The Birds-of-Prey danced through the Federation lines, but the Andorians and smaller Starfleet ships were waiting to engage them. In the chaos Starfleet held its nerve and refused to break, and so the Klingon cruiser wings held back from their charge to wait for their moment to pounce with all their strength. But Starfleet held, and the Birds-of-Prey were forced to engage their own pursuers or be destroyed.
Without the disarray he needed, victory began to slip from Karhammur's grasp. The Chancellor saw this! It was the moment of decision, and he resolved to change it in his usual decisive fashion. If two battlefields would not suffice to break the defenders, a third was what he needed to open holes in the Federation line. The only part of his forces that remained free was a small detachment tasked with guarding the Chancellor himself, and at its head he charged towards Andoria's cities.
That day it rained fire over the icy towers of Andoria. The Imperial Guard's heavy cruisers broke formation to intervene, and into the gap leapt all the panoply of arms that the warriors of the Empire possessed. Karhammur was undeniably a leader with great skill at arms - it is unfortunate that the thirst for victory was greater than his sense of honour. Triumph is a fine vintage that washes away the taste of many sins, but defeat is bitter as ash. To be defeated despite an underhanded tactic has been the shame of many warriors. bIlujlaHbe'chugh bIHegh. If you cannot die victorious, die with honour.
Bah, but it was a different time. The Andorians had their vengeance and their satisfaction. Karhammur feasts in Sto'vo'kor, but perhaps closer to the fires than others, eh?
An Interview with Martok
-A History of the Chancellors, 2401
UFS Joyeuse
Battle of Andoria, T+12 Minutes
The bridge of the Joyuese was a picture of professionalism, a calm crew exchanging reports and monitoring their stations. In the background the high-pitched whine of the phaser banks was a constant accompaniment to their work. Lieutenant Hadley at operations was splitting his attention between the status board and the targeting sensors, anticipating which of the swirling Birds-of-Prey would next enter the Excalibur-class starship's forward arcs.
That was the disadvantage of these high-speed tactics, Commander Robert April mused, that the necessity of evading pursuit from the frigates and light cruisers in the Federation line inevitably meant their momentum occasionally carried them into the line-of-sight of the heavy cruisers. Admittedly the Joyuese's aft phaser bank was still doing most of the work, and he was starting to get a little bit tetchy about the readings from the aft emitters. "Captain," he reported. "There is an increasing beam dispersion in the aft banks. I recommend a thirty-second coolant cycle to bring the temperatures down." The ship rocked gently, a Bird-of-Prey's dual disruptors raking across the starboard bubble.
"Shields at 73%," Lieutenant Chin-Riley observed. "No damage."
Captain Cornwell nodded. "Aft phasers, cease fire. Mr Hadley, keep an eye out. Any update on the cruisers."
"Aye Captain, aft phasers ceasing fire." Hadley checked his scopes. "The light cruisers are engaged at the center of the line. D7s still hanging back. Wait - we have a bogey coming up our port. Bird-of-Prey, they're going to overshoot."
"Ready tubes one and two, standby forward phasers."
The Bird-of-Prey swooped past the ship on the right, it's path curving across the bow of the Joyuese. The pair of photons launched almost simultaneously, a pair of cool-blue sapphires slamming into the smaller ship. The first splashed against the dorsal shields, but the second bled through the bubble with the effect of a hammer, the smaller ship's left wing jerking sharply down. Almost wobbling on its axis, the Bird-of-Prey flipped over to face the Joyeuse in a move that saw a scintillating blue phaser beam sweeping through empty space.
Captain Cornwell stood from her chair and approached the front consoles. "Mr. Hadley?"
"Sorry, Captain," the lieutenant replied. "Compensating."
The Klingon made for an overhead pass with its disruptors, accelerating to try and leave the Excalibur's firing envelope. But a second phaser beam struck true, stabbing into the belly of the ship before it could escape. The core of the ship went up in an explosion, but the bulbous nose and neck went flying instead of disintegrating. Alarms suddenly blared across the bridge as it careened towards the ship.
"Brace!" Cornwell shouted, and April grabbed onto the back of the command chair. The bulk of the debris slammed into the Joyuese's forward shields, the graviton field overloading almost immediately but slowing the kilotons of mass from over a thousand meters a second to 'only' four hundred. Then with an enormous, screeching bang it impacted the forward saucer at a downward angle.
As the debris crashed into the upper saucer it hammered in the outer hull and tore gashes open, atmosphere rocketing out from the sudden breaches in gouts of misty-white gas. The damage from the collision rippled deep into the ship, buckling plasma conduits and causing power spikes throughout the ship - including one on Deck Two under the main bridge.
There was a bright flash of light on the bridge as the floor beneath the helm exploded, both Captain Cornwell and the helmsman thrown into the air in a blast of shrapnel and shredded console. Hadley screamed as his right side was peppered in scorchingly hot metal and lacerations tore themselves open across his cheek and upper shoulder. Smoke filled the air, toxic and scalding. Then the safety systems kicked in and the bridge atmosphere cycled out the contaminated air with the loud whoosh of emergency suction.
"Captain!" April rushed forward, but Cornwell was already dead, her body beside the helmsman's likewise mangled corpse. April stared for a moment in shock, then Hadley's groan as the operations officer jolted him out of his stunned silence. "Hadley!"
"I'll live, sir," he croaked, blood already matting his uniform and giving off the faint smell of scorched hair and he climbed back into his seat. The operations console beeped, and with one eye closed he looked down the scope. "Shit. Three D7s, approaching bearing one two seven, mark zero three zero. Fifteen seconds out."
"Sounds like a fair fight," April grit out, pulling himself back to the center of the bridge and sitting in the command chair. "Bring us about, tubes on target! Ms. Riley, we need our shields back or we're dead." He hit his armrest panel. "Medical team to the bridge."
"Shields reconstructing. We've lost a forward emitter to momentum-shock from the collision but the field is coming back up at…47%."
"It'll have to do," April replied grimly. "Mr Hadley, the moment they're in range hit the lead ship with everything we've got."
"Aye, Commander."
The D7s hadn't even begun to open fire when the Joyeuse opened up, a trio of torpedoes from each of her forward tubes then followed by another two as the rapid-launcher discharged its magazine. The leading cruiser took all of them straight on the chin, its shield perimeter flaring scarlet. Then a phaser beam lanced out and carved deep into its now exposed wing, and it abruptly peeled off at high impulse - straight into the sights of the Kea twenty kilometers to port, which was more than happy to finish the job with a pair of torpedoes as it focused on suppressing the other Birds-of-Prey with its phasers.
The other two cruisers, however, were not to be dissuaded from their attack run. Disruptor beams and a pair of plasma torpedoes slammed into the ship's shields, and the bridge lighting flickered.
"Shields are failing!" Riley shouted, ducking her head as a shower of sparks rained down over her head.
"Burst main impulse drive, get us some speed and keep the bow on target!" April ordered. The aft and starboard engines at the aft of the Joyeuse's half-saucer glowed a brighter blue as it moved forward and simultaneously rolled to starboard. The D7s kept charging in, and another burst of disruptor fire flashed through the empty space the Federation starship had just occupied. The return phaser fire simply splashed off their shields as the Klingon battlecruisers closed to minimum range.
The next volley was too close to miss. Green beams raked across the port nacelle as drive plasma exploded free of the containment fields to scorch the hull around the breach. The other D7 landed a more obliquely angled strike that opened half-a-dozen hull breaches across the saucer but failed to penetrate deeper to any critical systems. The entire ship seemed to shake, the impulse engines cutting out suddenly.
The D7s soared past, but not before the Joyeuse's photon launchers cycled and spat another full volley of torpedoes into the path of the second D7. At such a close range it was impossible to miss, and being already weakened by the Joyeuse's forward phasers meant the shields were already partially depleted. It was enough - the photons battered down the shields in a two second sequence of impacts and the Klingon cruiser's hull seemed to wrench apart into three separate pieces that went sailing off towards a fiery death in Andoria's atmosphere.
The third and final D7, however, was more than capable of doing some serious damage of its own. There was a pulse of green light as a plasma torpedo launched and trailed an almost misty fire behind it straight into the Excalibur-class's engineering section. Without shields to blunt the damage it smashed into the hull and detonated, a giant hand seeming to instantly gouge a colossal chunk of superstructure out of the ship.
On the bridge the Joyeuse bucked beneath their feet, the lights going out as April nearly tumbled out of the command chair and ended up clinging onto the armrest. The emergency lights hummed to life, casting the bridge's consoles into shadow. "Report!"
Lieutenant Riley clambered up to her console, the screen fuzzing. "Direct hit to the secondary hull, we've lost main power!"
April slammed his command console. "Engineering. Engineering, we need main power!" There was no reply. "Engineering!"
"Klingons are coming around again," Hadley shouted, his eyes cast in bright blue as he looked into the sensor scope. "Ten, fifteen seconds at most."
"Emergency thrusters, pull the bow around! Don't let them hit engineering again or we're done!" April hit his commpad again. "Engineering, respond!"
Puffs of white cloud hissed into the void as the wounded Joyeuse tried to turn, the propellant sending the smokelike wreaths of venting atmosphere that surrounded the ship into uncurling, eddying vortices. In the distance the final D7 curved around as it finished its turn, bow rising up to put its disruptors on target in sweeping overpass. Then a low clunk reverberated up through the deck plating and the lights brightened as the bridge consoles all lit up and chirped back to full functionality.
Hadley shouted in delight. "We've got mains!"
April shot out of his chair. "Torpedoes!"
The D7 hurtled towards them as the rapid launcher spat a trio of photons into its path, a line of three brilliant stars stitching a shallow line across the Klingon cruiser's belly as it approached in flashes of nuclear fire. Viridian beams lanced back and ripped a pair of parallel trenches into Joyeuse's hull either side of the bridge, fire erupting in their wake as the weapons disassembled the venting oxygen into an explosive mix of hydrogen and oxygen. Then the disruptors sputtered out halfway through their firing cycle, an eruption of flame suddenly blossoming from the wing and leaving behind a trail of liquifying metal. It glowed like a furnace as the D7's starboard side was engulfed in a plasma fire that ripped through the hull like tissue paper.
The disintegrating cruiser burned like a comet as it passed overhead, the light shed by the inferno almost blinding through the main viewer. Then it was gone behind them, and a brief flash and the gentle whine of rapidly heated hull plating was the only sign of its final death throes. "It's gone," Riley reported breathlessly. "But we're out of the fight. No phasers, no warp, no impulse power."
"I don't think it matters," Hadley murmured, looking into the scope. "The Klingons are breaking up. There's only a few cruisers left, and the Andorians are back and ripping up the Birds-of-Prey."
"We won?" Riley asked. "I've got to admit, I wasn't expecting that." She glanced down at her status panel and gave April a pained look. "Antimatter containment is stable, sir, but there's fires all across the board. I don't think she's coming back from this one."
There was a low rumble through the deck as a compartment under their feet failed and decompressed, the spaceframe emitting an almost mournful moan as it flexed.
April sighed, suddenly very tired as the adrenaline began to ebb. But duty didn't end when the battle was over. "Ms. Chin-Riley, see if you can get internal comms back up and coordinate our damage control. We probably have people cut off so prioritise rescuing them over repair efforts." He turned to Hadley. "Mr. Hadley, deploy our emergency beacon and let's get to work on sealing what bulkheads we can."
The Joyeuse would never fly again. But in the star-strewn darkness of night the pale blue jewel that was Andoria endured. No starship or crew could hope for a finer end, and the carefully preserved crew patch that adorned Robert April's uniform above his heart - scorched and blood-spattered - would travel with him for the rest of his career, long after the uniform itself was discarded.
Andoria stands. And everything changes.