"Reign of Terror" Revisited

[Darth Ruinus]

hands/claws/tentacles of whatever killed the original crew.

I don't think it's an alien. I think you'd need a bit more force to scare Imperial soldiers. Know what I mean?

[Darth Raptor]

Yeah. One of the crew seems to have died by lightsaber, so it's probably a dark Force magus of some kind.

[Darmalus]

Love it! Please continue!

I'm unsure how it is that the maquis are having such a hard time figuring out the blasters. Seems pretty simple, insert clip, switch off safety and pull trigger. Sounds close to how the phaser rifles from the movies worked. Maybe the tibana gas component was removed for long term storage?

[Edward Yee]

To me, this story's premise is a very original (so to speak) use of a Star Destroyer, considering that neither side has the manpower to actually make use of the Star Destroyer (unless it's really that automated?); if anything, this is going to be at most CSAR or a skirmish between the two teams.

[Phantasee]

I need to see this finished or I'm going to flip out and shoot up my office, putting holes in my computers and subordinates, before putting a round in my own head. While recording it.

Or something.

[fusion]

Nice this fic is the one that I have been waiting for. It is great that you have started again.

[Zor]

Question, considering they have been moving about alot and it has been over a day since there ship was blown to scrap, should our heroes not be searching for something to eat/drink at this point?

But Regardless, it is great to see that you continue to work on this.

Zor

[Sea Skimmer]

I loved this story when I first read it years ago, I like it even more now and I want it continued. I have to say though it seems a little unclear though about how the marquis found out about the countdown. They intercepted and decrypted Cardassian signals right? I know the Federation did that but they have far greater resources.

[Darth Raptor]

Question, considering they have been moving about alot and it has been over a day since there ship was blown to scrap, should our heroes not be searching for something to eat/drink at this point?

You don't actually need to eat every day and if they can't find a way off the ship then long-term sustenance becomes a non-issue. It's assumed that water canteens are standard equipment.

I have to say though it seems a little unclear though about how the marquis found out about the countdown. They intercepted and decrypted Cardassian signals right?

The signals from the Star Destroyer weren't encrypted at all (they didn't know how), and the Maquis are probably familiar with the range of frequencies the Cardassians transmit on.

[Singular Quartet]

Question, considering they have been moving about alot and it has been over a day since there ship was blown to scrap, should our heroes not be searching for something to eat/drink at this point?

You don't actually need to eat every day and if they can't find a way off the ship then long-term sustenance becomes a non-issue. It's assumed that water canteens are standard equipment.

Food rations could be assumed to be standard equipment, as well.

EDIT: Also, six kinds of awesome Mike. Don't stop.

[Darth Nostril]

Awesome sauce.
I've been hoping this fic would get updated since I first stumbled across it

[Junghalli]

I don't think it's an alien. I think you'd need a bit more force to scare Imperial soldiers. Know what I mean?

Personally when I heard the dead Captain's "I don't know where it has taken us" line I immediately thought of the hate-eating alien from Day of the Dove. Remember how it wanted to take the Enterprise into intergalactic space?

[fusion]

I think the 'thing' that got into their mind is also the thing that brought them there.
I bet it is along of the line of Q expect more evil...

[Darth Wong]

One thing I thought I should point out. There will be no Q in this story. I used him in my previous story, but I think he's one of the most overused characters in Star Trek. There's no way I would go back to that well a second time.

[Darth Wong]

I find the mystery of the derelict Star Destroyer most compelling, but the character-driven story is quite interesting too. I'll definitely keep reading if you'll keep writing.

FYI: There's a minor blooper in Chapter Seven where Gul Tain confers with Central Command in the privacy of his quarters only to discuss the conversation with a naval officer immediately thereafter back on the bridge- as if he took the message there. It's a bit incongruous.

Thanks for the catch. That was one of those cases where something was rewritten a few times, and ended up being a bit jumbled. I went back and fixed it.

[Peptuck]

One thing I thought I should point out. There will be no Q in this story. I used him in my previous story, but I think he's one of the most overused characters in Star Trek. There's no way I would go back to that well a second time.

I think the effectiveness of Q in that story was simply that he wasn't used very much in the first place. His presence was almost exactly like he was in the series itself, which was quite aloof with unexpected but always important appearances. In that regard, you did write him quite well.

[Kartr_Kana]

Thank you Mike I've been waiting to read more of this fic since the first time I visited the site over three years ago! Don't stop now please!

[Phantasee]

I don't think it's an alien. I think you'd need a bit more force to scare Imperial soldiers. Know what I mean?

Personally when I heard the dead Captain's "I don't know where it has taken us" line I immediately thought of the hate-eating alien from Day of the Dove. Remember how it wanted to take the Enterprise into intergalactic space?

That's exactly what I was thinking of! I couldn't remember the name of the episode though. Man, I hope it is that. That was an awesome episode.

[Nova Andromeda]

I can't wait to finish reading the thread! I love finding updates of good fanfics I thought were dead! I've been hoping you would go back to this fic for a long time.

[SCRawl]

Let's see...full-time job, husband, father, runs a huge message board, and still finds time to write fan fiction -- and not mediocre fan fiction, either, this is well above that level -- for the likes of us. Is there any question that our Sith Lord really loves us? Well, okay, some of us. Er, some of youse guys...

Anyways, yeah, I'm really liking it so far. And the writing is pretty tight so far; when I read fan fiction I usually get out the mental blue ink, noting what I'd change. Not so for this work, which is testament to either its quality or the level of atrophy of my editing skills.

[Col. Crackpot]

Creepy stuff Mike. I'm glad you finally picked up the pen again after all this time.

[Darth Wong]

OK, I finished Chapter Nine and I'm about 2/3 done Chapter Ten.

________________________________________

Chapter Nine

Maquis Colony HR51

Ota'Klan stood proudly before his men on the sandy dirt ground of HR51, with the mountains at his back. "I am First Ota'Klan, and I am dead. As of this moment, we are all dead. We go into battle to reclaim our lives. This, we do gladly, for we are Jem'Hadar. Remember: Victory is Life."

"Victory is Life." his men chanted in unison.

As his signal, they activated their shroud ability and began to march up the winding road, in single file. Each of the attack ships in orbit had carried 12 men and one First. Only one man had been left on each ship, so that each ship's First could beam down with 11 men. That added up a total of 24 Jem'Hadar warriors, against an unknown number of humans. Poor odds at best, but the enemy was only human, and he was Jem'Hadar.

The other team was advancing toward an entrance on the eastern side of the tunnel network, while his team would enter from the western side. He smiled at the thought of how the humans would be trapped between them.

________________________________________


Fifteen hundred metres ahead, Marina watched the Jem'Hadar unit through her binoculars and saw them disappear. Looks like that rumour about their cloaking ability was true, she thought to herself. Her own camouflage was considerably less sophisticated: she was looking through a small hole in the rock wall that was camouflaged by vegetation. But it was no less effective for that. The magnesite ore all around her scrambled the Jem'Hadar sensor reflections, making them useless. Not that they would use them while cloaked anyway.

She switched her binoculars to infrared mode and breathed a sigh of relief: the Jem'Hadar could disappear from the naked eye, but they couldn't hide their body heat. Their bodies and even their footprints on the ground were still visible. She could even see faint wisps trailing behind them: the warm air they exhaled as they breathed.

Her grip tightened on her phaser rifle but she thought better of it. She had little confidence that she could hit them from this range, and if she missed, she would only give away her location. Besides, the Jem'Hadar were about to run into the first line of defense.

________________________________________


Ota'Klan marched at the back of the group. His eyes, genetically engineered for limited infrared, allowed his men to see each other, if just barely. It was enough for them to maintain their formation. He was expecting an uneventful advance to the entrance of the Maquis dilithium mines, and he started running over the scenarios of how he would begin the intrusion. He expected the humans to be hiding deep in the tunnel network, which would require a complex search pattern. The first step would be to map out the tunnel network.

At that moment, an explosion ripped through the head of the formation, knocking Ota'Klan to the ground with the air blast. He lay on the ground groaning in pain, his ears ringing. He struggled to his knees and tried to take stock of his men. His vision was blurry and there was a lot of dust in the air, but he could see several others in much the same condition as himself. He squinted and tried to make his eyes focus, and then he saw a severed leg lying on the ground. And a hand. And something else that looked like it might be part of a face. He had seen such horrors before, but they were usually enemies of the Dominion, not fellow Jem'Hadar.

"Who still lives?" he croaked, staggering to his feet where he stood, swaying unsteadily. Four of his men responded. Two others lay unconscious on the ground, and the rest could not be accounted for. At least, not as whole beings. He stumbled to the unconscious men with the intent of inspecting them for injuries, but as he drew closer, he saw that it was pointless. Their bodies, while not torn to pieces, were nonetheless riddled with shrapnel. If they were not dead already, they soon would be. Out of his eleven-man crew, seven had been killed in an instant.

"What kind of coward fights this way?" he snarled, gaining strength. The Jem'Hadar were no strangers to the use of mines and traps, but there was a protocol. A mine should be powerful enough to kill one and only one man, to terrorize the enemy. The idea of using such a cowardly device to wipe out large numbers of men at a time was against all the rules of war that Ota'Klan understood.

"First Ota'Klan, it was some kind of explosive device." one of his surviving men reported the obvious, pulling out his scanner and switching it on. "Residue analysis indicates that it used ... a primitive chemical explosive compound, composed of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen." he said with disbelief. Ota'Klan noticed that the man was bleeding from his left leg, but to his credit, he was ignoring the injury.

"Trigger?"

"Impossible to tell, now that it has already been detonated."

Ota'Klan shook his head, trying to clear the cobwebs. He was still disoriented from the effects of the explosion, and it was difficult to think clearly. "Continue. Spread out, avoid clustering together. Use your scanners on burst mode. The humans will be able to track us if we use them, but we will be able to detect any more traps."

"Perhaps we should wait for reinforcements." one of the men objected.

"Your cowardice disgusts me." Ota'Klan growled. "These humans only prove their own weakness with these tactics. The other team expects us to attack from the west, while they attack from the east!"

The other man thought of a retort, but said nothing. More than half of their team had been killed by a single attack; how did they even know the other team was still alive? But he also knew that it was their duty to die for the glory of the Founders if need be. The sight of Jem'Hadar retreating from battle would only hearten the enemies of the Dominion, and this could not be tolerated. The very idea was against all natural law.

He bowed his head with contrition. "I have shown weakness in the face of the enemy, First Ota'Klan. I have failed in my duty to the Founders. My life is forfeit."

"Yes. It is." Ota'Klan drew his knife and slit the man's throat, then watched him crumple to the ground. It annoyed him intensely to reduce his team to only three men, but it had to be done. Cowardice before the enemies of the Dominion could only be punished with death.

"We advance!" he barked, and his three remaining men obeyed.

________________________________________


Alien Ship, Lower Decks

T - 20 hours

"Two maintenance droids near the stage three port side coolant pumps just reported sighting unidentified biologicals." the android replied, working the communications console. "They are moving this way."

"How close, Tin Man?" Dalton asked. The android had proven invaluable, relaying reports from other droids that were filtering into the system. In the back of his mind, he wondered just how much of the system was operational at this point. How long would it be, before the ship's built-in security robots would come after them?

"They should be entering that junction soon, sir." the android replied, pointing to his right.

"Coyote, booby-trap that junction."

"Gotcha, boss." the younger man responded, sprinting to the junction and planting a small charge. It didn't look like much: a small box, laying next to the corner. But it was more than powerful enough to get the job done.

The entire team sprinted away, but not so far away that they wouldn't hear the explosion.

________________________________________


"Team One, report." Renako ordered. "Team One, can you read me?" There was no answer.

"Must be the interference." his second in command remarked.

"They should have checked in twenty minutes ago." Renako retorted. "Team One, report. Team One, can you read me?"

There was still no answer. Renako thumbed his communicator irritably. "Team Two, can you read me? Team Two, report."

"Team Two reporting." came the reply, much to Renako's relief. "No sign of the humans."

Renako thought about that for a moment. His men were well trained. There was no conceivable reason why they would be twenty minutes late to report, unless they had been killed or captured. But who did it? The humans, or someone else? He had no way of knowing, and silently cursed Tain for sending him on this fool's errand. How would they take control of a ship that they did not know how to operate? Were they supposed to use common crewmen to understand an alien language and reverse engineer alien technology? In less than a day? He shook his head.

"Change of plan. All teams, if you can read me, all personnel are to return to the docking bay immediately."

"Sir, we can't take this ship if we stay in the docking bay." his second-in-command remarked.

"I know." Renako said grimly. In his mind, he was already composing the explanation he would give to Tain.

________________________________________


"Looks like the jig is up, boss." Wilson said quietly. They had all heard the order over the Cardassian communicator they had recovered from the bodies.

"Damn." Dalton muttered. "We took out 6 men, that means they have 34 left. And they're all hunkering down in the docking bay. It will be impossible to take them in a frontal assault."

"Sir, we don't know that they're planning to make a stand there. They might be planning to just leave."

Dalton sighed heavily. "So much for our chances of getting out of here in one piece. And how the hell are they even communicating? I thought you said they couldn't."

"Sorry sir." Wilson replied sheepishly. "Damn Cardies are smarter than I thought. They dropped communicators as they moved. Programmed 'em to act as relays, to extend their comm range."

"Well shit. Any other bright ideas?"

"You know, we haven't spent much time checking out the guns and other equipment on this ship." Sheppard volunteered.

"Again with the guns?" Vympel moaned, rolling his eyes.

"Why not? There's another way into that docking bay."

"What are you talking about? You heard what Tin Man said. No hidden entrances."

"Yeah, but they won't be watching the biggest entrance: the opening to space. We could go back to our ship, grab some EV suits, and then space-jump from the port side docking bay to the starboard docking bay. If we're careful, they won't even see us coming, because they'll be expecting us to come through the corridors. Some of us could approach them from the corridors and draw their attention ..."

"Well, I'll give you points for creativity," Dalton interjected, "except we didn't bring any EV suits with us. And you know about the drop in combat efficiency when you put one of those suits on anyway."

Wilson looked at Sheppard's crestfallen expression; to be fair to the young man, it was a rather creative idea. And then he had an idea of his own. "Sir, we know the ship was originally designed for a humanoid crew. There's a good chance that they have their own EV suits."

"This is a pretty interesting idea ..." Dalton said thoughtfully. "First we'd have to find these suits, figure out how to use them ..."

"Sirs, if I may ..." the droid spoke up.

"Yes?"

"In addition to its combat droid complement, this vessel has a large number of Imperial stormtrooper armour suits on board. This was just one of the value-added upgrades offered to Moff Disra in his bulk purchase agreement. And I am fully capable of providing instructions on the use of basic infantry equipment."

"Stormtrooper armour?" Dalton asked, raising an eyebrow.

________________________________________


Maquis Colony HR51

Ota'Klan carefully picked his way up the slope, continuing to approach the entrance to the Maquis tunnel network. It had been slow going, but the cautious approach had prevented any more losses. Their scanner bursts had allowed them to spot more than a dozen of the primitive explosive devices. In spite of himself, he grudgingly felt a certain admiration for their cleverness; they had employed every kind of passive trigger from vibration to pressure, and even a hair-thin tripwire that he almost triggered with his foot. All jury-rigged with primitive equipment, all able to function without a subspace signature to easily pick up on scanners, and all deadly enough to kill anyone in the blast radius. These humans did not fight like Klingons, but their guile and improvisational ability concerned him deeply. He would have to report this to his superiors. If he survived.

The entrance was within sight now, and he could see feel his pulse quickening. He knew that this was foolish instinct: he was becoming eager for action now that the objective was so close, but in that eagerness lay carelessness. He held up his hand in a rather exaggerated gesture, and signaled his men to stop. The exaggerated gesture was necessary because of his cloak: the weak infrared perception of Jem'Hadar allowed them to see each other while cloaked, but just barely.

Four hundred metres ahead, still hiding in her perch, Marina peered through her infrared scope, saw the ghostly outline of the lead Jem'Hadar making the exaggerated hand gesture, and saw the others obey. Must be the officer, she thought to herself. She took careful aim, steadied her breathing, and took the shot.

The thin sniper beam burned a hole through Ota'Klan's head before his brain could process any sensation of pain. The intense heat from the beam rapidly boiled the water in his tissues to steam, and the pressure caused his skull to explode, spraying bits of flesh, bone, and brain tissue in every direction. His lifeless body fell to the ground like a rag doll.

The other three Jem'Hadar immediately and instinctively rolled to the side and unleashed a hail of fire in the direction from where the shot had come, but Marina was already ducking down. Without their leader, they could rely only on their Jem'Hadar skills and instincts, and all of those instincts told them to charge. They decloaked, unleashed a mighty battle cry, and charged headlong toward the entrance, screaming and firing from the hip as they ran.

Unfortunately, they did not see the land mines which had been scattered over the approach to the tunnel entrance by the retreating Maquis, and as they sprinted into the minefield, they disappeared in clouds of soil and blood. Marina looked up again, and from her high vantage point she could see the three mangled bodies of the dead Jem'Hadar, laying face down in the dirt. Farther back, she could see their commander's body sprawled on its back, his gruesomely evacuated skull split open to the air.

"Western entrance clear." she reported into her voicebox. The primitive box was connected to a network of equally primitive copper wires and was hardly the sort of sophisticated system that the Federation would use, but it worked. It also had the benefit of being immune to interference and blockages, and not producing any emissions that could be tracked.

"Good to hear, Marina. We just took down another team approaching the eastern entrance. Looks like they were trying to pin us in."

"They'll have to do better than that!" she replied with a grin. So far, this had been surprisingly easy. But the smile faded from her face as she looked into the sky. More Jem'Hadar ships had arrived. A lot more.

[Darth Raptor]

"Stormtrooper armour?" Dalton asked, raising an eyebrow.

Aw, yeah.

[Kartr_Kana]

Yeah!! More Terror!!

[Vehrec]

*struggles with stormtrooper armor*

Hell, I can't see a thing in this helmet.