Suzanna looked at the chrono and walked to the conference table in the main science lab where the team leaders of the different science sections were assembled. "Listen up people, we will be at Starbase 202 in a few hours. Everybody knows it will be a tough fight. You all know your duties and we are fully prepared. Ensign Nemesian, I will leave you in charge of the repair teams in sensor maintenance. We need to keep the sensors operational during the battle at all cost or Tactical won't know what to shoot at." She paused a moment. "On a different subject. It has been brought to my attention that some crewmembers have been using the holodecks during red alert status. Please remind your people of the regulations. No recreational activities on the holodeck during Red Alert. Any questions?" She looked around the table. "I will be manning the science station on the bridge. Dismissed!"

It was a few hours later; the ship was still at Red Alert and within a few minutes would be arriving at Star base 202. Sensors showed the base was taking damage, as were the ships protecting it. Then the screen showed the strength of the Romulan ships, 20 ships, versus 8 and the station. The Cortez exited warp and entered into hell. Space was full of Romulan vessels, few Star Fleet vessels and phaser fire and torpedo explosions were thick enough to walk on. Star Base 202 had sustained massive damage to its central array and central core.
"Mr. Neillya, full power to forward shields, attack program Omega-7-gamma-9!"
"Formation initiated sir!"
"Fire!!!"

The Cortez weaved its way swiftly between several Romulan vessels, her phaser arrays spitting fire in all directions. A D`Kazanak class Warbird directly to her front took the full impact of two quantum torpedoes. The close proximity and force of the resulting explosion rocked the Cortez.... Several ships return fire at the Cortez.

Suzanna couldn't keep her balance and was thrown to the deck by the resulting explosion. She was dazed for a few seconds and got back on her feet. She noticed she wasn't the only one who fell 'It's about time they made seatbelts compulsory on Starships'. She helped a crewmember to his feet and checked her station. She was relieved find that the console that had exploded had not affected the operation of the science station.

"Report!"
"Captain, we have damage and casualty reports on decks two, six and seven, activating repair and medical teams!"

"Forward shields at fifty percent and holding, aft shields at 39 percent!"
"Mr. Hughes reroute power to rear deflectors, Mr Neillya attack pattern Beta-five-Alpha-four and fire at will!"
A heavy barrage of weapons fire followed. "Sir, Romulan Birds of Prey at bearing 245 mark 87 and 339 mark 42 destroyed!"

Once again the Cortez came about and slashed her way through the Romulan and Confederation Starships, phaser and disrupter fire lashed out from all directions. In the distance a Miranda class starship, the USS Defender was ripped apart by two attacking Warbirds...There was no end in sight.

The original force of Romulans was reduced to 13, with the Cortez having taken out three by herself.

"Sir, forward shields at 65%, aft shields at 54%. But we just lost the USS Defender"

Suzanna checked her display and tapped furiously on the console, there had been a few EM discharges in the sensor network but the backup pallets had kicked in and the repair teams were at work.

The Cortez levelled up and brought her nose up to another D`Kazanak Warbird, "Launching quantum torpedoes, maintaining phaser fire" The Warbird's shields were at 65, but the torpedoes smashed the shields, and inflicted heavy damage to the ship. The phaser fire followed the torpedoes in, and punched holes through the hull armour, reaching a critical system, the ships broke in two, with explosions rocking both halves.'

Two Birds Of Prey started the attack, the Romulan commander realising that the Cortez was a serious threat. They followed the Cortez through its flight path, firing with phasers. They dropped back after the destruction of the Warbird, only to gain torpedo lock

"Sir, two birds of prey have torpedo lock"
"Helm, bring us around, then go through the space between those ships"
"Aye sir, coming about"
The helmsman aimed the ship at the space between them and increased power to the ships impulse engines by 10%. The ship sailed through, the torpedoes skimmed past them and smashed into the opposite ships

Suzanna noticed more incoming torpedoes on her display and saw Robin switch power from the engines to the shields. The fireworks were magnificent but only two appeared the third punched straight into the ablative armour that covered the hull. Still - it wasn't pierced although it had knocked the science department a bit. The Vulcan's fingers were flying over the console, checking all the science systems and sending the latest diagnostic information to Ensign Nemesian and his repair teams. The fight was not over yet.

"Captain, they're charging their weapons."
"Helm! Full reverse, full reverse!!! Neillya, maximum strength to forward shields!"

Suzanna glanced at her display while her fingers were flying over the console. She could sense the tension the bridge rising even further.

"Sir, forward shields at 72%, and we have no more power for them".
Neillya fired all forward phaser banks at the new Warbird, it's forward shields took a battering, but she was fresh the Cortez was not. The Warbird returned fire, the phaser fire spat between the two ships as they raced towards each other. The Cortez's shields dropping rapidly. Helm brought the Cortez to full reverse, but the Warbird kept coming.
The Warbird's the torpedoes exited and hit the ship, phaser firing all the time. The phasers hit first, flaring the shields and lowering the lighting.

From the corner of her eye Suzanna saw the engineering panel light up. This is not good she thought. Her panel showed an EM discharge in the sensor network and her flew even faster over the console as she tried to stay ahead and minimise the damage by rerouting power to the different pallets away from the discharge while still keeping as many working as possible.

Then first torpedo hit and blew up. Once again the shields weakened and the next two broke through. The bridge rocked from side to side, as the Cortez took the damage. The shields and armour as yet holding. But not for long.

Suzanna braced herself against the console as the ship rocked. She swore silently to herself as she saw the figures on her display. Ensign Nemesian's damage report, which appeared on her console within seconds, confirmed the readings. Forward sensors at 60%. Port sensors at 63%, starboard sensors at 83% and aft sensors at 80%. She keyed in her Science code and linked in the back up sensors for the forward and port arrays 'it may not be regulation but the needs of the many....'.

Through the hell the ships sensors kept pouring information into all the stations on the bridge, as a security officer picked Neillya up he noticed..
"Sir, that Warbird, all the communications are going to her!" "Captain, I think the new Warbird is the command ship, she is getting all their communications, suggest all the ships attack her, if she goes they may be forced to retreat!"
But before Hawke had time to reply the ship started a nauseating curve upwards and backwards. The inertial dampers flickered for a moment and he watched the D'deridex ship pass underneath them, phasers flaring into them all the way. Then, the ship rolled over at the top of its curve and headed after the ship. The hunted had became the hunter.

"Damn good move Mr. Shaw!" yelled Hawke at the Helm officer, "Remind me to put you in for a commendation when this is over! Neillya open a
channel to the fleet!"
"Channel open sir!"
"This is Captain Hawke, all ships target D'deridex using the Cortez
targeting data. Send it Mr. Neillya! All vessels fire on my Command!"
The moments seemed like hours before the order came.
"Fire!!!"

Suzanna turned towards the viewscreen for moment as the screen lit up with the barrage of firepower raining down on the Warbird. It's shields collapsed and it exploded. The Cortez was still under fire though from the other Warbirds.

"We die in honour" a Klingon voice called over the comm, the USS Dorling, Miranda class zooms on a collision course with Romulan ships, the strut where there was a missing warp nacelle sparks uncontrollably and the impulse engines dead leaving it to drift... It collided causing the Romulan ship heavy damage. The Warbird listed heavily to port, Phaser fire erupted from the Cortez, with no shielding, and the armour gone the phasers easily punched through the ship, ripping it to shreds, more rubble for space.

A few Romulans ships began to flee, but more than enough stayed in the fight, another bird of prey exploded to the starboard.

Then the all hell broke lose on the Cortez...

The shields were dropping further. The Cortez rocked, the lights flickered and two consoles on the bridge exploded. "Damage report!" Hawke yelled.

"Hull breach on Deck 7 and 8, damage to deck 2, Communications are down…" Hughes stopped mid sentence as all the consoles on the bridge went dark.
"WHAT THE …we are being hailed..No wait.. Sir we have lost external comms. I can't get them back."

"Sutherland!" Neillya called out
"Aye, what is it?"
"I've lost external comms, I need them fixed ASAP"
"I'm sort a' busy Neillya"
"So am I, I need the comms."

"OPS I need my communication re-routed through the Runabouts in the bay. Use internal comms to get the message to there please"

It was then Helm yelled out, "SIR!! We've lost impulse power!"

Hughes checked his console and it flickered briefly inactive before a reserve power supply kicked in. "Sir, we've lost the primary computer core, rerouting to secondary," he yelled. Things were about to get complicated, thank the maker they built Starships with secondary cores!

Suzanna's fingers were flying over the console to no avail. She swore softly to herself as she saw the readings on her display. "Sir, I've lost short range sensors!" She tapped on her station and patched the information down to Ensign Nemesian in sensor maintenance.

Neillya moaned, great he was fighting a battle in an ship dead in space, with no comms and no short range sensors, A Tactical nightmare. Neillya glanced down to his shield levels, not good.

"OPS I'll take care of the comms," Neillya called out.
"Aye sir."
"But I need all the power that went to the impulse engines re-routed to shields and weapons."

Hughes at ops tapped his console and made sure power was re-routed as the Lt had ordered. "You'll have it sir."

Neillya switched to manual targeting, he had 12 phaser banks, grouped them into 4 linked areas. Starboard FORE and AFT, and Port FORE and AFT. Meaning if he hit a ship it would be with 3 phaser banks at the one small area. The hard part was hitting the Romulans ships and not Federation

"Neillya to Moses."
'Yes sir."
"If the men aren't busy have them help out in med bays and in repair teams."
"Ok sir."

Shields were nearly at full due to the huge amounts of power being re-routed from impulse engines. He had no way of knowing who would fire at him next though, if the comms weren't down he could have used the other ships targeting information.

"Computer activate all shuttles and runabouts, security code delta 4522 Neillya."
[Code accepted, all shuttles and runabouts activated.] The computer voice chirped cheerfully.
"Patch their communications and sensors through to my position."
[Unable to comply]
"WHY?"
[Failure of primary computer core]
"OPS!!" yelled Neillya

Hughes had listened to this conversation between the Neillya and the computer and set to work fixing the problem. "I'm on it sir," he replied. He re-routed as much power as he could spare to boot the computer core back online. Of course this was easier said than done.

"Sir, If you want those Impulse engines back I'll have to leave" Said Robin to Hawke who was currently getting pretty annoyed with the situation.
Suzanna's mind was racing over the possibilities of getting some form of short-range sensors back online. "Sir, if you want short range sensors I'll have to go too." Suzanna added.

"On you go Lieutenant!" Hawke barked back.

Robin entered the turbolift and opened a line to engineering. "Lucutis I want you to get some people up to the impulse engines. The ship has no impulse engines so make sure that all of the power from the impulse engines is actually going to the shields.
"Aye sir" came the reply
Suzanna had joined Robin in the turbo lift and shook her head. "It's going to be a long day." If we survive, she thought but did not say. She tapped her comm badge "Mr Nemesian, your priority is to get the short range sensors back online. I will be in the shuttle bay patching in the systems from our shuttles to the secondary computer core. Keep me informed!"
"Aye sir," came the reply.

Robin got out of the turbo lift at deck eight and walked along the gangways to the main impulse systems where a power surge had caused the some circuits to overload. His engineering team was already there and had started on the minor circuits. He rolled up his sleeves and started to work ...

Suzanna ran down the corridor at deck 11 and entered the shuttle bay. She walked to the walked to the office and looked in the equipment cupboard. Quickly she selected the pieces she needed and headed back out into the bay. She opened a panel on the console and took out her tricorder scanning the circuitry. She tapped a sequence on the console and went to work.
After a few minutes of work she scanned the circuitry again, tapped another sequence on the console and headed for the first runabout. Once inside she sat at the OPS console and opened a panel and started linking her tricorder into the circuitry. Another few minutes of working on the circuitry passed before she tapped a sequence on the console and ran a quick diagnostic. "That should do it". She started the engines up and moved the Amazon to end of bay near the door. Suzanna hurried back out of the runabout and opened the bay door. She tapped another sequence on the console in the bay checking the systems. [Diagnostic complete. Uplink complete and operational].
With a quick tap on her comm badge she opened a channel to the bridge. "Blokpoel to Bridge. The first runabout has been linked you should have some short-range sensor and be able use external comms from the Amazon. I will increase sensor input by linking the other shuttles into the loop as well."
"Good work Blokpoel, we need them all as soon as you can."

On the bridge Neillya glanced at his screen, he had a Bird of prey coming in on the port, directly level with the Cortez. A quick check told him the computer was having trouble targeting with so little information, so it was still manual targeting for the Cortez. He waited until the Bird Of Prey levelled up for her attack run, then fired with all port phasers, the ships Bird's shields dropped off rapidly, but they flipped her over and ran leaving their full aft shields to take the punishment.
"Helm, bring us to warp 7, dead ahead. When we reach 9 million km from our present position I want you to turn around, and head back into the battle on a slightly different level at warp 9.5."

"Aye sir, warp 8 now at ETA of 90 sec, why a different level on the way back sir?"
"So we don't run into our own torpedoes Helm."
"Ok sir," the helm's man replied, followed shortly after by "Sir, we are at 9 million mark, bringing her about."

Neillya targeted a Warbird that had no engines left, but was still firing away, and there were no federation ships free to kill it off. At this position he fired 3 quantum torpedoes, then watched them as the ship raced back into the battle. A slightly different Picard manoeuvre.

The Cortez, dropped out of Warp, and had an excellent view of the torpedoes hitting the shields of the Warbird, the first two drained the shields, and the third punched through to explode directly onto their bridge area. Neillya followed up by firing all Starboard phasers at the same area. The remaining shields quickly dropped and the phasers began to slice into the armour plating, a 4th torpedo flow through the debris of the bridge, and exploded deep within the ship, ripping it apart.

On Deck 8, Robin glanced in at the circuitry and didn't like what he saw. Half of the circuits were either melted or vaporised - He was glad someone had had the sense to get some spare. The ship rocked again causing him to hit his head against the side of the maintenance access. He felt the bump but nothing was serious. He had circuit after circuit passed to him and welded each one slowly into position, pulling some out at the odd occasion to repair them. He ran the back of his hand against his forehead, making his hand wet. He was lucky that it wasn't the actual engines that had taken the damage, but merely the circuitry that controlled it. The rest of the team was either doing what he was doing or re-pairing the main computer core - the secondary core was on-line now put the primary wouldn't yield control of the short-rage sensors to it. He checked on those that were on the impulse engines systems, most of whom were finished and had been told to help with the computer. He tapped his comm-badge realising that he might need some more help with the computer than he had and that engineers wouldn't be the only personnel needed. "Sutherland to Blokpoel" he said.

"Yes, Robin?" came the reply.
"I think am gan ti need mare personnel up here, " he said over the accumulating noise of tools at work.

"I think I can spare one or two " she replied.

"Thanks" he said and cut the line. He saw the last man crawl out of the maintenance tunnel. "Sutherland to Lucutis, re-route power back to the impulse engines."

"Aye sir" With in a minute there was a quiet hum coming from the impulse engines.

"Sutherland to Neillya, you have impulse engines" he said with a small grin.

Neillya was thankful to have impulse engines back on line; he was tired at warping around the battlefield. With impulse HELM could take the Cortez back into the midst of the furball. His pleasure was short lived however when the shields level dropped very low, without the extra power the Cortez was again going to rely on her armour.

On Deck 11, Suzanna had just finished linking the runabout Colorado to the secondary computer core when Robin's call for more personnel had come in. She wasn't sure where exactly she would find the extra people.
"Blokpoel to Nemesian"
"Nemesian here, Sir"
"The damage to the primary computer core is preventing the linking in of the short range sensors to the secondary core, even if they were functioning. Engineering has asked for support in the repair of the primary computer core. Please co-ordinate with OPS and sent who ever you can spare and is capable of working on the primary computer core to assist Lt Sutherland."

It took a moment before the reply came. "Acknowledged, but we are pretty busy ourselves here, sir".

"I realise that Ensign, but we *need* those sensors. Blokpoel out".

Suzanna picked up another tricorder and headed for a shuttle. She could fit one more shuttle in by the door here, plus three shuttles in the secondary shuttle bay.

When she was done, she tapped her comm badge. "Blokpoel to bridge. This is as much short-range sensors as I can give until the primary computer core is fixed." She walked out of the secondary shuttle bay. The latest information from sensor maintenance was that they were making significant progress. She tapped her comm badge, "Blokpoel to Sutherland. How are you getting on? Unless you need another pair of hands, I will head back to the bridge"

"On yi go, wir nearly finished thanks ti the extras yiv given us."

"Alright, Blokpoel out" she said and closed the line

The entire crew knew that the situation was near impossible but they valiantly struggled to keep what systems they could online. There was a blinding explosion near the Star Base as the USS Nelson, a Galaxy class starship was torn apart by the Romulan counter attack. The gathered Star Fleet forces had struggled bravely against the Romulan Onslaught but it looked as if the battle was moving back in the Romulan's favour. The USS Hood, Claymore and Guardian continued to engage the enemy; The Cortez was barely holding her own and was looking bad. The Montreal and Dunkirk were little more then lifeless husks that drifted aimlessly on the field of battle, while the Defender and Nelson were nothing but space debris. There were still eight remaining ships in the Romulan force, three two Warbirds, two Birds of Prey and four Scouts. The Star Base had been ravaged but still continued to defend herself, she would survive the battle even if the Cortez didn't. Hawke knew that his ship and crew had done their duty and would not die in vain.

It was in that bleak moment that a starship exited warp and entered the war zone. She was an Akira class, her power came to bare on the remaining Romulan forces using a similar tactic the Cortez had used to defend the Star Base, this new ship was running the gauntlet to defend the Cortez. Neillya recognized the ship almost instantly, she had come to the aid of the Cortez before...The USS Crazy Horse. The Horse's presence rallied the remaining Star Fleet ships and sent the few Romulan vessels in a mad rush away from Star Base 202 and the Codis system and into warp. The Battle of Star Base 202 was a victory for the Federation; the price for that victory had been paid in blood...

The Cortez limped her way towards the Star Base doors. The damage to her was immense. As Hawke looked at the Star Base he knew that she will need major repairs before he can even think about bringing her back into the war. The only bad thing is that war can be like wildfire, there can be no pause or break in war till it has burned itself completely out. The Romulans would not wait until the Cortez was repaired, they would continue to press until the Federation is destroyed.