CH2: S [Day 2 | 2315 hrs] For all the blood-tainted stars...

January 22, 2025, 10:20:34 PM

[Ens. Talia “Shadow” Al-Ibrahim | Cockpit | Wolf-04, AC-409 Mk. III Valkyrie] Attn: @P.C. Haring @Stegro88 @rae @Pierce @Any and All Wolves
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Open war in the void.

For as long as sentient life existed, there had always been war; tribe against tribe, civilizations against barbarian hordes, whole species against other species. War was nothing new – only the weapons and shades of blood changed. Violence begat violence, escalating feuds to grudges and grudges to vendettas, until the minds of reasoned and reasonable beings soured with the insanity of blood-lust. Empires rose to spread themselves across the stars, sword in hand, even in an age of technological wonder where resources were rendered nearly infinite. In an age that should have made war obsolete, it still lingered on. Talia thought she knew war; she’d studied it, of course, like all of her peers at the Academy. All those great, awful battles of the past – in all their multitudes – that stained the history of mankind red: the genocides, the purges, the pogroms and geopolitical upheavals, the massacres and the atrocities. The devastation mankind unleashed upon itself as well, which practically doomed the Earth and the human race to a slow, inevitable extinction, if not for Zefram Cochrane and the intervention of the Vulcans.

Even the Dominion War, for all its horror and loss, had captivated and inspired her. She had poured over every battle-report, every memoir, every first-hand account; every tale of heroism and sacrifice back-lit by conjured imagery of vast fleets tearing into each other: The tactical genius of Sisko, the stalwart resolve of Martok. The undeniable courage of every Peregrine crew…she thought she knew war – was prepared for it – but seventeen minutes into the Battle of the Triangle had taught Shadow more of war than she’d ever imagined possible.

It was a physical assault on the senses, even within the confines of the cockpit: weapons fire flashed and flared without pause, explosions, detonations, blazing impacts across hulls and shields – were everywhere. There was a constant stream of voices in her ears; mission ops, fellow pilots, the awkward snarls of their Klingon allies – more than once they had all overlapped to the point of gibberish – until someone managed to clear the coms for a few moments, only for the cycle to repeat, over and over. Her ship bucked and shuddered with every hit, sending a tactile shiver into her body, bone deep; she was well past her normal point of physical endurance, forced to dip into wells of stamina she never truly realized were there. The smell of her own sweat and hot, adrenaline-fear soaked breath permeated her nostrils – easily ignored in the face of survival – but undeniably there.

It was madness made manifest; violence on a scale no one could truly understand unless they experienced it. Her eyes couldn’t track the engagement fast enough. Anahi, her ship’s on-board computer, fed targets to Shadow’s HUDs faster than the pilot could cognitively recognize, through the shared tactical uplink with the Ranger and her fellow Wolves. Data streamed from every direction she looked, seared into her vision; the behemoth D’Deridex class warbirds in their dozens hung like mythological monsters of the void, dwarfing everything to unleash streams of brilliant emerald energy. Around them, the Klingon attack groups splintered off into squadrons of B’rel attackers, flanked by Vor’cha cruisers. Flanking them, in unpredictable waves, the smaller, agile Romulan Mogai warbirds struck with ruthless abandon to cripple and pick off stragglers by the score. Throughout the entire sphere of conflict, fighter-craft from both sides cloaked and de-cloaked in random engagements; whole squadrons broke off on bombing runs, others paired up, dueled, disengaged or were destroyed.

“Allah, there’s so many,” Shadow breathed out in a grimace as she rolled hard, trying to stay with Goldeneye. A second later, a deft sweep of her left hand blanked her HUDs. “Track visual only, tactical data overlay only,” she grunted aloud to Anahi, then yanked the stick back hard to invert her turn. Target-lock alarms squealed as her rear shields lit up under fire, but held. A glance up and behind revealed three Stalkers on her six, wheeling around in aggressive pursuit. “Three on my six Goldie, lets move,” she warned, then focused on their objective: one of three D’Deridex leviathans that were currently unloading on the Helmet. “Anahi, target selections primary alpha through charlie. Highlight soft targets,” Talia ordered, then keyed into the joint-squadron channel while she maneuvered for a hard-torp lock, while the Helmet fired back with scarlet lances of energy at her attackers. A steady, shrill tone sounded in her ears as the lock shifted green; Talia thumbed the trigger, launching two full sized quantums an instant behind her wingmate – all four tracked ahead to the starboard upper wing of the giant warbird as the pair of Valkyrie’s pulled up and rolled out of their run.

“Wolves, Shadow – tally on the Helmet, she’s under heavy fire. Three and Four are engaged, anyone else in range to assist?” The stars spun beyond her canopy, lit with a myriad of shades of green and fire. Far off to port, beyond the battle-line of massive Romulan ships, the Ranger fought on, cutting her way through towards the Helmet, the void ablaze around her in a cloud of PDC fire. Talia watched her shields light up on nearly all sides, enduring an unbelievable amount of punishment.

Talia leveled out on Goldeneye's wing, as the pair made ready for another torp run, as the D'Deridex answered with a hammering burst of disruptor fire. The Helmet can't take much more of this, she thought, eyes hardened with resolve as she got tone. "Ready when you are, Goldie," she announced, just as half a dozen Klingon Phantoms de-cloaked in formation beside them.

["Qa'plah!"], a voice roared, or maybe all of them, as they joined their fire into the attack.

OOC: Okay folks, here we have the big battle at the end of the Episode. This thread is intended to be told from the POV of the Wolves/other pilots only, however, if you would like to jump in and NPC a Romulan/Klingon pilot to mix things up and/or add drama to the scene, I think that would be pretty cool and welcome. So, ALL Wolves are welcome, and ALL writers are welcome too, so long as you stick to our POV (as a bunch of idiots doing really stupid things at really high velocities). Have fun