Still Valley

Posted on Wed Jul 15th, 2026 @ 4:16pm by Lieutenant Viviana Del Rio & Commander Jonathan Grayson & Lieutenant Commander Callie Raven-Grayson & Lieutenant JG Kate Kono & Lieutenant JG James Phoenix & Lieutenant Wyatt Steele & Lieutenant JG Vienna Steele

2,076 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Sins of the Empire
Location: Planet Surface
Timeline: Current

OOC: Planet surface


IC:

Jon, Kate, Ibarra and Hathaway had made it undetected to the camp's outer perimeter. As the group looked over the situation, Jon hoped the other team has equal success in reaching their goal. There was also Colonel Smith's team but Jon had no concerns about them, they always succeeded.

"From here in, stay alert, trust each other, keep a cool head and we'll be back aboard the Washington in no time.'

Kate wiped the sweat from her brow and nodded to Jon. Her arms were burning, and they had only cleared the outer perimeter. She ran the numbers in her head; remaining hostiles, choke points, likely ambush positions ...and the math wasn't in her favor. She could kill cleanly and move without hesitation, and she could read a battlefield the way other people read a room, but sustained hand-to-hand was a different animal. On the merchant ship, eighteen kills had been manageable because she had controlled the timing, drawing each one out on her own terms, patient and precise.

This was different. Grayson, Hathaway, and Ibarra set the pace, and the pace was unrelenting. There was a second team moving in coordinated step-time, a rendezvous point ahead, and no room in the schedule for her body's objections. Shran and Greyson hadn't recruited her just because she was cute. Somewhere along the line, people realized happy-go-lucky Kate had a switch from light to dark. She fixed her grip, steadied her breathing, and matched their stride. Whatever was waiting past the perimeter, she would meet it on her feet.

Hathaway dropped back, putting himself between the group and whatever might be coming up behind them. They pressed together into a recess in the wall, the darkness there thick enough to feel solid. He let his eyes sweep the way they had come before he spoke, his voice barely a breath.

"Do you think they have a discharge detector?"

Kate's gaze stayed on the passage ahead. "If they had one, every hostile in the camp would have come down on us the moment we stunned those two at the gate." She caught the word before it finished forming and softened it, conscious of Ibarra beside her. "So no. I don't think they do."

Hathaway's shoulders dropped a fraction. "Fair point," he said, and meant it.

Jon turned back to the pair. "Kate's right. They don't otherwise all hell would be breaking out and we'd be hip deep in Klingons. If your going to speculate, speculate about where the next Klingon sentries will be."

"They better hope they aren't anywhere near you two," Hathaway said. Kate managed a small smile at that, which was easier than thinking about her arms, which had stopped being arms some time ago and were now just two very long complaints attached to her shoulders.

Jon offered a tight smile that didn't reach his eyes. This was serious, deadly serious and he was ready to meet it head on. "We'll take five, let everyone get some rest before we move on to the next phase of the mission."

Kate found a stretch of wall and put her shoulders into it, letting the stone do the work her legs were tired of doing. She took a pull from her canteen and kept her eyes moving: the gap between the two nearest buildings, the roofline opposite, the ground. Hathaway crouched at the mouth of the alley behind them, phaser leveled at whatever the dark back there was hiding.

"So far so good." His voice was barely sound. "Grab the guy, get out. Washington's fine. The Romulans aren't about to open fire on a Starfleet vessel and start a war over this. Ben's up there right now with a replicated drink in his hand, wondering when you're coming back."

Kate's eyes stayed forward. The ache in her arms had settled in deep, the kind that didn't respond to shifting position or wishful thinking.

"Sure," she said. "Easy duty."

Hathaway's mouth curved without quite becoming a smile. "Relaxing. Comfortable. Very concerned about us."

Something in Kate's chest loosened, the way a knot does when you stop pulling against it. The Washington was up there. Holding. Not burning, not trading fire with anyone. She let herself have that for a moment, turned it over once, and put it somewhere useful. Her eyes found Hathaway in the dark and she gave him a small nod, the kind that didn't need anything attached to it.

Hathaway looked to where Jon was standing surveying the landscape. "Grayson's got ice water in his veins. I can see why he's XO. He's a cool customer." He said in a hushed tone.

Ibarra looked at Hathaway and Kate, "You don't become the XO of a ship with a captain like Shran and not have ice in your veins. Captain is one of the top tactical minds in the Federation, and he sent us here to do something, and so we will succeed" she said in a hard hushed voice. Suddenly her tricorder beeped. She motioned to Jon, signaling sentries approaching.

Hearing the muted beep of the tricorder, Jon moved back to Ibarra and the others. "What have we got Lieutenant?" he whispered.

Kate stretched the ache from her shoulders and slid her phaser rifle from its sling. Her thumb found the modified cover, flipping it over the power indicator to kill its betraying glow. They were close enough now for the universal translators to parse the guttural Klingon; both sentries held mugs of bloodwine instead of weapons.

“…and I said to General Kraith, ‘Of course we took the woman together!’”

“How does one warrior achieve such glory?” the other grunted.

“You stand face-to-face, a pillar of strength each! The woman is suspended between you, held aloft by our might! We hold our fists together, the Klingon Emblem Pose with her right in-between! A triumph of engineering and conquest! Qapla’!”

Kate’s eyes cut toward Jon, Ibarra, and Hathaway. Her lip curled as the sentries roared with laughter, oblivious to the four Starfleet operatives breathing in the shadows just meters away.

They drifted away still deep in conversation about their own escapades. Kate watched them go, then let her lips form three slow, silent syllables she would not say out loud.

Jon waited until the pair had drifted away and then waited fifteen seconds longer before whispering, "Damn fools." before adding, "Alright. Ibarra run a passive scan, let's see what we've got."

Ibarra scanned the area. "We have Klingons in the dwellings, but how many are combatants versus civilians considering Toral is holding this outpost hostage, I can't say." She looked at her tricorder further, "No additional sentries are about currently."

Jon thought on the news, it was less than ideal but it was all they had. When suddenly the Ch' Tang decloaked and fired on the defensive batteries on the perimeter of the camp, reducing them to junk. "Kate behind me. Ibarra and then Hathaway. Let's see if we can find Toral."

The Bird of Prey decloaked directly overhead, and Kate barely had time to register the shimmer of its hull before the first torpedoes screamed down into the patrol towers. The blast punched through her chest before the sound even reached her ears. Windows shattered up and down the encampment's narrow lanes, and the whole village structure groaned and swayed as the shockwave rolled through it like a fist. Heat poured off the burning towers in waves, and she pressed her back against the nearest wall, the metal warm against her shoulders, as the great ship banked hard and swung around for another pass.

"Holy crap!" Kate exclaimed. "Those guys in the tower are going to need some serious Dermal Regeneration!" She followed Jon and the team as, all around them, Klingon sentries set down their cups of blood wine and reached for disruptors and blades. Warriors filled the doorways. Anti-air turrets swung toward the sky as their gunners climbed into position. Kate took it all in, every bit of it happening before a single Klingon eye had found them. A cold weight settled in her gut. "Klingons," she said. "They never do anything small."

Kate fell in behind Jon's team when a Klingon rounded the corner of a building and planted himself in their path. She recognized him; the same one who had boasted crudely about the women he had taken during his time under General Kraith. His eyes swept over Ibarra and Kate and his lips split into a wide, hungry grin.

"I will gut your men where they stand and take my time with you two!" He unsheathed his bat'leth in a single fluid motion and let it sing. The broad crescent blade caught the light as he drove it through a display that stopped the whole street: spinning it across his shoulders, rolling it down the length of his arms, sweeping it low around his torso in tight controlled arcs while his feet shifted and planted with the precision of a trained warrior. He moved like a man who had been born with the weapon in his hands.

"I am the might of the Klingon Empire!" he bellowed, beating a fist against his chest. "I carry the heart of Kahless himself!"

Kate raised her phaser. Before she could fire, the man simply ceased to exist. The torpedo from the Ch'Tang found him with surgical indifference and the concussive blast threw the team back on their heels. Where the Klingon had stood there was now a blackened crater and a fine red mist still settling over the rubble. A pair of boots sat at the crater's edge, perfectly intact, smoke rising gently from the tops.

Kate lowered her phaser. Ibarra was still half behind her, her arm having gone out on instinct to block her from harm. They both stared at the boots for a long moment.

"Kahless Shoes." Kate shook her head and they moved on.

"Never to be filled again." Jon quipped. Now back to business. You two okay?"

Ibarra nodded. "Fine sir." She looked around at the destruction, "I thought it was supposed to be a disruptor strike. We shouldn't have survived the torpedo strikes. Another meter or two closer and we wouldn't have."

*****

Wyatt looked through his binoculars, nothing was moving and no sound came from the camp which he considered odd considering it was a camp of rogue Klingons but then again even Klingons needed to sleep. He glanced at the others and motioned Vi over to him. "Camp is quiet, too quiet for my likes. But maybe I am overthinking it. They could all just be drunk on blood wine. What's your opinion?”

“Same as yours” Vienna added. “Klingons aren’t usually this quiet no matter how much bloodwine they’ve had.”

Wyatt nodded and looked to Viviana and James. "Doctor, I hope we don't need your services. Stay between Vi and James." To James he added, "Your our rear guard, your job is to cover us and take out anything we may have missed. Everyone stay frosty."

"Aye sir" James nodded before adjusting his tactical positioning.

"Good man" Wyatt answered.

“Let’s hope quiet is a good thing” Vienna added with a wry smile.

"Never known silence from the Klingons to be anything but a bad omen" Viviana said stoically. "But I am always hoping to be proven wrong" she added.

As Viviana finished talking, the Ch'Tang decloaked as it opened fire on the defensive towers around the main outpost. The disruptor blasts were rapid and precise and the explosions at the towers were immediate. The disruptor batteries fired at the Ch'Tang as it made its way up and out of the atmosphere, and that was the signal to everyone to move in on the base.

"Alright everyone, that's the signal. time to move, stay together but don't bunch up. Remember Commander Smith and his team are down here as well. As Commander Grayson's team."

"If they didn't know we were here they definitely know now" James suggested as he started moving in position with the group. "It's probably going to get loud fast."

“What else is new?” Vienna answered with a brief smile.

Wyatt smothered a grin and shook his head at Vienna's oh so true observation. He looked back at her, "So very true and well said."

Viviana looked around at the destruction, "This is going to get bloody. I knew I was wearing the wrong uniform."


TBC

 

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