to be avoided on both sides. All ships prepared their energy dissipation weapons and conventional weapons with orders to destroy engines, weapons and shields. She sent a challenge to her mother, if Teanna wanted the throne, she would have to go through Marie at the Battle of the Belt.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
People on the observation deck looked out at the strange collection of ships parked in orbit. Klingon, Romulan, Cardassian, and Dominion sat there mixed in with Starfleet vessels. All waiting for something.
Heath looked at the holo display. One hundred and fifty icons surrounded the one that indicated the Los Lobos.
"All our problem children are here," she commented.
"Yes ma'am," R'shee her first officer agreed. "What shall we do with all of them? I have a few ideas."
"I'm sure you do, and the answers no."
"You're no fun anymore."
"They aren't ready to handle you."
"I'll have to break them in. Don't worry, I'll be gentle, maybe."
"Prophets above, let's get going."
They exited the room and entered the bridge."
"Admiral on the bridge."
"Truzena, stop saying that."
"We were told we're supposed to say that when you enter."
"New orders, don't."
"Thank you ma'am. That gets old quick."
"Tell me about it. Now put me on fleet wide."
"Your audience awaits."
"Thank you."
Heath cleared her throat.
"Attention all ships. Welcome to the 113th. We are not your standard fleet. Our purpose is to deal with the problems that others can't. If that solution be use of force, guile, subterfuge we will find it and use it with extreme prejudice. I don't believe in acceptable losses, no one is expendable. We celebrate every victory, and losses... Well we won't have any of those so why worry about that? We are now heading out on our first group shakedown training mission to practice a few things we might need in the future. Form up and prepare to move out."
She turned to the helm.
"Aunlel, set course for the Bassen Rift."
"Ma'am?"
"The Romulan government as given us permission to use it as our training ground. We'll be shielded from all prying eyes there."
"All report ready," R'shee announced.
"All ships, move out."
Those on the observation deck watched the strange collection from up in to waves and form up behind a Sovereign as it pulled away. They were even more surprised as all the ships shimmered then disappeared as if they were never there.
Marie was with her military commanders studying the the situation closely in order to gain an advantage as she prepared for battle. For over a week, loyalist and allied forces streamed into Sol as Marie's Klingon allies hounded and harassed Teanna's fleet and convoys constantly with hit and run strikes avoiding head on engagements.
Enraged by resistance slowing down her advance, Teanna kept pushing her 550 ships onwards to Terra despite the attacks. One cruiser squadron of 20 defected and joined up with the Klingons in attacking Teanna's supply base on Tellar, the loss of key war supplies hit the Dowager's fleet hard as their supply transports were disabled and then destroyed after the crews had been given five minutes to abandon ship. Marie read the reports and remaining calm ordered more hit and run strikes in.
The longer she could delay her mother, the more time she had to evacuate civilians from the war zone and and path of the Dowager's advance. On Terra, the civil population prepared for war as volunteers streamed into recruitment offices swearing loyalty to the empress. At Andoria, Teanna faced stiff resistance from the Andorian guard who sliced into her advance to slow her down. Teanna's forces were being ground down slowly as her supply lines were being cut forcing her towards Sol.
Teanna personally executed her Admiral and took personal command and pushed on threatening her commanders with death if they did not follow her orders. In the Alpha quadrant, Teanna's sectors were all hit by loyalist assaults ordered by Marie, Draylon was stormed and the garrison surrendered then their forces and fleets were absorbed into Marie's forces. Mino Korvos was secured by Trill, Bajoran and Betazoid troops as the enemy garrison surrendered without a fight. Teanna had lost her territory in a series of blitzkreig assaults and was left with no support as more loyalists pushed her into Marie's trap.
At the belt three days later, both sides met and Marie studied her mother's deployment carefully. Teanna had deployed her 500 ships into columns facing Marie's 450 ships in the sphere. Over the next three days both side postured trying to provoke the other into firing first, Teanna struck first launching an assault on Marie's sphere formation. Marie countered with a volley of weapon fire disabling the first wave as she planned her counter-attack. Marie encouraged the crew on the Agincourt's bridge speaking to each officer individually to keep their morale up. It paid off as Marie's counter-attack went in causing disruption in Teanna's fleet. Teanna had underestimated her daughter and it showed.
Marie now brought the sphere formation to bear and sprung the trap, as she engaged Teanna's fleet from the front as the Romulan and Klingon fleet of 600 tore into the rear. The 200 Bird of preys hidden in the asteroid now pinned the flanks leaving Teanna surrounded on all sides. Teanna was now facing 1250 ships. Marie gave the order to fire and the energy dissipation weapons disabled the trapped fleet. Marie now sent a hail, “This is the Empress, surrender or be boarded. Consider your lives and families” forcefully. Teanna refused surrender so Marie deployed a boarding assault to capture her mother.
Fighting their through the Okinawa's crew with heavy stun settings, they eventually fought their way to the bridge stunning the crew and capturing Teanna alive. Seeing the fall of the flagship the rest of the Teanna's fleet surrendered. Marie had won but at a cost of 5,000 on both sides but there was zero collateral casualties, after absorbing Teanna's fleet and it's troops, Marie now informed the empire that the Second Terran Civil War was over. All POWs taken were paroled on a oath to only serve Marie. Teanna was not so fortunate, Marie planned to make an example of her.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Marie was sat in her office with her advisors, she now had to work out what to do with her mother and she decided to make an example of her. For her treason and declaring for Leeta, Teanna was stripped of her authority and wealth then forced into retirement to live out her days in prison on Tantalus IV as a prison nurse. It was a small mercy, Tantalus was a death sentence and everyone knew that. Marie now made an executive order putting inquisition commissars onboard all Imperial ships to stop anything like this happening again.
Marie now decided to punish Minos Korvos and Draylon for siding with Teanna by making them repair the damage caused in the brief war. They were also ordered to pay war reparations by increased taxation of the wealthy, the ordinary citizens were exempt from the increased taxation and military occupation was ordered short term while new governments were installed. Marie's orders were simple, soldiers had to be on best behaviour around civilians at all times.
Now Marie had the defeated captains assembled, those who refused to swear loyalty were separated from those who had sworn their loyalty. 100 of the most disloyal were put against a wall in the gardens and Marie had 10 sentenced to life inprisonment, the other 90 were stripped of their ranks and demoted to crewmen. Marie made sure the message got out, decimation through life in prison and/or loss of rank for the offenders was the fate for officers who committed treason.
Marie had shown restraint to a large degree but she showed she could be tough at the same time when required. The citizenry all cheered as Marie under close watch from her guards visited the wounded from both sides talking with them and pardoning the wounded who fought for her mother. Marie was starting to mend the wounds of the brief war, the civil and military infrastructure was intact at least as Marie granted an interview with the Imperial news service. In the interview she stressed the importance of unity for the empire and it's people now more than ever.
For their part in aiding Marie, the Klingons and Romulans were given more favoured status within the empire as reward, the Cardassians however got punished financially by paying war reparations to the empire. On the Entrei'ls, Trianna and Shade had watched the conduct of the war and the punishments handed out to the defeated and both nodded to each in agreement with Trianna saying “well played sister” to an “indeed” by Shade. “Mother should not have underestimated Marie, I hope she enjoys prison, Imperial prisons have a low life expectancy among inmates. Tantalus of all places” replied Trianna with a smile.
Shade just smirked and answered “remind me never to get on your sister's bad side.” “Agreed, Marie is someone you don't underestimate or anger. The citizenry love her though” answered Trianna. “The People's Empress according to the news service” replied Shade to which Trianna added “indeed.” Shade and Trianna then beamed down to the palace to discuss plans to remove the former Dowager's supporters with Marie in person.
After many hours of deliberation, it was agreed, a purge would take place. All of the former Dowager's supporters were rounded up, stripped of their wealth, lands and titles and sentenced to life on Tantalus IV under the lash of the Imperial military. They would be put to work along with rest of the criminals. Any who refused to come to Terra for their judgement were tried in absentia then Shade and Trianna were handed lists of execution warrants. Marie had ended this crisis with the least amount of deaths.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
On board the USS Resurrection, Heath surveyed the carnage in front of her.
A week of training has lead to this, she thought.
Bodies of all the various member races of the 113th lay strewn about the floor in front of her.
Some had tried to make it to the door only to fail, their bodies stacked near her.
One person in the room however was still moving.
Stepping over the bodies she made her way to the table where the lone person sat.
"Well..." She started. "For the second time, the winner of the 113th's drinking contest is Captain Papela Lot."
Papela smiled up at Heath and burped politely.
"Oh, excuse me. Next time I hope to have some real competition."
A loud snore ripped through the room.
"So what's your secret?"
"Having children," Papela answered. "Three daughters all in their teens at the same time."
She looked down at the snoring Naynta and Jodi.
"These two alone... Their teen years are responsible for at least 75% of my alcohol tolerance. *burp* Oh excuse me. That Romulan ale always did disagree with me."
She stood, only slightly shakey.
"Now is you'll excuse me Capt... sorry Admiral. I need to have my staff transport these lightweights to one of the medbays so they can sleep this off."
"By all means."
Bassen Rift (Prime)
Captain Dexter Smith was sat in the command chair slightly nervous, he was 34 years old and it was his first command. He had been given the U.S.S. Kamakura, a modified Pathfinder Class starship. She was new but with Intrepid Class pylons and had never seen action. Sat in the XO's chair was Cmdr Lwasana Sidis, she was Betazoid and the Kamakura's first officer, Sidis was a wise woman for her age of 29 but had not spent much time around humans. At helm was Ensign Isoisa Hetal, Hetal was confident, crazy and had terrified every flight instructor at the academy. She found her fellow Betazoids easier to scare though Humans were far more entertaining when terrified.
Sat at tactical was Lt Antoinette Leclerc, a 22 year old human female from Dunkirk, France. Leclerc had never served on a starship before, the faster tempo would be a test. On operations was Lt Cmdr T'Panmi, a veteran of the Iconian War. Her cold Vulcan demeanour often offended people with her brutal honesty and logic. At science was Ensign Annalee Wilkinson, a recent academy graduate from Earth aged 19. She was naïve to the nature of the universe but adaptable all the same.
In charge of security was Cmdr Chall, a tough no nonsense Andorian. She frequently argued with the ship's doctor Lt Cmdr Mereu, Mereu was Orion but had developed a way to control her pheromones and her rivalry with Chall went all the way to the academy. Both had a somewhat antagonistic working relationship. Down in Engineering, Cmdr Ibarid Pitaskli made sure the ship was running efficiently. He was Betazoid with 25 years of engineering experience, his crew was inventive and somewhat crazy. Lucky for Pitaskli, his number two was Three of Six, a liberated Borg drone. She was efficient but also cold towards others, a trait that made the other crew wary of her.
In the counsellor's chair was Lt Tam Reno, his job was to watch the mental health of the crew and often he had tried to calm Hetal down but with no success, Hetal would always find a way to play practical jokes on Reno back. Her most imaginative prank was to enter Reno's quarters via the Jeffries tube and rearrange his quarters before slipping out the same way and covering her tracks. It was an ongoing issue with a constant “HETAL!!!” being yelled down the corridor and Hetal laughing in the next section.
On the bridge, it was the usual chatter with Hetal and Leclerc exchanging banter. They were friends from the academy. Sidis was speaking with Reno on matters of spirituality and ethics as Wilkinson and T'Panmi argued logic in the background. To Captain Smith it was something new as he checked his orders from Command. A tech team from Jupiter Station had been upgrading the computer grid on the Kamakura.
After retreating to the relative safety of his ready room, Smith was heard laughing. Sidis entered the ready room and saw Smith listening and laughing to Monty Python songs while doing his paperwork. She could never understand the Human sense of humor especially British humor. “Surreal” thought Sidis when she heard “Always look on the bright side of life” as she asked Smith “what is the reasoning behind Human humor?” “First time around Humans?” answered Smith with a question. “Yes sir” replied Sidis, Smith decided to explain Human humor to Sidis with “it's simple really, call it a survival mechanism. Having a sense of humor has kept us sane in stressful times, this one is all about irony. Even on your bad days, always take a look on the bright side of life.” “Humans will take some getting used to” replied Sidis to which Smith answered “Won't take long, we're just a bit crazy at times.” “This'll be interesting” replied Sidis. She finished passing the reports to Smith and left the ready room to supervise bridge operations.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Captain Dexter Smith settled down in the command chair of the Kamakura, an Imperial Pathfinder. With the backing of the crew, he had removed his captain from command stranding him in a shuttle in the middle of nowhere. For now he was secure as captain of the Kamakura as he looked around the bridge. Smith was well known by Imperial police over his less than legal occupations as a young man, things like contraband smuggling within reason and piracy. He had been conscripted to avoid prison.
Lt Cmdr Lwasana Sidis was the new first officer. Sidis had a vicious streak in her, she had already served time in prison for assault and three bank heists before being drafted into the military. At helm was Hetal, Hetal was a recent draftee from the penal colony on Tantalus IV, the charge list included four shuttle thefts and two runabout thefts. What spared her from the mines was her piloting skill and she was completely crazy. Leclerc and T'Panmi were both drafted into the military for illegal gambling, theft and bet rigging.
In engineering Pitaskli kept the crew in line, he had been arrested on numerous occasions for destruction of property and illegal engine boosting. When given the choice of military service or the gallows, he chose military service. Three of Six kept the crew in line, Three was tough on standards and she ran engineering with an iron fist. In sickbay, Mereu was the CMO. A former member of the Orion Sydicate, she had smuggling, extortion and laundering on the charge sheet. She had been drafted due to her medical skills. Lt Cmdr Chall was security chief, when it came to maintaining order, she was tough.
Tam Reno had the unenviable job of being the ship's commissar, no one dared cross him though Hetal once found herself in the booth when she crossed Reno. A former prison guard on Betazed, he had transferred to Starfleet and taken the commissar's course. Reno and Chall were fearsome when together.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Smith and his gang of of rogues were sat in the former captain's dining room sharing stories. Smith started with how he fell foul of the law, “got caught kemocite smuggling six years ago, the Imperials were waiting for me at Andoria in a sting operation and well there was no talking my way out of it. Hetal laughed and then explained how she got caught, “Dex, I got caught for stealing the Regent of Betazed's personal runabout four years ago. I've already stolen four shuttles and one runabout before that and before the age of 17”, Hetal was now 22 having already served four years in jail.
“Try doing three bank jobs on three different planets. I got busted after pulling the heist of the century on Betazed, turns out that it was the Regent's personal bank and well Regent Lot was none too happy about it to say the least” said Sidis with a smile. “Illegal gambling, bet fixing and theft of public property for me and T'Pamne” said Wilkinson to which T'Pamne added “it was the gambling device on the Dabo table at Terok Nor that got us caught.” “Illegal engine boosting and destruction of property, I blew up the Regent's statue in Rixx while drunk and ended up waking up in a cell. The illegal engine boosting came from my racing days until I got caught by a Imperial starship” said Pitaskli.
“We should ditch the military, we have a ship here so let's go into business for ourselves” suggested Hetal and everyone agreed. Smith decided to confine all the prison guards to cells in a quick purge, the crew all helped and Commissar Reno, Chall and Three of Six along with the rest of the guards were stunned and confined to cells. Smith and his crew realized that an Imperial ship would not go unnoticed so they decided to find a new ship, ditiching the military uniforms and getting changed in civilian clothing, they took the Kamakura to the Rigel shipyards and stole a confiscated Ferengi Nandi Class ship. The crew transferred to the Nandi which they renamed “Bounty.” The Kamakura's warp core was then set to overload, exploding destroying the ship, the guards and crew who refused to come with them.
Smith now ordered a course change and looting the shipyards for weapons, spare parts and supplies leaving nothing behind for the Imperials. Taking the Bounty to Regula, they arrived two weeks later avoiding Imperial patrols on the way. At Regula, the Bounty was modified with improved phasers, photons, hull armour, improved engines and system as well as a more powerful warp core and a stolen Imperial prototype unamatrix shielding system. The Bounty was also modified with improved Imperial sensors and more cargo capacity and stolen Imperial transporters which were also modified to mass transport cargo from their prey's cargo holds.
After six weeks, the Bounty was ready and they had found a target. A prisoner transport was heading to Tantalus. Smith intercepted the transport knocking out the shields and communications then beaming the prisoners out. Among them was the former Dowager and Inmate Nayta Lot. The Bounty then left the area masking their energy signature after remotely wiping the transport's computers. False warp trails were also left in different directions, the Imperials would be left on a wild goose chase across the empire.
Smith then set course to Terok Nor, arriving a month later they beamed Jodi Iodokar up and quietly left the system. The Lot sisters suggested to Smith that he help them on a job, the plan was that the Bounty would slip across the Awarath rift into Federation space and break Papela Lot out of Facility 4028. Smith told the Lot sisters what the price was for the job, “800k bars of gold pressed latinum, the nature of this job includes the danger fees.” “What about 500k?” asked Naynta to which Smith compromised at 650k. “Deal, now lets break my mother out” answered Naynta.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
“Such mindless sheep this empire’s population.”
“Indeed. They cheered the previous ones brutality the same way they cheer her.”
“Are they just conditioned to cheer whoever wears the crown?”
“It would appear so.”
“They don’t care as long as they are not the ones being abused.”
“That would make things all the easier.”
Near Trillus Prime(MU)
“All stop.”
“Ma’am?”
“All stop, now!”
The ISS Enterprise dropped out of warp and came to stop.
“Where are we?” Heath asked.
“About three light years from the Trill system.” Aunlel replied
“Scan the area,” Heath ordered.
“Yes ma’am,” Paris complied. She was as confused as the rest as to why the captain had ordered them to suddenly stop.
“There’s an asteroid field about…”
“Scan for any structures.”
“Its highly unlikely… what the hell… ma’am how’d you know? there’s an old mining station there.”
“Set a course for it Aunlel.”
“Yes Ma’am, but why?”
“I’d like to know that to,” Sito asked coming on to the bridge. “We’re due on Trill in a few hours. Why are we stopped?”
“Can’t you feel it?” Heath asked her.
“Feel what?”
“There’s an orb on that station.”
They all looked at Heath in surprise
“An orb?” repeated Sito. “You mean one of the devices sent by those wormhole aliens?”
“The Prophets, yes.”
“What’s it doing there?”
“I don’t know. Back there the Prophets made ten of them and delivered them on to Bajor. But the Cardassians stole most of them. But here they’ve only found the one we encountered on Bajor. ”
“So there could be more of them out there somewhere… but why is it here?”
“Maybe they want us to find it,” Paris suggested.
“But why us?” asked Sito. “This sounds like a trap.”
“A trap for who? Spiritually aware Bajorans? There aren’t many of those here.”
“Still… I don’t like it.”
“We have to check it out. If it’s real, we can’t leave it there. It’s too powerful an item to be left out here.”
“Very well. Set course for it.”
A few minutes later the Enterprise pulled up near the station.
“Its on minimum power,” Paris reported. “To keep the systems from freezing up. Life support is there but barely.”
“Any signs of life?”
“Just the usual station vermin. Hook spiders and rodents.
Sito suppressed a shudder.
“Alright, let’s go.” Heath said heading for the lift
“I’m coming with you,” Sito insisted. “And we’re bring a full security team as well. You’re being far too trusting about this.”
“Fine with me.”
The interior of the station was dimly lit under the emergency power lighting. The six figures appeared on the processing level. Two of them switched on their wrist mounted flash lights while the others turned on the ones mounted on their rifles. They swept the area with the lights while Sito held up her tricorder.
“I’m not reading any strange energy signatures,” Sito announced
“You won’t,” Heath replied. “It won’t register.”
“Then how do we find it?”
“You can feel it. That tingling in the air.”
“I don’t feel anything.”
“I can feel it too ma’am,” Oorz, one of Heath’s Bajoran MACOs that had come over with her spoke up. “It’s… that way. In that room over there.”
Heath nodded in agreement.
“This really bothers me,” Sito said out loud. “It may be more a trap for Prime universe Bajorans.” She touched her comm badge. “Sito to Enterprise. Maintain constant transporter lock. If you start to lose the lock for any reason, beam us all back at once.”
“Why would someone want them?”
“You lot are famous throughout the Empire. Capturing any of you would be quite the prize for some people. But if you insist on doing this, let’s get this over with.”
They moved in the direction that the feeling felt strongest in, that storage room in the back. They were halfway across the room when Heath grabbed Sito’s arm.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m stuck.”
Sito shone her light down.
“Your boot heels are stuck in the floor.”
“Drozona all over again,” she sighed. “I… HEY!”
The shout came as Sito pulled out her knife and sliced the laces on her boots.
“I’ll get you another pair when we get back. For now safety first.”
Heath stepped out of her boots on to the cold metal floor.
“Let’s keep going.”
“What do you intend to do once you've found the orb?” Sito asked. “I’m not a fan of these wormhole aliens interfering in our affairs.”
“I want to keep it out of the hands of those who would misuse it's power,” Heath answered. “Also There's one that allows for time travel. Imagine, being able to go anywhere in space and time undetected? Maybe it can get you back home if we ask it respectfully. Barring that take it back to Bajor and lock it up to keep others from abusing it's power.”
“From what I've read about the prophets, they have a habit of altering ones ego and personalities when one asks them for something. Don't take this the wrong way, but I would rather die before I submit to them.”
“Don’t worry. I'm was a good little Bajoran girl growing up. I know the proper way of asking while minimizing the possibility of side effects.”
“You're free to do what you will, but let them know if they don't return you to me the way you are, I'll destroy their little wormhole.”
“Nothing says you care like high explosives fired in retribution. It will be fine... I think... pretty sure anyway.”
“I really don't like this, these things you worship seem to have unlimited power.”
“Not all things with power are corrupt, but I don't want that kind of power laying around for anyone to use. I'd feel better if it was somewhere safe.”
“Perhaps, I'll leave it for you to deal with.” Sito looked in the direction of the room. “Still feels like a trap. Oorz, check out that room first.”
Oorz unzipped her boots, stepped out of them and padded barefoot over to the door.
“I still don’t understand why half your crew insist on wearing those boots like you do,” Sito complained.
Heath shrugged.
“We have our quirks.”
Oorz came back.
"There’s a huge nest of spiders in there and something behind all of them,” she reported. “I’m sure that’s it.”
Sito managed to keep her voice calm.
“Yeah ... I'll wait out here.”
“I'll take care of this,” Heath said stepping forward. She looked back at Sito. “You’re not afraid of them are you?”
“N…no!”
“You do know that I used to send clutches of hook spiders eggs to people who annoyed me? That reminds me I need to stock up for use over here.”
“Bring even one of those things on my ship, and your butt cheeks will be red before you know what hit you! I swear ... if I so much as hear a rumor there is a spider on my ship ... your butt will be sore! Not one Layress!”
“Yes ma’am.”
“I saw that smile! I swear to those gods you believe in... You bring even one back I'm going to damage that pretty posterior of yours!”
Heath said nothing as she, Oorz and Truzena went in to room.
Sito heard a constant barrage of Phaser fire for about thirty seconds, then silence.
“Lazy?”
Heath emerge from the room carrying the ornate box. She was covered from head to two in thick spider webs.
“Found it,” she called. “They had built there nest around it. I’ll have to clean it up before I can tell which one it is.”
“I'm going to have nightmares about this,” Truzena complained equally covered in webs.
“You didn’t have to run in ahead of me.”
“You could have stood back and shot them. That’s what I did,” The completely web free Oorz said smiled.
“Speaking of which we should leave now,” Heath said.
“Why?” Sito asked.
“We only stunned them,” Oorz said. “They’ll be waking up soon.”
“Most likely very upset as well,” Truzena added.
“Probably come storming out of there looking for us,” Oorz added
“Well, so long as we never have to come back here. Sito to Enterprise, Bring us back!
“Oh look here they come.”
“BEAM OUT NOW!”
Smith and his rogues were practicing for the Facility 4028 job. "5,4,3,2,1, hit it" said Smith and a bulkhead around a door blew with Hetal and Smith both covered in dirt and dust. "Your're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off" said Smith face palming and Hetal giving the "oops" expression. "Maybe a little less next time" joked Smith as dusted himself off. Duty called when both Smith and Hetal were called to the bridge, Pitaskli approached Smith with news. Pitaskli reported they had found a supply convoy consisting of three transports carrying refined dilithium, food, medical supplies and engineering parts near Trill.
Smith considered the move, get in and remove the shields and beamed the cargoes out on masse. The Bounty ambushed the convoy, collapsed their shields and beamed out all the cargoes before leaving with full haste leaving false warp trails from the attack site. Smith now set the Bounty on course to Arawath and into Federation space, one week later they infiltrated into Federation space. For the job, the crew brought up illegally downloaded design schematics of the prison. Each crew member had their skills, Smith would chart a route to Facility 4028 avoiding all shipping lanes. Sidis looked at every detail of the schematics looking for any flaws in their security, Hetal was to get the Bounty as close as possible to the target undetected.
Wilkinson and T'Pamne would break into the security net and bring down the guards. Smith would lead the team breaking in and spring the regent out, he had drafted both Lot sisters into his crew. Naynta and Jodi had been told that everyone pulls their weight and they were no different. They assisted Mereu in the infirmary but would be on the team breaking the regent out. The mission was practiced again and again until the entry teams got it right. Breaking into Federation comms nets, Wilkinson found the Regent's location. She was being held in solitary at Facility 4028 in section Alpha three. The Bounty evaded Federation patrols all the way to Facility 4028, Hetal even played cat and mouse with two Nebula class starships using a nebula to hide the Bounty away from prying eyes.
The Lot Sisters were speaking with Dowager Empress Teanna Bray, they were plotting revenge against the Empress, breaking Regent Lot out was part of that plan. "When Papela is free, we'll retake Betazed first then consolidate our position by returning Betazed to Lot control" said Teanna telepathically to the Lot sisters. "Agreed but can we trust this crew to aid us?" asked Jodi telepathically. "They rescued us, by aiding us, these people have now become the Empire's most wanted. They're in the same boat as us, it's in their interest to help us" replied Naynta telepathically. "OK, Once the job is done and we're back on our Betazed, they will get paid, treat them as allies" ordered Teanna telepathically. "Agreed" said both Naynta and Jodi telepathically.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
The Bounty slipped into the system undetected as Hetal weaved the ship through the asteroid belts to avoid the Federation sensors. Smith now put his plan into action, Sidis had been handling the break in phase looking at ways security could be bypassed and they had found a way in. The answer was Antionette Leclerc, Leclerc was one of the prisoners rescued along with the former Dowager and the Lot sisters, Leclerc had been caught for illegally breaking into Imperial computers.
Leclerc found her back door in and she disabled the security as Smith readied his boarding party. "Everyone suit up, straight in and extract the VIP. We have 15 minutes to get in, break the regent out and leave before security comes back online" he said to his team in the brief. Both Lot sisters also suited up and grabbed disruptor pistols. With security taken down, the team went in, Sidis' team took care of the computer core as Smith blasted open the Regent's cell. "Naynta, Jodi, it took you two long enough to break me out" said Papela looking at the the Lot sisters. "We had help, no time to explain, we'll tell you on the ship" said Naynta with a smile as she threw Papela a spare disruptor.
"Security back online in 5 minutes, Dex my team is ready to leave" reported Sidis over the radio. "Dex to Bounty, mass beam up now" ordered Smith and both teams and the regent were beamed to the Bounty. On the ship, Smith showed Papela the bridge. Smith now plotted a course out of the system as Hetal weaved her way out of the system as the alarms set off on Facility 4028, the Bounty would now have to evade the Federation starfleet all the way back to Arawath. Meeting up with Teanna Bray, Papela and the Lot sisters now planned their move to retake Betazed. Meanwhile Smith and Hetal were plotting a course away from Federation and Alliance shipping routes as they intercepted a lone Federation frigate, the U.S.S. Setak. Sweeping in, Smith knocked out communications and shields before beaming the Setak's phaser relays, plasma injectors as well as food and medical supplies.
Leclerc wiped the Setak's computer remotely as Hetal hit the warp engines leaving false trails leading towards the Badlands. On Los Lobos, the news got out that Regent Lot had escaped prison. Lt Trianna Valdez was worried, after all it was her testimony that put the regent in prison. On Earth, Councilor Valdez and the rest of the family were moved to a safe location under witness protection. A month later, the Bounty was back in Imperial space and on course for Betazed. Arriving three weeks later, Papela struck, Regent Wray was deposed and killed with Kestrella being broke out by Smith and his team. The Lots now had revenge on their minds.
On Terra, the empress flew into a rage at hearing about the Lot sisters being free, with Papela back on Betazed, Marie had to act quickly and she responded mobilizing a blockade squadron to cut Betazed itself off from all military supply. Food and medical shipments would be allowed in but weapons and spare parts were considered contraband. This suited Smith and his crew, having given the crew their share of the profits from the 4028 job, Smith then set up weapons production on the Bounty. He would run the blockade to deliver weapons and other key military supplies to the Regent.
The crew braced themselves as they started their first run. Evading the Enterprise on their way from Trill, the Bounty crew started their run. Leclerc disabled the first blockading squadron remotely as Hetal brought the Bounty within 10 metres of the I.S.S. Hound. "So far, so good" he noted privately as the Bounty evaded the Imperial Starfleet. After 12 hours, the Bounty was through the blockade and making it's weapons deliveries. Evading more Imperial patrols, Smith's crew worked around the clock as they made blockade run after blockade run staying one step ahead of the Imperial authorities. A month into the blockade, more smugglers and privateers joined up in running the blockade to the point the Imperial commander defying orders from the Empress broke the blockade, breaking the siege of Betazed.
On Betazed, Papela regained control of her fleet, from now on, the Lots and the Bounty crew had an agreement. The Bounty would not attack any supply ships coming into Betazed, the Lot family business interests were also immune from Smith and his crew. Smith now considered everything else fair game. On Terra, the empress had the imperial blockade commander killed for defying orders and now placed a bounty on Smith and his crew. They would be the most wanted in the empire though they could count Betazed as a safe port as long as they kept on the Lot family's good side.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
The Empress was not in a good mood, Betazed had defied her and she planned a punitive strike on Betazed. The royal fleet was to go to Betazed themselves and remove the Lots from power, it was a regime change. Assuming command of the operation, Marie would lead the strike on Betazed. As she read the reports from her intel networks, Marie planned her strategy. All civilian population centres were not to be attacked, military bases and power generation were the key targets.
Betazed would be then closed off from the Empire and quarantined until the Lot family stepped down and handed themselves over to Imperial authorities. Shadow teams were deployed to Betazed with orders to assassinate key military leaders, Teanna Bray was on the list as was Papela's military command. The Lots were to be left alone to face their people's wrath, Marie now put a bounty on Papela, Naynta and Jodi's heads. 50,000 for each one alive and 25,000 for confirmed proof they were dead, the call was put out across the empire as all Imperial systems stopped all shipping to Betazed. The Royal fleet set course for Betazed and took up position cutting all routes in.
The crew of the Bounty had noticed Imperial fleet movements heading to Betazed, they reacted accordingly and prepared the ship for blockade running. On Betazed, Teanna noted the fleet movements to Papela. "The Royal fleet outnumbers us 10-1, my daughter is not messing around" said Teanna to Papela. "Expect Klingon and Romulan ships too, they have favored status within the empire" replied Papela watching the movements from her palace, "The Royal fleet will arrive in four days, add another two days for the Klingons and Romulans to link their fleets up with the Royal fleet. We have six days to prepare for siege" answered Teanna looking at the map.
Jodi and Naynta were in orbit having regained the Los Lobos, they would fight the battle in space if it came down to armed conflict. Papela now declared Betazed would fight to remove the Empress from power. The crew of the Bounty joined Papela's rebellion, they would run supplies past the Imperial blockade to Betazed and avoid entanglements with the Imperial fleet. If it came down to a fight, the Bounty would join a rebel fleet of Ferengi, Breen and Lukari ships and fight their way through the blockade. Both sides geared up for the inevitable confrontation, if the Lots did not surrender Betazed, the Empress would show no mercy to Papela's military. Any ships attempting to leave Betazed would be disabled and their crews interned at a network of penal colonies.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
ISS Enterprise
Showered and clean Heath sat on the floor of her quarters. The similarly clean orb sat on a small table in front of her. Several PADDs lay scattered around her as she stared at the ornate container. Every few minutes she would take an image of part of it, run the image through the one of the PADDs, then transfer the results her personal one.
The language is similar but slightly different to the ancient Bajoran from back home, she thought.. Wonder if that was another side effect of wiping out the Iconians over here? Anyway the translations aren’t matching up…
She hear the door open and close behind her.
“Enjoy your time on Trill Thay?”
“How were you sure it was me?”
“I locked the door. Only you have the override.”
“And if someone had bypassed it?”
“Our security is better than that. You know that.”
Sito walked up behind her.
“Still sitting with your back to the door is dangerous.”
“If I’m not safe on this ship, then where would I be safe?”
Sito knelt down, put her arms around Heath, and rested her head on her shoulder.
“You worry me Lazy. I don’t think you realize how dangerous it is for you over here. If they found out about us, you’d be in even more trouble.”
“What do you mean?”
“With everything you’ve done, you’re becoming popular. Little girls look up to you as a role model. There’s talk of wanting to use you as a poster girl for recruitment.”
Heath stopped her work.
“Me? Why me?”
“Are you kidding? The entire crew loves you, like literally, Paris, Vaylin, R'Shee ... most of the ladies want to be with you, while the men are devoted to your cause. I might be the admiral of this fleet, but you will go a lot further than I ever could, I foresee you being the greatest asset the Terran Empire will ever have.
A Federation captain, labelled a traitor by her own kind, seeks refugee in our universe. This fleet thrives on the diversity of those who man the ships under my banner, if the Empire worked under a similar tactic…”
Sito paused.
“You know ... I've always cursed your universes involvement with our affairs, you're the only thing I can truly say I was wrong about.”
“I'll take that as a compliment. ’The story of the Traitorous Busty Bajoran captain’ sounds like on of R'shee’s Holo programs.”
“And I don’t like it. It puts you in the public eye too much. I want you safe… I don’t want to lose you.”
“You’re not going to. And I’m not poster girl material. I’m just a simple Bajoran girl who right now wishes she paid more attention in history class.”
Sito smiled.
“Having problems?”
“For some reason ancient Bajoran is different here than over there, I’m having trouble with the translation. That and it won’t open.”
“Not opening is a bad thing?”
“All orbs open to whoever approaches them. Whether or not something happens is in the Prophets hands. But this one refuses to.”
“Have you considered the simple solution?”
“You don’t shoot or try to blow open an orb.”
“I meant that you have it backwards.”
“Oh. No this is the front.” Heath ran a finger down the side. “See this line here, that’s a door hinge.”
“I see,” Sito reaching out to touch the other side. “And this would be the other…”
As she touched it the front of the container split open. The doors swung open revealing the glowing hourglass shaped object inside. The slowing rotating object bathe them in its light. In the light they saw images of the temples on Bajor, other planets some known others not.
The outline of a figure appeared before them.
“Children of Bajor, but not of Bajor. Let your joined Pah’s guide your path.”
The figure and light disappeared.
They sat there for a minute trying to process what had happened.
“I… damn wormhole aliens.” Sito complained
“I… I can read this now.” Heath said.
“What? They did something to you?”
“What? No... I mean… maybe… it doesn’t matter.”
“Yes it does!”
“Thay, this is the orb of the Emissary.”
“What does that have to do…
“It can only be found and opened by the Emissary.’
“I repeat, what does…”
“It opened when we both touched it. Thay, that means that we’re the Emissary!”
“The what?”
“The Emissary. The messenger for the Prophets.”
“And I should care why?”
“Because with the Prophets behind you, you can fight Leeta and her Pah Wraiths on a level playing field.”
Sito was quiet for a moment.
“I’ve heard of some of the tricks she’s pulled… Ok, I won’t deny that, that wouldn’t be useful. But doesn’t that make us some religious figure to them?”
“I suppose…”
“I hate this! Why did you insist that we look for that thing? This just makes you an even bigger target!”
“I already have Temporal Investigations after me to erase me. I’m not going to spend the rest of my life hiding.”
“I will lock you in this room and forbid you to leave it if I have to to keep you alive.”
“On this ship I am surrounded by people I trust, I know that’s a foreign concept here. But I do trust them with my life. That includes you. I trust that they will keep me safe.”
“…”
“Well?”
“Your stubbornness is both endearing and annoying.”
“Don’t forget, you’re going to be in the spotlight just as much as I am.”
“I’m used to it. Alright you win. But one attempt on you and I’ll lock you in here and tie you to your bed by your hair.”
“Is that what I have to look forward to being married to you?”
“Yes it is.”
“Alright then.”
The Royal fleet took up position on the outer edge of the system as Romulan and Klingon ships moved around the system entering it's outer edge. The empress now directed her first major strike of the campaign, waves of fighter and runabouts made precision attacks on Betazoid military bases throughout the system before retreating, arriving two minutes after the first wave left, the second wave attacked the military installations in orbit of Betazed as well as ground targets of interest, they then retreated after knocking out power across the planet.
Marie recalled the fighters and runabouts and set up the blockade around the middle core of the system, ground troops secured the outer planets and colonies battering down resistance quickly. The outer colonies soon surrendered and their garrisons taken as POWs, these bases now were used to house fighters and runabouts for strikes deeper in the system. In orbit, the defending fleet saw the planet go dark as back up generators overloaded from damage caused in the earlier strikes. Regent Lot had accounted for a strike on the power grid and brought geothermal plants online to ease the strain on the population. Marie now studied Betazed's defenses closely, a planetary assault was considered but then dismissed due to the chance of unacceptable losses on both sides.
Outside the system, The Bounty in company with a rebel fleet consisting of Ferengi, Lukari, Breen and Cardassian ships prepared to run the blockade. They were carrying power generators, industrial replicators, food, weapons and troops to Betazed. Rather than just punch through, the rebel and privateer fleet decided on a sneakier approach to draw away Imperial ships. Hideki squadrons would draw away Imperial frigates to create a gap, once enough Imperial ships had gone after the Hidekis, the rest of the rebel fleet would rush the gap and run to Betazed at all haste. Legate Madred would lead the rebel fleet on what appeared to be a suicide mission. Getting in would be the "easy" part, breaking out of the blockade would be the hard part.
Dex Smith volunteered to lead the relief column from the Bounty as Madred would bring the heavier Keldon, Galors and Rezreths against the Imperial fleet as a wedge at the head of the column. The relief column consisted of 30 Ferengi Nandis and D'Koras, 20 Chell Gretts and 10 Lukari ships, they would escort the 8 Sarr Theln carriers all the way to Betazed. The carriers would provide close in fighter support for the column. Onboard the Imperial flagship Agincourt, Marie noted the increase in ship traffic and deployed scouts as early warning of any relief attempt or breakout attempt. That night in her quarters, Marie read the reports of the first day as news about a discovery were made. The orb of time had been found and it was on it's way to the Agincourt, it arrived in great secrecy as Solat took delivery 8 hours later.
For the rebel relief fleet, they would need another three days to get the column going as they gathered the fleet together. All knew that Betazed's food and medical stocks would run out in a matter of weeks given the strength of the blockade, Smith decided to take what he had with him. Leading the 68 ship column, Smith worked his way into a gap in the Imperial lines closest to Betazed. The carriers deployed their fighter to draw away Imperial ships as the rest of the fleet just barreled through the gap at all haste. All made it through and began making supply drops to the planet. The Bounty dove into the atmosphere opening ventral cargo doors as it got above Rixx, the cargo was then deployed to the surface by drop modules as the doors closed and the Bounty made it's run back into orbit. The 68 ships now scattered and left the system evading Imperial ships every step of the way.
Day two
Marie was irate at the squadron commander in charge of the section of front that was breached, the gap was swiftly closed. Marie changed strategy, the middle planets and moons apart from Betazed were hit by planetary assault landings as the noose began to tighten around Betazed, the siege lines were in range of the defense fleet as Naynta launched quick strikes on the Imperial fleet to bring them off balance. Marie now deployed her heaviest ships to punch through the defending fleet and gain orbital supremacy, Naynta seeing the danger decided to roll with the punches maintaining an elastic mobile defense to wear down the Imperials. The Rebel fleet made another blockade run resupplying Naynta with phaser relays, food, medical supplies and extra photon torpedoes. The food and medical ships began mass transports of supplies to the defenders on the ground.
Marie was being bogged down in a fight of attrition by Naynta, it was a fight Naynta had no hope of winning as one by one her ships were all disabled and taken out out of the battle. Naynta and Jodi had both escaped down to Betazed as the Imperial fleet now began to blacken the skies. Marie now had victory in her sights as the planet was now completely surrounded, only the fastest blockade runners were allowed to make supply runs, slower ships were too vulnerable given the tightness of the Imperial siege lines. The Shadow teams were now deployed, using a telepathic inhibitor provided to her by Trianna, Shade infiltrated the Regent's palace and now moved to carry out her objectives
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
The admiral leaned over the desk the time trailer sat at. "You wouldn know anything about that would you?"
Marion sighed, "If the events in question are what I think you're referring to occurred at Synthesis then I assure you that I certainly had no involvement in for example altering the Romulans orders to force he Reapers to make mistakes. I certainly would never have elimnated key individuals who were sympathetic to their cause.... no admiral, the only direct involvement you're aware I had was to warn the imperial forces they were about to go off into an ambush.... yes I certainly didn't do everything in my power to safeguard the empire from Star Union."
The Foundry, and my love of Star Trek
A container was rushed to the Empress's quarters under heavy guard, "Is this what I think it is?" asked Marie as she studied the container carefully. "It is majesty, it's the orb of time" answered Solat as a Bajoran crewman checked the ancient Bajoran records confirming it. "This cannot get into the wrong hands" said Marie as she looked up at Solat. "Fleet Admiral Sito was sighted near Trill with another orb" reported Solat, this got Marie concerned. "Sito is not to know I have the orb of time in my possession" she told Solat bluntly.
"Majesty, the Bajoran wormhole aliens could be a problem. Our scientists studying the wormhole may have a solution to permanently close it forever" replied Solat. "How?" asked Marie calmly to which Solat answered "we detonate a quantum singularity device in the mouth of the wormhole, the micro black hole then collapses it forever." "Would it have adverse effects on Bajor in terms of physical damage?" asked Marie. Solat answered "a slight radiation spike but nothing fatal to life." Marie nodded and authorized the mission, a Miranda class ship would transport the device and detonate it. The I.S.S. Tiger arrived at the wormhole mouth 16 hours later and detonated the device as they entered the wormhole. The micro black hole destabilized the wormhole as radiation spikes emanated from the collapse, it was followed by a subspace shock wave wiping out the Denorios belt.
Back on the Agincourt, Marie smiled as the mission reports came in. The wormhole had been destroyed and all was left was a neutrino field. Marie now turned her attention back to Betazed as she ordered around the clock strikes on ground positions occupied by Betazoid military units. Power was also hit again and again with waves of strikes as AAA fire attempted to keep the fighters and runabouts away from the damaged sectors. Any position that revealed itself was silenced by orbital fire in pinpoint strikes. Next hit were roads and bridges as the defender's lines of supply and communication were cut by orbital and air strikes. Marie now demanded that Papela Lot unconditionally surrender her forces and hand herself over to Imperial authorities, Naynta and Jodi were also to be handed over.
Monitoring the situation was the Bounty crew, consulting rebel fleet command, the crew had an idea. They would masquerade as an Imperial ship in order to infiltrate the blockade and then dart into the atmosphere to launch a rescue mission. The plan was crazy but illogical at the same time, the Bounty after getting through the blockade would get as close to the Regent's palace as possible then beam out the entire family in one sweep. They would then escape Betazed's atmosphere jumping to warp after running the blockade. Dex Smith and his crew set off and finding a small gap in the blockade took up position over the planet's magnetic pole. They then dived into the atmosphere towards the palace.
On Betazed, The Lots ignored the surrender order and prepared to fight. Little did they know, they were in the cross hairs of Trianna/Ghost's sniper rifle. Ghost fired her TR-116 dropping a guard with the bullet missing Kestrella's head by a matter of inches. Ghost then changed positions before dropping Papela's bodyguards in a series of accurate shots, the call "SNIPER!!!" went out as guards rushed to where the first shot had originated. Ghost was long gone by this point as she deployed her stealth drones to cause more mayhem. This was part of the plan, with the guards distracted by Ghost's long range fire, Shade took care of Teanna with a quick and merciful strike with her nanopulse as Ghost sniped Papela's commanders using Shade's camera drone to spot for her. With their mission done, the Shadow teams left as Imperial troopships began to land outside major cities.
Meanwhile the Bounty streaked in, Smith using Naynta's DNA as a lock on source beamed the entire family onto the Bounty and made their escape. Blasting their way through the blockade supported by a rebel assault on the Imperial line, Smith trusted Hetal to use her best judgement to get them out of the system. Hetal closed to within 20 metres of the Agincourt using it to shield the Bounty from Imperial fire as she punched the warp drive. The Imperials could not fire for fear of hitting their own ships as the rebel fleet also withdrew from the system. Facing total defeat, Betazed surrendered as Imperial troops disarmed all military units and took them as POWs. Betazed would be under military occupation for the foreseeable future. The Lots however were still free and they took leadership of the rebellion using the Bounty as their command ship.
Papela now conscripted Smith and his crew to her cause, she would create a liberation fleet to retake Betazed. Smith did however tell Papela that everyone pulls their weight on his ship, the Lots were no different. At crew dinner, the Lots schemed at how to liberate their home as the Bounty crew had a drinking contest. Naynta and Jodi were both invited to take part in the drinking contest, it went on into the night before Mereu went hypospray happy sobering up the crew, from now on the Bounty and her crew and passengers would have to avoid any Imperial trouble as they made a run away from the Betazed sector.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
On the command deck of the Bounty, Dex Smith was plotting a course to Regula when Papela walked up to the table looking at the Bounty's course. "Captain Smith, your course will add six weeks to our journey" noted Papela to Smith. "First things first, there are no ranks on this ship, my crew call me Dex. We're taking the long route to throw off any Imperials attempting to track us, going in a straight line to Regula will reveal our base to the Imperials hence why we're taking the long route" replied Smith. "We need allies" pointed out Papela and Smith agreed.
In medical, Mereu was working with Naynta and Jodi looking at ways of making their medical supplies last, "we're down to two weeks of medical supplies" noted to Jodi to Mereu. "I'll bring it up with Dex" replied Mereu. "I'll do it" answered Naynta and she left for the command deck. Naynta told Smith the supply issues and Smith had Wilkinson check for any transports in the vicinity, they found an Imperial supply convoy escorted by one frigate. The Bounty set course and ambushed the convoy destroying the frigate and then looted the transports of their fuel, medical and food supplies before destroying them. The Bounty left at maximum warp leaving false warp trails having fully restocked their supplies.
Smith now had to work out a job for Kestrella, he found an ideal job for her having found out about her organization skills. Kestrella became quarter mistress on the supplies, nothing would be issued out without her permission. Papela became the public face of the rebellion, Smith became her second in command. After six weeks, the Bounty arrived at Regula and entered the dock inside the planetoid. The rest of the rebel fleet arrived five days later joined by Orion Syndicate and Gorn ships, the rebel fleet was now 100 ships strong. Looking at her forces, Papela noted 100 ships was not enough to face the Imperial military. "Dex, I need you to make a secure call for me" asked Papela to Smith, Smith was a bit surprised at the request and asked "where to and whom?" "The Enterprise, contact Fleet Admiral Sito and get her to bring the Enterprise here" answered Papela.
"Consider it done, I'll have to tell them to take an indirect route here to avoid suspicion and to disable her tracking device" replied Smith. Papela nodded and gave the go ahead. The message was sent out, now the rebels waited on Sito's response, in the meantime Smith began looking for more allies among the empire's subject races. The Ask'Kaar were quietly asked to aid them and they threw their support behind the rebellion as their fleets moved to Regula arriving a month later having evaded Imperial patrols. On Terra, the empress put Betazed under martial law. Now she made an example of her mother and the Betazoid commanders. Teanna's body was hung from gallows as were the Lot's betazoid commanders in the centre of Rixx, the surviving Betazoid commanders were then executed and their enlisted crews and troops sent to the dilithium mines as slave labor. In a press statement, the Lots were declared traitoris excommunicatus and Betazed a closed military zone.
At Regula, Wilkinson picked up an Imperial transmission and made Papela aware of it's contents. Papela read the transmission and realized what it meant, it said "scorched earth" and that meant one thing, the empress would turn any Imperial world's defense grid against it if it dared to defy her. The Imperial secret police were also out in force detaining and then executing anyone suspected of dissent as well as their entire families to extinguish their bloodlines. The empress was now ruled through fear and intimidation as the entire Imperial senate was put to death and all political opposition was declared sedition. On Bajor, Terran troops under orders from the empress blew up all temples and massacred the priests to break the Bajoran people's will to oppose the empress's will. It had the opposite effect as the Bajorans began attacking Imperial troops in the streets as band of guerrillas began to form in the provinces.
The Imperial response was rapid, after evacuating all Imperial troops and admin staff, the empress turned the defense grid on Bajor and remotely fired. Hathon was obliterated in the first volley as the second volley reduced Bajor's farmland to ashes on a planetary scale. For their defiance the Bajorans would be denied food and shelter as all water sources were contaminated with a mutagenic virus. The Bajoran survivors were then expelled from their home world leaving behind the ruins of the Bajoran civilization. Bajorans who could fight made their way to Regula avoiding Imperial ships and joined the rebellion to avenge their lost home world. The rest of the empire fearful of retaliations all decided not to resist the empress given the examples made of Betazed and Bajor. If the empress was to be defeated, each system would have to be liberated and secured from Imperial reprisals.
In a war council at Regula, it was agreed. Civilians were not to be punished for the empress' actions, any Imperial commander and troops who chose to defect were to be given a chance to swear loyalty to Papela. The rebel commanders then all agreed on something else, they declared Papela empress and they would fight and die if necessary for her. Papela was now appointed by consensus as commander in chief of the rebellion. In Terran orbit, Trianna told Shade about the empress' growing insanity and how she planned to reduce the empire to ash showing Shade the transmissions from the palace.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Trianna along with her guard saw how her sister had treated their mother, as she struggled to contain her anger she ordered "cut them down, NOW!!!" to the Imperial troops in square. Her instructions were obeyed and making sure Betazoid death rituals were followed, she had her mother cremated on a funeral pyre along with the Betazoid commanders. "She's gone too far" thought Trianna angry and bitter at her sister's actions. Already the empress was being called kinslayer by her enemies.
Trianna now had a tough choice, stand by her sister or defect to the rebellion. Her compassion resurfaced as she helped smuggle her sister's enemies off world. Commandeering a ship, she linked up with the Bajoran refugees heading to Regula after faking her own death to keep the shadows off her. Arriving at Regula, she was arrested and brought before Papela. At first Naynta tried to attack her but she gave Naynta a telepathic shock before bluntly pointing out she could break into the Imperial defense grid network. To prove her point, she sliced her hand open and swore loyalty until death to Papela. Papela having scanned her accepted her oath but on one condition, she would be monitored at all times and always supervised.
To further distance herself from her sister, she changed her last name to Romanov and declared her sister a kinslayer. Papela insisted on interrogating Trianna herself with Naynta and Jodi applying physical and mental pain on Trianna. Trianna having been trained in withstanding interrogation stayed strong and refused to rescind her statement. The interrogation lasted for hours but Trianna did not break. Papela satisfied ended the interrogation and told her daughter to leave. Papela then removed Trianna's restraints. Naynta and Jodi were both satisfied that they got payback on Trianna for breaking Naynta's arms on the Enterprise. "Miss Romanov, welcome to the resistance BUT remember this, any disloyalty from you and I will have you killed" said Papela bluntly. "Regent, my sister has destroyed my family and it's honor. I intend to regain the family's honor by aiding you in your war, my sister has to be stopped to save billions. She has gone insane" replied Trianna bluntly.
"Can you convince the Imperial fleet to change sides?" asked Papela to which Trianna answered "my sister has put commissars onboard to stop dissent, if the commissars get the slightest scent of disloyalty, they will execute the senior staffs of those ships. No one will oppose my sister because if they do, she'll kill their entire family to extinguish their bloodlines. Betazed and Bajor are just the beginning. Any world could be next if my sister decides to make more examples, get me to a computer. I can at least slow her down to a point." Papela only sensed brutal honesty from Trianna and put her in front of a computer under supervision. Throughout the night, Trianna broke into the Imperial command and control networks shutting down defense grids of the nearby systems. After confirming the defense grid shutdowns, a rebel liberation fleet moved in liberating the Mutara sector systems and securing them without resistance from the small backwater garrisons.
The Imperial fleet defending Mutara sector overthrew the commissars and had them killed before they defected joining the rebellion. More Imperial commanders followed suit and defected to Papela's banner, The rebel fleet now swelled to 300 ships as they provided industrial replicators, power generators and food replicators to ease the supply issues. The rebellion was gaining momentum as the Romulan Aristocracy also declared for Papela bringing their military to protect Mutara sector, the Klingons stayed loyal to the empress. To make things worse for the empress, Andoria, Sauria and Vulcan seceded from the empire until a time when the empress was removed from office. In a rage she ordered Solat to wipe Vulcan out but Solat took her most loyal ships and defected to Papela's cause. The empress was losing her allies and she began planning revenge on Vulcan but under the cover of a natural disaster, the Vulcans abandoned their world and their ships and troops joined Papela. Andoria also sent a fleet of Kumaris to Papela.
Papela was now ready to begin her offensive as Trianna shut down defense grids in Papela's advance path and began jamming Imperial communications.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
I.S.S. Athena (Bajor Sector)
The screams and pleadings for mercy echoed the corridors of the Athena. Admiral Lot and her advisor from the Ask'kaar Sovereignty, Commander Pelagia, were conducting a series of experiments on Federation prisoners, each more painful than the one before it.
"Your agony booths are quite capable of administering pain to these spotted fools," Pelagia said, watching the monitors of various federation officers being tortured.
"The booths are quite useful, but they spoil the subject," Naynta responded, letting out a grin.
Pelagia glanced at a PADD on the desk in front of her. "Look on the bright side, so long as Sito's Federation pet remains unaware of this, you'll be enjoying their screams for a long, long time."
Naynta grinned at the thought of the pain she had and would inflict onto each of these officers. "The Federation cost me my old ship, they cost me my rank, and they nearly cost me my life."
For her actions during the 'Battle of Antares' Admiral Lot launched a surprise attack on the Federation, while victory was inevitable to be hers, her moment was stolen by Admiral Sito, whom for reasons unknown to Naynta, saved the lives of the crew of the U.S.S. Los Lobos.
Furious with Naynta's actions, Sito had her stripped of her rank and thrown into one of the Enterprise's cells for over a month. During which time she would suffer greatly at the hands of both her Terran and Federation oppressors, Admiral Sito had allowed for the crew of the Los Lobos to perform whatever barbaric act they desired to inflict onto her, so long as she survived.
However months later, Lot was approached by Sito in private, in which her rank and old crew were returned to her. Promoted back to the rank of Admiral, Naynta Lot and the crew of the I.S.S. Athena continue their journey to seek out new life and new civilizations, to expand the influence of the Terran Empire!
Long Live the Empire!
ISS Enterprise bridge
Sito sat on the bridge with her arms crossed tapping her foot.
"What's keeping her?"
"Buracracy most likely," Heath answered. "The diplomatic types are probably going crazy about what they should do."
"I know. How you got anything done over there is beyond me."
"There comes a point when you have to..."
"Ma'am," Callie interrupted. "I've got multiple contacts coming through rift."
"Yeah about now is when I'd lose it with them." Heath concluded.
Sito smiled.
"Hail them."
A face indentical to the one seated next to her appeared.
"You took your time."
"They were arguing over whether a treaty signed with someone who didn't exist anymore was still valid. I told them I was going to go save innocent lives and they could yell at me later. With that, the 113th is here to help. What's the situation?"
"Simply put," Sito explained. "The opposition forces or closing in on Terra. But the crazy brat would rather see everything burn than surrender."
"Here's the tactical," Heath said.
The screen split and the system and ship positions appeared. "Any ideas?"
"Yes," Admiral Heath replied. "We'll slipstream in here, behind Terra. Take out the orbital defenses before they know we're there."
"You came up with that awfully fast," Sito commented.
"Let's just say that bombing them back into a pre-warp state has been on the table for quite some time."
"You see," Sito said smiling at her Heath. "Its not my influence, under all that Starfleet dogma you're naturally ruthless."
"Anyway, you have all your ships here?"
"All six hundred are here. Strangest thing, all their political officers came down with Bourgia plant poisoning. That Tamiko of yours. She's so useful."
"That she is. We'll form up around you and create a slipstream bubble to transport you with us."
"And while you deal with the orbital frames we'll attack their fleet from behind," Sito concluded. "I like this plan. We should all celebrate in my quarters afterwards."
"Speaking of afterwards," Admiral Heath added. "I have a pain stick that has a date with parts of your anatomy Admiral over your little 'gift'."
"What? You don't like them?" Sito said playfully. "I'm sure your crew does."
"We'll continue this later. Now all ships form up and prepare. We jump when the battle starts."
The liberation fleet closed in on Terra, during their advance more systems had joined them as more Imperial fleets defected and joined them. Papela, leading the multi- species fleet gave the go ahead. Meanwhile Dex Smith led a a special ops to Terra itself, they would infiltrate the palace and take down the empress one way or another. Leading the palace attack was Naynta and Jodi with a squad of commandos, Smith would get them in.
The Bounty using a cloaking device ran the defense fleet and dived into the atmosphere and landed, it's crew joined the attack and fought their way into the place. In orbit the liberation fleet opened the assault on the Terra defense perimeter and the armada opened fire. On the Breen dreadnought Regent One, the Breen ops officer picked up 600 new signatures and they were closing in from the rear of the loyalist lines. "Is the Enterprise?" asked Papela and the Breen ops officer reported "it is." Papela sent a secure hail to the Enterprise.
Papela explained the situation, "This battle is to buy time for a ground assault on the palace, we may have a way of closing down the orbital defenses, something the empress won't expect." "How, the empress won't surrender" replied Heath, "Me, I can bring them down remotely, we bring the empress down and then make sure Papela is named empress " said Trianna. The liberation fleets now combined their forces and attacked. At the palace, Smith and his ground assault were clearing each room as the defenders held the ground. The Empress however had turned the defense grid on Terra itself and aimed at every major city, two platforms fired wiping out New York and London. In the 113th, Trianna and the computer warfare team began shutting down platforms as mirror Trianna on the Regent One fought her way through walls of encryption and managed to to take control of the active platforms and turn it on her sister's forces.
"Push through and link up with Sito" ordered Papela to the fleet. The liberation fleet pushed on and despite heavy losses, they were pushing back the loyalists and some loyalist commander began to surrender, seeing her fleet switch sides the empress downloaded all historical data and took her most advanced ships and made for the Sol star. She then executed a slingshot into the past to the mid 24th century, her destination, Bajor. Smith having found the empress had escaped, sent a signal to Sito and the rest of the liberation fleet. "Terra surrenders, I repeat Terra surrenders." Trianna using her authority as princess then ordered all loyalist ships to stand down. Those who stood down were to be spared, those who refused to surrender were shot down without mercy.
At the palace, Smith found the computers and reported all historical data downloaded of the computer. He did however find with Trianna's assistance what the empress has planned. She had gone to Bajor, somewhere in the 2370s to hand over the data to the Klingon/Cardassian alliance. It raised an ugly question, would the empress attempt to stop the empire's rebirth? , It also put the Sito and Lot families at risk. The empress might attempt to wipe out the Lot and Sito bloodlines in the past to make sure Sito Thay and Papela Lot were removed from the timeline. "Would she do it?" asked Papela to Trianna and Trianna answered "she would, your family is in grave danger as is Sito's and she won't stop until they are all dead." "We need to stop her before she carries out her plan" noted Papela, "As much as it pains me, my sister must die. Majesty, I here step down from my title of princess" replied Trianna with a heavy heart.
At the Imperial palace, Papela was crowned by the victorious allies with a "all hail the empress, long may she reign" and and a cheer from the crowd.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Mirror Trianna came aboard with her kit only to be greeted by Admiral Heath and her counterpart. "Admiral, Lt" said Mirror Trianna as she kept a close eye on her equipment. "Miss Bray, nice move turning the defense grid on your sister's forces" said Heath smiling. "Likewise, your team did a superb job on your end" replied Mirror Trianna with a smirk, "Trianna, I see you've grown your hair long" said Mirror Trianna to her counterpart. "At least people can tell the difference between us" replied Prime Trianna as she showed Mirror Trianna to her quarters.
"I hope you don't mind sharing" said Prime Trianna to her counterpart. "Not at all, how is my baby sister doing?" answered Mirror Trianna looking at the Valdez family photo smiling. "She's doing great, dad told me yesterday she was trying to put words together" replied Prime Trianna smiling. "Good to know my baby sister is doing well" answered Mirror Trianna with a slight smile. "Come on, your equipment will be safe here" said Prime Trianna as Mirror Trianna stowed her equipment in a locked wardrobe. Both Triannas went to the mess hall and worked out a plan between them to present to Admiral Heath as Naynta and Tamiko joined them. "Naynta, Tamiko" said Mirror Trianna which was answered by "Trianna, feels weird having two Triannas here" from Naynta.
"Naynta, take this DNA sample and give it to your commanding officer. We can track my sister's movements more efficiently" said Mirror Trianna handing Naynta a knife with her blood on it. The knife was put into a sealed container and sent straight to Heath and Naynta put four glasses on the table with Tamiko adding two bottles of Saki and whiskey onto the table. "Our Tri can hold her drink, can you?" asked Tamiko sliding the glass over to Mirror Trianna, "Tri?" asked Mirror Trianna taking a drink. "Don't ask, Mr Frost gave me that nickname, it's stuck ever since" answered Prime Trianna after drinking her her glass. The drinking contest continued even as Heath walked into the mess hall and just quietly observed as two bottles became four bottles then six bottles and the drinking contest continued with Naynta and Tamiko passed out as both Triannas kept pace with each other before they both passed out at the same time.
In sickbay, Naynta, Tamkio and both Triannas were sobered up with a hypospray jab each. Both Triannas hit on an idea, "my dad told me all warfare is based on deception" said Prime Trianna as Mirror Trianna suggested that she disguise herself as Bajoran and infiltrate Alliance held Hathon. "Let's bring this up with the admiral, it's the Los Lobos level of crazy" replied Prime Trianna and both Triannas went to see Heath and presented their plan. "I disguise myself as a Bajoran then infiltrate Hathon, when my sister appears, my counterpart causes a distraction by bringing down her computer network as a small team flushes the kinslayer out. I then takes the shot and we get out of dodge as quickly as possible leaving no trace we were there" said Mirror Trianna. "The problem is we have to engage her five ships to buy time for my counterpart to achieve her mission" added Prime Trianna. "Sito was kind enough to provide a DNA sample which we put into a false beacon, we then beam it into Hathon as bait" added Mirror Trianna.
"We could use that DNA to lock onto Sito's family to transport them up to the Los Lobos before we beam the bait down, yeah I know, temporal investigations won't like it but it's the best way to keep them safe" added Prime Trianna. "Captain Smith has taken his ship to Betazed to secure the Lot family via a slingshot around Sol's star" added Mirror Trianna. Heath listened carefully and agreed though she voiced her disapproval of assassination. "I'll load up a sedative round instead, knock my sister out and extract her to be handed over to Empress Lot" suggested Mirror Trianna. Heath approved Mirror Trianna's compromise and gave the plan the go ahead.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Papela sat in her quarters on board her flagship enjoying her cup of tea.
A good tea calms the mind, she thought. And after all this I need one.
"Excuse me ma'am," came through the door.
"So many interrupted cups in my life."
"Ma'am?"
"Nothing. Is it something needs my immediate attention?"
"Admiral Sito wishes to speak with you."
Papela smiled.
"By all means, send her in right away."
She finished her cup and set it down as Sito came in.
"My Empress."
"What have I told you about that? It's mother, and nothing else. Now what do you want little one?"
"I wanted to talk to you about security arrangements in case they fail to stop..."
"You already have that well in hand. What is the real reason your here?"
"How do you do that?"
"I'm your mother. Now what is it?"
"Apparently I'm now some sort of messenger for those wormhole aliens near Bajor."
"Really?"
"Yes, well Lazy and I both are. And there's another one of those orbs down there on Terra."
"And how do you know that?"
"Those aliens showed us where they are and... we feel then when we get close to them."
"I see. And you want to return it to those poor displaced people to give them some hope? Very compassionate of you little one."
"Lazy's a bad influence on me. If only she weren't so damn adorable... oh... Speaking of Bajor... Lazy did have a request."
"And that is?"
"She wants to use that time weapon ship they built to restore Bajor and all the other damaged world's."
"Could it undo the damage done to Betazed?"
"Yes. It hasn't been that long. It could be done without any damage to the time line."
Papela was quiet for a moment.
"Do you trust her?"
"Yes."
"You didn't hesitate to answer. That was more telling than the answer itself. Permission for both is granted. Tell her that I'm entrusting her with the safety of the populace."
"Oh she'll love that," Sito laughed.
"I imagine so. Now go take care of ensuring that we'll continue to exist. And when you see Mr. Smith tell him that he and his crew are now in charge of planetary security across the Empire. They found so many holes in the security grids, and I want them to find and close them."
"As you wish," Sito said as she left.
The plan was put into action, making a quick run, Dex Smith transported the Lot family and kept them in Sickbay. "Mereu, make sure you wipe their memories before we return them to their homes asleep" asked Smith. "Consider it done Dex" replied Mereu. The Lots were safe at least. At Bajor, the Los Lobos beamed the Sito family aboard and into Naynta's care. "I'll wipe their memories just before we return them" said Naynta to Heath. "Good, time to set a trap" replied Heath.
The beacon was beamed down with a Bajoran and Betazoid MACO team who took up ambush positions. Trianna meanwhile was beamed to a good vantage point and now she waited for the target to arrive. Marie took the bait as the MACOs pinned her down with accurate suppression fire. Trianna loaded a sedative round and took aim, she fired and hit Marie in the arm, the sedative was fast acting and it knocked Marie out. Trianna and the MACOs now with their prize beamed up as the Sito's were beamed into their home with no memory of what had happened.
Trianna now erased the 25th Century Imperial ships' computers remotely and set them to self destruct on a 10 second timer. The five ships were torn apart by warp core breaches. Alliance computers were also broken into and erased. At Betazed, the Lots were returned with no memory of their time on the Bounty as Both Los Lobos and Bounty linked up and Los Lobos give Bounty a lift back through the rift. So far so good, they were in and out undetected, they arrived at Terra five minutes after they left and transferred Marie into Imperial custody. Having achieved their objectives, both Triannas parted ways with Prime Trianna giving Mirror Trianna a photo of her baby sister as a parting gift.
The 113th were given a honor guard all the way out of Imperial space and to the rift. On the Empress's flagship, Marie was brought to under restraint and facing Naynta and Jodi, Papela would decide her fate. On the Bounty, Smith was dismayed at his "promotion" but he accepted his orders. Working with Imperial agents, he began closing gaps in security starting at Terra before setting off to make sure other planets were watertight security wise.
For Trianna however, she was heavy hearted, she had no family left.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Captain Heath had come aboard the Bounty to brief Dex Smith on his new job, "Mr. Smith, since you now work for the empress, don't abuse the privilege or I'll shove a pain stick up your backside" said Heath. "I've had worse" joked Smith but Heath replied "sideways" and Smith answered "yes ma'am." Hetal burst out laughing and said, "she's got you there Dex." "Funny" answered Smith with a smile. On Terra, Papela knocked on the door to Trianna's room and Trianna opened the door. "So you're a shadow Miss Bray" said Papela seeing the rifle on the wall. "I deal with the empire's enemies by any means possible" answered Trianna as she worked on a drone.
"Anyone can shoot to kill, how well can you shoot to disable? Shooting the fork out of someone's hand is infinitely more effective as persuasion than a dead body" advised Papela and Trianna listened carefully before answering "I've been working on a new round, a sedative round. It incapacitates but is non lethal. I'll work on my skills in the gardens for three hours each day to keep in practice." "Good, I may observe every so often. Trianna, get changed into your best dinner wear and be at the hall in 15 minutes" replied Papela and she left the room. Trianna got changed and left for the great hall, at dinner Naynta, Jodi and Kestrella were told to treat Trianna as a sister from now on.
"Naynta, consider us even for the Enterprise" said Trianna as she called a peace settlement with Naynta and Jodi. "Considering we have to live under the same roof, fair enough" answered Naynta as Jodi and Kestrella agreed. "Good, now that's settled, Trianna, you will only fire to disable not to kill" said Papela and Trianna nodded and agreed. "What is to be done with my sister?" asked Trianna to which Papela answered "she'll face trial." "Make sure it's public, let the empire know her for the kin-slayer she is" replied Trianna after disowning her sister. "You hate her that much?" asked Naynta and Trianna answered "she left my mother to hang, I won't forgive her. I gave mother and your commanders a funeral pyre according to Betazoid customs, I feel ashamed of my actions. Kestrella, I'm sorry for scaring you with that bullet"
"Accepted, fresh start?" replied Kestrella. "Agreed" answered Trianna shaking Kestrella's hand. "Naynta, Jodi. Fresh start?" asked Trianna and both Naynta and Jodi accepted the offer with a "welcome to the family" from Naynta. On the Bounty, Smith had a joke with his crew over dinner. "So we work for the empress, this'll be fun" said Pitaskli to which Sidis added "no more bank heists then." "Yep, let's not get on the empress' bad side" replied Smith. "We can still find new ways of having fun" added Hetal. "Breaking into computers to improve cyber security will be interesting" added Leclerc, "we can still rig gambling devices" added T'Panme and Wilkinson laughed. "Just no weapons smuggling" added Mereu.
"Ladies, gentlemen, we have a job. A legitimate job that pays well which suits our talents" said Smith. "At least this is better than prison" replied Hetal. "Agreed, though the pain stick comment from Heath was funny" added Pitaskli. "Thanks, I didn't know you all cared" joked Smith as they all had a chuckle. "Hetal, did you copy Kestrella's recipes?" asked Smith. "I may have done, don't worry, I asked her permission first" answered Hetal. "Look what we found" said Leclerc activating a Admiral Leeta hologram.
"Why is the hologram walking into bulkheads?" asked Smith. "We just made it stupid and it always suffers simulated pain" answered Leclerc with a smile. "Funny, are the French always this funny?" asked Smith sarcastically, "yes and I though you English were crazy" joked Leclerc with a smirk. "Let's see if you can handle your drink and not wine either" replied Smith breaking out some tequila. The shots were lined up on the table for everyone who wanted to take part, by the end of the night Mereu noted nothing but passed out bodies and jabbed them with hyposprays. "Go get some sleep all of you, that's an order, Dex your quarters or mine?" said Mereu.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
The time ship hung in orbit over the devastated planet.
"Does this ship even have a name?" Heath asked from the captain's chair.
"The just referred to it as 'the weapon' ma'am," the helmsman responded.
"Typical. We'll think of one later. Now is everything ready?"
"We just need the final parameters," the chief engineer asked.
"We're reverting the entire biosphere bringing back all life forms."
"I see. We seem to have an audience."
"Ah good. The refugee fleet has arrived in time to see the magic."
"It's not magic ma'am. It's a temporal incursion."
"You know Vulcans are the same in both universes."
"I find that comforting."
"Are we ready?"
"The temporal core is charged. We can fire at your command."
"Well then, let's give them back their home. Fire."
The ship's massive cannon discharged and the beam struck the planet. Countless eyes watched as the mottled planet slowly reverted back to its normal. The beam turned off.
"Incursion complete. The biosphere has been restored. I am reading multiple life forms across all species. Contratulations, you have restored Bajor."
"Good. Now rotate 50° starboard.
"Ma'am?"
"Do it."
"Yes ma'am."
The huge ship rotated and pointed itself at... nothing.
"Now set beam to wide angle and Target the neutrino cloud out there. Set for reversal."
"I don't understand, but it's ready."
"Just watch. Fire."
The beam spread out and enveloped the area. Nothing happened for a few seconds, then there was an explosion of light as the wormhole reappeared.
"What is..."
"Cease fire."
The swirling lights in front of them bathe them in it's glow. The inert cases at Heath's feet began to glow in response. They swung open as their own light came bursting out.
" And now we are done. Set course for Betazed."
" Yes ma'am."
Trianna was in the palace gardens on the practice range honing her skills as she instructed a servant to set up life size targets of ballistic gel with accurate internal position of organs and blood vessels of different species at varying ranges. After signalling the servant to withdraw to a safe location, she put a round in the simulated Terran target's arm at 500m. "Looks messy" said Naynta as she examined the target dummy afterwards. "Fatal or none fatal?" asked Trianna as she prepared another round.
"From medical experience, not fatal but the arm is lost for good. Why use such a an old fashioned concept of a rifle and bullet?" answered Naynta with a question, impressed at the destruction the bullet caused. "Personal shields cannot stop it, they've been designed to stop particle weapons, not bullets or any other kinetic type" answered Trianna as she put another round into another target at 700m. "He's had a bad day" joked Naynta as she looked at the wound caused and patted the dummy on the head. "You're going to have to cut short your practice, mother wishes to see us" said Naynta and Trianna packed her rifle up and moved it back to her room. Afterwards in Papela's office, Papela had all five of her girls in to discuss the Klingon problem.
"They won't surrender" said Sito to which Jodi answered "they only respect violence." "They respect strength with honor, surrender is not even a word to them" added Kestrella, "we could remove their leadership, cut off the head and the rest of the snake will die" suggested Trianna. "Not very honorable" added Kestrella to which Trianna answered "it's better than unnecessary losses in the long run." "I'm in agreement with Trianna on this, if we face them in battle, our losses will be great" pointed out Naynta. "Our ships have energy dissipation weapons, we disable their ships in battle then force a settlement that is honorable to both parties" suggested Kestrella. Papela listened to the arguments carefully as Sito, Naynta, Jodi and Trianna all realized Kestrella had a valid point. "What if they don't come to the bargaining table?" asked Jodi to which Trianna answered "destroy their ships and military facilities to weaken them then set phasers to stun and coat the planet in phaser fire. Once the population is stunned, send in the ground troops to secure all cities and place Qon'oS under military occupation. We allow the Klingons to keep their culture on the condition they fight only for us." "Works for me" replied Sito. Papela approved Kestrella's idea and dispatched Sito to deal with the problem. "As you wish, mother" said Sito and she beamed up to the Enterprise.
"Concerning my predecessor, she'll be executed then we'll send her body to a race called the Kobali" said Papela. "The body snatchers" pointed out Jodi. "My sister's personality will be erased as her body is reborn, a living death. She'll hate it" added Trianna. "That she will, who will carry out sentence?" asked Papela, Trianna raised her hand and said "I'll do it." "Make it mercifully quick" ordered Papela. Marie was brought out, tied to a post and but refused the blindfold, "any last words?" asked Papela to which Marie said "I sent the Dominion all the information they needed on the empire, I hope they wipe you all out" and she spat at Papela. Trianna fired one round straight at the heart and Naynta confirmed the sentence was carried out. "Put the body in stasis, send word to Captain Heath, she's got a delivery to make to the Kobali" ordered Papela and the call was sent out. "Well done little one, you did what was best for the empire" said Papela afterwards as Trianna's hands began to shake. "Permission to join Sito on the Enterprise?" asked Trianna and Papela declined permission with "I need that eagle eye of yours here on Terra, take the rest of the day off. Find something calming to do."
Trianna went back to her room and put the rifle away under lock and key. She then picked up her electric guitar and using Slipknot as backing tracks, removed the guitar from the music and played her guitar. Kestrella knocked on the door and was let in only to be hit with a wall of sound, "so much anger in this music" she noted afterwards as she said "computer, end playback." Kestrella had come to talk with Trianna and both shared stories of growing up for the next few hours. Kestrella noticed the photo of Trianna's baby sister on the desk and Trianna pointed out that her baby sister was being raised by the other Trianna as part of the Valdez family. Kestrella smiled knowing that an innocent was being kept safe.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Trianna was at her practice range with a couple of rifles when Kestrella asked what she was doing. "Practicing, you want to join me?" answered Trianna as she picked up her TR-116. "Mother's watching" said Kestrella as Trianna passed her another TR-116 rifle, "I'm used to particle weapons" said Kestrella as Trianna showed her the basics. "It's not all that different, you just have to take wind and humidity into account, those can affect a bullet's path" said Trianna as she helped Kestrella get used to handling the weapon.
Instructing a servant to set up targets at varying distances, Trianna let Kestella take aim as the servant cleared off to a safe distance. "Never aim for the head, it's a small target, aim center mass and just above, gravity will take care of the rest" advised Trianna. Kestrella took the safety off and fired taking a jolt from the recoil, "not bad, a liver shot. But it won't incapacitate either, the target can still operate their weapon. What you need is a clean shot that stops them being able to fire back, try again" instructed Trianna. Trianna showed Kestrella how to reload and passed the rifle back to her, Kestrella fired again and hit the shoulder on another dummy. "Non-lethal and renders that arm useless, you're getting there. Keep it up" said Trianna encouraging Kestrella.
Papela asked "you two having fun?" to which Trianna answered "just some sisterly bonding." "Trianna's letting me loose on her rifle" added Kestrella. "How's Kestrella doing?" asked Papela and Trianna answered "getting there, so far I've got her hitting targets at 100m, with more practice I may graduate her to 300m." "Good, both of you pack the rifles up and take a break. It's been 4 hours" instructed Papela. Trianna and Kestrella packed the rifles away and both decided to be creative, using a computer modelling programme they began designing a memorial to those who died at Marie's hand and to those who gave their lives liberating the empire.
"Let's also do a memorial for Betazed, Trianna, how about having a statue of your mother in the centre of Rixx?" suggested Kestrella to which Trianna answered "she was from Medara, your mother's commanders as a memorial statue in Rixx and my mother's statue as a memorial in Medara." Kestrella agreed and both got to work starting the artwork to present to Papela. "One for Bajor as well" suggested Kestrella and Trianna agreed. They got to work, each bouncing ideas off the other.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius