Playing To Win........

[Dayton3]

Before the Patton class vessels could reach the Enterprise the Borg struck. Six massive cubes fired staggered barrages of disruptor shots and torpedoe fire. All of Hampton's formidable ability could not dodge the lot of them. Enterprise bucked and reeled from the impact of a score of hits. The shields held back much of the assault but not all it and as Tower watched the DCD half a dozen angry red lights indicated hull breaches.

But the Borg were not finished. Far from it. Trailing somewhat behind the six cubes that had fired, a seventh Borg cube suddenly rose clear of its fellows. It did not fire a staggered barrage. Instead it fired a massive, sustained beam of intense energy at the Enterprise.

The Borg fire was off by barely ten meters. They had aimed at area of the ship protected only by an overloaded shield grid. Instead they struck a section which still had full shields. The Enterprise shields flared and died under the intense assault but they repelled eighty percent of the Borg attack. The much weakened Borg beam plunged through the hull of Enterprise, digging in more than five decks deep before its energy was lost.

Enterprise lurched ominously with the hit but emergency forcefields activated almost instantly. And within seconds, local damage control teams were charging into the damaged compartments.

 

[Dayton3]

With the Enterprise reeling from the massive assault, Tower was relieved when the Pattons arrived though he was still horrified at the price he knew those small, flimsy vessels and their crews were about to pay.

The ten destroyers quickly angled between the Enterprise and the closing force of Borg vessels. Their crews were well trained. Even as the took up positions to cover the Enterprise, all ten ships opened fired with their forward phasers at a single Borg ship while each launched torpedos at other Borg vessels.

The lead Borg ship absorbed the phaser attack with few ill effects but it did slow its advance. The destroyer group quickly switched their fire to a second, then a third Borg vessel.

But they couldn't combine fire on all of them. One of the Borg vessels which was untouched swept the destroyer formation with cutting beams and disruptor fire. It then launched salvoes of torpedos for good measure.

Admiral Tower raised his hand to shield his eyes as the Enterprise main viewscreen became a sea of exploding starships. Half a dozen warp engines flew by Enterprise like so much confetti. Partially incinerated saucers and glowing chunks of engineering hulls added to the macabre display.

When the viewscreen and sensors began to clear up, Tower noted that seven destroyers had been annihilated, two were drifting helpless while a single ship appeared to be untouched.

Commander Olvera was captain of the U.S.S. Grant. While he was shocked by the eradication of nearly his entire squadron including hundreds of people he had worked with for months, he did not freeze. He knew that his lone destroyer could do nothing more to protect the Enterprise.

But staring at his sensor readings, Olvera suddenly saw an opportunity...

 

[Mistral]

And that would be....?

 

[Dayton3]

With a single sharp command from Olvera, the Grant shot away from the Enterprise and directly toward one of the leading Borg vessels.

"Helm, bring us to the exact midpoint of the port side of the Borg ship. Activate forward tractor beams and bring the forward edge of the saucer to within 10 meters of the Borg vessels surface!" Olvera ordered.

The entire bridge crew turned as one in shock.

"You heard me!" Olvera snapped. "TEN METERS! Once we are in position stand by to fire forward phasers narrow beam, maximum power!".

In seconds the U.S.S. Grant was in position though even with tractor beams, the helmsman was hard pressed to keep the ship precisely in place. Especially given that the Borg ship was manuevering on its own.

And firing on them. Several disruptor shots sliced past the Grant but missed. Apparently the Borg had not figured on a starship willingly approaching them so closely.

"FIRE!" Olvera ordered...

 

[Mistral]

ok, I think I see....

 

[Dayton3]

The forward phaser banks lanced into the side of the Borg vessel. Even the phasers of a small, obsolete ship like the Patton class Grant were powerful enough to level a city in a single pass.

Against a tiny ten meter square section of the Borg ships hull, the results were just as impressive.

The phasers bored through the outer armor of the Borg vessel and gnawed a path into the Borg ship at a rate of twenty meters per second. In barely less than half a minute, the Grant carved a hole half a kilometer deep into the side of the massive cube.

The rest was up to others.

"Cease fire! Cease fire!" shouted Commander Olvera. "Fire a Class IV homing probe into the battle scar."

Olvera himself opened a general channel.

"U.S.S. Patton to all available ships! Fire torpedoes! Maximum yield! Any type available! Home in on this sign!"

"Probe away sir!" the tactical officer shouted.

"Release tractor beams! Conn! Hard to starboard! Hard to starboard! Full impulse! All hands brace for battle concussion!" Olvera shouted as he tried to secure himself to the command chair. Already he could see on the scanner dozens. No. Hundreds of torpedoes inbound.

The Grant heaved itself to the side as swarms of torpedoes hurtled past it, seeking the signal put out by the probe.

The massive detonations deep in the heart of the Borg vessel were more than any ship could withstand.

The Borg ship begin to drift until a final series of explosions shattered it completely. Millions of tons of debris slammed into the U.S.S. Grant, damaging the small vessel beyond repair

 

[Gibraltar]

That was a clever tactic using the probe's signal to guide in the following torpedoes.

 

[Mistral]

Very clever-but you called it the USS Patton during the radio broadcast.

 

[Dayton3]

Very clever-but you called it the USS Patton during the radio broadcast.

Oops.

Wish I had caught that oversight. Shows what you get when you do your posting in the five minutes between classes.

 

[The Badger]

This is good stuff.
Like Gibraltar, I'm not too keen on the portrayal of the Federation as being anti religion. It seems out of place.
I also found the back-and-forth of the narrative to be somewhat distracting, although I applaud your attempts to do something interesting with the way you tell the story.

On the plus side, the story is well written. The space battle scenes in particular are exciting. I can easily imagine them on TV.
The scene with Tower and his (ex) wife showed some good characterisation.

I'm interested in how this will turn out. Keep it up!