Bloodletting

Posted on Mon Jul 13th, 2026 @ 4:08pm by Commander Kevin Lance

467 words; about a 2 minute read

Mission: Into the mirror
Location: Mirror Universe
Timeline: Half and hour after Standoff

on:
{IWS Marcus Aurelius}

The battle was an intense and bloody affair which demonstrated the horrific cost of the small ship doctrine in terms of personnel and material. In the little more than half an hour since the first shots had been fired, a third of the ships on either side had been either crippled or outright destroyed and most of the others had varying degrees of damage. It was an outright justification of the decision that the Federation had made to pursue the less bellicose, capital-ship focused approach despite losses to the Borg at Wolf-359.

Kevin looked to the tactical display as the smaller ships continued their dance of destruction. The Aurelius’ superior shielding and armor protected her from the majority of the incoming weapons fire and he had ordered concentration of fire on the Emperor’s supporting ship to thin their ranks. The Norrus was avoiding damage through excessive use of the ship’s cloaking device, only returning to the visible realm long enough to unload a massive barrage of phaser and photon fire at Kevin’s ship before cloaking once again.

It was a curious tactic that preserved the Norrus at the cost of giving Kevin the edge against the rest of the Emperor’s fleet. Kevin sat with brows knitted and fingers steepled as he considered the situation. He thought back to what Lieutenant Walker had said when the Klingons had forced installation of the cloaking device on the Norris. It would turn the ship into a glass cannon, the chief engineer had said. The power draw would compromise the shields, slow the accumulation of energy in the phaser capacitors and interfere with sensor locks.

At the time, Kevin had dismissed the Lieutenant’s concerns under the belief that Mira would not use the cloak expect in an extreme situation. Thus he had never considered how it might have been most effectively employed. The hit and run tactics the Emperor was using, striking from an unexpected direction, suggested that his engineers had not solved the issues of power management but rather that he was adapting to it. By cloaking immediately after discharging all the ship’s weapons, the Emperor avoided return fire and could take the time to fully recharge for another barrage.

Kevin began timing the length of time between appearances of the Norrus and discovered a pattern. The Emperor wasn’t wasting time once the weapons were recharged, only long enough to position himself to attack from a random direction. Kevin was confident that he could, to within a fraction of a minute, identify were the Norrus would uncloak. But he could only guess at where the attack would come from.

Unless he could trick the Emperor into attacking where he wanted.

:off

Commander Kevin Lance
Executive Officer
USS Chuck Norris

 

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