09-26-2026, 04:33 PM
The deck pitched violently beneath Morad’s boots as a pair of disruptor blasts slammed into the Zephyr’s aft-quarter shields, sending a cascade of sparks raining down from an overhead EPS relay.
"Shields down to eighty percent!"
Morad caught himself on the armrest of the center chair, absorbing the reports hitting the bridge in rapid-fire succession. Inertial dampener failure in the pod housing and main deflector. Fatalities. Ruptured warp coils venting plasma.
That went... ugh... it could've gone better... but it could've been a lot worse too...
He took a slow, measured breath, forcing his voice to remain steady, solid, and utterly unshaken as he stepped down into the center of the bridge.
"Listen to me, all of you," Morad projected, his tone cutting cleanly through the wailing alarm boards. "Look at the telemetry. That strike was not in vain. Our torpedo strike on that arc stripped what was left of their primary shields down to the bone and even took a bite into their secondary planetary shield layer. We proved that monster can bleed. When Star Fleet battle groups arrive, they won’t be facing an invincible fortress, they’ll be facing a wounded leviathan with one less defensive perimeter to hide behind."
He paused, letting the reality settle over his shaken crew.
"The Zephyr made her contribution to that fight. Our job now is to focus on survival, protecting our own and helping the Yeager and the Aquila survive this battle until Star Fleet's task force shows up."
Morad turned sharply toward Tom Krandall at the conn, noting the tight, guilty posture of the pilot.
"Lieutenant Krandall, eyes on me," Morad commanded, his voice dropping into a firm, supportive register. "That order was mine, not yours. You executed a razor-thin combat jump and saved this ship from being vaporized in thirty seconds. You did your job, Lieutenant. No more micro-jumps. Now fly her on impulse and show them what an agile Destroyer is meant to do."
He glanced toward Ava Baldwin at the security station, acknowledging Gath’s departure. "Baldwin, assist damage control in sealing those compartments. We honor our dead by doing our very best to make sure no one else joins them today."
Morad tapped the engineering override on his armrest, bringing up the master systems display.
"Keir, A'kilees; clamp down on those ruptured warp manifolds. Emergency-vent the damaged coil conduits and isolate the nacelle plasma feeds before we get a backflash into the core. Shunt every kilowatt of auxiliary power we just saved from the offline warp drive directly into the Structural Integrity Field and the aft shield emitters. Route secondary deflector control to the bridge until Gath secures the lower station."
Turning back to the science station, Morad met Amila Ra'an's gaze, nodding firmly. "Lieutenant Ra'an is right. Disengage all targeting from the Dreadnought. We leave the Hutet to the heavy hitters when they get here. We focus our fire on where we can do the most damage."
Morad stepped toward Cortez and Keti's consoles.
"Cortez, Keti; those decoy probes are already out in the field and the Cardassians are choosing to ignore them. We will take full advantage of that oversight. Don't worry about spoofing ship signatures anymore; the Cardassians know we're here. Re-task their transmitters immediately into active ECM noise-generators and put them in evasive maneuvers. Burn their emitter arrays on wide-band jamming frequencies. Cardassian sensors are notoriously sluggish in high-interference environments; flood their tactical bands and blind their target-acquisition arrays. Turn their lights off."
Morad pivoted to tactical and the helm.
"Powl, lock phasers and torpedoes onto the lead Hideki. Coordinate with the Yeager’s tactical feed. We focus our combined fire and eliminate them one by one."
He pointed toward the tactical plot, tracing an angled trajectory.
"Krandall, aggressive sublight maneuvers. Use our thrusters and impulse drive to try and keep those Hidekis positioned directly between our hull and the Dreadnought's forward firing arcs as much as possible. If the big guy decides to swat at us, he's going to have to shoot through his own escorts to do it. Angle our drift and push this fight steadily toward Starbase 214's perimeter. I bet they are eager to join the fight, so let's draw the Cardassians into the station's weapon batteries and give them something shiny to shoot at!"
Morad settled into the center chair, hands resting firmly on the controls.
"Let's show them how a Steamrunner Destroyer fights at knife range. Fire at will!"
Today, is not a good day to die... not yet...
== Tag Bridge ==
"Shields down to eighty percent!"
Morad caught himself on the armrest of the center chair, absorbing the reports hitting the bridge in rapid-fire succession. Inertial dampener failure in the pod housing and main deflector. Fatalities. Ruptured warp coils venting plasma.
That went... ugh... it could've gone better... but it could've been a lot worse too...
He took a slow, measured breath, forcing his voice to remain steady, solid, and utterly unshaken as he stepped down into the center of the bridge.
"Listen to me, all of you," Morad projected, his tone cutting cleanly through the wailing alarm boards. "Look at the telemetry. That strike was not in vain. Our torpedo strike on that arc stripped what was left of their primary shields down to the bone and even took a bite into their secondary planetary shield layer. We proved that monster can bleed. When Star Fleet battle groups arrive, they won’t be facing an invincible fortress, they’ll be facing a wounded leviathan with one less defensive perimeter to hide behind."
He paused, letting the reality settle over his shaken crew.
"The Zephyr made her contribution to that fight. Our job now is to focus on survival, protecting our own and helping the Yeager and the Aquila survive this battle until Star Fleet's task force shows up."
Morad turned sharply toward Tom Krandall at the conn, noting the tight, guilty posture of the pilot.
"Lieutenant Krandall, eyes on me," Morad commanded, his voice dropping into a firm, supportive register. "That order was mine, not yours. You executed a razor-thin combat jump and saved this ship from being vaporized in thirty seconds. You did your job, Lieutenant. No more micro-jumps. Now fly her on impulse and show them what an agile Destroyer is meant to do."
He glanced toward Ava Baldwin at the security station, acknowledging Gath’s departure. "Baldwin, assist damage control in sealing those compartments. We honor our dead by doing our very best to make sure no one else joins them today."
Morad tapped the engineering override on his armrest, bringing up the master systems display.
"Keir, A'kilees; clamp down on those ruptured warp manifolds. Emergency-vent the damaged coil conduits and isolate the nacelle plasma feeds before we get a backflash into the core. Shunt every kilowatt of auxiliary power we just saved from the offline warp drive directly into the Structural Integrity Field and the aft shield emitters. Route secondary deflector control to the bridge until Gath secures the lower station."
Turning back to the science station, Morad met Amila Ra'an's gaze, nodding firmly. "Lieutenant Ra'an is right. Disengage all targeting from the Dreadnought. We leave the Hutet to the heavy hitters when they get here. We focus our fire on where we can do the most damage."
Morad stepped toward Cortez and Keti's consoles.
"Cortez, Keti; those decoy probes are already out in the field and the Cardassians are choosing to ignore them. We will take full advantage of that oversight. Don't worry about spoofing ship signatures anymore; the Cardassians know we're here. Re-task their transmitters immediately into active ECM noise-generators and put them in evasive maneuvers. Burn their emitter arrays on wide-band jamming frequencies. Cardassian sensors are notoriously sluggish in high-interference environments; flood their tactical bands and blind their target-acquisition arrays. Turn their lights off."
Morad pivoted to tactical and the helm.
"Powl, lock phasers and torpedoes onto the lead Hideki. Coordinate with the Yeager’s tactical feed. We focus our combined fire and eliminate them one by one."
He pointed toward the tactical plot, tracing an angled trajectory.
"Krandall, aggressive sublight maneuvers. Use our thrusters and impulse drive to try and keep those Hidekis positioned directly between our hull and the Dreadnought's forward firing arcs as much as possible. If the big guy decides to swat at us, he's going to have to shoot through his own escorts to do it. Angle our drift and push this fight steadily toward Starbase 214's perimeter. I bet they are eager to join the fight, so let's draw the Cardassians into the station's weapon batteries and give them something shiny to shoot at!"
Morad settled into the center chair, hands resting firmly on the controls.
"Let's show them how a Steamrunner Destroyer fights at knife range. Fire at will!"
Today, is not a good day to die... not yet...
== Tag Bridge ==