Culver City Bridge

As Culver City began to pick on one of the meshweavers – one that had already been damaged by the runabouts – the other two swept in, firing their weapons.  The first, coming from above and to port-fore, turned away after a blast from Culver City‘s phasers rocked its shields, but the other was coming in from below and astern, where the Starfleet vessel had no phaser coverage, and unleashed.  Culver City rocked; her shields – at this point depleted to 65% by previous strikes – depleting further, one of the generators momentarily scrambling before resetting automatically.  The gap in shield coverage on that quarter, brief as it was, was still enough; the port nacelle was hit, one of its coils compromised and beginning to vent plasma out into space.  While the ship still had main power, her warp drive was knocked offline.

On the bridge, the petty officer at the Engineering station was thrown from his chair to the deck, landing with a sound that heralded a broken bone.  An engineer himself by training before shifting to command, K’lev moved to take the console himself.  The meshweaver that Culver City had been pursuing was also venting plasma, its shields down; sh’Livo put both of the forward phaser arrays to work, and in short order had disabled it.  Phillips started to bring the starship around, looking for the next meshweaver for sh’Livo to shoot at; as they found it – the very same as had damaged the ship’s nacelle – its remaining active consort pressed its own attack, from starboard abeam.

In all battles, there is always a chance for the intervention of fate.  Now came one of those interventions, and it came unfortunately for Culver City; sh’Livo had just launched, port-then-starboard, a pair of torpedoes at the ship’s current target, when a torpedo inbound from the flanking meshweaver struck the torpedo from the Culver City‘s starboard launcher just as it was passing the bridge.  The two torpedoes simultaneously detonated, the force of the detonation depleting the ship’s shields all at once.  Enough force was still conveyed into the hull to cause a breach – fortunately in an area that had already been evacuated and sealed – as well as disabling the starboard launcher and blowing out several power relays.

One of the blown relays passed behind the bridge’s Engineering console.  The wall-mounted display exploded into the room, throwing K’lev out of the chair and to the deck, his head bouncing off the edge of the standing area of the console as he fell; he rolled once before coming to a stop against the helm console, unconscious, burned, and bleeding.  Seeing this, Lotharys began to run around her console to go to him, before the ship shook again – a hull breach on Deck 7, also thankfully in an empty area – and snapped her attention back to the situation at hand; with K’lev incapacitated, she was now the ranking officer on the bridge, and so had to assume command.  “Chief,” she said in a shaky voice that betrayed her fear, “please tell the Blythe what’s happened; we need help, and I don’t think the runabouts alone’ll be enough.”

Bong didn’t need to though, the Blythe was already on the way.

Blythe Bridge

“Seveng seconds hand wer dare sar.”

“Attack pattern Beta, head right at them. Ingram, light ’em up.” Wong commanded, him and Ingram both being former fighter pilots would allow them to get the most out of the under gunned Blythe. Tyler checked his sensor display and saw that Culver City was in a bad way. He used his own arm chair console to open a channel to the Irrawaddy since he knew Ingram was busy.

“Irrawaddy this is Tyler, get a lock on the CC with a tractor and get them the hell out of here.” He emphasized the word hell, and he never swore.

Ingram used the jinking and juking of the Beta pattern to good effect, unloading several phaser blasts and 2 torpedoes towards the more aggressive of the 2 remaining meshweavers. After a few misses the LCdr found his mark and punched a hole clean through the diminutive Tholian vessel, taking it out of the fight.

The lone remaining meshweaver then unloaded a salvo of tetryon beams and its 2 remaining torpedoes against the Blythe rocking the ship several times, blowing out a secondary eps manifold and nearly knocking out its port shields. Luckily the meshweavers pilot decided that today wasn’t a very good day to die and quickly disengaged and streaked back towards the station. That or the weaver had been recalled by its leaders.

USS Farragut, Exterior

The squadron was spread like a fine mesh between the Farragut and the approaching Tholians.

“Spinners reaching engagement range,” Elkader reported, voice crisp. “Hold your planes, keep your spacing, and stop them enclosing us or the ship in a web.”

“Aye,” Thorne said, eyes running across his display, hands steady on the stick. The Farragut filled his lower right peripheral: the saucer and hanger pod, blue nacelles bright.

“Two, take ten degrees high,” Thorne called. “Three, you’re my low screen. Four through seven, echelon left. Eight, herd duty. Nine through Fifteen, staggered wedge. Keep it loose.”

The confirmations came clipped and clean.

The first Tholian threads started to appear like lines on a draughtsman’s board. One to the left of the Farragut’s bow, another low aft, the beginnings of a triangle.

“Anchor points,” Elkader said. “Let’s disrupt them. Weapons free.”

Thorne nudged his Valkyrie into a shallow dive, Four and Seven ghosting his wing. He did not try to be clever with the first pass. A short, mean phaser burst across the projector node, a micro-torpedo that fired shortly after as the Tholian shifted to present a minimal profile. Four fired their phasers and Seven followed-up with a torpedo of her own. The orange filament hiccupped, then died, the nascent triangle stuttering.

“Anchor one is off the board,” Thorne said. “Eight, keep the fuckers from getting too bold.”

“Already glaring at them,” Eight replied, almost jaunty.

Elkader cut in, not unkindly. “Farragut actual, mind your approach. They’re laying high.”

The big ship answered with discipline. Phaser arrays carving through another Tholian ship, followed by two photon torpedoes. The Farragut rolled, showing a fresh shield face to the attackers.

A Tholian cut across Thorne’s nose. He let instinct overtake him, manoeuvring to follow in the ship’s wake. He tapped the phasers – one, two, three – blasting his shots low left to force the Tholian to rotate, which opened up the moment for Four drop a torpedo into its path. The ship flared, folded, and died.

“Nice,” Two said, approving without envy.

“Don’t encourage him,” Elkader murmured, before returning her attention to the skirmish.