Season 2 Ep 1 Page 09

- Bridge -

"Aye Captain", Maia replied.

“Tell Captain Krol that there is dying in battle for a worthy cause, but dying without achieving the objective carries no honour” She added.

"Understood Captain" Maia responded.

Maia then turned to her console and sent Captain Krol the message Captain Somers wanted sent, for the moment there was no reply. Maia wondered if Captain Somers was trying to insult their Klingon allies or trying to motivate them, as far as Maia was concerned the Klingons had fought with honour.

Maia then recalled the fighters, there was no damage to any of the fighters, however some needed to be refuelled. Most had flown more than five sorties and had rearmed while in flight. Maia then sent word to the landing bay and the CAG to have them prepare to receive all fighters. The whole operation took less than 20 minutes.

“Also recall our fighters Commander, assign all crew who have engineering experience to damage repair teams and ready to fall back” She said then looked at Barker “Mr. Barker when all fighters are back on board set a heading for those coordinates I am sending you now” Jasmine instructed.

“Yes Captain” He responded.

“Donovan what is the status on that call for help coming?”

Donovan who was tying a dressing on a wound she received looked up “I have sent a request Captain, help is on its way, but it will be sometime before it gets here” The Major responded.

*Sighing* “Okay be ready to fall back, Lieutenant Sheela, what is the status of the allied ships?” She asked the Mousian.

Maia also listened to a brilliant strategic and tactical breakdown of the hostile’s manoeuvres by Lt Sheila. Again they didn't follow Orion tactics at all, although it did look like something Maia had seen the Obsidian order do. Maia would have to consult her tactical database.

"Wez losing three ships to their one, from their tactics." Sheela hung on as the ship shook from a powerful punch. "Ourz fighters are doing nothing, except dying to draw fire from the Tomcat." She spoke softly as her attention drifted to the main viewscreen, to see another Tomcat Fighter get vaporized. “This information has been sent to Fleet HQ along with the request re-enforcement" Softly as an afterthought.

“Interesting, make sure all allied ships have withdrawn to a safe distance El tee, we need to assess our situation, also have all fighters return and have the pilots rest up.” She said looking at a marine First Lieutenant.

“Yes Captain” he responded and got to work.

Dr Cahill listens to what is being said and continues to monitor Sick Bay communications. She is looking at the damage on the other ships in the fleet and also other things around as well.

Maia also listened as Dr Cahill gave Captain Somers her opinion.

"Captain I may be wrong but it occurs to me that the Orion’s were playing with us. It appears that they did just enough damage to cause us to with draw to make repairs and once they did it they with drew to allow us to make that choice." Cahill said and paused. "With the numbers they had in outnumbering us they could have easily have blown us from space then picked up any survivors and made them prisoners to be sold as slaves. It appears that they don't want an all out war with the Federation and are pushing us to withdraw to prevent it."

"Well lets give them what they worked hard for, Mr. Barker back us off" Jasmine said and the Helm Officer nodded and began to back the ship off.

"Perhaps they weren't Orion's at all, Captain I have another idea, we should try to make contact some Orion pirates to confirm their identities. It seems to me someone might be trying to put the blame on the Orion's for this. The way those ships battled with us didn't follow any kind of Orion tactic we've seen. Dr. Cahill is right they drove us off. When have you ever known Orion's not to capture and enslave especially when they have superior numbers"? Maia asked.

As her officers and crew went about their business her XO reported back after completing her given tasks “Looking worried you both have a point” Jasmine said including Cahill in her acknowledgement. “I got a feeling that thrice cursed Orion Pirate Captain who hoodwinked us before we got here is out there somewhere, locate the ship and get that Captain on the Comms” Jasmine said looking at both Sterling and Sheela.

Sheela nodded and moved over to the secondary communication console. She began to go through all the known Orion Syndicate Frequencies. To include several that wasn't even registered with Fleet Intelligence.

She played with variation of them as she was about to give up and use the subspace communication to speak with a few of her contacts within the OS to see if they had any knowledge of what was happening in the system that the Tomcat was located.

Sterling and Sheela got to work while Jasmine turned to the rest of her bridge crew.

“Good, now what is the status on my fighters Commander?”

"Captain all fighters recalled and back in the bay"

“Excellent, what of Captain Krol and the other allied ships here? Also what news of our call for help from Starfleet Major Donovan?” She asked.

Swivelling around in her seat “the call was sent and acknowledged Captain, Starfleet said that they will send what they can” Donovan reported then returned to her duties.

“Ship status Commander, how bad are the damages to my ship? And Doctor Cahill how are the injuries going?” She asked both women.

"Captain all but 3 have been released the others need a few days to recover. Also Captain, When I did my scan from the medical section suppose the life forms I found that are not Orion are actually working with them or actually in command of the ships themselves. This could explain some of the information LCMD Sterling has brought up. I still have all the information from those scans saved and can transfer it to the science section for further Analysis."

Dr Cahill sends the information to the CSO and continues to check it out herself. "With both of us working we can process it faster and maybe figure out what is going on here."

“I agree Captain” Maia responded.

Looking at them both, “just get it done” Jasmine said and faced the viewscreen again.

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