Stardate:
98196.8
Filed By:
CAPT Tungsten, Drake
Clearance:
After Action Report
LOCATION Aldebaran Sector, Deep Space, near the Klingon Border
MISSION Routine border patrol
OUTCOME After intercepting a fleeing refugee ship on the Federation side of the border, the USS Dragon was ambushed before shields could be raised following transport. 5 confirmed enemy kills for the Dragon, the last 3 from self-destruct. USS Dragon lost, but all hands, passengers, and an intelligence asset were saved.
KEY PERSONNEL
- CAPT Tungsten, Drake
- CAPT Mirazuni, Ayesha
- CMDR Lasalle, Evette ((NPC))
- LTJG Mekyu, Siana
- ENS Sovum, Veneela
NARRATIVE The USS Dragon began routine patrols on the stardate indicated above, near the Klingon border. A small freighter was spotted crossing the border, barely holding together. Intercepted on the Federation side of the border, where their engines finally gave out from running full-power for too long. They hailed us, clearly distraught, and asking emphatically for asylum with the Federation, and letting us know of the urgency, as they were being pursued.
Interference from their engines breaking down impeded scans for cloaked vessels, and also the transporter lock, but this officer assessed that their ship was probably going to explode soon, and ordered medical and security teams to the transporter room. The people on the other vessel were a male Orion, who appeared to be their leader of a sort, and was doing the talking, along with 5 Klingon women and children. They all looked to be in poor condition, and were more than happy to leave their ship. CAPT Mirazuni utilized her telepathic abilities to assess them as a threat, and they were deemed non-hostile, but the male Orion clearly felt an urgent need to contact Starfleet Intelligence. We were later proven correct in assuming that this is the primary reason why they were being chased.
As mentioned before, there was difficulty in beaming them over to the Dragon, and literally mid-order for raising the shields right after the transport completed, USS Dragon came under attack. Upper-port warp nacelle was destroyed, but more importantly, the charge fused the warp relays. Engineering reported that the ship could absolutely reach warp without a nacelle, but it would take time to fix the relays, and until then, only impulse was possible, wholly inadequate for escape.
The attacking ship was Vor’cha class. LT Mekyu performed extremely well filling in at Tactical for LT Jones, who was on-leave on this date. We were able to defeat this first attacking ship after much back-and-forth. Right before that ship was destroyed, another Vor’cha class cruiser warped in, and began its attack in earnest.
Attempts were made to hail them, but there was no answer, unsurprisingly. Communication was made on open frequency to alert them to being in Federation space, and assaulting a Starfleet vessel, but still no answer. A distress call to DS13 was also sent during the engagement with the first ship, but the nearest ships would not be able to make it in time to assist.
The fight with the second ship was long, and as our shield strength began to get below 40%, this officer agreed with CAPT Mirazuni’s recommendation to relocate to Engineering and lock out the bridge controls, as it was a more vulnerable position in the forward of the ship, and likely to be first stop for any boarding parties. The armor was also thicker around the engineering section.
Through both good fortune and the skill of the Dragon’s crew, the second ship was also destroyed, though not before shields were finally brought down on USS Dragon, and the hull strength down to 80%.
It was at this time that three more Vor’cha class cruisers warped in simultaneously, and took position directly in front of USS Dragon, mere meters away, arrayed in a tight arc, presumably for intimidation purposes.
We were hailed, as the captain of the lead ship did not even bother to identify himself, but did taunt us, and said that he “may” allow us to live if we handed over “the spy”, and went on about Klingon prison camps a little, before telling us we had 5 minutes to decide, and abruptly ending the transmission.
Faced with statistically impossible odds of victory in combat again versus three fresh ships to our damaged one, and the impossibility of escape with only impulse power, and nothing to hide or evade with nearby, plus the enemy captain’s arrogance giving us both time, and lining up his ships neatly together, the decision was made to abandon ship and self-destruct to cover our escape.
The computer was set to ram the ships at full impulse, as well as launch the escape pods after setting the tactical sensor array to full-spectrum overload and blind all sensors. Escape pods were set to use gyroscopic navigation until the interference cleared. Bridge officers took the two Delta Class shuttles and launched with the escape pods, in order to tractor any of them if necessary, make use of communications equipment, or in the worst-case scenario, mount a last-ditch defense to hopefully save at least some of the escape pods.
Using the shuttle sensors, it was confirmed that the Dragon managed to lodge itself into the nose-section of the three Klingon cruisers to hold them in place, and the resulting antimatter explosion from self-destruct destroyed them, so we would not be pursued further into Federation space. No further enemy vessels appeared after this point.
RECOMMENDATION Stepped-up patrols, possibly in pairs might prove useful. Sensor nets at the border for detecting cloaked ships where possible would be helpful, and a cloaking device might have proven very handy to make it further towards friendly ships under impulse while repairs were under way after defeating the second ship, even if there would have been no time to activate it before the first showed up.
Also, I hope it would be self-apparent that the former passengers of the encountered freighter should be processed through both medical for further checks, and especially their Orion leader through Starfleet Intelligence. If anything, he seemed to also be eager for the latter.
RECOGNITION I would like to recognize each and every one of the crew of the USS Dragon for their outstanding performance, because together, we were able to save the lives of all hands, plus refugees, and one apparent intelligence asset, while stopping further incursion into Federation space.
Special recognition though to LT Mekyu for skillfully manning tactical.
OOC Thanks everyone who joined in on this! This event definitely had narrative guard-rails on it, but I think it helped me work on keeping the amount of content more manageable compared to last time, so with having a better feel for that, I’m hoping to work on giving crew a bit more freedom for branching possibilities in the future. Also, I would like to make clear that I purposefully left WHAT intelligence the Orion guy was carrying vague for both the “eyes-only” nature one might assume, but also so that Command or Intelligence may fill in the blanks there and take over the NPC.
