At the Prometheus Space Station
The Dominion ships approached Prometheus gingerly, half expecting missiles to rain down on them from hidden Vickie war ships. As they got closer, they could clearly see smoke pouring out of several holes in Prometheus’s hull.
“They must be mad,” one of the bridge crew gasped. “That thing must be worth 100 billion credits.”
“Not mad,” Captain Scinto replied. “Just very desperate.” Scinto commanded one of the new Argus-class missile cruisers, built at the secret ship yard the Dominion had used to quietly enlarge their fleet. The ship yard was not even named for fear that the name might inadvertently attract the scrutiny of Vickie intelligence services. The only name ever used was that of a nearby small asteroid belt the Dominion patiently mined for its scant traces of Ziridium.
Scinto frowned as he studied the space station. God alone knew how much damage there was already. He thumbed the com: “Troop Transport 4, are you ready?”
“Troop Transport 4 is ready. The men are in shuttles. We can have a thousand men on board the space station in thirty minutes. Once they secure the hanger, we can move the rest within an hour.”
“Troop Transport 4, you may commence now. Tell your men that they must get those fires under control as soon as possible.” He connected to the other nine vessels in his task force. “I want you close in to the space station. Keep a sharp lookout for Vickies. Your scanners should be in active mode. If they were desperate enough to set fire to it, they’re desperate enough to send a force back to finish the job. Set your anti-missile defense to automatic.”
Within moments the shuttles had emerged from the Transport and were soon clustered around one of Prometheus’s many docking bays.
Captain Scinto listened to the reports of the Marines fighting the fires. The fire in Docking Bay 3 had been beaten back almost immediately. The firefighting system there had been turned off, but not disabled, so all the Marines had to do was snake a power line from one of the shuttles and power it up. The fire was out in a few moments. Other areas were raging out of control, however, and even when they opened some corridors to space, there was enough air in the space station to keep the fires going for many minutes.
The second wave of shuttles landed in Docking Bay 3 and the new Marines hastened to help their comrades. When the fires in the perimeter were under control, the Dominion soldiers began to push into the space station’s interior. Meeting no resistance, they exchanged cautious looks of relief.
As the first Dominion Marine passed into the second ring of corridors, he stepped underneath a concealed motion detector. The motion detector duly noted the movement and sent a signal to a computer hidden inside a storage closet deep within the labyrinth of the space station’s hallways.
The computer activated a ten minute timer.
Outside the space station, Scinto’s task force kept a close guard. Something kept appearing at the edge of their sensors, but none of them could get a decent lock, though that did not prevent them from shooting off dozens of missiles just to keep the Vickies off balance. Scinto believed in an active defense.
Scinto was thinking about how many ships he would have to leave behind to guard the Prometheus station when the timer aboard the space station reached ten minutes. The computer hidden in the storage closet duly took note, then sent a signal to the forty-five antimatter pods that had been secreted around the exterior of the space station’s hull.
A second later each of the pods expelled its antimatter directly onto the hull. For a fleeting moment, Space Station Prometheus looked like a miniature star in super nova. It turned a brilliant white and expanded in all directions, greedily enveloping the ten Dominion war ships guarding it. On the night surface of Cornwall a small child cried in delight and pointed to the sky. “Look, Mommy, fireworks!”
On board the D.U.C. Vengeance, the Communications Officer frowned in puzzlement. He’d been monitoring the salvage effort at the Prometheus Space Station when the communications had been abruptly cut off. He glanced nervously at Admiral Mello, who was talking intently with Commander Pattin. He most certainly did not want to be the bearer of bad tidings to the Admiral. He nudged the Sensors Officer, whispering: “Mitch, what have you got from Prometheus?”
Mitch adjusted his controls, and then went pale. “Oh my God!” he choked out.
A few feet away, Admiral Mello and Commander Pattin looked up, both frowning.
On Board the H.M.S. Lionheart, Admiral Douthat grimly studied the holo display. The Dominion hadn’t been fooled by the decoy; now they were chasing the First Fleet and the priceless Atlas station, to say nothing of Queen Anne.
“Any word from Captain Grey?” she asked without looking away from the holo display.
“Nothing yet, Admiral. They’re positioned on the far side of the Dominion Fleet, pretty easy for the Ducks to jam their transmissions.”
“Anything on Prometheus?”
The Communications Officer shook his head. “The carrier wave went off line after that energy spike. It was almost certainly the antimatter pods blowing up, but we’ve no way of knowing how much damage it did to any Dominion ships.”
Douthat grunted. The first set of reconnaissance drones they’d sent out earlier had either been destroyed or run out of fuel by now. Should she risk sending a frigate? No, she had too few ships to risk one unless she had to. Gods of Our Mothers, if only they could accelerate faster! It was like trying to swim with a ball and chain around your legs.
“Captain Eder, would you be so good as to send out more recon drones?” she ordered. “And get me the captain of the mine layers; time to leave the Ducks some presents.”
She studied the small speck of light in the far corner of the holo display, the one that represented the wormhole to Refuge. Five days away at current speeds. Five long days.
She sighed. For this to work, the Dominion had to start shooting their missiles, using up what was in their on-board magazines. Time to start…