2: The Maw of Hell

The Vanguard shook again as another Borg cutting beam attempted to penetrate the armour.

"Armour down to twenty percent, plus we've only got fifty photons and ten quantums left."

Willard nodded grimly, unwilling to turn to look at MacLeod as that meant looking at the dead bodies of Shar and a young Lieutenant from one of the Science consoles. The casualty reports were mounting rapidly but at least they were still alive.

The rest of the fleet….

Another three ships exploded as they rammed a tactical cube. It was getting desperate as the Borg armada slowly advanced towards Remus. They had tried for Romulus but the defence grid had inflicted enough damage to make the Borg wary of getting trapped between the grid and the combined fleet.

But the fleet was struggling. Of the initial two hundred and fifty vessels, over one hundred were gone, with about that many, including the Vanguard, suffering moderate to heavy damage. The Borg still had twenty cubes, nine of the tactical variety.

The ship shook again as a nearby cube continued to pursue them.

"Where are our escorts?" Willard demanded.

"Only three are left, two Romulan and one Klingon."

Willard cursed again, the Borg were systematically targeting the armoured ships and they were doing a dammed fine job of it. As far as Willard could tell, only four such ships remained, and the Vanguard seemed to be in the best shape.

"Ask the admiral again…"

Mek nodded as he tried to contact the fleet command ship. "Sir, the Ranger's gone, as are the Intrepid and the Monitor."

Willard swivelled to look at Mek. All three Starfleet admirals are gone. "Who's in charge?"

Mek shrugged. "The Romulan command ships are gone aswell, and the Sword of Kahless just rammed a tactical cube."

Even the allied admirals were gone. Without a flagship the fleet would struggle to survive for much longer, though even with an Admiral, Willard suspected they had less than an hour to live.

"Send to all ships, I'm authorizing the use of trans–spatial torpedoes. If any ship has them, and they're far enough away from either planet, use them and I'll deal with Command if we survive."

Mek nodded as he transmitted the message to the other Starfleet vessels. "Sir, our escorts are asking about the new torpedoes."

"On-screen." The images of Mirok and a Klingon captain appeared. "Captains, how goes your day?" Mirok raised his eyebrow in an almost Vulcan way and stared back. The fire being dealt with behind him told the story well enough. The Klingon captain merely grunted.

"We're going to use experimental weapons on the Borg, I'll need you to launch a strafing run to allow us time to get close enough to launch."

The two captains merely nodded and closed their respective links.

"Helm, target the closest tactical cube. Tactical, once we have a clear shot and our escorts are out of the kill zone you're free to launch." Both officers nodded as the starship turned towards its pursuer.

The allied ships strafed between the two vessels, but the Borg treated them as files, literally swatting aside a Romulan cruiser, which managed to collide with the cube, shattering the outer skin.

"Target where they crashed. Fire!" Everyone on the bridge watched in morbid fascination as the two advanced torpedoes flew towards the cube.

They could scarcely believe their eyes as the torpedoes actually entered the cube and half a second later two massive explosions occurred inside the cube, forcing it to shudder to a halt.

"Power levels down over sixty percent."

"Again." Two more torpedoes shot towards the Borg cube, which try as it might, couldn't hit the approaching death shots.

As the second pair of explosions took place inside, the cube suddenly accelerated towards the Vanguard.

"Evasive!" Ordered MacLeod, recognizing what was planned before Willard.

The ship spun and stared to pull away as the gigantic cube bore down on it. The cube exploded, showering the Vanguard in huge pieces of debris and stray plasma.

Willard barely managed to hold onto his seat, and could only watch in horror was Mek went flying past him before landing with a sickening thud near the helm.

"Cube is destroyed." Stated MacLeod, as he routed the Ops systems to his console. "Sir, I'm reading a warp core breach on the last Romulan ship."

"Beam as many of their crew on-board as we can, but get us away from them."

Willard stood and walked towards Mek, to confirm if he was dead or if there was still a chance to save him. A quick check for a pulse told him all he needed to, but he pulled the body away from the Helm.

"How are you holding up May?" he asked the young Ensign Ku. She'd only joined the crew at the refit, and was less than six months out of the academy. He suspected that something was going on between her and MacLeod, but they were both officers, and he hoped that if they survived this they'd get the chance to talk and see.

Ku looked up at her captain, "Fine sir, all things considered." She smiled weakly, to try and reassure him, but her eyes told him the truth.

Willard turned as the turbolift opened and Mirok's Sub-Commander, Isha, walked onto the bridge. "Mirok?"

Isha shook her head as she turned and walked towards MacLeod, and whispered something to him, before turning to face Willard.

"He died during the last attack, thank you for trying to save us but I fear it may not mean much in the grand scheme of things."

Willard gave her a sad smile as he eased back into his chair. "How are we doing Erik?"

"We're down to fifteen percent on the armour, though it's slowly recovering. Shields are ready, but they won't last long in this hell-storm. Phaser banks are at twenty percent though we still have sixteen more trans-spatial torpedoes."

"Small favours." Muttered Willard. "Where are the Borg?"

"Five cubes, three tactical inbound, eta is less than a minute."

"Reinforcements?

"None in range."

Willard stood and walked back to the helm, resting his hand on the back of the chair, "Very well. Bring us about, straight down their tail-pipes Ensign. If we're going to die, I for one intend to take as many of those son-o-a-bitches with me as I can."

"Yes sir." Came the enthusiastic reply. "Course laid in, by your command."

"Let's storm the gates of Hell." He turned and looked back, "Commanders, I want you to make every shot count. Burn those bastards out of my sky."

Both Commanders, replied with animalistic smiles. "By your command." Stated Isha.

"As the Klingons say, 'Today is a good day to die'." MacLeod said, as he placed his hand on Isha's.

Willard smiled too, the strange mood that was settling over the bridge made him prouder than he'd ever been of his ship and crew. "I much prefer 'Cry Havoc, and let's slip the dogs of war.'"

He looked around the bridge, and the few faces left and nodded solemnly to each in turn. "Very well, we have an appointment to keep, let's not let them wait for us."

In an act of pure defiance, the wounded Vanguard turned and moved towards the massive incoming Borg ships.

"Divert all power to forward shields and armour, heck divert power from life support, somehow I don't think we'll be needing where we're going…." He left the statement hang in the air, and air soaked in the smell of death and destruction.

"How nice," started Isha, somehow very familiar with Starfleet consoles, "The Borg are lining up for us."

"Well let's not disappoint our hosts. Erik, let them know we're here." All remaining quantum torpedoes shot forward at the central cube as the phaser banks concentrated on the same spot.

As the tubes were loaded with the trans-spatial torpedoes an Ensign at the remaining science console shouted out, "I've got a subspace disturbance appearing. It's incredible."

"We'll look at it later." Answered Willard angrily. "Fire trans-spatials."

"Wait!" screamed the Ensign.

A full volley of ten trans-spatial torpedoes erupted from the Vanguard, targeting the three central cubes. The eight fired at the two cubes off-centre travelled on and smashed into their target, shattering the cubes and managing to take out the remaining three cubes with the secondary explosions.

However, the Vanguard never saw this as the two torpedoes aimed at the central cube collided with the subspace disturbance, and detonated inside. Before anyone on-board could react, a massive energy release from subspace enveloped the starship.

When the energy dissipated, and the residual interference from the simultaneous destruction of five cubes died down, all that was detected by the allied fleet was that the Vanguard had been destroyed in a last, valiant act of defiance.

Ok, that's the intro done, but if anyone has any ideas about where and when the Vanguard ends up, feel free to message me, or leave a review :)