Starfighters : Diversion

Posted on Tue Sep 1st, 2026 @ 7:08am by Captain Samuel Woolheater & Major George Charles [Reece] & 2nd Lieutenant Amelia Carter & Staff Warrant Officer Seona Davar & 2nd Lieutenant Rory Bancroft
Edited on on Tue Sep 1st, 2026 @ 9:58am

Mission: Season 6: Episode 7: Crossroads of Destiny
Location: Lonian Prison Airspace and Environs
Timeline: MD5
2628 words - 5.3 OF Standard Post Measure

At some point during the waiting period, the starfighters sat down with scans of the planet. They reviewed the terrain and the weapons sensors were able to spot. The biggest obstacle was the traffic around the planet; they couldn't simply ask Niea Orbital Control to pause operations for twenty minutes, so care was taken to study the patterns and look for routine openings between the vessels in orbit. They planned, simulated, planned again.

The ship's interior lighting changed. The order was given. The launch bay came alive with movement as people rushed to their craft.

"Let's move, people!" George barked to his pilots and ground support teams. "I want this hanger cleared of birds in five minutes!" He grabbed his helmet from 2nd Lieutenant Amelia Carter, his new REO. "You ready for this, Ghost?" He asked, using her callsign instead of her name, as most pilots did during operations.

Amelia nodded and gave the thumbs up. She then said, her voice that rusty, halting speech she hated using. "Aye Sir"

When the pair reached their Raptor, George said to her, "Get in and fire her up, while I do the final walkaround." He then did his quick visual inspection of his fighter, checking g to ensure all the safety tags had been removed before flight. When he was done, He climbed into the front seat, the computer already on, and he quickly logged in his credentials while the flight crew finished their preflight jobs of ensuring both pilots were secure and ready to launch.

George hit the switch, closing both canopies. "Comm check," he said into his mask. Ad he looked at the small screen that would transmit her words to him. There would be an audio translation as well, as he wouldn't be able to read text messages while he flew.

"Check" Came the response in his ear. "All Comms active." Amelia was finishing her own checks and straps. "All ready Sir."

Elsewhere aboard the Elysium, the pilots weren't the only ones waiting for the order. Captain Samuel Woolheater stood among the Marines in the final staging area, helmet secured and phaser rifle hanging against his chest. Around him, the rescue force was ready. Weapons had been checked. Charges had been distributed. Medical gear had been packed. Every Marine knew the team assignments, the routes and the names of the people they were going down there to bring home.

Radio comm chatter filled the air inside their helmets. Bodycams on. Romulans look so bad ass. Now there was nothing left to do but wait. Sam looked at the chronometer inside his helmet display. The fighter element would be launching. He keyed into the tactical channel.

=/\= Starfighter element, Bravo Team, Woolheater. =/\=

There was something almost absurd about speaking quietly while surrounded by Marines preparing to assault a prison, but Sam's voice was calm.

=/\= Latest sensor picture is uploaded to your tactical systems. Known surface-to-air sites are marked. Remember: known sites are not necessarily the only sites. If something down there doesn't look right, trust your instruments and trust each other. No downed birds today. =/\=

He paused. This wasn't their fight. The pilots knew what to do and Sam had to let it go and let them do their job. How did the Colonel make this look so easy all the damn time?

=/\= Your mission is diversion. I don't need you conquering Lonian airspace. I need their air-defense crews watching you instead of us. Make them track you. Make them move. Make every sensor operator from Toruna to the fucking coastline wonder what the hell Starfleet is doing up there. When you're over the objective, execute Strauss OP on the agreed mark. Exact synchronization. One signal. One sound. =/\=

Sam checked the countdown again. Soon.

=/\= The people inside that prison need to hear it. I want them to know they're not alone. I want them to know the Elysium found them. And I want every Lonian guard in that facility wondering what comes next. =/\=

His eyes moved across the Marines around him. Some were Human. Some weren't. Romulans stood among them wearing Marine equipment, weapons checked and ready. Nobody in that staging area cared anymore where anybody had started.

Today they were Marines. Sam's voice softened slightly.

=/\= You give us the window. We'll go through it. =/\=

A beat.

Then the Marine captain grinned beneath his helmet. =/\= And pilots? Try not to enjoy it too much. =/\=

Sam switched channels. Then stopped. Sam closed the channel. Around him, Marines made their final checks. Woolheater pulled his rifle tight against his chest and looked toward the transporter platform. Soon...it was their turn.

As soon as Woolheater finished his little pep talk, George switched his comms to his flight channel. "All birds, this is Reaper. You know your assignments. You know the score. Once Phase Three begins, everyone breaks off into pairs and give those bastards hell down there! We will show them what it means to fuck with the Elysium!"

His launch indicator light switched from yellow to green, and he barked the command, "Launch! I'll see each and every one of you back up here once the job is done!" He then pressed the control surface, and his starfighter was launched into the void of space. Two dozen other starfighters, Romulan and Starfleet alike, poured out of the powerful starship. They quickly formed up into four separate groups, each one would approach the prison from a different compass point, George would lead his group down from the north.

Seona Davar launched along with the rest of her group and then paired off as instructed. She was 100% in the right mood for this Operation. She had a lot of frustration and anger to take out somewhere and these Lonians were asking for it so she was more than happy to hear the permission from Reaper to 'show them what it meant to F*** with even the Ely, let alone herself in this current frame of mind. She was raring to do some damage.

"I feel the need for speed" the voice of the computer came to George's ears. It was Ghost in the back seat. "Weapons are hot."

As soon as the order had been Rory was in the Launch bay, helmet under arm, heading towards his fighter. Just a simple, in-and-out, distraction mission. Should be easy. Completing his pre-flight checklist, he pulled the helmet onto his head, and climbed up into the cockpit, checking weapon status, waiting for his pilot to appear. As a TSO, he was more than capable of flying the bird by himself, but having a pilot just made things so much easier.

Hearing the comment from Woolheater, he grinned. "We'll cause these Hobbits so much bother, they'll wish they stayed in the Shire."

"Weren't the Hobbits the good guys?" Seona answered into her mask, speaking back into the group comms. "Shouldn't that be the Orcs who will regret they left mordor?" she chuckled, pleased with herself to be able to pick up the Terran literary quote and bounce it back. "Either way, *they shalt not pass!* " she joined the call out, slightly misquoting her response but just filled with emotion to be out there, in the cockpit of her beloved fighter, with a *legitimate reason to bash* another Terran entertainment quote but this time one she didn't share. It did however help her with her frustrated feelings of grief over Major Kett which she'd had no opportunity yet to discharge.

As the mixed formation of Starfleet and Romulan starfighters began their final approach on the prison, a modified troop shuttle from each group accelerated in the found of each group and, in unison, the four shuttles began to orbit over the prison. As soon as they were in position, the began blaring the music that Woolheater had indicated to be the signal. From the altitude that they were circling, and at the maximum of their specialized speakers, the music was the only thing that could be heard for nearly five kilometers in ever direction.

SECURITY ENFORCER'S OFFICE

There was the dark of the night. They say its always darkest before the dawn. But there was something different about this darkness. Perhaps it was the silence of it all. He stared out of the window and into that darkness. Far beyond it, the world was still asleep. Or just beginning to wake and soon his shift at the prison would be over. He was tired and exhausted. Putting aliens through the ringer was hard work after all. He looked at his brass knuckles and remembered beating the "big one". It felt good too. Taris smiled and turned to go back into the control room at the prison. Then, he heard something.

The first sound was so low that Corporal Taris thought something beneath the detention center had failed. He stopped in the corridor and listened. The building had been making unfamiliar noises for several minutes now. Alarms. Weapons fire. The distant concussion of an explosion. Somewhere beyond the security doors, officers were shouting contradictory orders over the communications net. Prisoners had escaped their cells. Federation soldiers were inside the complex. But this was different. Everything was vibrating and the low rumble permeated the structure. Behind him, a drinking cup landed on the floor and broke into pieces. Then, he wondered if large vehicles were coming. A single tone seemed to hang somewhere beyond the walls. Taris touched the receiver at his ear. “Control, are you hearing that?”

Static answered him. Then another sound joined the first. It wasn't an alarm. Taris knew every alarm used in the detention center. It wasn't machinery either. There was structure to it. The sound was changing deliberately, slowly building upon itself. It was...Music. Someone was playing music. The likes that he had never heard before. Taris stepped toward the nearest window. Outside, darkness still covered much of the compound. Emergency lights strobed along the perimeter wall. Smoke drifted from somewhere near the administrative wing, occasionally illuminated by flashes Taris couldn't identify. The music continued. It was louder now. A low, relentless vibration rolled through the glass and into his chest. “Where is that coming from?” someone behind him asked. Taris didn't answer. He just looked at the other Lonian guard and a terrible feeling washed over him.

Something bright appeared above the horizon. For one absurd instant, he thought it was the sun. Then it moved. Another light appeared beside it. Then another. Aircraft. Taris stared as the shapes came into view, descending toward the detention complex. Strange, fantastic, more then he ever imagined large shuttles. The sound was now unmistakably coming from them. The music swelled.

A trumpet sounded over the compound, impossibly clear, followed by another rising declaration. The notes rolled across the detention center from speakers powerful enough that Taris could feel them through the floor. The doors...the metal doors started to rumble and shake. There was dust from the walls and the ceiling began to rain down on them like a dusty snow covering everything. The lights began to sputter and a picture crashed to the ground and shattered loudly.

He had never heard anything like it. There was no warning in the music. No demand for surrender. No instructions. Whatever purpose it served, it wasn't meant for him. His receiver suddenly came alive.

“—all units, eastern perimeter! Enemy aircraft inbound! Repeat, Inbound...”

The transmission vanished beneath another enormous surge of sound. Taris backed away from the window. Outside, searchlights snapped upward. Defensive batteries began turning toward the sky. Guards spilled into the courtyard, some pointing weapons upward, others simply staring. The shuttles separated. And then Taris understood. The music wasn't announcing their attack.

It was announcing their arrival. The aliens had come for their people.

A tremendous crash of percussion shook the windows as the orchestra reached its summit. Brass thundered across the compound, triumphant and utterly indifferent to the alarms now screaming beneath it. Taris watched one of the Federation craft sweep over the perimeter. For perhaps two seconds, he forgot he was supposed to be afraid. It was magnificent. The sound from another world so far away...yet he was utterly fascinated by it. The Lonian heart was many things, but it was no stranger to the ethereal and the eternal.

For the second time, the music grew and the whole prison shuddered. The trumpet blasts and the rising notes were like that of the sun on the first day of a new year or a new era. He was thrilled and afraid. In awe and confusion and many other emotions flooded him. Then, louder still a third time. It seemed to him as if the sky, the whole sky was filled with this music. The crescendo grew and grew, expanding and expanding, breaking barriers, crossing lines, enrobing everything it touched is such a clarion sound.

He thought to himself, ~What people are they that can create such a sound as this?~

The music grew and thundered until it seemed as if the sky itself could no longer hold it. The one, long note, that chord, those voices the many forming such a harmony. Then ending and the echo from the mountains to the sea, the echo rang.

Then the eastern defense emplacement exploded. The blast threw him backward. Taris hit the floor hard enough to knock the breath from his lungs. Dust rained from the ceiling. Somewhere nearby someone screamed. His receiver erupted with voices.

“East battery is down!”

“Get those prisoners secured!”

“Control isn't responding!”

“Aircraft coming around again!”

Taris pushed himself onto one elbow. Through the damaged window he could see alien craft climbing away from the compound, turning against the first faint light along the horizon.

For the first time that night, Corporal Taris understood something with absolute certainty. The Federation soldiers inside the detention center weren't trapped. They weren't surrounded. They weren't waiting to be captured. Someone had come for them. Taris slowly reached for his weapon.

Outside, the sun began to rise. And Taris grabbed his weapon from the arms locker.


A few moments after the rescue teams beamed in, George's starfighter sensors picked up the incoming Lonian fighters. He toggled his comms to speak to all of his pilots. "All hands, this is Reaper, multiple bandits incoming! Time to contact, thirty seconds. Time to pucker up, girls and boys. We do not allow any of those birds into this airspace! On my mark, break into your pairs and attack.....MARK!" He then juked his fighter hard over to port and pushed his impulse engines to full, one of the Romulan Talon starfighters stayed fixed to his seven o'clock low position.

As the fighters reached each other, George opened up, destroying the lead fighter, then performing a stall turn to starboard, before pushing his engines full forward again, to chase after the other fighter that had turned away when its leader had been turned into a cloud of flaming debris.

The airspace around the prison instantly became a swirling maelstrom of flying craft, energy blasts and projectile explosions. Within the first few moments, nearly all of the antiaircraft weapon emplacements had been jurned into piles of burning slag. Then the combat shifted to strait air-to-air. While four of the allied starfigters had been shot down, The Lonians wre taking the harder hit. For those four Starfleet and Romulan starfighters shot down, two thirds of the Lonian craft were destroyed.

"Let's mop up the rest of these fools!" George snarled into his comm to his pilots. He had had enough of these diminutive aliens. If he never saw another one again after they left here, Teevs and his daughter excluded of course, then it would be too soon.