“Okay, Aloran, then what? We can hardly assume they’ll be civil, or even listen to us, if they believe that its in their territory. Famed for reasonableness, those Tholians?” Ayres was leaning back, looking at the Vulcan.

“No, captain. But disabling the station, not destroying it, would be a significant show of force while allowing for repatriation when the situation is less volatile.”

“Knock them out but don’t kill them?”

“Apt. Yes, captain. And I will prepare a transmission and data packet explaining the situation to them. But.”

“But?” Ayres pursed his lips.

“My experience tells me that a significant amount of violence is likely to be necessary before our Tholian counterparts realise that they need to review the data.”

Captain Dal canted one antennae upwards. “How significant is significant?”

“That, will be up to the Tholians Captain.” Aloran replied.

“If I may, sir,” K’lev said to Commander Aloran from his desk on the Culver City after reviewing Tyler’s plan, “is there a way to even the odds a little bit before we go in?  If the Tholians are operating from this faulty assumption, then they’ll see any move by us as an act of aggression, and I’d be willing to bet they’d respond accordingly, in full force.  We’ve got some good ships and crews here, but we can still only handle so much; if we can get some of their ships out of the way, then that could improve our chances of getting through when they react to us coming in.”  He lapsed into silence once more.

“What if we use the runabouts from the Farragut and Blythe to uh…create a diversion. Have the runabouts place themselves between the Blythe and the 3 ships on the border. 1 minute before the station crosses what we know as the border, we have the 3 runabouts all begin moving towards the CC on the right. That might draw a few ships, and when they come over to the CC, she and the runabouts just pull back.” Tyler having a brief moment of insight, came up with that on his own. He had thoroughly read the plan from his XO and Second Officer, and it seemed like a natural alteration given K’levs perceptive point.

K’lev thought for a moment.  “It’d still leave us facing over a dozen ships with just four, though… they’d just be more scattered.  What if the runabouts tried to lead some of the Tholians away or something?  Or what about waiting until the Sheliak do something; then we could go while the Tholians’re distracted?”  He seemed a little unsure – after all, this was tactics, not engineering, and K’lev knew he still had a good bit to learn – but he still spoke anyway.

Aloran was seen making a note on his PADD after K’lev spoke. “A spirited and creative idea.”

“The California Class is a capable support veseel and you should have some of the class 7 probes onboard.” Dal spoke once again, raising one blue finger as he felt some curious looks towards his tangent turn towards him. “If you double or triple up the power cells you can adjust them to emit a neutrino emission that mimics a warp signature. It won’t bear scrutiny, but it’s an effective decoy.”

“I’ll have to check with my chief engineer and quartermaster, see what we have left; we’ve used a number while out here.”  K’lev replied.

“Even if it is just a second or two, that’s enough to let a ship slip past.” Captain Dal returned evenly. He knew his ship was fast and he knew how much seconds could count on a battlefield.

“Captains.” Aloran rested his PADD on the nearby console as he spoke. “Our collective ingenuity has, I foster, created a workable plan. I will finish the draft and circulate to your ships. We have work to do.”

((TAS Feer’hat, command deck))

Admiral Grishaks mood was vacillating between optimism and dejection. He hadn’t expected the Sheliak to find out about the location of their secret research base so quickly, and he certainly hadn’t expected them to launch an assault on it so quickly. The Starfleet ships hadn’t crossed the border or gotten involved yet, which was a saving grace of sorts.

Roughly 30 ships had made it through the artificial wormhole – a few larger ships accompanied by versatile smaller craft – and had set up a beachhead at the terminus of the wormhole, or so he presumed, being unable to communicate through it. But unbeknownst to him the Sheliak were puting up a staunch defense there, and had been able to converge on the system, also much quicker then he expected.

He had held back 15 of the ships, including some of his more formidable warships, to aid in defending the station against the Sheliak attack. And it was a good thing he had too, as he needed each of them to help in the defense of the all important outpost. His superiors back on Tholia had started to become appearingly less receptive to his plans and recommendations in the past few days. At the start of his mission, he had been given the simple mandate to remove the Sheliak from the 2 colonies they had annexed and ethnically cleansed, but he had a fair amount of leeway on how he could conduct the operation. Leeway which he had used quite liberally up until now. But he was starting to wonder if he had taken on more then he bargained for. And his superiors were wondering if they had chosen the wrong person for the task.