“Angels Sacrifice Nothing”
The ever-expanding explosions of the minefield spread across hundreds of kilometers. The single burst from the station’s phaser array had ignited the deactivated ordnance and the cascading blast was taking down the self-replicating mines that had kept the Alpha Quadrant from tipping into apocalypse for five months.
The crew of the USS Defiant stared in horror at the small viewscreen as the data was relayed from the forward sensor array. Lieutenant Commander Jadzia Dax, her hair disheveled and her normally sarcastic mien looked up at her commanding officer in despair. “What do we do now, Captain?”
“Take us into the wormhole,” Benjamin Sisko said with a long sigh.
”What the hell?” muttered Miles O’Brien from the engineering station. “We’re only going to meet a couple of thousand Dominion ships.”
“One ship against an entire fleet?” Dax asked. “That’s a helluva plan ‘B.’”
From the starboard tactical station, Elim Garak swiveled in his chair. “Chief? How does that poem end?”
Honor the charge they made. “You don’t want to know,” the chief said. He turned back to his console and started rerouting weapons and engine power. The Defiant made a beeline for the mouth to the wormhole and went to meet her fate.
- - -
The blue swirling verteron fields that made up the Bajoran wormhole rippled across the viewscreen and rumbled against the Defiant’s shields. “Full stop,” Sisko said. “Chief, divert all power to forward shields and weapons.”
“Captain,” said Dax, “I’m reading multiple warp signatures ahead.”
“On screen,” Sisko ordered. “Maximum magnification.”
The forward screen shimmered to the disastrous view of the Jem’Hadar reinforcements. There were so many ships, it was hard to tell where one ship ended and another began. This was the invasion force Starfleet had feared would come in and tip the scales and force Starfleet’s surrender. The captain gave his orders. “Lock phasers, prepare to launch quantum torpedoes.”
“Phaser banks fully charged,” O’Brien said.
“Forward shields at a hundred percent,” Nog reported.
“Torpedoes ready, targets locked,” the chief continued.
“Here they come,” Dax snapped.
“Fire on my command,” Sisko ordered.
“There must be thousands of them,” Nog said.
“And half of them have locked targets on us,” Garak remarked.
“Steady, people,” Sisko said calmly. “Make every shot count.”
“They’re in weapons range,” Dax exclaimed.
Sisko gave his final order as captain. “It’s been an honor serving with all of you. Fire at will.”
* * *
In the operations center of Terok Nor, Gul Damar operated the main console and reported to Dukat. “Sir, wormhole is opening.”
On the oval-shaped viewer the wormhole burst open and the mass of Jem’Hadar reinforcements emerged into the Alpha quadrant and took up a position surrounding the station. The Founder and Weyoun nodded to each other in satisfaction. “Tell our reinforcements that Alpha quadrant is ours,” the shapeshifter said.
Dukat smiled smugly. “Alert our new fleet to take up station and await instructions.”
But Damar wasn’t listening. A priority communiqué had just come through. “Sir, two hundred enemy ships have broken through our lines. They’re headed this way.”
“It’s nothing to worry about,” Dukat said. “They’ll land right into our laps and be destroyed.”
“Dukat,” Weyoun said, “you don’t think Starfleet is so stupid to risk sending ships that are outnumbered ten to one on a suicide mission, do you? They must have something planned.”
“It’s a futile attempt,” Dukat said. “Let them come. Let them see the might of Cardassia and the Dominion. And when they come we’ll obliterate them.”
- - -
Captain Edward Jellico, commanding officer of the USS Cairo, gripped the arms of his command chair as the Excelsior-Class cruiser ripped across space at maximum warp. The deck plates vibrated under the strain. Chief Engineer Hayes was putting it to the wall. It’d taken the Cairo and her taskforce of more than two hundred ships less than an hour to break the Dominion formation and head out of the Durane system and jump to warp, leaving the enemy fleet far behind.
Defiant had broken through a couple of hours ago but they’d not heard anything from Captain Sisko. Jellico turned to his first officer, Commander Wong. “Leslie, get me Quentin Swofford on a secure link.”
The first officer operated her console quickly and the forward screen shifted to a battered bridge of the Galaxy-Class USS Cortez. The ship had fallen back with engine trouble before the battle and was just now approaching the frontlines and giving the Dominion fleet a taste of its weapons array. “Ed,” Swofford said, under the thundering explosions. “I take it this couldn’t wait.”
“Sorry Quen,” Jellico said. “We’ve lost contact with the Defiant. We have to assume they’ve failed. I’m taking the ships that broke through to Bajor. Hold the line as best you can, old friend. If those Dominion ships have come into the quadrant, there’s only one chance left.”
“We’ll do our best, good luck.”
Jellico turned back to Wong. “Send the instructions to the Rotaran.”
- - -
Lieutenant Commander Worf stood at his commanding officer’s side. They were in the engineering compartment of the Rotaran staring at the mish mashed pieces of a photon torpedo casing that was strewn across the deck. General Martok snarled at the chief engineer, Commander Kav. “You will have this weapon online in time, right, Kav?”
“If I don’t,” Kav said. “I assume I’ll be gutted with a bat’leth?”
“That why I like you Kav,” Martok said. “You always know what I expect of you.”
Kav smiled broadly and accessed the ship’s computer. “All of the parts arrived from the Federation ship,” he said referring to the Cairo. “Including the trilithium samples and the magnetic pod of protomatter. Everything’s calibrated, I just need to get the components into the torpedo tube and it will await your order.”
Martok slapped Kav on the shoulder. “Excellent work, old friend. Let me know when it’s ready to launch.” He turned, nodded to Worf and the two of them left the compartment and headed for the bridge. Martok caught the expression on Worf’s face. “Worf,” he said quietly. “I’m sure she died with honor.”
“Of that I have no doubt,” Worf said. Jadzia, his beloved, had no doubt died when the Defiant had reached Deep Space Nine. The contingency plan put in place would no doubt avenge her death, but at the cost of billions of lives. Worf had once fought nearly to the death to prevent Tolian Soran from doing what they were now attempting. But the cost was the safety of this entire quadrant of the galaxy.
When they reached the bridge, Martok ordered the weapons officer to cloak the ship and gave new coordinates to the helmsman. In one hour their fates would be sealed and the Klingon Empire would survive.
- - -
“Now,” Dukat said, “we drink to the conquerors of the Federation.” He lifted his glass of kanar in salute and downed the dark syrupy liquid.
Weyoun turned away in disgust. “Keeping our ships here in the system is a mistake. We should deploy them immediately.”
“We will,” Dukat said. “In good time. The Federation is coming here with everything they have left. They’re impossibly outmatched. But they will no doubt be relaying the details of the battle back home. I want them to see the fleet that has gathered. The fleet that will soon head into the Federation and take it.”
Weyoun crossed his arms. “The Founder is not pleased. I’ve assured her you know what you’re doing. Don’t make a liar out of me, Dukat.”
Smiling broadly, Dukat refilled his glass. He looked up to see Damar ascending the steps and heading for his office. He waved his exec in and asked for a report.
“We found them,” Damar said. “Major Kira and Rom were in the central core. They were the ones who took the weapons offline.”
“For all the good it did them,” Weyoun said. “Have you dealt with them?”
Damar nodded and smiled viciously. “They’re dead. I took care of it myself.”
“What about the others?” Weyoun asked. “Jake Sisko, Leeta, Quark?”
“I have teams out searching for them,” Damar said. “Engineering teams have restored the weapons batteries. We’re ready to face the Federation fleet.”
“How long until they arrive?” Dukat asked.
“Forty-seven minutes,” Damar reported without checking his padd.
“Good. Prepare the weapons, deploy our forces and put the station on battle alert.”
- - -
Normally a starship traveling at warp speed showed up on sensors as a distortion in the subspace medium. Every FTL capable vessel since the dawn of warp drive was configured to detect ships closing at warp. But when there were more than two hundred ships traveling at warp in close proximity to each other closing on the high side of warp nine, the subspace sensors you used to detect them would overload and spit out gibberish. Such a subspace distortion was currently bearing down on the Bajoran system.
And thanks to the sensor disruption of the subspace fields, neither Terok Nor or the Jem’Hadar ships surrounding it detected the bomb that was set off three minutes ago.
- - -
“One minute,” said Lieutenant Chamberlin, alpha shift helm officer of the Cairo.
“This is it folks,” Jellico ordered. “You all know the plan. Seline,” he said turning to the Mazerite tactical officer. “Plot your firing solutions the moment we’re out of warp. Coordinate with tactical on the Venture and the Armstrong. They’re going to cover our flanks when we start our run. Remember, we’re here to hold, harass and pray to hell General Martok succeeds.”
“Thirty seconds,” Chamberlin said.
“Battle stations,” Jellico ordered. “Take us out of warp. All ships engage!”
- - -
The combined Federation-Klingon fleet dropped out of warp in precise unison less than a million kilometers from Deep Space Nine and the massive fleet of Jem’Hadar ships. Dukat shook his headed in wonderment as the outnumbered ships opened up with their weapons batteries against the conflagration of Jem’Hadar cruisers. He turned to Damar. “Fire at will,” he said.
Damar brought the station’s weapons to bear on the Federation fleet, making short work of several ships trying to attack the station. The phasers tore through the support struts of an Excelsior-Class ship, severing its saucer section. The flaming hulk, bearing the name USS Cairo blew apart from its engineering hull and collided into the deflector shields of the station.
The deck thundered under the explosions, dropping the shield integrity down to half power. The resulting antimatter explosion of the Cairo tore one of the upper pylons from the docking ring, collapsing the hull supports.
“We’ve lost the outer shields,” Damar cried out. “Collision in section fifty nine. I’ve got repair crews on the way.”
“Bring in attack wings twelve through twenty to guard the unshielded sections,” Dukat ordered. “Keep firing!”
“Gul!” shouted Cres, a Female glinn manning the sciences console. “Our scanners have picked up a massive explosion. A level twelve shockwave is closing on us!”
- - -
Five minutes earlier…
“In range at thirty thousand kellicams,” Leskit said from the helm of the Rotaran.
“Torpedo armed and ready,” Worf said. “Detonation set for nine seconds after it enters the corona.”
“De-cloak,” Martok ordered. “Raise shields…fire!”
The trilithium warhead that was armed with a protomatter detonator emerged from the forward torpedo tube of the Rotaran and detonated within the corona of the star. The solar implosion tore the vast ball of hydrogen and radiation apart, expanding in every direction in space. As soon as the torpedo had emerged from the launch tube, the Rotaran had gone to warp nine and re-cloaked.
“Victory,” Martok whispered. “Helm, set a new course, two eight seven mark twelve.”
The Rotaran would leave the battlefield of Bajor, leaving the dead and the doomed behind. They’d rendezvous with the Ninth Fleet at Olrok IV and plan the next move. Given the damage they’d just inflicted on the Dominion and their Cardassian allies, the outright invasion of Cardassia Prime would be the their next logical step.
“Course set,” Leskit said.
“Engage,” Martok barked.
As the Rotaran left the area and went to maximum warp, the songs began. The songs of victory and the songs of honor for the dead who had paid for that victory with their lives.
- - -
The supernova that erupted from B'hava'el, hidden until the last moment by the warp distortion of the allied fleet, left nothing standing. No planets, no vessels, no life.
Bajor and her moons were vaporized, torn apart at the core levels of elements. The Jem’Hadar fleet was shredded, only a dozen or so escaping the blast, only to be pursued by escaping Federation starships.
The exact death toll was never fully known. It was easily in the billions. The destruction reaped upon this once peaceful system was a dark shadow that fell across the civilized population of the Federation. The price of victory had been higher than most were willing to pay. With the destruction of the wormhole, Dominion forces had been cut off from their supply lines in the Gamma quadrant and what remained of their fleets retreated to Cardassia Prime.
Starfleet and the Klingons, and years later when the Romulans had finally come around, bottled up the Cardassian Union, stripped it of its military capability and set up no-travel zones within the former Union.
Still, to this day, twenty-seven years later, the Cardassian people are a starving, crippled civilization. The protectorates set up by the allied forces, routinely send food and medicine into the disputed zones. But their Dominion masters, even after all of this time, still attempt to rebuild their empire. The Federation never allowed the all-out invasion of Cardassian space and the occupation that would have cost millions of lives. The Debacle of Bajor was a dark stain that held back the civilian leaders of the Federation and they would never again authorize such a brutal action. They’d continue to deprive the Dominion of their military capabilities and help the sick and dying on distant Cardassian worlds, but no one had come up with a ‘Dominion Solution’ that would finally secure a peace that the galaxy desperately needed.
So the standoff and the waiting would continue.
All because a lone Federation starship had failed in her mission to garner the wrath of gods in the Celestial Temple on the fateful day.
