S2 M2: "Pursuit of Yesterday"

[Jada]

USS Tigris

Jada's eyebrow raised, almost Vulcan-like, albeit in bemused discomfort rather than curiosity, at Solluk's attempted innuendo. It hadn't so much failed as succeeded too well. 'Erp, nope, too much.' she muttered, setting a boundary. At least it confirmed one thing, that Solluk was certainly receptive to her advances. She just wasn't sure how to take them any further.

She worked over the console, double-checking the armaments and recently loaded photon torpedoes (oh, now she got it). 'I'm glad that you'll find my presence insufferable then. Did that mean what she thought it meant? She figured it did.

While Solluk conferred with flight control, Jada turned and addressed her team. 'Alright, our enemy are a bunch of time-lost Jem'Hadar who think they're still fighting the Dominion War. We're trying to tell them the war's over. Our aim is to force them to land, and force them to listen to us. Hopefully we won't have to fight, but they won't make it easy. Phasers should be set to "kill", because stun won't have an effect.'

'Screw disco.' Jada snorted with a grin, having not been a big fan of it in the first place. 'You can pick second. I go first...' She selected the track and hit "play".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l482T0yNkeo

[James H. Hawk]

Turbolift

Riding down the turbolift with Hawk, Jada answered 'Thank you, sir.' unable to hide the pride in her voice. In a comparatively, and surprisingly, short time, she'd risen from being a new crewman to chief of security, following in the footsteps of Commander Hawk. 'I hope I've filled your big boots well.' she said, not sure she'd gotten the Earthian idiom quite right.

[Shuttlebay]

James smiled at Jada when she spoke. He founding it amusing when she tried grasping idioms. He wasn't making fun of her but he did find it funny. "My boots aren't that big, Jada," he said, "You've done great so far. The Tempest is lucky to have you defending us."

He laughed when Jada said she hadn't been behind the decal and he just said "Ok, Jada," with a smirk.

James entered the Tigris behind Jada and took a seat further back.

"Mr. Solluk. Ready to take us out?" The young XO asked once Jada had turned her music on.

[Ian Galloway]

Privately, he texted Ian on the bridge, --Thank you for the advice, Sir.  We will try to make good use of it.--

Often, Ian worried over his pilots like a concerned father watching his child go out on a first date.  Solluk had spent most of his career flying embarked craft, and knew the rudiments of aerial maneuvers and flight tactics well.  Ian was a well-respected master of atmospheric combat, unsurpassed on the Tempest, but things had long since passed the point where anything unknown about piloting could be quickly conveyed to Solluk via text message or subspace pep talk.

No matter.  Solluk's own father had been cold and distant... moreso since a brain injury had rendered his son incapable of fully controlling his emotions.

...Or perhaps Solluk was merely more sensitive to it, now.  Either way, it felt good to have someone looking out for him.  Someone who cared.   Solluk would always be grateful to Ian for doing everything in his power to help him succeed.

--It is good to know you have our backs-- he added in a final text transmission.

[Bridge]

Ian sat at the Conn and took a deep breath, then sent Solluk another text. He smiled as he figured the Vulcan probably wouldn't understand it.

"Godspeed Lad."

After sending the text, Ian tapped his commbadge.

"Tigris and Euphrates you are clear to launch."

[Solluk]

[USS Tigris]

Solluk felt a momentary awkwardness that made him doubt his skill with the banter Jada often and easily engaged in.   Well... he was 'young' yet in his experience of the emotional world and all of its nuance and games.

Music began to fill the cockpit of the runabout, and Solluk briefly wondered- if Hell existed, why would one choose to build a highway there?

Ah... but the song seemed to be about a carefree spirit.  Boldly facing certain doom.  Laughing in the face of dire outcomes.  Relishing life as you burn like a meteor sparking through the atmosphere.  The 'Highway' was not really an expedited path to a foul end, but rather the road one relished before the end came.  And perhaps those who dwelt in the foulest place would simply be fellow adventurers who similarly dared to enjoy the descent.  Perhaps the cursed underworld was really just a place to share with like-minded souls.

The high-pitched screeching of this Terran music concealed a tale much deeper than it first seemed.

But this was not the time to deconstruct ancient tunes from an alien world.

"Mr. Solluk. Ready to take us out?"

Solluk nodded, "Aye, Sir."

A text came through from Ian.  A wish for God's Speed, it seemed.

Solluk smirked.  God's Speed on Hell's Highway.  An interesting juxtoposition.

"Tigris and Euphrates you are clear to launch."

Solluk's hands lighted on the controls of his console, "And we are Go for launch."

The Tigris took the lead, lifting off and away, penetrating the yawning doors of the shuttlebay. The craft rocked slightly as it transitioned from one atmospheric condition to the next.   Solluk kept the runabout's speed low until the Euphrates came into position behind them.   Then he transmitted a flight plan and arrangement based on Ian's advice and his own experience.

"Current speed is Mach 3.  We will intersect with the position of the Jem Hadar attack ships in... thirty seconds."

[Ian Galloway]

The Tigris took the lead, lifting off and away, penetrating the yawning doors of the shuttlebay. The craft rocked slightly as it transitioned from one atmospheric condition to the next.   Solluk kept the runabout's speed low until the Euphrates came into position behind them.   Then he transmitted a flight plan and arrangement based on Ian's advice and his own experience.

"Current speed is Mach 3.  We will intersect with the position of the Jem Hadar attack ships in... thirty seconds."[/size]

[Bridge]

Ian watched his console intently as the runabouts made their approach waiting for the Jem'Hadar to attack. He had his hands poised to bring the Tempest into a screaming dive the instant he detected the runabouts were in trouble.

"Sometimes I really question why we try so bloody hard ta save everyone." He thought as he waited for the attack he knew deep in his soul was inevitable.

[Jada]

[USS Tigris]

Strapped into her gunner's seat, Jada focused on the tactical display and the paths of the Jem'Hadar fighters, wary they might come about to confront the runabouts mid-atmosphere. She set the automated targeting system to head-hunt for critical locations and tuned phasers to pencil-thin beams, designed to drill through armour and engine blocks and put enemy ships out of commission.

Examining recovered ship plans and historical accounts, she'd been quickly brushing up on the traits and tactics of her enemy. She'd never faced Jem'Hadar before, had never met one, and the war had been two decades ago, before she was born, but they were still on the list of alien powers Starfleet actively trained and prepared against (a list which included Orions as well, she'd found). The Dominion War must have really rattled the Federation. Jada didn't like to admit some of her people had fought in that war Á¢â,¬"œ as mercenaries on what might be called the wrong side. The Jem'Hadar were a terrible, brutal foe.

But Jada found herself with a lot of sympathy for them: an engineered slave-race, forced to fight and die for aliens masquerading as gods, kept socially, chemically, and religiously dependent on their masters. They could have been ancient Orions. She had no wish to kill them, but she would protect her ship and the Federation from them.

I'm on the highway to hell!
Highway to hell!
I'm on the highway to hell!
Highway to hell!

The Tigris and Euphrates descended through the atmosphere into the large, desolate world, into a great rift valley of red stone. The three saucer-like Jem'Hadar wheeled about at the other end. Tense and ready, jaw set in grim resolution, Jada had combat controls primed beneath green fingers. 'Here we come. Ready to engage in ten. Suggest contacting them now or holding our peace.'

[James H. Hawk]

[Bridge]

Since Jada was quite competent and had taken the gunners seat, James had taken it upon himself to handle communications. As expected however, the Jem'Hadar would not respond to his attempts at hailing them.

After the Tzenkethi conflict, James had managed to talk his way into being given access to a Starfleet Intelligence computer virus that could search for a specific set of data and download it. Unforutnetly it was new technology and hadn't been used in a real situation before so it was still imperfect to say the least. James had promised if he used it he would report how it went back to Intel which is part of the reason why they let him have it. Right now, James planed to use it to find out where the Jem'Hadar had come from.

"Jada," he said, "Even if we manage to capture a Jem'Hadar or even a Vorta they won't talk. If you can force one of them to land, I can hopefully download the information we need to find out what they are doing and why they attacked us. I just need to get on one of their ships."

[Jada]

[USS Tigris]

'I'm told I have a way of making men talk,' Jada returned with a grim smile, 'But Starfleet frowns on beating prisoners.' So much for the much-vaunted Orion pheromones. But the sultry spicy-sweet smell of skin oils was filling the runabout, transmitting her emotional state of tense readiness, boosting adrenaline and aggression, quickening reflexes and hardening them against injury. It was amping the whole squad up, preparing them for battle, keying them to her command. Jada didn't dominate or control, but she did lead a literally well-oiled team. 'I'll get you that ship, sir.' she promised.

Then the Jem'Hadar fighters finished their turn, confronting the runabouts. Something about their formation suggested a last stand. Jada remembered the kamikaze attack earlier.  'Here they come! Euphrates, suggest swing left and flank 'em. Mister Solluk, we'll need evasive. Tempest, expect a kamikaze.'=/\= she ordered tersely. Sure enough, one of the Jemmies surged upward, making a beeline for the Tempest where she sat in overwatch.

Two and against two, they clashed in a storm of phaser fire and polaron beams, lighting up the ancient rift valley.

[Ian Galloway]

Then the Jem'Hadar fighters finished their turn, confronting the runabouts. Something about their formation suggested a last stand. Jada remembered the kamikaze attack earlier.  'Here they come! Euphrates, suggest swing left and flank 'em. Mister Solluk, we'll need evasive. Tempest, expect a kamikaze.'=/\= she ordered tersely. Sure enough, one of the Jemmies surged upward, making a beeline for the Tempest where she sat in overwatch.

Two and against two, they clashed in a storm of phaser fire and polaron beams, lighting up the ancient rift valley.

[Bridge]

"Lan dhen cac!" Ian snarled as he saw the rapidly closing fighter. Keyed as he was for an attack, Ian already had the Tempest moving before Jada finished speaking. He'd planned to bring the ship into a steep dive to help the runabouts, but with their target climbing to ram them, he quickly altered his maneuver. He still fired the aft ventral and forward dorsal thrusters at full, which pitched the bow of the Tempest down sharply, but instead of initiating the dive, he instead fired all forward thrusters which served to make the ship climb in reverse.

"NOW Mister Mikaelson!"

Ian barked at the young tactical officer to snap him out of his hesitation.

"Aye Sir!" He replied and unleashed the Tempest's full array of weapons at the attack fighter. The unorthodox maneuver surprised the Jem'Hadar and before it could react, the uncompressed fury that was a full spread of quantum torpedoes reduced the fighter to fragments.

As soon as the threat to the Tempest was over, Ian canceled the reverse movement and initiated the dive he'd planned to come to the support of the runabouts.

[Julia Rellek]

[Bridge]

"Lan dhen cac!" Ian snarled as he saw the rapidly closing fighter. Keyed as he was for an attack, Ian already had the Tempest moving before Jada finished speaking. He'd planned to bring the ship into a steep dive to help the runabouts, but with their target climbing to ram them, he quickly altered his maneuver. He still fired the aft ventral and forward dorsal thrusters at full, which pitched the bow of the Tempest down sharply, but instead of initiating the dive, he instead fired all forward thrusters which served to make the ship climb in reverse.

"NOW Mister Mikaelson!"

Ian barked at the young tactical officer to snap him out of his hesitation.

"Aye Sir!" He replied and unleashed the Tempest's full array of weapons at the attack fighter. The unorthodox maneuver surprised the Jem'Hadar and before it could react, the uncompressed fury that was a full spread of quantum torpedoes reduced the fighter to fragments.

As soon as the threat to the Tempest was over, Ian canceled the reverse movement and initiated the dive he'd planned to come to the support of the runabouts.

[Bridge]

"Nice one, Lieutenant, not sure that one is in the manual. Mikaelson, keep a target lock on that other ship." Julia sat back in her chair, she knew the team would prefer to make some type of peaceful contact but she wasn't certain it could be pulled off.

"Tempest to Euphrates, is everyone okay down there?"=/\=

[Solluk]

[USS Tigris]

Reaction Control Thrusters were intended for use in a vacuum, under microgravity.  But Solluk wasn't about to refuse their extra joules of vectored thrust as he hammered his console, initiating evasive maneuvers with the aid of Starfleet's finest computer-assisted flight control software.  The chosen course of action strained the inertial dampeners, but the discomfort was minimal.  More discomfiting was the fact that the runabout avoided the nearest attack ship by the tiniest of margins as it proceeded past them.   Weapons fire lanced out towards the Tigris from the ship as it passed, but it only lightly caressed the edge of their shield envelope, largely missing its intended target.

It could have been a much worse outcome.

Lifting the safeties off of the thrusters, Solluk gunned them to 110% output in an effort to intentionally place the runabout into a flat spin- an unorthodox maneuver.  It seemed the quickest way to bring the weapons about to face the attack ships after they passed by.  Once the runabout had completed a half revolution, he reversed his thruster firing sequence and engaged impulse engines, creating a burst of forward momentum and lighting up the sky behind them as though by an atomic torch.

It was not a thing one did in a runabout.

Certainly not in an atmosphere.

But... there it was.

"Their hind-quarters are yours, Chief," Solluk declared after un-clenching his jaw.

[Ian Galloway]

[Bridge]

"Nice one, Lieutenant, not sure that one is in the manual. Mikaelson, keep a target lock on that other ship." Julia sat back in her chair, she knew the team would prefer to make some type of peaceful contact but she wasn't certain it could be pulled off.

"Tempest to Euphrates, is everyone okay down there?"=/\=

[Bridge]

Ian smiled at the captain's comment and continued to keep the Tempest in a cave, and at her suggestion, broke to follow to follow the fighter tracking the Euphrates.

"Thank you Ma'am. I knew in my gut they'd pull summat like this, the rest just fell into place based on my experience with the P-40." He chuckled as he continued. "However, that climb in reverse bit was not a trick in the 1941 manual either. There are some advantages ta 24th Century technology. The critical question ta you Ma'am is, how much effort do you want ta out into bringing these boogits in alive? These Jem'Hadar gits are nae known fer anything but 'victory is life', which also means in their mind's, that defeat has ta end in death."

[Jada]

[USS Tigris]

'I think you mean their arse is mine.' Jada growled, locking phasers on the fighter's thruster ports. Twin orange beams lanced out, intersected in the jet with a blazing burst and left them fused and unworkable. Now flying on momentum alone, the Jem'Hadar fighter surged on, with only a crash-landing to look forward.

But the Jem'Hadar gunner had a last trick, hurling a torpedo rearward in a devastating Parthian shot. 'Torpedo! Evasive manoeuvres! Ejecting warp plasma.' As Solluk skilfully steered the Tigris away, Jada ejected a stream of superheated, charged plasma to fool the torpedo's guidance system; it wasn't like they needed the warp plasma anyway. The tactic worked Á¢â,¬"œ flying into the plasma cloud, onboard computer thinking it had hit the runabout's nacelle, the torpedo detonated.

But the Tigris rolled on the shockwave, jerking Jada forward in her seat. And that was why she wore a seatbelt. 'Now we've shown them our flars!'

[James H. Hawk]

[USS Tigris]

Just as James started to think they might just pull this off the Jem'Hadar fighter pulled one last ditch effort and hurled a torpedo at them. Knowing what came next, James braced for impact but fortunetly Jada managed to fool the torpedo leaving nothing more than a shock wave to hit the Tigris.

"Nice one, Jada," he said, "Follow them. We need to board them, he said. James then opened a line to the Tempest.

We're ok, Captain. We've shot down one of the fighters and it looks set to crash land. We're going to board it, I think I can find out where they came from if we do. We may need help with the others though.

Just as James said this, the other one manouvered to behind the Tigris and fired its cannon shaking the small runabout. James then opened the line to the Tempest again and spoke calmly and professionally though still with a clear sense of urgency .

Make that we definetly need a hand! They're right on our tail!

"Solluk, how about you show me how good a pilot you are?" James said hoping Solluk could evade the enemy long enough for the Tempest to assist.

[Ian Galloway]

[USS Tigris]

Just as James started to think they might just pull this off the Jem'Hadar fighter pulled one last ditch effort and hurled a torpedo at them. Knowing what came next, James braced for impact but fortunetly Jada managed to fool the torpedo leaving nothing more than a shock wave to hit the Tigris.

"Nice one, Jada," he said, "Follow them. We need to board them, he said. James then opened a line to the Tempest.

We're ok, Captain. We've shot down one of the fighters and it looks set to crash land. We're going to board it, I think I can find out where they came from if we do. We may need help with the others though.

Just as James said this, the other one manouvered to behind the Tigris and fired its cannon shaking the small runabout. James then opened the line to the Tempest again and spoke calmly and professionally though still with a clear sense of urgency .

Make that we definetly need a hand! They're right on our tail!

"Solluk, how about you show me how good a pilot you are?" James said hoping Solluk could evade the enemy long enough for the Tempest to assist.

[Bridge]

As Ian brought the Tempest into firing range of the fighter following the Euphrates, the Jem'Hadar, snap rolled hard to starboard to change its line of attack to fire on the Tigris. The maneuver was not what Ian expected, and he smiled as the fighter figured it would be impossible for the massive Galaxy to follow.

"Aye, ye little boogit, I can nae turn like that, but here's what I can do."

He murmured as he brought the Tempest into a steep climb, before rolling to starboard and with the structural integrity field stressed to maximum, he forced the huge ship into a loop that set off alarms all over the ship as the inertia dampeners could not cope with the maneuver resulting in anyone not sitting or holding on to something were tossed about. The barrel roll attack brought the Tempest around completely unexpectedly high on the fighter's port side and into a perfect firing position.

"Now Mister Mikaelson!"

The Jem'Hadar never saw the attack coming and Mikaelson's fire sheared the port engine off the fighter. A severe blow, but survivable in normal circumstances of a battle in the vacuum of space. In an atmosphere, the loss of lift and thrust sent the fighter into a spiraling dive that ended with a bright orange flash as the Jem'Hadar fighter hit the nameless planet.

"Rach thu agus a' sgaoil am leathar de bhur paithar fer tryin' ta play in my world. Bloody wankers."

Knowing he'd pushed the Tempest beyond her limits, Ian gently fired the thrusters to level the huge ship out and come slowly about, which in turn, resulted in the alarms falling silent as stress levels dropped back to normal.