YE/D01 - Bridge

[GM-04]

==Chertstone/All==

The Delta-series maneuvers were useful in combat against similar-sized combatants; they would have been perfect had the Yeager only been facing the Os'rusa. As it stood, however, the Yeager was also being pursued by Jem'Hadar Attack Fighters, and they outperformed the larger ship in both acceleration and agility. As the Yeager banked and dropped into a dive, both ships raked it with phased polaron fire. The shields held, barely, but conduits overloaded throughout the ship.

The old Yeager was neither as fast or agile as the Yeager Chertstone was used to, and the maneuver seemed to take twice as long as it would have were the crew in their own timeline.

As the Yeager came up in a roll to get behind the Os'rusa, the Jem'Hadar fighters bore down on them again. This time the beams pierced the shields, shattering hull plating and vaporising organic material. The console behind the auxiliary science station exploded, pitching a young Benzite officer over the console to lay at an awkward angle, open eyes staring unseeing at the ceiling.

Though the Yeager was now in a better position to deal with the Cardassians, they were easy pickings for the Jem'Hadar.

==Qi==

Theoretically, yes. The wormhole could be the key to returning to the present. But with time travel/time shifting, it was never an exact science. There could be any number of phenomena that would return the crew to their own time, or trap them in the current one.

[T'Lari]

T'Lari crawled back to her seat and felt deep confusion. The whole console had changed. It was still somewhat familiar in its basic setup and functions, but she recognized it. This was the old Yeager, at least that was her position. The console she'd been so familiar with from her time on the ancient ship looked new, but was clearly an older model. That ship, like all modern Starfleet vessels, had had its components swapped out repeatedly. She looked at her refection in the monitor. Human. Female. Red hair.

What? This makes no sense. Is this a distortion? Time travel? A projection?

It couldn't be a trick. She felt different, her thoughts slower and filled with flashes of unconstrained emotion... fear, anxiety. And now deep confusion. Her people didn't consider her to be much of a Vulcan, and her self-control had been a problem since her escape from the Romulan mining facility as a child, but she had at least made some progress and mostly kept herself in check. Now? There was none of that, and she struggled to reestablish control. 

As she looked at the viewscreen and then her terminal she saw that the ship was in the middle of a battle. The legendary USS Defiant led the charge. And there was the Os'rusa. That helped her focus. She knew of this. Like most Tactical officers she was something of a history nut. This was "Operation Return," the battle where the Yeager and the Os'rusa had faced off for the first time. Both ships had taken a beating but the Yeager had come out on top. Taking a moment she reacquainted herself with the station layout. It wasn't much different.

The Vulcan Science officer said something that at least showed she wasn't the only one swapped out. 

“We should still be charged with chroniton particles from the anomaly on the race track. If we pass through the wormhole, we might be able to snap back to our proper spacetime position.”

Commander Qi. The helm officer is likely Chertstone. And the Captain...

"Let's focus on surviving the next ten minutes, first. We don't have any Dominion War veterans aboard, so we're seeing something from the Yeager's own memory. We don't know what's going on; we may only need to witness events, or we may need to ensure they happen."

Captain Braggins.

Knowing she wasn't alone also helped her reestablish control, as did the next order. 

"Tactical, lock aft weapons on the Jem'Hadar fighters. Full torpedo spread. We can't manoeuvre with them so let's clip their wings before we tangle with the Os'rusa." 

"Aft weapons, full torpedo spread aye. Targeting fighters." She repeated the order as she was trained to do as a Weapons Officer. Her voice was so odd, much higher in pitch and with a distinct and nasal accent. New Jersey? She wasn't sure. Not all officers actually repeated orders, especially as they grew more familiar with their captains, but T'Lari had always been a stickler for protocol. 

She tapped in the command and was gratified to see the console respond quicker than the future version of the Yeager had. This ship was new, and it had been built for this. Lock acquired, she launched a full spread at the Jem'Hadar fighters

The console showed weapons lock and she fired. The ship shuddered violently as it took weapons fire that tore through its shields. Nearby a Benzite officer went flying, falling in a lump behind her. 

Clear away the chaff.

== GM Input: Where are the fighters now? And results of the shots, if you please?  Can T'Lari target them with any of the the primary hull weapons? ==

== Tags ==

[Flint Chertstone]

The Yeager didn't like it as the delta manoeuvrers were initiated one after the other. Flint could feel every panel and subframe straining as they finally came about and positioned themselves perfectly for a retaliatory strike against the Os'rusa. If only then, her two Jem'Hadar escorts didn't already have designs on them also. It would have worked.

Their polaron beams making short work of both the shields and hull in only a couple of short blasts.

Flint broke his pursuit of the larger Cardassian to try to evade the pair who could easily cut them to pieces without a second thought.

The voice of the Andorian cut through the sirens like a knife. "Tactical, lock aft weapons on the Jem'Hadar fighters. Full torpedo spread. We can't manoeuvre with them so let's clip their wings before we tangle with the Os'rusa."

It was true. There was no way this Intrepid class Yeager could hold its own toe to toe with the more agile fighters. But they could give them one one hell of a bloody nose if they could get them off their arse, and bring their main weapons to bear.

He'd read the reports. It was required reading after all. And he had managed it once in his own racer. The principle was sound. He felt confident. Or as confident as anyone could be who was about the pull off what he had in mind.

“Initiating Tellar Roll, Mark.” He called out forcing the light cruiser into the tight 90º roll manoeuvrer so that when T'Lari's weapons fired, the Jem'Hadar took it as close and personal as was physically possible.


== Brownie Points, and brown trousers for everyone! ==

[Jadaris]

A higher pitched voice came over the comms to the science station.

[Jadaris to Qi, assuming you're actually the Chief Science Officer still. I think we've encountered a temporal shunt that's temporarily collapsed our timeline with the ship's earlier timelines. If we can find ourselves a new chroniton source and get hit with polaron weaponry while irradiated by said source, it might be enough to shock ourselves out of this timestream and back into our original one. But we'd need to do the same to the Cardassians if they're here with us, as timeline contamination should be avoided.]

[Jennifer Braggins]

Jenny's knuckles turned a lighter shade of blue as she gripped the armrests of the command chair; Chertstone's evasive action wasn't working, the Yeager's impulse drive having been constructed from components left over from the Defiant prototype - engines that were dangerously overpowered for such a small ship were woefully under-powered on a ship the size of the Yeager. The Jem'Hadar craft were agile and well-armed, and trying to fight them in a manoeuvre battle was a losing proposition; something that became self-evident as they battered down the Yeager's shields and shattered hull plating.

T'Lari's reply, Earth American East Coast, sounded utterly alien to Jenny as the torpedoes fired. More blasts rocked the ship as Chertstone tried in vain to get into an advantageous position over the smaller ships. Not for the first time, Jenny wished Theresa Black were at the helm; Chertstone was a better pilot, but the older officer had the combat experience to not try what the NCO was trying.

“Initiating Tellar Roll, Mark.”

There was no further warning as the Yeager heeled over into a tight banking turn, and Jenny was pushed into her chair by the sudden change in vector while the inertial dampeners attempted to compensate. The newer Yeager would have handled such a manoeuvre with relative ease, having more powerful (and numerous) engines with improved vector control, attitude thrusters with higher outputs, and a structural integrity field so reinforced that theoretically the ship would hold together if it were sawn completely in half. The original Yeager lacked all of those things beyond the enhanced SiF.

She'll tear herself apart if we keep this up.

"Belay that! Omega-Four, Starboard!"

Jenny just hoped the delay between Chertstone's implementation of the manoeuvre and her countermanding wasn't so long that they were fully committed, and that they didn't present an easy target or rip themselves to pieces before they figured out exactly what was going on.

[Flint Chertstone]

Flint felt the ship pitching. The gravity generators strained at the sudden change in aspect as the ship came about in order to give the Jem'Hadar what for...

"Belay that! Omega-Four, Starboard!" Cried out the Captain above the sounds of the hull beginning to stress under the turn.

It took him a second longer than it had any right to for him to react and bring the Yeager back to an even keel before he initiated the new order.

The plan in his head had been to perform some kind of almost 180º combined turn and barrel roll. Instead they were now simply turning to starboard and coming up underneath one or other of their pursuers. Not exactly the thing that legends were made of. He futilely pondered before snapping his focus back to the job in hand. Next time.

He also wished he could cut off these damned little twin ponytails he seemed to have acquired with whatever species he become. Their constant tickling whenever he turned his head was really starting to piss him off.

== Tag everyone ==

[GM-04]

The change in maneuver had, as Chertstone admitted, taken far too long. Velocity, inertia, and the Yeager's overall lack of agility all contributed to the severe battering she received from the Jem'Hadar fighters. Power relays exploded, sensor screens blinked out, and crew and Jem'Hadar boarders alike were flushed into space by explosive decompressions.

The Yeager didn't suffer alone, though. While the Yeager's torpedoes had initially missed, it retained target locks on the Jem'Hadar; two of the torpedoes had enough power left in their drives to circle around and strike the rearmost ship, tearing it in two. The other fighter banked away from the explosion, veering sharply away from the Os'rusa as it entered the engagement.

Dipping down and coming up underneath the Os'rusa, the Yeager's forward weapons now had a point-blank shot at a broadside-on target. The rate of closure was high, and the Os'rusa was already maneuvering to bring its own weapons to bear. If the Yeager missed, or allowed the Os'rusa to fire first, the Yeager was doomed.

[T'Lari]

T'Lari felt satisfaction at the torpedo strike. An unfamiliar sensation, something she hadn't truly experienced since childhood. Human emotions weren't as intense as unrestrained Vulcan ones, but this felt more natural. She steadied herself in her seat as the ship rocked.

The Captain's ordered maneuver had brought the Os'rusa right into the Yeager's forward weapons arc. There was no time to request orders, no time to acquire target lock, no time to even think. The weapons officer acted on instinct, raking the Cardassian warship broadside with the Yeager's forward phasers. If she could tear out the Cardassian vessel's engines Chertstone (or whoever the current helms officer was) could maneuver the Yeager into a killing position. Otherwise the ship would be easy pickings for the Os'rusa's substantial forward guns.

== GM Input, please: What are the results of the strike? And I'm unsure what torpedoes the ship has in its forward arc. If it's safe to fire them without risking the Yeager in an explosion she will do so, Quantum Torps or Photons as the case may be. ==

[Arwen Qi]

Qi shielded his eyes as a shower of sparks erupted from the science station. When his vision returned, the Benzite who had been standing next to him lay crumpled on the ground. He felt sick.

Bowman? No, we can fix this. Maybe if we can restore our position in spacetime…

He didn’t have time to dwell on the possibility. The temporal mechanics were too complicated. If they died here, there would be no ship to return to the Wairara system. No chance of undoing Bowman's death.

[Jadaris to Qi, assuming you're actually the Chief Science Officer still. I think we've encountered a temporal shunt that's temporarily collapsed our timeline with the ship's earlier timelines. If we can find ourselves a new chroniton source and get hit with polaron weaponry while irradiated by said source, it might be enough to shock ourselves out of this timestream and back into our original one. But we'd need to do the same to the Cardassians if they're here with us, as timeline contamination should be avoided.]

“Agreed, Jadaris, but I think the closest chroniton source is the wormhole, and I don’t think Os’rusa is letting us get away,” Qi responded.

The image of the Os’rusa grew larger on the Yeager’s viewscreen. He reminded himself that he wasn’t helpless without sensors. Sometimes a trained eye could recognize patterns that a sensor could not.

“If we’re stuck with the drawbacks of the original Yeager, the Cardassians are in the same boat. There must be some vulnerabilities in this version of the Os’rusa that we can exploit.”

Qi’s Vulcan eyes studied Os’rusa, looking for any details that appeared different from the modern version. Those differences would indicate potential weak points that had been redesigned in the intervening time.

== Tag bridge

GM Input: assuming the Os’rusa is not outright disabled by T’Lari’s strike, are there any notable differences between this version of the Os’rusa compared to the version that we’re familiar with? ==