"The impact must have activated the mechanism prematurely. Sheridan to Fleet Command. Everyone clear out. I repeat: evacuate the area. Get us the hell out of here, fast!" he ordered as he retook his seat on the bridge of the Excalibur. As the ship’s helm brought her about, nuclear missiles, thousands of them, began to move on all sides.

It was the middle of the night shift as the Akira-class USS Masada stood alone, performing sentry duty in geo-synchronous orbit; high above the surface of Chin’toka III. Starfleet Intelligence had reported the appearance of several Dominion tactical survey drones along a 30-degree arc of the system’s outer perimeter. Rear Admiral Cody Barnes;Commander, Sixth Fleet; former CO of the Masada, had ordered the fleet to take up defensive positions within Chin’toka’s Oort Cloud near the vicinity of the reported sightings. Deep within the ship, in an alcove off main engineering, just to the left of the recently upgraded Type-VII warp core, Ensign Jeremy McKennin sat, working at his computer. Only a couple years out of the Academy, McKennin held degrees in Advanced Starship Engineering, Advanced Warp Physics and Theoretical Propulsion Physics.

His latest project had come about because of the installation of the Masada’s new reactor assembly. Unlike the original Class-V core, which featured solid-forged constrictor coils (like those found in the original cores of the Galaxy Class), the new core featured fabricated multi-lobed constrictors similar to those used aboard the Defiant and Sovereign classes. Jeremy’s project was examining the possibility of re-tuning the constrictor magnetic fields so that multiple streams of reactants could be handled safely, effectively creating multiple warp cores. His idea was that the frequency of each plasma stream could be adjusted to better power the systems in use. It had the side effect of also increasing the available power, by as much as 200%.

With more than 300 simulations on the engineering computer, McKennin had approached Lieutenant Commander Chan Lauren for permission to implement his changes to the Masada’s core. Despite only one single simulation indicating a possible problem, Commander Chan flatly refused permission. With no explanation forthcoming, he had asked the Exec to overturn Chan’s decision. Choosing to accept his Chief Engineer’s determination, he also turned down McKennin’s request.

Despite this setback, McKennin setup an algorithm to make all of the software changes needed with a single command to the computer: albeit with no real hope of being permitted to implement the change. At least, not until the lights in engineering went dim, the warp core and all the computer consoles were bathed in red lights and the all-to-common refrain issued forth from the ship’s intercom: “Red Alert, all hands to battle stations. Senior officers to the bridge.”

“Raise shields, charge phasers and prepare to engage,” Lieutenant Anderson shouted over the siren as she took the center seat. “Load torpedo bays, full spread.” “Quantum torpedoes, locked and loaded,” the third-shift weapons officer called. Just then, Captain Lexine exited the turbo lift. Before she could call for a situation report, the weapons officer spoke-up, not realizing the Captain was there. “Tactical assault wing comprised of three Jem’Hadar fast attack ships and one Cardassian Galor-class destroyer are on an intercept course. The Berkshire is enroute to assist. I’ve ordered the rest of the fleet to maintain position and radio silence until recalled by the Captain or fleet command.” “Concentrate your fire on the Dominion ships; the Jem’Hadar are known to make kamikaze runs,” Lexine said as she moved down along side her chair in the center of the bridge. “Sorry, Captain, here you go,” Anderson said as she jumped out of the seat as though she had been burned. “Keep it, it’s your watch. Besides, I don’t need to sit right now,” Lexine said as she jogged over to the weapons station. “Lock five quantum torpedoes on each Jem’Hadar vessel and prepare to fire as soon as they are within weapons range.” “Aye, aye sir! Torpedoes locked. In-range in ten seconds. Five seconds!” “Fire!” Lexine and Anderson shouted simultaneously. With a resounding ‘pa-thang’ the trio of massive torpedo launchers in the saucer let-loose a barrage of fifteen quantum torpedoes. Blazing a bright neon-blue as they burned across space, the torpedoes locked onto the Jem’Hadar attack ships and pursued them relentlessly. Two ships tucked and rolled and the third burned her engines beyond their tolerances on a collision course with the Masada. But still the torpedoes hung on. In a series of massive explosions, the torpedoes impacted the Jem’Hadar vessels in sequence. Drawing deep into the structure of the space-time continuum, the warheads pulled energy from the sub-quantum level, tapping into the ‘zero-point energy’ continuum. In an uncontrolled release of pure raw energy, the torpedo destroyed itself in a passable imitation of a solar flare. By itself, one torpedo could easily hurt the ship. In the right place, it could cripple it. In a pack of five, even the impressive Dominion ships didn’t stand a chance. Reminiscent of the impacts that Shoemaker-Levy had left in the clouds of Jupiter 350 years previous, the first five torpedoes found their target: the ship on a collision-course with the Masada. In a series of five, quick, successive flashes, the first and second torpedoes collapsed the ship’s shields as they exploded. The third detonated just above the hull, sending ripples of energy crackling across it as the Dominion armor tried to refract the energy. The fourth and fifth punctured the hull and detonated deep within the ship's structure. Like a fragile Fabergè egg, the ship cracked open and dissolved as the remaining energy from the torpedoes combined with the energy released from the ship’s warp matrix. With the initial kamikaze run neutralized, the Masada began to move. Armed to the teeth with phasers and torpedoes, her recently revived ‘catamaran’ style architecture resulted in high-maneuverability and impressive dogfighting abilities. With surprise no longer on the Dominion’s side, the battle began in earnest. As they rolled and weaved, the game of cat and mouse began anew. Unlike the lumbering Galaxy classes or the old and weary Excelsiors, the new Akiras had proven to be more than a match for the Jem’Hadar ships. Nearly as fast as an Intrepid, almost as maneuverable as a Defiant and with unmatched firepower, the Masada was the perfect example of a Federation Battleship; of course, one had to excuse the fact that the Akiras were the Federation’s ONLY battleship class. Despite this, two more Jem’Hadar strike ships and a lumbering Galor destroyer could pose a serious threat to the ship. And if the Masada was destroyed before securing the system, the inbound Miranda-Class U.S.S. Berkshire stood no chance of surviving. As the battle progressed, Masada’s shields took heavy damage, but they had managed to inflict moderate damage to Gul Durrom’s destroyer and to destroy a second Jem'Hadar attack ship. With her shields nearly drained, the phaser capacitors down to 45% and the torpedo magazines nearly exhausted, there was still one and a half ships to defeat. Meanwhile down in engineering, a disaster was in the making. As Commander Chan had stood near the Master Systems Display directing repair efforts, McKennin had continually modified the plasma flow and the protective forcefields; preventing hard radiation from flooding the engine compartment. As Chan turned to ask him a question, the Masada had taken a heavy blow, causing an abrupt tilt to the port. Thrown off balance, Chan had been knocked unconscious when her skull had made rapid contact with the railing around the warp core. With everyone else running around, Jeremy McKennin, the ship’s warp core specialist, an ensign, found himself in command of engineering Though others held far more seniority aboard the ship, Chan had recognized that McKennin had a better grasp of the ship's systems than most other people. The Vulcan-half of his heritage brought impressive mental discipline and an innate logical and analytical ability. With only a cursory glance at the MSD, he could see that Chan had managed to place repair teams in the vicinity of likely trouble spots around the ships. The Masada’s repair teams were top notch and could be counted on to hold the ship together as long as there was a hull left to repair. However, with the shields nearly gone and the ship’s energy reserves depleted, McKennin wasn’t certain the hull would remain together for the next couple minutes. In a split second, McKennin made the decision to disobey the direct orders of both Chief Engineer Chan and the ship's XO. If it worked, they might survive long enough for McKennin to stand before a court-martial. If it didn’t, the ship wouldn’t survive the battle. Those lucky enough to make it to the escape pods before the warp core breached would either be picked off, one by one, as the Jem’Hadar ensured there were no survivors; or they would slowly die from radiation poisoning as the escape pods’ armor was destroyed from the antimatter that would leak from the magnetic containment bottles after the ship was destroyed. Either way, it was a horrible way to die.