Surefoot 69: We are Shanos Minor

"USS Surefoot-A, Captain's Personal Log, Stardate 51487.11, Captain T'Varik Recording: We continue to engage with the Thirteenth, Second and Tenth Fleets against the Dominion forces occupying the Betazed Sector. Our efforts to retake this strategically-vital territory, and thus move on to other required fronts such as the Caitian Sector, have to date proved... less than successful.

Starfleet has suffered significant losses throughout the War, and like other vessels, we have had to redeploy many experienced crewmembers to replacement ships for ours and our sister fleets, and compensate with recent graduates from the Enlisted Schools, with their abbreviated training schedules.

The new recruits, serving in the Support Crew, are less experienced than I would prefer for this ship, some possessing issues that would normally be addressed and managed under the normal, longer schedule. However, as the human phrase goes, Needs Must.

On a personal level, in the absence of Captain Hrelle, I have adapted to my temporary promotion as expected, and the crew have continued to perform in an exemplary fashion, also as expected. And we all remain eager for confirmation of the safety of the Captain and his family on Cait, and of course on the situation on their Motherworld... and I will admit to a purely selfish desire to be an active part in helping to liberate it.

I do not believe that we live in a Universe with a deity with the propensity to grant desires. But I do believe that the Universe will unfold in the manner it is meant to. Therefore I can only trust in the Universe... and trust that, occasionally, it unfolds in the direction I desire."

*

T'Varik leaned back in the Captain's Chair, once more acknowledging the hole in the back where a Caitian might slip his or her tail though to make themselves more comfortable. It did not affect her on an ergonomic level -- she had of course sat here many times before -- but now, since her promotion, it proved more perceptible... prompting the expected jokes from her spouse about where T'Varik kept her brains.

Of some small interest to T'Varik was why she continued to acknowledge it now every time she sat down, when she could easily have had the chair modified; it could always be returned to its original configuration if -- when -- Captain Hrelle returns. She had no logical reason not to adapt the chair.

She had no obligation to explain her decision to anyone, either. Not even to herself. "Status, Mr Murphy?"

To her right, the Surefoot's temporary Executive Officer, Commander Dominic Murphy, a rugged, swarthy humanoid male assigned to the ship and role while waiting to take command of his own vessel, the USS Messenger, studied his display once more. "Puget Sound's concentrating her fighters against the Scarabs, Triton's ordered the Minotaur and Oregon to press their attack on the first Battlecruiser, and the Bannockburn and Argonaut have finished off the Galor, but are now under heavy fire from the second Battlecruiser. The Pollux is moving in to support them."

T'Varik nodded and looked up at the viewscreen before them, seeing quick flashes like novae amidst the starfield. They were not in the midst of battle; as one of the Thirteenth Fleet's ambulance ships, it was not their role to fight, but to save lives... though, when necessary, this ship and crew could prove to have the teeth and claws required to protect themselves and those in their care. "Lt Arrington, plot a course for the immediate vicinity of the Bannockburn and Argonaut, but do not engage until ordered."

"Course already plotted and standing by, Ma'am." Sitting ahead of the Captain and XO, Chief Helmsman Giles Arrington moved with a mature efficiency that T'Varik had grown to appreciate, an ineffable improvement from his first days as a volatile cadet with Sasha Hrelle and the original Alpha Squad.

Murphy glanced at her. "They haven't called for assistance from us yet, Ma'am."

She did not meet his gaze, choosing to appear to distract herself with a report on her PADD, a complaint regarding the Terracentric attitudes from one of the new Support Crew. "I'm aware of that, Commander."

He offered a slight smile she caught from the corner of her eye. "Vulcan Intuition?"

"Vulcans have no need for intuition; we have a transparency of logical reasoning behind all of our decisions. Both vessels are Miranda-class, older, and the Pollux is one of the original Constitution refits reinstated from the Starfleet Museum for active service. They are facing a Dominion Battlecruiser."

She did not finish her elucidation. She had no need to. sensed his change of mood at her response, which was not meant to dampen his attempt at levity amidst the crisis, but to remind him of the cold truth: the Thirteenth Fleet was valiant, tenacious... but they had already suffered heavy losses in the Battle of Khavak, and the replacement vessels and crew demonstrated how Starfleet struggled to compensate for the significant casualties in this War. Privately she had estimated a 93.5% probability that the outcome would manifest within the next 4.9 seconds-

Behind them, Chief Operations Officer Lieutenant Sextilis Magna Bellator, a native of the Nova Roma Colony in the Ficus Sector, spoke up, their voice carrying over the cacophony. "Captain, the Bannockburn reports they are abandoning ship and- By the Gods!"

Murphy turned in his seat, unaccustomed to the outburst from the usually taciturn Bellator. "What is it, Lieutenant?"

The pale, purple-haired figure glanced to her left, to the Tactical Officer, the Caitian Lieutenant C'Rash Shall, who obviously knew what had triggered the response, looked equally shaken, and nodded back in agreement. "Show them."

The viewscreen ahead of them altered, the starfield conjuring another, more active part of nearby space, dominated by a Dominion Battlecruiser, an arrowhead-shaped vessel twice the size of a Galaxy-class starship, dwarfing the smaller Miranda and Constitution ships that had been attacking it.

But one of the Mirandas, the Bannockburn, was diving towards the Battlecruiser. Deliberately.

It struck the enemy's central-starboard section near its main drive, erupting into a blossom of white energy that ate at the surrounding sections of the larger vessel, sending it reeling backwards, out of control.

The Bridge crew watched, rapt, the silence broken as T'Varik heard Bellator whisper, "Ave Bannockburn, Morituri Te Salutant..." before clarifying more loudly and officially, "The Captain and their Bridge crew stayed at their posts, to buy time for the others." Then the Nova Roman returned to their duties. "The Argonaut is damaged, is being tractored away by the Pollux. But I'm detecting lifepods from the Bannockburn-"

"Helm, take us in, now!" T'Varik snapped, raising her voice as their ship shot forward at warp speed. "Medical Alert!" As the White Alert strip appeared on the upper ceiling around them, she continued. "All Hands, prepare for Incoming Casualties and Evacuees! Bellator, alert the Triton, request support from Captain Weynik and the Ajax!"

"Captain," C'Rash cut in, "I'm picking up Cardassian lifepods in the area as well, approximately 20-30!"

"Send an additional Security Team to the Shuttlebay, I want force field posts set up to keep them confined and away from as far away as possible from our people."

The viewscreen switched to the familiar dilated starfield of warp drive, but the image of the Bannockburn making a suicide run onto the Battlecruiser remained in T'Varik's mind, as she recalled a similar manoeuvre employed by the Jem'Hadar to destroy the Odyssey years ago, before the War had even officially started.

It had been a logical decision on the part of the Bannockburn's Captain: the vessel was disabled and unlikely to escape, and its sacrifice caused damage to the Enemy and bought time for her sister ships to escape.

Nevertheless, it remained disconcerting. Such tactics were considered exceedingly rare -- in the past. Was their situation that precarious now, that suicide runs might become commonplace with Starfleet?

She was pulled from her thoughts by a familiar subsonic vibration, and she tilted her head slightly to her left, catching C'Rash from the corner of her eye, as the black-furred Caitian, obviously sensing her spouse's consternation, was purring, on a frequency inaudible to the others around them.

T'Varik nodded silently in unspoken gratitude, and focused on the activity around her, as they appeared on the battlefield, and performed their duties: scanning the lifepods around them, transporting those onboard them with the more serious injuries first into the Triage Unit in the Shuttlebay, where their Horta crewman Ensign Stalac used his phenomenal silicon-based brain to assign the wounded to the most appropriate of the three Sickbays on the Surefoot. Meanwhile the Ajax appeared alongside, keeping an eye on the crippled Battlecruiser, in case they launched any Scarabs against them.

She focused on the minutiae of command -- making mental notes to commend Mr Murphy for his strong, understated style of command with the surrounding junior officers, and Lt Bellator for balancing their Ops duties with a continued gathering of intelligence from the Dominion communications traffic, as befitted their prior expertise in Cryptography.

And T'Varik sat and waited for the right time. And when it came, she rose. "Mr Murphy, you have the Conn."

He nodded, though despite the seriousness of the work, he seemingly couldn't help but offer a smirk and, "On The Papa Cat Prowl again, Captain?"

She paused to let the other Bridge officers indulge in a moment of amusement, a brief but necessary respite from the stress of their situation... and one that she encouraged, in her own style. "Commander, I will remind you, once again, that there is no official ship duty designated 'The Papa Cat Prowl'. Is that clear?"

"Of course, Ma'am, of course. But you are going on it now?"

"Yes. I will return shortly."

*

When Captain Hrelle had begun his habit of leaving the Bridge to supervise Triage operations, T'Varik had dismissed it as a personal need of the Caitian to be 'doing something' when his crew were performing their primary duties, such as now.

But quickly she understood that his presence proved to be both professionally and emotionally reassuring, not just for the younger crewmembers and cadets, but for the incoming wounded and non-wounded rescued from the battlefield. It also offered a convenient authority figure who could respond to the unexpected there more quickly than by relaying messages to and from the Bridge.

And in taking over the duty, nicknamed 'The Papa Cat Prowl' among the crew in honour of the individual who had started it, she could see the logical merit behind it... even if it generated an emotional melancholy within her at the thought of the Caitian, his wife and their cubs still trapped on their Motherworld while under the Occupation of the Ferasans and their Dominion allies, their situation unknown... as well as a discernible frustration that Starfleet could not yet devote any resources towards helping Cait.

None of these emotions were logical... but as she had long ago accepted, her logic failed where these people -- her adopted family -- was concerned-

"Captain! Come here, please!"

She stopped and turned at the sound of the voice, approaching to a figure lying on one of the mats, and another kneeling beside her, passing a medical tricorder sensor wand. T'Varik identified the kneeling figure immediately as Eydiir Daughter-of-Kaas, the coffee-skinned woman who had recently completed her initial medical qualifications. "What is it, Nurse?"

The young Capellan never looked up from her scans. "Our automatic systems detected this individual on the battlefield and beamed him onboard... but he's not Starfleet, Cardassian or Dominion." Now she looked up. "But you will obviously recognise the race."

The Vulcan drew up, peering down at the prone, insensate figure of a stone-furred Caitian male in the tattered red and black uniform of his people's Planetary Navy.

"Indeed," she agreed, allowing her pulse to quicken.

Perhaps the Universe could unfold in the desired direction after all...

*

Planet Cait, Shanos Minor, Nashea Province:

THREE...

TWO...

ONE...

White light filled the sky.

Nearly everyone in the city instinctively closed their eyes. Those unfortunate enough on the outer edges to be facing towards the centre of the light were instantly blinded, their retinas burned away as atoms were split and then fused together, Creation and Destruction, as a miniature star appeared in Shanos Minor Bay.

The brick-red Esvista Bridge, which had connected the city to the mainland for over four hundred years, melted. The three high main towers of the Bridge took nearly three seconds to transform into slag and drop into the boiling water, but the main and suspender cables, the deck, and every vehicle and every Caitian upon it, vaporised instantly.

The unbelievable forces generated spread out in all directions, heat and winds propelled at many times greater than the strongest storms ever recorded on Cait. Across the Bay and towards the open sea, there was little in its path, apart from several freighters that overturned as the winds struck and the sea beneath them instantly boiled into steam.

Towards the city, it met a little more resistance -- for all the good it did. The outlying parks and boulevards were swept away by the winds. The buildings, some having stood for centuries, crumbled like tissue beneath the rapid change of air pressure. Every window touched shattered, becoming bullets, billions of them, hurled ahead of the wavefront, followed closely behind by larger chunks of debris.

Anything that was combustible, combusted.

Males and females, adults and cubs, the old and the young, the sick and the healthy stood in shock, or dropped to the ground, or raced for the illusion of protection indoors, or into the arms of loved ones, trying to pray to the Great Mother or just deny what was happening.

None were spared.

Only those watching via the remote cameras lived to bear witness to the ball of energy ionising and heating the surrounding air into a fireball, the hot air quickly rising and expanding upwards, the powerful updraft picking up irradiated dust and debris and forming the stem of what evolved into a thick mushroom cloud.

The shockwave continued onward, reaching the surrounding ring of mountains.

*

Twenty seconds before, Hrelle and Valtiri had both stopped and shielded their eyes at the blinding flash from over the tall, snow-capped peaks of the Mithrim Mountains separating them from Shanos Minor.

Then Valtiri clutched the sides of his head and let loose a bloodcurdling scream of agony, dropping to his knees. The scream, and the horrified look on the Ferasan's face was one that snapped Hrelle fully out of... whatever had happened to him... and for a heartbeat forget everything else.

Then there was a rumble from the mountains.

A roar of pain at this assault upon it.

They trembled and cracked as the shockwave struck from the other side.

And a million tons of snow and ice cascaded down from the steep slopes into the Valley.

Hrelle nearly passed out from the overwhelming roar of the avalanche, but he forced himself to race towards Sasha, needing to get to her, shield her from the frozen deluge about to engulf them all.

But he couldn't. She would be killed. They all would.

His only possible defence was to curl up into a ball; if his paws were near his feet, he could minimise the chance of breaking a limb, and then slowly unfold and burrow himself out.

He kept his focus on his daughter, only metres away. Was she even alive-

Yes! He saw her struggle to right herself!

He tried calling out to her, to tell her to follow suit and do what he was doing, but his voice lost in the deafening cacophony of the avalanche.

Then the sky fell upon them all.

*

And twenty seconds before that, in Sasha's flyer the Tailless, parked nearby, three transporter beams filled the interior with a quantum glow, bringing into existence once more a trio of Caitians, two males and a female, the adults supporting the younger, injured one between them.

Jhess Furore glanced around, calling out, "Sasha! Captain Hrelle!" He sniffed, scenting no one present, before guiding his wife Mreia to move behind them, towards the aft end of the flyer. "Computer: Activate Holographic Hospital Mode."

As they entered the open area, the features began shifting and shaping into a biobed and several scanners and instrument trays. Jhess lifted Shau up and rested him gently onto the biobed, checking the readings above and already reaching for a hypospray and medical replicator. "Concussion, some fractures here and there, bruising to his windpipe from where those bastards were pressing on it- he'll be fine. Here, give me your arm."

Mreia reached out, fully expecting him to hand her one of the instruments... instead, he injected her. She pulled back. "What was in that?"

"Ambizine, a mild sedative, to compensate for the shock you're slipping into."

"I'm not- I'm not in- in shock-"

He set down the instruments, and guided her gently but firmly to an adjacent chair. "Yes, you are; you were the victim of a vicious assault, you saw things you weren't prepared to see. Lean forward, breathe slowly and deeply." He returned to his son, administered a stronger dose of inaprovaline, and began placing local autosuture pads around Shau's head and throat, preparing to step outside and find Esek and Sasha-

A flash from the direction of the cockpit made him turn, and an alert made him set down his instruments and rush forward, ignoring his wife's confused plea for clarification. He checked the readings, which were practically about some nearby detonation, which would explain the flash-

Mother's Cubs.

Mother's Cubs, no...

He glanced up through the cockpit window to see Esek, injured, staggering, leaving behind some blonde-furred Ferasan, rolling on the ground in obvious excruciating pain.

Then the flyer shook as the shockwave ran through the mountain range, and seconds later, the roar of an avalanche of snow and ice came down upon everyone and everything, sending him crashing to the floor of the cockpit as the ship was buried.

*

Ferasan Occupation Headquarters, Capitol Building, First City, M'Mirl Province:

"This is the price of continued defiance," Melem-Adu, the Ferasan Master Governor who had just ordered the nuclear attack on the city, concluded to the Motherworld, from his shielded sanctuary in the Capitol, half a planet away. "Now, as you understand the price you might pay, you must ask yourselves: who are you? Are you the smart, sensible Caitians I hope you are? Or are you Shanos Minor?

Choose wisely."

As the transmission ended, Melem-Adu raised the paw holding the wine cup, fully expecting one of the Caitian slaves to appear in three seconds to refill it... or end up on tonight's menu. Three, two- One of them was now at his side, as he looked to his erstwhile allies. "So, what do you say to that?"

Welros, the Vorta representative of the Dominion, allowed his bland features to crease with a polite smile. "A visually arresting display of power, Master Governor. I hope it bears better fruit than the radioactive fallout your bomb will have produced."

You miserable, insipid homunculus... "As I have already explained, Vorta, the mountains surrounding the city -- the former city -- will shield the rest of the planet from the majority of the fallout." He drank deeply before continuing. "But the real fallout will be the message sent to these woman-worshipping weaklings." In illustration, he turned to his son, standing near the bank of stations monitoring activity across the planet. "Well?"