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.
...
"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."
...
"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.
