By Nathan Warner
Commander Owen Peterson, a legend with a dark past, is sent to the moon of Peltor 5 to secure the Federation's bleak front against the Jem'Hadar's vastly superior force during the height of the Dominion War. Will he find a way to obtain victory without sacrificing his principles?
“I know you’re out there,” Commander Owen Peterson muttered to himself, bending his dark brow over the valley of Peltor 5 where invisible enemies were probably near enough now to see his frown. This planet was little more than the lush moon of the gas giant of Agetor, yet it would decide the balance of the System. Agetor was a strategic gas mining operation that the Dominion had seized several months ago, and Peltor 5 had been allocated to provide them security. Stretching halfway up the sky from the horizon, Agetor cast a soft reddish glow over the landscape like a pastel painting in the clouds. Rumor had it that enormous whale-like creatures swam in the dense gasses of its stratosphere, breaching near the surface only every few hours to absorb the central star’s warmth and energy. In sharp contrast, the air of Peltor 5 was temperate and the gravity nominal – the forests lush and the streams cool. It was only the second day Peterson had been here, and it was much more to his taste than the last one – the volcanic planet of Kerkuk, several lightyears away.
Suddenly, to the north, a shimmering flock of Meerin Falcons took off from the tree canopy below and gracefully flew down the valley southward. To Peterson, they looked like furry, grey serpents with four powerful wings, beating in an alternate rhythm.
Like dragonflies, if you slowed their flight down considerably, he thought. It was a pleasant, if rare, intrusion of the normal into the perilous contest that had focused everyone’s mind so sharply on phaser blasts and photon grenades. In war, they counted as much as breath. He ran his hand through his blanching scalp and then scratched at his thin white beard, greying early at 45. A life of death would do that to you.
From the Federation Base Camp’s forward line, Peterson kept a keen eye on what he suspected was a Dominion assault queuing on the opposite ridge of the valley. All morning, a powerful signal had been jamming Starfleet’s sensors – even Tricorders – for a twenty-mile radius of the camp. Never content to wait for the punches to land, Peterson currently had an elite team hunting down the source to knock it out. But even without instruments, he could sense the enemy closing in. The covert reconnaissance team woke Peterson several hours ago to report that an estimated 1,000 Jem’Hadar had moved their base of operation less than 2 miles away, overnight. That was pretty much their entire force, which meant only one thing – they were going to siege the Federation line and drown them by sheer, indomitable force. And why not? Peterson only had 200 weary, worn Federation troops shuffling around camp behind him. By the numbers, Lt. Talanis had informed him a few minutes earlier that they only had a 20% chance of coming through this alive - at the very most. Peterson took a casual sip of his coffee and shook his head at the smooth taste.
“Recycle this bilge and get me some real Raktajino,” he grumbled to a nearby Ensign. Replicated stuff always tasted off to him – probably all those years of living off field rations. He even brought them onto starships. “What can I say,” he’d smile at a chicken dinner with the Captain, instead digging into his protein enhanced supplements, “I like the taste.”
Peterson returned his attention to the matter at hand. “Even if there was only 1/5th of myself left, Lieutenant, that fraction of my corpse would still fight the 5 remaining Jem’Hadar,” he told Talanis. “And that, my boy, is the difference between statistics and experience.” He’d never liked probabilities. In his experience, they meant very little– at least they never had before.
A veteran of the Federation Cardassian border conflicts, Peterson was no stranger to impossible odds and ruthless enemies. Refined in the fire of that brutal war, he had forged an unyielding reputation that must have made an impression back at Starfleet Headquarters, because he was soon scouted by Section 31. At first, he was a little taken aback that such an organization existed, but no one knew its justification better. He’d seen what they were up against firsthand. He’d lost countless friends on many massacred worlds to the Cardassian butchers. He joined almost immediately, and they gave him as much work as his appetite desired.
In the background of every decisive victory against Cardassian forces, Peterson’s shadow was seen. His signature relentless adaptability was so well perceived by his enemies that the Obsidian Order began calling their mystery man, “the Ghoul of Guls.” They killed him a hundred times over, but every time they’d labelled him “deceased,” his apparition would rise to haunt their steps.
To the small handful of people who knew his record, Peterson’s service was so exemplary that if the black-ops organization had offered medals, he’d have filled a drawer. In defending the Federation against unseen threats, his dedication was unwavering – at least it was until he assisted in the assassination of a Federation diplomat, who may (or may not) have been a Cardassian spy. His partner, Shy Calmar detonated a subspace bomb that killed 100 bystanders on Andoria. “Unavoidable collateral” was how the report was written up. The experience woke Peterson to his true allegiance.
“I won’t compromise my soul for lazy victories purchased by underhanded means,” he’d said, tendering his resignation to Deputy Director Luther Sloan. It wasn’t judgement. Personally, he felt Section 31 was a necessary evil. He just couldn’t sacrifice his soul for that evil, even if it was necessary. In retaliation, Peterson was demoted to Ensign. It was also a thinly veiled warning to keep his knowledge of the organization between his ears or he’d lose more than his rank. Peterson didn’t mind. It was a small price to pay. And he’d fight twice as hard as a ground soldier on the front-lines to prove you didn’t have to use evil to win against evil.
Stepping into the light, Peterson scrapped harder than them all in the ring of battle, while drastically reducing collateral damage and forming partnerships with former enemies in the process. He’d earned his reputation for a second time - this time outside the shadows. He proved unstoppable. "Mongoose of Mavor," his troops called him.
“If you throw him into a pit of Cardassian cobras, he’d emerge with their eggs for breakfast, climbing a rope made of their shed skins tied together,” the troops said.
Through his efforts, he earned his Lieutenancy back twice over. Soon after the Cardassian conflict wound down, he was ordered to face a new enemy – his old friends, now calling themselves the Maquis. As if to rub in the cruel twist of irony, Sloan had delivered the message personally.
“We’ll see if you can keep your hands clean now, my old friend,” he smiled wryly, “or should I say, Commander. Congratulations.” And then he was gone, leaving Peterson angrily reading his new commission and the unbelievable orders to which it was related. Most alarming of all was the news that his long-time friend Calvin Hudson was a principle leader of this uprising.
He thought about resigning, but he couldn’t betray his friends by allowing unprincipled people to take his place. It was so clear. By retaining his commission and serving the Federation, he could save a lot of innocent lives by going in place of people like Shy or Sloan – for that matter, even officers who didn’t know the people like he did. Peterson immediately called up his former comrades on the Cardassian frontier and gave them the news.
“If you side against us, you’re a traitor to everyone that died under you, Owen,” Hudson said. It hurt because there was truth in it, just not the whole truth.
“You don’t have to resort to violence,” Peterson pleaded, knowing how hollow his words sounded. “We can solve this without war.” Any other man would have accused Peterson of cowardice, but Hudson knew better, and he simply ended the transmission in answer. Like the ancient American Civil War, brothers and friends were now pitted against each other.
For 3 years, he worked to gently dull the teeth of the Maquis while defanging the brutal Obsidian Order, forging a road to peaceful coexistence. But then the game changed. Into the middle of it all, a new player entered the arena and threatened to destroy everything Peterson had worked so hard to build – the Dominion. Fleets of Gamma Quadrant warships invited themselves into Cardassian space, finally following up on the Dominion threat to “get to know” the Alpha Quadrant better. War with the Dominion was only a matter of time, and as soon as it broke out, Peterson was recalled from border operations against the Maquis to command tactical operation units on highly contested worlds. That was his first run-in with the Jem’Hadar.
Over the next year, Peterson had been on pretty much every planet on the frontlines, clawing out bloody victories here and there against equally indomitable foes. And each victory had led, step by step, to today.
Last week, he’d been ordered to Peltor 5 to stem the bleeding of Federation forces. The casualties for the last couple months had been very high. The Dominion forces were entrenched, and now knew the terrain better than the natives.
Decisive battles had played out in the system earlier that week, and the good news was that the Dominion armada had taken heavy losses from the 9th fleet. But Starfleet was impatient to move on deeper into the enemy lines, and the longer Peltor 5 refused to fall, the more frustrated they became. The Dominion was making victory incredibly painful – threatening a protracted conflict.
Cut off from their supply lines, most combat forces would be contained and neutralized in a timely manner. However, the Jem’Hadar were anything but normal. As had become their standard operation, the Dominion had blanketed Peltor 5 in a dispersal field, seeding the atmosphere with charged nanoparticles, reflecting transporters.
While warlords like the Dominion would risk widespread ecological harm on contested planets in order to take them, the Federation had its ideals to wrestle with. After all, there were sentient inhabitants of Peltor 5 – a preindustrial agrarian race – mostly on the southern continent, thankfully. Still, any use of orbital bombardment had to be under 50megetons equivalent. For this reason, in a situation like this, Starfleet ordered the 9th Fleet to “win it” on the ground. As transport to the surface was impossible from orbit, smaller atmospheric convoys had to come down, exposing themselves to ground-fire. Dominion batteries were practically invisible but even more deadly.
Drop ships had to penetrate to at least a few miles above the surface to transport troops and supplies. It took too much energy to do it any higher. Half the casualties to date had been troop transports blown out of the sky before they could get to ground. For the soldiers that made it to terra firma, the pleasant scenery lulled down their guard, until a Jem’Hadar soldier popped out of thin air, killed a comrade and then vanished as quickly as they had appeared. The enemy became the trees, the rocks, the grass – the very air you breathed. It was as if the world itself was against them, striking whenever they least expected it.
Then there were the subspace mines – invisible bombs that tricorders couldn’t detect. Every day, patrols came back thinned from booby-traps going off. If that was all, it would have been one thing, but these “houdinis” as the troops called them, popped up in the middle of the Federation Base Camp. A walk to the replicator, a stroll through the commons, brush your teeth, and then death. Morale was lower than the bottomless pit.
This was just the sort of hopeless, hands-tied, principle-constrained challenge that Peterson had forged a career out of. Innovation, adaptability, and creativity on the ground were better ammunition than cold calculated maneuvers on a chess board. Peterson’s first order after arriving in the hopeless mess was to activate a subspace inverter, which he’d brought with him inside the bulky mission pod of a Danube class Runabout, setting it down in the middle of camp. Its gentle hum deceptively suggested slumber, but it was contending in unseen realms. Immediately, subspace mines ceased transiting into the base – the inverter was successfully repelling the Dominion edge.
When the explosions stopped, the soldiers looked on in awe at the device. “Where did you find this?” Lt. Talanis asked breathlessly, his Andorian antennas twitching toward the module with curiosity. Peterson didn’t answer. The truth was he’d reached out to Grand Nagus Zek the moment he’d learned about the Dominion’s use of subspace mines. He knew the Nagus would have his ear to the ground on any technology they could use, and he didn’t disappoint. Procured through back channels by the Ferengi commerce commission, the inverter reportedly came from an anonymous expatriate of the Gamma Quadrant. Peterson didn’t care about the who or the why in the face of the lives it could save.
As soon as the inverter was running strong, Peterson fired up a dampening field around the Federation perimeter. It was a little trick he’d learned while fighting Jem’Hadar on Betazed. It suppressed their metabolism enough to subdue their shrouds and forced them into the light if any attempted to sneak behind enemy lines.
Next, Peterson set up batteries of phaser drill platforms on the perimeter. More easily obtained and in greater number than Starfleet defense batteries, it was unorthodox to say the least. But with a little fancy programming, the drills could produce wide beam arrays to single-handedly repel a full-on assault, pinpoint specific targets, or take down drones and shuttles. In standby mode, Peterson automated them to vaporize anything that came through the dampening field. They didn’t have to wait long. That very evening, they woke up to the batteries crackling on all sides of the camp. Jem’Hadar DNA residue was all that remained. Apparently 25 Dominion troopers had met an untimely fate. It only took one time for the lesson to sink in. The Jem’Hadar were quick learners.
At least this meant the killings in the night had ended. Jem’Hadar had been coming into camp at night, slipping past the watch, and leaving grizzly deaths to be found in the morning, gutting Starfleet’s resolve with helpless brutality. It was an act of scorn. They didn’t consider the Federation a worthy adversary. But that had changed now.
Peterson seemed content to let the lesson sink in. Admiral Ramirez was far from content with the protracted situation, however, and he expressed his frustration daily from his Galaxy class chariot. There were other worlds that needed liberating, and every second they waited here meant the Jem’Hadar were entrenching elsewhere.
“We must put these Pelor brushfires out, so we can move on!” he sighed, leaning forward into the screen.
“If you need to be somewhere Admiral, I’d suggest you do it,” Peterson replied. “We’ve got the situation under control.”
“It hardly looks that way from orbit!” Ramirez countered. Peterson smiled.
“We’ve got them right where we want them,” he said, “just leave us a supply ship.”
Ramirez didn’t ask twice. He had just enough faith in Peterson’s reputation to take a chance, and he needed to get going. Not more than an hour later, the 9th Fleet pulled out of orbit. Peterson watched the glittering lights of the ships pull away from Peltor 5 and leave for the new Frontline.
The Federation troops looked on uneasily. They’d felt much better knowing a fleet was watching over them. But they didn’t despair. They may not have trusted themselves, but they trusted Peterson’s tenacious reputation.
Back in the present, Peterson turned from the Merin Falcons flapping down the valley to sense every rustling leaf in the forest canopy below. He felt the Jem’Hadar were close, and his concentration didn’t waver despite Lt. Talanis coming up nervously from behind.
“Commander, I heard from Ensign Tateman that you told Admiral Ramirez to leave?” Talanis asked. Peterson nodded slowly, never wavering from his vigil over the valley.
“I did indeed, Lieutenant,” he replied simply. Clearly Talanis hadn’t believed the rumors because the confirmation took him by surprise. His blue antennas retreated uneasily into his head of silver hair.
“But…why?” he sputtered. Peterson turned slowly to his Lieutenant, whose blue skin had paled to a lighter shade. Under the bright green eyes, Talanis remembered he’d forgotten something.
“I mean, ‘Sir,’” he added. Peterson returned his attention to his vigil.
“They are needed elsewhere,” Peterson said evenly. “And we don’t need them.” Talanis swayed from the Commander’s words.
“But how will we survive?” he sputtered. Peterson smiled.
“Klingons,” he answered with a wry smile.
“Klingons, Sir?” Talanis asked in disbelief. If he raised his eyebrow any higher, he’d pass as having Vulcan blood. “But we don’t have any Klingons.”
“Something you ought to know about Klingons is you can’t always believe your eyes,” Peterson smiled. “Now prepare the troops.”
In 5 minutes, Talanis had roused the 200 soldiers. And they filtered to the battlements on the ridge overlooking the valley.
“Alright, listen up!” Peterson raised his voice. “In a few minutes, this valley is going to light up, and you’ll have more targets than you’ll know what to do with. I want teams on the phaser batteries. Keep them running – it’s time to set up. Make sure they're programmed for automated targeting.”
The busy labors of the soldiers settled down to a tight tension. As the seconds ticked away, Peterson whispered a quiet prayer:
“We beseech thee, Master, to be our helper and protector.
Save the afflicted among us; have mercy on the lowly;
raise up the fallen; appear to the needy; heal the ungodly;
restore the wanderers of thy people;
feed the hungry; ransom our prisoners;
raise up the sick; comfort the faint-hearted.”
“What is that?” Talanis asked, transfixed uneasily by the words. Peterson stirred from deep inner thoughts. “It’s an ancient human prayer from Earth’s 1st Century,” Peterson answered quietly, “words I always breathe before going into battle.”
Suddenly, the ground rumbled. It might have been an earthquake had they not see the giant mushroom cloud rising from miles behind the opposing ridge. At that moment, the curtain fell from their sensors – the jamming signal was down. The Klingons had located and dispatched the Dominion signal!
Before anyone could react, a huge Bird of Prey materialized silently, swooping up from behind the opposing ridge, growing larger ever second. Moving faster than the speed of sound, it was deathly silent, vapor trails stretching back from the massive wings arched up in “landing mode.”
What is that crazy Klingon Targ doing with the Kraw’za? Peterson wondered. This wasn’t part of the plan!
The Kraw’za passed low over the Dominion ridge. As it descended into the valley, the Bird of Prey pitched its nose sharply up to the sky. Huge vapor pockets formed in the low-pressure behind the enormous wings’ high angle of attack. It was a stunning, unbelievable sight. Something that would later come to be known as the “K’Ator Dragon” maneuver. The ship was floating almost vertically, and the impulse engine flared over the forest, lighting the canopy on fire and blasting powerful exhaust down into the woods. Suddenly, Peterson realized what Captain K’Ator was up to.
While visiting Australia on leave years ago, he’d once seen a raptor pass low over his head carrying a small, burning branch from a distant brush fire. It pulled up over the meadow and dropped the branch into the grassland before settling on a tree overlooking the scene below. In only a matter of seconds, Peterson could see flames kindling in the brush, rapidly devouring the dry kindling, spreading out in all directions. The meadow was ablaze. Out from the fire, rodents scattered into sight, and the raptor leapt into action, swooping down on them with talons uncurled for the kill.
At that moment, the whole valley shook as sonic booms rocked the ridges, billowing the flames down into the valley. Right on point, Jem’Hadar soldiers popped into sight in the valley and up the slope all the way to the opposing ridge. Instantly, the phaser batteries lit up, lancing out with automated precision, vaporizing Dominion forces up the valley all the way to the ridge. It was a reminder that K’Ator had knocked out the jamming signal and the sensors were picking up Jem’Hadar weapon-placements everywhere, not to mention soldiers “popping” into sight as they reacted to the shock and awe of a Klingon warship roaring overhead.
The Bird of Prey thundered almost to a vertical standstill, standing tall on its tail of balanced thrust. It was deafening now that the sound had caught up to it. Captain K’Ator tipped his ship’s wings as if in salute to Peterson, and then opened up his impulse engines. The powerful propulsion blew all the trees down like a descending hurricane of fire. The shockwave from the throttle let fully out nearly knocked Peterson off his feet. And then the beautiful Klingon ship ascended vertically up to the heavens.
What a pirate, Peterson smiled, shaking his head. He could see the wings popping down into attack mode as the ship vanished into the morning sky – a testament that K’Ator would be returning shortly with a vengeance. But would there be anything left for him to mop up! The phaser batteries were winding down their bombardment of hissing ribbons of power – a cats-cradle of energy beams connecting the two ridges of the valley. Almost no return fire had lit up. The Klingons had taken the Jem’Hadar completely by surprise.
That had been by design. The Kraw’za had been doing close-in reconnaissance while cloaked for the past few days, marking key Dominion positions and troop movements. Their final task had been to locate and dispatch the jammer, which they did just in time – any longer and the Dominion would have been storming the Federation defenses with nearly a thousand shock-troopers.
From the thermal readings, Peterson could see Dominion losses were catastrophic. Less than a hundred Jem’Hadar were left on the slope. Perhaps the Kraw’za wouldn’t be needed after all. But at that moment, Peterson sensed a subtle rumble in the ground below him. He instantly sensed it was a ship taking off nearby – no doubt a Jem’Hadar fighter and ground-attack vehicle. He’d suspected they had at least one ship stashed away on Peltor 5, but not even K’Ator had been able to locate it – that must have been some amazing camouflage to remain undetected from a Klingon hunting party.
Peterson slapped his encrypted com badge.
“K’Ator!” he called out. “We need you back now!” Even as he was speaking, a Dominion “bug-ship” appeared arching up into the sky behind the opposing ridge. Its nose pointed north for only a moment, hovering almost motionless before pivoting to face the Federation line to the west, and its impulse drive kicked in, driving it towards the Base Camp.
“Everyone down!” Peterson barked, not a moment too soon. A second later, a polaron beam lanced into camp. It hit the subspace inverter behind the line, turning it into a vaporized cloud of ash. The blue energy pounded the earth, sending soil and turf twenty feet into the air. The weapons fire moved nearer to the Federation line, growing closer to the troops.
“Now would be a good time, K’Ator!” Peterson cried, standing tall against the onslaught. The Jem’Hadar attack ship was hovering nearer across the valley, banking down to bring the Federation batteries into sight. The moment of certain death approached. Peterson had stared into this face many times and lived to describe its features in detail. Had his luck run out this time?
The nose of the ship glowed, charging with deadly power to spear into Peterson’s post. At that moment, fire fell from heaven. The Dominion ship was rocked by pulsed phaser blasts pounding into its head. Thundering out of the sun, the Kraw’za spewed green plasma into the vulture-like creature below. It was not in vain. K’Ator found his mark and the enemy ship shuddered from internal explosions. Its head banked down from the repeated blows as its aft arched up into the sky, carried forward by the ship’s momentum. The “bug” somersaulted clean over the Federation line. Time seemed to slow as Peterson stared at the pits and scratches on the battle-weathered hull plating – a hull punched and broken by Klingon disrupters. He swore he saw Jem’Hadar soldiers clinging to their consoles through the torn-out hull of the exposed the bridge – the g-loads must have been high with the inertial dampers offline. He met eyes with the Jem’Hadar “First” who seemed to nod in grudging respect to him before the ship revolved past him overhead, careening beyond the Federation Base Camp and vanishing down into the other side of the valley. Moments later, a massive explosion rose into the skyline, marking where the ship had fallen.
A cheer went up from the Federation line. It was deserved. The Jem’Hadar assault had been repelled without a single Federation casualty. It almost made up for the heavy losses leading up to that day. Peterson let out a sigh of relief as he looked back towards the Dominion line to see the Kraw’za hitting the retreating Jem’Hadar hard with disrupter fire.
“K’Ator to Peterson,” a Klingon voice sounded over Peterson’s communicator.
“Peterson here,” he replied, tapping it open.
“We have prevailed, my friend!” K’Ator bellowed. “The Dominion PetaQ are scattering like bugs from a boot!”
“Let’s make sure,” Peterson replied. “We’ve been here before and those bugs turned to bite us badly.”
“True! But this time they are crushed underfoot!” K’Ator roared. “Join us in the glory of this victory!”
“I haven't time to celebrate just yet,” Peterson smiled wryly, “I have to mop up the mess your 'boot' left behind.”
For the next few hours, Federation troops moved up the valley putting out forest fires and clearing the burned-out Dominion lines. They stumbled across hundreds of camouflaged phaser batteries, toppled and broken from the assault. Gradually, they came upon survivors. Only a handful of Vorta remained, despite being held up in heavily fortified positions, and these ordered their Jem’Hadar to surrender to save their own skins from the vengeance of the bloodshot Federation troops they had terrorized for so long.
By the time the 9th Fleet returned to Peltor 5, 2 days later, the planet had been returned to its native self.
“I’ll be honest,” Admiral Ramirez said, shaking his head in disbelief, “I didn’t expect to find any of you alive. But worse than that, I thought I was going to have to give a speech or something at your funeral, so thank you for sparing me from that.”
“My pleasure, Admiral,” Peterson nodded.
“In other news, we’ve detected a small party of natives less than 10 kilometers to the West - probably drawn by all the earth-shaking noise of battle,” Ramirez added, “so we need to get you all out of there.”
“Ready when you are, Sir,” Peterson replied. Within a few minutes, shuttles began dropping down through the atmosphere to help with the extraction.
While the Federation forces were packing up and pulling out, Peterson received a message from an old comrade in arms – Richard Palmer, who still worked in Section 31.
“It’s good to hear from you, Richard,” Peterson smiled at the screen. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“I just wanted to congratulate you on your victory in the Peltor System,” Richard smiled, running his hand through his black curly hair. How he already knew about Peltor 5 was beyond Peterson. “I also need to let you know that our old friend Luther Sloan is dead.” Peterson swayed a little from the screen. Sloan had faked his death before, but this time it appeared to be the genuine article. Apparently, he’d killed himself on Deep Space 9 rather than expose some of the organization’s darkest work – infecting the Founders with a morphogenic virus – nothing short of a gambit at genocide. Peterson sighed. “Luther never did know where the lines were,” he said sadly.
“I think he would have argued there are no lines,” Richard replied. “Only victory.” How much that sounded like the Jem’Hadar! Peterson shook his head and looked around at the world he’d just saved from the Dominion, without utilizing weapons of mass-destruction or exposing the natives to the horrors of 24th century war. Peltor 5 had been saved through ingenuity and sheer force of character. He was more confident than ever that the Federation would always prevail when its back was up against its principles.
“No, there are lines, my friend,” Peterson replied. “And thank God for them.”
In a matter of hours, the 9th Fleet pulled out of orbit and headed deeper into the Cardassian frontier. More worlds needed saving, and the Mongoose of Mavor would be tossed into another pit of vipers before the week was out.
Comments